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I just got broken up with because I am depressed and it was over text. My anxiety and ocd have been awful and he said that can only be an excuse for so long so now I’m going insane. I am so sick.

I have struggled with ocd my entire life until I realized what it was and why I was the way I was. My psychiatrist is trying one more medicine because we have “exhausted” all other options which is making me lose hope. I’ve been on many medicines since 8th grade and now I just feel hopeless, she said after if this medicine doesn’t work I should do TMS therapy which freaks me out. The medicine she is prescribing me is Anafranil? Guys I’m so just lost right now

tldr: my mom is pretty much the source of most of my obsessions and compulsions, and these past two weeks have been a test of my sanity. (hi, this is my first time posting! it’s a long one, so strap in. tips and encouragement are highly appreciated.) for clarity, my health concern ocd is not only for myself, but my parents. i’m a 21 year old online college student living with them (both 66), and my mom has kind of a triple-whammy of things wrong with her; she’s chronically ill with kidney disease, chronic utis, and neuropathy, is extremely mentally ill, and is verbally and mentally abusive. like, i’m pretty she’s got severe untreated borderline personality disorder, among other things. in other words, she is not well. now, i’m not necessarily afraid of non-contagious illnesses. her having chronic utis is, in itself, not a problem for me. the problem is, however, that the first noticeable symptoms of her many utis tend to be subdued behavior, a reduced appetite, and chills, which then progress, over the course of a day or so, into nausea and vomiting, because i am terrified of contagious illnesses—and this onset of symptoms sounds, on paper, similar to many of them. she doesn’t even experience urinary or back pain until days after these initial symptoms begin, which, as you can probably imagine, makes me want to rip my hair out! i am also terrified of environmental instability in an emotional sense. my checking ocd extends to checking that my parents aren’t arguing. complex and lifelong trauma makes me afraid of conflict, which is probably pretty relatable to a lot of you. anyway, with that in mind, let me begin my long and godawful tale by setting the stage: it’s the beginning of the month, and i’m trying to find ways to stop checking on my mom because it’s ruining my life, and my past several attempts have failed. the night i begin my next attempt, she says she feels nauseous. i accurately predict that she’s getting sick again, and tell my dad out of earshot of her. he, unfortunately, is in denial (it’s happened more times than any of us could count on five people’s hands over the course of six years; he hates it), and i feel immensely invalidated by his angry overreaction to me telling him my observation. in any case, as per usual when this happens, i hide in my room, keeping my ears attuned to the sounds of the house, absolutely terrified, dreading the moment i’ll hear her get sick, and, of course, it happens. after a day or so of her feeling pretty miserable, she finally, yet stubbornly, agrees to go to the emergency room, and, to my immense relief, they find that she has another uti. i’m still shaken, of course; i’ve spent the last several days afraid to walk through the hallway in case what she had wasn’t a uti, and i dread beginning the cycle anew when she finishes her antibiotics, but i’m still relieved for now. then, one of the bright spots of these past few weeks happens; for a week straight after that, i don’t check! i realize how awful the feeling of checking is and how dreadful the uncertainty it brings me feels, and i simply… don’t. i discover that it’s helpful not to, despite the terrible stress i feel (for reasons i’m about to elaborate on). so, the week passes slowly by. stress ramps up again as—oh yeah, i didn’t mention this—my dad’s rotator cuff repair surgery looms on calendar (it was yesterday as of the time of me posting this, and he’s recovering well), but i maintain my streak, even making up a reward system: if i can go thirty days without checking, i can buy myself a new 3ds xl. surely, at this point, the stress is behind me for now, right? well, that’s when my mom has a sudden, dramatic, and highly volatile borderline split over a message my sister (now estranged from her, for her benefit) sent her regarding boundaries she wants her to follow at her wedding in november. that’s a loaded statement, i know, sorry, but to make a long story short, she plans on inviting my dad’s children from a prior marriage that my mom has alienated, villainized, and is wholly delusional about, and she told my mom as much in her (very politely worded) message, and asked her to please not make a scene if she sees them. what a mistake. this triggered perhaps her worst mental break and borderline split in several years (though certainly not the first or most recent of them by even a couple months). over the course of two days, she threatens my dad with divorce and financial ruin (i’ll get back to that soon), and tries multiple times to physically attack him, break or toss their wedding rings and his necklace, and stops taking her medication and eating. all night, there’s awful screaming and sobbing and animalistic wailing. she literally loses her mind. i’m crying constantly, even though i’m in my room, and everything feels like it’s made of glass. even though she’s oscillating wildly between suicidal behavior and verbal threats and accusations, my dad and i can’t do much but hide or face it head-on, because the sheriff does jack around here—i know this because i’ve called them on her before—and even if the police were competent, she keeps saying that if he or i call them, she’ll lie to get out of custody or the mental hospital and make things hell for us, so the police and even the mental health crisis line are not much of an option (but if i’m wrong and they can, in fact, take her involuntarily at this level of violence, and she can’t actually outsmart mental health professionals, PLEASE correct me) unless things get genuinely dire and they have a reason to involuntarily put her on hold. at this point in the story, my dad’s surgery is in less than two days. the next day, she sleeps. then, our new kitten, who got neutered the week prior, begins having swelling and seepage around the surgical site, and the vet only opens on monday—the day of dad’s surgery. great, right? and when mom wakes up, she has another meltdown, fake dry heaves, and plays sick to get attention—which absolutely terrifies me. she’s also lying and threatening to leave, and, all in all, i feel like i can’t live or breathe. i frantically make plans with my aunts to help my dad and i out, as i still can’t drive (because the pandemic hit when i was 15-18, and because of my mom’s chokehold over my dad’s availability and my mental health). i call the local mental health crisis line late at night for advice on what to do about my mom, and they basically tell me to get her to the mental hospital (despite her having no such inclination) and to tell my dad that this is domestic abuse and that he can take action (again, i’ll get to that). anyway, the day before my dad’s surgery arrives, and suddenly, she wants to play nice…? she takes her medication and begins eating again. her conversations gradually lose their edge, but never fully. not even as of me writing this, but i suppose they never do. anyway, my dad mentions our plans with my aunts to her, citing her aforementioned (fake) sickness, and suddenly, she’s capable of driving, and, oh,!how dare my dad contact her sister, who—i forgot to mention this—she hates? ugh. so, we contact one of the few people she hasn’t alienated, which is our next door neighbor. a lifesaver, really; she offers to go with them to and from the hospital the next day, and even to go with me to bring our kitten to the vet, so that becomes the new plan. later in the day, as mom calms down, i tell dad what i was told by the hotline. this is abuse, this is divorce and restraining-order-worthy behavior, and another bright spot over these past two weeks happens: he listens in earnest for the first time in my life, and though such a major change scares me, we both know it’s for the absolute best. we have a talk about it, and though he waffles a bit for a day or so after she continues to calm down and begin love-bombing him, he actually maintains his position (even now): once he’s recovered, he will begin to gather evidence, legal counsel, and allies as well as witnesses in the family behind her back to eventually take action against her and get out of their marriage. it’s… scary. but i’m happy. i’d happily live with my dad! anyway, surgery day comes, and thankfully, mom’s agreeable enough to take him to and from the hospital alone, even staying in his recovery room all day in wait. my neighbor takes our kitten to the vet for me, bless her soul—he’s on antibiotics now and acting completely healthy, by the way! mom’s love-bombing my dad like crazy all day, of course, hence the temporary reconsideration i mentioned he experienced for about a day, but even after surgery, he talks to me and says that he sees her abuse for what it is for perhaps the first time, thanks me for being his support, and says that it will be hard—that he’ll have to act to avoid rousing suspicion—but that things have gone too far now to turn back, and he can’t cope with her being in his life anymore. (as an aside, i just want to mention that i’m proud of him!) even so, after they get home and he begins recovering, the past two weeks of constant stress hits me, and over the course of the evening, i begin constantly crying, my mind sounds like static and i can’t think, and i’m pacing tirelessly like a shark, because it feels like something fundamental has changed and that my security will never be truly guaranteed again because of my mom. i break my no checking streak, much to my shame, and enter their room in search of either comfort or just company, i’m not sure. even though at this time my dad is fine and my mom is jovial, i cry in terror that he or my mom will get sick from going out today, or that they’ll begin fighting again. i try to verbalize a simple “stress is getting to me,” but my mom gets extremely, debilitatingly hyper-verbal while on pain medication to manage her neuropathy, so i can only make frantic noises while i try to form words before she cuts me off to ramble nonsensically again. at this point, i feel utterly insane and completely unsafe. i stay in their room for a long time, against my better judgment, doubly shattering my no-checking streak. now onto today. last night was restless, and i woke up shaking. before i took a nap today, i was bordering on a panic attack. nothing major happens afterwards, thank christ, but my dad continues to recover, and he’s getting the hang of managing his post-surgical pain. i’m anxious because of it, because i’m also severely emetophobic, and i worry that he’ll be sick from the pain, so i check on him when i notice that he’s hurting. when my mom wakes up, she freaks me out by existing (as usual) because she’s loopy from having taken more pain medication in the late morning, and so she continues to ramble, oscillating between passive aggressive comments passed off as jokes and love-bombing my dad. then, this evening, she uses the bathroom and has to lay down afterwards (which is something unique to her, i guess, where she feels sick after she goes number two), and i begin obsessively asking if she’s okay again and crying some more (to which she insults me and tells me not to ask again, or else) before leaving and trying to distract myself, feeling terrible that i checked. i erase my streak progress off of my little thirty day whiteboard calendar, hoping to begin again tomorrow (which i still do, obsessions be damned) and i try to relax, but it simply isn’t happening; i worry that mom will get sick from going out yesterday, and that me talking to her has just put me at risk. i also worry that she’ll get sick again once she finishes her antibiotics on friday, because her uti symptoms haven’t gone completely away. it isn’t fun. i’m still really worried. then, just a little bit ago, i noticed that my dad was having some pretty intense pain again, so i offered to get him some herbal pain medicine (it’s legal here), and i went into my parents’ room to get it, and had to see her and speak to her a little bit. since leaving, i’ve been in my room, writing this out and planning out what i’ll do tomorrow, which is this: - greet my dad in the morning and see how he’s recovering (and what my mom’s mental and physical status is, to be honest) - make dinner in the slow cooker - bake brownies (for my dad) - attend my weekly telehealth therapy appointment, possibly reading this post out to her to make recapping my week easier - only leave my room when necessary to eat, use the bathroom, or assist my dad if he texts me and requests help with something - distract myself with music, youtube videos, my friends, and video games, no matter how obsessed and anxious i feel with the intense compulsion to check and i hope, or—no—i WILL do it! …and that brings us to now! i don’t really know what the goal of this post is, but for anyone who read this long, winding vent, thank you. also, for anyone wondering why i don’t just leave, that’s why i’m a student—i’m getting a degree in business administration to have easy access to employment so i can work from home (i can’t drive, as i said) and save money to rent an apartment in a walkable area (or just uber around) until i can either get myself into driver’s ed, or my dad can help me out once he and my mom split in a while. by the way, i graduate this fall! anyway, that’s been my past two weeks. if anyone has any advice to help me cope, or tips to help me avoid checking, or encouragement, or just, like, SOMETHING to help me make sense of the times i’ve been living in and get back on track to recovery, i’d appreciate it ENDLESSLY. thank you so much!

