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I’ve been feeling on edge since I woke up, last night my mum was sleeping and I was deliberately having the thoughts (testing myself) and my head was flinching when having the thoughts and it felt like I didn’t want to do that, but other times it feels like I do want to do that or like the feeling of imagining doing that (the thoughts are about smothering) but now all day I’ve been down because I feel uneasy and on edge and still worried I like the feeling of doing that, and also feeling guilty and like I’m evil because I’m as having the thought while my mum was asleep and I even turned on the light to look at her and try to imagine the thought because I’m testing myself and now I’m thinking oh my god why was I doing that and say if I actually did do that in that moment and I’m worried 😞😞 I started crying after I done those test thoughts but still don’t believe I’m good or not evil 😞

it was quiet for a second and my mind was like it’s quiet cause you want all of these thoughts to happen. i didn’t get anxious like i usually do and it made me worried that this isn’t OCD and this is all me. now my mind keeps going back on this and i genuinely hate it cause the anxiety i used to get when this all first happened is not the same rn and it makes me even more worried that it’s not like that anymore cause i want these things to happen. i hate that this is all happening and i feel completely out of it. i feel like out of body and all stuck in my head and it sucks completely. i keep getting spike of anxiety and that is scary. does anyone else feel this way or knows what i’m talking about? i feel like this is just me and no one else gets this way and that is also very scary.

I don’t think anyone will ever understand what it feels like to think about death 24/7 for so long, it’s been a year now, 2022 was not the one. It was almost every minute of the day for a whole year. Almost as if you were watching a horror movie that really scared you except you can’t turn it off and go back to reality/your normal day, you constantly have to watch that movie and can’t click off it. For me this was the heafty price to pay for watching documentaries about evil people. I don’t even like the word ‘serial k’ I don’t like saying it or writing it. It almost feels like your in a war zone in your mind on the front lines especially if the intrusive thoughts are gory, absolutely awful, like I’ve witnessed people dying in front of me thousands of times over and over and the worst part is in the intrusive thoughts you are the culprit, you are the person being evil, this problem is like a curse, would not wish it on anyone, I really hope anyone with this problem who is suffering can be healed from this, it’s so unfair

So the past few days have been bad, I woke up this morning haven’t had much sleep, and I straight away had an intrusive thought about my cat, I don’t even know if I can call it intrusive because I probably brought it on myself, but it was about smothering and it felt like when I had that thought that I liked the feeling of imagining doing that. So then I tried imagining it a few more times and it still felt the same but at the same time felt like I wouldn’t want to do that but these days even when I get anxiety or ‘disgust’ towards the thoughts I feel as though I’m not being genuine or faking it. I’ve had this problem for a year now, at the start I was a nervous wreak and new I hated the thoughts but now I don’t even know anymore. It feels like when I have the thoughts now it’s no longer about the ‘actual thought’ for a long time now I’ve been focusing on ‘how it feels’ because before it felt like I ‘liked the feeling of doing that when imagining it’ I no longer have the thoughts and feel ‘why did I have that thought’ or ‘disgust/shame’ all I’m doing is trying to analyse ‘how I feel’ when imagining doing that horrible thing. I have no problem bringing on the thoughts for months now I have deliberately brought them on and I’m trying to work out why it feels like ‘I like the feeling of doing that’ when I have the thought. Sometimes I get an electric shock kind of feeling and twitch my head like ‘ew I don’t want that’ but now I’m thinking maybe I’m faking it, I don’t even know when I’m anxious anymore, it’s possible that I’m highly stressed and anxious over the thoughts but I don’t even know it. I’m so confused. I definitely get some sort of feelings when having the thoughts but because I’ve been thinking that it feels like ‘I like the feeling of doing that when having the thought’ I feel like it’s distorted my perception of everything. All I know is it feels like an intense feeling but I don’t know ‘of what’ I’m just confused and I was explaining this to someone and they started asking me ‘are you excited, do the thoughts make you excited’ and when someone asks me something like that I feel like it just makes things worse and I start spiralling in my mind. But it’s like I can’t even answer that question, I don’t feel particularly ‘happy’ when having the thoughts but I just don’t know what I’m feeling when having the thoughts and this feeling of ‘it feels like I like the feeling’ is really messing me up, I don’t know how it can feel like I like the feeling of doing something I don’t want to do but at the same time sometimes feel like I don’t like the feeling of doing that. Now I don’t know if that feeling is a genuine desire and I’ve come to like some sick feeling now, I don’t want that to be the case. I’ve been suffering a lot with this problem the amount of times I’ve cried and The way I have reacted to this problem is like never before, I have never felt this bad in my life. I don’t know if I’ve confused it feeling like an ‘urge’ to me ‘liking the feeling’ maybe I’m constantly putting my body in ‘fight or flight’ and I don’t even know. Maybe what I’m getting is constant ‘urges’ because I’m deliberately having the thoughts to test myself and when it feels like an urge I’m confusing it with ‘liking the feeling’ but with other intrusive thoughts I’ve had I 100% new I hated them. Like last night before sleeping I kept having these horrible gory images coming to my head and I hated them and knew I didn’t want them, but with this why is it different? Is it possible that I’m more scared of thoughts that involve sharp objects but because these thoughts are about smothering, I’ve been experimenting with the thoughts since they don’t involve sharp objects and aren’t ‘so alarming’ but are still horrible but because if you have a thought about a sharp object it would be ‘one horrible action’ you imagine but with this smothering thing it’s like your imagining ‘one action but it carries on’ (sorry this is tmi but I’m trying to understand why it feels like that) all I know is if there was a way to get rid of this instantly i would do it but in the mean time I don’t know why it feels like I like the feeling of doing that horrible act, maybe my fight or flight is making my mind think that I want to do that or it feels like an ‘urge’ but I don’t feel ‘happy’ but I just don’t get it I don’t know what to do I really want help, this has literally forced me to book a therapist because I’m so lost and confused and worried. But I’m worried because wits not like they can take this feeling away, this feeling of ‘liking the feeling’ feels extremely real, what if I’m getting some sort of sick satisfaction out of imagining doing that that’s why it feels like I ‘like the feeling m’ I’m worried and don’t know what to do I feel like I’m lying about everything as well please help

