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I keep getting sad out of the blue… when im around my loved ones… really sad sometimes… i don’t know why… hate it

I have a constant need to confess past sexual fantasies to my boyfriend. the problem is I can’t figure out which ones were real and which ones were sexually intrusive thoughts (which i deal a lot with). When it comes down to it, I don’t know if this is a compulsion to confess or if I owe it to him bc it’s a form of cheating. I feel disgusted with my past thoughts/sexual fantasies. They are constantly playing in my head and I’m always wondering what my real intentions were during them. Is this something I am obligated to confess to him? these happened almost 2 years ago and some even longer. I just feel like if i confess one, I’ll just fixate on another and need to confess that too. I feel like a disloyal partner for having those thoughts and i don’t know how to deal with that.

So, I have OCD, that part, obviously, wont come as much of a shock... But lately it just feels like I have been spiraling and, honestly, it is effecting those around me.. I know it is time for me to get help, but I can't help but have some sense of fear going into it.. A little bit about my OCD. For starters, I didn't know there were so many categories, with such, I don't have all the right words to say this is or isn't what I have, but I will explain it here. I have a son, he is almost two, and for as long as I can remember now (I think it started once he had actually moved into his own bed room) I have to kiss him 3 times before bed. All at once, but it has to be left cheek, right cheek, and forehead. Then I put him down to sleep, don't even get me started on how it is if I "don't get a good enough kiss" or he moves or whatever it might be that messes it up, but anyways. I feel like I have to do this in order for him to be safe at night. The weirdest part is that I only have to do this when putting him down for bed at night, not for naps. But I feel like if I don't, he will certainly die in his sleep. When I am leaving the house for work each morning I have pretty much the same routine, but the important part comes when I am actually leaving the house. I have to lock my door from the inside, using the handle, not with the key. I can't really pinpoint why it has to be this way, but I am thinking maybe because i feel to vulnerable using the key to lock the door? I don't know, by the way, I am also really good at thinking up these really elaborate stories of what can happen if I don't pay attention to XYZ.. anyways, After locking the door with the handle, I pull the door closed, and then I pull it harder one time so I hear a click, after that I test the door knob by jiggling it 3 times before I can go. I do this because I feel like if I do not, my home isn't locked and someone will break in and kill my family while I am away. Every morning on my way to work I pray the same prayer, because if I don't, someone I love will certainly die. I have before facetimed my boyfriend while he has been downstairs with the baby and I was up in my room, supposed to have been asleep, just so he can show me our son is alive and well. I can get it into my head almost always that something awful has happened to him and I can't shake it without being able to confirm he is in fact okay. I once was up way to late one night worried about the smoke alarms in my home. It got so bad I had to physically get out of bed to check each one because I felt as though if I did not, our house would catch fire and we wouldn't know. Because in my head, if I didn't see that it 100% worked, it simply didn't. Honestly, the list could go on and on, but, at this point it is starting to effect those closet to me as well. I know I need to get help, but honestly, I am just a little scared. The last time I had been put on medications to handle mental illness, it made me a completely nub robot and I hated it. Literally, while I was on the medication a family member had passed and it had little to no effect on me emotionally. So much so that it scared my mom and I was taken off the meds immediately. I am scared of not being myself. I know it is a process and I know its just about finding the right mix for me, but I am just scared because I can't look at it and say it'll be this long until something works, you know? It is all unpredictable, which makes it scary. But I want to be better. For myself and those around me.

My OCD has gotten way better, but I still struggle with one thing in particular. This does not necessarily have to do with my ocd but I also struggled with it while I was still struggling. It is this feeling of always needing to do better, to evolve, change things etc. This affects my relationship. Everyday I bring something up to my partner that we/he could change. Everyday I insist on having deep/meta psychological talks about how we feel, what we need, what we should change and it is really taking a toll on my partner. It feels like I am constantly trying to be better, to make him or us better and it is hurting both of us. He is not a better partner at all, I am just sooo scared of things not turning out okay or right. I just have this heavy pressure on my heart, idk if it is fomo, anxiety or whatever but it sucks joy out of things. I feel like I‘m constantly trying to live im check lists. „Oh this was a cute moment, check“ „okay, we just had a good conversation, check“ and so on. Every moment i spend with him has to be evaluated and it. Is. Draining. It drains me so so much. I am just so scared of not being mature enough, that m partner and I don’t talk enough, don’t know each other enough or that things should be different. Do any of you have the same problem? This is not just a relationship problem for me. I also feel like I am not doing enough, I should be experiencing more things, etc. I know i should just let go but I can’t. Do you have tips, advice or similar story? Please share, I feel so frustrated and alone. I don’t want to be this serious, strict being.

