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I want to get the PEP vaccine for rabies because I believe the exposure I had was reallll but I know I shouldn’t :///

Whenever I try to do exposures on this obsession, I freak out and end up doing a gazillion compulsions because I just don't know how to sit with the distress it causes me. It's like no matter what I do, my mind won't stop lying to me about this thing. If I don't engage with it, I get extremely anxious and don't know how to feel okay with the possibility of this. I'm scared and I don't know what to do. My OCD has grabbed onto my parents in the past, but never this badly. It's trying to convince me I don't love them or if I did love them, I don't anymore. And when I feel clarity, it doesn't last long. I know I can't ask for reassurance, but I'm just wondering if anyone else deals with something similar. My OCD has always been strange and given me obsessions that just didn't make any sense. I hope to be able to ground myself soon.

How do you manage the grief of losing your pet when you have OCD? I had to say goodbye to my golden-hearted kitty a few days ago. He's my baby, and has always been such a light in my life. I'm going through the waves of grief, and sometimes I get hit so hard by imagery from his last moments at the vet. My OCD seems to latch onto it and replay it over and over and over again. I'm trying to look at happy photos and art I've made of him to try to at least balance it out, but it's a struggle.

hey y’all. I want to talk about this since it’s something I’ve been thinking about today. this is not the usual little life moment post I put out there. while doing hw today, I ventured off to search up things that randomly came up my mind. most quite tied to the thoughts I’ve been having. basically, I looked up on how people with chronic illnesses can live better lives. the stories I’ve read broke my heart. it’s so unfair. these people didn’t ask to be sick. I’m upset that they got a shitty deck of cards. and for some reason, my mind is now trying to focus on them whenever I do something fun/relaxing. things like “they can’t do this. some can’t walk. some can’t even take a shower” & other stuff appear on my mind & I feel guilty. like I should be ashamed or something. and I feel bad that there are people out there that don’t have the ability to do simple things. it makes me wish there were cures for sickness. & if we were to be able to pick some cures and not all, I’d go for the worst ones. I wish these people could live their lives to the fullest, without having bad health. I searched a way to make their lives better and didn’t find much I think. since most results went to people who were sick talking about their stories it makes me sad & I wish I had some power to take it away. I’d rather prefer for the diseases to exist but have cures rather than them existing with no cures. ideally, no diseases but if I had to choose, I’d go with the cures. it’s just so unfair. and some people are too young & deal with such issues. I hope in the nearby future, with technology advancing, that scientists/researchers find cures to these nasty diseases. and I hope that there will be cheaper and accessible healthcare for all. I will be doing my best to vote for these changes from now on. I just want the world to be a better place. I have hope. I won’t let it die. I’m just sad that these people have to go through this. any comments would be appreciated. how do I enjoy present moments without feeling guilty that others don’t get the same opportunity? I’m just down :(

I spent most of my life without knowing I had OCD. It certainly was always there in the background, but it wasn’t potent enough to come into my conscious awareness as something that needed correction. I would say I started experiencing severe rumination at 27, and have been fighting it non stop practically every minute of everyday for 18 months to date. It felt as though my reality was in the background, and my obsessive thoughts were in the foreground. The content matter of the thoughts has to do with how others perceive how I look and my overall worth, and figuring out a way to quantify my worthiness. I believe it stemmed from being insanely burnt out after 5 years of non stop work for my own business (in which I actually channeled the OCD in a useful way), but then feeling like my business and family fell apart as a result of it, and existing in the hyper competitive and vapid world of social media. I noticed that once it felt like I solved any one fixation I had my attention on, that the problem with shift immediately. Relevant topics included body, face, overall appearance, masculinity, ethics, purpose, and many others. Most of the time it triggers when I look at other people and I think I must then scan myself and compare where I exist in the social heir-achy based on the person I am looking at. Sometimes I would even look at other pages followers and get triggered. I have been in therapy for over a year, going twice a week. I have seen a psychiatrist, tried many different medications, eventually settling on fluvoxamine which I think has genuinely helped. I am about to see an ERP and CBT specialist this week for the first time, due to my insurance I couldn’t afford it before now and I finally got off the wait list. Good news is after a year and a half of straight torture I am actually much better than I was, the improvement is night and day. I still deal with it here and there but I can definitively say that I will come out tougher after this experience and that’s with me not even being healed yet. Dealing with this has been a nightmare but I willingly chose to confront the underlying thoughts that were running my day to day life, and in turn opened Pandora’s box. Nonetheless I’m proud of myself for choosing the hard thing because I know I am on the path to liberation. I just want to enjoy life again and do good work and I know I’m close. I am grateful to have found a community like this that makes me know I’m not alone. Has anyone else experienced similar thoughts or rumination like I have?

