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working to conquer OCD
It’s been a minute since I have been on here. I did get NOOCD therapist session a while back to verify if I really had OCD. I was told it sounded like I had “just right” OCD. Of course, temporary relief only with that confirmation which are two professional takes on my situation. You think that would be enough for my brain. If I detect even the slightest doubt in someone’s voice on my ADHD/OCD diagnosis then It messes with me. I lost my Dad last month. I was taking care of him the best I could but I replay events. HOWEVER, I am on Adderall and when it quiets my default brain network I handle life without crying. I think about what I am doing but as it wears off then I am back to thinking about everything I don’t want to think about. Adderall for me confuses me if it’s right. Especially, when so much of my life is still a disorganized mess. I think it’s making me kinda detached from people. I don’t know that I feel things the way I should be that’s healthy. What breaks through the Adderall in my mind is I default to questioning my diagnosis again. I use to not believe I had ADHD, then didn’t believe I had OCD. I fully accepted ADHD but now I am questioning if it’s actually all OCD after all and being medicated completely wrong. I notice this has gotten worse, plus I am doing this gathering of things. People gave me or I found a great deal on. All with the intention of listing on eBay YET nothings organized and when I sit down to list then nothing happens. I can’t get things in my environment or mind just right to list. I get hung up on photos not being good enough plus everything else with double checking my entries being right. Then I don’t list because I doubt it’s good enough. I had this problem before my Dad passed away but everything’s off the charts right now I guess. My mother called me a hoarder. I have accumulated things faster than my abilities to organize and sell them has occurred but at least it’s all in a shop and not my house. She’s always been the worst for my self esteem. I guess I am mainly just venting here. I am sure OCD would flare up worse after loss of a parent. I just feel like the wheels have come off and don’t know how to gain control.
there is this guy in my university. i think he looks good. but since im so afraid of liking someone else, everytime i see him i have wild intrusive thoughts about him. everytime he looks at me i imagine the tension. i hate it so much i hate him so much. yesterday, i saw him look at me multiple times but i avoided the thought. after a while, the picture of him wanting me desperately came to mind again and i thought “what if he liked me and what if he came and told me that i want a relationship with you” and i imagined that. i instantly got pulled and felt like id wanna be with him. like really really wanna be with him. and simultaneously i was terrified of thinking that so in the back of my mind i was screaming NO NO DONT THINK THIS and it felt like i was falling off from a building. but i thought it again and i had the same feeling. I love my boyfriend to death, i feel like im betraying him. Am i? I realized after days of rumination, that I had no reason for my attraction. Its not like I had any kind of physical bodily attraction. I thought the face was nice. But I didn’t even know the person. Why would I feel such a strong urge to be with someone I don’t even know? I thought it was invalid, but I strongly think it is because I have projected a personality on him that I would want to be with. He held a meeting today. Hes my colleague in a club. I was in the meeting. For the first half hour, I was stressed because I hadn’t written down a thought I had previously had. I was doing my work simultaneously. I was talking to people simultaneously. When I paid attention to the guy, I thought “yeah see he’s just a normal person, plus he has an ugly voice” the minute I thought this, I turned into a fan girl of his fully and I loved the voice I felt like I had a crush. And then I panicked. I moved past it. After a while, while he was talking, a little girl screamed in the background. I immediately pictured his younger sister. Like I pictured him having a sister and she looked kindof yk like him. Basically my first instinct was oh she might be so cute. See I think he looks nice, so I kinda pictured him having a sister who was pretty and all cute like how he looked. And then I flipped out while at the same time getting a one second black out, after which I had flashes and images of him being a father and me being attracted to that. I just got random flashes of images and I felt attracted to that I think. Im not too sure. I don’t remember any feeling/ thought/ order at all. It kept on replaying in my head and while contemplating about it I thought it is probably