i just got a fortune from a fortune cookie that read: “we are what arises in our thoughts” are you serious?? 😭 why did i have to get that fortune!! it’s stressing me out i just wanted to throw that thing away!

After a year I’m finally trying to find a therapist but I’m worrying. It feels like I’m a criminal about to turn myself in or I keep having images of me talking to the therapist a laughing while I’m talking about it and then they think I’m evil. Or the other thing is the intrusive thought that bothers me the most is about smothering and for some reason it feels like when I imagine that thought, that I like the feeling of doing that action when I imagine it and I don’t know if it’s because I’m confusing an urge and the vividness of the thought with ‘I like the feeling’ but it’s horrible, for it to feel like I like squashing someone with a pillow and stopping them from breathing, I don’t understand it and I feel like if I tell the therapist there going to think there’s definitely something wrong with me. Say if it’s true? Why does it feel like I like the feeling of doing that when I imagine it? None of my other intrusive thoughts feel like that and it’s worrying. Sometimes I have those thoughts and ‘flinch’ or get like an electric shock feeling or anxiety but most times it feels like I like the feeling of doing that action when I imagine it, I can’t explain it which makes it worse. All I know is if there was a button to take all this away I would press it instantly. But I feel like I’m beyond help and that Maybe I’m enjoying some sick feeling now, maybe I was normal before but now I’ve discovered I like the feeling of doing that horrible thing, I’m worried. These past few days have been awful I don’t know what to do, my head keeps wanting to test out the thought by deliberately imagining them to see if it’s true and if it does feel like that I have to keep imagining it until I get anxious or something. 😞 I really want help but I have a lot of doubts I feel like They won’t be able to help me because now maybe I like that sick feeling. I wish I could go back in time and not watch that stupid documentary my life has been ruined..also I’m worried about getting the wrong therapist and they will think there’s something wrong with me or not be able to help or I don’t know I just don’t see how they can help me, they can’t take this feeling of ‘liking the feeling of doing that’ away from me but I hope that feeling maybe is just a mistaken feeling and that maybe I’m just confused