Hi guys, it’s my first post here and buckle up cos it’s a long one. I’m hoping to find relatability, similar shared experiences and hear from people who have come from my current place and recovered fully. I’ve had OCD issues since I was 14/15 and I’m a 19 year old uni student now. It’s been on and off with lots of good periods and bad ones too. I’ve dealt with themes like sexual orientation, harm and a few other smaller ones. The worst of all is existential OCD and DPDR and it’s been with me badly for the past few months. I always feel hyper aware about my consciousness, how I am alive and how anything is real. Everything scares me and I find myself questioning things I’d never question before, such as ‘how do other people have consciousness and vivid lives like mine’ , ‘how are we alive on this planet in a universe’ , ‘how do I know this entire life experience isn’t a simulation and everyone I’ve known to love and all my experiences are made up’ etc. Really distressing things that constant find their way in and dominate my brain. I find myself with high heart rate and anxiousness. When I think of recovery and a future without these issues, my OCD says ‘what if these recovery strategies and happy life is not real’ and a vicious loop is completed. Every time i attempt to settle myself , or reassure myself of things, my OCD always sends me back to square one and i feel hopeless. I think of what is nothing, and what is death and that unsettles me a lot and I suddenly feel trapped within life , thus more vicious cycles. I struggle even right now writing this to comprehend reality, or the concept of other people seeing this etc. everything I do or think gets attacked by a bug in my brain which offers scary ‘what if’ alternatives. I’d really like replies from those in very similar spots to me and those who know how I can fix all of this once and for all so I can start living