I started a new job a month ago. Keep in mind I have severe relationship OCD so before I went in I was afraid I was going to have a weird thought about someone if they were good looking. Literally my first day I saw someone good looking and did a friendly smile because I was new and I just smiled at everyone to be nice- I did it again I’d say like 3 more times to that person in the days after and then I suddenly stopped because I was like what if he thinks I fudging fancy him so now every time I pass him I can’t look him in the eyes I look down or rush past looking annoyed so he doesn’t think I think he’s good looking. I’m really enjoying this job but this little thing every single day when I go in now is constantly at the back of my mind every morning I wake up it’s the first thing I think of, every intimate and loving moment with my boyfriend I picture this person (because my OCD imagines things that are bothering me in the best moments so I don’t enjoy them) And I am so afraid that one day someone in my team will be like oh yeah you need to get him to train you in on this because I will actually cry because I’ve built this up so much in my head now that I can’t enjoy my life my work everything because it’s really awkward (or in my mind it is) when I pass this person because I’ve made it seem like this huge deal and it makes me feel sick because I’ve already confessed this once to my boyfriend but it is so STUCK in my head now and of course you can never ask for help on this shit (my fellow ocd friends will know of course and by friends i mean everyone in this community) because people in my work would be like ooooo you fancy him or something not understanding that this is something i really struggle with. And I just don’t know at all how to move past it

I hope this post can find someone who is currently going through false memory ocd. I just want to say, I have been dealing with false memory OCD for the past two months. I’ve gotten into depression because of it. But today, I had an awakening that truly made me wake up from this nightmare. Call me weird, but I sat in my living room couch and pictured myself as how I was without OCD or its thinking patterns. I also pictured myself as how I am now with OCD tendencies. I started to conversate about what I am currently going through and I was just able to step out of that ocd bubble and stepped out as a normal person with normal thinking behaviors and let me tell you I laughed. I was so in that head space of not having the agony of fear and anxiety weighing over my head at that moment, instead I felt ‘free’ like when I did when I didn’t have OCD. My point here is, today I realized how much OCD can ruin your life and distort memories in this case. In terms of false memory or OCD adding stuff to a memory, it’s so funny how we fall into that trap. This may sound harsh, but realistically you just know when you do something bad or if you didn’t. Yes, bad memory can come into play and other natural/normal things. But a person with OCD with good memory, come on, don’t we see that our ENEMY is doubt. Your brain is just naturalized to grasp onto things that point out. For example, my real event OCD memory is about that I had an intrusive thought to be friendly to a guy behind my boyfriend’s back. All I can think ‘with ocd tendencies’ did i just act on that, did I smile more when I had that thought because I was smiling during this. See what I mean, a person with no OCD would come to me and say you just know. I didn’t go out of my way and start having a conversation with this guy, simply although my ocd finds it hard to grasp on to this but I was just smiling to whatever the guy was saying and this thought came in the midst that’s all. I realized that the ‘ what if’s’ are simple fears. There are no ‘what if’s’ from past events im sorry. It’s a simple yes or no because you just feel it within yourself. I also realized people with OCD over stretch things. For example, the day of my false memory I told my boyfriend that the thought was about flirting when I know it felt as being friendly because I wanted to give him worst case scenario. Not only that but I came across this YouTube video that distorted it more for me. This doctor on YouTube said ‘ you tend to remember a memory best, when you remember it the first time. I had an immense amount of anxiety now asking myself if the thought felt flirtation. But I will not let a video or no man come and torment it more for me. We have to be careful with things we hear and watch. To continue, We have to come to realization that if you are doubting yourself and omg did I do this or did it play out like that, come on step out of that bubble and see the root of this. So much unhealed trauma that we drag with us every day. The problem is never the problem but the way we interpret situations and how much of a big deal we make it when it’s so small. You know yourself and you know when you do bad things or not. It makes you unstable to sit here and doubt your every action. Accept for the things that you do and move on and stop dwelling on the what ifs. God has not called us to be double-minded but single-minded. The Bible says ‘ a double minded man is unstable in all his ways’ James 1:8. You got this, sit yourself as a person with a normal thinking pattern or who you used to be without OCD and picture yourself with your ocd tendencies in front of you and talk it out. God is with you, we can do this. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7

