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I just got broken up with because I am depressed and it was over text. My anxiety and ocd have been awful and he said that can only be an excuse for so long so now I’m going insane. I am so sick.

I have struggled with ocd my entire life until I realized what it was and why I was the way I was. My psychiatrist is trying one more medicine because we have “exhausted” all other options which is making me lose hope. I’ve been on many medicines since 8th grade and now I just feel hopeless, she said after if this medicine doesn’t work I should do TMS therapy which freaks me out. The medicine she is prescribing me is Anafranil? Guys I’m so just lost right now

can someone pls help me understand this? ive been in therapy for a couple of months, I have really bad OCD. since 2024 I worry about having cheated on my gf with a friend of mine ( who I don't talk to anymore because of this situation). at first I was like nah it never happened, then I grew more confused and then more certain. now most of the time I feel like I really cheated and that there's no other explanation. the only thing that confuses me is that I met this friend in 2022 and until 2024 I don't really remember thinking I had cheated, but I also feel like it can be explained by me not really realising the seriousness of the situation or something like that. this whole thing is kind of complicated so I won't delve too much into the details. my gf knows about everything and she doesn't believe I cheated, she thinks I have really bad OCD and that's that. she decided to stay with me and asked me to not bring it up again ( we talked about it MANY times) and to talk about it in therapy. and like, I am, but I'm really confused cus my therapist calls this whole situation "the cheating doubt" or "possible cheating" even when I said many times that I'm certain something happened. I don't really know what to do. does this mean my therapist thinks it's all a big what if, and that either things could have happened ( cheating or not cheating) and that my certainty is caused by OCD or what??? I don't get it I feel really alone