Hi everyone! My name is Mila, I’m 20 years old, and I was diagnosed with OCD last spring. I’m sharing my story because I went through psychosis from August 2025 to early October 2025, and I cannot shake the guilt off ever since I’ve experienced the episode. Also, I’d love to spread awareness and possibly hear about other experiences. TW: I would also like to warn that this post WILL have mentions of: sexual violence & trauma, paranoia about the government, stalking/following, delusions, contamination, social anxiety, magical thinking OCD, homophobia (not me lol) and my apologies for anything I’ve missed. Starting off strong— On August 1st, I was sexually assaulted in my sleep when I was 16 and with that came with nightmares, phantom touches, flashbacks, depression, truancy, and all of that pizazz. For a while it felt like my pain from my sexual assault was going to be like pi on a scale of 5. Yet throughout pi, it switches from 9 to 2, big to little, and most importantly you don’t know what number would be next. you don’t know if tomorrow’s going to feel/be like a 0 or 8. In short, the pain felt infinite and moderate. Now, I use past tense because I worked so hard to alleviate the pain with therapy, meds, wrong coping mechanisms, being a workaholic, reporting it to the police and eventually, without me knowing, i was convinced that I’ll always be okay. Every year that passes, despite my hard work, the last week of July becomes a hell hole for me. It’s like my body automatically remembers and I’m experiencing how bad it used to be all those years ago. So, in the beginning of my psychosis (first week of August 2025) I was already heavily sleep deprived, drowning in a trauma-heavy brain, and feeling so alone. My psychosis REALLY started when I thought I was being followed by my rapist AND the government on the way to my girlfriend’s house. My rapist? Well, not really because he doesn’t live here anymore. This stemmed from when I parked in his neighborhood with my girlfriend to open up to her more about my sexual trauma. Now, the government…was a stretch…why? Because I accidentally reposted a “pray for Charlie Kirk” post on my insta story😭 it’s funny when I look back at it. But I was subconsciously dying of embarrassment and guilt. And SOMEHOW, I thought the government saw all this left wing media I consumed, spread, my beliefs, and how I protest. Honestly, i’m still so embarrassed talking about this delusion 😣😣 To add on, I specifically thought the white no-numbered licenses plate van and truck was ICE…going after my girlfriends family…AND they’re targeting ME because I’m gay and I live in a red state…….and somehow this isn’t the worse. Moving on, I keep driving convinced I’m going to be kidnapped and my girlfriend’s family will be sent away. I drive past my girlfriend’s house because right now I’m thinking “they’re tracking my location.” Then, I turned off my Apple Maps directions to her house and put airplane mode on my phone because I thought I could get to her house by memory. WRONG! The exit I was going to take was closed so I went about 30 mins past her house into this small town where I “hid” in the back parking lot of a CVS. On my way here, I finally called my girlfriend because I was too scared someone could read our texts. It did not help that it was beating hot that day where my phone would shut off by itself 😅 then, my girlfriend and her grandma went to get me because I was too scared to drive and move. I felt like I was being watched and there were people hiding in greenery and cars. I even thought those big cameras in parking lots were watching me. I was convinced the town I “hid” in was a social experiment and because of what I accidentally posted, the government AND my friends were somehow watching me through the cameras of wherever the hell I was. Then, I was saved and my girlfriend sat in the passenger’s seat while I was following her grandma home. We got to my lovely girlfriend’s home. I fell asleep in her lap as she was trying to convince my parents to not send me to the mental hospital because my parents were going out of the country for a week and a half and to not stress about me, that was their solution. Keep in mind.. my parents are your traditional emotionally absent immigrant family.. not believing in mental health “diseases”… or the fact that I was being followed. I was actually cussed out and accused of being on drugs by my father when I told him I thought I was being followed. So, me not being sent away was a celebratory achievement. Instead, I had a psychiatric appointment with the local office near me. Finally got home. My parents were leaving for vacation the next night so all I did cry and sleep while my girlfriend took care of me. Then, it was time to say goodbye to my parents. I overanalyzed their hand motions and thought my mom was signaling to me that my house was bugged. And that they can hear me. So they left to the airport. My girlfriend, sister, and I all watch Interstellar. I thought it was AI because of the *********SPOILERS************* watch/clock/time/banging on bookshelves scene with Murph and her dad. I thought my dad was telling me to make sure my analog watch was still ticking because the somehow the government changed the times in my home via HACKING the digital clocks, by breaking in, somehow slowing down our grandfather clock with IDK TELEKINESIS?!? Just to make sure i miss that psychiatric appointment so I wouldn’t snitch or because i was supposed to die that day. Yeah 🤯. I also thought that the plane crashing scenes were my friends telling me what happened to my parents just now. A PLANE CRASH. And I was just keeping silent because again, the government can hear and see me and what if this interstellar movie was also controlled BY THEM. So, if I acted normal and sat through that discomfort(literally ERP) then the government would trust me in being stable and not snitching about them. I was straight face gang the entire movie. I didn’t want to show any signs of weakness or fear. Hmm I wonder what that makes me as a person. Somehow throughout this movie I was also convinced that my friends were trying to tell me that my dad was locked up for a verbal death threat about my rapist, my parents broke up, my parents were being sent back to our mother land, my parents blew up in the plane, my dad time traveled, um. just anything in that movie my brain grabbed at and tried to make the worst out of it. Like an evil intrusive magical thinking magnet. But then the movie had a nice ending so that’s how I knew my parents were okay 😃 midway of writing this I am a bit anxious about developing schizophrenia in the future. moving on, My sister and girlfriend accompanied me in this appointment. It was August 14. some background info: this mental health clinic comes from the same company of nursing home I’ve applied at.. and got rejected. and at my appointment, there was a QR code hanging on the doorknob in front of me and I scanned it. Bam! A nice thank-you note from the CEO. and then suddenly my brain convinced me that the government and CEO were working together to take me down because people like me don’t deserve to work in healthcare LIKE HELP IM SOOOOO EMBARRASSED OF THIS DELUSION!!! 90% of my psychosis was fr me projecting and 10% was just me ruminating and having panic attacks. Ok so I meet with the psychiatrist and I literally infodumped on him and told him EVERYTHING that happened. and I was prescribed some Prozac and Propanol likeeee talk about pushing p 😛. but unfortunately, I thought that mental health clinic was out to get me because 1. I had debt from when I was admitted to one of their mental hospital … when I was 15. 