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So this is more of a rant and I’ll try not to seek reassurance but it’s really tough right now. I got diagnosed later (when I was 30) when I had a pretty big suicidal ocd onset after I had several family losses including ( one close one and one family friend to suicide which wrecked me) so needless to say I had a breakdown and felt like a baby and couldn’t be away from my mom or brother, I literally drove up to their house cause I couldn’t handle the thoughts and spent two months there before I went into erp which helped a lot. A big hang up I had was I considered my cousin and I very similar and close but he didn’t want help and I didn’t understand him so I have a lot of regrets regarding how we approached it but we didn’t know either. So fast forward to now I’ve had erp and I-cbt and trauma work and the anniversary of his passing happened a week ago. I thought I was fine, it’s been a long time since it happened and I was so proud of myself for conquering the suicide theme as it didn’t affect me any more and I was confident in my ability to deal with it. But then I had SO-OCD show up something that has popped in here and there but never this strong, so I have been dealing with that and now that that’s gone the suicidal ocd is back and it’s so upsetting to me and I don’t feel confident anymore. I will say after reading some posts I do have a fear I realize of not being able to manage my mental health so any time I start feeling negative feelings I can start to worry and go down that rabbit hole. Idk if that is what happened. Lately I’ve been struggling with and being frustrated with finding a job I like and dating ( has always been a struggle) and I moved to a different city and live with my family again ( after my first onset I did leave my families house and go home for a few yrs and did my erp but after i was in remission I just wanted a change and needed a safe space to start over as I didn’t see myself in my old city anymore just scrapping by). I’m glad I made the change and I’ve had positive things happen for me where I’ve been slowly overcoming my dating fears and my ocd themes and found an area of work I liked and pursued… but nothing has happened and I’m frustrated I thought it would all be an uphill swing as long as I just intentionally tried and I feel like it just hasn’t landed. And I’m also realizing sometimes that happens but my perfectionism can really start working its magic in me to beat myself up about not doing or being enough. I’ve always had this fear that I’m just gonna end up a bum and this past weekend I was down and just tried to let myself feel down despite fears of depresssion because I was just looking at the trend of my life and I feel like the outlook doesn’t look great despite me trying I even logically know I’ve done way more and come a lot farther that I “ feel” I have big feelings can trick you I’ve learned especially when you have ocd about not being able to handle them. Anyways I’m in a state of just like really because last night i was down and teared up about the changes happening with my friends starting families and I was trying not to be down but then kept having thoughts of what’s the point in trying you’re not gonna get the things you want, your never gonna stop feeling bad or confused about your emotions, what if you’re actually depressed and want to die and then I would have no emotional reaction to it cause I just feel like numb to it or apathetic at this point. I know I know I don’t want that but it’s liek my lack of feelings toward it is trying to convince me otherwise. Then I went to bed in a foul mood and mad and Ofcourse had the suicidal thoughts pop up and trying not to pick it apart or test if I wanted it there ( but I did give in to the testing a few times and felt nothing) I was liek just go to sleep you’ll feel better tomorrow your ocd is just fucking with you. Then I had a dream that I was super sad and emotional everyone else was happy and doing things with their life and starting families ( which I again don’t get I don’t want to start a family right now I’m just trying to get into dating and maybe finding a partner) and here I was not ready but feeling left behind liek I didn’t get the memo and in my emotional state in the dream I said I wanted to die and I remember feeling liek no this can’t be true but it felt like real and out of my control. Almost all my friends are getting pregnant and as a woman in their 30s this has gotten to me ( I never thought it would). And so I woke up this morning feeling that intense sadness left over from the dream and not wanting to get out of bed and trying to talk myself out of the dream like it wasn’t real and is again my ocd just fucking with me. I think I should also mention that I’m about to start menstruating and have pms/pmdd sometimes. I guess I just wanna know if there are others out there that experience this liek you’ve conquered themes but then they back door through a new theme. And I honestly just feel like it’s stupid af but my ocd is liek but it could actually be you’re depressed and suicidal and I just feel like all my work is gone. Is ocd more likely to strike when you’re frustrated with certain aspects of your life, does it make you more vulnerable to it. I know my cousins anniversary is a potential trigger but I thought I was okay but maybe it was just there in the background. Idk. Looking for support and ppl who have gone through it too and I know we can come out of it and conquer it even if sometimes you really don’t want to cause it’s tiring.

