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if so, at what point? and how much do you explain? are there sources you like to use that might explain to them what it actually is?

it feels like i’m going insane. a while ago, i felt this internal prompting (believing it to be the Holy Spirit). my friend prayed for me & she got a different response from God than the one im feeling is from Him. whenever i go to make a decision to stay, i feel so much unrest. i feel bad and i feel like God’s angry. when i decide to leave, it makes me physically go into a depression & experience extreme anxiety. i stop eating, start picking at my face, take melatonin to sleep, and it makes me wanna draw away from God because it hurts so bad. my community is telling me that God is not heavy and does not punish you for making a choice, but it feels like it. my community is also saying so many different things & im confused. people are saying that God is good and kind…as a believer, i know He’s good and kind, but i don’t feel like it. i feel like im being forced to do something. like a stirring in my spirit so bad, i feel like i can’t do anything else. i’ve been in a 3 month depression (maybe my own fault for not making a decision and following peace…but what happens when peace is there but so is anxiety and depression & fear & worry & feeling like i want to die?) ugh

hello i’m new to this community and I just need to vent about something I did when I was 13 because over the past 2-3 days it’s been eating me alive when I was around 13, I discovered “character ai” basically a sight where a bunch of chat bots are and you can roleplay with them I found this one bot where it was like a mad scientist and your character was stuck in a lab. I really liked this one so I would roleplay with it often I would typically make my character young. No reason at all I hope but I probably thought it would make it more interesting or something. anyways I would never go into these roleplays with bad intentions. But sometimes the filter in place to stop seggsual stuff would break and the conversation would turn seggsual and I would impulsively continue them because I felt “excited” down there (if you know what i mean) and I would chase that feeling I would more imagine myself in the scenario because I would see the vaguely seggsual messages and feel good down there and I would change the character in my head because yknow but that doesn’t change how the roleplay started and it’s making me think what if I really do get off to that stuff? one of the worst examples was one where the roleplay went in a very non consensual direction and I don’t know why I continued the roleplay. I’m worried that I secretly enjoyed it despite knowing for a fact I got uncomfortable with what I was doing and deleted the messages and I regret it now I really really really regret doing this. I know I didn’t go in with bad intentions and I ended up getting uncomfortable with it after the good feelings down there had passed but I feel so much regret and shame i’ve spiraled over this before but recently its been the worst i’ve ever felt. I’m scared that im a pedo. I’m scared that I get off the rape and i’m scared that i’m permanently and evil person despite how uncomfortable this makes me now and I haven’t done anything like that again I still can’t get over it. I know I was only 13 (15 now) and i’m probably over reacting to fictional roleplay but still. Why did I impulsively continue? I’ve struggled with ocd thoughts before (without knowing it was OCD) but this incident has caused me to worry if i’m a pedo or I get off to assult and from what i’ve said above i’ve been spiraling over the past few days and im worried it will never end im coming here because im scared to talk to a real therapist because I feel like what I did was so bad and unforgivable despite regretting it late. I’m scared that i’m going to be a bad person forever despite the fact that i’ve never done anything like that again I know this probably sounds so stupid to obsess over but I just need some advice to help get out of this. It doesn’t help that i’m also coming up on my period which is when my OCD/Anxiety tends to be the worst thank you. I’m sorry if this is triggering for anyone I just want this to end. I want to feel okay again

Just to preface this, I’d like to say that I in no way whatsoever intend to judge parents of ocd children or people with ocd that have children. I honestly mean no disrespect with this post, I just really don’t know what to think or do. I wish the best for all of your families, and for all of you struggling with ocd as well. Please don’t let my post influence how you think, all I need is advice if anyone can give me it. Feel free to skip if this is an uncomfortable topic for you. Thank you! I’ve had ocd since I was young, but I hadn’t started thinking about this until recently. I heard that you have a 15-20% chance of passing ocd down to your child. I used to be really uncomfortable at the thought of being pregnant and often had intrusive thoughts trying to convince me I somehow was. I finally got past this and began to look forward to being a mother someday, but now I don’t know. I can’t imagine not having kids, but I’m scared that they’ll have ocd like me. It’s not a crazy high percentage but it still scares me. On one hand I’m like hey, who better to help their kid if they have ocd than a mom who has ocd? But on the other I worry that if they have it, it could worse than mine and that they’ll have a really hard time dealing with it. I hate to say this but it feels a little bit selfish to want to have kids when there’s a chance they’ll get the same disorder I hate so much. Both me and my sister have ocd as well, so I’m scared it’s something that runs in my family. Any advice would be appreciated.