2. the CEO note. I believed my phone was hacked and it opened up another URL. 3. this part was in July but I also thought my laptop was hacked and that’s why I couldn’t register for a very very very important exam. I thought the CEO of the testing company knew I enjoyed Mary Jane every now and then. So I believed they’ll use that against me to be blacklisted from every healthcare facility, classes, EVERYTHING. Post-appt: I got my prescription. Felt maybe 0.21% better afterwards. And guess what? This was ALSO apart of my psychosis. I needed to log into my mother and I’s health insurance account in order to pick up my meds. Didn’t know the password, the timezones were VERY different between my mother and I, and given what I was convinced throughout the movie, I did not think she was real either🤣🤣 yeah I was just straight up in another reality. I thought she was AI, government was texting for her, or my other sister who I don’t speak to anymore. I already thought the government was after me. So, I thought if I logged into this UnitedHealthcare account they would see that I’m not the primary THROUGH THE LAPTOP CAMERA and they would ARREST ME for 1. Fraud because I’m not the primary. 2. Medical debt when I was 15. And lowkey during this time, I was convinced my parents were going away and I thought I had to work to support paying RENT LIKE ??? and ALL my medical debt that my parents never paid for. 3. There was also that d4vid scandal and I remember seeing that I didn’t search him up on my Spotify nor google and I thought the police were going to frame me for being the buffalo bayou murderer and that he was my inspo. So I thought through the smallest ways, like logging into an account that’s not yours, that would be enough to create some lead on me. The entire time my parents were gone, I never picked up my meds. I was just wholeheartedly believing that my house was bugged and there was a camera in my fan. I acted as if I was performing. I acted less on my political beliefs. I was always guarded and scared to show affection to my girlfriend. Even when I’d change, I’d do it in my closet. When my girlfriend would change, I would cover the fan because I thought there was a camera in there. Academic wise, I failed and dropped my classes that fall 2025 semester. I was too scared to drive because the software could easily be hacked in my car. To go to campus because I see too many people I know there and everyone thought I was some school shooter because my panic attacks have been popular (thought I was being watched + social anxiety combo). This even led me to giving away the airsoft gun my father gave me after he heard about my sexual assault(talk about parenting haha I was 17). I failed badly because I believed some of my assignments were TARGETING me. With questions centering sexual assault, FANS, and my parents jobs. thought the gardener at campus was an undercover cop watching me. That semester, the last time I went to class from not going in WEEKS, I had a panic attack in the veterans area because I thought any one of them would understand my PTSD and anxiety. Throughout the time I was in school, I wouldn’t go to class physically but I would work from home and thankfully, my professors accommodated. Although, when my sister and girlfriend would try to get my courage up by making me drive to pick up my nephews or going to the library to work an assignment. I couldn’t get out. it just felt like I was being constantly tested, watched, and bullied. I mean I thought the cops also tried to frame me for having weed or being some drug dealer simply because there were leaves under my chair. I fell and scraped my knee, lost some blood, and cried because someone is going to collect my blood and frame me. Thought my Spotify was getting hacked. Thought people could see what’s on my laptop screen and how I didn’t read my microeconomics textbook that clearly so now my neighbors think I’m just some sociopathic manipulative manic psycho because by not reading that book, it would mean I wasn’t that educated about social class. Things so small yet my brain connects it to losing my life. In short, I didn’t go to class & I didn’t open my laptop because it was hacked but what I did do was… 🥁🥁 CLEAN!!!!!!! Yup I was just cleaning. doing dishes, laundry, rearranging my room, using my hands to get every crumb out of the carpet, bathroom cleaning, showering too much, and eating too little. Well it hits the first week of September and my parents are back. I did not think they left America. I thought they were watching me the entire time and knew about my psychosis. I also thought my girlfriend knew about the mics and cameras until she snapped me out of it and asked who was listening to us. My girlfriend helped a lot. Offering to break down THE fan. Slept and kept me company. Watched me sleep because Zia couldn’t be the one who sleeps second. Fed me and convinced me to a few assignments and drives. Moving on, im getting a little thankful. My mother logged into the UHC account for me. I picked up my meds all by myself. IN THE RAIN. OH! I also thought the government controlled the weather so every time I said something wrong it would rain. Vice versa with sun. So me driving in the rain was a HUGE accomplishment. I start taking the meds, melatonin, vitamins, AND I ordered a weighted blanket. I went on walks and runs. Yes, I still thought the police were still watching me and I did have a public panic attack near a lake. I still thought a few things were hacked like my phone and TV. Still couldn’t drive that much until my sister tricked me into basically driving where my girlfriend lives!!! So that made me feel a lot more confident. I felt like a baby bird relearning its environment. I did wake up with immediate panic attacks in the morning but I also got a job as a barista. Something small but it helped me get over this delusion that everyone was after me. I started to also talk to my cousins again. Although, Ive gotten distant with my friends. I’ve said too much. I asked if my phone was hacked and if there was a recording of me going around. I told them about the day I parked in his neighborhood with my girlfriend. and I was convinced they thought I was pregnant and I lied about being sexually assaulted this entire time. So ever since, I’ve lost that feeling of being able to go to my friends. We grew apart and they have no about my psychosis era. With medication, improved grounding techniques, and finally opening up about my delusions to my girlfriend, I WASN’T back to normal. but stable enough to work part-time and drive to her. Because at the time, I thought she was in it too. That she knew ICE was after her and her family. Crazy right? Now, I’ve been going out. Driving everywhere. Working full time as I relearn the materials to take my very very very important test. I’m also retaking the classes I’ve dropped this summer & fall! I think I just needed to see all of it written down because after my psychosis was over, I would just cry. I still feel so bad for me. I feel embarrassed for being a year late on my timeline. For the things I said to others. For how I acted. How unstable and SCARED I was. My girlfriend even said it felt like I was possessed. Before this, my biggest fear was being sexually assaulted. Getting robbed of my body, being dehumanized, and watching myself from third person. But now, losing myself is my biggest fear. I’m glad it is because it means I am beyond worth losing. thanks

