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I relate to this song a lot; even though it's more about the pressure from her family, certain lyrics remind me of OCD. 😥 Also, I have a crush on Luisa. 🥰 What can I say? Lyrics from Surface Pressure: "But under the surface, I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus Under the surface, was Hercules ever like, "Yo, I don't wanna fight Cerberus?"" "It's pressure like a drip, drip, drip that'll never stop, whoa Pressure that'll tip, tip, tip 'til you just go pop, whoa, oh, oh ... Pressure like a grip, grip, grip, and it won't let go, whoa Pressure like a tick, tick, tick 'til it's ready to blow, whoa, oh, oh" "See if she can hang on a little longer" "Under the surface, I hide my nerves and it worsens, I worry something is gonna hurt us" "But wait, if I could shake the crushing weight of expectations Would that free some room up for joy or relaxation, or simple pleasure? Instead, we measure this growing pressure Keeps growing, keep going" "Who am I if I don't have what it takes? No cracks, no breaks No mistakes, no pressure" --------------------------------------------------------- Me relaciono con esta canción tan mucho; sé que es sobre la presión de su familia, pero algunas letras recuérdame de TOC. 😢 Bueno, también estoy enamorada de Luisa. 😍 ¡NO me juzques, gente! Letras de En Lo Profundo: "Es peso que con gota a gota lo reventó, uoh Peso como un "tip-tip-tip" hasta que haces "pop", uoh-oh-oh ... Peso con presión, presión que jamás soltó, uoh Peso como un "tick-tack-tick" antes de una explosión, uoh-oh-oh" "Cómo lo resiste y se agarra fuerte ¿Qué si pierdo y fallo al soportar? Si me quiebro" "En lo profundo Algo me inquieta y se empeora, Yo debo salvar a todo mundo" "¿Podré desvanecer el peso cruel, la expectativa Y vivir solo un momento de esparcimiento? Tan simple y bello En vez del peso que va en aumento" "¿Qué si me desplomo y no llego a ser quien debo ser?" --------------------------------------------------------- Não falo muito português, mas lho posso entender porque falo muito espanhol. Ummm. Eu gosto de essas letras porque são como TOC. E eu gosto de Luisa. 🥹 letras de Estou Nervosa (versão BT-BR): "Estou nervosa E ansiosa na corda bamba sigo cautelosa Estou nervosa Como um herói que se cansou numa luta horrorosa" "Não posso cansar Não posso falhar Será que eu vou quebrar O que me faz quebrar" "Pressão é como um tic, tic, tic que não quer parar, uou Pressão que faz tic, tic, tic pronta pra estourar, uou-ou-ou ... A pressão É tanta por aqui que, que já me estressou, uou E a pressão faz tic, tic, tic Meu limite chegou, uou-ou-ou" "Estou nervosa Eu fico assim ansiosa Mas tento fingir ser corajosa" "Que tal mudar o astral E segurar a expectativa Eu seria tão mais feliz E tão mais viva" "Tanto medo, tic, tic, tic, que não quer parar, uou A pressão faz tic, tic, tic pronta pra estourar, uou-ou-ou ... É tanta por aqui que, que já não sei quem sou, uou E a pressão faz tic, tic, tic, meu limite acabou, uou-ou-ou" "Eu sigo então, a pressão não mata" letras de No Fundo, Sempre (versão PR-EU): "Inquebrável, aguento-me sempre" "No fundo, sempre, fico demente" "Está tudo mal, o golpe final Destruição total, a destruição total!" "Pressão como um plin plin plin que não vai parar, whoa Pressão que faz tic tic tic até rebentar, whoa, oh, oh ... Pressão, fico fico fico mal, porque me agarrou, whoa Pressão que faz tic tic tic e quase já rebentou, whoa, oh, oh" "No fundo, sempre Estive nervosa e pior agora, sinto-me impotente" "No fundo, sempre Pensei se ser valente seria permanente" "Deixar o que está a passar, vai libertar-me Da expectativa e a alegria Poderá vir alguma calma Prazer não temos e apenas vemos A pressão vivemos Tão dura, não muda e não ajuda" "Quem serei se não puder aguentar? Não vou quebrar, sem errar"

