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Why is the volume of rumination so loud some days while others not so much?

I'm so scared because I gave my dog a plum but the pit was still in it whole. He normally doesn't chew stuff and just swallows it. He's swallowed pits before and nothing ever happens. He's a big dog too. Yet I had an intrusive thought telling me my dogs gonna die. So I looked it up out of a compulsion. It said it's toxic and I'm freaking out. Nothing seems to be the matter and he's comforting me because he can tell I'm scared. I can't stop thinking I'm a murder and did that on purpose and that I don't love my dog.

Hi everyone ! I have been diagnosed with pure, somatic and harm OCD since last year as well as dermatillomania. Oh ! And to top it off I have diagnosed ADHD as well. I wanted to just come on here and share some experience that I’ve had. I’m 23 years old and ever since I was a child I have memories of my dermatillomania as a way to cope with my anxiety. I have struggled with my mental health since being a child, my undiagnosed ADHD made me very self aware that I wasn’t “fast enough”, “smart enough”, or “cool enough”. My psychiatrist even says that this undiagnosed ADHD until my 20s probably exacerbated my ocd as a way to compensate. Now I still rely on my parents as they help me out while I finish my studies. One parent is very religious and believes that “disease does not exist” (only a projection in peoples minds), and is very against meds and my other parent seems to always want to change the subject and has refused to come into therapy with me to meet my doctors and understand what I live through. My religious parent, I refuse to tell them I am on medication and I know that they will disapprove and try to gaslight me into believing something that will “make it all go away”. So I’ve given up. My other parent although they appear to pay attention always changes the subject and makes me feel invalid, and no matter how many times I try to explain I feel like I am talking to a wall. I just feel sad because.. well you would want your parents to want to understand and help you. In my case I am fortunate that financially they back me but I feel like I need to be a different person around them, and when it comes to my mental health I have no support. I look at mostly white families (not all) online and they seem to want to understand and be a part of a healing process, or at least believe that OCD is a valid diagnosis. I just want to ask if any of you have had unsupportive family members, have felt alone on your journey, and if it’s okay to never really let go of that hope that one day they may understand you. And honestly advice is great but just knowing I’m not alone in this will already comfort me, knowing that we are all in this together.

I have a sinus infection. I’m scared to take the meds because I have read that the meds can increase anxiety. I also read that a sinus infection can turn into meningitis. So now I’m terrified about that. I’ve convinced myself that I’m terribly ill and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m so tired but can’t sleep because I’m so anxious. I just can’t stop thinking that something horrible is going to happen but won’t take the meds because I’m scared they will make something horrible happen. This thought process is long and very repetitive. How do I break the cycle and start to feeling better? Being sick wreaks havoc in my nervous system. But so does taking the meds . I don’t know why to do anymore.

So one of my themes is the fear of going crazy. When it was so bad I was having thoughts all day that everyone knew that I was going crazy and they were talking about it and just not being honest with me. Has anyone experienced this? Is it just ocd?

When struggling with ocd I've noticed myself disconnecting from the truth of who i am. When your mind is constantly doubting everything you do it can make you feel like you don't really know who you are and that is very scary. I keep thinking back to my past self before all of this got really bad and I can't help but mourn the loss of the freedom I had :/ Despite the fear and depression this has caused me, I'm trying to take small steps to reconnect with that version of myself in the past that felt more free. I don't know if this might help anyone else but don't get stuck in the cloudiness of intrusive thoughts and ocd, do those things you used to love despite the nagging thoughts. Don't let yourself be lost in the haze of your thoughts to the point where you forget who you are. Do those things that remind you that you are still human. Dance, Paint, Write, anything really. Its not that easy but just remember that despite any horrific distressing thoughts you might have, you are still human.

