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Tw: Grief In the last 2 years a lot has happened, I’ll try and keep it as short as possible. * a year ago my grandmother (whom I was very close to) passed away suddenly in my arms. I declared her death and pulled the sheet over her. * 3 months after that, her husband, my grandfather (who I was incredibly close with. I went to him for every worry and anxiety and he was there for me. He was my father figure) passed away in my arms too (in hospital) *after my grandfather passed I had a ‘breakdown’ in the hospital, I was told I’ll be sectioned and given meds if I don’t calm down. *my father was diagnosed with cancer (although we aren’t close it was devastating) *my job was treating me very poorly. *made friends with a VERY bad influence and toxic/controlling friendship and it took a year for me to cut them off. -cut to 4 months ago, i decided i needed to put those things aside and ‘move on’. *I got into a relationship. *I got a new job. I have days where I am numb, I think of myself and only myself. I have days where I’m happy, I think things are finally getting better… and then I have days like today where I think of everything that’s happened in my life and I feel stuck and claustrophobic. I’ve posted this here because it’s on days like this that I get a whole array of different intrusive thoughts: ‘You’re not driving safe, you’re going to d*e’, ‘your boyfriend hates you because you’re not doing well at responding lately’,’do I actually want a relationship?’,’what if he doesn’t actually like me?’,’im being a bad daughter’, ‘I’m not going to get anywhere in life’, ‘you accidentally took double your antidepressant dose’, ‘what if that chicken gives you food poisoning?’ Like there’s no specific ‘theme’ that I’m dealing with right now. It’s like either I’m numb, very happy, or in an intrusive thoughts spiral. There’s no inbetween. It’s scaring me a lot. I’m scared I’m going to have a psychotic breakdown, won’t be able to function and lose everyone that I have (which isn’t many). I tried therapy, and it was difficult because I had so much going on at once, focusing on one wasn’t helping. I feel so stuck, I have no idea what to do.

After I was abused as a kid I developed a habit where I had to masturbate sometimes to go to sleep.When I got in a relationship at 15-17 we fell asleep on the phone some nights.From 17-19 we were in a talking stage somewhat and still fell asleep otp.From 19-21 we were together in person.A while after moving in I worried after seeing things online if I could be doing something wrong.I haven’t realized since I move to the other side of the bed and don’t include her or want to and I wanted to go to sleep.I asked her about it and she said it was okay.I also told her at this time I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.Since we went back to long distance and were friends with benefits and fall asleep on the phone I worried this was wrong.I asked her and she said it’s okay but I said I’m going to stop doing it regardless.Ive read that someone’s boyfriend did that and everyone said she should break up with him and I also read that it’s sexual harassment I think she’s getting annoyed because I keep asking her:( I read that retrospective consent isn’t actual consent because it’s been given after therefore those situations required consent and it wasn’t given.I never wanted to involve her or hurt her or make her uncomfortable and even though she says I didn’t I’ve done something wrong multiple times before knowing it was wrong and I feel disgusted :( I’m not in therapy at the moment but I hope to be soon

Anyone who's gone through interviews for part-time jobs/jobs in general and such,, I'd really appreciate some advice right now haha. Due to a program I'm in, it is recommended to get a job ASAP and as much as my parents are like "that's dumb, don't rush into things + we're heading to a different country to be with family soon" I still applied in a rush and now I have my first interview tomorrow. :,,) With OCD already messing with my nerves + the overall anxiety and "what ifs" this is also my first official time and I suck really hard at eye contact and struggle with stuttering a lot. (FYI. Doesn't help that throughout my entire High-school journey, and even prior,, my mental health has always been in the trenches so I have little to none experiences with volunteering, clubs, etc.. great. 🥲 At least now I have some teeny things I've added to my resume due to having a period of focus.) Alsooo, how's work in general ??? Part-times to be exact lolol, if there's even horror stories or literally anything do share so I know what to expect...