tldr: my mom is pretty much the source of most of my obsessions and compulsions, and these past two weeks have been a test of my sanity. (hi, this is my first time posting! it’s a long one, so strap in. tips and encouragement are highly appreciated.) for clarity, my health concern ocd is not only for myself, but my parents. i’m a 21 year old online college student living with them (both 66), and my mom has kind of a triple-whammy of things wrong with her; she’s chronically ill with kidney disease, chronic utis, and neuropathy, is extremely mentally ill, and is verbally and mentally abusive. like, i’m pretty she’s got severe untreated borderline personality disorder, among other things. in other words, she is not well. now, i’m not necessarily afraid of non-contagious illnesses. her having chronic utis is, in itself, not a problem for me. the problem is, however, that the first noticeable symptoms of her many utis tend to be subdued behavior, a reduced appetite, and chills, which then progress, over the course of a day or so, into nausea and vomiting, because i am terrified of contagious illnesses—and this onset of symptoms sounds, on paper, similar to many of them. she doesn’t even experience urinary or back pain until days after these initial symptoms begin, which, as you can probably imagine, makes me want to rip my hair out! i am also terrified of environmental instability in an emotional sense. my checking ocd extends to checking that my parents aren’t arguing. complex and lifelong trauma makes me afraid of conflict, which is probably pretty relatable to a lot of you. anyway, with that in mind, let me begin my long and godawful tale by setting the stage: it’s the beginning of the month, and i’m trying to find ways to stop checking on my mom because it’s ruining my life, and my past several attempts have failed. the night i begin my next attempt, she says she feels nauseous. i accurately predict that she’s getting sick again, and tell my dad out of earshot of her. he, unfortunately, is in denial (it’s happened more times than any of us could count on five people’s hands over the course of six years; he hates it), and i feel immensely invalidated by his angry overreaction to me telling him my observation. in any case, as per usual when this happens, i hide in my room, keeping my ears attuned to the sounds of the house, absolutely terrified, dreading the moment i’ll hear her get sick, and, of course, it happens. after a day or so of her feeling pretty miserable, she finally, yet stubbornly, agrees to go to the emergency room, and, to my immense relief, they find that she has another uti. i’m still shaken, of course; i’ve spent the last several days afraid to walk through the hallway in case what she had wasn’t a uti, and i dread beginning the cycle anew when she finishes her antibiotics, but i’m still relieved for now. then, one of the bright spots of these past few weeks happens; for a week straight after that, i don’t check! i realize how awful the feeling of checking is and how dreadful the uncertainty it brings me feels, and i simply… don’t. i discover that it’s helpful not to, despite the terrible stress i feel (for reasons i’m about to elaborate on). so, the week passes slowly by. stress ramps up again as—oh yeah, i didn’t mention this—my dad’s rotator cuff repair surgery looms on calendar (it was yesterday as of the time of me posting this, and he’s recovering well), but i maintain my streak, even making up a reward system: if i can go thirty days without checking, i can buy myself a new 3ds xl. surely, at this point, the stress is behind me for now, right? well, that’s when my mom has a sudden, dramatic, and highly volatile borderline split over a message my sister (now estranged from her, for her benefit) sent her regarding boundaries she wants her to follow at her wedding in november. that’s a loaded statement, i know, sorry, but to make a long story short, she plans on inviting my dad’s children from a prior marriage that my mom has alienated, villainized, and is wholly delusional about, and she told my mom as much in her (very politely worded) message, and asked her to please not make a scene if she sees them. what a mistake. this triggered perhaps her worst mental break and borderline split in several years (though certainly not the first or most recent of them by even a couple months). over the course of two days, she threatens my dad with divorce and financial ruin (i’ll get back to that soon), and tries multiple times to physically attack him, break or toss their wedding rings and his necklace, and stops taking her medication and eating. all night, there’s awful screaming and sobbing and animalistic wailing. she literally loses her mind. i’m crying constantly, even though i’m in my room, and everything feels like it’s made of glass. even though she’s oscillating wildly between suicidal behavior and verbal threats and accusations, my dad and i can’t do much but hide or face it head-on, because the sheriff does jack around here—i know this because i’ve called them on her before—and even if the police were competent, she keeps saying that if he or i call them, she’ll lie to get out of custody or the mental hospital and make things hell for us, so the police and even the mental health crisis line are not much of an option (but if i’m wrong and they can, in fact, take her involuntarily at this level of violence, and she can’t actually outsmart mental health professionals, PLEASE correct me) unless things get genuinely dire and they have a reason to involuntarily put her on hold. at this point in the story, my dad’s surgery is in less than two days. the next day, she sleeps. then, our new kitten, who got neutered the week prior, begins having swelling and seepage around the surgical site, and the vet only opens on monday—the day of dad’s surgery. great, right? and when mom wakes up, she has another meltdown, fake dry heaves, and plays sick to get attention—which absolutely terrifies me. she’s also lying and threatening to leave, and, all in all, i feel like i can’t live or breathe. i frantically make plans with my aunts to help my dad and i out, as i still can’t drive (because the pandemic hit when i was 15-18, and because of my mom’s chokehold over my dad’s availability and my mental health). i call the local mental health crisis line late at night for advice on what to do about my mom, and they basically tell me to get her to the mental hospital (despite her having no such inclination) and to tell my dad that this is domestic abuse and that he can take action (again, i’ll get to that). anyway, the day before my dad’s surgery arrives, and suddenly, she wants to play nice…? she takes her medication and begins eating again. her conversations gradually lose their edge, but never fully. not even as of me writing this, but i suppose they never do. anyway, my dad mentions our plans with my aunts to her, citing her aforementioned (fake) sickness, and suddenly, she’s capable of driving, and, oh,!how dare my dad contact her sister, who—i forgot to mention this—she hates? ugh. so, we contact one of the few people she hasn’t alienated, which is our next door neighbor. a lifesaver, really; she offers to go with them to and from the hospital the next day, and even to go with me to bring our kitten to the vet, so that becomes the new plan. later in the day, as mom calms down, i tell dad what i was told by the hotline. this is abuse, this is divorce and restraining-order-worthy behavior, and another bright spot over these past two weeks happens: he listens in earnest for the first time in my life, and though such a major change scares me, we both know it’s for the absolute best. we have a talk about it, and though he waffles a bit for a day or so after she continues to calm down and begin love-bombing him, he actually maintains his position (even now): once he’s recovered, he will begin to gather evidence, legal counsel, and allies as well as witnesses in the family behind her back to eventually take action against her and get out of their marriage. it’s… scary. but i’m happy. i’d happily live with my dad! anyway, surgery day comes, and thankfully, mom’s agreeable enough to take him to and from the hospital alone, even staying in his recovery room all day in wait. my neighbor takes our kitten to the vet for me, bless her soul—he’s on antibiotics now and acting completely healthy, by the way! mom’s love-bombing my dad like crazy all day, of course, hence the temporary reconsideration i mentioned he experienced for about a day, but even after surgery, he talks to me and says that he sees her abuse for what it is for perhaps the first time, thanks me for being his support, and says that it will be hard—that he’ll have to act to avoid rousing suspicion—but that things have gone too far now to turn back, and he can’t cope with her being in his life anymore. (as an aside, i just want to mention that i’m proud of him!) even so, after they get home and he begins recovering, the past two weeks of constant stress hits me, and over the course of the evening, i begin constantly crying, my mind sounds like static and i can’t think, and i’m pacing tirelessly like a shark, because it feels like something fundamental has changed and that my security will never be truly guaranteed again because of my mom. i break my no checking streak, much to my shame, and enter their room in search of either comfort or just company, i’m not sure. even though at this time my dad is fine and my mom is jovial, i cry in terror that he or my mom will get sick from going out today, or that they’ll begin fighting again. i try to verbalize a simple “stress is getting to me,” but my mom gets extremely, debilitatingly hyper-verbal while on pain medication to manage her neuropathy, so i can only make frantic noises while i try to form words before she cuts me off to ramble nonsensically again. at this point, i feel utterly insane and completely unsafe. i stay in their room for a long time, against my better judgment, doubly shattering my no-checking streak. now onto today. last night was restless, and i woke up shaking. before i took a nap today, i was bordering on a panic attack. nothing major happens afterwards, thank christ, but my dad continues to recover, and he’s getting the hang of managing his post-surgical pain. i’m anxious because of it, because i’m also severely emetophobic, and i worry that he’ll be sick from the pain, so i check on him when i notice that he’s hurting. when my mom wakes up, she freaks me out by existing (as usual) because she’s loopy from having taken more pain medication in the late morning, and so she continues to ramble, oscillating between passive aggressive comments passed off as jokes and love-bombing my dad. then, this evening, she uses the bathroom and has to lay down afterwards (which is something unique to her, i guess, where she feels sick after she goes number two), and i begin obsessively asking if she’s okay again and crying some more (to which she insults me and tells me not to ask again, or else) before leaving and trying to distract myself, feeling terrible that i checked. i erase my streak progress off of my little thirty day whiteboard calendar, hoping to begin again tomorrow (which i still do, obsessions be damned) and i try to relax, but it simply isn’t happening; i worry that mom will get sick from going out yesterday, and that me talking to her has just put me at risk. i also worry that she’ll get sick again once she finishes her antibiotics on friday, because her uti symptoms haven’t gone completely away. it isn’t fun. i’m still really worried. then, just a little bit ago, i noticed that my dad was having some pretty intense pain again, so i offered to get him some herbal pain medicine (it’s legal here), and i went into my parents’ room to get it, and had to see her and speak to her a little bit. since leaving, i’ve been in my room, writing this out and planning out what i’ll do tomorrow, which is this: - greet my dad in the morning and see how he’s recovering (and what my mom’s mental and physical status is, to be honest) - make dinner in the slow cooker - bake brownies (for my dad) - attend my weekly telehealth therapy appointment, possibly reading this post out to her to make recapping my week easier - only leave my room when necessary to eat, use the bathroom, or assist my dad if he texts me and requests help with something - distract myself with music, youtube videos, my friends, and video games, no matter how obsessed and anxious i feel with the intense compulsion to check and i hope, or—no—i WILL do it! …and that brings us to now! i don’t really know what the goal of this post is, but for anyone who read this long, winding vent, thank you. also, for anyone wondering why i don’t just leave, that’s why i’m a student—i’m getting a degree in business administration to have easy access to employment so i can work from home (i can’t drive, as i said) and save money to rent an apartment in a walkable area (or just uber around) until i can either get myself into driver’s ed, or my dad can help me out once he and my mom split in a while. by the way, i graduate this fall! anyway, that’s been my past two weeks. if anyone has any advice to help me cope, or tips to help me avoid checking, or encouragement, or just, like, SOMETHING to help me make sense of the times i’ve been living in and get back on track to recovery, i’d appreciate it ENDLESSLY. thank you so much!