When I was 5, I met my best friend in kindergarten. Ever since, she had not really been allowing me to hang out with other kids because she wanted me all for herself, which I thought was cute at the time, but then she also began completely leaving me for another friend whom she'd become obsessed eith, and when she got bored of them, she'd then come back to me. Many times she's insult me, but if I ever dared say she's even doing something wrong she'd get mad. I always had to do what she wanted, and every time I said no and wanted to do something she'd barge into my bedroom (because this was mostly in my house when we used to play), slam the door, and throw things at me when I came in to talk. Once, I found a horseshoe (I can't remember if I was with her or if I told her about it?) but anyways I was the one who found it, and she demanded I give it to her. I told her no because I loved it and wanted it and I found it, and she told me that if I didn't give it to her she would h**ng me with it. I didn't even know what that meant but I knew it meant something terrifying. I also began developing OCD around 8 and she and basically everyone made fun of me because I had a lot of physical compulsions and they reanacted my compulsions, and for that I always felt stupid and weird. I began to hide my compulsions, only doing them when no one was watching or when I was alone. I normalised it all by the time I turned 13, but my relationship had gotten so bad with her that I was actually absolutely terrified of going to her house to hang out, and for her birthday, she invited me out with another friend she hung out with. They ONLY spoke about things they were interested in like books and that's fine, but they knew that I wasn't interested in that stuff at all and asked me "Why don't you talk?" Like always, I felt left out because the only time my ex bsf spoke to me was when she embarrassed me in front of the other friend. Anyways I couldn't take it anymore that summer and stopped talking to her because I just couldn't do it anymore. Thoughout those years (and now still) I've been using Maladaptive Daydreaming SEVERELY every day to cope. I remember it reached the point where I would be actually talking to them in my head, like using my tongue to talk as if I was speaking physically but not opening my mouth or letting out any noise so nobody thinks I'm weird if that makes any sense, and I'd just be listening to music ALL day and pace for hours and hell, my OCD began targeting my MD, which was LITERALLY the thing my brain was using in order to protect my brain from loneliness AND OCD which os crazy lol, but I feel so stupid because I feel like with the MD i should've just sucked it up and changed fandoms instead of letting my OCD keep targeting the characters of the fandom I was Daydreaming to, even though I would spend days feeling physically hot, head and thoughts spinning, overanalyzing the game I daydreamed to over and over again to make sure that the character I roleplayed as was loved by the other characters that brought me comfort. I was so obsessed with the characters and the Daydreaming that it probably became the only thing that made me feel genuinely understood and loved and they were in my very own head! Does what happened even count as trauma lol? It feels kinda stupid cus it was just a childhood friend being a kid like yea sure she was toxic, but I never hated her. My parents loathe her because of this, but I feel like I'm just over exaggerating everything and don't want to be saying that this girl has traumatised me because I don't want to be blaming someone for something severe.

