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This is my first post on here, and I am looking for anyone with a similar experience or some advice and how to handle this! I have a sort of weird form of moral + contamination OCD, which can manifest both physically and mentally. This sometimes causes me to become incredibly sensitive even over seemingly inconsequential things. Anyways, today during class, I had a drink from lunch and it was in a styrofoam cup. One of my friends was sitting to my right, which is where I had set my cup down. As I’m working on stuff from another class, I hear her giggling beside me and notice that she’s holding my cup, and she was using her nails to carve something into the styrofoam. She notices that I’m looking at her and sets the cup down. I look at it and am trying to figure out what she had done, it looked like the beginning of a stick figure waving. However, after looking at bit longer, I realized she was in the process of making a certain symbol. I immediately grabbed my cup and told her I didn’t like that and asked why she would even draw that on there, I was visibly frustrated, and she just giggled. There was still 3/4 of a drink left in there, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink it like that, so I had taken my pencil and carved into the half-made symbol and made it into a nice landscape drawing instead. She had also carved an arrow above it and I turned it into a stick figure woman similar to the ones on bathroom signs. I turned the cup towards her to show her the corrections I made, and I gave her a sort of “take that” look that I guess she interpreted as a joke and continued laughing. I admit that I thought the woman I made was sort of funny, but I was still angry about the symbol. I was thirsty, so I had taken 2-3 drinks of it after fixing it. I also moved my cup to my other side so she couldn’t reach it. Despite making it into something else, I could still make out the symbol and couldn’t shake the feeling that both the cup and the drink itself was contaminated. I remembered that our teacher had plastic cups on the counter behind me, but I didn’t pour my drink in them because 1. I would have to get multiple cups and it was a quiet classroom and 2. in my mind the drink itself was contaminated. I ended up getting out of my seat and walked across the class to dump out my drink and forcefully threw the cup in the trash. I wanted to put it through a paper shredder. My teacher asked why I dumped it out, and I kind of mumbled and went back to my seat. My friend was leaning back in her chair with her eyes shut, I don’t think she noticed I had gotten up. I sat back down in my seat and wanted to yell out of frustration, but I didn’t since I didn’t want to interrupt class even more. I was getting so frustrated that I wanted to cry and my friend didn’t even seem to care at all. I stayed quiet for the rest of class, and then the next class began which we were both still in the same class + same seats. I kept my head down and didn’t talk except to ask the teacher to move something so I could see the board. My friend has also noticed that my demeanor had changed and that I was getting increasingly anxious/irritated. At this point I was incredibly overwhelmed and so so angry, 1. because my friend had contaminated *my* drink for no reason except to apparently make me mad, and 2. because I was thirsty and it was one of my favorite drinks that I could no longer have. Even typing this I feel tears welling up. During class a few tears had fallen onto my paper, and I was extra frustrated since it was the end of the day and I had asked to go see another teacher about an assignment and my class kept on talking so we weren’t able to finish work that should have only taken 20ish minutes. At the end of class, my teacher had come up to me to ask why I had dumped out my drink last class. My friend had gotten up and went across the room, so I told the teacher what had happened and immediately broke down sobbing. She asked if I wanted to go to the bathroom and I did, then after a bit I had gone back into the classroom. It was a minute or two before school ended, so my friend was packing up some of my stuff for me. I grabbed my stuff and began to do it myself, and she had grabbed my bag to help me zip it up. I told her that I could do it myself, and after telling her again she gave in and walked out of the classroom to go home. Eventually I gathered all my stuff, and while waiting on the side of the hall for people to walk through so I could get to my locker, a girl not paying attention ran completely into me and started acting like it was the craziest thing ever and didn’t even apologize which just added fuel to the fire and made me even more embarrassed than I already was walking around after visibly crying (I am a severe ugly crier). Anyways, I make it to my car and while driving I start screaming out of frustration and once again the tears start rolling. Why would she carve that? She never does anything like that and I’ve literally complained to her before about the guys in our other class drawing that symbol on each other and she was equally disgusted with it! Was she trying to make me angry? Why would that be the way she went about it?? Why would she touch my cup??? She’s always done stuff to annoy me for fun and it’s never been anything like that! She’s drawn on my papers before and it was always just happy/sad faces! And that was a perfectly good drink that was still practically full! And she knew I hate that sort of thing! And now I’m also convinced that I’m contaminated because I had taken a drink out of the cup after “correcting” it. It made me feel so disgusting and I had put on hand sanitizer and touched everything I had touched (my notebook, pencil, and face) after touching the cup. And I had to waste my favorite drink! (Which I also felt terrible about and gave my mom $2 as compensation) So, has anyone gone through something similar? Or does anyone have advice on how to deal with both the frustration and the guilt from wasting a perfectly good drink? Sorry for such a long post! Any advice would be appreciated! :)