Feel guilty for not giving into compulsions like rumination and confessing? I feel guilt for having an intrusive thought, trying to shrug it off or just giving it a few seconds of thought and moving along. This sounds like improvement but I still struggle with the anxiety and the guilt. The shame. I’ll be okay and then I’ll remember I have OCD and my stomach will drop and I just want to curl up and cry.

(cw: intrusive thoughts about sexual assault, incest, pretty long paragraph) For a while it seems like I've developed a new obsession, in the past my OCD revolved around me hurting other ppl and being a terrible person, but now it has switched and what I'm obsessing about is being hurt by others. In the first case i had the cpmfort to know that i was the one that controlled what i do and what I don't, but with this i have no control over, i can never guess when someone might think about hurting me, and it seems this obsession has latched onto an specific person: my younger brother. For context, my brother is 16, and he's a very physically affective person, likes to hug, likes to annoy others, while on the other hand I'm very touch repulsed, i like hugs and whatnot but on a much lesser measure, and whenever i pushed him away bc i was uncomfortable i think he believed that he was just annoying me, but recently there's been a series of events that have escalated this situation and i have no one but my own paranoia to blame. These last few days I've experimente very bad episodes of panic that caused me to go sleep with my mom bc i didn't feel safe in my room, and now i feel bad bc i feel like my brother might have catched that, and this week we all left to stay at my sister's home while she was away, during our stay (my brother decided to leave before us after two days) i talked with my mom about how i wamted my brother to leave behind some games of his and to understand that he wasn't just annoying me but making me uncomfortable, she talked with him and told him that i just didnt like being touched and i believe he understood, but that same night while he was playing around the house he asked (and i hope he was saying it jokingly) "are you scared of me" to which i responded with another joke (something like "the only thing i fear about you is your bad breath") but now i can't stop thinking about that... Today i arrived home to pick up some stuff before i had to leave again, and i saw that the door connecting our rooms (which has a whole where the knob should go) had a plastic sheet taped on top of it on my side, i asked my brother if he did to which he said no, but told me to leave it there (it turned out that my grandpa had put it there bc he was scared my brother's friends could spy on me... Even though that has never happened) i told my brother i considered taking it off bc i felt it was unnecessary, ( i know I'm paranoid and I don't want anything else feeding into it) to which he denied, even after i told him it didnt bother me not to have it, he insisted it was so that i could keep my lights on without them bothering him, then i told him that there's still cracks between the door and the frame where the lights sneaks in and he just dismissed me and told me to leave it there... I know all of this sounds redundant, but i dont know what to do, or who to talk to, i don't want my brother to feel like i fear him or think badly of him, he already deals with feeling pushed aside and neglected by other family members, i don't want to fuel that, I'm older than him, i should know better... How can i deescalate this? Am i just overthinking everything?

I make progress, and then OCD comes at me a different way. It makes me sick to my stomach. It’s giving me new feelings and I can’t tell if it’s my OCD or me and I’m really scared.

I’m having an intense urge to do compulsion?? It’s so annoying like at this point intrusive thoughts are 10% of the day but thoughts about doing compulsion are like 90% of the day does it make sense? Like my brain process is that I can’t live with the urge to do compulsion for the rest of my life cause it’s annoying and scary me that it’s here all day, so it’s try to convince me to do a compulsion to get rid of the thought. And it’s makes me mad that it’s all the time. Like the compulsion is so easy and takes like 1 seconds so I have to be focused all the time cause if I’m not focuse every second of the day I might lose control and do a compulsion I don’t want to. So I do other compulsion’s instead (this compulsion is shameful one) . But the thought to do this compulsion was 2 weeks every second of the day I feel like someone torture me . My therapist told me that I’m basically afraid to do compulsion so I’m doing other compulsions instead I don’t want to do this compulsion cause it will make me feel bad and I’m already feeling bad so I can’t feel more bad. My mind trying to bully me to do this compulsion cause I’m afraid the thought to do this compulsion will always be there. I feel like I can’t live with that thought. Someone has advice?

