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recently my partner has been going into intense spirals like really intense she's on medication but stopped ERP a few months ago because she wasn't handling it well and although I've encouraged her to go back she's very reluctant often the spirals are focussed on something benign like making sure she gets the perfect coffee order and she'll spend a few hours doing the order while I support her best I can but occasionally she will go quiet for a couple of hours before exploding into a rage typically how I am unfaithful or deceptive and it can last the entire day (I wouldn't consider myself either of these things and on any other day she wouldnt either) but occasionally she just explodes no matter what I try she cannot be communicated with in this state but will demand to be near me the entire time and it's getting to be alot she's becoming vindictive and mean in these spirals and I guess I'm just wondering if this is like normal?

My anxiety has been terrible everyday for 8 months straight due to engagement and getting married. I am now a month away and everytime I see my partner I start really freaking out over height. The anxiety is so intense nothing is helping. I just cry everyday. It doesn’t feel like ocd but real thoughts. What do I do:( please help me.

Can SOOCD start from a feeling of false attraction? Feeling like I’m the only one whose started this way making me think I’m in denial :( another tough day of rumination!

how i get over not finding my girl attractive? ion like ts. it gives me way too much anxiety & it starts to make me feel distanced or cold towards her. honestly it makes me feel vv guilty idk . she dont deserve sb who dont find her beautiful 24/7 …genuinely whats this fix?

Does anyone else ever just get caught in bed all day to avoid everything? I know it’s avoidance, but I called out of work for really no reason besides I didn’t want to deal with my stress, anxiety and then my SO-OCD. Anyone else do this? How do you get out of this funk and back into life?

Hi this is my first time posting but I’ve been struggling lately with myself because of my ocd. Has anyone ever realized they hold a lot of resentment towards others because their life isn’t controlled by ocd? For me, I’ve recently realized I have resentment towards my siblings because they live completely normal lives (i.e. dating, friendships, work) but I struggle just to be alive some days because my ocd holds me back. I feel so incredibly guilty about it all because I find myself being jealous over their happiness when I don’t think I’ve ever even been happy. I’m not sure what to do about this and it’s affecting my relationship with my family because I’ve started distancing myself from them due to the overwhelming negative feelings.

I'm wondering if it's better or worse to tell your partner about your ocd thoughts, if you can be specific or if it's better to keep it vague bc it's so distressing to hear the specifics to people who are close or if they're like.. rocd threads. Mostly in the context of when they're strong or compulsions are strong.

Anyone have any advice for me on how I can help myself and my husband with our marriage in regard to me and my mental health and brain constantly sabotaging and making things worse? Struggling and upset…. Words of help and advice much appreciated ❤️‍🩹

does anyone here also struggle with sexuality ocd as a queer individual? i’ve mostly seen people talk about it from a heterosexual perspective but i haven’t seen or heard much from those who identify as queer or lgbtq and such. i’ve struggled with comphet (compulsive heterosexuality) since i was a kid however have always been confident from a young age that my attraction and desire in romantic relationships is exclusive to women even after trying to like & date men. though, recently, i’ve been having so many intrusive thoughts about the men i’ve interacted with. i am okay with male friendships however the thought of being with a man repulses me and makes me nauseous. i keep going back and forth in my head to “check” how i feel by forcing myself to think about situations that include men. it is becoming incredibly exhausting and i wish it would just go away. i just want to know i’m not alone

it’s been getting really hard to pray. like the thoughts are constant. i can’t concentrate, and it’s just tiring. i feel like a failure to God sometimes. I know that’s not true but still. Not to mention that praying is a compulsion of mine and i do it a lot so i’m just stressed out all the time. I feel bad if i don’t pray over the littlest things. because ik my prayer can make a big impact. i’ve had ocd for years, so none of this is new but it’s like coming at full force. how am i supposed to have a relationship with God if my prayer life isn’t doing well?

Anyone who is in a relationship, does OCD flare up when you are being sexually intimate with your partner? I have never had this experience before and I was caught off guard. However I still continued to be intimate with my girlfriend and not let OCD dictate my life. Just wanted know.

Help! If you can’t picture yours or your partners body parts and bodies perfectly in your head does that mean you’re picturing someone else’s body or body parts or that you’re turned on over someone else? Please let me know I worry because I would never get off or feel turned on by anyone else but I feel confused when I haven’t pictured something perfectly 100% does it mean what I’m worried about??

Does anyone else think TikTok is the biggest trigger, for all my themes! I also get triggered so much by ‘late bloomers’ I just watched a tik tok of a women who came out later in life and the comment section was full of so many comments like I was married for 10 years, 40 years, 20 years etc and it just triggered me so much I feel like I want to cry, even thought right now I don’t feel like one I’m so scared I’ll realise it later in life or that I’m just hiding it And it brings in so much guilt incase I am because I have a boyfriend and don’t want to ruin his life if later in life I do realise I am

I will be ruminating and checking images/thoughts/ "video like images" in my head and i always feel like some sort of.. what i call an "excitement jolt" inside. This makes me want to check and ruminate more and i start to spiral and think well if my body reacts for this and not this then it must be true or if I react more to one image than the other (for example, being more attracted to women then my boyfriend) I don't know if that makes sense at all but does anyone else struggle with this?