Some years ago, I picked up a theme. It’s about peeing before bed time The most natural thing we do without thinking about it. Unfortunately, for me, I now stress about peeing and making sure I empty my bladder before I go to bed. But I know it’s my brain tricking my body that I have to pee at the moment I lay down. It’s absolutely horrible and what makes it worse is that I keep pushing every time I have to pee even though I’m done I keep push pushing and push pushing until I feel like I am completely done Now I feel like I’ve weakened my you know what. Maybe it’s my age I’m 39. I noticed that when I drink carbonated water, it irritates my bladder so I try to not drink it so much but I just hate how frustrating this is that I avoid bedtime and I procrastinate and it’s 5 AM and I didn’t want to deal with it earlier so now I’m dealing with it and I have to learn to just have a stable bedtime so I can take care of this earlier. I’m laying in bed and I really want to go pee again. Does anybody else struggle with this?

I’ve had no side effects, positive or negative, to any medication I’ve taken. This includes 80mg of Prozac, 200mg of Zoloft, 60 mg of buspirone, and 10 mg of abilify. My ocd symptoms are bad (my Y-BOCS score was 39), so I’m not sure if the severity is the issue, or if there is another issue. My therapists supervisor thinks something else may be going on because I have had no side effects from 10 mg of abilify. Does anyone have ideas? I read that some people metabolize medications more quickly than others, and I don’t gain weight easily, so maybe that is the problem. It could also be ADHD in addition or the severity of the symptoms, or something else

I am currently on a EMT class. I have tremendous doubts about my abilities. I fear failure and constantly see video like thoughts of my peers and Instructors being disappointed and frustrated with me. I actually ended up going to class, parking car at school and not being able to walk on because I was so afraid of not passing and losing my composure in class. Today I talked to my therapist about how one of my obsessions is being afraid of not knowing which means I might fail. This leads to avoidance. This feels to powerful and it really does feel like I will fail and leave a bad impression on my instructors. Can anybody relate? Please reach out for further details and clarity. I want to hear about others and those with similar experiences.

ive been dealing with a lot of health anxiety and newly diagnosed OCD with a lot of obsessions over my health and infection its started to bleed really badly into my relationship with my partner of almost 1 year and im so scared that he is going to get tired of me and leave me because i am so anxious and scared all the time any advice is appreciated thankyou

I’m the only person I’ve met with ocd, but i know a lot of ADHD people. i met back w my therapist again today and we didn’t focus much on ocd. We touched on it a tad but he seems to think a lot of my problems i experience through my day is adhd. At first it made me feel that i was lying about ocd and i was scared. But i do agree it weighs on me heavily. Has anyone treated their adhd at all and it helps w their ocd? We talked about self regulation and it seems to me i need a lot of help with that.

I have a question about my ocd theme. First it started from hocd about 3 weeks ago after a trigger. After educating myself about what it is and how to deal with it, it gradually started to change themes to pocd and harm ocd and none of these themes bother me that much now. The thing is that i spend most of my day thinking about ocd itself. And i cant seem to stop. Any tips on what to do?

