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is it possible to ONLY have rocd and only experience it for the first time in your 20's?? maybe i had ocd growing up and i just didn't know but i still don't really know where i would've had it, but it feels like this came out of no where and my life isn't my own anymore

Soooo I’m over here just trying to make it to my next NOCD appt before breaking things off with a guy I’m getting to know 😞 it’s hard for me to tell if I’m having genuine concerns about compatibility, or if I’m spiraling into OCD. How the heck do I date someone and not consider compatibility? But I find myself going into fight or flight mode, or feeling like I need to make a decision immediately after a date, or ruminating about it all throughout the day, trying to figure out if the concerns are valid enough, if I’m settling, if I’m about to give up on something that could be beautiful…. Whenever I write out all my concerns, they don’t really seem like that big of a deal, or seem like things we could talk through. The biggest concern for me is whether we are compatible in the sense that talking comes easy or we feel comfortable around each other. But we’ve only been on 3 dates so it’s hard to tell. Things are still awkward sometimes. I am also autistic and this complicated things with how I socialize. So I told myself “just get to your NOCD appt in a few days and don’t make a decision til then. You can talk about it with them then.” It’s only my second appt tho, so I’m not even sure what they discuss at appt#2 and if we’ll have time to talk about it. I guess I’m just getting this off my chest right now and I appreciate this community where I can be honest 😔💛 (Added TW because I’m not sure if it would be for others)

Hello! I don't know if someonecan help me clarify if this is part of OCD. I've suffered from the condition since I was a child and have experienced many subtypes. But right now, I have a thought that bothers me the most. It has to do with my sister. Is it normal for us to have obsessions with scrupulosity and to create dilemmas about actions someone we love would or wouldn't do as a symptom? I feel like this need for moral perfection is in my sister, and I think if she knows I thought badly of her, she'll never forgive me and my world will end.

i have always been a pretty doubtful and overthinking person all my life, but i have never had bad ocd until something happened in my current relationship i met my boyfriend senior year of highschool, we started off as friends first but then would text all night and found out we have a lot in common, he still lived at his parents house at the time, i'd go over to his or he'd come over to mine sometimes, your typical teen romance story, my rocd didn't start acting up till we started getting serious fast forward to when i started working at my old job and met this guy who pretty much love bombed me, i didn't know it at the time, and so i lost myself during that time trying to balance everyone's feelings, i ended up hurting my current boyfriend really badly and ever since ive had raging rocd, every second of every day i cut this guy off and me and my boyfriend are still together, working it out, and then two christmases ago he gets kicked out of his house, and starts living with me and my family, a huge change i wasn't ready for but it happened my family loves my boyfriend, everyone i've ever introduced him to also does, he truly is an angel, he's so sweet and good to me, i've met all his friends and he's met mine, i could picture a life with him, but currently my rocd is too much to bear, id be better alone but im so deep in this now it's crippling, i can't hangout with my friends without rocd, cant wake up without rocd, cant think of anything without rocd, i cant eat or sleep, life feels like it's no longer real, the relief of breaking up with my boyfriend would free me, but i cant bring myself to, ive tried multiple times, i might just be a coward because i dont want to hurt him again, i dont want to lose him, but ive lost myself, this rocd is driving me insane lets say I break up with my boyfriend, he already got kicked out of his old house and I do not want him to have to feel like he's got to be kicked out again, this is his home now and I just couldn't do that to him, my family would lose someone they see as a son, and I would have to watch him move his stuff which would make me so sad because I care so much for him, I would even move out just so he doesn't have to the thing is I really can't put myself through this anymore, I have to put myself first or this will kill me, idk what to do maybe i could talk to him about how bad my ocd is, tell him that i really have tried to push through but i need a break, maybe we could be friends and work it out? i hope so

