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working to conquer OCD
That’s kinda my question. All my thoughts feel so realistic and so now I doubt if they are ocd and if I just can’t make my mind up about something and I’m using ocd as an excuse or something idc I feel like this post is word vomit.
I just realized that I have this compulsion where i search ocd forums up and down, looking for someone describing the exact scenario/event that im obsessing over right now. Otherwise it’s like i cant convince myself that it really is ocd. Its so stupid because even if I find what I am looking for, I know it is only giving me temporary relief. I was just about to post a description of the theme/scenario here, but I am proud that I stopped myself ⭐️
I'm having the hardest time right now with my own ruminating negative thoughts that may or may not possibly come true. I fear the worst and replay what that looks like in my head over and over. The best I can do is my best and wait for the horror to end. I want to cry, but can't. I'm scared and alone in my head. My anxiety is extreme. What should I do in the meantime while I'm going through this? How can I minimize or stop the way I'm feeling? Please, I need help.
I, like so many others, have had ocd for most of my life. I have had many themes throughout my life. I am a mom and have had harm and pocd as well. For me those have been the most difficult and most painful themes. I have seen many people post on this app and they have had some pretty horrible and disturbing intrusive thoughts or false memories and real events ect. much worse than mine and I have never judged anyone because I know how bad ocd and intrusive thoughts can get. I had someone comment on a post I made recently asking me if I even have ocd insinuating it’s not ocd and i’m a actually just a pedo. That upset me so much because anyone who has experienced pocd knows how horrific and disturbing the intrusive thoughts can get and how opposite of who we really are ocd is. Our ocd already makes us doubt ourselves so to have a fellow sufferer of ocd say something like that can be so damaging. So many people are afraid to seek help or post on apps like this out of fear of being judged so we have to be mindful of what we comment. This person, after reading their bio has never experienced that theme and so they have no idea what it’s like or how bad it can get. I am writing this post because I think we need to be more understanding of those who suffer with themes we haven’t and not be judgmental especially if we don’t know them or their ocd story and what they have been through. I beat my ocd and for years I was ocd free until a recent stressful situation in my life and it came back and has been relentless and worse than ever before. I have had so many kind people give me great support on this app and I give support as much as I can when I see posts of others going through similar things as me. Be kind and think before you comment.
I'm so scared that by thinking about things I can make them happen. I know that's a central thing in OCD but I googled it and a lot of people actually say that if you think about stuff you can make it happen. I've been processing a lot of trauma and having intrusive thoughts about it and I'm so scared that if I think about people who hurt me it will make them contact me and it's making me feel really paranoid and scared and panic and I'm just so scared that I'm somehow conjuring bad people to come into my life and that I'm going to somehow get sucked back into my past or that I am somehow calling people close to me who could hurt me or that something bad is going to happen to me because my thoughts have been so scary and triggering. I'm also feeling really dissociated and I'm worried that these thoughts are actually me starting to have some sort of a psychotic break or something. Please help I'm so scared.
I just started working on my first exposure today with my therapist after screening and creating the lists for several weeks now. We did an exposure together and now I feel 100x worse than I did coming in. I won’t go too into detail but it involved looking at a VERY gory image that had to do with my fear of natural disasters. I called my mom and talked with her and she was shocked and wondered how in the hell that would help me! I agree. Did any of y’all feel this way when you first started or is this just not the right kind of therapy for me?
I’m at a loss.. me and my ex girlfriend of 5 years (subject of the real event) broke up a couple months ago. The problem is, we met at work when I was 19 and she was 17. We started flirting while I was 19 and she was 17 and then I turned 20 as we were going on dates while she was still 17. We started our relationship while she was 17.5 and I had just turned 20. There was a whole 6 month period while there was this age gap and now I feel as though if any new partner I have in the future finds out, they will be disgusted and leave/reject me. I don’t know what to do. I feel as though my future is ruined and that I will never find true love again due to this age gap thing. I’m 25 now and would not date anyone younger than 22 so I know im into the appropriate age range for my age, yet I’m so shameful and guilt ridden..