First, this is my first post. I am new here. I just had my first meeting with a therapist here. I was watching a video on the NOCD podcast and Dr McGrath mentioned how the idea that being a bad person or rather the uncertainty around it, is foundational to OCD. Speaking for myself, this is absolutely true. I was always a good kid. I was always the “nice” boy. And I had no reason to doubt it. The first time I had a negative and dark intrusive thought about a person, it was horrifying and completely counter factual to who I thought I was. Everything became proof that the nice boy image was a lie. The fact that I kept this to myself instead of talking about it to people who love me is proof that I don’t really love them and worse despise them. During this podcast when the doc spoke about this, I had a memory and a connection I made that I had not made before prior to this. I remembered that a possible source of this anxiety and uncertainty was taught to me by the Christian church at least within the circles I was a part of. One of the concepts that was taught almost on a daily basis was that we are fundamentally wretched human beings. Absolute sinners. Born as enemies of God. Deserving of death. This is the framing for talking about giving your life to Jesus. That if you are - genuinely - repentant, you will be saved from eternal torture. What does it mean to be “genuine”?? There can never be any certainty around something as subjective as that! This idea stuck with me and fed into my OCD over the years. I had just forgotten that it started in church.

hi, i am xian, an 18 years old who is not yet diagnosed with ocd but has been having ocd symptoms for five years now. i started to notice the symptoms when i was in eighth grade, but i didn’t know what it is at that time. back then, i wasn’t taking the symptoms seriously. even after i researched about my situation, i still didn’t think much of it at that time. however, i started to pay a lot more attention to my ocd than ever these past few months and decided that i don’t want to engage with ocd thoughts, do ocd compulsions, and to be at war with my mind all the time anymore. i started researching more about ocd and learned more about it. the more i learned, the more i want to recover. however, what i noticed is that, whenever i try to start my healing journey, my ocd would just worsen. my ocd these past weeks got so bad to the point where i would just spend my entire day doing compulsions, and if i didn’t do any, i would just spend the rest of my day ruminating. ocd affected my mental health badly. whenever i try to analyze my thoughts, i would just get brain fog, and so i do compulsions to regain focus and clarity. however, instead of it removing my brain fog, it would just make it more intense and persistent. at first, the compulsions were like my saviors—giving me relief from the obsessions’ constant attack. but now, whenever i do compulsions, instead of it making me feel better, it would just make me feel worse. an obsession would appear while i am doing compulsions, so it would lead to me doing another compulsion. then again. and again. and again. until the compulsions would just take most of my time. however, i can’t stop myself from doing those because it already became a routine—or a habit—at this point. i know what i should do—to just do nothing and not engage with the obsessions. however, the obsessions seem to know that i am not trying to engage, and thus a new obsession that’s a lot more worse than the last one would appear—making me pay attention to them and do compulsions. it’s like, ocd knows what i am trying to do and it would do its best to prevent me from trying to recover. because of ocd, the friendships i had built with people are either breaking or are already broken by me. i have to avoid those people because they became part of the triggers. i don’t want to go to school too because the people there also became part of the triggers. i don’t want to see and interact with them anymore. i went to the national center for mental health near my area to inquire if they do consultations. unfortunately for me, they don’t give consultations to 18 years olds and below. they referred another branch to me, but the place where it was located is kind of far from my area, so i decided to just wait until i turn 19. to be honest, that was frustrating. i really want to get diagnosed by a professional because even if i know what i am going through, people would not believe me—not that i would tell them anyway, but just in case a situation where i am required to do so occured—and i might not believe myself either. what if i am really a bad person who is having these disgusting thoughts? what if i am just finding excuses to justify why i am having these thoughts? to me, getting diagnosed by a professional that i have ocd is a proof that those disgusting thoughts aren’t mine—but ocd’s. it is the proof that i am just a normal person getting constantly attacked by ocd. i plan to use this platform to start my healing journey, share, vent, and ask advice from people as well. i genuinely want to recover and i want to start doing it now. no matter how hard it is, i want to live happily again. i know i will have ocd for the rest of my life, but i, at least, want to make it manageable. i hope this platform will help me with that. i am a person who values freedom more than anything, so isn’t it torture for me to be trapped in my own mind with thoughts that aren’t even mine? i hope i can recover. i don’t mind if the journey ahead is long, i just want to live normally and happily again.

