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Hi all! So I’m home from college now for winter break and I was just curious: does anyone else’s OCD spike when coming home for the holidays? Like having an uptick in intrusive thoughts related to family members, being home, just surrounding that theme? Would appreciate input! It makes me feel so isolated. ..

My psychiatrist said to stop smoking weed because not only is it a compulsion but getting high can make the thoughts worse. It definitely helps with anxiety but then i get into this weird state of not knowing what’s real and fake. Idk why

I was feeling pretty confident lately had no worries about my intrusive thoughts and body signals, but all of a sudden I had an urge/craving for groinal response which is weird for me but I acted on it, (just imagined it and scan my body) recognised that it doesn't necessarily comes from intrusive thoughts but about 50% they come from intrusive thoughts. I acted on it let it sit and wonder if I'm really enjoying this got concerned and it went downhill from there I'd say. Later another day I had a feeling that I would like (sexually) my intrusive thought so I imagined it and felt thrown off immediately didn't enjoy it at all and was disgusted for few days. (I know that I shouldn't check but it worked for me for the longest time) Also had some moments when I felt like I miss adrenaline or intense feelings in my life which I had with OCD and it again felt like I wanted the thoughts only to be disgusted, anxious and stressed. Weirdly when I had the same feelings about other themes, I could brush it way more calm (harm OCD, sexual orientation OCD) but with pOCD it just wrecks me. I needed to vent out past few days has been blocked out for me and I have trouble focusing for even a moment constantly thinking I'm psychopath. :( Can someone with a similar story could share their experiences? That would mean a lot, thanks

Can intrusive thoughts sounds like “I want too” and not just “what if “

I have been going through a really hard time lately in regard to my existential ocd. Not only that but my health anxiety has been horrible. What I wanted to bring up to see if a conversation could be had was my derealization. I have been having severe random bouts of derealization that are genuinely starting to feel debilitating. The best way I can describe it is I get sick to my stomach when I think about life, being alive, I convince myself im in a dream, that im stuck in a time loop and nothing around me is real and that ive been making up my entire life. With this also comes the intense feeling that everything has already happened before, its like deja vu but almost worse. I will be in moments lately and every single thing feels like it already happened, then that spirals into me believing nothing is real and im stuck in some kind of dream. Everything feels familiar, everything had already happened, sometimes stuff feels so familiar it genuinely will make me start to throw up because im so scared. Can someone please have a discussion with me and just let me know if theyve felt this way, what I should do, and if itll ever get better? Im genuinely convinced life will feel this way forever and im never going to be okay with being alive again and it genuinely makes me feel insane and so terrified. Thank you.

( I can’t tell if this is triggering or not so just in case I will be mentioning antidepressants) Recently Camhs have decided it was best for me to go off of sertraline and I was on maximum dose to switch to a different medication as sertraline was not helping. I recently however decided that I didn’t really want to live on medication for the rest of my life and didn’t want to have to deal w all the side effects again. Now I’m medication free (well I will 100% be in a few days I’m on my last dose before being completely taken off) but my anxiety is through the roof, my ocd has taken an awful turn, and my brain is so immensely foggy not to mention I’ve been suffering from derealisation. Has anyone been taken off of sertraline before? I really just wanna know how long will these symptoms last because it’s really very tiring I’ve been on sertraline for two years so it was expected but damn this is quite scary!!

I have hocd and i dont want to be attracted to my same sex (women) , I was reading here an article about a lesbian that beat her so ocd and she was scared of loving the opposite sex , then suddenly i got a thought with a fear” what if im straight” 😭 then in the afternoon i was watching a cooking tv show and there was a girl i feel attracted to ( because i feel false attractions to every girl i see ) then i said this time i shouldnt avoid, i should keep seeing her and feel the feeling and attraction and to do this as form of an erp then i keep seeing her then a thought occurred in my mind “what if you accepted being bi and you genuinely attracted to that girl in the tv show then you couldnt date her, you will suffer” and i feel as if i was afraid of being unable to date her 😭 i hate how ocd messes up with me 💔 my feelings feel very bery very real