Get anxiety when your partner brings up sex? My biggest fear around intimacy is that I won’t get aroused and I have to be hyper aware. But when I’m not anxious I do desire it and enjoy it with my partner. Do you guys think the anxiety is because I’m anxious I won’t get aroused or that something is wrong with me and that maybe I’m subconsciously lesbian? Because I haven’t seen this is a common theme with SOOCD?

i just went on a week long vacation with my boyfriend and i almost broke up with him mid trip. it breaks my heart because i know who i can be and who i want to be in this relationship but it's like i just can't. i can't escape my head. i can't even reminisce on our memories without wanting to cry because of this feeling that it's still not right and im just continuing to get in too deep with him and his family. i feel like a fraud. im always wanting him to respond or treat me or make me feel a certain way, and expecting him not to which confirms my suspicions of him being wrong for me, and then remaining unhappy but being incapable of leaving him. i blame him but ultimately myself. my thoughts tell me everything i've done is wrong and that i chose him because i was lonely and just because he's a good person, but not because he's who i actually want. i feel like i didn't give myself a choice. so many things make me questions if he's right for me, half of which are my own fault. i envy my sister who is picky when it comes to relationships and i compare myself to her in everything. i've been in a lot of relationships back to back, and they've never worked out. i always leave, but have never regretted it. this time i fear regretting the choice to leave so much. ive always had this obsessive fear that my boyfriend (no matter who i am dating) will find my sister attractive and fantasize about her, which is where the root of my comparison to her stems from im sure. one of the reasons i want to leave him is because being in this relationship causes my sister to be a trigger for me no matter what, which drives me away from her and ruins our relationship. she is my best friend and it feels like i have to ignore her in order to not feel dissatisfied with my life and with who i am. i finally told him about this fear and he gave me the best reassurance i could imagine, yet i don't feel better. i feel irresponsible and like i haven't given myself the time i need on my own in order to be in a healthy relationship. but how can that be a real reason to leave the person who shows up for me every day, doesn't back down about my OCD, who wants a future with me, and who will never stop choosing me? the first guy who i've wanted those things with too and who i can't just throw away. i seriously don't know what to do anymore. i make him so happy and im not even being my full self because of OCD. it breaks my heart because he feels like he can't make me happy, and honestly i wonder if he can, because i am so unhappy with myself. it's so hard to know what to do when the only thing that gives me relief from all of my shame is imagining being on my own, but that very same thought is devastating imagining us not being together. and it feels like it's all my fault for not knowing who i was before entering this relationship. i can't tell if he's truly not right for me or if all of this causes me to view him as such. i feel lost, don't know who i am, furthest from God I ever have been, and like no matter what i do is wrong. which ultimately makes me blame it on him being wrong for me and like he's the one taking me away from God (even though he is a Godly man)