I find I comical how the mind says “this obsession isn’t getting to you so let’s finds something new to obsess over.” I have a question with OCD and I have been dealing with OCD for six years. I’ve been dealing with specifically SOOCD. My mind has been spiraling for the past two or three days about different obsessions. But the one that stuck, the most was the thought of not knowing who I am. Like what if I’m lying to myself about my sexuality because of my faith. Yesterday I was able to calm myself down by saying either way God loves me. God loves all of us, no matter what orientation. But then I start dealing with a more intense obsession. What if I’m lying to myself denying who and what I truly am and I become a non-believer. Like I’m not homophobic it’s just I don’t want to be with the same sex but my mind is like you’re lying and you’re going to stop believing in God. Guys ik this sounds crazy but I just don’t know my my mind is like this. It’s crazy how OCD sees what you value most and targets it I feel like I’m going crazy. Can anyone relate.

I’m pretty sure what i’m doing is a compulsion but this is the last time i’ll come on here and do this. I have a private social media account just to have exposures readily available to me and so i don’t have that content flooding my real account. I see a lot of lesbian content on there like couples, coming out stories, tons of masc lesbians (biggest trigger), stuff like that. Whenever I see stuff like that I force myself to watch and i’m noticing how i’m building up a tolerance bc im way less anxious whenever i see content like that or things involving wlw couples. I saw a more feminine couple and made myself go through their account bc i was feeling brave since more feminine presenting women aren’t as anxiety inducing to me as masculine women. I watched their videos, refrained from doing compulsions, and bam as soon as they kiss or get handsy i get a groinal response. I continued to scroll down and I see more lesbian couples kissing and more “how i realized i was gay” videos. after getting a groinal response from watching a lesbian couple makeout (it was a “just to be with youuuu foreverrrr” video). I felt nothing at first but then when i see it i think to myself like “oh this is sexual” and get anxious or feel anticipatory anxiety, and then i got a really strong groinal response. I’ve learned to just brush it off and continue without analyzing, but the video that showed after was of a straight couple basically doing the same thing but i had zero reaction anywhere. No groinal response, no attraction to the guy, just numbness. Then I start to think “what if this is just me being in denial” and I remember how i’ve basically have had loss of attraction for 6 years, and I feel like the groinal might be real and just me lying to myself. I just wish I had that same sexual and physical attraction I had towards men before this theme started years ago. I feel like it would be so much easier to manage it. I literally have no libido AT ALL i’m never ever in the mood and feel sexually numb. Im numb to straight sexual content or anything regarding men. All of this, my past childhood experimenting (i’ve posted tons about this before), my issues being intimate and affectionate w my ex’a, TMI my arousal to anything sexual, and the other proof floods my head whenever i notice these things. I’m not going to dwell on this anymore tonight but I just needed to vent about it. Hopefully this is just OCD and I can live the life i’ve always wanted. If not then 🧍‍♀️idk.

Okay so today I’ve been really struggling with SO-OCD and I find it’s random triggers. Like I made a new friend on placement because I was excited to be on placement with my new friend my heads told me I like her romantically when I know I don’t because she’s just a friend and I’m not attracted to her because she’s not a man I’m so scared that these feelings are just me in denial. Like I over analyse situations. For example there could be someone on placement who I’ve seen on a previous placement a few years ago so that must be a sign that I’m gay I have so much anxiety and I over think and analyse every situation I’ve been in and how I’ve felt at the moment and then I spiral and I go on dating apps but not for the right reason. I go on looking for reassurance and then when I get it, the conversation suddenly dies down randomly and then I think that it’s a sign from the universe that I’m meant to be single or I’m not meant to be with a man. I’m also terrified to say it out loud incase it comes true. But I’ve also realised that I never had these thoughts when I was in school nor did I ever get this anxiety type feeling because I was surrounded by boys and girls and I had crush’s on boys, and I really liked this certain boy but looking back I overthink that crush and whether I actually liked him or not. But now because I’ve finished school I’ve not got many datable men in my life like you do in school, and I’m not really surrounded by men as I am women. Because I’m doing a degree that’s mainly women, my hobbies are mainly women or on my own and I don’t really go out partying and meeting boys so I don’t really have that part of my life. I feel like that’s a big trigger too. I feel like I’m so fixated on getting into a relationship because I’m 22 and I’ve never had a boyfriend before, and I feel like I’m running out of time and that I’m going to be still single at 30 which is also a big fear of mine. I just wish there was answers