I should start by saying, I have Pure- O OCD that for years was just centered on religious and harm themes. I went to a therapist who told me to remember that I am not my thoughts. So once I realized that, I felt much better. I told myself, these thoughts have no meaning. I moved on with life, if I had a thought that seemed illogical to me I'd just say, it's not worth worrying about. Or if I felt a great amount of stress I'd just try to think of the things that are important to me and make me happy i.e. nostalgic memories, my family etc. And almost always, this helped me a great deal. To thr point where the past 2 years these have been my coping mechanisms and I've made it to the Dean's list at college, I've been almost always happy and relatively low stress. But since I tried to focus on what made me happy when I had an intrusive thought, is that not technically a compulsion? And what about the reassurance things. For example if I thought absurdly negative thoughts I'd tell myself "I have my family who loves me and I know they would help me get by" and then the thoughts wouldn't really bother me. If they came back I'd just say to myself "Oh, that's illogical to worry about" and move on. But I've read that when you have OCD, ANY attempt to relieve anxiety is a compulsion and compulsions are negative reinforcement. So now my mind will tell me whenever I watch a youtuber I always liked that I can't feel happy because that's a compulsion etc. Whenever I feel comforted or at peace it tells me that that's a compulsion. Before, I would say "What that's absurd" and then not care about the thought anymore. But yeah, if I do these so called mental compulsions then my life is great truly, as I explained before, for years it was great. But once I stop then it's been literal misery and constant anxiety because my ocd will barely let me feel positive emotions then. And it's getting harder to go back to before since now I have doubts about it since I read that article. The only time when I can ignore that stuff basically completely and do my so called compulsions is at night, I know how important sleep is so I just listen to my favorite youtuber, don't care about the other thoughts and get sleepy and almost always sleep a good 7-8 hours. I'm just wondering if what I've been doing for years is bad, or if there's some good to it? What advice would you guys give/what should I change? Thank you and have a great day!

One thing that I’ve noticed about my OCD is that it makes me feel very regretful and embarrassed at the end of every day. I reflect on every interaction and every conversation and any thought that I’ve had throughout the day. As a result, I feel more and more ashamed of the way that I act, even though it is probably normal for some of my age to act and see the things that I say. Earlier today I flirted with a guy and then as soon as it ended I had so much religious and moral guilt about it. Does anyone have any advice on how to not feel so ashamed after doing the typical activities that people in their 20s do? I feel like these thoughts are making me want to isolate from everyone else so that I’m not put in the position to do and say these things. I feel comfortable with myself when I don’t talk to anybody but I’m noticing that that can’t be normal . I don’t want to lose friendships and potential relationships out of fear that I’m going to say something wrong. I don’t know what to do.

This is how hard OCD is, ROCD, sexual intrusive thoughts, have brought me to my knees to the point I’ve lost 2 jobs within 3 months due to being unable to function, unable to eat, sleep, exercise, I cannot describe my pain to anyone, I feel no one understands this. I need this community as it helps me understand I am not alone. Please help

I’m the 6th guy my gf has kissed and it freaks me out because she’s only the 2nd girl I’ve kissed. I hate that I feel this way but I feel like I missed out on kissing people. I wanna marry this girl so much. I don’t want to break up. But I feel weird that I’ve only kissed 2 girls to her 6! I hate this. My stomachs hurts so bad. I feel so scummy

I need someone to talk to. I need someone who understand what I’m going through please.

my ocd lately is convincing me that I'm agreeing with my intrusive thoughts when I'm avoiding mental compulsions, it's hard to explain but it's giving me the gut feeling that I'm agreeing and letting my worst fears happen.. it's literal hell in my head

Why do I want to feel like I’m telling the truth to my parents by telling them I’m a rapist please help me

Hey guys! I’ve been feeling so sad lately in my relationship I don’t feel worthy of love and i just constantly think its my fault or im just not enough. Me and my boyfriend have been together for almost 2 years. I’ve been in 2 abusive relationships and i just obsess over the past and how much it hurt me and that if it didn’t happen how much happier id be. Now i don’t want to jump to conclusions but i need opinions on my boyfriend now this is going to sound really sad but sometimes i think im blind to certain things and i feel like sometimes im silly for how i react. My current boyfriend has never hit me which is good but sometimes he treats me really badly whenever all i do is love him he always has something to complain about ill make him breakfast and he says “never really been a fan of sausage” when i let him know i was going to be making sausage it just kinda makes me feel bad then he will just kinda always hate on me almost saying little things and eventually they all add up and i just cry i try to do everything right because i love him but if i express how i feel in front of him he tells me “you deserve better” “you should be with someone else” and i just tell him that i love him he says all these things but why cant he just be better? I think about this so much then it makes me feel like im ugly or unworthy and it just makes me feel like crap. Sorry all this might not be related to ocd but it is something that consumes me constantly i just wish he thought i was beautiful or maybe even attempted a nice gesture.

