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on my last post people said it’s best not to confess, but confessing keeps u in the cycle, so what do i do about guilty thoughts, telling me i need to confess? please lmk guys! 💝

my therapist isnt avaible for a this week and this weeks been hell, cant focus, i keep getting stuck in my thoughts, if i predict something will happen and it doesnt, my brain gets stuck on what if it did and then my obession keeps going, i keep trying to not pay attention or let go of my thoughts but feels like im in a trance when the thoughts come up and feels hard to snap out of it. also since my ocd is to the point of disability (despite social security keeps denying me) i cant go out much and my fears have been getting more and more dehabilitating and i dont know how to properly fix it, i dont know the right way to respond to these thoughts, i dont know how to let go, its just been super rough and demoralizing...

Getting eaten alive by thoughts right now, when I was a child me and other kids around my age would experiment and do things we shouldn’t have, I’m talking very young, like 3-5 as I got older I was for whatever reason always curious to a horrible extent and it lead me to do in appropriate things to kids around me, I was 7-8 at the time. I would say it happened 3 times in total in my childhood. And i eventually told my parents the last time it happened because even though I didn’t know it at the time. I had ocd. And I knew it was bad. That was when it all started. I feel absolutely disgusted with my 7 year old self and it comes up every once in a while especially when I hear anything about sexual abuse. I’m nearly 20 now and I enjoy my life for the most part and I’ve been down the ocd path before but I feel unforgivable. And I never want to tell anyone about it, but my ocd seems to want that. I have a beautiful girlfriend that had some traumatic things happen to her and I love her with my soul. I don’t ever want that to come up. Because that’s not who I am. When will I be able to forgive myself? If at all I hope I’m not alone.

i need some advice!! when i was 16, i was watching an anime and this character had abs and he was 12. i remember at the time (from what i can remember), i made a weird comment on his physique. saying things like “omg how did he become this buff haha.” and “oh im going to jail.” i even said “it’s only a 4 year difference.” like WHAT?!? just because it’s a 4 year difference, doesn’t make it okay. its WEIRD!! why would i say that? i also want to mention that i have a hard time keeping my thoughts to myself bc of my ADHD, so i tend to blurt things out. i just find it disturbing that i would have such thoughts, let alone say it out loud. i never had attraction to kids bc its immorally wrong and disgusting, but i feel no different from the ppl who would hurt children irl. I’ve tried forgive myself multiple times, but what i did is irredeemable. i feel like i am using my OCD as an excuse. i am so scared that i am a p, i want to d1e. my life is ruined.

hi everyone. i'm terrified about my future with my spouse. we've been fighting a lot recently because they cheated on me on our wedding night... making out with someone else. this really really hurt me. they now want a break because they can't handle my severe anxiety about the situation. i know reading this you're probably like wow that's a real asshole right there and i deserve better. but truly i love my spouse and they're a great person. they're just triggered. i'm afraid the marriage triggered them. i'm afraid they're going to leave me. my ocd is telling me the more i really think about it my intuition is telling me that they will leave me and we won't work it out. and now i feel like im manifesting that on purpose. i'm freaking the fuck out and i feel so lonely and sad.

hi im experiencing a lot of anxiety and guilt right now. im 16 now but in the past i said many offensive bad things, slurs and racist jokes with my friends. it was disgusting and im not proud of this. I'd never say those stuff to an actual black people to idk make fun or shame them because im not actually racist, i could never hate another person just because their skin colour is different. but i did say disgusting stuff as "a joke" and i feel very guilty about this. I don't think i was always a bad person but for around two years i was just acting mean and pretty shitty. i wish i could turn back time, but that's not possible. i was talking about stuff I didn't have a clue about, i said n word just because "its just a word, it's not that deep!". but now i know it's really more than that. yet I can't move on. i keep thinking about it so much i want to throw up. I can't look in the mirror now i don't know what to do. lately im trying to become a better person, be nice to people close to me and just to finally feel good. but i feel like I don't deserve to change and i create scenarios that people will bring up my past when ill finally be a better person.

I know I was here earlier on with a question as well lol but has anyone ever found that when a new false memory takes its place at the forefront of your mind, it's almost easier to disregard the old false memories and say "Yeah that stuff didn't actually happen that way". It feels like OCD giving you a little reward for letting it place a new, shinier false memory in your head. Anyone experience the same thing? Maybe I've asked a similar question before.

This morning I was looking at comics from an artist I really love. She portrays complicated and morally grey characters in their work, which is something I really respect about her art. When I went to the comments, someone was talking about how the artist is obviously a creep and disgusting person just like her characters. The commenter said that she has a thread detailing why she's a creep on a forum that is NOTORIOUS for harassing LGBT+ people on the Internet. I couldn’t help but check her thread despite me knowing how horrible the forum is. I didn't find anything morally reprehensible in that thread, just a lot of people misgendering her and calling her disgusting names just for being LGBT+. I'm embarrassed that I checked anyway, and I'm very scared knowing that the forum still exists. I've had previous obsessions worrying about me and my Internet posts ending up there and being harassed, I'm trying not to search any of my old usernames on the forum. Also still worried that maybe I'm wrong and the artist I follow IS problematic and she'll get canceled in spaces where she was respected and I should stop trying to defend her and just unfollow her.