A year ago I went to a portable potty downtown and I used the toilet paper 🧻 in there. A couple months later or days later can’t remember. My friend was like “I would never use a portable potty or the toilet paper in there. Have you heard about the drug addicts cleaning their needles by poking it in the toilet paper and now a year later it came up again because I masturbated the day before and went to work the next day and as I was using the restroom it hit me what if when I got up and put my pants back on some flung on to the toilet paper next to me. Now I’m thinking great everyone who used the paper is now infected with an std or something bc I MIGHT have std from the day I went to the porta potty a year ago. I feel so alone and lost and anxious and scared. I feel like I’m the only one with this specific scenario. Can I even get infected like that?

18+ only OCD keeps infantilising grown women especially when they posting somewhat suggestive things I guess? (Could just be my OCD just assuming that but I don't know) and I hate it so much, I also saw someone I had to report, they didn't post anything I don't think but I just went to their account to report them because their name was a dogwhistle and the person my OCD infantilised despite them being 21 was really triggering and then when I was reporting the "person" I saw the link to someone I cleared as safe and the checking compulsion popped into my head again, I didn't do it but I'm having a groinal and everything. I then checked the first person's (Not the person I reported) following and they turned out to follow some people I find immoral so I reported them too but one person was just normal and posted slightly suggestive photos of themselves in like gym shorts and bikinis but I didn't know their age so OCD freaked out and said all these things about me for no reason. I needed to do the checking compulsion to something safe but then I saw two people I thought were safe uploaded new videos doing things I found immoral, I found someone safe but kept itching and stretching my privates when looking for something safe and I don't know why but I'm scared it's a s*xual thing, I was doing the stretching thing when I had a full on groinal and sometimes when I was ya knowing but I was itching compulsively before then and I didn't feel anything when stretching, I just have a medical thing down there and doing that helps, maybe it's a subconcious test to see if it is a s*xual thing but I've done it before under different contexts like just on the toilet and not really paying attention to my phone so I'm scared/worried I could've done it at an inappropriate time without realising. Also this is probably a dumb aside but I don't believe I feel attraction, I just use checking compulsions to "disprove" intrusive thoughts and destress. Before the compulsion I reported a bunch of people either being really disgusting about someone who posted a selfie or following people I've reported before or posting videos of other people possibly without them knowing and I also thought someone was safe and was about to find something of there's to complete the compulsion before one of their titles had the word "mommy" in it which I really hate but I feel bad because I already started the compulsion before finding that out and stopping. And I keep looking at people inappropriately, no matter who it is and I despise it more than anything. And I just learnt that Euphoria which I watched like 2 episodes of ages ago had a scene cut from the first episode because it was illegal and I'm terrified I saw it and didn't realise and I feel like I have to report it just in case but obviously don't want to see it.

