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Hi guys. Just a question. If you do something subconsciously does it mean it comes from your true self? Because I did something and I’m now realizing I had a bad motive. I’m so anxious right now Im spiraling.

I’ve been gone for about a month, mostly because I kept seeing messages on here that felt super anxiety-inducing and not understanding of OCD at all. Honestly, it got to the point where I started getting nervous to even open the app. Lately, I’ve been stuck in this OCD loop that I think might be moral scrupulosity or something like that. I’ve been dealing with this thing where I feel like I have to “challenge” stuff mentally or verbally, like if I don’t say something out loud, it feels super uncomfortable. And the thoughts are about heavy stuff, like assault or deportation or just really morally loaded topics. My brain starts picking everything apart. It’s like I have to look at things fairly, and then I get trapped in all these little technicalities. For example, if someone gets assaulted, my brain fixates on stuff like “what was she wearing”even though I know how harmful that line of thinking is. That is exactly the kind of thing my mind zooms in on. It happens with a bunch of topics too, not just that. I feel like I have to give the benefit of the doubt to the aggressor or see “both sides,” and then I end up doubting the victim. And the worst part is, it feels like I truly believe these devil’s advocate thoughts. It feels so real. It’s like I become convinced that the victim might be lying or that there’s some justification for the harm, and I don’t like it. This even happens with my boyfriend and especially his family. I’ll catch my brain flipping narratives or making me question people I trust. this has been a “habit”for as long as I can remember but now it’s happening so much more. I cannot stop doubting. It feels like I’m siding with people who I should have no doubts to be against. I don’t know what to do or what kind of ERP would work for this. I don’t know how to change this. It’s been apart of me so long, it simply feels like me.

*PLEASE READ* *any help appreciated* So I work with kids and it’s a lightning rod for triggering my POCD. I work with a mental health org that supports kids with autism and other intellectual development disorders. And so I’ve grown really close with one kid since I started since I was his first ever staff and he was the first ever kid I worked with. I’ve grown really protective of him and we’ve become really close and our relationship truly means the world to me. But before I get into my little incident, I have to provide context: so I am hypersexual and struggle with compulsive masturbation and my urges are almost uncontrollable sometimes. I have a lot of trauma from foot fetish stuff/pornography as a kid and it’s carried on into my adult life unfortunately. And so as I was waking up my kid and trying to get him out of bed to get him into the shower (I usually give him a few extra minutes but if he’s uncooperative I have to pull him out of bed gently) and so I just shift him by his legs bc it’s easiest. And my urges and thoughts have been so bad lately and when he wasn’t cooperating, as I was shifting his legs today, his foot touched my private area and I carried on normally but now I feel like a monster and everything I fear. I need some advice bc I’m scared to even talk to my therapist about this bc I think I will go to jail. I don’t want to be like this and I hate POCD so much and I rlly care so much for this kid and would actually die for him to protect him. I just need someone to tell me I’m not crazy bc idk if that contact between us was intentional or not and I have not spiraled like this for so long. I truly am losing my mind and want to give up bc I know I am not the person my POCD tells me I am but now I feel like I am everything it calls me. I feel so ashamed and repulsed and disgusted in myself and wish I didn’t exist. I feel like I’ve exploited my kid and taken advantage of him and that I don’t deserve to have him in my life and that I don’t even deserve to life and would be better off in jail or dead. im so broken and I’m sorry if what im saying is confusing

