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I only find very few men attractive/am attracted to them. Does that mean something?

I remember when I had no mental illness. In fact, no one would know I have one now unless I tell them. I remember the years when everything was “normal” and I want to go back so badly. Will I ever be normal again? I don’t think so. I see others who appear normal and feel sad.

I feel like I'm not myself. I know that deep inside there's an excited girl who loves music and books anything pink and her boyfriend, with whom she acts like a cuddly kid. But on the surface, it doesn't feel like that's me. I keep getting the urge to break up with him now because I feel like I don't love him. But what is that based on? He's coming over tomorrow and we're gonna build the lego bouquet he bought me and we're gonna make dinner together. I was the one who suggested making dinner because I like making stuff with him. We made brownies before and I thought we could make heart-shaped pizzas now. It was our 3-month anniversary yesterday but I wasn't excited. I've convinced myself that I only like our relationship or the idea of him but not him as a person, even though he always makes me laugh and makes me comfortable and I love spending time with him. I feel like a terrible person who's pretending and faking. I've spent the whole day cleaning my house, vacuuming everywhere, scrubbing the carpet, organizing my books, changing my bedsheets. I thought I was doing well in managing my thoughts, considering I always lie in bed alone for hours fueling the thoughts, but it seems I was just pushing them away and avoiding them by cleaning.

I have been so depressed lately that on my 3-month anniversary with my boyfriend, I can't even feel any happiness from his sappy message to me. He texted me about how these past 3 months have been the happiest of his life and how we'll get through my issues and how much he loves me. I can't feel it. I just woke up and I'm feeling so numb and down and like I need to break up with him. I know that when we're together, I'm happier. But I can't feel it right now. I feel like such a bad person. I'm usually the sappy one in my relationships, but now I can't because all I feel is anxiety. We've been together for 3 months and I've been struggling with these thoughts worsening for about 3 months. At first they were random and I could wave them away, but they got so bad that now the majority of the time I have the thoughts and the anxiety and I've become so depressed that I can't find joy in my hobbies and I've lost interest in my biggest dreams. I want to be happy with him. He's all I've ever wanted. But my body won't let me.

I don't have an official diagnosis, but my therapist thinks I have relationship OCD/Friendship OCD. The main advice I got was to try to let myself feel my feelings i stead of doing things that make me feel temporarily better about them. But I have been struggling. I have good days and bad days. I have a friend that really helped me come out of a bad mindset and work towards bettering myself. The problem is that I've become very attached to her. We text every day, and we call each other "sister". But I'm starting to find that if she doesn't text me back, or if she doesn't say "I love you" back to me I get hurt feelings, and have a really negative response within myself. I used to think I had a crush on her (before we were sisters) but really I think it's a strong attachment that is more familial. My partner has expressed some unease at how "obsessed" I've become, and my friend/sister has expressed some concern that I may be developing a codependency toward her. I've been trying to handle it on my own, as my free therapy has run out for now, and I can't afford a therapist (and I live in Canada). I'm a 28 year old trans woman, if that's important info. Any advice would be amazing.

