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my hocd is unique because i know i’m bisexual but i obsess over: how bisexual am i? was i always this bisexual or is it the ocd? is every attraction i feel to anyone fake? it sucks and i feel pretty alone in it

Hey guys! I got this email from Chrissy Hodges (an advocate for ocd) and I thought I would pass it on to y’all. I know it’s long, but I found it very encouraging! In my own experience with OCD as well as many individuals I work with, the impact of trauma in our lives as a result of OCD symptoms and diagnosis is often grossly underestimated. In my message today, I wanted to validate that you are not alone in experiencing that trauma whether it is previous or ongoing for you. Believing and validating our experiences with OCD are so important in recovery and healing from the trauma of OCD. When I first received treatment for the debilitating symptoms of sexual intrusive thoughts, I wanted nothing more than for the symptoms to be gone and to never have to deal with them again. 'I'll be cured if I just do this treatment', I thought. I couldn't have been farther from the truth. Firstly, OCD has no cure, but it has effective therapy for incredible management of symptoms. It took several lapses of symptoms over the years after therapy to realize recovery from OCD is an ongoing process that I needed to learn as a lifestyle change, not just a quick fix with behavioral therapy. Secondly, I didn't allow myself to face and process the degree of trauma I had experienced at the expense of my OCD. Intrusive thoughts ARE traumatic! They change how we see ourselves, how we see the world, and how we believe the world would see us (if people knew what we are thinking). I lived for 12 years with undiagnosed, untreated sexual intrusive thoughts by just surviving everyday. That is a great deal of trauma to process and learn from. The diagnosis and the treatment was traumatic for me as well. Living with a mental illness felt isolating and shameful and I wanted to get as far away from that label a possible. The process of ignoring and denying it caused even more stress and wreaked havoc on my self esteem and ability to have compassion for myself and what I'd been through. I didn't realize how important it was to face and work through the trauma of what we go through with OCD until many years after treatment. I had never received supportive validation for what I'd gone through and survived. Without that validation from others, I couldn't validate it for myself. The reason I'm sharing this with you is because I wanted to validate how you feel if you've experienced trauma surrounding your experience with OCD. If you have, it doesn't make you weak, small, stupid, or less-than. I never realized how much I needed other people to validate what I had been through for it's torment and torture and have them assure me that it took strength, resilience, and perseverance to survive it. I needed to hear it from someone else so I could understand and believe it for myself. So today, I hope you will hear that from me. I know where you've been in your head with OCD. I know how tormenting it is. I know how lonely and scary it is. I know there are times you feel you can't hang on anymore. I'm here to tell you that you can and you will and you are not alone. You are strong enough, resilient enough, and you will persevere. My hope is you can find empathy and compassion for yourself through my message. What you have gone through with OCD and are going through matters. And you matter.

My job requires that I work with numbers (data entry, simple math, etc). When I do some of my jobs duties, I feel like I have to mentally trace the numbers a certain way, read the numbers a certain way, &/or redo my calculations to make sure I don’t make any mistakes. Sometimes, it gives me so much anxiety that I have to take a mental break in order to continue. My boss & coworkers don’t notice. They really like that I rarely make mistakes & call me a perfectionist. Just wanted to let this out somewhere. I’m a little antsy right now.

I was doing better until a few days ago. I have ROCD and I keep thinking that my boyfriend and I aren’t right for each other. In some way we don’t match despite me not thinking this before the ROCD kicked in. I went from thinking we were a perfect match to for without reason thinking differently. But I have to remind myself it’s ROCD and as long as your happy then that’s it. That’s all you have to worry about.