I don’t even know where to start. Everyday for the past few months has been horrible. Everyday I wake up with no motivation, nothing makes me happy anymore. I’m in my second year of college and it hasn’t been easy. Just as last year, I struggled with Agoraphobia but honestly it has gotten worse since last year. Although my schools only 40 minutes away it feels so dreadful going there. I experience bad panic attacks and can never just be happy or calm. It makes me sad since last year was so much better. Idk what changed. I don’t have any friends and that’s mainly my fault for pushing people away and not being able to be comfortable around new people because of my anxiety and because I struggle to even be out of the house without my safe person which is my bf. I can barley do things on my own and I feel like it’s definitely declined since last year although I never really did much. I was diagnosed with a vitamin d deficiency about 6 months ago which I still have not done anything to treat it because I got scared of taking a dosage the doctor gave me and had a panic attack after just because I have a hard time with taking capsules. I did buy a liquid form of the vitamin d however I’ve been too afraid to use it because I’m scared something will happen to me like side effects or idk. It’s kinda just my anxiety brain being scared of it all. I also deal with anxiety thoughts around food and getting food poisoning and people tampering with my food which has caused me to avoid so many foods and honestly just make me feel so scared and horrible. Everyday I feel so weak and so unmotivated I’m tired of it all. I don’t know what I want to do in college, I put my 2 weeks in at my job because I was so tired of working in a daycare and how mentally draining it was, I just want to be happy again and have motivation and to stop living in fear but I can’t. Everyday feels like a task or challenge and everyday feels like there’s something wrong with me I just am at a lost for both my physical and mental health, everyone around me is tired of it but imagine living in it. I just want to be happy and not anxious anymore.

The title might be confusing, but I only had 50 characters. I have really bad OCD and have tried all the standard treatments like therapy with an OCD specialist twice a week, pretty much every medication recommended, and TMS, and I still have an extremely high Y-BOCS score (about 37). The OCD is so bad, the OCD therapist I saw last year won’t see me, because I made pretty much no progress for a year, and he thinks that I need more intensive treatment, like Roger’s behavioral health partial hospitalization program, or residential. This would require spending about $3000, which my parents are insistent that they will not do, so I can’t easily do it, because I am a college senior, and just spent over $2,000 on TMS. Because of my parents not wanting to spend money, I have told them that I will spend my own money on more intensive treatment, and they find reasons to say why I still can’t do it. The main thing that I understand, but is still frustrating, is that my parents are not letting me take a break during a semester, because I would probably lose the tuition exchange I have through my dads employer. This has basically led me to be trying to do multiple college semesters, when I should be taking a break. I have told my parents “how about I do it over a break,” and they said “no we’re not paying for it, and you don’t have the money.” There are other options my psychiatrist suggested that I feel actually have a higher chance of helping me than Roger’s. My psychiatrist has recommended either Deep Brain Stimulation, or anterior capsulotomy, both of which cost a fair amount of money, so my parents wouldn’t pay for that, and I can’t afford it. Because of this, he suggested I look for trials of things, and I have found deep brain stimulation trials that I could get completely for free, and my parents wouldn’t have to pay for, and they still won’t let me do it, because they think it’s dangerous. There is also a low intensity focused ultrasound trial which is not surgery, that they won’t let me do, because it involves driving in center city Philadelphia, and they want me home for break. My parents are also insistent that I get a job over winter break. I feel like they don’t understand how bad the OCD is, and because of their positions, I am doing things like pushing through my final year of college, when I should be taking a break, and when I actually get a break, they won’t let me take it. They said they will take my car (which is in their name), if I go to an appointment for one of these things. I want to get better, but I feel like my parents are being too restrictive, and I don’t see how I can do these things, if they can stop me by doing things like taking the car away. Also, I don’t mean to sound spoiled when I say this, but my parents are upper middle class, and I feel like whenever they have to spend money, they say no. It was suggested to them to spend money on parent counciling for people with OCD, and they said no (it was like $60 per session). I wish they would just at least let me do one of the trials that I could get for free, instead of forcing me to get a job over winter break and doing everything exactly the way they want

