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Hey guys recently I been facing anxiety because I have a fear that I acted on something I know I didn't do but it feels real because it felt like I had attraction and arousal to a younger photo of a ex gf I feel so weird feel so anxious I need help Idk what to do

Today marks my third day on 150 mg of Sertraline, and I've been noticing some symptoms or issues that could be related? I'm wondering if anyone else deals or has dealt with something similar? I've been having really vivid dreams and nightmares, and when I wake up from them, I'm DRENCHED in sweat. Like absolutely soaked. But besides that, I'm extremely anxious. Even the dreams I can't remember leave me feeling off, and then I spiral wondering what they were about. Then there's not being able to cry? I'm not incapable of feeling emotion, but the tears feel trapped, and I just get nauseous if anything. There's been a couple of times where I've been able to cry, but it's like on and off 😭 Oh, and the last thing is constantly feeling hot? Like my face will feel flushed, but the rest of my body is a normal temperature. It's weird🧍‍♀️

I bought some books on OCD because I like education and would like to know a little more behind why I feel or think this way. I opened up to my mom about this and she keeps saying I’m obsessed with having OCD, she doesn’t actually believe I have it, and that I forced myself to have those thoughts. She then told me she’s going to ask her mental health provider (she’s a nurse) if you can give yourself a mental illness because she said there’s no way someone could spiral out of control within a few days the way I did.

WHY is it so bad?? who was gonna tell me 16 was just DREAD, my ocd has flared up worse than ever and i can’t go to therapy weekly anymore. im getting worse and i can’t do it. I just want to give up.

(21+ ONLY: TRIGGER WARNING) I honestly feel so overwhelmed by my thoughts—so overwhelmed that I honestly don’t care anymore. I feel like I’m accepting the fact that I’m a monster and have always been a monster. I broke down last night because of these thoughts but I wouldn’t tell anyone if they asked. It wouldn’t make sense to them. This morning, I was watching a body cam video and the person that was arrested was traumadumping about their past SA. I felt like I liked the thoughts and images I got from it. And instead of being disgusted, I let it happen. What does this mean? Does this mean that I’m a monster? Am I a just a monster in disguise?

Yesterday I had a panic attack from OCD fears. I live alone, so in my panic I called my mum just to get some emotional support. It did not go well. I was asking for reassurnce to much and basically she got annoyed with me and started to chastise me. She said I was being ridiculous and accused me of just making up my symptoms to emotionally manipulate her. She even went as far as threatening to call the police on me to have me sectioned. I feel so humiliated. I know that I can be annoying during my panic attacks, and that my OCD puts a massive toll on my familiy. But I don't want to manipulate people. Now, I feel like an abuser. In these moments, seeing how much my weakness makes my family suffer makes me just want to not be here anymore.

I struggle with HOCD or SOOCD. I’m a married young woman to an amazing husband. I’ve had this since I was 16 but it only came in flair ups. However this round started in October, and it’s been really rough and I would just break down all the time. I went up on my medication and I actually noticed a difference! My thoughts were still very present but I wasn’t really paying attention to them or giving them power. HOWEVER right when I thought I was getting better, my brain started feeling and saying to myself that I just know I am bi but you want to make excuses for it like “oh it’s normal to find someone hot since we as a society have an interpretation of what that looks like” or “I see the girl as myself and that’s what ‘turns’ me on” or “well I mean that girl looks kind of like a man” and it’s it’s making me spiral. I won’t ever come out as Bi as deep in my soul I don’t feel I am. I have always wanted to be with men sexually and romantically and that has not changed but my brain is making me believe I am and I just don’t want to admit it. Please help me, what has helped you?

