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What do you do? When you want to leave it all because you’re afraid you’ll hurt people

How do you handle it if there’s actually a chance you did something wrong? I have bad real event/false memory, though I don’t know how many are actually false memories. Anyway, when I was 19, I had a flirty relationship with someone who was 17. We kinda did this on and off for a while and we used to text a lot. I know at a few different points, we had a sexual relationship and it often came out through text, but I can’t remember when we did certain things. I don’t know if I broke the law or something and because this is such a serious matter, I feel like I’m dying inside. I don’t know what to do, there’s no proof of it because it was a few years ago now and even if there was I don’t think I’d go back and look which makes me feel like I’m a terrible person. What if I did something awful? Can someone give me some advice? I’ve been doing really well the past few days but then this came up and knocked me off my feet. It feels like there’s a real possibility I did something and I’m so terrified.

I need someone to talk to i feel like i’m the worst person in the world cause i did something terrible when i was 18, i hurt someone i love cause i was stupid and selfish and i felt scared and so sad… i don’t know if i’m a horrible person but i would never do that again

i dont ask for reassurance all the time but omg i just remembered when i had this thought(intentional) about what if the guy that confessed that he liked me worked out, we were in 3rd grade that time and i remembrr having the thought that he was handsome or sumshit or like i admire him and like his personality. i dont really remember when i had this thought but it feels recent (probably thid year) mind you, im 17 now and i know deep down that there was never an intention of me reminiscing because he was a kid, infact it didnt even cross my mind that he was (in my imagination) but now that i realized it i feel so guilty because why am i thinking about something that happend when i was a kid. i feel really disgusted pls answer me.

As someone who has bad thoughts , obsessive out of fear will it “manifest”? I don’t want to be a criminal!!

(Tw: thoughts related to zocd and pocd) I have done horrible stuff when I was 9 years old. These events have made my brain go back to them every chance they’ve got no matter what I do to distract myself from them. I am a victim myself during this time also. I’ve already held myself accountable but it’s still eating me up. I am definitely a changed person ofc.

So I’ve been having a lot of mental obsessions recently and my OCD has mainly focused there instead of physically. It kinda just switched up which is odd and I’m not sure what that means. But it’s getting pretty bad. The ones I’ve noticed so far is ruminating and not being able to let things go. Whenever I get anxious about something I’ll go back and think about it over and over and my mind will keep bugging me about it until I can properly reassure myself. No matter what it is something will bug me and I’ll go on and on for hours thinking about it even just waking up from sleeping. I just recently opened up to my mom about something not exactly bad or crazy but just personal to me because it’s a more softer side of me, and now my mind keeps eating at me and bugging me that it’ll affect something or maybe I said the wrong thing. My mind is just now fixated on a certain part of what I said and keeps bugging me about it and it’s actually pretty stressful. I’ve never dealt with this amount of Pure OCD (I’m not diagnosed yet but that’s what it seems like from what I’ve researched), and it’s getting worse. Another part that is bugging me is not being able to let go of it, no matter how much I reassure myself my mind won’t let it go. I have to constantly get reassurance either from my partner or myself and sometimes that’s stressful because then I’m anxious that I’m being annoying or too much. I honestly have no idea what to do and it’s becoming a lot for me. Can anyone help?

I’ve been dealing with this harm theme for almost four months now, and well obviously life hasn’t been the best for me, the thoughts really circulate on hurting others, why couldn’t they just been about me instead? (I apologize to those currently suffering from self harm ocd) it’s gotten to the point where I don’t know if my thoughts are really intrusive now, and it doesn’t help that I get urges to act on these thoughts. Why have I been cursed with such vile thoughts why me why now. The only good news so far is that I’m finally going to see if this is ocd or not and get diagnosed by a psychiatrist once I start college here in a few weeks(Thank gatos for my college has mental health resources) but honestly it just doesn’t really feel like ocd. I don’t know if I feel anxiety because it’s not the typical anxiety I feel. While my compulsions are mental it’s just wierd. Like I’m worried that ERP wouldn’t work for me. Sometimes I get thoughts like, how do people live without these thoughts? And how do they occupy their time? I know I used to be like other people, yk where I wasn’t worried or concerned because of these thoughts, like yeah I’ve had intrusive thoughts before in the past and they absolutely scared me, but I was just able to get over them. So why now does it feel like i can’t shake them off? Why do they have to show up everyday? And why have I become so apathetic? Like my empathy and sympathy feel like they’ve disappeared? And it’s so bad that sometimes I feel like if someone close to me just passed away I would feel nothing. Like when I heard my abuelo had skin cancer I just felt nothing and I was obsessing over the fact that I didn’t. Has anyone ever felt this way? Is it just ocd or something worse?