WARNING THIS IS A +18 POST I'm 24 years old and I never had a girlfriend, and in the past I felt bad about it but now i'm glad that I didn't had sex yet. I feel like I won't find a girl who is virgin too at this point, maybe it's because this is what people around me say, but even if I don't I have to work on accepting that people can change and the past doesn't matter. I wasn't a christian when i was in highschool so the reason that I didnt had sex was because I was shy and I didnt had confidence. Now because of ocd alot of times i feel mentally tired, i barelly can care for myself and those times i question how could i care for my girlfriend,I would feel alot of shame that I cant be a man for her, so maybe its good that im still single. My view about wainting until marriage changed however i still struggle sometimes with questions, I don't have close christian friends, people I go out with arent believers and it doesnt seem like not waiting until marriage had a bad effect on them. I dont believe that theres a thing that you cant connect with someone sexually,cause they always say what if you cant connect with them and you find it after marriage, I dont believe in that,I think you can work on it with anyone,however there are alot of stories of christian couples who cant connect sexually and they get divorced... so sometimes this question bugs me. Another reason is,I feel like planning your wedding and the whole party its just too much for me now, I dont say I wont have it, its just im 24 now and i feel like im too young for that,I feel weird about it, maybe when I will be 28 it will feel okay, but then if I get a gf, waiting for 3-4 years would be really hard.As I know myself I wont be able to tolerate the sexual tension more than a year, so I struggle with these things, you might say im childish, I accept that, maybe in time these will change. So if you are still here thank you, I made it really long cause I think its still important for you to know these details cause now i talk about what triggered me today. I watched a podcast about sex and how to prepare yourself for it(cause I dont like that people say as a single christian you should stay away/run away from that topic) and at one point they talked about "debuking the myths of sex" and the first one was that if you will wait until marriage, you will have a good sex life and good marriage. And i was like but thats the point, but dont misunderstand me, im not viewing this like there will be no struggles and growing is not needed, yes offcourse but stay with me cause then they said "sex at the first time should be akward(im okay with this,but then...) it should make you feel shame and discusted/discomfort, and this triggered me. I know for girls its usually painful but I heard alot of people said first time was really good, even christians on the internet who says they waited for it says it was really good. But I find the other group too who says its much harder, its akward and im like then whats the point of the honeymoon? I dont day honeymoon should be perfect but somewhat good,no? If its just a struggle that kind off takes away the beauty. You still have to find what is best for both of you but if you feel shame,discust,and akward thats a bad experience. And what should make your relationship stronger, it actually gives you more problems.When I was watching this, I got hit by those feelings cause in the past I felt shame and discust when i thought about sex and i didnt liked that cause sex is holy and its a good thing,but you say after wating so much,fighting with lust and sexual tension, finally waiting until marriage I will feel shame and discust about having sex? What if then it will be hard to do it again and it damages the marriage? Alot of these christians who make these videos had sexual life in the past so they wont feel shame and discust but we who are still virgins dont know anything about it and this is why sometimes i question is it worth to wait until marriage...

i’ve been dealing with SOCD for 5 years and truly believe it has altered my life completely😀. i haven’t been properly diagnosed but the child therapist I had when i was in hs kind of hinted to me i had something more than just plain anxiety. i’ve also dealt with intrusive thoughts all throughout my childhood and as my family life got worse my anxiety got worse annnd i started getting more and more thoughts that wouldn’t leave me. I remember spending months not swallowing right and practically starving myself bc i kept thinking i was going to choke. i also rmbr spending months worrying ab death and dying EVERYDAY. it woke up with horrible anxiety and it was all i could think about. i can still rmbr sitting in my grandpas chair and just staring off and thinking “im going to die one day” “idk what’s going to happen” “is god real” “i don’t want to die” “what if there is no heaven” and so on. when the socd thoughts started i was 15. i searched around online for help and found reddit and i was like “omg yes finally people who understand and are going through EXACTLY what im going through.” finding that community and this app has helped me so much. anyway i had such a horrible time during my teenage years bc of all the intrusive thoughts about my sexuality, my relationship (glad that’s over), and some other things here and there. i was so so depressed and i felt no one around me understood how fucking awful i felt. i woke up everyday anxious, depressed, numb, and exhausted. when i started college i told my old therapist that even tho im extremely afraid of death i just didnt like living. i would cry in my car before class and just sob ab how awful i felt. although my mental health has gotten SO much better as time went on and the thoughts haven’t been as frequent im definitely not doing well. i am literally stuck. i’m still in college but i don’t know what to do with myself. those years of anxiety and depression have left me STUCK. im so much happier? and i can manage the thoughts way better but i don’t want to do anything. i only talk to 2 friends (literally lost so many great friendships), i RARELY drive bc im afraid ill die in a car crash (only to school and back), i don’t go out, i don’t ask for help at school, i avoid conversations, i avoid ppl in general, i don’t put in that much effort into school, i don’t have hobbies, i don’t want to do anything, i literally have the worst social anxiety now, im afraid of everything. i feel like the only reason im “ok” now is bc i’ve avoided literally everything. i’ve basically spent three years of my life doing nothing. i’m not happy with where i am in my life but im so scared to do anything. i miss who i was before all of this. i’ve been dealing with anxiety all my life and ik my childhood and early teen years made me like this. i didn’t know how to deal with the things i went through/saw as a little kid and i guess everything exploded in my teen years. but i want to be better i want to start LIVING. i’m definitely happier than before but im not living. what frustrates me is i refuse to do anything about it. i know a big reason why i don’t experience as many intrusive thoughts is bc i avoid everything 😭. ik what i have to do to get better and turn my life around BUT I WONT DO ANYTHING. idk how to explain this but its not laziness i feel like my body is exhausted. i think im just so traumatized from feeling so fucking horrible for so many years i just shut down ykwim?? i don’t have any libido, i don’t find ppl attractive, i can’t get myself to do the things im interested in (so many books r piled on my floor), i rot all day, i push off my responsibilities till the last minute, i can’t even get myself to go on a small walk. i don’t know where i was going w this but if someone who’s going through the same thing sees this ur not alone. i just needed to get this out. hopefully one day things will get better.