Was just wondering if anyone can relate to this as I’ve never been able to fully explain it to anyone who gets it 😭 I hit this stage after dealing with intrusive thoughts for a while where I’m just CONSTANTLY aware of every thought in my head. Every minor unrelated thing feels like a trigger and i become permanently restless. My brain convinces me I’ll be stuck like this forever. I’ll be doing things I love and enjoy or laughing in conversations and my head will be all “yeah but you’re not truly present, your not really happy.. look you’re still stuck” I feel like I’m still suffering internally and nothing can ever truly distract me. And it makes me feel so down and just helpless.. I can’t even explain what’s wrong. My head will have all these checkpoints of places I walk past, like a road leading to my house and ESPECIALLY the bathroom mirror and every time I walk past them it’s like my brain goes “look your still stuck.. “ and I know I’m doing better when I walk in and out of the bathroom with none of those thoughts… Another big thing is my camera roll, I look at every picture and feel envious of myself when I was doing okay. I literally can’t look at pictures of when I was fine cuz I get convinced I’ll never have that again. “You’ll never be able to look at these with your eyes in your rational state of mind” The main sign for me that it’s getting bad is that I just lose the ability to day dream or think about anything other then my mental state. Even when I’m not thinking of my intrusive thoughts I’m analysing exactly how I feel or am trying to explain to myself exactly what I’m thinking and feeling.. It’s so tiring, at my worst it went on for months… in the most recent episode it went on for a week but I’m just terrified of getting like that again because I don’t know how to snap out. It’s funny because it all feels like one self fulfilling prophecy. My fear of being stuck in my head results in me analysing whether or not I am still stuck in my head for hours upon end.. and I just end up more stuck.

My best friend and I live together as college roommates. Its time to decide what to do for next year. We proposed some options. 1. Live in dorm together again 2. Find an apartment with 2 other friends 3. Live at home 45 min away He never mentioned anything else, and have referenced next year many times. This last week he went hiking. Before he left I referenced that we needed to talk about it. He said he was waiting for some things to fall into place. I am panicking and have been all week. Has he been offered to be someone else's roommate? Was he offered and apartment with other people? Does he not longer want to live with me? Is he hiding things? I know this is probably all nonsense but I have a few more days before we can talk about it. I know I can be a lot especially with the OCD, but I don't know if maybe it became too much.