Hi everyone! My name is Mila, I’m 20 years old, and I was diagnosed with OCD last spring. I’m sharing my story because I went through psychosis from August 2025 to early October 2025, and I cannot shake the guilt off ever since I’ve experienced the episode. Also, I’d love to spread awareness and possibly hear about other experiences. TW: I would also like to warn that this post WILL have mentions of: sexual violence & trauma, paranoia about the government, stalking/following, delusions, contamination, social anxiety, magical thinking OCD, homophobia (not me lol) and my apologies for anything I’ve missed. Starting off strong— On August 1st, I was sexually assaulted in my sleep when I was 16 and with that came with nightmares, phantom touches, flashbacks, depression, truancy, and all of that pizazz. For a while it felt like my pain from my sexual assault was going to be like pi on a scale of 5. Yet throughout pi, it switches from 9 to 2, big to little, and most importantly you don’t know what number would be next. you don’t know if tomorrow’s going to feel/be like a 0 or 8. In short, the pain felt infinite and moderate. Now, I use past tense because I worked so hard to alleviate the pain with therapy, meds, wrong coping mechanisms, being a workaholic, reporting it to the police and eventually, without me knowing, i was convinced that I’ll always be okay. Every year that passes, despite my hard work, the last week of July becomes a hell hole for me. It’s like my body automatically remembers and I’m experiencing how bad it used to be all those years ago. So, in the beginning of my psychosis (first week of August 2025) I was already heavily sleep deprived, drowning in a trauma-heavy brain, and feeling so alone. My psychosis REALLY started when I thought I was being followed by my rapist AND the government on the way to my girlfriend’s house. My rapist? Well, not really because he doesn’t live here anymore. This stemmed from when I parked in his neighborhood with my girlfriend to open up to her more about my sexual trauma. Now, the government…was a stretch…why? Because I accidentally reposted a “pray for Charlie Kirk” post on my insta story😭 it’s funny when I look back at it. But I was subconsciously dying of embarrassment and guilt. And SOMEHOW, I thought the government saw all this left wing media I consumed, spread, my beliefs, and how I protest. Honestly, i’m still so embarrassed talking about this delusion 😣😣 To add on, I specifically thought the white no-numbered licenses plate van and truck was ICE…going after my girlfriends family…AND they’re targeting ME because I’m gay and I live in a red state…….and somehow this isn’t the worse. Moving on, I keep driving convinced I’m going to be kidnapped and my girlfriend’s family will be sent away. I drive past my girlfriend’s house because right now I’m thinking “they’re tracking my location.” Then, I turned off my Apple Maps directions to her house and put airplane mode on my phone because I thought I could get to her house by memory. WRONG! The exit I was going to take was closed so I went about 30 mins past her house into this small town where I “hid” in the back parking lot of a CVS. On my way here, I finally called my girlfriend because I was too scared someone could read our texts. It did not help that it was beating hot that day where my phone would shut off by itself 😅 then, my girlfriend and her grandma went to get me because I was too scared to drive and move. I felt like I was being watched and there were people hiding in greenery and cars. I even thought those big cameras in parking lots were watching me. I was convinced the town I “hid” in was a social experiment and because of what I accidentally posted, the government AND my friends were somehow watching me through the cameras of wherever the hell I was. Then, I was saved and my girlfriend sat in the passenger’s seat while I was following her grandma home. We got to my lovely girlfriend’s home. I fell asleep in her lap as she was trying to convince my parents to not send me to the mental hospital because my parents were going out of the country for a week and a half and to not stress about me, that was their solution. Keep in mind.. my parents are your traditional emotionally absent immigrant family.. not believing in mental health “diseases”… or the fact that I was being followed. I was actually cussed out and accused of being on drugs by my father when I told him I thought I was being followed. So, me not being sent away was a celebratory achievement. Instead, I had a psychiatric appointment with the local office near me. Finally got home. My parents were leaving for vacation the next night so all I did cry and sleep while my girlfriend took care of me. Then, it was time to say goodbye to my parents. I overanalyzed their hand motions and thought my mom was signaling to me that my house was bugged. And that they can hear me. So they left to the airport. My girlfriend, sister, and I all watch Interstellar. I thought it was AI because of the *********SPOILERS************* watch/clock/time/banging on bookshelves scene with Murph and her dad. I thought my dad was telling me to make sure my analog watch was still ticking because the somehow the government changed the times in my home via HACKING the digital clocks, by breaking in, somehow slowing down our grandfather clock with IDK TELEKINESIS?!? Just to make sure i miss that psychiatric appointment so I wouldn’t snitch or because i was supposed to die that day. Yeah 🤯. I also thought that the plane crashing scenes were my friends telling me what happened to my parents just now. A PLANE CRASH. And I was just keeping silent because again, the government can hear and see me and what if this interstellar movie was also controlled BY THEM. So, if I acted normal and sat through that discomfort(literally ERP) then the government would trust me in being stable and not snitching about them. I was straight face gang the entire movie. I didn’t want to show any signs of weakness or fear. Hmm I wonder what that makes me as a person. Somehow throughout this movie I was also convinced that my friends were trying to tell me that my dad was locked up for a verbal death threat about my rapist, my parents broke up, my parents were being sent back to our mother land, my parents blew up in the plane, my dad time traveled, um. just anything in that movie my brain grabbed at and tried to make the worst out of it. Like an evil intrusive magical thinking magnet. But then the movie had a nice ending so that’s how I knew my parents were okay 😃 midway of writing this I am a bit anxious about developing schizophrenia in the future. moving on, My sister and girlfriend accompanied me in this appointment. It was August 14. some background info: this mental health clinic comes from the same company of nursing home I’ve applied at.. and got rejected. and at my appointment, there was a QR code hanging on the doorknob in front of me and I scanned it. Bam! A nice thank-you note from the CEO. and then suddenly my brain convinced me that the government and CEO were working together to take me down because people like me don’t deserve to work in healthcare LIKE HELP IM SOOOOO EMBARRASSED OF THIS DELUSION!!! 90% of my psychosis was fr me projecting and 10% was just me ruminating and having panic attacks. Ok so I meet with the psychiatrist and I literally infodumped on him and told him EVERYTHING that happened. and I was prescribed some Prozac and Propanol likeeee talk about pushing p 😛. but unfortunately, I thought that mental health clinic was out to get me because 1. I had debt from when I was admitted to one of their mental hospital … when I was 15. 