I have a few questions/thoughts I want to know if anyone else is experiencing them. 1. Does anyone else’s head create scenarios of them being evil and in the scenario it seems like your actually bad and it even scares you by making it seem like ‘you enjoy’ doing that in the scenario? Like I saw this video of this dog and I had an intrusive thought about smothering and it felt like when I had that thought that I ‘liked the feeling of doing that action when I imagined it’ and I got worried by that and then my head proceeds to imagine a scenario where I’m alone with the dog and I ‘choose’ to be evil and I’m pulling a creepy smile and I’m actually evil and do that evil thing. But then that makes me worried that I’m actually evil and that in the future I will choose to act on the thoughts/urges because in that fact scenario I was evil, but I think my Brian made that up to scare me idk 🤷🏻‍♀️😞 2. Even when I cry and I’m sad or telling someone how stressed out a I am and feeling miserable, I keep feeling like maybe I’m faking being sad and I’m actually evil, or maybe I’m not actually sad and I don’t know if that’s because these evil people in these films/documentaries always pretend that their innocent or haven’t done it but they have, so now I’m suspicious of myself constantly thinking I’m faking my emotions or maybe I’m not actually sad. 3.being alone is a big issue for me, like being alone with a cat, or a person or anyone who is vulnerable is like alarm bells ringing. It feels like ‘evil mode activated’ i don’t know how to explain it but it feels like I’m in a horror movie or it just feels like foreboding or like there’s this evil vibe or I feel like I’m evil and it’s horrible and i usually get that feeling if someone mentions ‘you could go and stay with so and so/you could stay home alone’ or something like that, but it’s like when I’m alone it just feels terrible, like I’m evil can’t be trusted. 3. This is one of the scary ones for me but feeling like ‘I don’t even know why I’m not acting on the thoughts’ I’ve gotten use to having the thoughts so much and sometimes I have intrusive thoughts and they feel so incredibly real and like that condos ctually happen or feels like an urge and In that moment because I’m not getting anxiety I don’t even know WHY I’m not acting because still not sure whether I’m evil or not or I’m believing that I’m bad. 4. Whenever someone talks about the future or ‘my future’ I get anxiety or if I talk about the future or if I talk about something that makes me happy or when I’m being affectionate to my cat and calling him cute I suddenly stop in my tracks and start feeling like I don’t know maybe a sinking feeling or feeling down that I’m evil or something 5. I don’t even believe myself anymore. It spoke sometimes I will have an intrusive thought and I will flinch my head like ‘Urgh what is that’ or scrunch my nose (those are my reactions to not liking the thought’ but I don’t even believe those reactions anymore. Just not when writing this I had an intrusive thought about my cat and I shook my head as if to say ‘what the hell was that’ and then I didn’t believe that I was disgusted by the thought so then my head wants to have the thought again to check and then I end up reimagining the thought multiple times in a desperate effort to know that I don’t like it. I just don’t believe myself anymore but I have no energy to cry and be upset because I’ve been crying most of last night and the previous night

I stopped thinking about this but I started again recently, before it just felt like ‘urges’ but I deliberately imagined doing that intrusive thought and I don’t know why it felt like I liked the feeling of doing that action in the thought, (it’s about smothering someone with a pillow) but sometimes I think of the thoughts and I get an instant shock of anxiety and my head/face flinches and that tells me I don’t like it but at the same time sometimes it feels like I like the feeling of squashing someone with a pillow and it’s really scary. I had a break down crying twice today I couldn’t take it anymore everyday it’s the same garbage. Me deliberately imagining the thoughts to check if I like the feeling of doing that and if I don’t get anxiety or a shock kind of feeling And it feels like I do like it I feel uncomfortable and have to keep thinking it until it doesn’t feel like that please help me, I don’t know how to explain this but it feels really real. Before I was worried the ‘urges would cause me to act but now the urges combined with the vividness of the thought and the feelings of ‘you like the feeling of doing that’ is torturing me I just wanted a normal life please I don’t want this to be my fate, What if I was normal but after thinking and imagining doing that in to much detail now I like the feeling of doing that through imagining it please help me. Sometimes I think maybe I’ve confused the urges with it meaning that ‘I like the feeling of doing that’ so every time it feels like an urge I’m taking it as ‘I like the feeling od doing that’ please help me none of the other intrusive thoughts have felt like this it’s only the smothering ones and it’s awful please help

i am so terrified i might hurt somebody. i have harm ocd, and lately, the things i do to make myself feel better (my compulsions) aren’t helping anymore and i don’t know what to do. i’m scared i have the urge to hurt somebody, specifically my family. i hate being in the same house as them out of fear i might want to one day grab something and kill them. i don’t. i would never dream of it. but i’m so terrified. i keep on posting about the same things, and i’m sorry, i just don’t know what else to do to make myself feel better. i know i’m supposed to sit with uncertainty, but it’s just so hard 🙁

*may be triggering to some If you’ve been following the devastating Lindsay Clancy case, the conversation has started to buzz about postpartum mental illness and OCD has been mentioned a few times. How do you deal with others shaming it/not believing it’s real? It is so triggering to me to read comments from people I know are completely uneducated and unaware saying terrible things about those struggling with mental illness. It’s devastating. I do not condone what happened to those poor children, nor do I know the full story. She chose to act and those babies are gone. But so many have now begun to shame those that share their struggles with PPD, PPP, PPA, OCD. It’s so discouraging to me as a mom with OCD to see how the world views this terribly difficult disorder.