It’s like my brain is doing everything in its power to convince myself and also justify an attraction to teenagers. I hate myself. I don’t want to be this person, but what if I don’t have a choice. How do I get these thoughts out of my head permanently. I feel like my life will never be the same if they don’t leave forever. I can’t tell what is a real desire and what OCD is trying to convince me is a real desire. I can’t do this every day for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone, or I don’t think I do but how do I even tell anymore. This might not even be OCD at this point, I can’t separate my thoughts from OCD thoughts I think because I’ve had OCD for so long so it all just feels like me. Maybe it is me. TMI but I haven’t pleasured myself in like a week because my libido is so low now, I don’t want to do it with these thoughts.

Is it okay to use "I am" statements when intrusive thoughts come up? I'm afraid of telling myself the wrong things and it becoming a compulsion. If anyone has advice, I'd appreciate it! 🤍

Nearly a week since I stopped in the middle of a compulsion and I still feel stressed and tempted to finish it. My throat, ears, head, chest, legs,arms, my body has been hurting since then. And if I finish it will it stop? But what's stopping me is.. I've been trying to trust God to handle it. Idk what to do rn, Ive been trying to set up a schedule for this week but it ended up not working out so I will try again next week, and School work I'm years behind (I'm in yr 10), I don't rlly have any friends either to help me. But anyways I try not to think about school that much since I have alot more to think about. And I don't even have any talent or anything I want to be I just want to be a good person but I'm horrible I just need to do focus on stuff Like getting closer to God. looking after myself. The OCD thoughts which. I can't do any of these tho because the OCD makes me so stressed I just want to hit the OCD in the face but I can't obviously so I do it to myself, And they make me want to do more to myself but I don't because ✝️ And I don't want to. Anyways I can't even do the basic things to look after yourself, and The OCD thoughts keep saying about death all the time, and illness. I don't like hearing it in my head all the time I can't do anything properly. And Those thoughts are active when I try read the Bible. Even when I used an audio bible. And a app where u read 1 verse at a time it's still hard. But basically what do I do My throat keeps feeling weird like burning without the feeling hot ughhshsheh I don't want to go back into that life when I was 12-13 where I was worrying about my health and checking with doctor all the time

Guys I just wanted to hang up and I was looking at pornography every time I was you know do it and I would get bombarded with thoughts I'd get overwhelmed with them like my mind is just constantly thinking of and it was just so hard infuriating I was looking at like anime pornography and Isaw one of the videos that looks familiar I watched it before but I remember they had like a underage anime character and then I clicked off it as soon as I saw them and my mom said oh you clicked it just so you can see that and what makes it worse is like pretty ejaculation already leaked out so now it feels like I did it i didn't even jerk off to you all I did was see the thumbnail and then I have thoughts like saying oh well might as well already get off to it when it wasnt the content I wanted to see I seen that the thumbnail before in the sight I just ignored it was focusing on the video I wanted to see for now I feel like i have to restart everything not only with the overwhelming thoughts but also my thoughts made it feel like I was actively seeking it like if I want my thought it was like oh you knew it was going to be there but u still click it anyway oh yes I had a feeling but as soon as I saw it I clicked off I don't know I'm just overthinking I guess and also like as soon as I saw it like my mind had a urge like might aswell get off to it finish it very hard I don't even remember how I climaxed I don't even know if I did it right but now I feel like I have to restart

