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does anyone else’s ocd take form about life’s big questions? i’ve noticed that doing a lot of work on my theme has greatly improved my quality of life and my overall mental health but as i move through the early years of my twenties and transition in adulthood and out of college-ive noticed a new theme. one that feel existential but hard to verbalize. it feels related to my old them of rocd but one that feels much more personal. i understand that this is a difficult transition for anyone, not just those with anxiety or ocd. however i think it’s helpful for me to just get it off of my chest and see if anyone can relate? i often dwell on the ideas like: -do i know myself? i don’t think i do all the ways so does that mean i shouldnt or can’t be in this relationship? it means that im not being true. -i wasted all my time in college on a relationship and its aftermaths that affected me for years to come. it prevented me from finding my friends. i used to be so happy and now i feel limited sometimes in friendships but its my own fault. because i keep everyone except my partner at an arms length. and if i cant let anyone else in except my partner, that’s bad and i should let them in or be in this relationship. -i struggle making friends and i think everyone is mad at me. -im missing out on life and its passing me by. everyone is out there improving and im working at a minimum wage job and becoming a starving artist. i dont know what i want and thats bad so i need to isolate myself. it’s clear that the stress of this transition has done a number on me thus past month. especially since i just moved and im 2 months post grad. but my ocd and anxiety is kicking in because this change, any advice?

hellooooo i’m back again!! im currently experiencing a SOOCD and ROCD flare up. i really want to know how i can stop mentally checking (feelings, emotions, arousal, attraction, etc). my main compulsion was ruminating and I was able to stop, and my mental checking wasn’t bad bc my anxiety wasn’t that bad. i was successful for the last 3 weeks, my numbness was SLOWLY fading (i was even finding celebrities attractive again), and i had many GREAT moments with my bf and i was able to enjoy being with him and being intimate (even tho i did have slip ups, i could redirect myself) and all that. sitting with the anxiety made me start to worry that all the anxiety was going to trigger my numbness even more (even when i was having really nice dates with him, i redirected myself successfully, i didn’t search for the “right” feelings/attraction i just let myself be there, and even allowed myself to be slightly intimate with him even when i was worried my checking and numbness would make me feel nothing), and ruin my relationship with him, and i started to get a huge wave of anxiety which triggered my groinal response. the next day i sat with the anxiety, discomfort, and had a major breakthrough. i felt happy and connected w my feelings but at night, i noticed the anxiety again and how it triggered my groinal response and then i started focusing on that. i kept focusing on it which scared me, and when i went on social media (not trying to use it as a distraction i was just bored) i would immediately get anxious seeing the triggering video, check for any arousal, or attraction, and got the groinal again, and now my soocd decided to flare even more. now im starting to automatically check for any attraction or arousal to girls, triggering the groinal response, reviewing past behavior, past sexual experiences where i was too numb from all the anxiety and checking to enjoy it, making me more anxious, and making it harder for me to stay in the moment. i’m worried my brain and emotions will just shut off. i had small wins today where me and my man would call and he said some “things” to me and i was excited and flustered, i had moments where i stopped trying to feel if i was feeling “right”, but i would immediately go back to trying to see if i was feeling the right things. at the restaurant i went to i automatically started checking if i was feeling any attraction towards other men (checking for numbness) or checking if i found a woman attractive (my soocd) which triggered my search for numbness and the groinal. even when im not anxious im checking if im feeling numb. i swear im not doing it on purpose it literally just happens. i really love the feelings i have with him it’s so fucking freeing it makes me feel normal. i really hate how when i finally start to get my shit together ocd tries to take it away. regardless i’m stilllllll going to do my best to get better idgaf how anxious it will make me i will not roll over and die like i did in my teen years. PLEASE, anyone going through this or any ocd conquerors, just give me some tools on how to deal with it and i’ll use them.

My wife told me last night that our marriage is 85% my OCD and that she is considering a divorce. I started ERP this week and have been making good progress. I’m giving it my all to getting better and I just feel seriously overwhelmed right now. Any advice on dealing with OCD when it has an impact on your partner? My wife also has BPD.