(sorry if this is long) it's taken me years of thinking i might have ocd to finally talk to a mental health professional about it. for various reasons i didn't have access to therapy before. i spent a long time reading abput ocd online. i started realizing that i related to so many of the symptoms. i thought back to when i was younger. i think it started getting worse/noticeable when i was 12 but only to me. i didn't share my intrusive thoughts and obsessions with anyone because they were so scary. anyway i went many years without knowing what ocd was. i got very good at self soothing and looking for coping mechanisms. i went through depressive episodes and many anxiety attacks. i didn't have access to any help other than the internet. now for the past year and a half id been going to therapy. the thing is i didn't decide to bring up my ocd symptoms until i had to get a new therapist bc my old one resigned from her clinic. and i thought to myself, "this is a fresh start" so i felt brave enough to bring it up with my new therapist. so we've been talking about it and she agrees that i have symptoms of ocd. doing the assessment with her and talking openly about my symptoms was such a big step for me. anyway it's been hard these past couple of days, knowing that im finally facing my ocd symptoms and that it's not just me in my head that knows about it. its not like i wasn't aware of how it affects my life before, but now i feel like im hyperaware of it in a way. it makes me sad when i think about how i let my symptoms run my life sometimes. also i haven't really told anyone in my life except one of my closest friends. i dont know if i should tell my family. it feels too hard to explain. im just feeling a lot right now but im not exactly sure which emotions.

i know there’s some therapy like exposure and response but how will that work for me? like im so scared of e. coli that i will shower with BLEACH to kill that awful bacteria… i want this to be over, i hate having these burns. i hate these headaches from the smell. i hate it all. i can’t live like this anymore.

Please take the time to read this. I just desperately need support. Not reassurance. But someone to listen and understand. I haven’t been on this app in a good amount of time. I think I’m doing better. Thoughts still pop up as well as all the worries but I still continue to go on with my days. Sometimes it feels selfish to not break down and just give up. Like I don’t deserve to be happy because of who I worry I am. I ignore that though. I think it and then I move on. It still hurts just as much. But I’ve gotten better at not allowing it to stop me from doing things. But today is hard. I was on tik tok and a video came up about this guy who came across a disturbing website with children. He was crying as he said he reported it all to the authorities and that he needs a break from trying to take down these people because it’s bringing a lot of negativity into his life. I then started to question myself for the millionth time if I would ever do something like that, or if I wanted to. And sometimes I don’t know the answer. Which makes me worry and feel so disgusting for not knowing. Like how do I not know if I would or ever want to hurt someone? Or how do I not know if I would like those things? It makes me feel crazy and like I don’t even know who I am. I’ve lost touch with my identity. I’ve fought extreme suicidal thoughts for the past 5 months. And they simmered down these past 3 weeks but as of right now they’re making their way back in. And I’m struggling to find a reason to not give in. I’m upset with God for possibly making me this monster and I question as to why he hasn’t helped me or made me good. Do I want to do bad things? I don’t know. And that’s the most worrying thing ever. I see people on here saying oh I know I don’t want to do these things it’s just the intrusive thoughts keep popping up. And I despise myself for not being able to say I for sure don’t want to hurt people. How dare I say I have OCD when I’m not even sure of that either. I’m probably just making a bad reputation for people with actual OCD. I’m not looking for reassurance. I’m just sharing how I’m feeling and thinking. I know nothing will give me that clarity. I’m just filled with shame, guilt, anger, and sadness. I feel abandoned by God.