I’ve never been diagnosed with OCD, but I relate so much to what people here are going through. I used to think it was just anxiety, and I felt like I could handle that. But lately I’ve been spiraling—constantly afraid that what I’m feeling is something worse, like psychosis or losing control of my mind. I feel so detached and scared, and I just want peace again. I have anxiety doing the smallest things, like the thought of waking up everyday and even eating give me straight up panic. I am afraid all the time, it’s paralyzing. And a lot of people say someone with psychosis wouldn’t worry that they’re in it, but then I convince myself I’ve been in it this whole time, and haven’t known, and that maybe I’ve been doing weird stuff. Idk. I also get really scared of labels. Even the idea of OCD makes me feel like I’ll never get better or like I’ll be stuck like this forever. I just want to be okay. If anyone has felt this way—confused, overwhelmed, or scared of what’s happening in their mind—I’d really appreciate any support or encouragement.

Hi all, I am in need of any advice/help I can get. Over the past year or so, I have gotten a good handle on my OCD. I even achieved OCD conqueror status with the help of my provider through NOCD! For awhile, I was doing really well. Unfortunately, during March/April I experienced some really bad triggers and overall, my OCD has ramped way back up. Recently, I have been hyperfixated on time and my perception of time. I am not sure what triggered it but now I am constantly checking the clock. I am scared that the days are fading away and there is a ticking clock I can't stop. Has anyone experienced this? Is there a way to stop this feeling of doom?

When I was single, I watched a lot of porn, specifically lesbian porn even though I’m straight. When I got into my current relationship I dwindled down and eventually stopped watching porn of any kind, around six or so months ago. I had a flare up recently that has caused me to question every part of myself including my sexuality and my identity, my relationship, and other things that are important and valued to me, and porn keeps popping up in all of these things. I feel like my porn usage was me cheating on my boyfriend, especially in the early parts of our relationship. I broke down to him last month about it and he said it was okay, that he forgives me, but I’m still hung up on it because I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve wronged him and that I’m a terrible person and that I need to leave him because of this. This is so excruciatingly painful. I don’t want to keep confessing over and over and over again, but I don’t want to be a dirty lying cheater, which I feel like I am.

I can't focus on anything but my thoughts. I'm so inside my head, and my mom always tells me to focus on my body and my surroundings, but I can't, or maybe I just don't know how. I try to, but it doesn't help. The thoughts are still there :(

Please help me. I need support. I just need someone to be up front with me. Tell me the truth. I want to get past it all. I'm struggling STRUGGLING today. My mind is telling me I'm the only one who is dealing with something like this. Idk why I did my biggest fear. I was put on a new medication when this happened which caused me to spiral, my thoughts to be more often, and have insomnia. I have been diagnosed with POCD as well. I woke up in the middle of the night when my child was laying completely cross my chest. I was breathing and having groinal sensations. My mind told me that I assaulted her by this, and I was going to prison for it. My thoughts started going like this, "you're already bad might as well do something else", "no sense in stopping now" "you can finally do what you've always wanted", "what would you do if you could do anything to cause harm" So I had to think of what to do in the moment. The only thing I could think to do was move my elbow towards my child's groin. In the moment it felt like I really wanted to do this. I proceeded to do so, and my elbow touched her groin. I immediately told my child to move off me. I then went back to sleep. When I woke up, I began panicking, confessing to a family member what happened, and crying immensely. I feel like I failed as a mother. I'm in such distress since I started sleeping on the floor to avoid it from happening again, and I got off the medication. I'm so much better OCD wise since I got off the meds. I was the BEST mom months ago before this happened. The thoughts have always bothered me, and I was always scared I would give in and act on them. I'm living my worst nightmare. I feel alone. Felt so wanted in the moment and SO real. Ugh. Could someone just give me some support? (edited)