maybe i forgot it or something last year but apparently spotify ran ads for ice around dec 2025… i looked it up and now they don’t run them anymore, but now i don’t know what to do about it. i figured it out because someone i knew posted about it last year and i saw it while searching through their account for something unrelated. i understand that nobody *needs music, but there aren’t many good alternatives that have everything. now i feel like a bad person for not switching and i don’t know what i should do about it. so much of our money ends up going to bad causes but i understand that the point is to boycott what you can. the problem is that i believe literally everything is problematic to a degree when talking about buying products. everything you buy will go somewhere bad, so whenever i shop, does that mean i have to buy only necessities in order to do the least damage??? this keeps sending me into a spiral and i just wish i had some sort of answer, you know? everyone acts like it’s so clear and the rules are so easy to follow but i genuinely have never been more confused!! i’m confused on how i should treat myself, how i should treat others, and what’s good and bad to do at all. the lines people have to call things unacceptable is something i just don’t understand, because no matter what they do they’re contradicting themselves by using a platform that’s just as bad anyway. i wish this made sense

Hey everyone, I wanted to talk about something I've been struggling with lately, and I'd really appreciate some advice. Ever since my OCD started getting worse, I've noticed that I've been increasingly avoiding spending time around my parents. I don't entirely understand why, but I constantly feel judged or fear that I'll be laughed at or made fun of. My relationship with my parents has always been a little complicated, even since childhood. My parents, especially my dad, are very humorous and love making jokes. I know they genuinely don't mean any harm, but ever since entering my teenage years and developing OCD, I've become extremely sensitive to jokes about me, especially anything embarrassing. My dad is also quite academically oriented and strict about studies. He expects me to maintain my academics without compromises, but lately my OCD has affected my studies significantly. As a result, I get criticised about my academics almost daily, which makes communicating with him even harder. Growing up, most conversations with him were usually centred around studying, and I often felt like I couldn't comfortably enjoy or discuss other things, even small stuff like photography, laptops or going out. One major reason I haven't told my parents about my OCD is that I'm scared they won't understand and might laugh at me or dismiss my problems. I've dropped hints before, but those experiences didn't go particularly well. I've also had a past experience where something personal I shared with them was later brought up against me, which has made me hesitant to open up again. My sister is currently the only person in my family I feel comfortable sharing these things with. Another difficult aspect is that my parents sometimes bring up embarrassing things I did as a child. Normally, these might seem like harmless family jokes, but because of my real-event OCD, they can trigger intense anxiety and rumination. Even something being mentioned at the dinner table can affect me badly. I've tried asking them to stop making certain jokes, and they have made an effort to do so. However, the whole process wasn't easy. I sometimes felt mocked for being too sensitive, and there were also times when I found myself constantly monitoring their moods, worrying about whether something embarrassing might come up again. The confusing part is that my parents genuinely care about me. They work hard, provide me with everything I need, and look after me whenever I'm sick. They're not bad parents, and I know most of their jokes aren't intended to hurt me. I also know they haven't physically harmed me. This makes me feel even guiltier about how I feel around them. I often compare myself to other teenagers who seem completely comfortable joking around with their parents and sharing things openly. Before OCD, I didn't seem to have these problems to this extent. Now I avoid conversations, get anxious over seemingly small jokes, and sometimes end up arguing with my parents. I genuinely feel like I'm becoming a toxic or ungrateful child, despite knowing how much my parents do for me. I want to be comfortable around them, but I don't know how to get there. I also desperately want to tell them about my OCD, but every time I build up the courage, my mind starts imagining all the possible negative reactions and outcomes. Eventually, when the moment actually comes, I just can't bring myself to say anything. My OCD has been getting quite overwhelming lately, and I feel like I'm struggling with both my OCD and my relationship with my family. I genuinely don't know what to do anymore. Has anyone experienced something similar? How should I approach this situation and what can I do to improve things? Note: I used ChatGPT to help me type and organise this post. I also have this weird problem where whenever I post or write something, I start feeling like I've written something wrong, rude or inappropriate. As a result, I usually avoid typing things myself because I keep overthinking every sentence. So, apologies for using ChatGPT, and I hope that's okay.