5 therapy appointments done, but i still can’t stop ruminating. not even close. last week i ended something with someone i had been talking to/seeing for about a month. couldn’t stop ruminating. so i talked about it in therapy, then earlier tonight i texted him to tie up loose ends because when i originally ended it, i handled it pretty hastily. his answers tonight were what i was expecting. i didn’t even like him that much. until he admitted to still seeking and sleeping w other people. we hadn’t talked about it, and i even was still seeing (not sleeping) with other people too but i wasn’t actively searching for more anymore and was being intentional with him. he made it seem like he was too. then the switch up. it causes me to obsess. over something i didn’t even want. i’m probably speaking into the void, it’s my first post, and being concise has never been my strong suit when it comes to emotions. if anyone reads this and resonates and/or has advice, i’m all ears i’ll leave this insert from my journal entry on here i wrote tonight and then imma go back to gardening and playing animal crossing ✌🏻 excerpts from an ADHD OCD manic pixy dream girl’s diary: based off what he said, he views me/women as a sex object to fuel his ego which is tied to his self worth. he had no regard to my feelings in the matter. i am grateful he told me, truly, but it doesn’t change the fact that 1) maybe one woman could “fix him” (his words) but that woman wasn’t me and 2) that he had no interest in growing something with potential for commitment with me, and said he was “just going to fuck around til he decided what to do” aka continue having sex with me and multiple women (without telling me he was). after the convo ended, i sat with it and felt good, to finally have answers. so i took a couple puffs from my weed pen, grabbed my switch and started to game/relax. then it slowly started trickling in. repeat reading his texts, noticing some things i missed, fully understanding how blunt he was being. it keeps creeping up on me no matter how much i try and distract. i even tried “letting myself feel it”. i let myself cry. i paused the game and cried. but then the words just kept coming in “you weren’t good enough to him” “it was probably something you did in bed” “why couldn’t he pick you as someone he could grow with both emotionally and sexually? he still never answered that” and so on. and honestly? “letting myself feel the feelings” DOESNT WORK FOR ME ANYMORE. i just spiral. i just go deeper into self hatred and insecurity. longing. yearning. and i’ve been doing that for over a week now, every single day. it debilitates me. so how can i distract? how can i both process this in a healthy way but also MOVE ON and not cut myself with word wounds in the meantime. this is a question i have never solved. no matter how much treatment and therapy. i will always long to be loved by someone that I LOVE in return. i can’t keep being alone, friendship isn’t the intimacy i’m craving and friends don’t fill that hole in my heart, body, and mind. xo

my body is not in equilibrium and is not 100% and thus i am panicking. it has not gone away and i despise my brain for not letting me just go on with my life. i think this is hell

So to start things off I have an issue with comparing myself. I often have the compulsion to go on Pinterest and look up certain female celebrities and compare myself or just sigh and feel bad because I don’t look like them etc. Unfortunately my ocd has attached to it :( I’ve had thoughts like “No you keep looking for other reasons” or even “This means you’re a bad fiancé” and it makes me freak and spiral, and then my ocd will attack me and make me feel like I’m being disrespectful or unloyal to my relationship. It’s so bothersome, it’s like my ocd has attached to these certain female celebrities and it’s like my compulsion is like I have this urge to click on the photo and if I don’t I worry about if something will happen etc. What’s weird is that sometimes when I’m just doom scrolling through some of these celebrities pictures and feeling upset I feel embarrassed because I’m pretty sure I’m embarrassed of the compulsion itself because it’s a weird compulsion to have and it’s just really bothering me so much. I really hate this and I’ve told my fiancé about it and he always helps me but i dont know how to just sit with this it’s too bothersome and feels awful :( has anyone else dealt with this?

Guys I'm scared because I'm 18 years old and basically I had a thought of a girl I like from last year we used to kind of date and at the time I was 17 and she was 16 and lately I just been thinking about her and I got aroused and basically I fell arousal when I started to kind of reminisce about past experiences and watching pornography while at the same time it was like founding over those memories but my thoughts just tell me I'm a pedo for doing that because of the age back then and thinking of it I don't know what to do I feel like a monster but I would also have intrusive thoughts and images of her and how she looked back then because I haven't seen what she looked like in a while other than last year I just feel like a monster can someone help me manage these if anyone has a similar experience please let me know

POCD How are you supposed to accept uncertainty and move on when you feel so uncertain about ur attraction?

I'm about to have my period in a few days so all my feelings and doubts are even harder to deal with than usual :( I have been ruminating for the past 3 days, last night I had an hour or so of feeling okay, but it went back to doubts and numbness soon after. I'm now almost fully convinced that I don't love my boyfriend, I'm just using him for gifts and the idea of a relationship, I've been faking it the whole time. I feel like a horrible person and I'm struggling not to tell him I want to break up. I don't want to break up but I do but I don't but I do. It's so frustrating and confusing. When we're together he makes me feel nice and comfortable and he makes me laugh and I always wanna hold onto him and kiss him but I can't feel that right now. I've been stuck in bed for hours worrying and doubting and sometimes I cry or cover my face out of frustration. I don't know what I truly want or need.