cuz I don’t know anything about their personal lives so it feels enticing to know that they have a personal life beyond work(since they’re professional connections.). After this, I had a billion other thoughts of this sort. “why am I still thinking of him” “does this mean I like him” “who thinks that” *replaying the thought over and over* “maybe he likes me” all these situational thoughts. I can’t even ground myself by thinking about love for my bf. “I love him I want him so bad” “no you don’t” “he’s the best” “you don’t really think that” “how will u handle ur life other guys ur relationship ur hectic schedulel” “fuck up” “these thoughts r supposed to be normal” “its just attraction” “attraction for so long? Everytime u see him?” “youre gonna try to downplay the thoughts like u always do” “this is not normal” I just froze there crying till I couldn’t breathe for 45 minutes. Next morning, I woke up thinking its just something that is not important, I love my boyfriend so much I should put my energy here. I was then called in for a meeting. I pictured the guy just being in university and I felt like normal softness towards him, I got pulled. And then after a while I saw his fair through the online meeting I was worried ill think something wrong. Then I heard him talk to a girl and I was worried ill think im jealous and get jealous. Then after avoiding the thought for a while I got the thought, I felt like I was jealous. But at the same time I was so anxious because I didn’t wanna think like this. And after that I saw him again and I pictured me being with him there next to him in a flash and then I got anxiety and I’m here now.
In the past 2-3 years ive been having extremely distressing thoughts that for a year(towards the beginning of when it started) made me have extreme panic attacks every day and I was extremely miserable 24/7. The thoughts relate to pure ocd and pocd. It happened literally out of no where one day and it hasnt stopped since(it has slowly tapered down or i just got used to it to an extent) I have a thought and i begin to feel overwhelmingly anxious and horrible in general. I begin to question myself as a person. Not sure if im something that I dont ever want to be in a trillion years but never able to truly answer myself. I spend every day an hour and a half minimum looking up ocd symptoms to alleviate the mental anguish and questioning im going through sometimes it can be as long as 4 hours. Im not sure if this is just extreme anxiety but it hasn't stopped for years. Strange thing though is sometimes the severity of my struggle gets extremely bad ranging from a day to a year at a time and then other times its less severe to where I dont feel like its taking over my life unless my trigger (if I really do have ocd) is reminded to me but no matter how severe it gets Its always lingering over the back of my shoulder and can show up at any time. One thing I can say is ive dealt with sever anxiety since I was thirteen to where I would have panic attacks every day (18 now, symptoms for ocd started at around 15) and the level of anxiety I have now related to what im experiencing now is on an unbelievably higher level than what I used to have. Is it possible I could have ocd? If it is possible, does it sound like mine is severe? Or on a lower more treatable level. Please help I dont want to live like this anymore
I’ve been suspecting for awhile now that I might have OCD once I started to look into it. Often times I get a lot of thoughts of me being a terrible awful person and being afraid that I don’t even know if I’m aware of that. I try my hardest to ‘diffuse’ these thoughts constantly. I go over them and remind myself that that isn’t me but I also wonder if that’s what I truly think. I’ve experienced this for as long as I can remember. I’ve always had instrusive horrible thoughts, even from when I was a child. It’s always been background noise to me but sometimes I tune in and scare myself and often wonder what my motives are. I don’t want to have these thoughts anymore but they keep coming back. I don’t like constantly worrying if my friends all hate me or if anyone around me thinks something is completely wrong with me. It’s extremely hard to operate properly already and constantly being streamlined these thoughts 24/7 just makes it more difficult. I have to try to think of literally anything else to prevent myself from having intrusive thoughts but even that doesn’t help. It feels incredibly disabling and it often times prevents me from doing things I actually have to do out of fear because of those “what ifs”. I just live in fear. I constantly worry even when there isn’t anything to worry about. I am incredibly paranoid. I feel like anything can happen at any given moment when I am not in control and it’s exhausting. I don’t want to live like this anymore.