sorry for the long post, if anyone would like to read and give me some advice i’d really appreciate it. i have something i have been keeping from my boyfriend. it’s nothing in relation to cheating or doing something bad behind his back. it’s something that happened before we started dating. it was when me and my “ex” (i rebounded before my current bf and yes, im very very ashamed of it) were a thing. me and him broke up relatively amicably but me being in general contact with him made my bf uncomfortable. it was a whole thing and in conclusion, i took accountability for my ignorance. i cut him off, wasn’t upset about it at all but there were some issues that still posed a problem in my relationship and it was what me and my “ex” did sexually and how long we were together. me and my bf started dating a few months after my rebound and he was under the impression that the time inbetween was longer. in the moment, i expressed i sincerely thought i told him how long it was and answered his questions about what we did sexually. but i forgot to mention one thing until it was too late. i promised i would tell him if i remembered anything and now that i have, i’ve recently been feeling REALLY guilty for withholding it. i absolutely hate thinking and talking about my rebound. i’m embarrassed by it. i’m trying to be better and move on from that general era of my life. and to a point i have. my bf is wonderful and nothing but good and loving. but over time i’ve become afraid to bring up stuff like this and tick him off. i find his reaction extreme in situations where i’m genuinely confused about what i’ve done. i’m a really anxious person and i try not to let it get in my way or his way of processing everything and resolving it. but its hard. coming from a bad relationship previously (before the rebound) i have a lot of issues to resolve within and outside of my relationship but right now, i don’t know what to do. i’m deathly afraid of bringing it up and him deciding to end us. again, sorry for the long rant. i had to get this off my chest somehow but i wanna know how to go about it. thanks guys

i haven’t talked to anyone about this, not my therapist, not my girlfriend, not my parents, but these days i find myself thinking about just ending it all. i wouldn’t actually do it, i’m too scared to, but sometimes it feels like that’s the only way out, the only solution. i feel so wrong, like everything about me is wrong, and i can’t find it in myself to believe i’m worth living. i need to know if it gets better. i’m 20 years old and have spent the vast majority of my teenage years in therapy. i can’t stop feeling like i need to confess everything, especially to my girlfriend. obviously i try to resist the urge to but the mental battles are exhausting. every time something is even slightly wrong, i feel like i can’t i breathe. whenever i’m trying to distract myself, whenever i’m busy, all i can think about is everything i’m doing wrong. how can i possibly live life to the fullest if this is how i am?

I’ve been off nocd for some months doing really well but I’m gonna be blunt I was looking at pornography and some were honestly weird and disgusting in the subreddit of people admitting to even doing horrible things and I was reading them disgusted/scared and even the post was gross and wrong and I felt like a groinal pulse which disgusted me since it seemed as if I was getting aroused but I was like “Wtf this is so nasty I don’t like this right??” And I just checked again which the first two times it felt like a groinal something since I didn’t fully get aroused nor want more the third time I felt nothing at all but now I can’t stop thinking about it and this and I cannot tell if I’m still getting groinals because it feels like blood going down there but im not fully getting aroused and you may ask why am I asking to begin with but I have very little experience with groinals and only Experienced them with pocd a bit. I would also like to clarify the pornography WAS NOT anything Illegal but still immoral to me.

So I’m new to this app and I knew there was something wrong w/ my brain for a few years now. I’m a professional volleyball player and was playing in France last year while in a long distance relationship. I would ruminate and think that one small thing was going to ruin my career every. Single. Day. And I have the fear that I NEEDED to end warm ups with a good hit or else I would play terribly. I had constant fears that my teammates don’t trust me and think I’m bad - when in reality and looking at the statistics I was one of the best players on the team - the fearful ruminating keeps me awake at night and it would get so bad that I would break into a rash on my neck. Lots of rashes from anxiety and over thinking :( My relationship was new but it was long distance. I never experienced this in my life: my mind became OBSESSED with the idea he might be ugly. I couldn’t stop thinking that he was ugly and feared that that meant I needed to break up with him and I felt like a terrible person constantly and the thought ate me alive - I was constantly googling about it to try and get some relief which I am now learning is seeking reassurance. I also have struggled with some forms of disordered eating for many years but it got so bad in France. I was binge eating a lot. I gained ten pounds in a month. I knew it and I felt it and I became OBSESSED with the idea that I’m so fat and a weak terrible person for not being able to control my binges. My therapist gave me some screener exams. I scored very highly on the anxiety test and the OCD test which blew my mind cuz I’ve never considered OCD in my whole life. I started taking Prozac which honestly I feel like saved my life. It’s been over 6 months since that point now and everything is so much more manageable. I’ve also recently learned that I may have autism as well. My brother has it and dad is convinced he has it but I was never diagnosed. I also learned I may have a bit of ADD as well recently. I’ve known I think differently for some time but this is just overwhelming and validating and confusing and a bit scary. My current obsession is worrying about my future career - I’m obsessed. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m so afraid of my making a lot of money in the future. I take aptitude tests all the time when I get anxiety or go on Reddit to hear about other people which makes me feel okay for a little but it always comes back. My head is spinning. I just want to enjoy being 24 and having an interesting career and trust that my life will be okay but I’m so convinced that I’m going to suffer immensely if I don’t start pursuing a high paying job immediately. Im a smart girl - graduated from UC Berkeley - have done tons of networking in different industries - I have a financial plan for the future for when I start a normal job - but I cant stop this cyclical torturous thinking that I’m going to be poor and suffer immensely I also learned a few years ago I have an anxious attachment style which I thought I worked through but in my new relationship I have strong feelings for him and I feel the intense fear abandonment coming up and I’m so scared I’m gonna ruin the relationship - I thought maybe I’m just someone who needs a lot of reassurance but if I have OCD maybe that will make it worse? Feeling like I need reassurance to regulate? I just would like some help - have you experienced this? Is this even OCD? Am I making things up for attention? I’m going to bring it up with my therapist.