Hello! This is my second post today, so I wanted to ask about something. I’m someone who has a group of friends everyone is so nice of course but sometimes it gets so toxic (here are some important details: we are 8, and 3 of my friends talked to me privately because I did something wrong, I mean I was really doing bad mentally and struggled with depression and they didn’t like the fact that I distanced myself, of course I apologized and now I’m more careful and is trying to do my best to act in better ways). Well right now it’s been more then a year that I’ve felt like an outsider with them, not because they excluded me no, but because I’m faking my personality with them, always trying to be perfect, analyzing every word they say to me, I can’t even be happy with them, one time they talked in front how my boyfriend wasn’t their type and of course he’s my everything and he’s so handsome and I obviously defended him but everyone agreed that I was in the wrong, I try my best really but overthinking every detail about 8 different person to see if I did something wrong or not is so tiring, I feel like they all hate me, I just can’t anymore. Thank you for reading this, if you have any tips it would be really helpful (ps: English is my third language please dont mind the mistakes)

As a high schooler, I hung out with the wrong crowd... while I wasnt the type of student to vape or drink or get myself arrested, I would listen to my friends and laughed when they talked about making fun of people who didn't deserve it... or listening in on, or looking at dirty secrets about people we interacted with... as an adult, as someone who has grown and matured, I feel bad for participating in this type of behavior, and while i didn't initiate or partake in these behaviors that my friends personally did, i feel like me listening in or laughing makes me feel like a bad human being... im about to be 23 now, and these events occured when i was 16-17... i feel like a bad human being and my intrusive thoughts love to tell me how horrible of a person i am now... i genuinely regret it... i want to be a good person who does good things...

Does anyone on here struggle with same extreme urge to pick their face because in doing so they feel like it keeps it cleaner? I feel alone in this and upset

Hi all, I’ve been struggling with Clinical Depression for 4 years and OCD for 2 years. I just wanted to take the time to vent about what I’ve been going through mentally. I feel as though this is a safe space to talk about my mental health and I hope that whoever out there is struggling like me, you’re not alone. For the past 3 weeks I’ve been having suicidal ideations because I’ve felt I’m not good enough for anything and have been stuck in a cycle of negative overthinking. It wasn’t until 4 days ago I fell into a depressive state. I was bed bound all day yesterday and cried on and off. I understand MDD and OCD go hand in hand together, so fighting this depressive phases feels 10x harder to fight. I don’t feel deserving of nice things or to enjoy life, so I isolate myself as if I’m putting myself in timeout for not being good enough. I don’t want this depressive episode to last long like it normally does. I’m not in therapy, so I try to help myself logically by reading academic reports and studies about people who struggle with MDD and OCD. This is my version of the first step in exposure therapy. I normally tend to isolate myself, but that gets me nowhere so I want to be more involved in a community that understands what it’s like to have OCD and Depression. I’m going to force myself to get up and take action. Even if it’s just something simple like making my up bed, then at least I accomplished something. Fighting depression is exhausting, but being extremely depressed for 2 month is even worse and I can’t let that happen again. If anyone has any advice or just want to talk about what they’re going through, please feel free to comment and talk freely. Even if I’m struggling, I don’t want anyone to struggle alone like I’ve been. “Everyone has strengths and limitations. Having OCD is one of my problems, but that doesn’t mean I am a complete failure. There are some things I can do well.” -Jonathan Abramowitz, PhD