I feel like I really need help right now. I keep reminiscing on my old relationship and comparing it to my current one. For context, within my old relationship I had been with him for a pretty awful year and 3 months. Within the first 3 months I realized that I didn't actually want to be with him, but I felt sorry for him. So, I stupidly started self sabotaging the relationship. I know that it was stupid, and I tried to break up with him but every time I felt bad. His mental health was already bad and I hate any possibility that I can make someone's mental health worse. That whole "relationship" was so toxic on both ends though. All of that alone has me so messed up. But with that I also had this false attraction to him. Like, I would always be figuring out what I wanted in a relationship and tried to do that with him despite knowing that I didn't actually want to be with him. Now my mind keeps trying to convince me that I'm doing that with my current relationship. I know that I'm not. This one feels genuine and it's pretty healthy. We have our bumps, but we both have this want to fix it and it's just so nice. I hate that my brain is trying to ruin this for me.

This is about OCD but also I just want to rant, I feel very lonely at times. My dad died when I was very young & as the oldest daughter I feel like I’ve had to be strong my entire life. My friends & family love and support me but for some reason I’ve never felt comfortable being vulnerable or discussing my feelings. Everyone tells me I’m the person they go to for advice/support but I have never once opened up to anyone, it almost feels impossible to do so. I mask so well that none of my friends or family know I struggle. No one has ever seen me cry. Also, as a college student with a small group of friends who go out of state, I don’t have many friends in my area so that contributes to feeling isolated. I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, anxiety, & ADHD. As long as I can remember I’ve felt like a bad person and undeserving of love unless i prove myself by being good or useful. I try to keep myself working, volunteering & double majoring in school to feel worthy of love. I genuinely do love life & am so thankful because I feel very blessed. I have good friends & family. But I also feel isolated. (Ik I isolate myself but at the same time I don’t know how to stop). Anyways back in December I broke up with my bf who I had dated for yearsss. He really violated my trust & cheated on me after making me feel crazy for so long & swearing he would never betray me again. It hurt deeply. But ofc I handled it the only way I know how. By being strong. I self isolated. I didn’t tell any of my friends for weeks that we broke up and when I did, I didn’t tell them why (to preserve his image). No one saw how badly it hurt me. To everyone else I seemed fine. I started coping with it in embarrassing ways. I had casual sex with multiple people very quickly that clearly only wanted that from me & didn’t care about me as a person. I am ashamed of this. I’ve stopped meeting new people and decided that’s not the way I want to be and I want to put my energy into healthy outlets. But sometimes in moments of weakness I have had relations with past people (wanting to feel loved & desired & wanted). Anyways my recent theme of OCD has been health + morality related, specifically the fear that I have an STD. I started having some bodily sensations (that i’ve had in the past & aren’t STD related) and started worrying that I may have an STD. When I get health anxiety, I sometimes avoid doctors. I did that for about a month but finally scheduled an appt for Monday. But now the guilt is eating at me and saying “what if you had an STD this whole time & knowingly gave it to others bc you avoided doctors?” That causes me a lot of guilt & shame. I know this is OCD so I’m trying not to ask for reassurance. Sorry that was so long, this is the first time I’ve ranted in a very long time. I just want someone to see me.

i have been dealing with anxiety and ocd like symptoms for the my whole life but they’ve gotten worse the past 2-3 years. im not diagnosed nor on any medications. my boyfriends has been with me nearly every step of the way of this anxiety and is a great help to me. i was raised in a family where anxiety is “just part of life” and everytime i try to talk to my parents about it they shut me down saying things like “i get anxious too” or “you need to work out more”. while i’ve tried to do the things they recommend, eating healthy, working out, staying off my phone, my anxiety is very much still there. i experience obsessions and compulsions frequently but have just learned to deal with them because i had to. they’re also not always constant anymore, i do have days without anxiety. my boyfriend has recently started lexapro and is on 5 milligrams for his own anxiety and he said that he feels so much better even after just two weeks and he thinks it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try to get on it myself. i agreed at first but after talking to my parents they again made me feel like my anxiety wasn’t bad enough or that i was making it up and that i didn’t need medication, i just needed to learn how to manage. yesterday i had another conversation with my boyfriend about this and he said he felt really bad about all the stuff i go through. (this anxiety and also some physical issues which is either EDS or POTS) but to me, and how my parents think of the whole situation, i think im fine “because its just part of life” now im afraid that im shutting out my own emotions bc thats how my parents think i should be. i just don’t know what to do. i know my bf is right and that im not a liar and everything i experience is real but i’ve gotten so good at living with it and its not as often that its debilitating that i don’t think i deserve medication. i don’t even know if its actually ocd because im not diagnosed but i talk to my brother and one of my friends (who are diagnosed) and we go through the same things. idk what to do or how to feel. i know my bf is worried about me but i don’t want to be dramatic or let my anxiety control my life