I keep remembering ways I have behaved based on my intrusive thoughts. Like I always had patterns of attention seeking even though I don’t want those people and love my fiancé more than anything in this world. And every single thing I remember, I feel like I have to explain it to him or else it means I am a liar and don’t deserve to move on from the feelings of shame and anxiety. He doesn’t want me to tell him about it all but I feel like I have to 😞
What is it called when with ur ocd lets say if ur ocd theme happens like when you watch videos and ur mind comes up with something or your hypeaaware, but you feel like u cant tell ur therapist cus the video is proof because no one else would’ve thought that, and you know its not true anyways you just had intrusive feeling, but i know compulsions wont do anything but ur finding it hard to sit with this really scary thing like ohm ur accepting being this bad thing or if you have reassurance at least you’d know for sure,how can u live without knowing for sure even tho uknoe its deffo just ur ocd idk if this makes sense and what you call it ?:) if anyone could help me out
Groinal hyperawareness sucks so much, as soon as I hear a triggering sentence or see something triggering the hyper awareness is instantaneous :(
and they said it? i dont mean fully. but like first or last few words
So this is my second post of the day and before I post this I’m not looking for reassurance just feeling very fearful about this situation and need to vent. Sometimes my false memory ocd gets so bad I have to download past data of any apps on social media to make sure I didn’t do anything and even then it doesn’t help. I did that with my Snapchat data and I saw that I had someone from a very toxic and past relationship on my snap that I remembered I had deleted a couple weeks after my boyfriend and I started dating. I didn’t notice it until I recently had the compulsion to go recheck all the data I downloaded to make sure. When I saw the date I deleted them and that it was a couple weeks after my boyfriend and I got together, I felt my face get hot, I started tearing up and I started freaking out. And then of course my thoughts started rolling in “What if you deleted them because you texted them and did it to make sure your boyfriend didn’t see?” Or “What if you still had their number in your phone and texted them?” Etc. etc. I felt horrible after I noticed that he was still on my snap, I know I forgot because I was only focused on my boyfriend and I spending time together, and I don’t hardly ever use Snapchat in general so I just basically leave the app alone and such. I’m just so worried now and It’s bothering me. I also experienced a thought like “What if I knew he was still on there and I kept him on there on purpose?” I can’t deal with these thoughts anymore, they’re so exhausting, and the fact that I even have these thoughts and they always try to attack my relationship just makes me so mad and upset.
I feel like my life is shifting for the better possibly because I’m finally taking myself seriously. However, I simultaneously feel like im so far behind compared to my peers. It’s like i have to fail multiple times in order for me to understand the importance of my future. Everything I do needs to be perfect and if it’s not I am never satisfied - whether it’s school work, appearance, or even everyday tasks. Then I keep reflecting on old memories and it’s very difficult. An old ocd tic is coming back where whenever I get a “cringey” or “unwanted” thought about myself I have to say a phrase out loud to get rid of it. Lately lot of my compulsions are old and new ones. For example, I compulsed and confessed to everyone in my extended family about my ocd because I thought it’d make them understand me more but it doesn’t. I overshared and over explained far too much to them as I usually do to anyone I talk to. I’m constantly over apologizing. Ill be driving, hit a bump, and think I ran someone over or a family or a pregnant woman and I’ll be pulled over. I keep getting detailed imagery of me getting crushed in my car. If I kill a bug I’m convinced I will pay for it in some way or another and karma will get to me even if I feel bad. I delete and redownload the same 3 social media apps every day. I’m pretty sure I have an addiction to pornography and I want it to stop. No other girl deals with this. Someone on here said on one of my posts reguarding relationship ocd before that I might have bpd and now this is really weighing on me. I can’t stop googling abt it. I feel stupid because I could have it so much worse like other people on this planet do and yet here I am. I have the privilege to log onto this app and complain about my troubles while someone else is worried about if they’re going to eat tonight. I feel incredibly selfish and small when I express myself because people usually think I’m too much it seems. I don’t like people in my generation (gen z) because social media has triggered my lcd and it feeds this idea to people that other people are easily accessible or disposable at any given point - you give someone a follow/unfollow button and now they feel entitled to you. I want to be left alone and not perceived by anyone because no one will ever fully understand me. All I want is to be a peaceful person, an amazing psychiatrist, an educated and healthy woman, who people will take seriously. I just feel like my goals are impossible because I keep messing up and struggling with staying consistent. I sometimes wish I could be someone else so I could take this pressure off me. I’m sorry for how scattered this is, I’m probably just overtired and burnt out from life
My brain will not stop with the intrusive thoughts. I keep going through my little mantra in my head how I won't do the things I am thinking and how I hate my thoughts. I am trying to watch YouTube and tell myself just to avoid it and not let the thoughts bother me. I know my thoughts are false because I hate thinking these things but I just feel like I am losing this battle. Any tips?