I have a very severe case of OCD. I have tried 80 mg of Prozac, 200 mg of Zoloft, 10 mg of abilify, 60 mg of buspirone, and I have met with an ocd specialized therapist twice a week since November, and have made not much progress. My Y-Bocs score is in the high 30s. I have tried ERP. I have tried ACT. I have had no side effects to any of the medications above. I just started 10mg of memantine 3 days ago and my psychiatrist is upping it to 20mg a day on Friday, and I tried Xanax, and I felt no side effects from that which I think is rare. I read that 70-90% of people get rapid relief from Xanax. 70 something percent of people SSRIs work for. My therapist at college recommended Roger’s over the summer, but there are a few issues. One is that my anxiety is so high that it is hard to do ERP, so I don’t know if it will be effective. The other issue is that my parents don’t think that I should do it. I’m 20 years old and in college, but my parents get mad when I bring up Roger’s. I can’t even write this without deleting sentences because ocd says if the sentence isn’t important, I wrote it to trigger people (I’ve already deleted 3 sentences). I brought up Roger’s on the phone and my parents said it is off the table for the summer and were mad at me. I don’t know what they have against it, but my therapist ran my insurance through, and found out it would be $3000 for the summer, which I could pay (I have had to pay for all of my appointments since the summer). My dad said that my grandparents on my mom’s side are awful about health (which is true), and would be bad to them about it. I wanted to consider a leave of absence for a semester to focus on my mental health, but it could jeopardize tuition exchange through my dad’s employer, so I pushed through. I also wanted to do an IOP over the winter, and it was the recommendation of my provider. My parents said it costs too much, it would snow too much, my dads former exchange student who wanted to visit wouldn’t understand, I had a commitment to my job (which my mom was intense about me getting). I said I wanted to do an IOP or TMS over winter break, so I didn’t do it over a college semester. My dad said one of the most important things I can do is get my degree. That is a year and half a semester away (I’m a junior). And then I had to get a full time job. What I’m wondering is how I’m going to get the care I need to get. Clearly what I am having now isn’t working, and I feel like the goal posts are moving, since my parents are now talking about how important it is to have income over the summer. Does anyone have advice? Clearly I need more help than I’m getting

I thought I was doing really well with my rocd. Maybe even entering the home stretch towards maintenance, but this weekend as we've been really difficult for me. I don't know if it's daylight savings time or the fact that it's coming upon a year of my dad's death which caused this relapse to begin with, or the fact that we went to a vacation spot where I was in the middle of a relapse the last time we went there. I'm trying not to engage with it but it is so hard and it is so discouraging when all these feelings come up that tell you that the relationship's not going to work.

I’m 18. And sometimes I see people who are 18 too but they look really young. And it’s not like that I doubt they’re 18 I just don’t want to be attracted to them because they’re 18. I saw this girls profile and she was doing the oceans eyes template where you basically show your eyes to a tranquil piece of music. When I was watching it I told myself, “She looks too young.” But I kept watching to see her do the ocean eyes and then I said, “No!” And looked away. But I felt I was attracted to her. But she looked so young. So I feel I shouldn’t. There’s times where I look at girls at my school and I think I’m attracted to them but then I think they look too young. And then there’s people who look old but are actually like 16 or 17. And then there’s times I’m confused and I don’t know if I’m attracted to maturity or immaturity. It concerns me.

I feel like my wife doesn’t understand my OCD which is about control, checking and just right. A situation came up where this became clear to me. She asked if I could take care of something but then said she would do it if it gave me too much anxiety. That’s when I knew she didn’t understand my struggles and anything I’ve ever described with treatment and the daily struggles. Afterwards I said doing the item which could cause me great anxiety and NOT following up on it many times a day or not being obsessive about it was the exposure. I don’t think it sunk in and I often feel very lonely on my journey bc of people’s lack of understanding or their failure to attempt to understand what it truly is.