Hii, this is my first time posting on here. I’ve been dealing with OCD since I was at least 14, and I didn’t get diagnosed til a few weeks ago, I’m 25 now. I’ve had all types of obsessions. My first big was of getting tapeworms, I became a vegetarian yo avoid em(I’m still one but I don’t fear tapeworms anymore). I thought I had schizophrenia shortly after that, that’s one that comes back here and there. I feared the end of the world, I had a big religious obsession, that lead me to being agnostic And right now I’m dealing with what I think is somatic or existential ocd. This started in early 2021, one night I was in bed watching a movie and I became very aware of myself. I looked up derealization, cause what I thought it was, and I spent the next couple months checking myself and my surroundings to see if that’s what I was experiencing. It was a very miserable time for me, but luckily it ended, I don’t remember exactly when. I was fine for most of last year, but then a toward the end of year I went driving at night with my mom and sister. I saw a tweet online about how some ppl disassociate while driving and I got scared that would happen to me. It was dark and there were lots of cars and lights, I couldn’t shake the thought. Now I’m here, still not to able to. The few times I’m able to I feel fine. But as I realize I haven’t been thinking about it it comes back. I got on lexapro shortly after cause I figured it might help but I can’t tell if it is. My anxiety is reduced but yeah. I’m so scared I won’t feel like I did before. Like I know I’m not losing my mind but it’s hard not to feel like I am sometimes. I hope someone can relate to this.

I can’t stop thinking about the guy who I loved who broke my heart. Don’t know if it’s a heart break or if it’s my OCD that’s making me obsess over every little thing. Or if it’s both? Either way this is torture! I would much rather be suffering from my other themes because I am constantly thinking about him and it’s so so so distracting. I can’t do anything.

I am not diagnosed with OCD, but I have a strong belief that I have it. Just recently, I came to the realization that maybe my anxiety wasn’t just anxiety, but OCD (I’ve had suspicions over time, beginning in elementary) I’ve been looking into OCD as of late. I relate a ton. But I’m afraid that I’m seeing these symptoms and falsely believing that I relate. Like I’m making myself have these symptoms because I think I should. I’ve not been able to think clearly at all recently. I can’t stop thinking about me having OCD, what that means for me, what I should do, and if I even have it and am faking everything. I’ve always had struggles with invalidating my mental illnesses because it could be worse or I’m faking it or whatever.

lately I can’t stop ruminating about my relationship. I know it’s just one day at a time and we’re both aware of the issues and working toward solutions and I’m excited for Valentine’s Day but I’ll get a “what if” or a “why” in my head and it ruins my whole day. I don’t know if I can afford therapy on here, I’m only 18. And the exposure therapy exercise on here seems too much for me to handle on my own. Sometimes I question whether it’s even ocd since I have never been diagnosed. I feel so discouraged and I feel bad about ranting on here all the time. I wish my mind would let me be for a second. I want to enjoy things and relax but I let myself ruin it by questioning everything.

Has anyone here ever had obsessive thoughts about ghosts? Like what if there’s a ghost in the house? What if it’s a demon? And I get so scared. That stuff freaks me out so much. I had a nightmare last night about a Demon/ghost and it scared me so much. I usually have intrusive thoughts about harm and they center my daughter. And I woke up looked at my daughter and what if she’s a demon popped into my head. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach even typing it. I know she’s not but now I’m like am I going crazy? Like am Turning psychotic? I’ve never heard of anyone obsessing over this but me. And it’s taking a lot to post this cause I have a fear I’m the only one and I am going crazy but I know at the same time OCD can latch onto anything. I was doing so good with the harm intrusive thought. I can totally ignore them now. And I’m confident I’d never hurt my baby. So now I’m like is my OCD jumping to something else? But why this? It sounds so crazy!

Everyday, every minute, I keep thinking about my sexuality. I don’t know if it’s OCD or I’m I really bi I keep thinking about my past keep wondering is this real or not because some times I feel horny for my thoughts but I keeps me down I don’t know why I keep thinking of this why can’t I stop this thought, why can’t I stop checking, why can’t I stop wondering, I keep checking my past to see if I have any past memories of liking a guy but I don’t. But sometimes I get weird feelings and memories that I haven’t had before and this keeps me wondering, I don’t watch tv anymore because I might see a guy topless and it might make me feel like something is growing down there. 😔😔 I don’t know why this is happening to me. My life wasn’t like this I just had one bad dream now the dream got me questioning myself for the past 8 months now. I’m afraid because I don’t know if this will make me act on the thoughts I get or make me turn bi and I don’t want too

I haven’t been able to sleep properly for 2 weeks bc of intrusive thoughts they always seem to get worse as soon as I’m getting ready for bed. Any tips on how to manage this? I drink a lot of caffeine but that’s never influenced getting to sleep before