So.. I'm not okay. I'm not doing okay right now. For this week I haven't really been okay. I don't think I've ever really been as happy as I used to be since high school began. I can still be happy and laugh at things and enjoy some parts of my day, but I'm not fully enjoying these things. There's always things I'm worrying about. There's always imperfections that I notice about myself. There's a lot that I need to work on, and it's been here. OCD hitting me in 2020 made everything in life even harder than it already was. For four years now, I've been struggling with this. Horrible anxiety that is making me question everything about my life. The things around me, myself, and the future. There's things around me that aren't in my control that are bothering me and things in my control that are bothering me. All I can do is try to distract myself from these things, but that's becoming harder and harder. Lately, I've had a terrible relapse in my OCD and it's caused me panic. I was feeling absolutely horrible about something that I remembered a couple of years ago. It led me back to my old habits and everything came back full force. I'm just not happy at all. I'm not happy with myself. I'm suffering from OCD and it's not fair. I have extremely low self esteem, I don't believe in myself often, and all I see are the problems that I have. The mistakes. The screw ups. There are good things that happen, but they never seem to outweigh the bad ones. I really hope medication will help me with this. I can't really take dealing with this anymore. I don't even know where adulthood would have been like without OCD. It hit me when I was 18. In questioning so much about my life and I don't feel like I'm ready to handle all of this. I don't feel like I'm ready for the adult world at 22 and it just doesn't feel like I've prepared myself for this. I'm not really sure how I can to begin with though. There's someone that I fancy in life. They're an introvert like me. We have common interests. I love seeing them. I love talking with them, even if it's not much. I love listening to them talk so much. I just really enjoy their company. But I'm not ready. I don't feel like I deserve to be with this person because of all of my problems that I'm dealing with. My OCD. My 10 year porn addiction. My low self esteem. My worrying. My relapses. I'm just not ready. I'm really trying to just find myself as an adult in the world. It feels like I can't really live my life because of OCD picking on me in any way that it can. I just don't know what to do. I get vivid images in my head. They sometimes enter my dreams. I compared my childhood to my adulthood and it hurts. A lot. I just don't feel well. There's things and people that I'm thankful for. There's things and people that I appreciate. There's things and people that I cherish. I wish those were all easier to focus on. Instead, I'm constantly thinking about things I can't change. Bad habits that I have trouble undoing. Mistakes that I wish I hadn't done when I was younger. Things I wish I knew at the time. Should've. Would've. Could've. I guess I just want to go back to life where I was hopeful about things. When I didn't have any reason to doubt something or someone. Or even myself. Back when I could have so much fun with things without a care in a world. Back when I could truly live my life. I want to cry but I just don't feel like it. I just want to be able to forgive myself. Believe in myself. And not worry about myself so much. I just want my life back. I just want to be where I used to be. I just want to be OCD free.