My bf and I of one month spend a lot of time together. but recently I feel relieved when he’s gone and prefer to be alone. The love I show him feels forced. I hate feeling this I don’t want to. He reassures me that it’s just OCD and I do love him and then I feel better and in love but then it happens again. I’m scared deep down I am losing feelings but am in denial. He’s such a great guy I don’t wanna feel this. But I feel like I want to push him away or do my own thing a lot of times and I HATE IT!! I’m so sad and frustrated. Can OCD cause this? Or should I break it off ):

How much s*x is normal? I was looking it up on reddit and people were saying they have s*x around 9-13 times a week, 5 times a week not including oral or twice a day?? So many people were saying this. I have been with my partner 6 years this year and for us it happens 1 - 2 times a week. Is that normal?! I stress a lot about frequency but in my mind it is also quite time consuming because it usually takes up to 40-60 Minutes (which I enjoy!). Should it be different?

I used to have an asbestos contamination obsession. It was pretty unhealthy. I learned how to identify the material and would go through bottle upon bottles of hand sanitizer to “protect” myself from likely nothing. Now my POCD, ROCD. and false memory ocd is making me hardly want to live. I called in twice this week and haven’t gone to classes at all. I’ve been in therapy through here for about 2 month but I’m getting worse. I get evaluated for meds next Friday and I’m having such a hard time thinking how far that really is. I haven’t left bed today. At least I was more functional with the asbestos theme. It was very annoying, but it was nothing like this

I see on tiktok and social media all the time that relationships are only hard if you are with the wrong person. I’ve only dated one other person before my current boyfriend and things weren’t smooth sailing all the time but maybe a little better just because we were long distance for most of it. However my current boyfriend is a much better guy than my ex was. But anyways I find myself getting so overstimulated and annoyed with my current boyfriend and I worry that since I’m not happy a lot of the time because he annoys me or if we argue that he isn’t the one. I’ve never been able to tell if I’m in love and I think it’s because of ROCD. However I’m just curious if it’s like a for sure dealbreaker if relationships seem hard or if it could just be me and my ocd that makes it feel so hard even if he is the right one for me. He really is super kind and helpful and we have pretty much all of the same values. Im just worried that since we argue (nothing like crazy or out of line) and he drives me crazy sometimes that maybe he isn’t the one.

I just feel a complete weirdo for my actions, I’ve made mistakes with females and I’m scared I went too far this one night on my own intoxicated and feel I done something horrible, what shall I do