Yesterday me and my bf were gaming and he had a glitch in the game and raged at it because he died because of the glitch which was out of his control and I ended up being startled and left the call on impulse. My ocd always expects an answer in my favour and when an answer is not what my Ocd expects it goes WILD. My ocd expected “I’m so sorry I made you startled my love it will never happen again ” after I told him why I left the call, but he gave me a completely different answer to the positive reassuring answer it wanted. He said we both overreacted and it’s not a big deal he was just letting out some anger because he couldn’t fix a glitch that caused him to lose the game we were playing while mine was working normally. He wasn’t mad at anyone, just the game because he died from a reason he couldn’t control. He couldn’t understand why I reacted the way I did so he couldn’t exactly feel sad about it, just confused. I think my ocd has reacted so badly to this situation because I am used to asking more questions after the initial response my ocd didn’t like, so I can get a positive answer to balance it out and be reassured, but it reacted badly because my bf stood his ground and said he needs to stop reassuring me/babying me in some situations because it’s just catering towards my OCD and I need a positive answer constantly and I somewhat agree because I see how my ocd trying to twist it to be positive is reassurance seeking. It can’t cope with an answer it doesn’t want to hear. If there is an answer that my ocd hates, it paints my boyfriend out to be a bad person like in this situation, a “narcissist with no empathy” ,when actually he admits/realises when he is wrong, he was just standing his ground with an answer and not catering to my ocd being like “awwww it’s okay I’m sorry” and he decided to be honest this time that he was extremely confused with how I reacted in that situation so he couldn’t feel anything. He said he would have possibly reacted differently if I hadn’t of left the call which confused him/stressed him a little and I could of have just said “I need a few minutes” and muted to calm down. He also might of reacted differently if he heard how I was on call if I didn’t leave. I have realised maybe it’s me being sort of toxic with the way I think and I need to get out of this thing where I hear an answer I don’t like and then ask questions until it changes to be reassured. Is it better to learn to sit with the uncomfortableness/ uncertainty of having a negative answer and not getting out of it by trying to “cancel it out” with a positive answer? Do I need to fight my OCD back when it’s being like “oh my god he’s so horrible we didn’t get the answer we wanted to hear! Let’s ask questions until it changes to something we want to hear!” Does anyone else have where their ocd goes wild because you expect a certain answer always and you don’t get it and it’s distressing and you feel like you need to find a positive to make it stop?