Hi. Welcome to story time. Back in 2019 (wow, long time ago) was the first time a doctor first mentioned the possibility of me having OCD. I was 19 back then. During childhood, my mom would call me “impressionable”. Anything could trigger me into a spiral of crippling fears, and I had rituals to try to escape them. At 13, I started picking at my skin. It was mainly about need for perfection, and when I felt I couldn’t achieve it, I hurt myself. I had bad acne that triggered me into picking a lot, and even worse things, like I needed to expunge the “imperfection” out of me. Doctors never took it seriously. They wouldn’t even treat my acne because they’d say my problem was only my habit of hurting myself, but then they’d send me off with a “just stop doing it”. I never stopped. I hated myself. I hated myself for how much I felt things, so uncontrollably in a highly sensitive and even irrational way. I’d pick at my skin for hours on end all throughout my teenage years. At 19, a neurologist casually mentioned to me that skin picking could be related to OCD. The ground seemed to shift beneath my feet. He sent me off with antidepressants after 10 minutes of appointment at best. I was just left with this piece of information and no guideline at all, no afterthought about how that might affect other pieces of my life. I found this app and started engaging myself in every discussion trying to piece together what I really had and what was going on. Ironically, anything OCD related became my obsession. Then I went to a psychiatrist, and he brushed it off saying I only had bad anxiety. A really shitty therapist I was seeing at the time told me very rudely that I was only trying to justify my bad actions by blaming them on a possible disease. So I told myself to forget all about that previous nonchalant and catastrophic diagnosis, but still took my meds and went on. All was fine for a while, until it wasn’t. Because things never truly went away. I still couldn’t understand why I reacted to things the way I did, and how to make it better. I then started thinking I might have ADD – grasping onto anything that might explain my chronic procrastination, getting stuck in my head so intensely that I block everything out, and my need to move my hands (essentially picking at my skin). At this point, I’d been to other four psychiatrists. One of them only listened to me for like 5 minutes then told me I was really exaggerating and took me off my meds. I went through a really dark hole. After a while I got to another one, he listened intently, and finished it off with “I don’t believe in diagnosing people but you seem to be going through it”, and gave me another prescription. The third one followed that same line, but asked me to consult with a neuropsychologist. So there I went. 10 stupidly expensive sessions later, she tells me I’m too depressed for her to really assess if my lack of attention is really ADD. But, yeah, the tests indicate severe OCD. I thought it was funny at first – I mean, too depressed for a diagnosis, I guess –, then I was relieved. Ok, so it wasn’t all in my head. Then I was pissed. So, so pissed. Because for years and years on end no one had the guts to tell me what I’m convinced was very obvious to any trained medic. I mean, except for that first guy, who said it in a way that made it feel like he was telling me I had cancer then sending me off with some aspirins without even saying where the tumor was. For years, I’ve had so much pressure, from others and myself. That I could make myself less miserable, I just didn’t! Just stop hurting yourself, how hard can that be? Just stop obsessing over every little thing. For god’s sake, don’t apply enough insect repellent to get intoxicated or worry about every little bug around you until you’re unable to do anything except trying to get rid of them, what’s wrong with you? Just let go, be happy! Not to mention the crippling, ever-present GUILT for not being able to do so. For years. And even now, the doctor just told me the fact and sent me off. She never tried to discuss with me what part of my habits, feelings and thoughts might be OCD related, to the point where I still feel like I made it all up and one thing has nothing to do with another. Some part of me is relieved – there’s a reason for all of this. It takes me closer to embracing myself. Another part still feels like I was ditched in a dead end with no directions out. I have no idea what “type” of OCD I have and how to figure it out, and no one seems to care enough to try and help me understand. This was long and angsty, so thank you so much if you took the time to read my senseless rambling. Just desperately felt like I needed to share ♥️

Hi guys I just shared my story recently and I’m scared. When I keep busy it’s a little better, but I feel really awful right now. I’m remembering what I said to my sister during our fallout from what I did and the result of it. Is making me really sad and scared. I found out she is also joining NOCD so I’m a little worried she will see my post and I realized I never said my “intrusive” thoughts were not true. What if she thinks I meant all of them, I don’t think a lot or even everything I said to her was even true it was practically all false and untrue intrusive thoughts but I can’t seem to totally trust myself on it since I feel like I’m just saying it because she might see this, but also I’ve been wanting to tell her it wasn’t true what I said and did. I feel a relapsing of emotions I want to go back and change it I hate my reality it’s good but I’m constantly reminded of what I did and I feel sick. How does one live with this change and move on when the person you love the most you push off the edge and now she drew boundary off of our relationship it is getting a bit better but it’s nothing like before we were so close we shared and told each other everything, I feel like I want to die and come back to everything back in the past to be different. How do I live like this…. She is doing it and I know it’s really hard and I know I’m victimizing myself but I wonder if I was even doing my best I wasn’t working on my techniques because I felt it didn’t work and I let go but I didn’t realize how bad it could be I mean that’s why I went back to therapy but even then I wasn’t working completely on it despite feeling like I did sorta. Was I doing the best I could then? I hope so but if that was my bets I feel like a loser. how do I go through my day and be excited for life when I feel so distraught and depressed. I need help so bad.