18+ UPDATE: This is my first post of the day so please take that context in mind... I'm genuinely feel so triggered and anxious... I'm gonna go to sleep right now, but I genuinely dont think I'll be able to ever be able to look my friends and family in the eye if this is true... ive been holding in the compulsions today all day... but right now its genuinely terrifying me... i have a girlfriend now (over 2 months) and i dont want to lose her... she's kind, and lovely, and the one I wanna marry one day... but then I look at myself... and my past... and I genuinely don't think I deserve her... Oh dear god... I dont know... but I think my worst fears came true... I think I unknowingly ERP'ed with a minor on an 18+ discord server 5 years ago... they currently are on Astralspiff's discord, having been there since 2023, and have switched their username, with a chicken emoji as their bio... they also switched their profile picture from Nana Osaki to a fan art of Kasame Teto... its making me think that these three things are certainties that she was a minor on the 18+ sexual server... and that I ERP'ed with her not knowing this... Im genuinely feeling shocked and sick to my stomach right now... they don't have their age listed on discord or anything, but they joined 5 years ago and it was 4 years ago that we ERP'ed... god I feel disgusted and horrified right now... someone talk to me... please.... in the past, I have been catfished by a man pretending to be a woman, had a minor on a dating app who lied about her age and i unknowingly flirted with her because I assumed she was 18+ and her bio said so, and sent an 18+ pic to a "woman" online who now I suspect of being a catfish... this is the reason why I'm so scared of whether or not I unknowingly inappropriately chatted with a minor without knowing... it genuinely scares me... Its making me think that I unknowingly inappropriately chatted with a minor in the past without knowing and it genuinely triggers me... I have tried to go back through most 18+ online interactions ive had with women online to make sure they didnt lie or they confirmed their age... i have two situations on discord that trigger me that ive posted about in the past... and a couple have deleted their discords so thats triggering me really bad... most who deleted their discords were verified but still... why delete your discord, you know...? for context i was on 18+ explicit discord servers meant for sex that you cant just join regularly on iPhone due to it being for adults only... Ive also been to a website dedicated to adult 18+ literature... they also have an 18+ chat room where you can talk to other users... i know ive made stupid mistakes going on here... i wont deny that... and now im paying for it with the uncertainty... veterans of the site, who have been on there for over 9 years, have told me that the chances of a minor lying about their age and coming onto the chat portion of the website are rare... but it still triggers me all the same... Im scared of someone one day in the future accusing me of doing horrible things like unknowingly inappropriately messaging minors, or have my worst fears of unknowingly explicitly messaging a minor confirmed to have happened and I didnt know about it... i genuinely just feel hopeless... And its all my fault... All of it...

Anyone else an artist with OCD? If so, I'd love to hear about your experiences. How does OCD impact your art-making process? How have you been able to cope with OCD while you make art? Does art help you cope with OCD? Has making art or being proud of what you create been difficult because you have OCD?

I feel a bit anxious to be here, but I want to meet other people who have OCD. It feels really hopeless to me, I don’t feel like I’ll ever beat it. Sometimes I get spurts of hope, and think I should start therapy but then my brain tells me ‘I will forget something important’ and ‘I have to do what I do in order to keep everyone and myself safe’. I don’t know where or how to start, and I don’t know what to do.

I was spiraling these months a lot. I’m actually in waiting list for a psychotherapist so I used so much ChatGPT asking about if I did something bad in the past etc. Obviously replies are often incorrect or ambiguous. Now I had a new obsessions “what if because what I ask to AI a police offer will show up in my house?” Has this ever happened to anyone else?

How do you handle having a discriminatory or bad thought and feeling guilty? I usually pray about it, but as a Christian, I feel like praying for forgiveness isn’t enough; I need to pray constantly. OCD causes me to continuously think the thought and pray for forgiveness in a cycle. Does having bad thoughts that come out of the blue or imagining worst-case scenarios make you an evil person?

I'm currently in a relationship and i have been for about 3 months now, so far, our only conflicts have been consistently connected to my ocd. (let me explain) I was diagnosed with ocd as a child, and it is something i have lived with for most of my life. My obsessive compulsions have obviously changed over the years but were mostly externally manifested (contamination, rituals, etc.) Becuase of this, and extensive therapy I have become very good at managing it and thought I had it under control. It was not until recently that i began to notice more of the mental, internal loops. So this is still very new to me. When I first met my boyfriend I had th same issue a lot of people seem to have with relationship ocd where i would spend so much time obsessing over his negative traits or over analyzing them out of fear of him not being right for me. I didn't see this as an ocd pattern then though, which I think is what led me to a bit of a "slip" in terms of my ocd management. That eventually faded after about a month but once my brain accepted that this man was indeed the "perfect" man then my obsessive thoughts shifted towards needing to act perfectly in order to never make a mistake and make sure I don't lose him. Most recently, a conflict arose because I was having lots of intrusive thoughts convincing me that I was being unfaithful because I found someone else attractive (even though I had 0 interest in pursuing them and did nothing towards that) The thoughts got so bad I lost my appetite because of how bad my stomach was in a knot from the guilt. He obviously noticed and then got suspicious and when he asked me what went down during my interaction with the person I found attractive I ended up lying about a minuscule random detail because I was convinced I had done something wrong even though again, that was not the case. He got even more suspicious and mad because I had obviously lied and then once he forgave me and let it go he kept saying "I just don't understand why you feel so guilty if you really did nothing to feel guilty about" This left me frustrated because I could clearly see I had hurt him and because it was for the stupidest reason, because I had built up an imaginary scenario in my head and convinced myself it was real. I tried to explain the intrusive thought thing but found it difficult to get my point across without it sounding like a petty excuse. Basically, I just want to know how to talk to my partner about this, navigate it or whatever else I should do to ensure conflicts like this don't happen again because I really like this man and I would be so mad at myself for ruining it like this. I want to stop the obsessive thoughts before they get worse.