Hello, I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD at 25 years old. I attributed my overthinking to autism but I realised a few months ago that Pure O OCD is the most meaningful explanation for it. I am also an asexual, so I am, simply put, a shitshow of symptoms. I constantly review the past - particularly painful memories. I have a consistent fear of getting cancelled. When I was 18, some YouTubers I followed got accused of sexual misconduct and cancelled. I was obsessed and concerned for them. Others found my obsession strange. I did not like how their lives were ruined over accusation and no trial. (I was naive then to why public accusations are happening, as it is because the legal system often fails to address predatory men.) Even 6 years later, I googled one of them 240 times between January 2020 and April 2020. It was plain obsessive. When I burned bridges, I continued to search the people involved in my past dramas. Often multiple times in the same day with nothing new to see. They would likely be scared if they knew how obsessed I was with them. I have started doing ERP exercises. I wrote a script where I receive public false allegations and my life is ruined. It is forever googleable and I am a complete pariah. Completely unemployable, unliveable, even my family abandons me. I listen to it for 15 minutes on loop per day. What else would you recommend to tackle the ruminating? I wish I had this information at 18. I should have been solving these issues then and enjoying my life, not figuring it all out so much later in life.

I keep getting triggered by news stories related to my obsessive thoughts. I was feeling ok for a few days but now I'm spiralling again because of the news.

During ERP, we learn not to analyze thoughts, not to analyze feelings, obstacles, ideas, commands... because it's all an intrusion and not real. However, it's too difficult for me, because every time a picture comes out, it's all detailed and even with a sound in my head, or an urge, or an idea... to "leave" it like that and I don't come back... is that the case with anyone else? and does it ever pass? Thanks in advance

I was told that this illness that im having now(some say its some kind of covid) is attacking people where they are the most sensitive, so it got my mental health and at first it was the fear of my health which im starting to face but now it got deeper and i have feelings of hopelessness and like a depressed feelings and thoughts like things wont get better. And i dont know where this comes from, im afraid this is actually what i believe. Dont know if its ocd or the illness actually made these problem come up what was pushed away by me... When i have these feelings my first reaction is fear and i dont know if its something i shouldnt give attention or the fear is actually bad and it makes me avoid the problem, so i should work on this depression... I dont know whats happening but its scarry and i dont like these dark thoughts. I think i suffer more because of the fear and shame of these thoughts but again i dont know if the fear and shame shows me that i dont need to give attention to these thoughts or the fear and shame actually blocks me to deal with these thoughts and feelings...

I’ve been doing okay, I’ve been a bit emotionally numb honestly. I’m stressed, tired, and just ugh. I was talking to my bf about exs and he was making a joke. An immediate comeback came into my head and for a second it felt fine. I was smirking. I felt like I was about to say this. It was a terribly mean thing that attacks things he’s told me in confidence that he’s insecure about. A comment comparing him to an ex. He saw when it hit me because I was genuinely too shocked for it to not be apparent. I had such a strong urge to confess, but I couldn’t because it was *so mean*. He’s been numb too and we honestly seem to hate each other in a loving way, and that’s somehow comforting. So, he pushed me to confess out of curiosity. I ended up telling him. He didn’t care but I’m still in so much distress. Had it been a moment where he wasn’t apathetic, had it been then and I spoke without thinking, I’m sure he would’ve cared, I know it would’ve hurt him. I feel so shocked at the cruelty my mind creates. I don’t even know if this was intrusive because I energized and felt good until a few seconds later when it felt like I got ice water thrown at me from the shock. I genuinely could’ve said this and I know there’s no point in dwelling on it now but it’s still so scary. I can’t seem to breathe properly right now. I feel so panicked. I haven’t had a panic attack in almost a week. My brain is a bully. I don’t want it to be apart of me. I feel so awful for having that thought and I feel like I’m drowning.

looked up some controversy involving a youtuber that received allegations & one of those involved minors. you already know. what did I do? submit to a compulsion and tried to compare the doings of that youtuber to mine. checking to see if I had done the same thing. then overthinking about a lot of things. read one sentence of a comment and immediately felt a flare up. had to close the website I was using (reddit) to calm down before my mind gave me horrible thoughts. I am tired of this. like I know what I like: adults. specifically older men. YET WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP REPEATING SO MANY THINGS TO MYSELF??? WHY DO I ARGUE SO MUCH WHEN DEEP DOWN I KNOW WHO I AM???? why me?

I understand trying to find comfort in your thoughts but what can i do if i can’t keep these thoughts to myself sometimes?