Does anyone have any tips for dealing with false memory OCD? I’m just so afraid that my thoughts are real and they involve some pretty horrible stuff - I just feel like I’m going crazy or that I can’t trust myself to remember things correctly

I don't usually post on here so this might be kinda awkward 😭 I recently had a comeback of one of my worst themes which involves a real event, it was something I did when I was around 14 and a really s*xually charged child struggling with intrusive thoughts. This memory usually stays in the back of my mind but it's usually 'dormant' however, recently I was at a family event and a story from this time period was brought up which kind of triggered me? Being reminded that this era of my life really happened kind of grounds the thought and makes me panic again, I had to immediately isolate myself to deal with the guilt that overcame me, and started looking up similar stories which might be a compulsion- but it didn't do too much since mine feels so much worse than all the others 😭 Now, I have this really close best friend and I trust her to pieces, so much that I keep feeling the need to confess it even though I know I shouldn't and that it might make it worse, part of me wants to because I feel like I'm keeping secrets of my dark past from her, and the other doesn't want her to see me in an awful light. It's now exacerbated because we're celebrating her birthday together this Friday and there's gonna be some drinking involved- which is making me really scared that I'll confess these things to her while drinking, that I might never be able to drink with friends again out of fear that I'll confess, and that I'll eventually have to confess these things to somebody... I don't know how to deal with these feelings 😭 it's all been eating me up lately and I just want to enjoy the time with friends that I've been looking forward to for months now...

So for a English college course, my friend gave me the answer and because I was a dumbass and lazy person I copied it word for word, and of course it had turntit or whatever it’s called, and the professor messaged both me and my friend saying we both have to re do it, she confronted me about it and yes I did tell her the truth and told her to never trust me with giving me out the answers again, I won’t go to class tomorrow because I have horrible cramps but that was before everything, but I will properly apologize to her in person with a hand written note, I know my friend will probably not talk to me anymore because she had arguments with her other guy friend over being replaced in marvel rivals so I’m gonna say goodbye to that friendship especially because she was my only friend. I feel super guilty and I admit it is my fault and feel bad that we both have to re do it, I’m not sure how else to apologize. But I really hope her other guy friend doesn’t say anything because when they fight I really never say anything because it’s not my argument oh gosh what do I do, I also know she will probably be hella pissed at me and not speak to me, she’s probably telling her other friends about me because she would tell me about her telling her other friends, I mean I don’t have any other real friends to be talking about what I should do. I need help, someone curse me off idk what do I do how do I make it up or do I call the friend ship quits?

My bestfriend and I are both Christians. My other friend is an Atheist. I don’t care she doesn’t have the same beliefs as me and only want the best for her. With that being said her and my bestfriend have been having augments about their beliefs and I feel like she’s starting to make my bestfriend rethink her faith. This would be none of my business if my bestfriend didn’t send me photos of their texts when they were having these little fights. Some of the things my friend is saying to her logically don’t make sense. My bestfriend hasn’t outright asked for my opinion but I feel like at this point I should point out these inconsistencies and let her make the decision but I’m not very good at explaining math or science or really anything. I just know that a lot of people have a problem with Christian’s being pushy or judgy and I want to be neither of those things.

A few months ago, about six or seven months ago, I adopted rats as pets, and they mean everything to me. But sometimes I feel like my OCD is getting in the way of taking care of them, because every small detail that happens turns into something I ruminate about all day. For example, if one of them doesn’t want affection at a certain moment, I start ruminating that he doesn’t like me anymore, that he hates me, and things like that. If one of them eats a little less, I immediately start thinking he’s sick, that he might die, that I need to take him to the vet. Any small situation becomes something huge in my mind. I also find myself constantly monitoring them. All of this is mentally exhausting, but I don’t know if this is OCD, because I can’t clearly identify what the obsessions and compulsions are. Maybe the compulsions are asking ChatGPT if something is normal, what something means, or looking for reassurance on Reddit, or maybe it’s just the rumination itself. I don’t know. My OCD has always been mostly about relationships, ROCD, and that is more under control now. But I feel like these other things, which might also be OCD but that I didn’t pay as much attention to before (bc I was foccus on the ROCD that was fck TERRIBLE to me), are getting worse day by day. And I don’t know how to deal with it, because I don’t even know if this is OCD or not. Maybe I’m just faking it. Maybe I’m exaggerating. Maybe I had OCD in the past and I don’t have it anymore, or maybe now I’m just pretending and it’s actually just normal anxiety. I don’t know, I really don’t know. I feel desperate, truly desperate.