I’m really feeling awful this morning. I thought I was getting better but now I just feel worse. I keep telling myself it’s not OCD and that I want these things and that something is seriously wrong with me. And I can’t shake that feeling. I feel so stuck and alone because my thoughts are so awful. I am so scared. I have my fourth session today and while it’s been nice to have someone but I feel like yesterdays session made me feel worse even though it didn’t have to. I think my OCD latched onto something my therapist said and now I am running with it. Sometimes I will make every situation about something sexually inappropriate, do you guys do that? and I mean listening to songs or watching shows or just having a random thought? I also feel like a bad person and when people sympathize with me for OCD i feel like I don’t deserve it bc i don’t have OCD and want to do those things and i’m gross and awful and why should my family feel bad for me? Truly am having the toughest time telling the difference. Everytime I say it’s just thoughts I find myself saying no it isn’t. you have the urge to do things. Idk what to do.

My girlfriend and I had sex a about 10 days ago. She is not on birth control, I wore a condom but in the moment I put it on the wrong way at first and then switched it around. I’m terrified that I got her pregnant from precum. I’ve been absolutely obsessing about the possibility of it happening. From what I read it’s extremely low possibly, but OCD is saying she is pregnant. I cannot shut my brain off. I love my girlfriend more than anything and was going to propose to her later this year. I just keep thinking if she is pregnant will I be able to provide, even though I have a steady great income job and so does she. I think will my OCD get so bad that I can’t go to work and lose everything. I used to deal with Sexual and harm OCD, and I just keep thinking will this come back and start if I have a kid. Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you everyone

why is it that every time i love someone (platonic or romantic) that the things they do that are needs or make them happy just bother me to no end. like once i get to the place where i love them if they, for example, eat food- i loathe every second- i can’t hear them chewing, or them talking about the food, or whatever, i actually start to hate the food and feel sick to my stomach. what is this? i get so fixated and obsessed with stopping them from doing what they’re doing that i will sometimes get tunnel vision and have to leave. this is so difficult when someone you love is showing you things- a new song, book, whatever. i have no words to put it logically and most of the time i can do my best to describe what’s going on in my head when necessary but with this it’s just so irrational and feels like a decision to just act annoyed about nothing. can anyone relate or have advice? it’s starting to feel more and more impossible to be in a happy relationship with this shit going on.

I’ve been debating medication for 3 years. I was wondering about other peoples experiences bc I don’t know many people with OCD. Or what types of medications have helped or if they even have? Can someone please give me some insight. The thoughts are extremely annoying and feel very REAL and uncomfortable. It makes me think everyday something I think can become true or I want it to be true. Any insight please?

Hi I’m new to the group here and I look forward to getting into therapy here as I believe this is OCD again cuz I can’t stop obsessing & thinking the same thing over and over again. Let me back up a bit cuz I have been having these horrible thoughts & feelings for over a month now. So Since my dog has died at the end of October I’ve been having horrible feelings that I’m going to die at the end of the year… I’m so scared and worried. I feel like I have so much to accomplish and do in life, but my brains telling me I’ll be dead by for sure by the end of this year, like i don’t want to die. Like is this OCD or something else? I want to hear if any of you guys have suffered with something similar. I don’t want to die now! I have never had obsessive thoughts about this before so it feels so real and scary. But I’m so anxious constantly, I have barely eaten much, and just feeling so disturbed by my thoughts I can’t focus or do anything it feels! 😞 So obviously I made it past the last two nights cuz I have been having consistent thoughts thinking I was going to die by Friday the 15th, but here I am still alive!… but last night I really screwed myself when I gave into searching up more of “why am I still thinking I’m going to die, etc etc” I went to Qurora where people put there thoughts & opinions on a certain question. A certain word really stuck with me and I searched it up, it was “premonition” I started researching what is the difference between horrible anxiety & premonition and I started reading articles… since last night it’s been freaking me out!!! Like what if this is a true premonition feeling compared to me just having anxiety? 😥 There was some people who posted in the comments on quora saying “I knew something bad was going to happen, etc etc and it did, or I had a feeling my dad was going to die and a few months later he did, etc etc…”. I’m constantly thinking I’m gonna die for sure now… it’s gut wrenching to think this. I know we all die but I don’t want to die now. It wouldn’t make sense for me to die now, I have a little 3 year old boy I wanna be here for the rest of my life! I’m a single mom, I don’t want him to be without any parents. Ugh I’m so sad, anxious, on edge I can’t function. I can’t stop crying sometimes. I have therapy this week but it’s gotten so bad where now I feel like I CANT distinguish the difference between a gut feeling and just my thoughts as intrusive/OCD. Can anyone of you really relate to this?? I just wanna feel at peace again with myself…. And I certainly don’t wanna die young. 😭 But also my thoughts have switched up on me like “well you lived past this Friday, but you’re for sure gonna die in the next few weeks etc etc.” like a gut thought. There’s moments I feel like I need to go to a mental hospital cuz idk anymore…