I’m having a really rough morning. I woke up around 2 am and since then (it’s 10 now) it’s been one obsession after another. I’ve been doing compulsions but now I’m trying to sit in the discomfort. I wanted to talk about one of the themes though. I feel I can do this because it doesn’t make me anxious to think about not doing it, so I don’t think it’s a compulsion for me. I’m thinking about being on social media and wondering if I ever talked to somebody, followed somebody, allowed somebody to follow me, etc., that was underage, or even 18, 19, 20. I have incredibly bad POCD. I’m 23 now and have no interest having any sort of romantic, sexual, or platonic relationship with anyone under 21, but I worry about little things I end up doing not being okay, and I worry about crossing a line. But being on social media, I’m bound to come across people who are basically children. If it’s apparent to me someone’s young, I try to avoid it, but there’s no way I can possibly always know that. I also didn’t keep track when I was younger so seeing a video from a 15/16 year old when I was 20 didn’t phase me, but I feel like it should’ve. There’s only so much I can do to avoid this. I can put an age limit in my bio, private my accounts, try to clear out anybody I suspect is underage or just everybody I don’t know and who doesn’t have an age in their bio, but it seems easier to just avoid social media all together. This seems logical, I don’t want to communicate with minors or anyone under 21 that I don’t know. But I wonder what people that are famous on tiktok or YouTube do. I don’t think they think they’re pedophiles, but I seriously feel like one and I feel like no matter what, I’m gonna do something wrong with kids in my life. It’s wrong to look at them, think of them, talk about them. I feel disgusting and I’m really suffering. And I think some of this is an overreaction and just OCD but then I’ll see something online that reinforces some of what my brain is telling me and I wanna throw up. I understand a lot of what people say is crossing a line and I would never want to do that, but something feels off and I can’t find balance and I’m terrified.

My relationship ocd is partner focused and tries to pick apart my bf to show me he’s “bad”. A lot of times I’ll just randomly worry about something old he did or something happens in the moment and ocd latches to it and i bring it up and question him with my heart racing and that classic anxious feeling and need to be “certain”. But sometimes there is times it latches to something he’s done where I feel sick to my stomach with anxiety and can’t tell how I feel about him and wake up multiple times in the night with what feels like a wave of “doom” going over me? And an upset stomach because I’m so anxious. My ocd tries to tell me that these themes are very bad and true because I reacted so badly…. It’s so convincing. Does anyone get the same level of anxiety as me with ROCD?

When I get a new theme the previous theme completely disappears/seems unimportant until there is a trigger for it. Is circling themes a very obvious sign its ocd? If it’s something actually serious in the relationship wouldn’t I get a worse feeling than just “omg this is bad I need to ruminate and search and seek reassurance” There is always one theme in control and my main focus until a new/ returning theme takes its place and the other theme is shoved away in the back of my mind like nothing until it circles around again. Even if the theme I’m currently having seems like an actual problem/super serious a different trigger/theme can occur and the “serious” theme that i was panicking over thinking “is my bf a bad person” can be wiped away and replaced with another theme. Is the constant thinking something is super serious but then it can easily be replaced with another worry a big sign it’s ocd?

It's gonna be my birthday tomorrow. My friends will have a sleepover round my house and I'm excited. At the same time, I feel that it's also triggering my fears. For these past few years, I had a fear of not enjoying the moment (ESPECIALLY in hangouts, vacations, big events etc), so I would constantly do emotional checking, perfect my thoughts or ruminate about it. I'm getting better at managing it, but I've also been having intrusive thoughts of me not valuing my friends enough. What if I spend too much time fixating on the person I'm attached to? And then my birthday will be ruined etc But the thing that's been bothering me the most is that can't control my strong attachment one of my friends (lets call them Mango). Why am I attached, you ask? We've planned to live together in the future. Because of my low self-esteem issues, I was attached because they also have a massive crush on me. Lets bear in mind that I'm also crave romance. For ages, I've had intrusive thoughts that secretly I'm a selfish, manipulative person. Many people say I'm so loving and nice, but I used to have so much doubts. So for example, I was scared that I manipulated them to like me because im self-aware of my attachment issues. I'd be scared to talk to Mango because I feared that I'd lead them on, then my mind pictures them killing themselves because what if I traumatise them 20 years from now because i've had "secret selfish motives". I'd analyse my thoughts constantly. Would I use them? Am I a good person? Am i having the right motives? Do I actually want to live with them or am I lying to myself? Do I genuinely love them (as a friend) or do I secretly dislike them? Have I been lying this whole time? Are they the one? If I'm feeling this anxious, then surely this isn't right. I'm making the wrong decisions arent i? What do I do? What's true and what's not? I keep ruminating. I also feel compulsed to make sure I text and interact with them right, with correct feelings and thoughts or else our relationship will "hit rock bottom". If they don't reply fast enough, or in the right way, it triggers me too. Whenever they say something sweet and genuine, my initial feelings was comfort and being flustered (in a good way). But then I recall those words, trying to analyse if I still feel the same like how I did initially. As time nears my birthday, the intrusive thoughts of them are making me increasingly anxious. I know I have to accept uncertainty. I just hate this feeling. I never feel certain enough. I'm scared to text them. I'm scared of what each feeling ir thought I have could possibly mean. Maybe they dont mean anything. I just hate how my brain keeps picturing me and Mango's friendship ending horribly in the end because of me. Sure, it's all probably made up in my head. Maybe my fears have no link to reality, but I just wish this would stop. I wish I could get help too. I dont know if I actually have OCD, but the things I've experienced really resonated with what others have experienced. What I've typed here are just some of the examples. Say, if i do have ROCD, this would make sense. Being bi with possible SOOCD isnt helping either. Constantly trying to analyse whether my identity is true is exhausting too. All of this is exhausting. I'm so stressed.