I’m struggling so much, I don’t know what’s changed. I was doing so well for a solid two months and now it’s been over a month of just my lowest point. My bf has gotten upset at how much I do compulsions and it’s taxing him too. I can’t imagine how hard it is to be my partner right now. I feel exhausted I’m tired of my OCD finding new things to obsess or worry over. I’m so TIRED of getting stuck on technicalities. I’m so exhausted with the constant intrusive thoughts and intrusive thinking. I’m so sick of how compulsive I get when I’m so riddled with anxiety. I don’t want to keep pushing. It feels pointless if my life is going to be a constant loop of ups and extreme lows. I feel like such a disgusting, embarrassing person. I don’t want love because I don’t feel like I deserve it. I don’t want patience or understanding because it makes me feel so guilty. Like no one is understanding how bad of person I could truly be. I’m so lost and tired of this

I turned 20 years old today. Ive been reflecting a lot. Since ive joined this app ive been an ever changing person. Which is good i want to change i want to be good but i still feel the same inside. Especially when i feel like this. Feel of dread an anxiety. This sense of foreboding i hate. I just feel so sad. I didn’t have good teenage years. Ive just been sad since it began and now thats its over i dont know what to expect. Im scared. Im no longer a child im a full fledged adult. Everything feels so far away but everything still hurts. Im scared for my future but looking ahead at the same time. What do i do now that im 20? Do i drop my interests? Move out? I dont know i feel like i need to do something. I dont want to spiral but i feel so much dread. I dont know what to do.

Hey fellow OCD warriors! Wanted to ask if anyone else’s OCD tends to latch onto change and catastrophize with all kinds of worst-case scenarios. There’s a lot going on in my life, and even though they are all exciting things that I truly want and am happy about, I’ve had moments of deep fear at so much change happening and even a sadness that I can only think is a kind of grief of entering a new stage of life/a new me and leaving the old one behind. I am in my mid-20s and a lot of this centers around nostalgia and fear and intrusive thoughts of changes like my parents getting older, myself aging, friendships growing apart leading to loneliness, etc. I know I need to treat it as any other OCD flare-up and do ERP, but it also feels different than other OCD themes because I feel blue and like existentially sad. Even as a young kid, I always hated change and the thought of growing up (even if exciting things were happening) - like I cried when I turned 10 because I was leaving the single digits behind forever! 🤦‍♀️ I feel like I’m preemptively mourning things like losing my parents or my health even though I am healthy and my parents are too. I don’t want to waste the time I have ruminating about the future. I haven’t heard this kind of theme mentioned a lot so just wanted to see if any others could relate.

Please help…. I haven’t had an OCD spiral on this topic in well…a long time. For background, I’m in a very loving relationship with my boyfriend of 3 years. I believe we will get married. When we first started dating, he had told me he had a roommate and me, having ocd, googled him to “make sure I wasn’t attracted to his roommate”. However, to my lovely anxious surprise, I didn’t know if I found his roommate attractive or not. In fact, I think I did find him attractive! This turned into a full spiral and what if thoughts, and it was horrible. Eventually I kinda learned to deal with it, but I always felt kind of awkward around his roommate. Fast forward 3 years later, he’s still one of his very best friends so we see him often. And sometimes, this thought still spikes. In full honesty, I actually DONT KNOW if I think his friend is attractive. I obsessed about it so much before I ever officially met him that once I met his friend, I didn’t know what I thought. Anyways, this randomly spiked again, and the thought is “if you’re still anxious you’re attracted to his friend 3 years later, that must mean something…” and boom, spiral. I have thoughts of “check if you’re attracted to him” when we’re around him and I’m so embarrassed honestly. Because at the end of the day, so what if he’s attractive? It’s not like I want to do anything about it, but of course, even saying that, ocd goes “are you sure? You should think of scenarios to check and make sure”. If anyone has been through this, can you please offer advice on how to disregard? I have a hard time accepting finding other people attractive while in a relationship is a normal thing

im scared. I keep compulsively praying for bad things or death on the people I love. I don’t understand why. It doesn’t make anything better. I’m scared that these prayers count. I seal them as I do with most of my prayers in Jesus name and with a double amen. I’m scared God will want to teach me a lesson and make something come true. I’m scared I mean these prayers, I’m petrified. If something happened, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself :( I don’t know where to go from here