Recently i got stuck in a loop with a terrible intrusive thought about my boyfriend. it’s been rattling in my mind and i feel disgusted and scared and like an evil horrible person. i keep saying things like “intrusive thoughts attack who/what you care about the most” but i think my compulsion (researching; looking up ocd intrusive thoughts and watching others experiencing the same thing) had made it hard to believe that. Im not super concerned about the harm portion because im beating it but now its turned me numb towards my boyfriend after feeling so guilty and scared and everything. i just don’t know what to do its like my body and brain is trying to push me away. we also spend every single day together so im wondering if maybe thats why its so bad? like i feel AWFUL. and i cant stop crying and i havent told him any of this because i don’t want to scare him or make him think im crazy. any tips or words would be appreciated.

Ok is this OCD or not? When my boyfriend and me first started dating I didn’t know it but for the first month he was still talking to and seeing his ex girlfriend. He says they weren’t physical but I’m not dumb. It was early on so I let it go. We are going on a year now and a few months ago she sent him a message saying “I miss coming to your house and you fucking me” He told me about it and didn’t respond to her. He blocked her. Now we are very serious and about a month ago I asked him if he still has her number in his phone. He said yes. I asked him to get rid of it but he got defensive and said he wouldn’t. It ate me up. He is talking marriage with me. I can’t quit thinking about it. Is this a huge red flag or is it my OCD?

I know confession is a compulsion, and it ultimately feeds into the cycle, but I'm tearing myself apart over this and I want help. I just want to confess everything to my partner, and then we can figure out how to deal with my thoughts together. Should I confess?

I’m in the beginning stages of a relationship and I’m honestly sick. My partner has completely laid out what he wants and explicitly said he wanted a relationship but I cannot for the life of me stop thinking of the worst. Even the slightest off behavior is making me think he hates me and I did something awful or I’m making it all up in my head. We have known each other for a long time and I have no reason not to trust him or myself but the only thing going through my head is awful things even though we talked about plans soon. How can I stop this without being reassured, if being reassured won’t help??

I always feel like i’m waiting for something. Like something is going to happen after I finish each task. Not always something horrible, sometimes it feels like I may be waiting for a reward. I’ll be at work all day and I’m just rushing through every. single. task. I’m rushing my bathroom breaks and my same 30 minute lunch but I get out at the same time each day. I rush to the lot and rush to get out of the lot and rush getting my things out. I know it’s anxiety but,,, sometimes I get so disappointed. What did I expect to happen,? I go home to my beautiful girlfriend in our cute little home everyday and I work to keep it all. Nothing is wrong with that and I’m happy but just,,, THATS what I was rushing all day for feeling like there was a gun held to my back,?? idk i cant explain ksksmdks

Girlfriend loved me more than anything in the world, but I became too obsessive, controlling, possessive, I would get mad at simple things then cry about things I was insecure about. I kept saying I'd change. But didn't. Eventually she got to a stage where she is done with our relationship and doesn't want it anymore, even tho a part of her still loves me and I love her more than anything in the world. I had the courage to make the decision of going into no contact to become a better person with the hopes of getting back together with her some day. She said, "some day" only comes with change. I asked her to wait for me. She said yes. We ended on good terms. Then why am I still insecure about her moving on while in no contact, why am I so sure that nothing will work out, that she'll fall in love with someone better than me, why am I being so pessimistic, why do I keep getting the urge to break no contact whatsoever, please help, any advice would be appreciated..