No matter what task I’m doing. If I have an intrusive thought I have to redo the task or just just completely move on to something else. I’m Christian and I struggle with scrupulosity. I feel like I have to repeat task to keep everyone safe. I’m tired of this. I know ERP is the key and I have to stand up to the thoughts but they are just so scary. I know God is with me and I’m suppose to have faith but again I’m just so scared. I can’t even fully go into detail about my theme because I don’t want to type it out. I’m in therapy and I’m told to lean into the discomfort but it just seems like an impossible thing for me to do.

Not gonna lie, I am in fact feeling a little bit melancholy at the moment, and it’ll pass, and it’s probably because i didn’t get enough sleep. But here’s the thing, there’s been a ton of changes in my life recently, and a lot of upheaval, and it’s been a very difficult time. It’s part OCD, part current events, part changes in my life. I graduated college, so I lost my classes and counseling there (and I still have NOCD, and my therapist is wonderful, and I could not have gotten through this OCD episode without her, but my counselor at my college helped me through some more of the general stuff in my life, and she was wonderful and she really supported me). I had to leave my part-time job I worked at for three years, and I’m still searching for one. My OCD spiked really bad over these last few months, my mental health plummeted, and it hasn’t been helped at all by the horrible winter weather where I live. Because the weather has been so bad and I live with my family in an isolated rural area, I haven’t been able to go to any social groups, even though they said alumni can still attend. It’s hard leaving the house because the weather seems to change on a dime, so I’m stuck inside more often than not. On top of that, there’s everything that’s happening around the world right now. I genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen. I have not felt like myself in months. A big part of that is the OCD, which i really don’t think would have been as bad if it weren’t for all of these huge changes happening all at once, leaving me isolated and stuck inside. My self-esteem has been absolutely shattered. There are video games I love and want to finish that I haven’t been able to bring myself to play because I worry that if I play them while I’m still going through OCD episodes, I’ll always associate them with the anxiety and thoughts and fears, and then I’ll never be able to play them again. I love writing, and before my OCD came back, I had a story I was working on that I adored and that made me so happy, but right now, I hesitate to write anything for it because I just feel this strange sense of guilt that I don’t know how to put into words. Like I’m not worthy or good enough to write anything for it, I guess? Like I wrote all that stuff when I felt like a good person and my self-esteem was better, and because of my OCD making me feel like a horrible person, I can’t bring myself to write anything for it. There are movies I loved to watch over my last semester at college that I don’t want to watch because I guess I don’t want to ruin my last memory of them. I don’t want to look back on the last time I watched a movie I loved and remember that I watched it while I was anxious and fighting off the OCD. There are songs I can’t bring myself to listen to because I listened to them before major changes in my life. And the thing is, all of these things are still there. None of these things suddenly stopped existing. They’re still there when I want to get back to them, but I don’t feel the same as I was when I was doing these things, and it’s hard to bring myself to, when I almost feel like I’m intruding, or ruining the last memory I had of those things. I guess it’s just hard to see that this difficult part of my life does have an end to it and that things will improve, and i’ll feel like myself again. It just feels like my life will always be separated before the most recent OCD episode, and after, and that’s not what I want. And I can’t go back to my last semester at college, but I also don’t want to lose or throw away everything I used to love. Part of this could very well be nostalgia. I just miss who I used to be. I miss feeling like I was a good person who deserved nice things, I miss writing stories I love, I miss having classes and social events and a job and income. I miss my mind being safe to exist in. I miss not wishing I was anyone else. All of this might be easier to deal with except that all of this happening at the same time has left me at absolute rock bottom. I’m not sure if any of this makes any sense or if anyone has any thoughts? I think writing it all down helped a little, though. If you made it this far, thank you for reading 😊❤️ I hope whatever you’re going through gets better, and that you have a great day/night.

So recently i had really obsessive thoughts about something and once i got over it i kept bringing back more stuff to make myself feel like a bad person. Why am i doing this? Why do i need to look for something else to burden someone with once they have forgiven me

Hi all! I am on Zoloft 100mg and I was hoping to get some feedback! My biggest fear is being suicidal and sometimes I’m like checking to see if I am suicidal on the medication but then I think maybe it’s my ocd. My doctor wants to go higher but I’m wondering if this is a good idea based on my thoughts. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Or thought-stopping, or suppression. I'm new-ish to OCD treatment and recovery, and I understand and believe that I'm living with this condition, but I still don't *get* it sometimes. I don't immediately click with what other people are describing. For example, when my therapist suggests using mindfulness techniques like naming something in my environment for each sense (something I see in this room, something I hear in this moment, etc), I'm thinking, "is this thought-stopping?" because I'm using the technique to get out of an obsessive spiral and redirecting my attention outward. Isn't that a good thing? Is it thought-suppression *every* time I try to change the subject in my mind? How would you describe "thought neutralizing" mental compulsions to someone who doesn't get it? (ie me lol)