Im actually confused is this an intrusive thoughts? when im doing something it feels like my brain is monitoring how i think how i feel or what i say. it would say things like these and i would fall into problem solving, trying to fix or clear any doubts my brain has or clearing out my intention. “ Did you feel anything when you looked at that kid?” “Why did you have that thought? you probably liked it” “Why did you accidentally say that? even though you said you didnt mean to say it, you still said it” (not verbally, still mental) “When you said the person is cute does that mean you see a kid in them? youre probably a pedo because of that” “what do you feel about their younger version?” “what did you think or feel during the interaction?” Sometimes these thoughts would come up to question me and would result into mentally checking what i thought or what i feel when something happend. Or like sometimes a feeling would come or a thought would come, this would make me question myself as to why i had that thought or feeling. Again this would result in me mentally checking or trying to fix or prove that i didnt even mean anything bad or trying to convince myself that its just ocd. I know i should but i feel like i really should clear it up, but at the same time i feel like im doing a compulsion. these are thoughts that questions my intention or why im having a thought at a certain moment which sometimes would come with feelings and make it look like its real which is why i fall in mental compulsions

I have partner focused rocd and I have been with my bf for over a year now and we have engaged in sexual stuff obviously, my ocd has randomly latched onto consent?? Like there has been times where my bf asked to do something sexual and I’ve just made “unsure noises” and he has said “please” a couple of times and I did the sexual thing. I was fine throughout the sexual acts and wasn’t really uncomfortable but my ocd is trying to convince me I was uncomfortable. My boyfriend and I have autism and sometimes struggle understanding things and need straight forward/clear answers. My boyfriend said a few times he’s said “please” or asked me to do something else after I didn’t say yes is because he wasn’t sure what I was giving off wether I was not wanting to do it or if I was just thinking. The times he’s said please he took it as me thinking. I do see why he would be unsure as sometimes I don’t give a straight forward yes or no sometimes because I am awkward. I asked him if I need to be clearer with saying no because I am a bit of a people pleaser and he said yes and it’s completely okay if I say no and he will be fine if I ever say no and I can make it clear and I don’t sound “mean”. A lot of the time I have low motivation because of ADHD and I might be unsure/can’t be arsed to do it but then he does something and I enjoy it and want to do more because it gave me motivation. My ocd still tries to convince me it’s bad??? Also my boyfriend sometimes does playful silly stuff like smack my behind when I’m infront of him and I do it back and it’s funny but sometimes my ocd is like “omg he didn’t ask that’s really bad!” My boyfriend has said if he does something I don’t want him to do in that moment I can just say no. My ocd constantly tries to make him a bad person. Can Anyone relate/help?

Hi! Does anyone else find it hard to accept that you have ocd? I think it’s the most difficult part.

