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All my brain keeps saying is how do I know if this is OCD? I know reassurance won’t help but my brain just can’t stop questioning with my HOCD anyone have any ideas on how to make it stop

Does anyone deal with OCD in relationships where you’re constantly ritualizing making sure people aren’t mad at you? I constantly ask “are you mad at me?” or I’ll go back and over-clarify things I said and people are always like “dude I didn’t even notice you said something wrong” or “i didn’t even think about it that way”. It’s relieving but I feel like it’s just the OCD getting what it wants out of the ritual. I will say that recently, I’ve been able to let the obsession go in one ear and out the other more than ever before, but I still obsess over what people think of me. Would love to hear some shared experiences or advice.

In genuinely feel like I jsut don’t know how to deal with all of this, like I don’t know what I’m suppose to do. I have been worrying because when I imagined the thought on purpose to test myself (it’s a smothering thought) it feels like I like the feeling of doing that and the first time I ‘tested’ myself with a thought I was round my auntie house and she has these huge pillows in her house and I kept having intrusive thoughts but then jsut felt like unwanted intrusive thoughts but it was bothering me so I tested myself with the thought and I got anxiety but it felt like I liked the feeling of imagining doing that and that I knew how it felt to do that (squash someone’s face with a pillow stop them from breathing) (sorry sounds horrible) but I’ve been obsessing over it and worrying because it feels like I like the feeling and I’m worrying it feels good to do that and I’ve hidden all the pillows in my houses and during the day I can’t even spend time In my room with my mum because there are pillows in there and I’ve come somewhere with my mum now and there is this huge pillow and I feel like I don’t know why (this will sound horrible) but I keep thinking I have to imagine it and I got this horrible thought that with a bigger pillow doing that smothering thing will feel ‘good’ but I don’t know I jsut feel confused and I’m believing it and as soon as I got that thought and was worrying about the big pillow I’m thinking there jsut definitely be something wrong with me how can I think that? How can it come to my head that ‘it would feel good’ to do that since it’s a bigger pillow?’ And I don’t know if that’s because the first time I imaginined it the pillow was huge and I got a lot of anxiety but felt like I liked the feeling of imagining smothering someone and it feels like I know how it feels to do that. And my head was tempting me to imagine the thought of smothering after I saw that huge pillow but I just came on here to write this because it’s obviously wrong to keep imagining that and I’m just worried but not worried enough to know I’m not evil, and after ruminating a lot I’ve chosen to try and ignore it but it’s so difficult like extremely every time I see a pillow I feel like I HAVE to imagine that smothering thing like it’s become a habit and I feel like i have to test myself I never get an answer as to whether I hate it and instead feels like it could ‘feel good’ to do that and I don’t want to be evil but I’m worried that maybe that feeling of ‘liking the feeling’ will take over and I will actually do that or that maybe I secretly do want to and like the feeling? On one hand I feel anxious and like I don’t like the thoughts and on the other hand it feels like i like the feeling of suffocating someone and it’s awful I don’t know what to do I feel like I can’t live like this how can I live life and in the back of my head be thinking ‘it feels good to do that’ that means I could be evil at anytime and I’m worried I’m trying to pick myself up and forget but this time it seems a lot harder to do that, like it’s more sticky this time and feels more real and like there’s no hope. And I also get this horrible thing where it feels like I might be ‘excited’ or ‘happy’ or want to ‘smile’ over the thoughts or certain bad situations like this morning I was ruminating and I had a really horrible thought but it felt like I might be ‘happy’ or ‘excited’ over it and I was thinking omg what is wrong with me why does it feel like that and basically the thought was me imagining a scenario someone has a kid and wants me to look after/watch over the kid and then I decide to be evil and then I don’t know if it’s the anxiety or adrenaline but it felt like I was ‘happy’ over that thought and I heard online that anxiety and excited feelings can feel the same so maybe I’m confused? I feel like im faking everything it feels like now I like the feeling of doing that and I’m jsut postponing or recently I’ve been worrying maybe there are things I want to do in life or other things that make me happy that’s why I’m postponing being evil? I read this horrible post online i regret reading things on the quora page thingy I was looking up about intrusive thoughts but it seemed like there was actually a sick person on there and they were saying they have ‘evil desires’ but they just relieve them by drawing out there evil desires and it’s because they have things they want to do in life but if there evil they won’t be able to do those things so now I’m worried what if I’m like that I use any opportunity to compare myself to an evil person. I jsut feel like I’m lying because every time it feels like the thoughts could actually happen or like an ‘urge’ and now that it’s backed up with I ‘like the feeling’ it makes it even more real and makes it feel like I actually ‘want’ to do that and would enjoy it and I’m scared. I think doing something with my life might help like getting a job, I’ve applied for college but I’m worried I’m evil and I have nothing to do all day so have loads of time to ruminate I feel Like that’s why my ocd got so bad in the first place. I don’t know what to do I try and pray but still feel like that feeling of liking the feeling is true because it feels extremely reaL like I would actually like the feeling of doing that