First post, kinda scary. I’ve been trying to figure out for the longest time if this is an ocd thing or something else. For context, I used to have a really big problem with watching porn, starting for about 11-12 yrs old and only stopping a few months ago (I’m 24 now). I constantly have sexual thoughts about nearly every person I see. My family, friends, strangers, and more. It feels completely out of my control and it eats me alive. I have no one to talk to about these thoughts but I feel like if I don’t tell someone I am condoning and accepting these things as good. So I tell my wife. And it breaks her heart every single time. I want to say 95% of the time, I don’t want those thoughts but I can’t say with certainty that there aren’t times I do want to think about porn. Or maybe I don’t. Idk. It’s so exhausting. I’d like some help determining if this is a result of OCD or something else (like porn addiction symptoms or something). Thank you.
I’m over thinking about my bf again and I don’t even want to talk to him rn. I’m like scared I’m honestly doubting my thoughts and feelings rn. Like people always say they are “what if” thoughts. Like me people may assume I’m thinking “what if I don’t love him anymore” but reality mine rn are “I DONT love him.” Is that the same thing ? I want to cry rn. Like I know I’m being dramatic idk.
My ex just told me I’m a narcissist and I haven’t stopped thinking about it for days now. He broke up with me for the 7th and final time now and I did have an avoidance compulsion but I don’t think it was all ocd because he would continuously make poor choices and I was feeling used by the end of the relationship. However I was still trying to convince myself it would get better and it’s just a rough patch we’ll get through eventually. I blamed my ocd because I didn’t want to give up on him and I feel like maybe I was just in denial that it wasn’t meant to be but I also wanted out for a while now. I felt guilty for feeling relieved when he broke up with me but it was a civil conversation and it seemed like we were ending on good terms. But now he’s telling everyone that I’m a narcissist and I abused him emotionally and I was controlling when I let this man do WHATEVER he wanted. I’m controlling because I said I wanted to do his hair because I’m literally a stylist. He said I’m just like my mother and I’m a sh*tty person. He sent me a long paragraph of why I’m worse than all of his exes and that I’m a bad mother days after we broke up. I know I should’ve handled the situation differently but I don’t think that should ruin me as a person. He also said he no longer believes what the men in my past did to me because I’m a narcissist so that means I’m a liar. Knowing one of my biggest fears is becoming the people who hurt me. Part of me feels like he knew this was an obsession of mine and used it against me. I really feel like the worst person alive right now. Like Hitler level evil. I normally don’t post much but this is ruining me right now and I don’t know who else to turn to. I’m out of options and I’m really just helpless right now.