I’m just feeling so freaking upset. I’m constantly having to talk myself down from panic attacks and self-sabotage. I’ve suffered with the same theme(s) for YEARS at this point and I’m just done I’m just so sick of it. And, I’m so freaking scared for when me and my boyfriend get married and have children because I want children so bad but I can’t even be off my meds for a week let alone 9+ months (my medication can’t be taken during pregnancy). I’m also scared because I feel awful that my boyfriend will be “stuck” with me once we get married. My OCD wants me to confess my innermost (obsessive) thoughts and feelings to him. Reality is blurred, when I have these flare-ups I’m sick to my stomach worried I may have done something bad and I’m constantly ruminating on whether I did or not. I just want this feeling to leave, and knowing that this is a persistent theme that I may deal with for a much longer time just makes me want to cry. I’m so afraid of hurting my boyfriend or having already hurt him, and it’s the same with everyone else in my life. And, I am Catholic, and the sacrament of confession for me gives me so many mixed emotions because it’s healing for me but at the same time I have to be so careful of what I say so I don’t start confessing as a compulsion, but then afterwards my OCD tells me I’m just not confessing because I’m guilty and I know it. I’m so so sick of this. I didn’t sleep last night and I can tell I’m tired physically but emotionally I’m too anxious to rest so I took some Benadryl and maybe it’ll help me fall asleep. But I just maybe need someone to talk to on this post.

ive realized throughout my entire life ive had ocd symptoms. all of my fixative rituals, things like my fear of upsetting anyone ever, always keeping internet tabs open, missing and obsessing over the same people after they left my life and never being able to feel closure, my recursive fear of everyone i love betraying me, the paranoia i have about my girlfriend, every single thing i've experienced was a result of obsessive thought patterns and rumination. i don't understand how i never hit the nail on the head earlier. i really hope this means i can finally find a way out. i'm tired of my periods of being better just being management, of never truly feeling safe, of obsessing over people who hurt me and their words. i'm tired of being haunted by ghosts and obsessing over everything that reminds me of them. i want to be able to take my phone off do not disturb. i want to love my girlfriend without being afraid. i want to feel safe around my friends. i want to not have to be obsessed with something to survive. i hope that figuring this out means there's a new path for me. i hope i can learn not to focus on my fears and doubts. i can't remember a time where i wasn't haunted by them.

Oof I’m having a hard time right now. I have a ton of OCD themes, but after 2021, my perfectionism OCD became atrocious. I got married in November 2021 and while the day was amazing, my wedding photos are honestly less stunning than I hoped. There aren’t many bridal photos of me and many are poorly lit or weirdly posed. I had gained weight over COVID and that didn’t help. The reason I started on this app is because from 2021 until summer 2023, I could not stop spending hours going through my wedding photos and other wedding photos comparing. I couldn’t stop putting my wedding photos on Reddit and asking if they were really that bad. I couldn’t stop googling what to do if you hate your wedding photos. My mood plummeted and I actually was contemplating ending my life over wedding photos. Fast forward to this year, NOCD has helped me so much. But this past weekend, my sister got married. We’ve already seen a sneak peek of her photos and they’re perfectly stunning. Like strangers are messaging me on IG to say she’s the most stunning bride they’ve ever seen. I held out my OCD for a few days and just felt happy for her, but last night my OCD and I had a complete meltdown. My OCD keeps saying “well if she could be the perfect bride, why couldn’t you?” “You failed this milestone, just like all the others.” “Maybe you missed something about your pics that actually isn’t that bad - you should look again.” “You should look up options to get your photos retaken - wait don’t because then you’ll have to admit something about your wedding was sub par.” I’m trying SO HARD to stop looking at pics and going on Reddit today, but it’s been the most hard it’s been for a year or more. I feel terrible that I’m not just celebrating my sister’s success. I feel guilty that im letting my OCD win. I know I shouldn’t seek reassurance. I could just use some general uplifting today. And maybe - did anybody else regret having a wedding because it was just something your OCD could latch onto forever? I wish we’d eloped, at this point.

Hi everyone. I’m new here and am still learning about erp therapy. I was wondering how I can love and accept myself with ocd. The version I want myself to be is the complete opposite of who I am right now. I’m not living in the moment and compare myself to my friends a lot who have strong personalities and sound like they’re more mature than I am & cope better than I do & are smarter than I am. How can I practice self-love while practicing erp therapy?