I was playing with my brother and I thought he was so cute because he’s little and at the same time it felt like I wanted to touch him inappropriately It’s weird because sometimes I get disgusted by the thought and then sometimes I feel like I would actually that

I’m constantly having fears of getting psychosis like I’ve been thinking I want to get closer to God but my brain is like what if I end up in religious physcosis or what if I drive myself into physcosis from my intrusive thoughts or what if I’m already in it.

So I’ve been recovering from my obsession from my sexuality bc I am attracted to men 100% but when I was a child, a cousin I was really close to had me do things to her and ever since then my perspective on things have changed. After that experience I would sit in corners and watch girls kissing and when i got older and learned what pornography was, I would watch girls to learn how to pleasure myself and I would hide and watch women on women in the same room where I was sa’d in. When I became a teen I started learning about wattpad and teen stories and i got so into men and dating in the books and I ended up forgetting about all of those things that changed me. I never thought about any of the girl things till a old friend brought it up and said I should explore but it really makes me uncomfortable to do something like that because it doesn’t feel right and it makes me feel sick to my stomach to be with women or even talk to one that way bc I’ve never perceived women in that way. I’ve always fangirled over men and male celebrities and I have my favorite singers like Sabrina carpenter but I’ve never thought about her in that light nor have I done any other women. I even read this document called am I a lesbian and it’s very good and it helped me realize that I am straight and it definitely took a bit of weight off my shoulders but then I saw a video of a therapist saying how being sa’d doesn’t change your sexuality and so I looked up how did people know or what clues did they have to know if they were bi and a lot of people usually know from a young age as young as elementary and having crushes on women and men but i never thought about women in general even tho I watched porn on it. I simply did it because it was really all I knew and I guess it was familiar to me?? now my new obsession is what does this mean for me ? And how do I know if im attracted to a women? I’ve never had a crush on one before. I never even thought about any of this until my friend tried to convince me to explore and it all just sparked from there. Ever since that day I’ve been avoidant of women and giving them genuine compliments like I used to. Everything all of a sudden seems inappropriate or gay to do. I get anxious and my lower body part starts to ache (groin) and it keeps making me wonder if that is attraction or fear or am I uncomfortable? But when im around a man I clearly find attractive or a male celebrity I find hot, or if I have a crush/relationship with a guy, I start smiling and trying to act all pretty and squealing like a kid who just got the best Christmas gift and I know that I clearly want to bone him. And my biggest dream is to be a mother. I want to get married to a man who will be the love of my life and have a happy family and I just personally never seen myself doing that with a woman and i can’t even imagine myself doing so. I know that probably seems cliche and I know this probably is a lot but what does it mean ? Am I just in denial or is it something more ?