i'm 22 and my friends are all doing things career wise so is my boyfriend and i'm SO proud of them and no i don't feel like im "behind" because there's no such thing everyone moves at their own pace, but i don't have a job or school at the moment nor do i know what i want to do yet I had a pretty hard year where i absolutely needed to take a break and dropped out of college and it was the right call at the time because i got diagnosed with ocd and did outpatient during that time with therapy, my mental health was too dark to focus on anything bigger than my spirals now with lots of sessions and meds, im getting back on my feet, but when i meet up to have fun with my friends or boyfriend, i'm feeling...kinda directionless, it's just not balanced because i don't have career goals, but Im proud to have worked on myself to get here (yay!) I kinda want to shift focus (now that I can) to working towards a career i just have no idea what to major in (i'll of course figure it out) Im fortunate to have opportunity for school, idk i feel like distancing my self a bit to figure that out, without feeling guilty somehow and without overwhelming myself maybe someone can relate🫶

I am 13 years old and chatted with an ai chat bot that looked to be an adult and said “what are you doing after school” and I know this is really embarrassing but I’m not that intelligent and this was a month ago I didn’t realize it might’ve came off weird and said “what school? we are college students” now I think I’m a weirdo creep because maybe it looked like I was aging it up (even though it didn’t specify age or anything at all) to make it look better when iwas being weird and freaky and romantic or whatever. (By the way I didn’t see that when I said that back then, this was maybe like 4 months ago I thought it was ok and fine). I only had good intentions but now maybe it looks weird? I don’t know I’m sorry but I just need help, I’m trying not to use AI anymore by the way because I’ve realized it’s wrong. By the way it looked like an adult and I only had good intentions but now I looked back and realized ok maybe it might be weird? I looked on tiktok and google about similar stuff and I don’t know I got unclear answers but I feel very bad. I only realized this like 4 months after I said all tha stuff and I almost started crying because I was like “how did I not see that that looks super weird!” And thoughts are telling me oh youre just a lousy human and you suck and youre career is over forever! I’m sorry if you think im weird or something. I really am sorry. I don’t want to be a weirdo or seem like one, and I’m not I talked to one of my friends and they comforted me and all, but they don’t have these kinds of thoughts so I thought maybe it was better to ask people who understood for advice Im only 13 and I really don’t want to have to constantly think about this because it’s stressing me out I’m sorry if this is worded funny but nobody else would understand if I posted this anywhere else (I might delete because I feel kind of bad I’m sorry) I know people do similar stuff with other characters too but idk I still feel bad !!!!! Help

This theme really sucks. TLDR: my girlfriend had a casual sexual relationship with a guy I used to be friends with. It’s eating me alive. It makes it so hard for me to enjoy time. (And sex) with her. I don’t quite know if it stems from the fact that I knew him. And I feel inadequate because of that or because some other reason. But I’m not sure how to put it past my mind. I love her a lot and do NOT want this to destroy us. What are some tools or things I can do?