I had a good doctor before. She was understanding and she would call me weekly to know how I was doing and we would meet once monthly. Sadly, she had to stop working for some time because of her personal issues. Then, I’ve a new doctor who doesn’t remember who I am, and we have met twice. A doctor who has tried to diagnose me twice, because he doesn’t remember who I am. And a doctor that says that I don’t have OCD because I am not obsessed with cleaning. I told him that I cannot go out to the street without tidying up my room because I feel that if I don’t do it, my day will be a disaster and something tragic will happen, and he replied “It’s good to be that clean”. I am so frustrated. I said that when I am studying I don’t want to stop so that I can eat because if I do it then I feel that I can’t keep studying because I’ve wasted my time and then I am useless and he replied “You are a good student”. He sent my case to the psychiatrist because he doesn’t know how to help me and he told me to keep taking my meds and that is all. Fantastic. He said that my thoughts aren’t normal (I told him my magical thinking thoughts) and that then I should go to the psychiatrist. This is hilarious.

I’m very upset, I think I have schizophrenia. I have always had a fear of it. It doesn’t run in my family at all but I’m a very anxious person and I tend to worry about marry different mental illnesses. I had a massive panic attack that led me to spiral about different themes of ocd and mental illnesses, before that I was fine. I have been having auditory hallucinations as I’m falling asleep of babbling or random conversations, my family have had this before but since I’ve been anxious it’s been happening more common, when I open my eyes it’s stops. I have had this a couple years back and it freaked me out but my mum said it’s just what happens when ur close to sleep. A couple years ago I saw spiders all of my grandmas bed when I woke up once and their eyes were glowing I was freaking out and I put my hand out and felt nothing, I thought nothing of it after cause I thought it was just idk something that happens when u wake up sometimes and then 2 years ago I saw a woman shadow at the side of my grandmas bed, once again I freaked out and woke my grandma up and turned back and it was gone. After that I experienced nothing else I wasn’t even worried and then recently tik tok had been coming up with multiple mental disorders like schizophrenia and someone said if u see shadows or daydream that’s a symptom of schizophrenia and while in my stressed state this sent me to spiral and now I’m hearing talking as I sleep and I’m scared. I just want to live a normal life I’m sick of being stressed I want to be happy. I thought it was my anxiety before but now I think it’s not. I’ll also add when I first was anxious I was looking around the room and noticed the walls weren’t completely clear and were a bit shadowy but not In the shape of a person and my mum said that, that’s normal and everyone sees that and then the anxiousness went away and I wasn’t worried anymore and then I got triggered again by seeing another thing about it. Do you think this is anxiety or should I be worried.

I can’t stop crying, I feel so miserable, the sun is shining and I feel so down. It’s be raining for so long and I do get affected by the weather and it’s finally sunny and I’m not even able to feel happy because it’s sunny I jsut feel so miserable and at the same time as if I’m faking being sad, I’m crying but feel like I’m faking being sad. I’m worrying because when i imagine the thoughts it feels like I like I know how it feels to smother someone and that I like the feeling of doing that and that it feels ‘good’ to do that. Im so down I feel so crap, it feels so real like extremely real im believing it. Even though im crying as soon as I remember how it ‘feels’ or that feeling that makes me think I ‘like the feeling’ of suffocating someone it feels like im faking crying and would definitely do that. My brother went out the house and it’s jsut me and my mum at home and my Brain was suddenly telling me it was a problem and thag I would be evil because it feels like I like the feeling of doing that and then I started crying because I don’t want to do that but it feels like I like the feeling of doing that and that it could happen and I don’t know what to do, why do I have to go through this I definitely think im evil now and im worried all it will take is to imagine how it feels to do that and get that feeling that makes me feel like ‘I like the feeling’ and then it would actually happen 😞😞😞 I feel down. I don’t even feel guilty about the thoughts or like I’m a ‘bad’ person I just feel down and I don’t know why maybe I am jsut evil and want to do that but I have a conscience? Maybe now I like the feeling of doing that smothering thing but I have a conscience?? Help please