Since graduating college, I began a new job teaching middle school chorus. I love it, but it is challenging and hard, and living under my parent's roof is making this transition for me even more difficult! I work during the week, and my boyfriend is still a senior in college (1 year younger), and pretty much every weekend I go to his place and we spend time together on the weekends. That has been extremely wonderful for me. I'm able to get out the house and spend time with my person that makes me feel so loved and comfortable and refreshed for the week ahead. I always let my parents know when im going and they haven't said anything to me, but im so anxious that my dad especially is upset with me. I know that i am an adult, make my own money, and am staying with my parents for a couple years to gather my savings and get on my feet, but it sucks still feeling like a teenager after work, and for feeling bad for seeing my boyfriend on the weekends. For me personally, it is extremely healing and fun to hang out with my boyfriend on the weekends, but I'm struggling with worrying about my parent's feelings towards me. My mom doesn't seem to care, and my dad hasn't made comments on it, but long story short, this transition period has been tough for me and it sucks feeling like I'm not doing something right or being the perfect daughter when I'm just making time for my boyfriend after a long week of teaching myself! Hope this makes sense!

Do you ever feel like you’re just ruining your life, or that you’re an awful person? I feel like I’ve made so many mistakes with this friend I’ve known for basically 7 years now, and I always say “oh I’ll fix it, I’ll fix it.” And then I don’t fix it and it happens again and again. I’m driving them away, I can tell, but it’s just not getting better, it’s getting worse. This likely may not be an ocd thing, but I just feel so disconnected, and that I’m a bad person, and I should let them go, because it will save them in the long run.

I have way too much on my mind, this is really distressing,, I can't explain it all as it's very jumbled so I'm just not going to say anything. I'm going to collect my thoughts more then section it into ways I can explain another day. (It's like.. stresses of Real Events, facial and ancestry morph issues, derealization, taboo subtypes, childhood, fears of all crazy stuff etc etc.) For now.. man, Halloween yesterday was more fun than I expected even when I was mostly alone this year. My stomach needs to chill out tho, I love sweets but it's a lottt. I've been working out recently too, trying to tone my arms as well as the lower half & getting a more defined jaw. I don't want to really be skinny like model standards moreso be strong but absolutely not bodybuilder standards either lololol. (I want to be like.. strong but still cute at the same time ykyk?? : )) Hopefully the candies and sweets don't mess it all up as I've already began to make some small progress. (I also workout at home + have treadmill and little equipment so like.. if any of you guys workout and have any advices, let me know..! <3)