I have a Big fear of pregnancy/childbirth/newborns. My partner wants kids of his own and adopt but I’d rather just adopt. I feel like I like the idea of it sometimes and now it’s terrible fear. I’m also on my cycle so I know that affects OCD too. I feel like I get some validation from knowing my partner wants kids with me like I’m of value and wanted but then when faced with the reality of having kids in the near future it haunts me. My reasons seem more irrational though. From body dysmorphia in pregnancy to the pain and complications of birth, I also hate hospitals. I also deal with people pleasing a lot so that works it’s way in too. The way it’s portrayed on social media doesn’t help either. My own past with mental health, fear, the way my own family was dysfunctional, trauma and ptsd has definitely put my mind in a one track thinking of fear. I know fear just needs reframing most of the time and I feel better about things once it clicks. I know this is probably related to OCD bc it seems irrational and I have a skewed perspective on most things in life bc of it. For me, I feel really sad and grievous even about having a newborn, it feels like the end of my life and my own survival and the start of bondage. But for some reason I want to adopt or foster and raise kids anyways so I don’t know why I fear my own kids. Weird to say but I always felt like these things were out of reach for me and my own life would end with me like not beyond anyone else like kids. Even calling myself a mom feels weird bc to me there is only one mom my mom. I guess it sounds like I just need to warm up to a new reality possibly? I never grew up wanting to be a mom or get married like other girls. Not that I was against it I was just too busy being a kid myself or fending for myself. I also feel in ways I’m unprepared, immature, and like how can I abandon my own need of survival which is how I felt my whole life and cater to someone else’s survival? I can’t function on my own a lot so how could I possibly be a mom? I know i cant trust myself due to OCD and the skewed beliefs and perspectives my brain adopts bc of it. Even the messiness of birth and the sensuality of motherhood makes me very uncomfortable, I’ve kinda always felt uncomfortable in my own skin and body. The idea of someone else using my body feels violating almost and like I grieve my old self in the future. I’m also a terrible perfectionist so that is a part in these fears too. So I’m just going to be journeying on my own with God to help me dismantle these fears. I can’t afford therapy anymore. I also have a terrible Interoception and gauge of my feelings so the lack of desire for kids has me concerned but I know I develop feelings and desires slower than others. I also lived life in extremes so anything in the middle feels off or numb. So right now just trying to get to the bottom of the fears and see the truth in them. These fears make me very sad and broken like something is wrong with me. I wish I didn’t feel this way or deal with this stuff and I wish I was different. I’m not content with the way I fear this and not wanting my own kids. Any advice would be very helpful. #pregnancy #birth #healthocd #rocd #newborns

I feel like im becoming more and more disgusting, shameless. I feel like I'm going back to the horrible things I used to do. What if OCD is the reason I'm a good person? And what if I'm not OCD anymore and I will become a horrible person like i used to? What if my partner is not important for me anymore? Or what if I always act "cute" and become an attention seeker like before and what if i start to become a disgusting love chaser? What if I become the same attention seeker, selfish, obscene, abusive, unfaithful, reckless, liar, pretender as I was before? What if i've never changed? I don't even react to OCD with bad feelings like I used to. It's like I like my thoughts. I feel like im proud to be evil and unfaithful and disgusting. I just want to feel disgusted towards to my thoughts. It's like I started doing the disgusting things I used to do again, enjoying it and normalizing it. I always feel like im pretending, acting a role to be different or be the center of attention. I feel like a narcissist. I feel like I don't respect other people as individuals. I feel like im manipulating everyone to convince them that im innocent... I still have thoughts that blame my partner for him being avoidant. I always want to accept and love him as he is. Without being disrespectful, expectant, unaccepting, unfair, ungrateful, unsympathetic... My mind tells me that I'm obsessive, that I'm exaggerating my partner. And my mind makes me feel like it's okay if I'm unfaithful to him, if I cheat on him, if I find someone "better" than him, and that it won't make me feel bad... I DON'T want to feel like that. Even if my partner is not the best like before, I want him to be the best *for me*. I want to be determined, devoted, extremely loyal to him, i want to love him. I want to keep choosing and doing all these things. I want to be a good person for people and especially for my partner. I feel like I've become the disgusting person I used to be. I want to remain a good person. People always badmouthed avoidant people and blamed my partner against me. And people always said "youre obsessed, you're exaggerating your partner" to me. Even though i did not. Is it wrong to love someone this much? I questioned. I don't want to blame people, but could people's comments be affecting me and my thoughts? Did I let someone else control me? I don't want to give up on my partner, be a bad person, a bad partner.

I feel like I don’t wanna be w my bf anymore😭 I know I love him and I know I’ve loved him so much in the past, but now it feels like I’d rather have a girl in his place. I felt so much like I wanted to tell him or break up when I was with him (which felt like ocd) but the thoughts I was having about women instead of him felt calm like I wanted it as if they were intuition :(