UPDATE: with my harm ocd hitting full swing... i find myself triggered by my pocd again... and i feel like a horrible person... i tried not to post... i tried to do what people told me... but right now i feel absolutely horrible... I genuinely feel so guilty... I cant handle the anxiety... Im doing horribly right now because I feel so so guilty about this... I have my lovely girlfriend & I wanna be with her for the rest of my life... (shes 22 and I'm 24) I've been dating her for almost 3 months now... and I wanna marry her one day... but right now, I feel like I don't deserve her... especially because of this situation... and its all my fault... Youtubers are constantly getting accused of doing p3dophilic activity and inappropriately abusing and inappropriately messaging women and minors and abusing others and its making me think my real events are as bad or as worse as them... Ive vented a lot to a lot of people in the PM's about my OCD... some of them younger (minors)... because I wanted reassurance from everyone and anyone... but this situation triggers me the most because I was venting about my 18+ HOCD situations... (the 18+ HOCD situations were about 18+ s*xual HOCD situations that triggered me immensely...) When I was 19, in an HOCD support group I was in, I vented to 2 minors in the PM's about my 18+ HOCD situations... The leader of the support group (that i vented to) was 17... I was 19 at the time... the other minor i vented to was younger (14-15)... the younger one told me she was uncomfortable when i vented to her in the PM's twice... The 14-15 year old said she was uncomfortable the first time and i tried to stop venting to her... after she said i was a bad person because of politics... I vented to her a second time because her saying i was a bad person triggered me... she said she was uncomfortable for the second time and then i blocked her... i kept asking the leader of the support group for reassurance for my 18+ HOCD situations for months because she kept giving me reassurance... i thought she was cute but didnt pursue her because of my age... i dont ever want to ever be a P or a MAP or a groomer in any way... I'm so genuinely triggered... I don't want to be a P or a MAP or a groomer or a bad person... I wanna be a good person who does good things for other people... I dont want to be arrested for any crimes... I just want to be a good person who helps people in the medical field... I only want to help others... the last thing I want is to commit any form of harm towards minors in any way... 😭😭😭

So sometimes when I’m on Instagram I’ll randomly save things to show people later or I’ll save videos where women feel confident in their bodies because I tend to get really insecure in my own etc. I was going through my saved Instagram posts because I was having such a bad flare up and I came across this one post I saved in 2024 of this girl who was wearing like a purple top that was slightly revealing and she had on a low rise skirt and was belly dancing. She obviously was an only fans creator and the caption on the video said something like “if we were the only two left at the tavern would you stay” i dont know it was so weird and just i was weirded out when i saw it 😭 but I think I saved the video to show my fiancé or my friend and be like look what the heck popped up on my page or either I saved it because even though she is an only fans creator, she was very confident in her body and she felt confident in her body and like a lot of times I’ve saved posts where curvy women will wear outfits and be confident and you can feel the confidence radiating off the screen even if it’s like a video like that and it just makes me feel good and feel better about myself because as a very insecure woman, confidence feels great, but with this certain post it didn’t. I was convinced that I had saved it for the wrong reasons and I was being so disrespectful to my fiancé even though I was weirded out when I saw it in my saved. As a compulsion I had to screen record the comments to make sure I didn’t like any of them and then since there were so many comments my Instagram like shut down and I freaked because I still had to make sure I didn’t like every single comment. Unfortunately, I had to go look up the Instagram page because I was like “I have to find the post. I have to make sure I did not like all 10,000 comments, I have to screen record them to be sure, I have to make sure.” And it was just making me so uncomfortable to scroll through her page because all of her page was just filled with only fans stuff and just so much weird and disgusting things and even that made me feel like I was being disrespectful to my fiancé and I just was like I have to find that certain video because I have to make sure I did not like any of the comments. To some this may seem like not a big deal but to me it is. My fiancé is my world and any post I see dealing with that stuff or even anything it’s like my brain tells me “You have to screen record the comments and make sure you didn’t like them.” Etc. I just know as a woman, I get really insecure in my body, so seeing women who are either my size or who are even bigger than me, be confident in a bikini a crop top or even an outfit that shows a lot of of their body, it’s inspirational to me because it’s like they’re curvier than me and they’re more confident than I am and it’s like you can feel the confidence radiating off the screen, but this certain time really messed with my OCD bad and like it’s just messing with my head making me think I wanted to see this even though I didn’t because I only have eyes for my fiancé. It’s just my OCD convinces me of all this stuff and it’s like it’s so stressful. I know this post is long but I’ve been dealing with this struggle for awhile and I wanted to share and see if anyone else has too, i definitely will be getting a therapist but this theme I have is one of the worst :(

Had another panic attack last night, and it was the one that lasted an hour. That was probably the scariest moment of my life cuz I thought I couldn't calm myself down and needed to go to the hospital. I was starting to lose faith in myself but my family (brother, nephew, and sister) was there for me; and I'm glad my brother made sure not to give in to my compulsive fear and call 911 despite me begging him to. It did happen when I least expected cuz I'm taking a supplement for anxiety, so I thought I would be able to at least avoid having this happened again despite OCD, and I was wrong. It still happened because I was basically facing my fears all day yesterday with the doctor's appointment, to stress about my living situation, to my neck. And I think that panic attack happened as a result of me trying to combat those thoughts by doing the skills I've learned, but I didn't fully believe them because I was too stubborn too, I was too SCARED to. I think this is a lesson to how you gotta learn to trust yourself and to allow yourself to accept the things you can't control; even if the face of your worst case scenario coming true. Idk if this is normal to have a panic attack after trying to do some ERP through stressing moments, but I still manage to make it through somehow. Having another panic attack at MIDNIGHT was probably my worst case scenario, but I got through it! Idk, I still lack a bit of confidence, but despite how messed up this feels, it revealed so many truths now. In a weird way, it helped me understand why I gotta learn to trust myself again. I'm still scared asl, but, weirdly enough, I feel like I got this now