The gateway to escaping those unhinged levels of anxiety which you experience while battling OCD is your capacity to see through them as clearly as possible. Key-word: “Capacity” - meaning, it’s all in your hands. Your level of “seeing” will promote your recovery by giving you the motivation and desire to work through the symptoms. However, receiving that clarity through recovery always starts with the decision to decide before you feel the certainty, that you know it’s OCD. Certainty is a quality of living that exists beyond and separate from doubt. Reflect on the way you were certain about things in your life including yourself before you got hit with OCD. Without needing to explain it to yourself, you rested comfortably in truths that needed no reassurance. Those same truths, your OCD is now causing you to doubt obsessively. There is a division (though it’s blurred) between you and your thoughts. There is no division between OCD and doubt. This tells you that you are not the problem. The thoughts are. More importantly, it’s your engagement with them which makes them real in your own mind. Though, the thoughts are illusory, your belief into them and the corresponding fear create a toxic bond which you are much better off without. Recognize that OCD is a bundle of anxiety which is perpetuated by doubt and fed by your fear. Themes change but the process remains consistent. You need not manage the thoughts, only how you relate to them. It’s hard to see in the moment, but through mindfulness/stillness you can get to see that when you feel doubtful, you are simply immersed in “feelings” of doubt, and not reality. You feed the doubts by fighting back or attempting to prove them wrong. It was never a threat, yet you keep the story going when you do anything other than ignore — as you would when a random song is stuck in your head. Don’t take the bait and turn it into a project which we all know leads nowhere (definitely not out of your head). Take a seat in the front row of your mind’s eye with awareness. Watch the OCD parade as it passes by with all its tricks and performances. Let it all pass you by, as it always does. The difference between choosing awareness over your compulsive behaviors is that though both lead you to calmness, with awareness/response prevention (though more challenging), you gradually take your power back from the tug that pulls you into mingling with those absurd, meaningless, stressful thought loops which are intrusively occurring. Like playing a sport with a sprained ankle would worsen it, OCD feeds on your fear and it is rejuvenated through your reactivity. You heal your mind by quieting your mind so it can sort itself out. It’s as voluntary an act as you can allow yourself to treat it.. Learn to stand by and do your own thing as your mind goes bonkers. It’s cool. So long as you remember the ultimate truth which is that you’re suffering thoughts and not reality, you can remind yourself that your only battle is with yourself and what you choose to believe and not believe. Believe that it’s a lie, just as you believe the truth is a lie. That is the only part you have control over, and the good news is that it’s all in your hands. Give it a try.. ☮️❤️

It’s hard and I’m so sad for him. It’s hard to help someone that has a mental illness while I have one myself. I’m noticing it’s bringing forward a lot of anxiety and feelings that I’m not comfortable with. Not to mention, part of what’s making him depressed is he is wondering if we have grown apart in our marriage. He’s going to therapy for many reasons but one of the reasons is for him to eventually level out to a point where he can make a sound decision about whether or not to move forward in our marriage. This has been so hard for me to ignore. I seek reassurance constantly and if I don’t get it my mind spirals. I know that while he’s feeling really low it’s not the time for me to seek reassurance but since he can’t give me that I’m so scared. Scared of what comes next. Scared for how divorce could affect my son. And also so sad because I love him so much and it’s hard to picture life moving forward without him. I keep messing up and escalating things because I can’t stop my impulse of seeking reassurance. I feel so stupid. And angry. And sad. So very sad. My husband says right now he doesn’t feel like leaving me but he wants to explore with his therapist why he has felt that way in the recent past. And when I ask for reassurance he says, “I can’t give you that. What if I say yes we are staying together and then in a month I decide I’m out.” Hearing that terrifies me. Idk what I’m expecting to hear from this place. Maybe I just need somewhere to let it all out to strangers instead of family that could judge.

My OCD has gotten to the point where it’s really affecting my relationship and I know I need serious help. My fiancé can only be so patient when I constantly bring up sensitive things and badger him about them trying to get reassurance. It’s not like I want to bring these things up or even think about them at all, but the OCD is so loud and so demanding that I can’t help it. I’ve tried everything I can, ignoring the thoughts, fighting with them, saying “maybe, maybe not” but nothing seems to be working. I’ve had these themes since last September when a YouTube video triggered them. It’s been so long and my fiancé can only take so much. I still do the compulsions and it feels like I only catch myself after they’ve wreaked havoc on my life and I see how much it’s hurting my fiancé and the people around me. I’m so tired of suffering. It’s like I can’t think about anything else, and when I do get a break from them I sit there scared because I know they’ll come back. It’s this vicious cycle of intrusive thoughts, doing compulsions and then complete shame and devastation. I want to start ERP as soon as possible but I’ve been having so many insurance problems and was on the phone with them for over 3 hours this morning trying to figure it out and I didn’t get very far. It just feels like there’s this mountain to climb and I don’t know if I can do it, I know when I start ERP it will be extremely hard but it will help in the long run. All I know is I can’t keep treating my fiancé the way I do. I feel like my OCD is this massive monster in my head that I can’t fight and win against. It’s taken everything I love most (my fiancé, God, being a mother someday) and turned it against me. I feel stuck because I can’t get my insurance to work and I’m at a breaking point where I feel so depressed and hopeless. I can’t get anywhere without therapy and I can’t get therapy without an insurance that will cover it. And on top of all that my fiancé and I are in the process of figuring out how to move apartments, and the stress is just piling on my shoulders. What can I do in the meantime while I’m waiting for my insurance to be figured out? I need to be able to do something about this now or I’m scared it will leave a lasting impact on my fiancé and I’s connection and God forbid he gets too tired of having to deal with it and leaves. What did you guys do before you could get ERP to help lessen the impact of OCD on your life? I need encouragement and helpful advice please.