Ok, I’m 23 years old guy and I’ve never had a girlfriend or anything intimate with a female. There’s reasons for it I think growing up I was awkward, shy, and at times out of shape. But now I take good care of myself and though I struggle a lot with my mental health I think I could bring a lot to the table but I’ve just never been able to find somebody. I put myself out there on apps(no success) or just being out in the world hoping to meet someone naturally just nothing. I was pretty fine with this fact of waiting for the right person and taking more time than others to find love for most of my life..but everyday I get older it gets more embarrassing. Seeing friends and peers in relationships and talk about intimacy feels like I’m missing out on such a core fundamental part of the human experience. I try not to compare myself to others and have my own journey but I feel kind of pathetic honestly. I’ve been a hopeless romantic for my whole life I think it’s such a beautiful part of life and I’ve been dreaming of the day..that might be a problem honestly because I have such a romanization of it and idea of what it should be that the few chances I might’ve had I overthought or dropped because it didn’t fit that image I had…love at first sight, sparks flying etc..maybe I should be more open..And on top of all of that I do struggle with the fear I’m far to broken or far gone mentally to ever be able to maintain a relationship which hurts because as I’ve expressed it’s what I want most in life. Thank you for reading it might not be 100 percent ocd related but I needed to express this somewhere and I love this community helps me a lot, if anyone in my age group struggles with something similar feel free to share.

Im having issues with seeing my girlfriend as a good person, good girlfriend to me, idk. To be fair I do love her, but it feels like she's just so irresponsible. Which is ironic because she's older than me (1 year). She's just such a slob. I feel terrible for saying that but she's been so depressed and all and is ALWAYS finding a way to procrastinate cleaning her room, there are bugs and food and clothes everywhere it's an absolute mess and I pretend not to care but it grosses me the fuck out. It's been worse lately because she was given too much estrogen (she's transgender) and it can cause relapses in depression if the dose is too high, which is was the past month but she's tapering off now. I know I'm only 17 but I think about what it'd be like to date other women post college as an adult, cisgender women, black and brown women, non autistic women and more femme women. Women who got their shit together if that makes sense. I feel awful for saying all of thay because I still love her. I want to go to university, mostly online to finish my ITP and get my asl interpreting license (woohoo!) But she's doesn't even try in school. She's ALWAYS. Been like that. She wants to go to community College for business and marketing but refuses to get her shit together. I've talked about this dozens, hundreds of times this summer because she's a senior now. It's not just depression anymore I feel like. All she does is talk about weed, watch South park, and watch porn. Listen, nobody's perfect, but I never knew she would turn into this. I don't want to break up with her because I have genuine hope she can change or mature as she tapers off estrogen, but I'm still not sure. I love her, I want her to grow into the beautiful, amazing young woman she's destined to be, but if she's not even gonna try then it's useless to hope. I don't know. I'm so confused. Someone please give advice- we've dated for almost 2 years now with minimal problems, I feel so guilty for even thinking about this

does anyone else struggle with limerence? I honestly cannot tell if i’m obsessed with this person in like an ocd way or in a limerence way. Or it could even be just a crush. I have no idea and this has been plaguing me for the past two years.

obviously, not over here actually looking for a genuine answer lol. but ik they go together alot im autistic and have had compulsions my entire life. like its just an everyday part of my existence since … middle? ish school. so 10 years. tho looking into it i dont think its just autism, and my therapist told me she suspects OCD but i wanna get fully tested before slapping a label on it (again. like already got CPTSD BPD MDD and GAD) does any one here also have the tism and ocd and tips on how they happen to juggle the two? not asking professional advice lol. just some solidarity. i’m a lesbian and i think i may have SO-OCD which is so annoying

i got broken up with right before going back to college and i was dating him for 6 years. he was my crutch and my go to comfort person. and now i feel so lost and sad and im like getting suicidal ocd again like im scared im gonna die from this like something is gonna take over because i feel so terrible right now its only been 4 days

Hi, I'm new here, I'm about to go into my second year of college, and I've been reflecting quite a bit on my relationships over the summer. I get these really loud intrusive thoughts all the time that I'm exploiting my friends/partner and that if I don't mask my "true intentions" they will abandon me. I feel like I never do enough for them and when I do try I just end up messing up or just making the situation worse. I just want to know if anyone else experiences this? If so, any advice? I'm thinking about seeking advice from my psychiatrist and psychologist about more thoughts I will not get into on here. Thanks!