Hi all. I’m writing this because I can’t stop spiraling and I don’t know who to talk to without feeling judged. I (27F) have OCD, so emotional safety and perceived red flags are something I hyper-analyze. My boyfriend (24M) and I are in a long-distance relationship, Im just on vacation right now . We’ve had our ups and downs, but overall, it’s a loving connection. That’s why this particular moment is bothering me so much. Last night, we were on a video call, flirting. At one point I said, “Go to the bathroom first,” before things got more intimate (he has a roommate and wanted privacy). After a few minutes, he came back and said, “Okay I’m alone.” But I hesitated. I was acting playfully shy and holding back. That’s when he said something like, “You said if I went to the bathroom, you’d show me something. This isn’t my (my name)—she’s not shy with me.” He said it smiling, and I was smiling too, but later it started to gnaw at me. My OCD kicked in. I started spiraling: Did that cross a line? Was that pressuring? I brought it up to him, and while he tried to be supportive, I could tell he was caught off guard. He said something like, “I’m trying my best to support you, but I feel sad that you would think I’d ever pressure you like that.” And then, in what he admitted later was a “dumb joke,” he said: “I’m not like your dad—I won’t get mad if you say no or disagree with something.” (For context: I’ve told him before about my father’s anger issues from my childhood. It’s a very sensitive topic.) I got upset and told him never to bring my father into things like that. He immediately apologized and said, “I realized it right after—that the thing I said as a joke to get you out of overthinking was serious. I’m so sorry again, and I feel really bad right now. I respect you and I respect everyone in your family.” After that, he was very gentle. We stayed on the call for a while longer, I felt heard, and we ended things with “I love you.” But today I still feel emotionally sore. Not because I think he’s abusive or manipulative—he isn’t—but because I felt something shift. He saw me cry like that for the first time, and now I feel exposed and over-analytical. My OCD brain is stuck on what if this was a red flag? Even though he apologized and explained himself, I still feel unsettled. What’s making it harder is that I haven’t even told my best friend. I usually tell her everything, but I’m scared to bring this up. I know she already has reservations about him (she’s very protective of me), and I feel like if I share this, she’ll just add it to the “reasons he’s not right for you” list. But I don’t want her judgment—I want clarity. I’m scared that sharing it will make things worse instead of better, and that’s an isolating feeling. I want this relationship to work. I don’t usually cry like that in front of people. I don’t usually feel safe enough to. And he did show up in the end. But now I don’t know how to trust myself—is this a moment to work through together, or am I ignoring something important? Would love some kind, grounded perspective. Thanks for reading.