I just feel awful, everyday is horrible. I’m actually believing now that I’m evil and want to be evil and that I can’t be trusted. The thoughts I’m worrying about are about smothering and for some reason although I get anxiety over the thoughts and feel tense there’s an element to the thoughts that make it feel like I like the feeling of doing that smothering thing when I imagine it. I feel so exhausted, I’m obsessed with imagining the thought on purpose as well, and even when it feels like I don’t like it or that I get anxiety over the thought I still keep imagining it because I’m looking for that feeling that makes me feel like I ‘like the feeling of doing that’ because I don’t believe that I hate it or that the anxiety is proof enough that I hate it. I don’t get it. The other day I was in a room alone with my cat and my cat was sleeping and I started deliberately imagining smothering my cat to ‘test’ myself and check if it would actually do that or if I ‘like the feeling’ and when I imagined it, I had no anxiety in that moment and it just felt like ‘I like the feeling of doing that’ like I know how it feels to do that like squash my cat face with the pillow, stopping them from breathing and I just don’t know what to do, and now that’s the incident that makes me feel like I can’t be trusted because in that moment I had no anxiety and it just felt like I liked the feeling of doing that and after I walked away I didn’t even know why it didn’t happen, like I’m so confused to the point I don’t believe myself anymore and it felt like it actually could have happened and tbh ate what scares me especially since it feels like ‘I like the feeling’ now I’m just really worried and scared that I get a ‘good’ feeling from doing that and it’s awful. Yesterday I imagini ed the same thought about my mum and it felt like I ‘liked the feeling’ and that it would ‘feel good to do that’ and after I was thinking ‘oh my god, how can I even feel that way?’ ‘That’s not normal, to be feeling like you could get a ‘good’ feeling from doing that. I just don’t know what to do because now I’ve got it in my head that I like the feeling and It feels extremely true and as if that would definitely happen because I would want to feel how it feels to do that since I now ‘like the feeling’ I feel really worried about that ‘liking the feeling’ thing like it’s making me feel so miserable and I feel like I shouldn’t even be feeling miserable since I’m evil and like it 😞 I’m obsessed with imagining it and feel like I don’t have a reason to stop imagining it because it feels so true, like before I use to be able to eventually decide not to ruminate on it and to forget about it but now it feels like I can’t because I’m believing it and I’m obsessed with imagining how it feels to do that smothering thing to see if it’s true and even when I get anxiety over it i still don’t believe I don’t like it and that fact I’m believing I get a good feeling from smothering someone is really horrible I don’t know how to counter this I don’t know how to deal with this

It hurts so bad and is so discouraging every time I have a good day and then OCD hits me like a wave of bricks because it doesn’t want me to be happy. Being happy and feeling relief the little I do is so magical and I ask myself could I really have this life? And then my OCD takes over and ruins it all for me. I am sitting here in massive anxiety being terrified of thoughts. How can a thought scare you so bad? Why does it have to take over my life. I am terrified I will act on these thoughts and that I want to do them. I also am struggling so bad with false memory OCD. Can’t figure out if I did something bad. I feel like I need to know and that I need to turn myself in for something I don’t even know if I even did. Does anybody else struggle with this? I am having a really hard time right now. 😔