my friend broke up with his girlfriend in 2024, before the end of our last year in highschool, before summer. after more than 1 year in august of 2025, her ex who i was friends with, reached out to me to ask information about the entrance exam for university, and I was friendly in a way i shouldn't have been (not flirty or weird), but cracking jokes and being my usual funny, which is how it always goes with me, but this time in a way that you wished the other to think that you were funny, since the other was an attractive girl. I don't think I meant anything more than that, but deep down I was actually attracted to her and harbored a closeted interest, in the small way of simply an attractive girl texting you and you enjoying it. She also asked me to hang out with our ex highschool group of friends and another male friend of mine to grab a few drinks with our highschool teacher who was gonna get married in a few days. I'm not going to lie, a part of me cultivated some kind of vague and loose sexual fantasy of her, all in my head, (im going to say something very cringe), like kissing her or something happening in that hangout. I was also very depressed and cynical in that period and OCD was consuming me, so maybe I didn't really think through things, maybe i thought since they were broken up before summer of 2024 and more than an year had passed, that it technically wasn't wrong, maybe just a bit iffy, but not ethically wrong. And since I wasn't much friends with him anymore I guess it didn't cross my mind that it would not be okay, but recently I became close friends with him again so now I feel regret thinking about it. In the end I know I would have never pursuit a relationship with her or something like that, i know if there was the occasion i probably would have chosen not to kiss her (but in my fantasy inside my head, when i was h*rny I'd let loose and not care abt consequences). But I didn't have time to process that possible character development and chain of rational thinking because that evening when we went grab drinks she mentioned she was seeing a guy and all my interest had faded, nothing happened. So it's not like I realised at that time that what I was feeling at the time was wrong, simply that temporary fling inside my head vanished overnight. I never thought much about it before since I didn't think I did anything wrong (because a part of a few friendly exchanges nothing more happened and i didnt pursuit anything more). But I just realised this year that it was no good, it hit me. I never flirted with her, just a friendly chat that lasted for the lenght of the conversation reserved to exchange info about the entrance exam one day, and also another day about grabbing drinks, but nothing more. If someone were to read my convo with her nobody would think abt it more than as it being just a chat between friends. But I did look at her instagram stories with lust. I did once answer to an instagram story of her saying that eating apricots and a Monster together was criminal. Since that realisation I started ignoring her presence on social completely, i once used to like her stories but as a friend, now i don't do that. I feel like a terrible friend. Should I tell him? It would ruin my friendship with him.

I’m hyperfixated on thinking like me thinking doesn’t feel normal . Everytime I think about anything I get nervous how do I stop this ?🥲 I know we always think but is it scaring me this time

I want to write a story based on my own experiences in NSFW art spaces in a way that raises awareness on the other all of the harmful themes found in seemingly safe spaces that are not universally explicitly banned by law the way that genres like lolicon and shotacon are, as well as how it harms neurodivergent people in particular that only base their actions through written rules and laws. Especially during times of socio-political unrest that causes them to seek refuge. But I have a few problems that will hinder me from getting my voice out there to talk about this. 1. I don’t want to come off as trying to excuse said content nor what themes represent as something normal 2. I don’t want the story to be written in way that causes people to think that I am a sexual predator and/or deviant waiting in the wings to groom people. 3. I don’t want to invite stigma onto anybody else that may have gone through something similar. How should I go through with this? This is a very heavy ask, but I feel like the people on here might be the only ones that can give me advice on how to write this in a way that conveys the message I want to send in a healthy and helpful way?

i frequently get videos on my page about people suffering from genocides asking for help or asking to spread the word. usually i just copy the video link and move on, but that’s just been making this stuff show up on my page more and more and it sucks because i’m so privileged to even say this, but i can’t deal with all of it and i’ve been clicking “not interested” after i copy link, because (again, i know it’s from such a privileged perspective to say this,) it makes me too exhausted and i’m not able to live my life. i feel guilty for never liking or reposting the videos but that would only put more of the videos on my page and i can’t handle it anymore. i feel like i’m doing something wrong. recently i even clicked not interested on a video talking about being able to simply just scroll. i feel like a bad person and a hypocrite and i’m just wondering if there’s any way that i should be doing this that i’m just not considering??