So my theme has revolved around the fear of having schizophrenia for about a year now, many therapist and mental health professionals told me they believe it’s a mix of ocd and hypochondria. Well my main symptom of this disorder is the fear of having delusions, so over the course of this year I’ve had thoughts ranging from “what if my wife is a demon” “what if this song means something” “what if there’s some hidden message in this movie” “what if the government created the world and controls everything” “what if Satan is the true creator of the world” “why did my cat look at me like that, what if he’s a spy created by the government, what if all animals are?” Literally crazy shit but it all feels so real, I’ve thought about this stuff so much that I’ve started to have almost an emotional detachment from the world around me, I’ll have thoughts like, “why should I care, nothings real anyway”. And now it’s starting to feel like my normal line of thinking, like now I genuinely feel like everything is fake or staged in some way, nothing feels real or genuine, it feels like everyone around me, the media, news, politics, all feels like some sort of big act or lie. Feels like there’s something more to reality that I’m missing or something, everything feels “too perfect”. I’ve lost all happiness in everything and I’ve become SO suspicious of every single thing, everything has to have some deeper meaning according to my brain, it sucks. Has anyone ever had the fear of schizophrenia and it got this bad?

I feel like my OCD triggers have been kind of random or weird lately. It happens when I’m doing something that makes me feel calm or that is keeping me preoccupied. It’s like lately my OCD hates it when I feel some type of peaceful or calm. I’ll be chilling playing video games while calling with my boyfriend and then suddenly my OCD jumps in and I get super on edge and distracted. I get thoughts like “how can you relax when you are uncertain about _____?” or “what if you told [boyfriend] about the intrusive thoughts you have? would he break up with you?” and then I get shaky and panicky. It’s like I can barely slip into a moment of peace without my OCD making me worried because I’m *not* worried. Does this make sense? It also happens when I’m relaxed in bed and falling asleep. I’ll just be holding a stuffed animal my boyfriend got me and dozing off and then suddenly I’m hit with “you don’t deserve [boyfriend]” “you’re a terrible person” “what if you hurt him? you need to make sure you didn’t”. Then suddenly I’m wide awake even though physically I’ll just feel so exhausted. ALSO, when I’m making food/about to eat, my OCD tells me I don’t deserve to eat, or starts acting up making me feel nauseous to the point where I can’t eat. I think I’m doing okay right now, I just think it helps a bit to talk about this and maybe see if anyone else relates.

Me and my girlfriend had a conversation last night about how bad my OCD has got and how I'm over analysing her texts/movements etc for signs of the relationship going south. I plucked up the courage to talk to her about trauma and other stresses in my life which has triggered my OCD to spiral. We have agreed to keep all OCD talk out of the relationship and if I feel like analysing or asking for reassurance to get a notebook and write it down instead. I am now thinking constantly about how she asked me to talk but has kind of left me on my own and it doesn't make me want to talk to her about stuff now in the future. I get it's hard, but has my OCD taken a hold of this or is it valid to feel this way?

OCD definitely makes me feel like my future is nothing but bad. A bunch of what ifs and it feels super anxiety inducing. I remind myself that no matter how bad my life gets, I never want to harm myself or end my life. I want to get through each struggle in a healthy manner. I just have a fear of bad things happening in my life and Im scared how I would react to it. My OCD is definitely super anxiety inducing and I would love for anyone to share their thoughts.

Is it possible for your ancestors to curse you??? I keep getting intrusive thoughts about my relative that passed away and my thoughts are saying that they’re gonna curse me with one of my biggest fears. I’m so terrified right now. What if these thoughts were to actually come true..??!!!

I’m starting my first year at college after this gap year I used to improve my mental health aka ocd, and I’m not super sure how this will go. I’m living on campus, and I’m super excited to start classes and move in, meet new people. I just know it will be overwhelming, and if anyone has tips on coping with that, so my ocd doesn’t go absolutely wild, it’d be greatly appreciated

Does anyone else get this sinking feeling in their gut, like something terrible is about to happen? I use to panic over it but now I know it’s my OCD, it’s just so random, like all the sudden my brain is like SOMETHINGS WRONG OMG OMG DONT BE ALONE DONT LEAVE OTHERS ALONE 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

someone said something WORD FOR WORD what i am going through. i want to post it to see if you guys have any advice. to me, it’s the fear that my values or morals have changed forever. i don’t want them to change tho, i have no idea what to do

I feel like my intrusive thoughts are becoming worse lately as I just started birth control almost a month ago. I’m questioning things that i have never crossed my mind but now my mind is saying i have done these things and that I am a bad person. even though I know I never done anything wrong I feel guilty for just thinking of these thoughts. It’s messing me up so bad where I feel like i can’t do anything without these intrusive thoughts screaming at me. I feel like I’m not worthy of good things. I am so scared of losing the love of my life because of these storms in my head.