I’ve had the feeling I had ocd ever since I found out about it at the age of eleven, I don’t want to self diagnose thought but I want to find out and I would ask a professional but I am a minor and live with my parents, my family is not from America and any disorder even stuff like depression or anxiety means crazy to them so I’m scared to talk abt it to anybody. Ever since I was like 7 I noticed that if something happens or I feel something in one part of my body I immediately have to do it to the other cause it just won’t feel right, as a kid I even explained it to my parents in the car once and asked if they feel like that sometimes too. I used the example of me accidentally touching water on one foot and then having to do it to the other or else it just isn’t fair to the other foot and I’m like evil. It’s also like that for me if I like hit my arm then I have to do it to the other too. I have many other symptoms of OCD but idk if I actually have it. For example every-time somebody leaves me on read or something I feel like they hate me and don’t wanna be friends with me anymore. Idk it just feels so weird sometimes. Also sometimes when I’m writing something maybe for school or anywhere I always have to reconsider every single sentence because what if somebody takes it the wrong way or it makes somebody mad. And sometimes I feel like the rudest and meanest person in the world. I actually don’t know if that’s an ocd thing idk at this point. edit: after thinking some other things that could be a sign of ocd might be when I was about ten or nine, for about a year I had the biggest fear of losing my mom, it came out of nowhere and I would cry begging not to go to school because my mom won’t be there bc what if she dies. I cried at tennis practice once even tho I toke it with my mom because she went to the bathroom. I was genuinely so scared idk what made it go away tho. Like whenever I had a thought of her it would immediately make me think she’s dying and I would just sob. tysm for reading!! 💕💕

So like I continue to have the thought of.. is it messed up that I allow myself to be around/friends with this guy (for various reasons). Should I tell myself maybe maybe not? Or do I need to get my partner involved? The issue is this other guy is a huge ocd trigger for me and I don’t want to bring any confessing into this

Kinda spiraling. In one of my classes there was a girl that was a senior and I was a junior. We got put in a table group of 4 next to eachother for a unit with my friend also there and some girl that I knew from orchestra. I’m now scared if I was too close to her like physically. I never touched her obviously bc that’s weird. I think I was talking to my now gf at the time or maybe even dating her I’m not sure. There was this time we had to play quiziz on our Chromebooks and we got randomly selected in a group together with me her and one of my other guy friends. I’m worried that what if we were too close physically, what if my arm was touching hers or something. I know that my friend Jack was in the middle so he needed to see the screen and I also wouldn’t have went super close to her. I’m writing this bc I’m just super worried. I never talked to her outside of that class and really outside of that unit when everyone moved tables again. Whenever our teacher did demonstrations I feel like I looked at her too much and now I’m scared, even though I just look around but I feel like my eyes went to her. I would never cheat on my gf so this whole situation is bothering me. I also one time just curiously checked if she followed me on insta and we didn’t have eachother added and I saw her bf on her profile and I was like “aww that’s cute”. What if I was acting on attraction in the classroom, I’m scared

My mind won’t let me trust that my boyfriend loves me and it’s the most frustrating thing ever. Honestly idk if this is rocd but recently we’ve been really great and our relationship has been strengthening so much. He gives me no reason to fear him leaving or anything or even cheating. He’s very loyal and has shown that he loves me. But my brain keeps pushing me away and at the smallest things he does I think maybe he doesn’t and I’m scared to fully put my all into him bc I think I’ll get hurt, every time i notice a small thing I don’t like abt him, it worries me and makes the thoughts worse. Basically to sum it up I won’t let myself just trust that he loves me and that we’ll be okay, I keep focusing on the future and what ifs like if we break up or something happens and it’s like I’m trying to protect myself from the future. It’s so stressful and annoying, I can’t predict the future so I just wish my mind would be calm and let me live my mind. No matter what I do I can’t shake off the fear.

I stated dating my boyfriend about 3 months ago. This is my first boyfriend ever. He’s been in 2 serious relationships in the past and multiple sexual partners. I’ve had neither. When we first started dating/ at one point were just friends, he told me a lot about the last girl he was in a relationship including their sex life. Fast forward to us dating for about a month and I found out he had been texting her. We almost broke up. But also for context she broke up with him because she figured out she was a lesbian. But still… anyways we moved past it. And now… I’m sure we can all see this coming… I have this theme! I think about his ex gf all the time. I stalk her on social media and try to find hints and clues about their relationship. I compare myself to her. It really impacts my relationship because I’ll get mad at him for no reason. For example we went thrifting recently and he picked out stuff that completely wasn’t my style, but was hers. Which made me spiral. Is he purposely dressing me like her? Does he want me to be someone else, someone like her? The whole texting her thing was put in the past. I’ve forgiven him. But I can’t help but have resentment towards him and think/ visualize all these thoughts about them together and how I’ll never measure up to that. It makes me think I shouldn’t have got into a relationship. That maybe I’m better off by myself. But like all of us. I wish I didn’t have these thoughts. I wish I could believe he liked me for me. But sometimes it’s really hard.