How does everyone try to combat their real event OCD? I keep remembering this certain memory where an old friend of mine from a group years ago who was a guy messaged me on Snapchat last year on Halloween he said something to me. I don’t remember what he said and I responded and I don’t remember what I said, but I do remember that I removed him right after, as well as one other guy, I am pretty sure I remember why I removed them and it was because Im pretty sure I had seen a TikTok or reel or something where this person said you shouldn’t have guys on your snap in a relationship etc, and I had a thought where I was like “I don’t want my fiance seeing these guys that I used to talk to on my snap and think that I’m doing something wrong or anything.” I know I removed them out of respect for our relationship and I remembered because I remembered I had gotten an anxious and nervous because they were still on my snap, but 2 months after I un added that guy off my snap(December 2024) I panicked because I don’t remember what I said or he said and I got worried about what if I flirted, sent a nude or if I said something wrong. I spoke to my fiancé about it and he pretty much reassured me and he told me that if I had actually done something out of that intent, I wouldn’t have told him about it at all, so that helped me and reassured me for a little bit, and then my OCD moved on to another theme for months. Fast forward to now, I remembered the same thing and my thought was “What if I cheated and flirted, sent a nude or even worse? Etc.” And I started freaking out again and I started panicking. I told my fiancé about it again and he reassured me again but recently my OCD has been really bad and every theme I’ve had has caused me to just avoid it just sucks because I can’t go check if I actually said something flirty and I just didn’t realize it because I removed the guy last year right after I talked to him. I hate this ocd theme so much. My fiancé is the best man I have ever met and he is a god sent the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt him, but ocd constantly convinces me I did and I don’t remember. I know if I genuinely did something like that. I’d remember, but when I try to ruminate and think back to what went down, my OCD will give me like visuals or flashes of me committing the intrusive thought and it just makes everything so much worse has anyone else dealt with this?

I’m not sure if it’s an AuDHD thing or an OCD thing (or likely a combination of the two), but it is SO difficult for me to adjust to the slightest change in my plans for my day. For example, if I ask my boyfriend to hang out and he agrees (or even if he just says maybe), and then says he can’t later on, I get really frustrated and I feel really irritated. It sometimes makes me think he doesn’t love me anymore and doesn’t want to make time to see me. I know that isn’t the case and that he’s genuinely just busy or doesn’t feel up to hanging out, but I just get so locked on trying to find a solution. If I can’t, I just get irritated. I have to alter the order of what I plan to do during my day, and that really irritates me. I like to have somewhat of a rough idea of what every day will look like. It’s hard for me to let go of control. I’m really trying to get better about it because it isn’t fair to my boyfriend, but it’s really hard to recognize that I’m overreacting in the moment. Has anyone else been through something similar or have any advice?

There’s this person that’s really important to me, but they’re really bad at responding to my messages in a timeframe that comforts me. Waiting hours and hours. I totally shut down in the waiting, but only for them. I’m not like this with other people. We’re complicated, off and on dating, and we’ve always struggled with this. I just don’t know how to stop thinking about waiting for a response and checking if they’re online. When I see they are online and not responding it only hurts more. I’m pretty sure they have really bad ADHD.

As someone who has been struggling with OCD for over 2 years now. It takes a while to overcome it. There is no need to be afraid! OCD is merely a fly buzzing around you. It is not who you are, you are not defined by your thoughts or your compulsions. You have to trust yourself, and know that you have the ability to push through urges. Push through compulsions. Push through with ERP! You are stronger than your mind, you are stronger than the thoughts spiraling. If it’s hard for you to get out of your head here are some ways I’ve found that help me to get out of a spiral; TAKE A HOT SHOWER: Something about the hot water hitting my back and laying down eases my mind, sometimes during my worse episodes I would sit in the shower for upmost of 40 minutes. It brings me back to my body and out of my head! TAKE A DRAMAMINE: During my worst days I would not be able to sleep. I’ve tried anxiety medicine, sleeping pills, SSRI medication. Dramamine, although OTC for nausea, it causes drowsiness which allows for me to fall asleep despite my anxiety inducing thoughts. Another perk? It also makes my anxiety go away. During the times where i was spiraling for hours in the night. I learned to take a Dramamine as soon as I felt the anxiety coming on and I just fell asleep. Woke up and restarted my morning fresh. GOING TO THE GYM: Although we all want to have tones abs and a firm butt, the gym has many more benefits than just that. Exercise improves mental health by releasing feel-good neurotransmitters like endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine, which boost mood, reduce stress hormones (cortisol), and alleviate anxiety. Regular activity, such as 150 minutes of moderate exercise weekly, improves sleep, increases self-esteem, acts as a distraction from negative thoughts, and enhances cognitive function. (Google) When I’m active it allows me more control over my thoughts. EATING HEALTHY: Sometimes a McFlurry is good for mental health too don’t get me wrong but eating clean and healthy is more than you think. Eating healthy is essential for mental health because nutrient-dense foods regulate neurotransmitters, reduce brain inflammation, and stabilize blood sugar, which directly affects mood, cognitive function, and stress levels. A balanced diet—rich in vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats—supports gut health and provides the energy necessary to prevent mood disorders like anxiety and depression. (Harvard) TALK TO A FRIEND: My biggest compulsion is confessing. Confessing when I feel i did something guilty, confessing when something doesn’t feel just right. Confessing to someone no other than my significant other. During my time of needing to confess, I talk to a friend. Not asking for reassurance (also a compulsion) but for understanding and to help me realize that it isn’t such a big deal after all. Talking to a close friend who understands, doesn’t judge, and simply listens is truthfully my biggest crutch. I hope these help you to navigate your OCD a little better. It took me a while to find what works for me. Comment some things that help you get out of an OCD spiral below!