I dont know if this is the right place to post this so please let me know its not so I can delete it :) I've had this problem since what feels like forever- I can't remember a time where I haven't. Recently, it's gotten so much worse- my hairbands that I can't take off my wrist, the fact I can't walk through a door without having to go back and walk through again because I got 'caught', turn on a light without doing it again with my other hand, walk past a chair without walking back past the same way, put a book down on the table and if the corners don't go down evenly I have to do it again till it feels right, leave a person without counting otherwise something bad will happen to them, throw something away even as stupid as a piece of paper without having to count to 8 twice or do it again or do it for a certain number of times or until it feels right. I have to tap my candle every morning and every night otherwise something bad will happen. I have to put all my makeup back in my box the same places it came out of otherwise something bad will happen. I have a set routine of how I have to put away Lottie at night and get her out in the morning. I can't lose the anklets that I wear. I have to lie flat on my back to go to sleep because otherwise it's uneven and my duvet has to be evenly across me otherwise I'm wonky. I have to chew my food a certain number of times and it gets to the point where it's just easier to not eat. I can't walk on any of the cracks in the pavement and I have to have two steps in each square, one with each foot. If I hit my leg on a door I have to hit the other leg in exactly the same place. If I apply concealer on a spot on the left hand side of my face I have to apply it to the same place on the other side of my face even if I don't have a spot there. I have to tap my fingers evenly and switch my lamp on and off an even amount of times. I get emotionally attached to inanimate objects then I can't throw them away e.g. the carpet in my old room, the wallpaper in the study, mum's old desk chair I snuck out at 3am to the car just so I could cut two pieces of the fabric off to keep in my box upstairs. I can't have the volume on my laptop or the TV at any number that isn't even and even then it can't be on certain numbers because they are wrong. I can't walk on the little squares on my carpet in the lounge or up the stairs. It's just so draining because it's constantly me vs my thoughts and my thoughts always win and I'm always in the wrong and I always have to count twice to 8 if I do it wrong.

Why do I feel anxious even though I’m on meds. I’m on Zoloft 25mg and steel feel anxiety about my hocd. Also I’m in therapy every Monday.

I've realized a while back that I've had OCD since I was a kid. Pretty extreme, Religious paranoia, magical thinking, for the most part in the beginning, and it became so much worse (diving into all types of harm, specifically sexual harm, religious, magical thinking, false memories extra soup pot) till I started treating myself a couple months back Surrounded by pretty low support, and some people who would feed into my magical thinking They did indeed become delusions. Thats just a basic history on me, now. I've noticed that because of how intense and terrifying my ocd has been for me A way that I chose to combat a lot of my everything was by letting other people think for me Letting them set the pace and choose for me Letting them come to me Letting them speak without interrupting And because of that I developed Almost no self-thinking tools/skills (I am also autistic so this might also be a factor in my social path) I've let many people lead me into foolish roles, and it wasn't till I've almost screamed at myself crying and begging myself to stop and leave them That I did Its been a very long process I have better people now And in general Many things are better though its still is very difficult Living in a mind that only wants to keep me prisoner out of absolute fear I still want to get better, I'm not sure what many other steps to take besides talking out loud and taking it day by day

I’m so sick of my mind it’s so cruel, I want to feel happy again I’m so over this. The past 3 weeks I have been stressing over multiple things/mental issues. At first I remember I saw a video about someone saying if u see shadows you have schizophrenia and I didn’t see shadows but I went into a freak out and started searching around looking if I saw anything of course I didn’t but this led me to feel paranoid and not leave my room sitting and crying in bed, then I worried about how I saw a video on the internet about how some people go mental over the fact the world might not exist and everyone might be a figment of our imagination so I went into a spiral and started questioning everything, once again stayed in my room crying. Then I worried about harm ocd since I had a scary dream and I thought omg what if I wanna do those things and my mind tries to think about bad peoples perspectives and of course I felt grossed out and thought omg I must be insane, and now then I worried about DID ( dissociative identity disorder ) and now I’m convincing myself I have evil alters when I don’t even hear voices or anything. I feel insane, I’ve also got depersonalisation to add to that which makes it worse. I’m so over it I’m sick of everyone saying I’m going to get better because I don’t feel like I will it’s just getting worse I’m only young and I had so many things I was looking too this year but I feel like my mind just wants me to be miserable. I want to be happy. I’ve been taking Effexor for 2 days now and I feel worse, that may be normal but the intrusive thoughts keep coming and they are scarier. Im sick of being paranoid it’s annoying my family now and I feel bad because I also want to happy for them and not cause them stress but I have no idea what to do. Is this normal with ocd or am I going insane?