I wanted to write this cause I think it might give some confort to people who think there is no way what they are experiencing is ocd because it feels too real. For the past three months I've been fixated on the possibility of having a heart attack because one day I had some pain under my left ribs and thought "what if I'm having a heart attack". Instead of letting the thought pass, I started researching heart attack symptoms and checking my body for them and the more I checked the more symptoms my body created. After that, I started having heart palpitations every night, I would have trouble falling asleep because when my heart beats would slow down my brain would assume I'm actually dying, and I would have random chest pain throughout the day, but I didn't get it checked because I knew it was caused by anxiety (the symptoms would start as normal anxiety symptoms and would only get worse after I would start thinking about the typical symptoms of a heart attack). I then went through some heartbreaking things and I was really sad and I started thinking of how some people die of a broken heart and I got really scared that that's what was gonna happen to me and the physical symptoms got sugnificantly worse the more I thought about it. I would cry about this situation that I was extremely sad about and the whole time I would tell myself that I have to stop crying cause my heart might give out. Finally, last week I saw a tiktok of a girl saying that she went to the hospital for very slight chest pain and it turned out she had had a heart attack and after seeing that I started researching things like silent heart attacks and what kind of tests you need to do to make sure you didn't have one and my chest pain got worse. I went to see my family doctor and she said my heart seems fine and it's probably just anxiety but because she didn't run the tests I had read about I was still convinced I was having heart attacks every day. I made an appointment to see a cardiologist but I had to wait 5 days for them to see me and I couldn't stop thinking that I might die in 5 days and because I kept thinking about this, my chest pain got worse and worse that I ended up going to the ER. They ran all the possible tests and it turns out that my heart is completely healthy and there is no sign of there ever having been something close to a heart attack. After going to the hospital and confirming that there is nothing wrong with my heart, all the symptoms went away immediately, I haven't had any chest pain since. All of this to say that ocd can be as real as it gets. It's not that the chest pain wasn't real, obviously it wasn't in my head, but it was caused by anxiety and being worsened by me engaging with my thoughts and by all my checking for heart attack symptoms and researching. All of this was caused by a thought that stuck and by me compulsively engaging with it. This post is also not meant to say that if you experience actual pain that worries you you shouldn't get it checked and immediately disregard it as ocd. Go to the doctor of course, but try to trust what they say more than you trust your ocd.

Sleepy ramble but does anyone else struggle with crushing uncertainty when it comes to their own morality? I constantly second-guess myself. Some days I’m innocent, some days I’m worse than Satan. Other days I’m confused. Because my brain is constantly trying to account for so many nuances, contexts, and small interactions I’ve had with myself and others across my life. It’s genuinely frustrating. The uncertainty of it all frightens me to my core. I know the whole point of OCD therapy is to accept uncertainty but my brain refuses to accept it. I’m constantly afraid, everything is so nuanced with me and other people I know that I don’t have a solid conclusion to come to. And that makes me feel worse for some reason. It’s especially harder when you have real event OCD related to themes within your trauma. Because those have actually happened and I’m left constantly analyzing these situations and trying to logic it out that I’m not [this] or [that]. It’s just feeling really overwhelming right now, I have no idea if I’m a good person or not. I just can’t accept the uncertainty of it all.