So my ocd has been doing better, in the sense that I am able to resist compulsions, but the thoughts are still there. And I get so upset because some days I’m just constantly stuck in my own head. Like I went out to today with my mom, and for a solid hour I was spiraling. And my OCD has been trying to make it seem like this flare up is different, and that because things aren’t working out the way I want them to be regarding my recovery, that it’s not OCD and I’m just a crazy person. It causes me to just shut down and want to just go home. I get so upset that I want to cry. I get intrusive thoughts that something bad is gonna happen, or that something doesn’t feel right, and so it feels like I do something, anything, to make me feel better about it. I also can’t sleep in my own bed. I’m so afraid that I won’t fall asleep in it, and if I don’t sleep, I will go crazy. My thoughts are just so scary rn, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want anything bad to happen to me :(
i am new to thinking about OCD - keep that in mind when reading. for a very long time without realizing it i obsessed over what mental health issues i had even though i wanted to stop and i never came across OCD. i think i eventually came to a subconscious decision to stop thinking about mental health issues after a very long time but it came back in an abusive relationship where i am pretty sure they have OCD even more severe than me. i think they misdiagnosed themselves with BPD and they are just very traumatized and have OCD about rejection and many other things but it could be both. they convinced me that i had BPD and i still do not know about that and i want to stop caring about that because my obvious OCD and PTSD are bigger problems. they intentionally hurt me a few times - this was because they convinced themselves that they had DID and everything they did was just another person doing that and i tried to help them resolve their mental health issues. this eventually worked as they now recognize that they did not have did and they are genuinely sorry and genuinely understand how damaging it was for them to hurt me and them have them be the only person that comforts me. it is extremely difficult to get comfort from other people except them and i am obsessed with trying to process emotions from repeated damage they have caused me over a 8 month lifespan. i was trying to say "its okay" to myself or tell myself that they truly didnt mean it afterwards and im attempting to stop that. the thoughts keep popping up. i was taking a long break where i only communicated to them through a mediator (my partner is now being very respectful) and i felt like i was truly healing but a few days ago i thought about if i have ocd or not and it made me realize that i was entirely dependent on them for comfort and i miss that love feeling i want nothing except that love feeling back without the abuse. this made me spiral horribly and i begged the mediator to let me talk to them and then i started talking to them for a few days, regardless of how understanding and kind they were they still made me feel like i need to puke because of how bad i felt for them and how much pain is associated with them. i started actually dissociating a few days ago which they did a lot. things feel blurry just like how they described. i think i needed to do it in order to talk to them for an extended period. i ended up helping them by telling them about ocd even though im tired of helping them through everything and having them rely on me i just wanted to give them the tools to feel good but it made me feel terrible because i always used to help them and then feel bad and it made me throw up after i wanted to take a break. i was healing and talking to them set me back really far - i learned a lot about how they feel about this and i learned a lot about why i do this in the first place but it hurts so much and i cant let myself talk to them again. i keep trying to process my ptsd when the memories come back and constant dissociation is making it harder i hope that ends soon. im worrying that im suppressing my emotions all of the time because they thought that was why they originally thought i was feeling bad and not the trauma. i am trying to seek a psychiatrist and therapy soon but i am reliant on my mom for that and i dont know what to do or if shes going to do something thats good for me. im excited to see the psychiatrist though. im 17. i am at the point now where i just want to stop having the highs and the lows and just be neutral all the time but its so hard to break out of these patterns. its really hard to sleep enough. genuinely any advice for any information i have provided would be appreciated no matter how small
I feel so horrible and sad right now. I’ve been posting about what I’m going through on my other account but no one comments or reacts. I’ve posted many times yet no one bothers to respond. I feel so terrible. I want to cry because I feel like I’m already too far gone, beyond forgiveness. I want to delete this app, but if I do, I’ll have no one to share with when I'm really having a hard time to deal with my ocd. I have no one who understands my ocd except the people on this app but it hurts me that no one replies anymore. I’m so sorry for posting something like this. I’m just sharing what I really feel. I don’t know what to do with my life anymore. I feel like I'm about to go insane. Sometimes I feel like it's not my ocd anymore because no one responds to my posts. Honestly, I really feel like I don't have ocd anymore especially because I'm undiagnosed. It makes me feel like I’m the most cruel person in the world, someone who doesn’t deserve love or forgiveness. I’m not trying to guilt trip anyone. I know that you are all struggling too. I truly hope you all get better. 💗