First-time poster in the community here, but I had something really eating at me. I’m not sure if it’s an OCD symptom or not, but I feel like my brain has developed a coping mechanism over the years, and honestly, it bothers me daily that I can’t control it. I’ve been seen as a pretty smart person by my peers, and I can be smart, but I keep getting a reaction to thinking too much. I’ve noticed that on most days, I simply can’t think. I’m not talking like “I have so many solutions to this question”, but instead, it’s more like “I don’t know the answer, and if I try to find it I’ll be wrong” or simply I can’t recall the information. However, I’ll get these waves of what I call “kickstarts” where, all of a sudden, everything is so clear to me. I feel everything that I’m numb to, and at first, I’m glad to finally feel capable. But later that day, often several days that week, the fog is lifted and all of the terrible thoughts start to flow in. I’m in a loving relationship, and she’s given me no reason to second guess, but thoughts of her finding someone better than me always show, and thoughts that I’m not good enough, with thoughts that I can’t get to shut up long enough for me to do anything even remotely productive. I believe that paired with my depressive habits, OCD has really kicked my a** for my entire life, and the mental fog that has developed as a coping mechanism bothers me just as much, even causing obsessive thoughts that I am a poser, or a fraud, of a person. Thank you guys, if you read this long-winded rant, I just had to tell someone that it was bothering me before it exploded.

TW: porn mentioned When I was younger around 18-19 or maybe younger, I stumbled across some porn labeled as 'teen'. I don't remember if I watched it or get scared away by 'teen', but I then searched for porn something like '18-teen years old', I wanted to make sure it was legal. Now I'm spiraling that I did it because I wanted to see someone younger. Or what my intentions could possibly be? It happened for once or I cannot remembered searching something similar ever again. I've always preferred bigger more masculine men, but why I did that then? I had active porn addiction since I was 9 or I'm afraid younger, watched some things that I regret watching... And now I'm 23 and don't watch it all for like 3 years, because I found out that it was unethical. When I was little I preferred BDSM porn and everyone was very mature and I did not watched anything questionable with real people, but some weird fictional stuff, but didn't like it. Now that I remember this I'm very confused and don't know how to continue living with that. I'm just done...

Advice, coping techniques, just distraction needed. Yesterday night, my parents asked me if I could take care of my baby brother and I’ve been wanting to help them out so of course I said yes, and I was taking care of him with my other brother. A big fear of mine that I’ve told my therapist about is that my OCD will latch on to my new baby brother. It hasn’t happened since he has come home with us, but now I feel like something is brewing. My little brother is prone to throwing up so he already got the shirt He was wearing all dirty so I went to my mom‘s room and decided to change his onesie. I called my other brother for help by helping me sit him up while I put the shirt over his head after the shirt went over his head. My other brother was walking out and that’s when I clipped the buttons on the bottom of the onesie and continued to carry him around the house, but it’s that action that my mind is obsessing over. Me clipping the buttons of my baby brother’s onesie. I can’t get over it. My mind keeps replaying that one thing because my thoughts are saying “oh what if you accidentally inappropriately touched him “ and I even went out of my way to avoid touching his diaper because I knew my head would start spinning shit like this. But ever since last night, I can’t stop thinking if I accidentally traumatized my little brother some how. I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve helped my mom change my brother‘s clothes before. My parents literally check his diaper if he soiled himself, but when I do anything that has to do with making sure my brother is clean and healthy my head tries to make me feel sick and crazy. The thoughts are getting worse and getting to the point where my head is trying to make me feel like I’m weird for wanting to change my brother out of his dirty clothes. I’m just so scared that these thoughts are gonna get worse and I’m trying not to freak out right now so I went for a walk outside. But im still getting such intense anxiety. I dont know how to cope or what to do advice coping techniques would be a such a help ive been doing so good with avoiding compulsions. I just need help to ground myself. I dont want to go to my mom with this ill feel worse. Is me writing this a compulsion?