The compulsive praying for harm on others is back. I know compulsions are a choice, but right now, it feels impossible not to do them. I was spiraling because I thought about losing my boyfriend, and that scared me so much. But then, my brain twisted it with thinking that I would feel liberated and find comfort and new love if my boyfriend were “out of the way” and to this I almost felt excited? I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want him to die or go away. I don’t want him to be gone. But then, that spiraled into these awful thoughts where I felt like I had to pray for harm or death on him. I don’t know why I feel the urge to do this. It doesn’t feel like it will make anything better; it just makes me feel like it’s more likely to happen. I feel trapped in them. I don’t understand why my brain keeps doing this, can anyone help? Please

Help please I went to tell my little brother that the giant Uno cards was in the closet and for a second I looked at his butt and it felt like I looked at it with desire Because I was smiling and went to look at his butt and my eyes went up so that means I was looking at him up and down with desire? This is why sometimes I feel like it’s P

hey guys, i am really really struggling and i feel like crying. evry day i get this feeling of sexual attraction to the same gender, and i get those feelings even just thinking about it now. i hste them and want them to go away but they simply won’t and it has me thinking that this is just how my life is gonna be like. when i was fully healed or atleast thought i was healed from the false attraction and soocd, i still sometimes got that attraction feeling, and i would force my body not to feel it. i hated it and was scared of liking it so i would like stop breathing and make it stop. it was only ever occasional but this is making me concerned now too, because i still sometimes felt that feeling when i was healed. now currently my main trigger is masculine girls, but when my soocd first started i had no false attraction or attraction like this towards girls, and it was all just in my mind like saying, “don’t look at that girl or you’re gay.” there was one point in my soocd where i was worried about being attracted to my friends, but i am greatful in the sense of i know that that is not true and my main issue is the false attraction watching videos and i have experienced it once in real life too and i hated it. please lmk what i should do or even if you can relate. i am sick of feeling th is way, and i am a christian too so this makes it harder. i’ve tried everything like accepting it, or trying to even say to myself yes u do like it but it always just leads to me being scared.

Every therapist I’ve tried for OCD has felt dehumanizing and judgy, as if I’m the threat not my OCD. I’m still looking for a good therapist. Have you ever had a bad therapy experience?

Hopefully ppl aren’t offended by this, I put a trigger warning so religious ppl don’t feel attacked hopefully. Religion seems so healing to people, but I just don’t believe in god and can’t force myself to. I can’t force a belief, and it sucks because (no shade to religious people) religious people seem so carefree and mindless to me. No religion is nice in my head, they’re all just fake. I believe in science and reality. I wish I could believe in god so I could stop thinking about the science.

Does anyone experience ocd really bad with posts they see online? I just saw a post just now about someone who said they’ve come to terms with dying in their early twenties, and it popped up on my Instagram for you page and i panicked. I’m 20 myself and posts like this genuinely scare me because I always think “It’s a sign or there is a reason it’s popping up on my page.” Has anyone dealt with this before or had an instance like this? Especially with those posts that say if you don’t share or like it something bad will happen, it genuinely freaks me out and I love instagram.