Is anyone else still really worried about Covid? I'd made a lot of progress last year, e.g., masking less, but now I've found out that Covid can cause long term organ damage and the impacts of each infection is cumulative, so you're more likely to get long Covid with each infection? On top of that, I've been on a lot of Novid/covid conscious forums and a lot of people are saying if you don't mask everywhere you're engaging in eugenics, so now I feel like I've made a mistake in reducing my masking??? I'm just worried most of all that I'm gonna cause long term damage to/kill someone, especially because my mum has copd :( I wish I had a clear answer as to what the right thing to do is, but obviously it hasn't been long since covid was discovered, so there's still so much we don't know

I am mostly recovered from HOCD but my issue now seems to be that I’m very obsessed with my appearance and if I look like a lesbian or not. I’m not super feminine looking and I work from home so some days I just really don’t care to do my hair or makeup and I’m fine with that and I don’t believe that makes me less feminine. But I can tell a difference between the way my straight feminine friends look when they don’t try vs how I look when I don’t try. It’s both true but also not helpful for me to compare. Idk how to not be obsessed about this.

I made a mistake that means I need to throw out 3/4 of a pizza. Super frustrated and I don't have an outlet. And I feel like I can't move forward with out resolving this issue by throwing it out. But I need reassurance to do that. I just feel stuck.

Just made a stupid mistake and now I need to throw out 3/4 of a pizza. And I have no outlet to talk to. Just frustrated.

Here is all my symptoms that I have been experiencing: 15 years old - first symptoms playing Fortnite and when playing my brain will tell me “go pickaxe that tree, do it or you will lose the game” and if I attempt to leave it my brain will say “go back, you better go back, you better do it or you’ll lose” until I give in and do it 18 years old - symptoms worsen with obsessions (such as certain games or tv shows) and I start to worry excessively and asking for constant reassurance that things are the way I think they are (if people like me, if people think the way I think etc) Present day - much worse symptoms: Noise sensitivity with doors in rooms being open and I can hear TV extremely loud or when people are talking in huge groups around me so I got noise cancellation headphones because I became so unbearable I couldn’t study or focus in education or at home. Obsessions with order such as sorting figurines in order of colour or name for hours at a time and excessive leg bouncing and tapping on tables for hours at a time (sometimes I don’t even notice until someone point it out), zoning out or becoming hyperactive. Feeling of extreme boredom very quickly after finishing tasks and extreme irritability especially when things aren’t done my way or done incorrectly. I can read people very well before anyone else does and I pay attention to details no one else can. I also think more in depth that other people sometimes in a manipulative way (I wanted to win certain things so I would act and do certain things so ensure I would win or I would say things so people would do what I wanted) and the biggest symptom I’ve had longest is lack of empathy and emotions. Are these all related to OCD or is this something else?

I gave into a major compulsion after a major trigger. I haven’t done that in many months. My anxiety spiked because of a trigger. How do you forgive yourself? I feel like a failure. 😞

Video games. I'm losing my enjoyment over them. I either get annoyed at a game, angry that I'm losing because I just can't help but take it personally I guess, or just flat out bored with games I'm not really used to. They just aren't what they used to be. Idk if it's because of OCD or depression or anxiety or whatever, I just no longer enjoy them. No matter what I do, a competitive game just puts me in a bad mood even if I'm trying my absolute best to not take it personally. It just happens.

Please someone leave any advice or similar stories. I had identified as bi and then had fears about my sexuality a few years ago, and decided on the term unlabeled to describe my sexuality to anyone who asked and it made me the most comfortable because i was confused about my romantic atraction and sexual attraction towards women vs men. Recently, seemingly triggered by pride month and people discussing comp het, while in a relationship with my boyfriend I have been dealing with fears of wondering if I'm really attracted to men at all or what attraction really feels like and being sexually aroused by explicit images of women I had seen by accident. I am worried that I am experiencing comp het or I'm in the wrong relationship or I'm going to hurt my boyfriend. I have also voiced all of this to him and he is there for me, but that doesn't mean it's easy. I have other anxieties about my relationship and worry if those are ocd related or not as well(such as worrying about limerence) but I'm just so terrified. I feel that just because I have ocd that doesn't mean I can have these experiences that other queer people actually have and it makes me worried that I coukd go years without ever knowing just for one day to know and my whole world to be flipped upside down. I'd rather die than for that to be my reality. Someone please leave advice or tips it's all so appreciated.