This is going to be long and all over the place. To give some context I’ve dealt with SOOCD for a long time now and it had very bad effects on my past relationship. I had a hard time being intimate with my past partner because I was always subconsciously checking if I was getting aroused enough, if I was attracted to him, if I truly liked him, or if I was lying to myself (yk the whole deal). I literally felt nothing but anxiety when we did things which made everything worse. I was also extremely depressed which made my libido and attraction towards men completely vanish (still have low libido and my attraction is kinda the same). Me and the guy broke up and a couple years ago we reconnected. When I saw him again I was extremely attracted to him, romantically and sexually. This made me so happy because I finally felt some confirmation that I knew who I was and my thoughts weren’t real after years of being tortured by them. We didn’t end up lasting because my feelings started to shift but I truly blame that on the fact that it was just a dumb old high school relationship, he was a terrible boyfriend in the past, and we had nothing in common. However while we were together, I had dealt with really bad relationship anxiety. I found other people attractive which gave me reassurance, but also made spiral because I thought it meant I didn’t like him anymore, I was lying to myself about my feelings, and I questioned everything about the relationship. Fast forward to now, I am now in a new relationship and I’ve known this guy for a long time. I developed a crush on him which again made me really happy bc I haven’t had a crush in a VERY long time. I made a couple of posts on here about how I started to overthink everything (pls read those to get more context I don’t want to make this even longer). I started to get really anxious and had more intrusive thoughts about lying to myself about my feelings/and sexuality, not really liking him, not being attracted to him, yk all that. I was able to manage it by watching a video about rumination where the guy basically just said “stop thinking about it.” He said to just let it float there, don’t engage with it, don’t try to solve or understand, don’t try to replace it, don’t say a mantra, don’t be mindful, just let it be there and move on. I also went on reddit and this guy said to stop hyper focusing on the attraction/ the “right” feelings bc the more you try to look for them the less you will feel it. Anyways, I took the advice and the next time we hung out I felt comfortable and just so much better. It was the sweetest date and I truly had a fun time. However, when we kissed I immediately started over analyzing and questioning everything. I had bad experiences with my ex because I kept trying to analyze my feelings like do I really like this kiss? Am I actually attracted to him? Why am I not feeling super excited right now? Why did all these good feelings just go away? It was so annoying and heartbreaking for me because I just want to be normal, I want to truly enjoy this relationship. I want to stop automatically checking and over thinking everything. We’ve discussed sexual things and it automatically made me hyper analyze everything making me feel more anxious and unsure about the relationship and my sexuality. There have been times where we talked about them and I’ve thought about it with no worry, and I even got turned on by it (tmi i’m sorry). But I’m worried that I’ll have the same bad experiences I did with my ex and it’ll ruin how I view the everything. I was so excited for this but now I feel so scared and anxious again. I really want to enjoy this, he’s truly an amazing person and I want to be with him without being bombarded by this shit 😭. Sorry if none of this made sense. Please give me advice if you have any!!!!
Idk what to do anymore. I had an attack from 🍃 in 2021. I couldn’t feel anything and it all felt odd. It’s been 4 years! 4 years!!!! And I still have attacks. But in the past 2 years it hasn’t been anything visual really. I can see everyone, I just can’t feel connected to me still nor my surroundings. My head keeps repeating. “You’re not real, nothings real”. Even tho ik I can see my mom and dad and nothings distorted. I don’t get it! I’m scared. Is this the start of psychosis? I was diagnosed with ocd when I was 13 and it got really bad after smoking once. I feel alone. I know where I am. But I feel out of place, and for some reason I keep thinking nothings real in my head over and over again. I feel so alone. I want to be a nurse but I’m like I’m useless. Nothing feels right. Can anybody help me, or has anyone experienced this!
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OCD doesn't have to
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