I think this is genuinely the worst I’ve ever felt at a stage in ocd, I’m exhausted and I’m literally believing I’m evil. I’m so tired honestly, because it feels like when I imagine the intrusive thought to test myself it feels like I like the feeling of doing that action (the thought is about smothering) and I literally can’t persuade myself otherwise, it feels like I can’t be trusted as long as it feels like ‘I like the feeling’ because sometimes I would imagine the thought and it would feel like I ‘like the feeling of imagining doing that’ and then it would feel like it was actually about to happens and was backed up by the feeling of ‘I like the feeling’ so now it feels like I can’t trust myself being alone with a animal or a person because if I get that feeling I might actually do it since it feels like I ‘like the feeling’ and ‘want to do it’ I was feeling better and then my period started and I started worrying again and now I’m like this, feels like the worst I’ve ever felt, normally I can pick myself up but it feels like there’s no hope and I’m genuinely believing that I like the feeling and that I’m evil, I’m trying to not worry but it feels like I’m just ignoring it while still believing it, today my cat died as well and I was balling my eyes out crying so hard, and I still believe I’m evil because when I imagine the smothering thought it feels like ‘I like the feeling’ and that feeling feels so extremely real, most times when I imagine the thoughts it feels like I get anxiety or a jolt feeling but sometimes I imagine it and it feels like I like the feeling of doing that action of squashing someone’s face with a pillow and stopping them from breathing (sounds horrible I’m sorry) but that feeling feels so real and it’s so depressing, I feel miserable like I can’t be happy because I’m bad now and may eventually be bad and because this feeling feels so real i literally now believe I’m evil and like the feeling and I don’t know what to do, how am I suppose to stop believing this? Surely if I hated it I wouldn’t be so easy to believe it’s true that I like the feeling? Surely if I really didn’t like it I would feel a little more confident and know I would never do that or never want to do that? But the fact I feel I can’t trust myself makes me think maybe It’s actually true that I like the feeling and would do it since I’m literally believing that? I keep worrying I will give in to this urge especially now that it feels like I ‘like the feeling’ I honestly don’t know wha to please advice me I’m literally now believing this and my head thinks of scenarios in the future where I’m evil because it feels like I like the feeling and I imagine being somewhere and I start testing myself on the thoughts by imagining the smothering thing and then it feels like I ‘like the feeling’ again and then I actually act on it - This is what my head thought of today and I had an intrusive thought like ‘prison wouldn’t be that bad’ then I was thinking ‘omg say I would actually act on it and I’m not bothered about going jail’ I just think crazy things all the time I don’t know which thoughts are real and which feelings are mine and which are false ideas from ocd 😞😞

I started lexapro a week ago and I feel that it’s making my anxiety worse. Does anyone have experience taking lexapro? Did you notice the same? Thanks!

So recently things have started to take a turn for me. In January I started having awful harm intrusive thoughts. It was awful and I couldn’t get out of the house for weeks. I was scared to be around anyone and even my boyfriend thinking I would lose control. Recently I have got ahold of these thoughts. I still get them but I am able to shake them off much easier. This happened when I noticed I may have some form of OCD (I have not been clinically diagnosed). As these intrusive thoughts have been easier to manage all of the sudden I have a near fear that circles my head often… the fear of a psychosis or schizophrenia… I am constantly on edge recently. It is almost like the moment I noticed my intrusive thoughts were just thoughts… my brain found something else to worry about. I have not hallucinated or heard things that were not there. But I am TERRIFIED that I will. For example… I’ll look down a hallway and be convinced if I look hard enough for long enough I will hallucinate. Or I will have an image in my head of an object while I’m driving that is in my house and I’m scared that I will hallucinate the object moving when I get home. I’ve become very afraid I will lose touch with reality. I have told myself they are just thoughts. Which I know they are. But this has become very distressing for me. Also, I am a performer and I’ve had the fear that I will get on stage and I will see a hallucination in the audience. Which I know won’t happen. I just can’t stop circling in my head about this. If anyone has any suggestions on things that have helped them or have the same story feel free to chime in. I’m really sad, I’m tired and I’m sick of living in constant fear that I have a psychosis and I’m tired of living with intrusive thoughts (I know I’m not the only one). This is very new to me and I would love help and encouraging words. Thanks so much everyone.