All I can think about is death. I’m only 26 and everyday feels like I won’t live a long time and that my time is up. I wake up with death instantly on my mind. All I do is cry and sleep. I miss who I was. I can’t enjoy anything without thinking “this will be gone one day” I miss loving life

Hey all, Im Ashton, a 29 year old trans man. I grew up having obsessive thoughts and I am surprised my therapists and psychiatrists Ive worked with over the past 20 years have not ever caught these patterns to diagnose me. It goes way back to childhood but Ive always had intense intrusive thoughts. Some earliest revolving around harm OCD, not so much me actively inflicting harm on others but just harm coming to others. Emergency vehicle sirens would trigger me into panic episodes as a child because I would get graphic thoughts of people dying. I would cover my ears and cry and mu parents would shame me for it. I also have trichotillomania and I was diagnosed with this along with ADHD as a child, and OCD was never brought up despite trichotillomania being highly comorbid with OCD. I later had intrusive thoughts of my mom dying which made me so distressed that I would cry. My mom actually ended up dying of suicide shortly after those themes started and it actually began this magical thinking OCD theme because my mom's aunt told me it was a premonition. I was later diagnosed with BPD AND Bipolar disorder in my young adulthood and they gave me both because they couldnt tell which one I was more aligned with. I am starting to think it was misdiagnosed OCD the entire time but because my compulsion pattern didnt look like counting rituals, they probably never thought to evaluate me. Ive worked in healthcare for four years now, and it has intensified my health OCD themes way more than any other theme I've had. I can feel ever sensation in my body and my brain automatically jumps to the conclusion that it is a symptom of a rare deadly disease. Ive realized recently that theres nothing that will stop the torture my brain puts me through but I want desperate to get ERP to at least quiet the fear response to the thoughts I have. Its made my life very hard to live this past year. Its increased my stress so bad that I actually began to physically deteriorate. Stress can absolutely affect physical health to the point of developing chronic pain and other physical symptoms. I still have to get an evaluation, but after seeing other people's experiences, ESPECIALLY with health concern OCD, and with the suggestion from my primary care physician, I am almost 100% certain that I have OCD.

I don’t know if this is the right place to ask but my sister has really bad compulsions and at first i thought it was ocd but as it turns out the compulsions are the only thing she actually experiences (maybe she could be hiding it but i doubt it) Are there any other things this could be? I remember she had a compulsion and for some reason she wanted me to rewind the show we were watching and i thought i was helping so i refused and she got so mad and she started shouting saying it needed to be rewinded. She herself says she its thinks ocd but i was under the impression ocd is obsessive thoughts and compulsions

Im really scared of making this post if someone wants to read it just read it I might delete it bc I’m gonna get hate for it but it’s okay I’m just scared and yeah. I was never clinically diagnosed with ocd. I can tell you my story and why I’m 99.9% sure I have it. I feel just so bad and horrible like a liar. So it started when I was like 4 and I couldn’t sleep without my dad being in my room and each night I would wake up and felt forced to go to my parents room otherwise I couldn’t sleep. Then I got obsessed with the number three. When I was 10 I developed severe emetophobia and fear of contamination- I still to this day can’t eat anything in public with my hands. And now it’s hocd. I just feel like a fraud and mean and like I’m invalidating other people’s experiences and like a pick ‚em I feel so bad for it but Idk what to do I’ve asked my parents to get diagnosed but they. Say that I don’t need a diagnosis because it’s obvious that I have ocd but idk I just feel horrible

With the current violence and destruction against American civilians, I’ve been scared shitless to leave my home. I don’t live in a major city. But now I’m just scared of getting encountered by an 🧊 agent and getting murdered on the spot. Especially as a person of color I’d just be wiped off and disregarded if anything were to happen to me. And only my family and friends would remember me and it’d devastate them. It’s hard to know whether I’ll be safe or not whenever I go out anywhere. Current world events and politics is just freaking me out and it’s been devastating to me. I guess at least my OCD is latched onto that and not my other themes. I don’t know what to do. Since the fear feels much more probable.