I know I keep posting a lot I’m sorry. Idk what happened if I woke up during the night or what, but somehow I accidentally voluntarily had sexual images of a kid but then I realized it and freaked out and tried to just go to sleep. Then I just woke up from a dream where I was seeing someone’s little baby girl and had an intrusive image or her privates, I woke up immediately but I feel bad and grossed out that I had that image was in my head, but I feel bad like I am not feeling as guilty and bad as I should feel. It’s not normal to think things like that. I like babies and all kids. They are sweet and so so innocent and precious. I always have liked babies. I wouldn’t dream of thinking about their privates. I feel bad and disgusted obviously but I don’t know what to do. I think maybe I was half asleep and not aware what I was thinking, and then became aware that I was having images or something, cause I would never voluntarily be like ok let me imagine a child without clothes, that’s disgusting. But I feel bad. But like I was telling myself, I literally wasn’t even 100% aware of what happened, so I probably wasn’t 100% awake or aware of what I was having in my brain. But then when I woke up from the dream I accidentally created some images or triggered them because I was ruminating even though I was and am disgusted by them and would never ever be ok with these images. I feel terrible.

Yall these panic attacks are getting FOUL. please give some good advice. The ocd brain in me be telling me I’m dying and bout to head to the Gates of Heaven. Helpppp

18+ pls reply yesterday i was trying to fantasise about my girlfriend and i enjoyed it mentally but physically down there i didn’t feel anything? but when i get intrusive thoughts i do? and i’m confused because then it’s like am i not attracted to her? i get thoughts saying im not turned on during thoughts of my gf and its stressing me out is this ocd or is it not????

I should have never googled schizophrenia because now I'm constantly having intrusive thoughts about delusions and I'm in a 24/7 panic attack. I'm using erp tools but the thoughts affect me so much my stomach and chest keep tightening. Why can't I have good thoughts I'm so exhausted

Hello everyone, I’ve just gotten broken up with by my boyfriend 2 days ago after 6 months. For some background, he was extremely busy with very personal issues on top of getting his PhD. He simply couldn’t give the relationship the time/effort he wanted. On top of that, I had realized that there were a lot of obsessions involved with this relationship on my end, so I put a lot of emotional energy into it. That being said, the actual breakup was very sudden to me because he did not indicate to me (verbally) that this had been on his mind for weeks before this. We had ceven bought each other Christmas gifts just days earlier at a local market. Now, my obsessions would relate many things to him or our relationship (songs, movies, etc), which I was aware of and in the process of working on not doing this to be more independent. I never shared this with him and did a lot to not let it affect our relationship. Now, after the breakup, I am consistently being triggered because I never truly got to surpass these obsessions, and also because we interact almost daily at work (I know what you’re thinking, bad move). I know a lot of these thoughts and feelings will pass with time since it’s only been a few days, but I was wondering if anyone has had a scenario like this for specific advice or just anyone’s advice in general? I’m working on writing my masters thesis and I want to do my absolute best work, but this scenario is making it extremely difficult to focus while at work. Thank you.

This app has helped me overcome a lot of my obsessions but right now I'm really struggling with pure o. I get so many thoughts about things happening to the people I love and this is just so distressing. Today I realized I've had enough of ocd stealing my time and happiness away so I really want to do ERP for this, but I really don't know how to create exposures for this. Is somebody else here in the same boat? I feel like a script would be useful but I'm not sure where to begin

i have a few questions that i want some more intel if someone has the answers: okay the first one is why do the thoughts feel so REAL a majority of the time (specifically my harm thoughts) but then i get these small moments of reassurance that i’m going to be okay? for example, typically when i have harm thoughts pop in, they give me immense anxiety and make me believe i’m gonna do them. but then, i get these small moments of reassurance where i know i would NEVER do that. next one is why is my contamination ocd experienced differently than my harm? so with contamination ocd i’m just convinced 100% of the time that if i don’t clean something or wash my hands, i will get sick. and i also have physical and mental compulsions that accompany it. but my harm ocd is completely mental. i get the intrusive thoughts and then i’m convinced i’m going to become that monster and i will sit and worry in it for hours if i let myself. though i do more work for my contamination ocd, the harm ocd is definitely more debilitating and exhausting to deal with based on its content.