I am so disgusted by mind. I genuinely want to vomit and i have the biggest pit in my stomach. Why are thoughts so vivid???They feel so real its scary. I understand the thought exists and thats all that it is a thought but god it is disgusting. It hurts my soul. My mind then pulls the "what if you secretly like these thoughts??" and it hurts me because then i have to prove that i dont like them. Im truly exhausted but im trying my best i really am :/

I’m feeling so angry and scared. I’m afraid that if I help other people in tough situations I’m going to make someone angry and they’re going to come kill my loved ones or me. some of these thoughts are a conglomeration of traumatic things ive heard or read about actually happening. i’m not even sure if this is my ocd, but i think it is because i feel like if i dont think about this until it feels solved and impossible to come to fruition any harm will be my fault and i’ll never forgive myself.

Hi all! I just wanted to see if anyone has any knowledge about when exposures become compulsive. My OCD has often centred around the anxiety itself and it never going away so my themes often jump around meta OCD and the fear of not getting better / doing exposures wrong. I find it always gets very complicated when OCD latches onto the exposures themselves.. I have found that saying “maybe, maybe not” to intrusive thoughts in the moment often comes with that temporary feeling of relief similar to that of compulsions. Is there a chance this in and of itself has become a neutralising technique? Does this sound mad? I’m struggling to find relevant research around this topic so if anyone can help that would be great. (well aware this could just be another obsessional fear!)

I keep thinking back on my past and worry if I ever actually had empathy or ever really cared about the things I care for, or when I think of bad things that happen, I try to think of my emotional reactions to them, and most of the time I can’t feel anything to them and when I think of a past memory of my reactions to them, I can’t tell if I was genuine about it. It’s pissing me off and confusing me, why do I have to be like this, why can’t I just be normal or just never worry about anything? It’s changing my perception of myself and who I am morally, I think back to all the bad things I’ve done as a kid and of recently and I fear that I haven’t changed or progressed forward as a person, I want my morals to be genuine and to feel like a genuine person. I’ve been told that I’m a good person by my sister, but I just can’t live by that somehow, it’s like I need to find evidence of it by using my memories of my past actions and thoughts just to prove to myself that I am good, and like it’s so confusing, it’s like I’m trapped in hell, scared that I won’t be the best person that I strive to be like, and when I say that, it makes me question if I actually want to be good or if I just want to be good to go by societies norms of what being “good” is, and like idk, it’s just so annoying and it scares me so much, it has made me scream and cry so much to get this feeling out of my body. I hate it.

i wanted to reach out for some guidance i feel like i really need it. as we said, my anxiety levels have increased over the past week as i’ve gone forward with my scripts. i felt like our last session made me feel pretty off. one thing im struggling with is doubt within myself about my thoughts and train of thought. i feel like i constantly am checking and monitoring my thoughts and if it’s reassurance for anything. it feels like im not allowed to think a certain way and its become confusing. when i identify my compulsions and my reassurance i feel okay, but i feel like i don’t know where to go from there. it feels like i don’t know where to turn my mind to and that im not allowed to think any thoughts about my partner at all, even good one or my other situations in general, i feel like i get worried its just reassurance. it makes me feel sad because anytime i have a good thought my mind just feels blank at some points and it freaks me out because i just feel lost in that feeling. i’m doing my scripts and they seem to be going well, but i just am struggling because i thought i knew my feelings and had accepted these fears, now i feel like i just don’t know how to go forward with this.