2. the CEO note. I believed my phone was hacked and it opened up another URL. 3. this part was in July but I also thought my laptop was hacked and that’s why I couldn’t register for a very very very important exam. I thought the CEO of the testing company knew I enjoyed Mary Jane every now and then. So I believed they’ll use that against me to be blacklisted from every healthcare facility, classes, EVERYTHING. Post-appt: I got my prescription. Felt maybe 0.21% better afterwards. And guess what? This was ALSO apart of my psychosis. I needed to log into my mother and I’s health insurance account in order to pick up my meds. Didn’t know the password, the timezones were VERY different between my mother and I, and given what I was convinced throughout the movie, I did not think she was real either🤣🤣 yeah I was just straight up in another reality. I thought she was AI, government was texting for her, or my other sister who I don’t speak to anymore. I already thought the government was after me. So, I thought if I logged into this UnitedHealthcare account they would see that I’m not the primary THROUGH THE LAPTOP CAMERA and they would ARREST ME for 1. Fraud because I’m not the primary. 2. Medical debt when I was 15. And lowkey during this time, I was convinced my parents were going away and I thought I had to work to support paying RENT LIKE ??? and ALL my medical debt that my parents never paid for. 3. There was also that d4vid scandal and I remember seeing that I didn’t search him up on my Spotify nor google and I thought the police were going to frame me for being the buffalo bayou murderer and that he was my inspo. So I thought through the smallest ways, like logging into an account that’s not yours, that would be enough to create some lead on me. The entire time my parents were gone, I never picked up my meds. I was just wholeheartedly believing that my house was bugged and there was a camera in my fan. I acted as if I was performing. I acted less on my political beliefs. I was always guarded and scared to show affection to my girlfriend. Even when I’d change, I’d do it in my closet. When my girlfriend would change, I would cover the fan because I thought there was a camera in there. Academic wise, I failed and dropped my classes that fall 2025 semester. I was too scared to drive because the software could easily be hacked in my car. To go to campus because I see too many people I know there and everyone thought I was some school shooter because my panic attacks have been popular (thought I was being watched + social anxiety combo). This even led me to giving away the airsoft gun my father gave me after he heard about my sexual assault(talk about parenting haha I was 17). I failed badly because I believed some of my assignments were TARGETING me. With questions centering sexual assault, FANS, and my parents jobs. thought the gardener at campus was an undercover cop watching me. That semester, the last time I went to class from not going in WEEKS, I had a panic attack in the veterans area because I thought any one of them would understand my PTSD and anxiety. Throughout the time I was in school, I wouldn’t go to class physically but I would work from home and thankfully, my professors accommodated. Although, when my sister and girlfriend would try to get my courage up by making me drive to pick up my nephews or going to the library to work an assignment. I couldn’t get out. it just felt like I was being constantly tested, watched, and bullied. I mean I thought the cops also tried to frame me for having weed or being some drug dealer simply because there were leaves under my chair. I fell and scraped my knee, lost some blood, and cried because someone is going to collect my blood and frame me. Thought my Spotify was getting hacked. Thought people could see what’s on my laptop screen and how I didn’t read my microeconomics textbook that clearly so now my neighbors think I’m just some sociopathic manipulative manic psycho because by not reading that book, it would mean I wasn’t that educated about social class. Things so small yet my brain connects it to losing my life. In short, I didn’t go to class & I didn’t open my laptop because it was hacked but what I did do was… 🥁🥁 CLEAN!!!!!!! Yup I was just cleaning. doing dishes, laundry, rearranging my room, using my hands to get every crumb out of the carpet, bathroom cleaning, showering too much, and eating too little. Well it hits the first week of September and my parents are back. I did not think they left America. I thought they were watching me the entire time and knew about my psychosis. I also thought my girlfriend knew about the mics and cameras until she snapped me out of it and asked who was listening to us. My girlfriend helped a lot. Offering to break down THE fan. Slept and kept me company. Watched me sleep because Zia couldn’t be the one who sleeps second. Fed me and convinced me to a few assignments and drives. Moving on, im getting a little thankful. My mother logged into the UHC account for me. I picked up my meds all by myself. IN THE RAIN. OH! I also thought the government controlled the weather so every time I said something wrong it would rain. Vice versa with sun. So me driving in the rain was a HUGE accomplishment. I start taking the meds, melatonin, vitamins, AND I ordered a weighted blanket. I went on walks and runs. Yes, I still thought the police were still watching me and I did have a public panic attack near a lake. I still thought a few things were hacked like my phone and TV. Still couldn’t drive that much until my sister tricked me into basically driving where my girlfriend lives!!! So that made me feel a lot more confident. I felt like a baby bird relearning its environment. I did wake up with immediate panic attacks in the morning but I also got a job as a barista. Something small but it helped me get over this delusion that everyone was after me. I started to also talk to my cousins again. Although, Ive gotten distant with my friends. I’ve said too much. I asked if my phone was hacked and if there was a recording of me going around. I told them about the day I parked in his neighborhood with my girlfriend. and I was convinced they thought I was pregnant and I lied about being sexually assaulted this entire time. So ever since, I’ve lost that feeling of being able to go to my friends. We grew apart and they have no about my psychosis era. With medication, improved grounding techniques, and finally opening up about my delusions to my girlfriend, I WASN’T back to normal. but stable enough to work part-time and drive to her. Because at the time, I thought she was in it too. That she knew ICE was after her and her family. Crazy right? Now, I’ve been going out. Driving everywhere. Working full time as I relearn the materials to take my very very very important test. I’m also retaking the classes I’ve dropped this summer & fall! I think I just needed to see all of it written down because after my psychosis was over, I would just cry. I still feel so bad for me. I feel embarrassed for being a year late on my timeline. For the things I said to others. For how I acted. How unstable and SCARED I was. My girlfriend even said it felt like I was possessed. Before this, my biggest fear was being sexually assaulted. Getting robbed of my body, being dehumanized, and watching myself from third person. But now, losing myself is my biggest fear. I’m glad it is because it means I am beyond worth losing. thanks