At my workplace, I have these so called “friends” or used to be “friends” that I have tried so hard to be friends with and be there for an all I’ve ever gotten in return is hurt, put down, ignored, left out, and talked down to. There’s a girl I work with and used to be friends with that acts like she’s better than everyone else and gets my other so called friends to believe her lies and she purposely tries to leave me out and makes me an outsider when I used to be there for her but she’s always been mean in return but she makes me out to be the bad guy or the problem. She has even said I’m a problem and that everyone agrees with her. I have quit from this place before but I came back because it was convenient since I’m in college and they work with my schedule. Management won’t do anything about it because of favoritism. I tried to warn my best friend about her and other people but she wouldn’t believe me and before I quit she turned against me just like everyone else. Then when I came back she acts like my best friend again because the girl that treated me like crap gave her the same treatment when I was gone and now the mean girl is I guess trying to get her not to be my friend anymore. I don’t know what to do. These people make me want to give up because I feel like my existence is the problem. That maybe if I left they wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore since they shun me and treat me like I’m the worst person ever. It’s so mentally exhausting and it’s painful because I’m a very overly caring person and I used to be a people pleaser but now that I have kind of gotten more boundaries and protected myself, it got worse. Am I the problem? What is wrong with me? I honestly don’t even know what I ever did to these people. I have an attitude sometimes but it’s because of the way they have treated me and that’s honestly all they have ever said was my issue and I have apologized countless times for the things I’ve done wrong because I have held my self accountable but they haven’t. A couple years ago I liked a guy that started working there but then she started flirting with him when she knew I liked him and now they are dating so that tells you how that went. He was like my best friend and when I tried to warn him about her, he turned against me too. I don’t know what to do anymore. Any time I would speak out against her she would say I’m a problem and that I’m acting like a victim but all I’ve done was try to protect myself from how she’s treated me. I can’t make friends anymore because I’m afraid they are just going to do me like she did. I don’t know if I’m the problem but they make me feel so angry and I can’t do it anymore. I don’t know if this even makes any sense but if anyone relates or can help I appreciate it 💔

Hi! I’m new here. I have OCD but nothing to the extent that my young daughter does. I’m struggling so bad to watch her go through this and see the distress and panic in her face when she can’t seem to stop the compulsions or quiet her head. I feel like so many different types of OCD might be easier to battle with ERP. She has many different types but the one that’s hitting her the hardest and I’m struggling to find ways to help her with is the fact that her brain is telling her that if she doesn’t do this and do that and touch this this many times etc etc etc then someone (usually me) is going to die. She won’t say this out loud either because she’s afraid of speaking it into existence. How do you do an exposure for something like that? It has to be so hard when you think someone you love might die because you don’t touch something a certain way. I’d love to find someone on here who has ever experienced the same thing. Does this type of OCD have a name?

Long story short, I have been dealing with OCD for the past two years due to trauma I developed from texting a guy I was not supposed to during my relationship with my partner of 2 years. Ever since, I have developed obsessions and fear towards men in general. 2 months ago today, I experienced something that has been one of the worst obsessions I have encountered. I went to the gym to cancel my membership. At the counter, I encountered a guy whom seemed very friendly and outgoing. By the start, I felt weirded out because I’m like okay this guy is friendly. I was being nice and chill without being so hard on myself. In the midst of me smiling to something the guy was saying, I get a thought of ‘ be friendly behind your boyfriends back’. I was terrified and that whole situation just felt wrong. Willingly, I told my partner and he tells me to move on and it’s okay. As an OCD person, I have tendencies of telling my boyfriend worst case scenario or being extra about stuff ( making things worse than what they are). Long story short, I have gotten over that situation. Now what I haven’t gotten over was from what I said. The day that this happened, I was telling my partner about this situation and looking back at our messages, I seen that I said the thought was about ‘ to flirt behind my boyfriends back’. Obviously that is unacceptable, especially if I said what if I smiled alittle more because of that. I remember a couple of weeks ago, I would scroll right pass this message and think to myself confidently ( I was overstretching that thought, it was about being friendly). Not until 2 weeks ago, I seen this doctor on a YouTube video who said you tend to remember a memory almost perfectly the very first time you recall it. So I’m like, I said that about the thought being flirtatious the day of and so am I going crazy. So yeah, ever since I seen that stupid video I have been overly examining trying to remember how the thought felt. Although I said that, I have some memory of overstretching and I also know that I recall the thought about being friendly not to flirt. Any help with learning how to trust yourself with memories? Do you guys think that it’s just silly ocd always putting doubt on everything? Please help!!!