OCD has done a lot of damage in my life. It made my high school experience miserable, it made things rough for my freshman year of college and it negatively affected my first relationship recently. I have gotten better with finding better copping mechanisms and I thought I had everything handled entering my first relationship in February. However after a month in, I kept overthinking stuff. I kept having “what if’s” pop into my head and I would try to fight it but it didn’t make things better. I kept worrying about stuff with my ex, even overthinking her bad days when she was more reserved. I went to her friends for advice on handling things and trying to understand her. I have talked to her about my OCD and she was supportive of me and understanding. I just didn’t want to annoy her when she was dealing with a lot her freshman year of college. I knew her friends wanted the best for us and became closer to me, but in the times I was panicked, I over shared stuff about our relationship. My ex found out about it over the summer. I told her months prior that I’ve gone to her friends once before just for advice on things and she had no issues with that. Regardless, I handled things poorly even with good intentions. I went to her friends for advice a good few times and the reassurance didn’t make things better. It was like a drug that helped me in the moment. Communication issues caused things to go downhill with my ex and I and it sucks. I kept feeling like I had to be perfect for her and I can’t make a single mistake or she would end things, but she loved me for everything I am, even my flaws. I just put so much pressure on myself. We both hope to be with each other in the future and know we can come back together stronger. I just feel guilt and shame for my mistakes and I don’t want to make them again and feel better about being with her. She didn’t do anything to make me feel pressure. She’s a very no bs type of person as her first relationship didn’t go well as she was badly mistreated.

I met my current boyfriend after ending things with my ex a month earlier. By coincidence, my current boyfriend and I had a class together, we became friends, and of course I started liking him. By May 2021, two months later, my feelings for him grew stronger and stronger. At that time, I wasn’t really going through a depression over my ex. In fact, little by little, we had stopped talking since January 2021, and by the end of March I told him I needed my personal space because I was dealing with another type of OCD. Looking back, during all that time I was open to getting to know this new guy (my current boyfriend). Finally, in July everything was going well between us, and we decided to stop giving each other space. Meanwhile, my ex was stalking me on social media. I was very happy to be getting to know my boyfriend at that time. In August, we had our first kiss and then, as I mentioned earlier, we stopped dating for a while. In September, we ended things, which hurt me a lot, but in November we tried again. During all that time, I didn’t have OCD. Later, in January, when my boyfriend and I made our relationship official, the doubts started: “Am I still in love with my ex?” “Am I using my boyfriend to forget my ex?” “Am I really over my ex?” The memories, physical sensations, all of that. So, my question is: does OCD with thoughts about an ex only happen to people who just broke up and are still grieving, or can it also show up later on, even if you’re already in a new relationship? I ask this because I’m afraid I might not have gotten over my ex and that these intrusive thoughts mean something else, since I’ve read that some people develop OCD right after a breakup and get stuck there. But in my case, I just moved on, and then the intrusive thoughts showed up later.

Really struggling with my ROCD lately. I see anyone attractive and it immediately triggers doubt thoughts. Idk if this ever ends or you just learn to deal with it?

What is it about getting a groinal réaction, feeling like you are into it with the not-prefered gender and not getting any with you partner and prefered gender? As i am not fzeling anxiety it really confuses me like do i want to have a girl not a boy

I keep asking questions about ERP because I'm trying to convince myself that it will actually work for R/E OCD. In one of the NOCD youtube videos, the analogy was "well people live with uncertainty all the time - they keep driving a car even if it can crash" etc. Yes, but driving a car is an uncertainty that people accept because it doesn't directly correlate to their IDENTITY, CHARACTER, and INTEGRITY. So to me that's an apples and oranges comparison. So yes I believe ERP can work (or I've heard) BUT can it work in the "right way" going forward. What I mean by that is do you come out of it 1) not having to accept a dogma / delusion? 2) do you keep your integrity and identity in tact or have to lie to yourself to move on from the real event? 3) is it TRUE peace of mind or just delusion? If it's not, if I have to sacrifice my integrity and identity to move on, to me that's not a genuine and sustainable solution it's just a bandaid. I hope someone who's done ERP can convince me otherwise because it'd be nice to move on from OCD