Hi everyone. I really need some help or just to hear from people who have been through exactly this. I'm 18 years old and I've been in a relationship for 6 months. Just last week, we celebrated my birthday. We went to his village, slept together, and everything was perfectly fine. I thought he was super sweet, and I the last week missed him whenever we weren't together. The feelings were definitely there. Suddenly, 3 days ago, when I went to his house, a question popped into my head: Do I still like him? That was the last straw. out of nowhere, I completely lost access to my feelings.I wake up and go to sleep t totally anxious I feel totally numb. I don't want to push him away because I want to be with him, but at the same time, I feel this extreme pity for him because I feel like I'm giving him "nothing" and when he shows his feelings for me and I reciprocate, I feel like I'm lying. This triggers a horrible cycle of guilt and sadness. What I'm experiencing right now is severe anxiety and panic. The thought of losing him or not having him in my life brings me deep sadness and panic, not relief. I've spent the last 5 hours crying, trembling, afraid I wouldn't recover my feelings, and longing for the past. It feels suffocating, almost like I'm forcing myself to feel something that is currently blocked. My brain keeps throwing terrible intrusive thoughts at me. Earlier, it told me it would be easier if he just broke up with me so this pressure would stop. And another one said I only want to stay with him because I'm afraid no one else will ever love me. I keep testing my mind to see if I feel anything, which just makes me more exhausted. I took Clonazepam (Rivotril) for the last couple of days to try and calm my extreme anxiety, but it obviously didn't bring my feelings back, which made me feel even more hopeless. I don't want to break up. I want my feelings back desperately. If I truly didn't care, I wouldn't be in this much agony and I would just leave. Has anyone experienced this? Did your feelings come back? Please help me and a big thanks