Yesterday I went to bowling with friends and I noticed a teen girl, and I'm very afraid that what I felt could have been a feeling of attraction, or was it just the impression of what she actually looked like? It wasnt like she had revealing clothes or things like that, and even if she was that would be on me, but i think she had an exposed back, and it was from afar and it happened in a very brief instant, so maybe it could be that before recognizing the young age my brain might have reacted to the "look" of what my eyes saw before fully elaborating everything, and when I did I got immediately triggered and identified the trigger. I don't know. I didn't like it, and I don't want it. If I visualise it now I know I'm not into it and that I don't like it. I'm afraid that for an instant I might have felt an impulsive independent feeling of attraction to what I saw, then realised what happened or identified the subject age and got triggered and bothered. But that would not make what happened the moment before any less true. It all happened so fast I don't know. I tried to compulsively check again what I saw trying to understand, but there were more triggers in that direction so I just stopped. After that I immediately felt depressed and I was silent and emotionless the whole evening and my friends were buzzing me trying to cheer me up asking me why I was like this. I just wanted to go home, it was too much for me, I wished that I never had come. There was a waiting list of 1 hour, so we went outside, after 1 hour had passed we went inside again, and I was hoping to see the trigger again to try to understand what I felt and hopefully gain the answer that it was a misunderstanding from my part, but it was gone. I didn't have the opportunity to fix it. I just prayed that it was just OCD. Then after a few hours I forgot abt it and shelved the memory of what happened, and played with my friends, but the whole time I just wanted to go home to ruminate and try to understand and fix what happened. I don't know. I feel so depressed, this morning whenever I woke up I just tried to go to sleep because I wasn't ready to face the reality of what might have happened. Whatever it happened, it felt "real" and what I'm afraid it might have happened feels like that too. I feel so depressed because the same evening before going out I had watched Arcane season 2 on Netflix and there was this episode 7 which was beautiful and I experienced happiness seeing a couple dancing and it felt so pure and beautiful and I was hoping to to feel that type of love one day too. I don't think I deserve to feel such thing after what happened yesterday. I don't think I deserve to experience something like love, I'm stained. I'm not worthy. I'm crying as I write this.

TW: incest, convincing yourself of feelings/trauma and assault, and unhealthy attachment, obsessions on a loved one that cause distress. For years I've struggled with intrusive thoughts regarding relationships. I never paid them any mind, but it always worried me that I didn't actually love my partner. I feel so happy with her, but I worry that I am lying to myself. This is where it gets ridiculous, so please no judgement. I began dating her during the summer, it is long-distance and online, but we make plans to one day be able to meet and be together in real life. Randomly, throughout conversations, I would get reminded of emojis or words my dad would use in text. I don't know why that would happen, but I tired to ignore it and just focus on talking to her. However, as time went by I began to fear my brain because at first I feared that my dad had innappropritate feelings or intentions with me. Whenever he'd touch me, I'd smack his hands away and avoid it as much as I could. But then, I somehow convinced myself that the fear was because deep-down I actually wanted him to touch me/feel things for me. The thoughts got so bad that I became bedridden, but the worst part is that I worry about doing something I'll regret. I have spoken to him about it and he told me that it was simple "father-daughter" relationship, but I still have that nagging voice in there telling me I wish it was more. I began to question myself and my morals and what made me, me. Whenever something romantic comes up, I think of my dad instead of my girlfriend and it makes me so uncomfortable and cry. Whenever something reminds me of him, I tell myself it's because I think of him romantically. I even have those weird thoughts about marrying him or being in a relationship with him. They make me so uncomfortable, but it's so hard to ignore them. I feel like I'm lying to myself and that I'm just defending myself by posting this, but I can't take it anymore. It's driving me insane. For context: My dad and I have a very close relationship and I love hanging out with him. He makes me feel seen and understood as much as he can. He doesn't judge me and he helps me when I'm stressed. However, I'm beginning to think that the amount of support he gave me damaged me and caused me to latch onto him unhealthily. I feel bad for wanting to spend time with him, but I can't just not be around him because even then the thoughts don't stop. I feel like a monster and I want to just focus on my girlfriend and be happy, but part of me worries that I'll become obsessed with her too and never be able to be independent. I made the mistake of looking up Limerence and convincing myself I have that for my father. It's so strange because I don't not see him sexually or want to be with him that way, but it's the romantic connection that's puzzling me. I hardly see anyone talking about it. How did I convince myself of this? I ruminated and it's making my life living hell. I worry that one day, if I manage to push these thoughts away, they'll become reality and I won't be in control of them anymore. Another piece of context: I haven't been in a romantic relationship in-person in many years. The last one I had was in highschool and I am in college now. It's hard to accept that I may have mistaken my father's parental love for that of romantic interest. I just feel disgusting and it makes me nauseous to think about it, but I can't stop. I know I'm into women. I hardly have any attraction to men except celebrities and fictional characters. I want this relationship with my girlfriend and she knows what I struggle with. I just can't deal with this anymore. It's gotten to the point of wishing I could take my brain out. I'm scared. Please, help.