OK, so I’m a Christian and I decided to start an art account just because I have wanted people to really interact with my artwork and follow, like, and support my art. My goals is to at least hit like 5000 followers or 10,000 followers. It would be really fun to have that experience. but my mind is going wild cause I can’t tell whether or not this is considered idolizing. I know that people say not to search up certain things when you’re dealing with OCD but I still did it anyways. I searched up if wanting followers is idolizing and the first thing that popped up was yes this could be a form of idolization and I’m just sitting here thinking about the ways I could be idolizing social media, cause I’m not putting it before God. I also searched up if hoping you get likes idolizing social media and it said yes it is. like I still make time for God so read my Bible and pray every day. I just have that goal of hitting a certain amount of followers and having my art being liked. the one thing I just wanna do right by God and I don’t want to do wrong that’s why I’m looking into idolizing. I’m a little bit confused I can’t tell whether or not it is or isn’t. I don’t tie my worth to the likes that I get I’m just happy when I do get them. I guess I’m also a little bit worried about this because when I was a bit younger, I made like a little TikTok account and posted. When I didn’t get a lot of likes. I would be disappointed and would kind of tie it to my worth because I started to feel like oh what I’m putting out isn’t good enough. So now I’m afraid of going down that mindset again and my mind is like OK so like maybe I should delete all of my social media art accounts and to stay off of them because you’re idolizing it like. I also have thoughts like what if God wants me to delete all of my social media accounts because I’m idolizing it. I don’t think I’m gonna do that because I’m pretty sure this is an obsession. I low-key been fixated on idolization for like quite some time and that’s why I feel like it’s an obsession because I’m always so worried about idolizing things that even when I get achievements like on this account I ended up getting like close to 600 followers in my art blew up and instead of being happy and grateful I cried because I started to think about if I’m idolizing this if I should delete my account if God wants me to delete my account if I’m doing wrong by God because I wanted legs and followers and I finally got those legs and follow like this whole obsession cycle and I wasn’t even able to be happy about it because instead I tried to figure out God really wanted me to just delete what I had worked hard for. I guess I’m just coming here for advice and just to feel a little less alone.

Hi, I’m just wondering if anyone has experienced this and has any advice for me. Since I’ve been having a flare up, I wake up very early (around 4:30-5am) with a racing heart, sweats, shakes, severe anxiety, basically I feel like I am in fight or flight. I am so tired, I have tried meditation, but I end up laying in bed playing multiple meditations until it’s time to get out of bed. I just want to be able to sleep the night, and not wake up in a full blown panic.