Hello, I was going through a super confusing scenario. I am currently getting TMS for my depression as I feel it helped as much as it can but the main cause of my depression and episodes is truly my OCD I may have to wait a year to get treatment for TMS for OCD as this triggers me because I struggle with taking medications, I was prescribed Pristiq, I feel like I am poisoning my body because the easier option is just a couple months out and I have an ED so major fear of gaining weight on medications has not allowed me to take them recently even if the bad outweighs the good, I have OCD over this because what if I ruin my body taking medications, how much weight would I gain?? does anyone know if TMS for OCD is good for helping ocd and anxiety or is tms not even beneficial for ocd? is medication management better for OCD? I don't know the correct answer being to multiple care, therapist, doctors, physicist this week alone and they all tell me different things. I don't know who to trust or believe and I have no one to help me outside of the healthcare field I am spiraling and confused more than ever please please help thank you

Was just wondering if anyone can relate to this as I’ve never been able to fully explain it to anyone who gets it 😭 I hit this stage after dealing with intrusive thoughts for a while where I’m just CONSTANTLY aware of every thought in my head. Every minor unrelated thing feels like a trigger and i become permanently restless. My brain convinces me I’ll be stuck like this forever. I’ll be doing things I love and enjoy or laughing in conversations and my head will be all “yeah but you’re not truly present, your not really happy.. look you’re still stuck” I feel like I’m still suffering internally and nothing can ever truly distract me. And it makes me feel so down and just helpless.. I can’t even explain what’s wrong. My head will have all these checkpoints of places I walk past, like a road leading to my house and ESPECIALLY the bathroom mirror and every time I walk past them it’s like my brain goes “look your still stuck.. “ and I know I’m doing better when I walk in and out of the bathroom with none of those thoughts… Another big thing is my camera roll, I look at every picture and feel envious of myself when I was doing okay. I literally can’t look at pictures of when I was fine cuz I get convinced I’ll never have that again. “You’ll never be able to look at these with your eyes in your rational state of mind” The main sign for me that it’s getting bad is that I just lose the ability to day dream or think about anything other then my mental state. Even when I’m not thinking of my intrusive thoughts I’m analysing exactly how I feel or am trying to explain to myself exactly what I’m thinking and feeling.. It’s so tiring, at my worst it went on for months… in the most recent episode it went on for a week but I’m just terrified of getting like that again because I don’t know how to snap out. It’s funny because it all feels like one self fulfilling prophecy. My fear of being stuck in my head results in me analysing whether or not I am still stuck in my head for hours upon end.. and I just end up more stuck.

My anxiety/ocd manifests as a tightness in my chest. Like my muscle are tensing up like you would wince before someone hit you. I’m stuck in this perpetual state of ‘wince’. So much so my chest is sore from it. I feel like there is something to release but I can’t figure out what. I feel like there is a weight on my chest that i just can’t get off. I just want all this fear to go away. I’ve been in therapy for 3 years and i’ve been medicated for 2 years. I have made so much progress but I feel like I’ve plateaued and i feel like i’ve hit a glass ceiling in terms of getting better. Do i just need to accept that this is my life? Is there hope for me?

I am reaching out because I am in a debilitating mental health crisis and my current living environment is making recovery impossible. My OCD has deeply latched onto my dad’s presence. Due to a long history of him shouting over small things and his rigid need to 'scan' and control the environment, my nervous system is in a state of constant hypervigilance. Even though his behavior has improved slightly, the 'trigger stacking' is so severe that I am functionally paralyzed whenever he is in the house. I cannot follow through on plans to move out or improve my life because I am in a permanent 'freeze' response. Anybody has any advice?

So my spiral started with false memory POCD and has now jumped. Throughout the course of my spiral I used ChatGPT and google to ask questions about it, remember it was POCD type questions I was asking. I got over it and my rational thinking took over. Now my OCD has latched onto the fact that I asked highly suspicious questions about something I didn’t do. I’m now absolutely terrified I’ll get reported and falsely accused for something I DID NOT DO. Anyone else deal with this?

My best friend and I live together as college roommates. Its time to decide what to do for next year. We proposed some options. 1. Live in dorm together again 2. Find an apartment with 2 other friends 3. Live at home 45 min away He never mentioned anything else, and have referenced next year many times. This last week he went hiking. Before he left I referenced that we needed to talk about it. He said he was waiting for some things to fall into place. I am panicking and have been all week. Has he been offered to be someone else's roommate? Was he offered and apartment with other people? Does he not longer want to live with me? Is he hiding things? I know this is probably all nonsense but I have a few more days before we can talk about it. I know I can be a lot especially with the OCD, but I don't know if maybe it became too much.

I feel like I’m running out of hope I feel like I’m growing emotionless, even though I’m crying. I feel like they’re emotionless tears. I keep having the thought “if you did it, you’d feel better” and it won’t stop playing in my head and I want to just be thrown in jail. I look back at old photos and think “where did this boy go?” “What happened to him?” And I’m struggling so much with my emotions and thoughts. I’m so scared and I don’t know if anyone else goes through this.

21 days until my birthday. I’m actually so scared and nauseous. I don’t want to turn 19 it really scares me knowing I will not be a teen after that, I can hardly articulate why exactly. It feels like I wasted my teen years and like a safety blanket has been pulled off. I graduated last year in May on the 19th and I really was just sad the whole time. I hate that I still miss school I really do. I miss navigating around the building and being surrounded by peers, when it felt like I was still young and a child. I still feel like a kid, I act like one and even look like one too. I also took a gap year after school because I was too depressed to think about anything but the here and now and whatever intrusive thoughts I had that day. During the summer I will be attending a pre college sort of thing and living on campus for a whole week alone. If I truly love it there I hope I can go and have time there when I am still technically a teen, the idea of being 20 actually makes me physically sick and I’m scared. Today I should be happier, I just was able to secure public transportation for people with disabilities to help them become more independent. The passage of time is my biggest fear truly.