I’ve had sexual thoughts that get so bad I used to cry daily. Today I tried to sit down and let the thoughts be there and I didn’t really feel anxiety? Does this mean I acted on the thoughts or I wanted the thoughts? There was a specific event like two days ago that I’ve been constantly having anxiety about because after the event I started getting sexual images and then I wondered if I actually did that. For the past two days life has been so bad. Today I woke up and I replayed the events step by step and I couldn’t find when I could’ve acted on the thoughts, so that gave me relief. Then I tried sitting with the thoughts, and the thoughts that once made me cry and feel so bad didn’t really feel like anything. Am I in denial? Just yesterday I was thinking the worst and that I couldn’t handle any of this anymore. I know replying events is a bad thing too but I needed to know for sure if I acted on my thoughts. My thoughts are so bad and the thing is if I did act on them I’d never be able to forgive myself. I notice in the moment I didn’t really feel anxiety like I did but I got so much anxiety the day after everything happened and then I wondered if I did something bad. Can someone please help?
I feel like no one cares about me... Im struggling in college and it just feels like I cant catch a break... Ive made bad choices that make me a bad person... I have to be uncertain about worst case POCD scenarios that may or may not have happened unknowingly... I genuinely dont feel like any one cares about me... and if I pass away, ill be laughed at and forgotten by everyone... Im alone with no gf, barely any friends, and I cant even be certain that my POCD fears of unknowingly cybering with a minor did or didnt happen... im stuck in hell...
So 🧍♀️ lately my eyes have been feeling tired like i just feel like shutting them and sleeping- and they get strained very easily 😭😭 this all started last Thursday when i was at robotics and i had to wear safety glasses but they were all scratched up and smudged and i wore them for 2 hours straight no breaks and i was focused so i didnt blink much- so after that my eyes constantly keep wanting to shut and they feel dry and overworked- but ofc- i had to google 💀 and now my ocd is convincing me that this means i have an underlying neurological disorder 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 PEODISKSJSJS IM SCARED I BOOKED AN EYE APPOINTMENT BUT IM TERRIFIED AND ANXIOUS
i had a really bad an intense real event obsession for the past two days like extremely anxiety and nausea inducing it felt like unbearable like i was panicking and going to die. but i woke up and ive been fine all day, my brain wont think, it just wont produce any anxiety-evoking thoughts or compulsions, why? like everything feels normal and even when i purposefully think about the obsession its almost like its muffled i dont feel any anxiety and its like my brain wont produce any thoughts around it, it just wont. i feel like an absolute faker. is this normal? what if this means its all fake?
i made a similar post, but I didn’t really get helpful responses. also I’m not diagnosed and can’t get diagnosed , but the past two days I’ve been spiraling and I have constant anxiety. I feel contaminated and like I keep having actions replay in my head and I see images of terrible things and I just feel gross. also like I can’t do anything alone or else I’m afraid that I might end up doing something wrong. so then every action I do has to be in from of other people so I can make sure I didn’t do anything crazy. any time I’m alone and I go about my day later on I always get these thoughts and what I’m pretty sure is false event ocd and I’m stressing so much.
im not diagnosed, but these past two days have been terrible. i constantly have this underlying feeling that i might do something that i think is gross and i feel like i can’t do anything on my own because otherwise i might do something wrong. like i feel like i constantly have to be in front of people so that i can make sure of my every action. this is so exhausting and I’m so confused. and like i keep getting terrible images and stuff replaying in my head. i also try to recall what happened but i feel like i have false event too. i used to have religious ocd and that eventually stopped completely, but now it feels like all my work getting over that was pointless. also like i feel like i might have contamination ocd but not the typical germ type. I just get terrible images and I can’t remember if those images are true or not even though they’re impossible and i feel terrible. I don’t know if i could ever get over this because even the thought of it is terrible.
I’ve been spiraling for days I can barely sleep. I worked so hard to get into grad school and now i’m gonna fail because I can’t focus on anything else. The fact that my real events range from years ago and recently make me feel like I’ve always been a bad person. I keep trying to understand my intentions I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m looking into starting therapy and medication soon but I need some advice on some healthy coping skills in the meantime.
Earlier today for about a few hours i spent the whole entire time in my room researching a certain topic and feeling 100% convinced it was true and that it was the real me and i never had ocd. There was convincing evidence too. I was freaking out, crying, etc. i hardly remember what i was thinking, its almost like i blacked out. I keep trying to remember because from what i do remember some of the thoughts kinda bother me. I ended up calming down and snapping back into what i think is reality, and felt completely opposite of what i was thinking just 5 minutes prior. Im so confused, i dont know who i am, i feel like im actually going crazy.