Well this vent turned into a long story… so buckle up if you’re interested. Group projects have always been a struggle… frustrated by the quality of work turned in by others that negatively affects my grade. I used to pair up with kids who didn’t care & just do the whole thing myself. In college, I thought it might be different. I had a group in my undergrad who was so rude to me, but I showed up and did my best anyway. My part of the presentation (that I made completely on my own) got the full # of points. At the end, we all gave each other a score from 1-5. I gave them all 5s even though I didn’t think they deserved it, and I got a score that was 4-6 points lower than 100%. So, someone or several people rated me poorly. Our professor bought us beer at the school brewery to celebrate finishing our capstone, and I ordered a large. Everyone else got small drinks, but I didn’t know until I sat down. I got attitude from them about ordering a large drink. This memory has haunted me for a long time. The scores my group gave me knocked my GPA down to a 3.0, which is the cutoff for graduate school. I’ve questioned if I deserved that. Was I a worse group member than I realized? Was I selfish and rude for ordering a large drink? Was it too expensive? Why was my GPA dropped that much? Was it karma? Would I still be accepted into a grad program? I was healing from a major life-altering, near-death experience car accident and concussion at the time. I vaguely told the group I had disabilities, but since my medical issues were invisible to them- I don’t think they believed me. My dog wasn’t service trained back then… after she was, people were nicer and seemed to believe me more when she was with me. I hated that I felt like I needed strangers to believe I had medical problems… and now I can see how that was related to OCD. I still feel like I have to prove myself. People used to come up to us and start petting her without asking and bombarding me with questions about “how to get one” …it seemed like people still didn’t believe I had disabilities even though she was a clear physical representation. It was so frustrating… especially if I was symptomatic or trying to catch a flight. Eventually when people approached us, I learned to start with, “well, you need to have a qualifying disability and paperwork to prove it” …that usually forced people to check themselves. Although, I had a lady scream and wave her hands in my face at the airport. She was yelling asking if my dog was an epilepsy service dog. We were on our way to our gate, so I didn’t stop and she kept yelling as we rode away on the moving sidewalk thing. I don’t understand why people think I owe them any explanation or lesson on service dogs. It’s so bizarre. I slowly started to give up, and was letting people touch her when I didn’t want them to because they would go away faster. My dog loved the attention, but it messed with her focus and training. I started getting frustrated with her too. It wasn’t her fault but I wanted it to stop. I think she started appearing like a “fake” SD because of her attention to/from strangers. So then I worried about appearing like a fraud even more. I felt trapped like once someone had permission to pet her… coerced or otherwise, I couldn’t change the expectation. I got in a bad habit of letting grad school classmates pet her… which felt impossible to undo because I had classes with the same cohort for years. I started being standoffish to people, wanting to be left alone. I was constantly running late (also connected to OCD- checking locks, compulsions, etc). Then I was worried if I was being mean to my dog because I was annoyed and always rushing her around. We were constantly in a frantic hurry. It was more difficult for people to stop us if we were rushing, but I was stressing us both out. I had a grad party recently & found out a classmate who also has disabilities thought I didn’t like her. She was forced to sit in the front because she was in a wheelchair and I wanted to disappear in the back, so I always rushed past her. She asked me about the SD process at some point too, and I wasn’t in the mood so I was probably rude. She’s the only person who actually did deserve an answer… I feel bad about that, but it’s also not my job to educate every single person about service dog training. My service dog is retired now due to getting older, and I’ve started getting nasty looks from people again as I’m adjusting to existing in the world without her. Usually when I park in the handicap spot… even though I have a state issued placard from the DMV and my medical issues are real. I have stacks of documents proving it. I think the desire to be believed might be a validation seeking thing… but it never goes away because there are always new strangers. I also had to literally prove myself and the legitimacy of my medical issues in a court case against the person who ran into me with their car. My brain was still developing when it happened, and then it was seriously injured… so I think there are some strong neural pathways related to proving myself and not feeling safe. The car insurance company we were suing was aggressive and tried to challenge my credibility. It’s their job, but still hurt because they were attacking me personally. I became obsessed and paranoid about my medical records. Worried if I said the wrong thing, I wouldn’t win the case or be able to pay off the stacks of medical debt that came from the accident and recovery. I became obsessed with safety, and never felt safe- in the world, in my body, etc. We won the case, but the money didn’t go very far. That’s a story for another time. I applied for disability benefits a few years ago when things were bad, and gave up after they denied it the 1st time. I’ve heard they commonly deny the 1st app, but I didn’t have it in me to jump through hoops to prove myself to yet another entity. It seems like I’ll never be able to fully prove myself and feel relief. I have regret for how all of these feelings built up to me completely shutting down and being unwelcoming to anyone and everyone. My personality changed… to the point my doctor thought I had a personality disorder. I was angry at the world for years. Why me? It’s all so unfair. I was seriously hurt by a careless driver 10yrs ago, and have been suffering ever since. It’s not enough that I’m forever physically injured, have permanent medical issues, and I’m in debt. I’m also being socially tortured, questioned, shamed… I just want to live in peace. I want to be left alone unless it’s a mutual connection. This injury created a metaphorical gaping wound that never healed and gives people access to my most vulnerable parts. I just want to be treated with basic respect and kindness. I want to be believed. Why don’t people believe me? Why do I care if they do?!😵‍💫

So, I was stuck in a pretty intense spiral from the beginning of November until almost the end of December, and I’m finally starting to feel a little bit better. I’m starting ERP this week, and I’m just really nervous and anxious about it because of it possibly reigniting the spiral. Part of me doesn’t want to do it since the spiral is slowing down and seems manageable, but the other part of me knows if I put it off then the spiral could come back even worse. I’m just scared and exhausted. Even just making my trigger and response list made me pretty anxious. I almost feel like I’m more scared of getting re-triggered than I am about the thoughts themselves.