18+ UPDATE: This is my first post of the day so please take that context in mind... I'm genuinely feel so triggered and anxious... I'm gonna go to sleep right now, but I genuinely dont think I'll be able to ever be able to look my friends and family in the eye if this is true... ive been holding in the compulsions today all day... but right now its genuinely terrifying me... i have a girlfriend now (over 2 months) and i dont want to lose her... she's kind, and lovely, and the one I wanna marry one day... but then I look at myself... and my past... and I genuinely don't think I deserve her... Oh dear god... I dont know... but I think my worst fears came true... I think I unknowingly ERP'ed with a minor on an 18+ discord server 5 years ago... they currently are on Astralspiff's discord, having been there since 2023, and have switched their username, with a chicken emoji as their bio... they also switched their profile picture from Nana Osaki to a fan art of Kasame Teto... its making me think that these three things are certainties that she was a minor on the 18+ sexual server... and that I ERP'ed with her not knowing this... Im genuinely feeling shocked and sick to my stomach right now... they don't have their age listed on discord or anything, but they joined 5 years ago and it was 4 years ago that we ERP'ed... god I feel disgusted and horrified right now... someone talk to me... please.... in the past, I have been catfished by a man pretending to be a woman, had a minor on a dating app who lied about her age and i unknowingly flirted with her because I assumed she was 18+ and her bio said so, and sent an 18+ pic to a "woman" online who now I suspect of being a catfish... this is the reason why I'm so scared of whether or not I unknowingly inappropriately chatted with a minor without knowing... it genuinely scares me... Its making me think that I unknowingly inappropriately chatted with a minor in the past without knowing and it genuinely triggers me... I have tried to go back through most 18+ online interactions ive had with women online to make sure they didnt lie or they confirmed their age... i have two situations on discord that trigger me that ive posted about in the past... and a couple have deleted their discords so thats triggering me really bad... most who deleted their discords were verified but still... why delete your discord, you know...? for context i was on 18+ explicit discord servers meant for sex that you cant just join regularly on iPhone due to it being for adults only... Ive also been to a website dedicated to adult 18+ literature... they also have an 18+ chat room where you can talk to other users... i know ive made stupid mistakes going on here... i wont deny that... and now im paying for it with the uncertainty... veterans of the site, who have been on there for over 9 years, have told me that the chances of a minor lying about their age and coming onto the chat portion of the website are rare... but it still triggers me all the same... Im scared of someone one day in the future accusing me of doing horrible things like unknowingly inappropriately messaging minors, or have my worst fears of unknowingly explicitly messaging a minor confirmed to have happened and I didnt know about it... i genuinely just feel hopeless... And its all my fault... All of it...

I’ve been experiencing relationship OCD for about two months now but for the last two weeks it’s been really bad. I’ve been with my girlfriend for the last nine and a half months and it’s been a dream. we get along so well, we hang out all the time, we never fight because we see eye to eye on most everything and if we don’t we figure it out, and we’ve talked about and know we’re going to spend our lives together. A couple days after Valentine’s Day an intrusive thought popped in my head: “do you really want to be with her?” Of course this freaked me out because I do want to be with her, and I love her so much that I never even pondered a thought scaring me so much. I told her about it a week later and she’s supportive of me because she knows those aren’t my actual thoughts. The last week and a half have been bad. It’s ramped up a lot, I don’t really eat, I haven’t been sleeping well, I have panic attacks multiple times a day because I’m scared the thoughts are getting stronger and they’ll actually push me to break up with her, which would be the biggest mistake of my life if I did. She’s out of the country this week so it’s been harder to see her and ground myself, so I’ve just spun my wheels and kept telling myself that I do love her, I do want to be with her, and looking at pictures of her when I was happier (not that I’m only unhappy in our relationship, I’m unhappy in life), but nothing is getting through to me like it used to. Every time I think of her I have this burning feeling in my face almost like guilt, but I’m not guilty for being with her. I know those feelings aren’t actually mine and I consciously love her, but it’s getting harder and harder to fight those thoughts that have now manifested themselves into feelings. The feelings make me feel like i don’t want to be with her and I would be happier without her but i know it’s not the truth. I believe she is my person and she believes the same thing about me, and we can’t both be wrong. I also believe if you love someone consciously and you make the choice to be with them the feelings will come back again at some point. I know the feelings are in my heart and I just need to get them back out. My biggest issue is spinning my wheels feels better because it means that I’m fighting the thoughts and feelings but I know it’s making everything worse.

Guys I keep getting spells of feeling like my breathing becomes irregular and I can't regulate and my test hurts in specific aread I get light headed and my hearing tunnels and all I can hear is ringing. I work out regularly and when I work out I don't have this problem of anything it distracts me which makes me thing this is just a mental thing but why does it feel so real. I'm scared. Not looking for reassurance but maybe advice? Or similar experiences?

Anyone else an artist with OCD? If so, I'd love to hear about your experiences. How does OCD impact your art-making process? How have you been able to cope with OCD while you make art? Does art help you cope with OCD? Has making art or being proud of what you create been difficult because you have OCD?