First off - I’m sorry, I post here a lot. My thoughts are going to be scattered because I have the adhd/ocd/executive dysfunction wombo combo. Im so embarrassed I am THIS neurodivergent. I swear my brain couldn’t pick one struggle and settle with it. I’m not making these diagnoses quirky personality traits by any means, in fact, in this post im venting about how exhausting and embarassed I am living with a brain like this on the daily. I need to hear someone’s advice please. I love hearing everyone’s advice on posts because it’s so useful, and brings me back down to reality. Everyone on here gives advice so tastefully in a way where it doesn’t feed into the self reassurance compulsion, but it’s also been thorough and constructive enough where it’s reminded me to ground myself in a healthy way. I love seeing others helping others, it soothes me. This community has been so kind, and I’m so happy I found it. I wish I could ask more, but I have so many questions I think it’d drive everyone here crazy lol. I am doing erp therapy now, and it’s been teaching me so many amazing techniques. I’ve been making progress. However, I sometimes have my moments of vunerablity. I’ve been experiencing this especially now more than ever because I am going through a breakup. He did it through text after nearly 9 months together. I’d do anything for him and love him through anything, and he broke my heart when I least expected it. I’d make his bed for him multiple times, but I haven’t done that for myself in years. I’d sit with him for hours to watch and do anything he likes, but he’d never do the same and I’d never do the same for me. I’m also at fault because I was too scared to speak up so I let a lot of disrespect slide. Why did my ocd do that? Why does ocd make me people please even when I don’t want to? Why does OCD make me care so much about things that will never effect me (like wanting validation from a random person on the street and hoping they’ll think I’m pretty enough to look at), but then when it comes to my future or positive wellbeing (like focusing on college/doing well in classes/personal hygiene/health), forces me to not care/neglect myself and those needs? I don’t understand it. Ocd makes me think everything’s a setup or a trap. I can never believe that I am fine right where I want to be. Why am I so hard on myself? Why do I even think this much? I care and feel so deeply but it becomes unhealthy so fast because ocd makes me fixate and I stay there for a while. For some reason I let this breakup define my self worth. I let it topple into the ocd fear that I will never make it in life - that I won’t be successful, I’ll never get the career I want, the love I want, or the life I want. My OCD’s version of “logic” isn’t even logical. Yes, I understand how the breakup means feelings of low self worth which will then topple into feeling bad about other things. But why has my brain been wired to think this way? Why does it seem so easy for everyone else to function normally with life but not me? Honestly this is the first time in my life where I’m dedicated to focusing on myself and learning more about myself instead of others in my life and it’s a very odd and bizarre feeling. I’m excited of course, but I’m also scared. My ocd makes me ruminate like “what if I will never make the most of this life I’ve been given”, “what if I truly have no worth and the most I will ever be in other people’s lives is a background character”, “why do I care if I’m a background character or not? I should feel guilty and ignorant for assuming everyone will automatically like me”, “are people lying to me when they call me pretty, smart or kind?”, “I need to look and sound perfect in both pictures, videos and in real life. I will never be satisfied for accepting who I am now”, and a bunch of other annoying questions. But sometimes it’s like I just can’t take the reality for what it is but at the same time, but I also acknowledge that I know this is ocd talking. This is so, so difficult. Do I make any sense with what I’m saying? Can anyone help?

since february i have "POcd". Initial symptoms were thoughts, but then I did a testing compulsion during an intimate time, and I spiraled ever since. I struggle with addiction to smut. I'm cutting that out, but I feel as if it is too late. Ive never experienced this much mental, and emotional anguish in my life. On my time on this application I have given advice to others, and helped around, but I wonder if that even applies to me. Millions of times I wish I could turn back time and be more careful. I want to prevent many things, including what led me to spiral into OCD in the first place. I'm surely having an OCD episode. I have gotten a diagnosis, but I'm still not sure. I feel evil, cause unlike many here, I tested on my body sensations and it backfired (twice) I know I'm not supposed to figure out why that is the case, but now I have to live with it for the rest of my life even if its something I don't desire. This is disgusting for me, it is abhorrent. I could've never seen this coming. Day by day I've become more fearful of living with this, "OCD". I was a normal person before this, I knew what I was attracted to, I know my preferences, so why did this come about? This is singlehandedly the most painful thing that has happened to me and I have nobody but myself to blame. I am scared of death but I also would'nt mind sleeping for years on end. My parents and brother were understanding of my situation, but I failed them regardless. I don't want them to see me this way, nor do I want them to learn more of my predicament. I'm cooked. I know it, Fin, thats all folks. I'm only 20 and I already have other diagnosed mental illness so I recklessly brought upon myself another one. Its agonizing to live through, I wish this on nobody, not even my worst enemy. I can't even identify myself at this point. Its tearing me apart.