I had just posted a summary of ERP for a group member, and I thought it might be useful for everybody. Here it is below (with a little extra added)…. ERP therapy is researched-based. Most other therapies don’t work. There have been people who have been literally stuck in their houses (from their OCD) who gained their lives back through ERP therapy. NOCD does ERP therapy exclusively. You can find it in other places too, but you have to ask around. There are two tenants of ERP therapy: The first one has to do with the repetitive thoughts inside our heads. These thoughts are actually defined as “obsessions”. You are not supposed to do anything with the obsessions. You are supposed to let them run through your head freely, without trying to fix them or stop them. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off and float down the river. You can see the leaves falling, but you don’t try to stop them or pick them up. You don’t try to fix them. You just let them float away. This is really important to do with your obsessive thoughts. The more you try to fight them off, the worse they get. I used to have blasphemous sentences running in my head 24/7. I felt like I had to put a “not” next to each sentence in order to “fix” it. But this just took hours of my time every day, and it was very scary, because I was worried that if I messed up, that I would go to hell. It was very freeing to learn later that I could just let those sentences run freely through my head without trying to fix them. The second part of ERP therapy is all about “denying your compulsions.” Every time OCD tells you that if you don’t do things a certain way that something really bad will happen, that is a compulsion. Once you recognize what your compulsions are, ERP therapy will have you practice stopping doing all of those things. For some people, that will mean stopping washing their hands or touching lights switches or, in my case, putting “fixing” words in their head. Compulsions are safety behaviors. During ERP therapy, you will practice stopping engaging with safety behaviors. All this is very hard to do and scary, so during therapy you will be given tools to help you deal with the fear. Often ERP therapy will take people from being non-functional to functional. I highly recommend it. ————————————————- PITFALL #1: After you have been doing ERP for a while and become somewhat successful, the OCD will try subtle little tricks to bring you down again. The first one is to tell you that your thoughts are REAL and not OCD, and therefore you can’t apply ERP therapy. Don’t fall for this trick! All thoughts are just thoughts. They are all meaningless. Don’t try to figure out what is real and what is OCD. Just treat all thoughts with ERP therapy. PITFALL #2: The second pitfall is that OCD will tell you that you can’t move forward unless you have absolute certainty that you will be safe. Hate to tell you this, folks, but there is no certainty in life. You will never know for SURE that you or your loved ones will be “safe” from the OCD rules. Therefore, you have to move forward in the uncertainty. It’s hard, but it gets easier with time and practice. We got this, guys !!!!!!

I noticed I’m starting to fall into a trap of a bunch of little compulsions- some of which are these little knee jerk behaviors that my brain is catching as I do them. For example, a short stand up at my desk (like sitting up and moving slightly to see above my cubicle) to check my surroundings. I’m struggling to catch it before hand- anyone got any ideas to help combat that? I really want to get past sitting with this and stop that little compulsion but because it’s become a habit, I’m just not noticing it until I’ve already done it. #Help

‼️Sexual Content‼️ I have a new fear that I have a paraphiliac disorder and google says that people who do have these disorders experience distress about them which scares me so bad because I feel distressed about the potential of having one so isn’t that like the same thing? I’m scared that I already have one, and the distress I’m experiencing isn’t OCD but instead a side effect of being paraphiliac. I hate this Also what’s even worse is that I don’t even feel that anxious. Like yes I am anxious but not as much as I feel like I should be and I’m relatively calm. I feel like I should be more anxious for it to be OCD and I should be more anxious when faced with the threat of being paraphiliac and even though I am anxious, it’s no where near as bad as it should be or has been in the past. What does that say about me? (I don’t want reassurance, all I want is advice to help me cope through OCD spikes) I’m so scared. I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to do paraphiliac things I don’t want to do anything that they do because those things make me uncomfortable but I feel like that’s what someone with a paraphiliac disorder would say. I am so f*cked

I feel like after years of living in survival mode from various back to back traumas, I don’t know how to turn off my brain. It’s always in some sort of overstimulated cycle of overthinking, rumination, self checking, and seeking reassurance. I know there will be more peace after treatment. But just hating like I’m stuck in always feeling like I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop when so many shit things have happened to me early in life. How am I suppose to be excited about what’s next?