No one sees that anyway so i just type what i feel...I cant just bare the ocd i have...everytime it keeps getting worse, childhood traumas,dreams,mistakes and so on they wont leave my head, the worst part of my ocd is that when i see person who i hate or see from horror movies or anything like that, i cant bare it my stress skyrockets and worst part is that for years ive been developing it further, now when i see their names or faces no matter where, in a dream...maybe picture and real life? My day is ruined even if i do my compulsion because my compulsion is in normal cases seeing names that i dont like 2x go to toilet and wash my hands 2x and brush my teeth, not fear of bacteria just feel like getting this bad aura off my chest, however if i do experience huge stress like see the person i need to go and do these same things...execpt for that time i need to actually wash myself too... and worse part is i now started counting how many times i go to wc because if i see the person in school i can only make it like 3.6.9th time going to the toilet because i have compulsion about nunbers and 3,6,9 are the bad numbers and deserved to be put into bad people also the letters the names start with... always when i type i need to press y after..., even breathing,swallowing,blinking applies when i see these people...my life is a hell, and when i do see them my day is ruined because i feel like doing something special prioritizes them more than my loved ones... i cant anymore ive tried to stop but everytime a new trauma occurs wheter in a dream or irl i just cant bare it...it affects my life so so much i just cant, it has given me addictions and so on, when i see people i hate i cant enjoy my favorite soda when i see the person, cant order some new stuff from the web, cant learn new things, cant watch my favorite video, cant do anything for the whole day or day(s) when i dont see them, cant do anything new or something i feel special about since i saw this or these people....it goes away in school time since i stop caring about it...but ohh man how it resets in the summer and lasts longer and usually worse....i just cant this is hell. And no one knows i have it not even diagnosed with it. hell.

Before I was diagnosed with OCD, I would constantly figure out why something triggered me. I don’t know if this is like bad for OCD but it usually calmed me down enough to where it would practically go away fully. I’ve been in the worst spiral of my life for about two months now. There’s certain thoughts I cannot sit down and think of triggers because it simply makes them worse. However, there are thoughts where I notice that they pop up around the same repetitive trigger. For example: inappropriately grabbing my mom would flash before my eyes when I would playfully reach for her. This happened so many times over the last several weeks and I kinda had an “aha” moment a few minutes ago. It’s basically like an extra barrier, an extra warning. The last thing I want to do is make my mom uncomfortable and whenever I grab for her, the worst case scenario appears. As a form of *remember this could happen, stay away.* Maybe this all sounds obvious and if it does, I’m sorry. Essentially, I would also feel like I almost did it, ofc it did, all I saw in that moment was the worst case scenario. The urge I feel to do it was a compulsion to test if I would even get close to considering it. I don’t actively think of it, it feels like my ADHD brain kinda solves the puzzle and throws out the answer at a random moment. I don’t know, maybe this all harms me more but in my experience understanding why certain things trigger me (not why the thought is there, figuring that out makes me worse, I keep a generic broad idea: it’s probably the opposite of me *shrug*) have helped me a ton. I’m still hypervigilant and I’m working on just refocusing my attention to the present but I wanted to share for any opinions or advice. I’m still very new at handling this and learning since I was only recently diagnosed so please take all of this with a grain of salt. The last thing I would want to do is make anyone worse. So any thoughts?

I believe I have a form of "Pure o" OCD because my entire life has been one long series of obsessions, and I'm now starting to realize I've also had compulsions but they are most mental. Primarily ruminating or "problem solving". I finally found information on OCD which explains my life, but my brain is now obsessing about anxiety itself and having OCD. It's constantly trying to "fix it" or "solve it." I know I have to apply ERP which I have been trying to do, but I can't figure out what to do with the extreme impulse to try to "figure it out or solve it" which I believe is a compulsion. I know I need to not go down it's rabbit hole, but does anyone have any tips of how to actually do that? Like, what do I say to it in my mind to keep me from following it? Or is that a compulsion in itself? I'm very confused.