I feel like im loosing my mind. I feel like i experience derealization or what. I feel confused like very very confused. I cant even think normally. Im just tired. I feel like im loosing myself. Im scared that everyone tells me that i have OCD, but what if this is all true? I dont think and im scared that other so-ocd sufferers dont feel this way as i do. I feel literally, LITERALLY so convinced that this must be true. It feels like i already accepted that this is true. Im done. My brain is broken. I even started to have thoughts like what if i have schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder. Help me please. Do i have psychosis or what?
I can't tell if this is OCD to be honest, but with how much I'm focusing on it, it has to be some form or another. My mom and I have never had the best relationship. Ever since I was 6 years old, my OCD has always made me feel like I need to confess my own guilts to her. Our relationship has gotten infinitely better ever since I started therapy a few years ago. Her and I have been able to talk about a lot of things in the past and she's apologized for a lot of things. Recently I've been remembering more real events that make me want to cry. I don't want to keep bringing up things to her that she's done wrong. Especially this current memory, as it was years ago and I know she didn't mean any ill-intent. I don't want to hurt her by bringing this up, because I don't want her to think I'm blaming her or make her feel like a bad mom. I can't tell if this is something I need to talk about with her to get closure, or if this is my OCD disguising itself so I can "confess" to get relief. I'm so tired, I can't stop thinking about it. I'm not even sure if I'm remembering things right anymore. Sorry if this isn't OCD or I sound crazy.
I’m spiralling this week. My mind feels like a catalogue flicking through chapters of my life and finding bits to pick on. I’m doubting lots of different actions or events over the years and worrying if these mean I’m a terrible person. I know this is ocd but the fact they actually happened is making it really really hard to deal with. Can’t wait for this episode to pass but already scared for the next flare up as this is happening more often. Any advice welcome 🙏
Hey everyone! It’s a long post (sorry😂). I just wanted to share something I experienced today, hopefully it will encourage many of you to see that there is a life that you can enjoy whilst battling OCD! I have been pretty much compulsion free for 5 months! I have been really proud of myself and I have genuinely been loving life! However, today, was not a good day. It was a complete nightmare in fact. I had this intense feeling of anxiety, fear, panic, doubt, and guilt running through me all day. I kept avoiding things because I knew it was going to trigger me, and I was expecting my unwanted intrusive thoughts to pop up (which obviously they did 🙄). I found myself engaging in compulsions all day. I struggled to watch a TV series as I kept thinking that I wasn’t paying attention, and then OCD would tell me “what if I wasn’t actually paying attention to the TV series, and what if I did something bad and don’t remember it?!”. I found myself constantly rewinding the programme in order to relieve my anxiety and distress, and to gain certainty that I saw every single scene perfectly to reassure myself. Obviously as you can expect, this did not do me any favours. It only did one thing, it made my anxiety worse and increased the amount I was doing compulsions. This has easily been one of the hardest days I have had in a very long time, and I kept thinking to myself, “why is this happening to me?”. I sat down in the evening and started to think about my day. I realised that OCD will do whatever it can to keep us in this cycle. It can pop up at anytime, and it will try the same old tricks it always has. But the most important thing I realised today, is that progress isn’t linear. One bad day DOES NOT mean I am back to square one. I just had a bad day, that’s all! It doesn’t mean all the hard work and everything I have accomplished has gone down the drain, in fact it is actually an opportunity! An opportunity for me to use all the skills and tools I have learnt to be able to deal with setbacks! After this, I told OCD to bog off, and I watched the TV series without engaging in any compulsions! Did I feel scared? Hell yes 😂 Did I have doubts pop into my mind? Of course I did, it’s what OCD is, it’s the DOUBT DISORDER! But most importantly, I chose to do the hard thing and not give into OCD, I chose to lean into the uncertainty and discomfort and just let it be! I just wanted to share this as a message of encouragement for anyone on their recovery journey! It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It’s okay to still have doubts and “what-ifs” pop into your mind. It’s okay to be uncertain! This is how OCD works! It targets the things we love the most, and it will target our values and intentions! Remember, you are so much more than your OCD! You all got this! Keep going!🙏🏽🫶🏾
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