I feel like focusing on the little details have caused me to neglect evaluating my life from a wider lens. I think the inaction towards my goals that OCD ( combined with ADHD ) have inspired, has been something I have failed to take seriously for so long. It’s especially mind boggling when you realize how many things/ “problems” in your life root from this. I wrote a little something while reflecting tonight: Isn’t it funny ? How I can get so upset over people not understanding it? You’d think I was an expert because I understand what it means but I have no idea what it means to me. And so I understand what it is but I barely know it myself And it’s because I’m so scared to accept it Out of fear that it might have more power than it already does and that one day that power may consume me I’ve had recurring thoughts of it doing that Thoughts that I run away from Thoughts that might as well be classified as controlling my life And don’t they? I think they do. I think anything that you keep coming back to so you can run away from hours and hours a day controls your life. Wouldn’t you say that is my life? In a bird’s eye view: There she is! That is her: And look at her living her life controlled by the thoughts she pretends doesn’t exist by running away into the abyss There she is … and there she is not Because she’s not all there and she even says that herself I’m not all here right now She begs for him to be present because she is not She has been scared to be present since 2021 She’s been scared to slow down since 2022 She’s been scared of herself since 2018 She’s been scared since 2001 Maybe I will maybe I won’t Live in my mind and go back in time to when I was 21 years old and I thought I had the whole wide world And now I’m 25 and I feel like I’ve lost my spark but I convince everyone and myself it’s still there but it’s not convincing because I’m believing it and I don’t know what I’m doing to make anyone else believe it and if I’m being honest I think the relationships in my life since then have not had any reason to believe that she ever was there But I don’t accept Still for whatever reason I don’t accept I don’t know why And maybe this has been the theme of my life This is something I’ve always believed to be true That somehow somewhere There is this version of me that is free because she loves what she does and who she is and how she looks and what she believes is even better than what I could imagine right now and in pursuit or maybe not pursuit but in belief that she exists I feel calm and sleep every night and let myself run down the rabbit hole knowing that she’s there and one day I’ll be her or maybe never but at least she’s there and that’s enough because in knowing that there is always a version of me I would rather be and I always have the potential to be I don’t ever have to accept myself as I am now and so I never do I never stop and look in the mirror And even if I do I never tell myself it’s good enough I’m stuck between not addressing the problems or when I do address them I cannot give myself love and when I try to I try to change and the cycle repeats and there she is again!! Do you see her? She’s in the wild. She’s in the bathroom again. She’s drunk and eaten and sick and tired and she’ll be fine because she’ll sleep and leave her dreams in the hands of no one just deep in her mind and on the internet and wherever else dreams and ideals exist like Pinterest or Instagram or fleeting thoughts or moments that she’ll never hold Somehow she’s made peace with that And becomes jealous of those who haven’t and those who live what she wishes But she watches and saves and does nothing different because somehow she’s made peace with that And she’ll try and change and she might read a book or flip a page but Nothing changes She stays the same Yet maybe she doesnt stay the same Because all of this This whole thing Is her Going In the definition of who she wants to be Insane Xxx Contrary to the end of my paragraph/poem?/entry, I think right now, finally seeing so clearly how my patterns (OCD/ADHD inspired or not) are affecting my life, might be the most sane I’ve been all year.

hii! i hope everyone is doing well today! :) yesterday i opened up to a family member about how i'm feeling after over a decade of keeping whatever this is to myself and how i feel i possibly may have ocd and they suggested i go ahead with ERP therapy. i signed up last night which was beyond terrifying with the calling and forms i had to fill out but everyone i dealt with was really nice and my therapist seems nice too although i haven't had a session with her yet. my worry is that i'm faking or over exaggerating i guess, that i'm going to be wasting my therapists time that could be going to someone who actually has ocd instead of someone who just suspects they do. my last therapist back when i was around fourteen (i'm nineteen almost twenty now) refused to diagnose me with ANYTHING, she got upset with me when i tried explaining my anxiety or depression symptoms and treated me funny or gave me weird looks which is a huge reason i am terrified now. my mental health is much worse than it was at fourteen so if i was being judged then what will therapy look like now, you know? i'm not entirely sure if this is reassurance seeking so if it is i'm really really REALLY sorry, i'm not sure what reassurance seeking looks like because i'm extremely new to the world of ocd and everything seems really big and scary right now. i'm NOT asking anyone to tell me i'm going to be okay i'm just asking if anyone else felt this way going into this too and maybe some ways they helped calm themselves as they prepared for their first therapy session. again, i hope you all have a really good day! make sure to drink some water if you haven't yet today! :) edit: i also want to mention i WILL bring this up to my therapist but this post is pretty much just me asking how to prepare.