I am absolutely terrified of the dentist and any other type of doctor. I struggle with health themes and I often think my moles are cancerous, that I have mouth cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer etc. While I realize having all of these at once would be super rare, I’ve convinced myself that while I might not have all of those I probably have at least one but I don’t know which one. I worry about having cancer or some other terminal disease almost 24/7 it’s really impacting my life.. the issue is I can’t bring myself to go to any doctor’s appointments. I’ve been doing a little better by building a good relationship with my primary care physician & I’ve had every blood test available & all came back perfect. I got over my fear of the eye doctor and went and got a new prescription for the first time in 8 years & I went to an allergist for the first time. Since my biggest fears are ovarian, mouth and skin cancer I can’t seem to bring myself to go to the gynecologist, dermatologist or dentist. I know if I go I’ll feel better like I did with other appointments but I am SO convinced that I will be told I’m dying that I’m not ready to hear it and too scared to go. I fear I’m letting other health problems that I may have like gum disease get worse due to my fear of receiving bad news which only makes me more scared to go. Any advice or comments are appreciated!

I have done lots of bad things in my past and I mean like EXTREMELY unacceptable things from when I was a kid up until 16 (I’m almost 18 right now) My main theme of ocd is moral scrupulosity ocd and ROCD. Most of the time it’s partner focused. (Met my partner when he was 17, he is now 18) When I first met my boyfriend a year and 4 months ago, he used to be really immature for probably the first half of the relationship. He said slurs he shouldn’t say sometimes because he used to play games with people who thought it was okay to say certain things so he picked it up. A few months ago I brought it up to him and had a conversation. He has since stopped saying slurs (apart from one we can both reclaim because we are neurodivergent) he said I made him realise it was wrong and he never really had anyone to tell him that the things he said were wrong in the past years he played video games where people would say extreme stuff. I see people online getting cancelled for slurs and more etc (probably rightly so if the person thinks it’s okay and they are a grown adult who should know better) but even situations where one person said one offensive thing 3+ years ago and never did it again they end up getting cancelled. My ocd gets triggered when I see people being cancelled and people saying “people who do that will never change” “ they deserve to be hated forever” “they don’t deserve forgiveness” I see others in comments saying stuff like “come on they are/were a child/teen, they will learn, they just need educating not cancelling” and people attack them. I believe that my Boyfriend has changed and whenever I speak about people saying slurs they can’t reclaim and how it’s wrong he agrees. I would say he has matured a lot since the start of our relationship. Is it right to think that sometimes cancel culture is stupid and the people who take it to extreme levels are closed minded and refuse to accept the fact that people can change? (Eg. Cancelling someone for something they realised was wrong and stopped) Do people need to be more open minded and forgiving/understand the situation sometimes?

I’m going to buy as many self help books on OCD, and really get a full understanding of this disorder & how I can help myself. I refuse to be a victim to my OCD & I refuse to give it up despite the fact the fact that I can’t afford therapy. I really dgaf what professionals say about not doing erp on your own. I’m not in the same position as other people who can just go to therapy without the worry of the costs and upkeep. Even on a payment plan it was still $90 a week. It’s just too expensive right now in this time in my life especially while trying to move. I know my lord and savior & knowledge and self help videos and the faith the size of a mustard seed will get me through this.

the way my ocd works is anything in my room is automatically mine and NEEDS to be clean, if another person steps foot in my room everything in there is automatically not clean and I feel the need to throw everything away. On the rare occasion I feel okay enough to let someone in, they can't touch anything. Today I had my dad come in to show me how to install some shelfs for my legislation, and for some reason he decided to put the not yet clean shelf on a pile of unfolded laundry despite the fact I told him less than 5 min ago to not, I have a HUGE room, so much floor space, so many within arms reach places. I instantly started panicking and crying since now I feel the need to throw all my clothes away and he started screaming at me, saying he didn't want to play into this childish fantasy anymore. As well as threatening to touch everything in my room and mocking doing so I know it's not a reaction I cant control, but I really do wonder if I have ocd or if I'm just a really weird freak. Have I been lying to myself this while time? Did the doctors lie to me? I feel so... immature for acting so badly to it, but it genuinely makes me want to rip my own eyes out. Why doesn't he understand it? Is that my fault too? I feel so lost and misunderstood and alone. I don't know what to do.