If you’re sensetive to the topic of divorce, needles, or self harm don’t read this. I’m really sorry for how long this is going to be I promise it has a point. So this morning I woke up. It was around 11 when I woke up. I had to get in the shower for a dentist appointment I had to get a cavity filled, which is literally horrible. I can’t describe how much I fucking hate getting my teeth filled the pain of the needle is so bad and the dentist is awful for me because I always think about how many other mouths might’ve touch the equipment. I got a shower and just went with my hair wet and I noticed a huge bruise on my leg from my bf accidentally kneeling on me and I thought about how much it hurt and I worried that the bruise might become something else because I read up on how sometimes small bruises can lead to really horrible blood pooling and internal bleeding. I got in the car and me and my dad left to go to my dentist appointment. When I was sitting waiting I was sitting alone with no distractions so I thought a lot. I thought about how this is the second dentist appointment I’ve been to in a month that my hair was wet for and how my dentist probably thinks my hair is greasy and that im gross. When my dentist gave me the needle to freeze me my vision went a bit wonky and I remember worrying that he sent the freezing to my nervous system and how this was just gonna be how my vision gets stuck forever. They finished the filling and I worried that my invisiline treatment would stop working because of the slight change from the filling and how I’d waste thousands of my parents dollars from one filling. When I was coming from the dentist my mom texted that she was taking me somewhere to eat so I went home with my dad and waited for her to come get me. We went to eat and it was amazing. And for context me and my mom usually can’t get through a car ride without being at each others throats. She even bought me a slice of cheese cake to take home. We got home and I was talking to my parents about whatever. I went into my kitchen to snack on something and my dad told me to get out of the cupboards. He told me to come here and sit down. I thought he was gonna tell me that I need to diet. I asked worriedly what they wanted to talk about. My dad said “oh just life and stuff” I figured they were gonna tell me some type of advice. That they were gonna give me the talk (I’m a teenager in a teenage relationship so this makes sense) I remember the hot feeling of the anxiety in my body. Of what he might tell me. Up until this point my life was all those worries I talk about in my so far day. My life was wake up worry about crazy impossible shit, worry about everything, the worst thing in my life to this point was my self harm that I ended up falling into around 2 years ago (I’m clean for the most part now). Up until this point my parents were together for 18 years. But today my parents sat me down and told me they’re separating. Right when my life finally felt so right. When the only issue was my ocd. When that was my complaint. There’s no one to blame for it. It’s just how life ended up happening. I’m so utterly confused. I don’t even know what to think. For the first time in my entire life I have no idea what to think. It is impossible for my brain to muster up something, anything. I just can’t. And the last time I felt like I couldn’t think I cut myself. And I can’t do that. I just feel so freaking lost. My life is about to begin. I’m about to graduate high school this coming year. And my senior year. My last year. It about to be so hard in so many ways. I just can’t. And I feel so alone in this because their separation is gonna go so smoothly with no issues they have it all figured out and they still love eachother. So I can’t complain that it’s gonna be messy. My brothers still very young so he’ll deal with it differently. And any of my friends who have divorced parents their parents divorces were messy and horrible and they were all so young when it happened. But I’ll be a legal adult next year. So I feel like I’m not supposed to be upset about it because it happen to me later in life. I just really don’t know.