Hi guys - writing because I want to know if anyone else has experienced this. Hopefully so! I have seen people in here articulate the situation with OCD, commonly with Harm, where they feel “evil”, their intrusive thoughts are “I want to do X evil thing”, there is little/no anxiety present. I have experienced that on and off for the past few months, and it’s truly terrifying. I reguarly experience bouts of dissociation where things either feel ultra real/I”m hyper aware that I’m experiencing life through a set of eyes, in a body, look at my hands, they don’t feel like mine. Etc etc. Standard dissociation stuff. I have just about got to grips with it after a very bad episode, triggered by the latest season of “You”. In true OCD style, this harm-evil OCD has manifested into a fear of developing DID/splitting personalities when I experience dissociation and that feeling of “being evil”. So while all that is going on, I’ll look in the mirror and the intrusive thoughts go “I’m not Lucy (my name” and other ridiculous statements in order to participate in the act of being someone with DID. I can see the tricks being played by OCD this time: I have experienced virtually all subtypes, and particularly with schizophrenia OCD and harm, the intrusive thoughts would present as statements that correlated with the theme at hand. Eg schizophrenia “people out to get me” *seeing faces in patterns* (all other things a “schizophrenic” would think; harm “I want to kill this person/I’m going to stab them now”. Blah blah blah. I can see the OCD for what it is and how sophisticated it can be. I am just partially reassurance-seeking, but mostly curious. Has anybody experienced this in a similar way to me? It feels very niche, but I thought that of a lot of my subtypes until I used this app, and felt way less alone! Any tips on how to deal would be great. Thanks in advance!

I hate to keep posting on here as it’s a compulsion but I want to know I’m not crazy, basically through the past 3 weeks I have been stressing over multiple mental issues like.. the world not existing, schizophrenia, harm ocd and then I saw someone mention trans ocd which I did not know was a thing and then I was like am I a boy? And now I’m worrying about dissociative identity disorder, it feels so realistic and I am scared I’m also struggling with depersonalisation at the moment and apparently a lot of people worry about DID with it. It’s basically been a theme of different things to worry about but before this state I would think of these things and I’d be scared but I wouldn’t convince myself of these things? I just wanna know if someone has gone through a similar experience and gotten through it and what to do here.

Hello there. So I have harm OCD thoughts about hurting people in general, but they started out as targeted toward my mom, whom I love with all my heart and have a great relationship with. I was starting to feel better after months of struggling, the anxiety associated with the thoughts has lessened. However, the fact the anxiety isn’t as present is freaking me out. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that my meds and ERP are working or if I am becoming okay with the notion of killing people. I keep freaking out because the thoughts about my mom have returned and are really detailed scenarios in which I kill my mom. I don’t want to hurt my anyone, let alone my mom. But every time I tell myself I know i don’t want to do these things, it’s always followed up with, “What if I do want to?” Sometimes my thoughts will even say I want to. But I don’t, but these thoughts come in anyway and I question if I want to no matter how many times I say, “I don’t want to hurt anyone ever.” “What if I’m in denial?” “What if I’m planning?” “Why isn’t there more anxiety like before?” “Am I purposely having these thoughts or are these automatic?” I’m getting really bad suicidal ideations from this because I’m so scared that it is not ocd and I need to take myself out of the equation before I hurt someone. I can’t not say to myself, “I don’t want to hurt anyone ever” because I feel like if I don’t , I’ll suddenly become murderous. I’ve never hurt anyone, I consider myself to be a kind and gentle person, but these thoughts are making me question every aspect of myself. I appreciate any insight anyone may have. I understand this may be triggering to read.

i feel like no matter how hard i try to explain how i am feeling about my current thoughts, im just overthinking everything. if i start to feel bad i get intrusive thoughts that im lying to myself or doing it for attention. its so hard to ask for help when im the inly one having a strong reaction. im not sure if that makes sense but i don’t know what else to do.

whenever there’s somebody in pain, i physically cringe. i scrunch up my face and shut my eyes really tight so i don’t see it, but i’m still scared. today, my mom somehow injured herself, and i’m in the room with her reading my book. before i sat down, she winces from the pain and i feel like i was about to laugh. i told myself i wasn’t, but now i’m really scared. i’m terrified of my mom dying. but i’m even more terrified of what my reaction will be. what if i don’t care? what if i laugh at her when she’s on her death bed. i feel terrible. she’s in pain and i’m so terrified i’m laughing at her and enjoying her suffering. so much so i have to look away from her when she moves. i hate seeing her face when she’s like this.