i have a cycle of themes and my two themes as of late is relationship ocd and suicidal. right now it has been relationship and i feel just constant physical anxiety. i go to college and my boyfriend goes to school 5 hours away. i love him very much and we’ve been together for almost 5 years. this is the first time i’ve ever made guy friends that aren’t his and the one boy in particular is overall nice and seems to be a little flirty but i think that’s just how he is and it comes off as flirty and i feel like ever since i felt that flirtatiousness it triggered me and causes me insane anxiety. now i constantly think about this person in ways i do not want to at all because the thought of not behinfbwjyh my boyfriend literally kills me. i think to myself oh you don’t have false attraction you actually like this person you wore this outfit for them you wanna go hang with your friends and the guys because you wanna see them and it’s to the point where i avoided going tonight because it made me feel so guilty and anxious i just wanna run to my boyfriend and cry to him and tell him every thought that runs in my head. someone help

I often wake up and wonder if I’m on my way to become a bad and irredeemable person because of my OCD Intrusice thoughts, I wonder if I don’t like feeding into them even though they cause me immense suffering after. I don’t know if this is a ritual but after I have a bad intrusive thought I often successfully chase it away only to have I reoccurs after and I wonder if I don’t like doing this on purpose so I may continue feeling terrible about myself. Often my thoughts are so terrible I fear I’m truly a disgusting and terrible person hiding behind the pathetic excuse of having a “mental illness.” I get especially suicidal and scared when I think about how I would view someone having the same thoughts and ideas which I may have, I would be disgusted and hateful of them, I wouldn’t trust them and and wouldn’t want them to get near me. So why do I cry so much when I think that no one can possibly love me or understand me because of who I am and the thoughts I have? How can I differentiate between people who are bad because they have these thoughts and people like me who believe they can’t control these thoughts? Are not the people who are bad the same as us, is the difference that we don’t want to give in to these thoughts? I often see bad people interviewed who cite a lot of childhood trauma for how they turned out. I too have a lot of childhood trauma, does this mean that I am like them and will become like them and do something terrible to harm others without my control? Or do I just like tormenting myself? I don’t want to eat or enjoy things or talk to my friends and family because I believe they deserve a lot better than having to love someone who they do not know is having these thoughts, I think they would be disgusted if they knew this about myself which is why I want to die because I believe that would be a lot better than the people I love shunning me, and what’s even worse being emotionally impacted by the realization of my horribleness. I don’t know if I thought I have is mine, but who else’s could it be? I feel so guilty all the time but I don’t think that absolves me from having had these thoughts, so what do I do. It has gotten so bad that I often ask god if he could give me a sign that I should kill myself and not be selfish enough to live being an irredeemable person. I’m not a religious person but I don’t know what a good person with these thoughts is good for. I would want to let time pass by and have a husband and kids who spent their whole lives loving me not know that I have these thoughts, because I feel I must confess to them. I have a strong urge to confess all the time, but I’m afraid doing so would have the people I confess to classify me as a sick person and deeep down I don’t think I am a bad person or a sick one. What do I do? I can hardly work, or do anything. Everything is so debilitating, I don’t know what will become of me.

Lately i have been struggling with the idea of my S/O carrying on a relationship somewhere else. I have been throw a ton of failed and hopeless relationships and i always know the signs when people wish to move on or move into a different direction. Lately i have been struggling to remove my trauma away from his natural responses. EXAMPLE: Him saying that he is working a double. In his brain it’s just him working a double but in my brain a MILLION different equations are running. I have been discussing these feelings with him in the best possible way a human can but it just seems to not be clicking. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. Whenever i feel something out of array and i ask him if this is how he feels and he gets frustrated with me for even mentioning or constantly bringing it up. I know that it hurts to constantly be accused and be constantly asked the same question but i don’t know what else to do. He keeps saying that he wants me to open up but when i do it just seems to make him frustrated. Last night he even said that he thinks i need to speak with someone or we have to work on this because its becoming to much on his mental health. How do i handle this? Im trying to remove these thoughts and feelings and i am trying to bring the most positivity that i can but I’m finally starting to put a uanessacry weight that is causing him to struggle as well. I never wanted to do this with him. I have never had planned too. But here i am self sabotaging and traumatizing the world with my issues. I have a therapy session (first one ever) at 7 today. He doesn’t know about it……….