I am in an incredible relationship with the most patient and gentle person I have ever met. We have been together for 4 years and I realized I had OCD a year ago, got diagnosed a month ago. Its quite difficult going from a narcissistic/abusive household to experiencing the gentle and constant love that comes with a healthy relationship. Since he doesn’t have explosive (big) feelings my OCD insists that he doesn’t love me enough. Which is crazy. I have set a few rules for myself, biggest one being: No picking fights after 6:30 pm. (If im still upset in the morning, bring it up then) But I am new to this and appreciate any advice.

rocd kicking my butt rn over a fictional character lmaooo just kill me

sorry for the long post, if anyone would like to read and give me some advice i’d really appreciate it. i have something i have been keeping from my boyfriend. it’s nothing in relation to cheating or doing something bad behind his back. it’s something that happened before we started dating. it was when me and my “ex” (i rebounded before my current bf and yes, im very very ashamed of it) were a thing. me and him broke up relatively amicably but me being in general contact with him made my bf uncomfortable. it was a whole thing and in conclusion, i took accountability for my ignorance. i cut him off, wasn’t upset about it at all but there were some issues that still posed a problem in my relationship and it was what me and my “ex” did sexually and how long we were together. me and my bf started dating a few months after my rebound and he was under the impression that the time inbetween was longer. in the moment, i expressed i sincerely thought i told him how long it was and answered his questions about what we did sexually. but i forgot to mention one thing until it was too late. i promised i would tell him if i remembered anything and now that i have, i’ve recently been feeling REALLY guilty for withholding it. i absolutely hate thinking and talking about my rebound. i’m embarrassed by it. i’m trying to be better and move on from that general era of my life. and to a point i have. my bf is wonderful and nothing but good and loving. but over time i’ve become afraid to bring up stuff like this and tick him off. i find his reaction extreme in situations where i’m genuinely confused about what i’ve done. i’m a really anxious person and i try not to let it get in my way or his way of processing everything and resolving it. but its hard. coming from a bad relationship previously (before the rebound) i have a lot of issues to resolve within and outside of my relationship but right now, i don’t know what to do. i’m deathly afraid of bringing it up and him deciding to end us. again, sorry for the long rant. i had to get this off my chest somehow but i wanna know how to go about it. thanks guys

So there's this lady that I'm thinking about all the time and I would love for us to hang out more than anything. I think she's cute and we get along pretty much flawlessly. We have a lot of things in common and it always feels like my day is so much better whenever I get to see her and talk with her. I want to ask her if she wants to hang out with just the two of us someday, but I just seem so nervous and unready for dating. My mind is always thinking of cop out responses like "she's too good for you" or "You're not ready for this" or worse, "You're gonna mess this up and hurt her" which is the one I'm really scared about because that's the last thing I want to do. I would not want to hurt her. I'm not even sure I want to date but I do want to just hang out with her. I haven't gone on a date before, so it gives me a lot of this anxiety, but I don't know when it will ever go away. I don't know what to do about this.

I’m getting a memory about a time last year when I was on tik tok and on the tik tok shop where there was a clothing item where it was like see through and I think I looked at it on accident a couple times and idk if I purposely looked at it. I know it was last year before I even knew my gf or anything but my memory is blurry and I don’t remember exact dates so I’m worried. I genuinely would never look at a girl sexually like that and I definitely would not have done that recently bc I remember I was super anxious that I did that at the time and I remember that the first time my ocd got kinda bad when I was talking to my gf was during spring break. And it wasn’t bc of the tik tok shop stuff. I know it was last year

i haven’t talked to anyone about this, not my therapist, not my girlfriend, not my parents, but these days i find myself thinking about just ending it all. i wouldn’t actually do it, i’m too scared to, but sometimes it feels like that’s the only way out, the only solution. i feel so wrong, like everything about me is wrong, and i can’t find it in myself to believe i’m worth living. i need to know if it gets better. i’m 20 years old and have spent the vast majority of my teenage years in therapy. i can’t stop feeling like i need to confess everything, especially to my girlfriend. obviously i try to resist the urge to but the mental battles are exhausting. every time something is even slightly wrong, i feel like i can’t i breathe. whenever i’m trying to distract myself, whenever i’m busy, all i can think about is everything i’m doing wrong. how can i possibly live life to the fullest if this is how i am?