Hi all! I have had a variety of OCD themes such as Relationship OCD, Homosexual OCD, Transgender OCD, etc. I have a few experiences that I'm wondering if anyone has been through/can shed light on as well: -I feel as if I have a constant feeling that I need to analyze whether or not I'm 100% happy at any given moment. For example I think: "Am I truly happy? Am I experiencing life the right way? If I look around am I experiencing life with 100% clarity?" -One of my themes is stronger/more persistent than the others. And as such it makes me more fearful that it must be true. My Homosexual OCD was the first to manifest and as such I feel like it has ultimate power over me. I also used to experiment with Gay Porn when I was younger but I never felt it was "serious" nor have relationships with men interested me in real life. But I feel as if I am hyperaware of when I find another male attractive yet the thought of sexual intercourse with them doesn't appeal to me. (I'm in a very lucky and lovely relationship with my Fiancé btw). And I find myself analyzing moments of emotion with her. When I cry over something out of joy with her I feel like a fraud, like I am forcing myself to do so. But I've had genuine moments when I imagine our wedding day together alone in my car, I cry because I'm overcome with joy. -How to properly do ERP exercises. I usually attempt to let my thoughts flow like a stream and try not to attach meaning to them. I also try to force myself to imagine scenarios that are incredibly fearful in an effort to desensitize myself which only makes me feel as if I'm actually starting to like the thoughts and then they become an overwhelming, confusing wave. Thanks so much for reading! I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and I sincerely love and appreciate your time. I hope we can all be in this together! :)

Hello. My wedding is fast approaching, and my OCD has ramped up. It’s wild how sometimes OCD can really make you feel cut off from yourself, and how you have to put your relationship to your feelings in a difference context. I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet. I have noticed that my intrusive thoughts/worries/feelings seem to focus on two major fears, attraction and whether God wants us to marry, and when one of those seems reassured enough to experience some more excitement and joy, the other pipes up. I’m still doing all the things I need to do to get ready for the wedding, and I’m communicating with my fiancé every day. I’m not avoiding those things. I know I care deeply about him. It’s just hard not to put meaning into some of the things I feel, and I end up being in just this resigned state some days, wondering if I will ever feel truly connected with my emotions and able to trust how I feel again someday, or not. I’m posting in case someone else can relate. That numb feeling is the worst; when you feel hollow. And then your OCD asks you how long you’ve felt that way, and downplays anything else you may have felt. I really do want to be in a different, more positive mindset in this time of wedding preparation. The stakes of my fears seem so high. And yet, I know I’m not turning around. I just…want to feel more prepared emotionally.

Hi guys, do you ever feel, even when the anxious feelings are gone (and your not in the back door spike window) that you still dont know who you are and what you're afraid of ( for instance in this case, not being straight) is actually true and that whole OCD cycle you're in might or might not be OCD but it doesnt matter because you're just using it as a way of proving that what you're feeling is normal and not actually face the truth? these are my thoughts right now... I was doing well, but even when I am doing well I still think about those stuff idk... like how do I know what true love is? am I faking my love for my bf and one day I'll be tired and actually just "want to accept the truth because its lighter?" becaus at that point I really feel like I'm in a movie and just playing the role of someone. Between renée rapp coming out as a lesbian after saying she was bi and sophia bush an Chrishell stause falling in love with women after being with men all their life its been kind of a triggering week (even tho when I learned it felt like I was happy like yes! they're a part of the lgbtq+ community as if I was part of that community too which triggered me even more) PS : no disprespect to anyone I'm just really triggered and confused!!

I had some very difficult weeks with ocd and went through a huge crisis. It felt almost like an identity crisis - one minute I believed that I was a lesbian, then straight, then bisexual, then I questioned if I love my boyfriend or not, we kinda broke up but then decided to just take a break... so, so confusing. But now, in the moment I'm writing... I'm fine! I don't know which my sexuality is or what will happen with my boyfriend. But I'm just so so calm - like of course I'm thinking about all this stuff, and sometimes I'm anxious/sad, but not in the "Oh no I'm going down the spiral of ocd" way. It's so strange, it almost feels like I don't have ocd anymore. But I had ocd syntoms daily for years and even got a diagnosis. It feels strange that everything is fine from one day to another 🤨 I started questioning if this wasn't ocd after all, but it feels impossibile that I have made all that up. Like years of rumination, torture and impossibility to think of anything else... I can't have "invented" that! That's the most strange thing that has happened to me in a while.

Hello. I've been struggling with OCD for a very long time and about 6 years ago I got divorced after being married for a very long time and I often feel like I am very alone because I don't have anyone to talk to about this like I used to be able to talk to my ex-husband about it. I always feel very lonely now and find it particularly hard whatever my anxiety gets very high and sometimes you just really crave a hug from the right person. I've wondered if I used that as a compulsion in my marriage to know that everything would be okay. But I also know that that's just part of having a partner is that sometimes you just need that and I don't have that anymore. I am 43 and I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone but sometimes I'm scared that if I do find someone else I will latch on to them and use them to seek reassurance that everything will be okay. I hate being alone how do you all navigate dating and telling someone about your OCD and themes?

Hi everyone. I am in a sort of situationship with someone I really care about. My OCD has been spiking around our relationship, and it’s been hard. We have been talking about taking a break - and it’s been very triggering for me. I’ve been ruminating, and checking messages and socials, and seeking reassurance a lot. It feels like a “right person wrong time” situation and I am not dealing well with this uncertainty. Has anyone else dealt with this? And does anyone have advice for how to get through this?