So I (17M)am panicking really bad because this morning went so poorly like really bad because I woke up so late and I barely had time to shower like 3 minutes I had to shower and this is bad because I had no shampoo and I had to use my body wash to clean my hair my face and body and I was showering in the shower I usually avoid because the shower curtain is gross and turning yellow and I have been meaning to wash it and it’s the shower I use to wash up after I have a private moment and I have bad contamination ocd about s3m3n and I feel so sure there was that stuff on the shower curtain inside it because I do not clean the shower and before I shower my body is touching the curtain so it gets dirty with s3m3n and I was so scared to even place my towel and wash cloth on top of the shower rod because it was touching the curtain and the rod most likely had s3m3n on it and this gets worse because in my panicking I left and the shower curtain open to avoid having to touch it and water got all over the floor and when I was showering I am pretty sure I did not shower well enough and this matters because for the last like 2 months I have been sleeping on the floor in my house on a rug that’s in a public room kind of and I am so worried the rug has s3m3n contamination like I am 90% sure it does but I still sleep on it and I make sure to shower before I do anything that may involve things that may touch my body but this makes everything worse. And on top of this my uncle sleeps in my room and I know my room is contaminated because it’s my room and I am 17 and he touched everything but more specifically the front door handle and yesterday I touched it after him to leave the house with my dad to go to school and my hand was contaminated I knew it and I touch the car door handle and my backpack and I have been scared my backpack was contaminated and I touched the stuff in my backpack afterwards so now I have to find out how to clean my backpack and my items. But today things were just worse after my panicking and quick shower I barely washed my hands so I am worried I got s3m3n everywhere and it is spread around my house now and now none of my stuff will be clean and now I will contaminate my friends and their stuff and my notebooks are dirty now and my computer and everything and I have to hang out with my friend tomorrow and I am So scared I am thinking of canceling but kind of don’t want to cause it’s Halloween. But the bathroom and my backpack and my stuff and the house and the door everything my little brother used the bathroom I showering and I feel sick my clothes were still on the ground and I did not clean the soap pump or faucet handle so he is probably contained and he was preparing for a hair appointment so he looked around the bathroom cabinets that are close to the floor for a brush and conditioner and he got it from my box of stuff and I think contaminate because ai had that box before I was trying to be more clean with s3m3n and was just dirty and barely if at all cleaned myself so now I am worried my brother has that stuff in his hair and stuff and he showered in the other bathroom and touched my drawer in there and I am scared to touch it because of contamination but he touched it and then touched his and opened his and grabbed his toothbrush and stuff and the shower I did not clean other after I got out the handles and this is so much and I am being crushed I put my backpack somewhere that I also think is contaminated so idk how to handle my backpack like do I just take the stuff out and wash or clean everything in my backpack or throw it out this is sickening and I just want everyone to be safe and clean and it’s my fault. I also feel like I am not saying everything that matters that if I miss a point I may be lying to you guys or if I do not clean a spot then the s3m3n will spread everywhere again. I need advice because now I have so much to clean and have to figure out how to clean my car seat and car handles because those are most likely contaminated too. What do I do about my backpack

It’s early days but she’s picking up on my intense anxiety surrounding the early stages of connection and has vocalized confusion about what I am feeling. I like her a lot but I get more scared the more feelings I get for her. I have tried to explain and told her about my ocd very broadly from date 1 but she doesn’t seem to compute what it actually means to deal with it. She’s trying to relate and saying she has dealt with similar doubts and that self confidence helps a lot and I need to work on that. I don’t disagree and I see how she makes that connection but that advice and reasoning is not something that is particularly helpful to someone with my particular mental disorder. She vocalized she wants us both to be “doing the work” when it comes to working on ourselves and I didn’t love the way that came across. It’s dismissive of all the work I am doing even to show up and what I go home to after we hang out. I have been in treatment for so long and I am back in dating and going through this knowing that this anxiety was coming for me. I’m in the thick of it right now and willing to put up with these feelings because we are very compatible and she’s worth it but also - and more importantly - I am worth it. This is part of my journey and it’s been hard earned. It’s okay if this is not something she has the capacity to navigate at this stage in her life. We both are respectful adults with a lot going for us. I’m not looking for a savior, I’m not looking for a parent figure to look out for me. I just want some patience and and presence even in those moments when ocd has me in a death grip. I love myself and am so proud of myself for opening up to vulnerability in this way. It’s a dialog I want to open up because if this is something that can grow into a meaningful connection, this will help get us there. Alternatively, it’ll help us both know if this dynamic is something we have the capacity and patience for at this stage of our lives. Both are okay. I respect her and she respects me. I’m doing the hard thing.