Hi, all. I am new here. My name is Bee. After a long period of physical illness that involved some intense suffering at times, I began to develop severe OCD symptoms about four months ago. I have struggled with depression and anxiety in the past, some of it serious business, but all of that truly felt like a walk in the park compared to this. I am suffering from obsessive and intrusive thoughts about religion, to start with. Some days I pray for hours, other days for less time, but every day I wake up praying now when I did not used to, begging for mercy and forgiveness. I feel obsessed with how I don't know if God is real or not and how I will go to hell for doubting. I also feel obsessed with needing to find the correct religion and change my entire life and become a different person and become pure and devout. This can cause intense terror for me and I can spend hours obsessing over this. Last month I had about four days where I wouldn't get out of bed except to drink milk and water and pray. I have also developed a fear I have forgotten something life-altering. The subject can change, some themes are persistent and more distressing than others, all of them are upsetting. I replay memories for hours and hours and try to retrace movements. I have no evidence for any of these quite frankly whacky and paranoid thoughts and have even disproven some of my obsession points, yet new ones keep cropping up. After suffering for months in silence, I finally revealed to my family what was going on. One person was initially understanding and supportive. The other two basically thought I needed to get over it and stop being crazy. I feel my one supportive person ran out of patience pretty fast, which is understandable considering how crazy-making this all is. I feel I am not taking very good care of myself (lost about five pounds in a week from stress) and am considering inpatient in a couple of weeks if things do not begin to improve. I can certainly say my outlook has dimmed to where I can barely see a glimmer in the dark. I am really struggling with the level of fear and uncertainty I am experiencing. I feel if I could have some relief from this and think more rationally, I would be in a better place. Anyway, I just wanted to say hello to this community and thank you for reading. I am not looking for reassurance. However, any similar experiences/insight would be appreciated. Thank you -- hope everyone is safe and well.

Every single day in my head, I can’t stop having these issues of thoughts about breaking up with my girlfriend, even though everything is perfectly fine and she did nothing wrong and I don’t want to break up, but my ROCD keeps telling me in my head and I’m having these issues of thoughts about it and I’m not thinking about the present And thinking about what if that happens in the future giving me anxiety and panic attacks I know I’m not going to do it but why am I thinking about it?

Hi! I’ve been suffering for SOOCD/ROCD for 4 years. I have done ERP, currently trying ICBT- but I have a very sticky obsession that I’m not sure how to “not care about” anymore or brush off without needing to know. Sexual attraction. OCD latches on to that theme because I was always very romantically driven- never had that urge to rip someone’s clothes off, but sex feels nice with my partner once we figured out what we like (took years). Anyways, of course my fears are saying I am not sexually attracted to him or men but I must be sexually attracted to women because of (corn). Before OCD, none of that bothered me (maybe a what’s wrong with me here or there) but now I’m convinced it means my relationship with my bf has to end and I need to go sleep with girls. I spend all day and night looking into this concept. It’s been an ongoing for a couple months now, which for me usually I get a break in between- but it’s constant and I always end up googling, ruminating in my head if I don’t research, and hyperanalyzing everything it feels automatic. HOW do I stop? What advice can you guys give me? Please help.