I’ve been dealing with pretty bad gender OCD for the last month and freaking out about whether I’m in denial about actually being trans, and today I realized I actually have experience with being in denial about being (mostly) gay, and it’s helping me see that that’s not what this is. When I was in denial about being gay, it was because of social consequences (worrying about being accepted and not wanting to be seen as different), since being attracted to guys feels normal and natural to me. As far as I can remember I never obsessed about it or constantly checked my sexual responses to see how I felt, and in a world with no social stigma or homophobia, I think I would have never had any issue with it and I would have come out a lot sooner. I always knew I found guys attractive and had a hard time imagining dating or having a serious relationship with a woman, I just never quite connected the word “gay” to it. It was a sort of “I know that gay men like men, and I think men are attractive, but I’m probably just bi or a straight guy who’s looking at attractive men l because I want to look like them” situation. At this point a year after coming out to myself, I’d be really confused and weirded out if there were some 100% accurate blood test for sexual orientation that proved I’m actually straight, because it would mean that what I’ve always felt would be a lie. Once I admitted that I was gay, it was definitely a bit intimidating to process (not least because I knew that there could be social consequences) but it was a relief because it just felt right, and it felt good to put a word to what I’ve always felt and accept that I am that. I’m not out to many people and I don’t have any gay friends (or many friends at all, really), but I feel less lost and more at peace knowing that there’s a word for what I am. That’s not at all how this feels. When it comes to this, fear of being subjected to social stigma is certainly part of the angst going through my head, but it’s secondary to the primary angst, which is “I don’t want to transition, transitioning to me sounds like a kind of death, BUT WHAT IF I HAVE TO? I’m satisfied with my body as it is and with being seen as a guy, I don’t see myself as or want to be another gender, I don’t want to lose the body and appearance that I have now, what I want is for these thoughts to go away so I can go back to being that happy and comfortable guy who never thought twice about his gender, BUT WHAT IF I’VE BEEN A GIRL THIS WHOLE TIME? WHAT IF I ACTUALLY DON’T LIKE MY BODY/PRESENTATION?” Unlike with being gay, I want a test to prove with 100% accuracy that I’m a cis male with TOCD because then that would mean that I am what I’ve always felt I am and this is just my neurodivergent brain temporarily playing a trick on me again that will pass. I don’t know if this will help anyone else, but it’s helping me. (I got an OCD evaluation through a work-sponsored therapy session with a social worker, and he determined that I have moderate-bordering-on-severe OCD. I’ll get on actual treatment soon.)

I broke up with my boyfriend almost a week ago because of how he was treating me but hes been super sad and swears he’s going to work on himself because of how much he loves and cares about me.. i want to believe him but part of me also worries is this just some sort of tactic to reel me back in and it’s just gonna be the same?? I also feed bad if I do give him another chance because I already vented to my best friend and mom about him.. which I would’ve never told them anything unless I was DONE. So now I just feel bad for talking bad about him when he’s willing to try so hard to get me back. Ugh idk I’m torn between constant feelings of feeling bad, missing and loving him a lot still, stressed about having to explain my reasonings for taking him back, feeling unsure, etc. Any advice from anyone who has been in this position😭

i’m so frustrated because i haven’t been hanging out with anyone or going out since i’ve turned 21 (last year) because of my ocd. i’m so scared of getting sick that it makes me cancel on plans, miss out on family or friend’s events, and finally, this weekend, i faced my fears and went to a club, and had a sleepover with my friends. just to find out the next day (today) one of my friends we were hanging out with was sick, and nobody told me. all of my friends know i have horrible contamination ocd to a point where it’s a joke in my friend group, and yet, nobody told me. i’m panicking and freaking out because i know im gonna start feeling sick anytime soon, and it feels like im having a hundred thoughts a minute. am i valid for being frustrated?