A year ago u started to have these debilitating sexual intrusive thoughts sometimes they’d even come in forms of demands and a thing I’d do slit is agree but then if get really sad bc in my heart it didn’t feel right that wasnt something I wanted I started to lose myself so terribly my entire identity was stripped away from me I had zero clue of who I’d been my life before wasnt great but it was mine yk so ofc I started to perform compulsions like avoidance and other things bc I was genuinely scared my future felt threatened I tried everything no matter how much I’d say no, tried to agree, tried accepting the thoughts in hopes of recovery they only became louder until there was no me just thoughts but I started playing volleyball and it was something that truly grounded me for the first time I felt like myself I was doing whatever I wanted despite my thoughts I was being defiant i even started to like a girl and I liked her so much because she was the first person I’ve ever liked while liking myself and I Always felt guilty because I thought I wasn’t doing enough to honor my past or I felt like I should be doing more because I felt better but I moved on anyway despite the guilt but a couple months ago I had a panic attack it was weeks of intrusive thoughts leading up to it and I started to feel immense guilt I felt like I was losing myself again like it Was time for me to pay penance and it sounds terrible to describe it that way but the way they were so loud so demanding I felt guilty because before all my intrusive thoughts came I wouldn’t have felt like this and I wouldn’t have not wanted whatever was in my thoughts to happen so then it got louder thoughts like “ if ur reacting this way to one thing why not another” “u should feel this way because u would’ve in the past” and I couldn’t say no because it was true in the past I would’ve wanted that right so the louder it got the more I agreed because I felt like i wasnt allowed to say no and there’d be this quiet when I agreed it wasnt peace but quiet and I felt like I should’ve been grateful and when I’d break from the agreeing it was too late I craved the quiet but not the thoughts and I couldn’t have one without the other so now I feel like I’m on the outside looking in on my own life and there’s nothing I can do abt it bc I was given the Opportunity to feel better and did nothing abt it

I hope everyone is doing well! I included this cute little image below, but I'm also in need of advice! I'm wondering if anyone has any videos of tips on how to focus on building confidence in yourself? I'm beginning to realize that I base a lot of my self-worth on other people's opinions... just in general. This is an example, but I'll hear about celebrity drama online and, at first, not really care. But eventually, I'll cave if people keep talking about it or it comes across my feed, and I'll just scroll through video after video—comment after comment—trying to make sure that my opinion will be the "correct" one. Does that make sense? This is so stupid 😭 but it really affects me. I try to stay off social media as much as possible, save for YouTube, but I feel like this is something I legitimately need to work on. I'm still young, but I don't want to spend my 20s letting shit like this affect me. I want to be confident in WHO I am, which is hard with OCD stirring up doubt, but I think it'd be good for me! So, if anyone has any recommendations or advice, please let me know! Thank you! 🤍

hi i’m feeling a little discouraged and was just wondering if anyone wanted to share their experiences with pocd like how real it is for them and maybe some recovery stories like what that looks like and what helped you get there and how they are now i just had my therapy appointment and am kinda down bc i have to stick with uncertainty and that really bothers me… but anyone wanna share?

I recently got diagnosed with OCD back in May of this year. What started it was a month prior, I took an SSRI which triggered an extremely intense couple of days due to panic attacks I’ve never had before. I’ve never had panic attacks but pretty intense anxiety. That’s when I started experiencing DPDR and hyper awareness. I’m good some days, but other days it’s so so hard. Especially because I have no one around me that understands. The DPDR and awareness of every feeling, thought, and just overall awareness of my existence gets really overwhelming. I feel like I’m losing my mind. It’s really hard to sit with my thoughts especially when they’re on a constant loop of every little thing I’m thinking and doing and on top of that feeling like I’m in a dream. I desperately just want to go back to how I was 4 months ago, but I know that’s just not possible right now. If anyone has experienced this and is doing much better now or even currently experiencing this please let me know! I need someone to relate to lol

This might not even be OCD related, but I have a difficult time standing up for myself or just communicating boundaries with others. I'm trying to improve, but it's not easy. I always feel guilty after saying anything, like maybe I'm being dramatic, or maybe I'm in the wrong for not ignoring their words/actions and moving on. Even if the person doesn't respond with a negative reaction, I start spiraling :(

I uninstalled this app for a while bc i was posting very much, but my compulsions continued. I went to a festival with my boyfriend and my friends, i waited one year for this moment and , it was like hell bc of my thoughts. It made me act so bad, i had so many mood swings, i was crying randomly bc i was thinking i am not in love anymore. even in the last day of the festival, in the middle of frikng Ken Carsons show, i had thoughts about me not loving my boyfriend, that the annoys me and it just felt so real. It felt and it feels straight up like it is real this time and i dont know what to do. Maybe this is not ocd and i just found an excuse all this time. Im avoiding intimacy, im not saying i love you, i feel repulsed by him for no reason, all off this is like proof to me but it feels so bad. So so bad. I ruined the moment i was waiting for so much, and not only for me, but for him, someone here told me i feel out of love. Im scared that this is not ocd. that im just a good person who does not accept the truth, and that dosent want to hurt him. I feel like i have changed and have no feelings. He tells me that im not supposed to feel love everytime but why dont i feel it al all. im scared and tierd. Im scared that i do t have ocd. i have been lime this for so long, (2 years) that i started to think i never loved him and i just want the ideea of me to love him, and maybe im crying rn not because i want to love him but because im tierd of feeling like this. please someone help me. i dont know what is happening. i cant even kiss him or be intimate and im thinking “LOOK IS PROOF I DONT LOVE HIM” . PLUS im so rude to him and im acting badly and when he tells me he dosent feel loved i feel so numb. like i do t care???? is this real??? it feels real this time??? maybe this is not rocd, i cant enjoy anything and it somehow makes sense that i only want the ideea of liking him please i told my mom i dont feel live and she told me “Why are you struggling? Are you staying with him out of pity or out of compromise? Have you been like this for 2 years? How long will you last?” im hurting myslef and him

I thought when someone add young adults with ocd, mid-life adults with OCD, or older adults with OCD were actually adults I’m worried because I would look at someone profile and assume they’re legal age and talk to them now I’m just like I probably exposed them to inappropriate stuff because of my thoughts

My ex and I were definitely not the best match for each other, even though we convinced ourselves we were for nearly seven years. We said some things to each other we probably both still carry on now. One thing he’d tell me always was that I was mean when we fought/argued. But I only ever got that way when he didn’t listen…cause when I did soften my tone, or showed my vulnerable opinions he never took it seriously. I’ve realized over the years that my OCD usually gets heightened/worse either when I’m stressed, PMSing, or am on an estrogen related birth control. Sadly my life has changed drastically and so near the beginning of this month I switched to an estrogen/progesterone combined birth control pill. It has been great so far, up until this past week. My current boyfriend truly is a saint, and is the genuinely sweetest men I have ever had the privilege of knowing. But, I still get angry. Thankfully I never EVER get angry at him. I will talk my feelings out to myself (like at my job when I’m alone or in the car on the way to him) and work out my anger before I even see him: cause 9/10 times…it’s all in my head, with whatever is wrong. I’m just so worried that 1) one day that angry and mean side of me will come out again. I never ever want to make him cry, or make him feel unworthy (which is how my ex told me how I made him felt) and 2) that he’ll see me for who I ‘truly am’. He swears to me that I’m a sweet girl, and that I don’t have an angry bone in my body. But I see how agitated I get, I see how bitter I can be. I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared of hurting him. I’ve been nonstop thinking about this past week and I just want relief or a break from me.

I feel like I m*lested my brother in his sleep because I was thinking if me touching his area disgusted me and I’m trying to remember if I got up and touched him but I don’t remember I was laying down I asked my brother if I did anything he said no but how would he know he was sleeping? It’s like what if I did something that I don’t remember?

this is probably kinda jumbled but over the past almost year or so i've slowly realized i have ocd (i'm diagnosed audhd but over time i started feeling like those alone didn't cover the whole issue yk?), and recently i've been kinda worried i guess. it’s just that i’m turning 21 in 6 months and i’m afraid that this disorder is going to rob me of joyful adult milestones in my life. honestly being 20 has sucked, i can’t even remember wtf being 18 was like, and my childhood in general wasn't the best either, but i've been struggling a lot as of late and i don't want how i feel now to be the same as how i feel next year. my meds have helped quiet my compulsions a significant amount (i literally felt like i was going kinda cray cray when i was off them 😭) but they’re not completely gone. sometimes it just seems like this is all it's ever gonna be forever and i’m always gonna feel ashamed of myself for just like… existing. my 21 year old self deserves to be happy but idk if i’ll be able to give that to her 🥲🥲🥲