Ugh so I had a bit of a melt down in public today. This girl that my OCD has labelled as “contaminated” came up to me out of nowhere and hugged me. I immediately imploded into this spiral of intrusive thoughts and must have appeared so rude because I just had to flee the whole situation. I hate it because the girl is one of my friends and she doesn’t deserve to be avoided like my mind makes me. Anyone do things like this? I hate having to avoid contact with other people. d a i s y

everytime i wake up and the intrusive thought is still there or i wake up just... panicked i feel so defeated. i know it can’t go away in a day but i really wish i would. and even when i know my thoughts aren’t me and what i want, i can’t help but wonder if i can ever really go back to who i once was. i’ve spent so long panicking and thinking that no matter what, it’ll always be there. i’m sorry for being so negative, but the mornings are always the worst for me.

today has been such a long and exhausting day that’s resulted in about a million tears and feelings of giving up. everytime i feel marginally better my ocd takes some memory from my childhood and throws it at me as “evidence.” even though i believe in my ocd less, the thoughts still feel constant and unbearable. i can’t help but feel like my mind has been tainted forever. i know it isn’t useful to think this way, but for today at least, the battle seems to have been lost. it is so incredibly painful and exhausting to know that my mind has the ability to doubt anything and make me feel like anything is true. i know we all feel this way, but it’s so incredibly lonely. i hate ocd with every fiber of my being and i’ve started to feel more anger that scares me. this post is pointless but i feel like it’s better to type it out. i guess i’ll ask a question though: how does ERP work? i just don’t understand how it has the ability to retrain the brain ‘cause honestly even when i feel it’s getting better, i feel sick and sad that i could have ever considered these thoughts to be true. i love and hope everyone on this app feels like they can get better, because of this feeling of hopelessness is a feeling i would not wish on my worst enemy.

POCD/HOCD: okay, this is going to be a very long post but if anyone reads and replies to this i will be forever thankful. sooo i used to have really bad OCD when i was younger following my parents divorce. i almost totally beat it (i was 11 or 12) and have always been so proud of myself! ever since i’ve struggled w other issues such as social anxiety / self harm (i beat this. yay!) / really intense depression, but no *major* obsessive thinking that took over my constant thoughts. i finished up my 2nd year of college this past spring and let’s just say i had an unusually stressful end of the year (a lot of crazy stuff happened, not worth getting into). once i returned home for the summer and all the stress was gone, i started to obsess over past things that i’ve done / have happened to me (“will anyone ever find out / am i a bad person?” etc.) one at a time, i curved these thoughts and realized yes i’ve done stupid and bad things but i’ve learned from them and i’m not a bad person. but THEN i began to obsess about my sexuality. am i gay? do i like girls? am i going to get married to a guy then have to leave him after i realize i’m lesbian? the problem w this obsessive thought is - in my normal (non obsessive days) i have thought about girls before (like i’ve flirted w lesbian girls i met via tumblr) and had a genuine desire from time to time to talk to girls, but when it came to romantic feelings i would always think of boys or wanting a boyfriend. however, i do remember once thinking in high school “i’m not in love with my best friend or anything but if she told me she loved me that way i might realize i love her too?” which sounds pretty much like a gay girl in denial to me, especially since i don’t think this was in an OCD episode. i’ve also been in situations, usually drunk, where i’ve realized “wait yea i would hookup with this girl”, but i’ve also been in other situations where i was like “ok this girl is totally coming onto me (i go to a very lgbt friendly school) but i WASNT interested. anyways, after days of anxiety/hocd about my sexuality i came to the overall conclusion this summer that i’m bisexual: i like boys, i like girls, no biggie! i have a groin reaction to every girl i see though and i know i’m not attracted to every girl i see, so that part is obviously the OCD, i can’t look at any girl w/o wondering if i’m into her lol. dating a girl seems pretty weird to me but idk if that’s because it’s foreign / i’ve never really considered it or if it’s because i’m just straight. but anyways i was literally ready to come out as bisexual, like 99% ready, when i came across a post online about how pedophiles shouldn’t be a part of the LGBT community and i was like....shit am i a pedophile??? (this was a fear i had when i was 11 or 12 w crazy pure ocd). i thought to myself, well, everything that i’ve been anxious over has been about facts so far (except the sexuality one i’m not so sure anymore) so does that mean this is true too? if i’m bisexual am i also a pedophile? if i’m not a pedophile am i not bisexual? i’m okay w being bisexual, but don’t want to come out if it’s not true because i wanna be right about it you know?? however i am NOT okay with being a pedophile. i would never touch or hurt a child (but i wonder if i would want to even though i have never wanted to in the past the same way i’ve thought about girls in the past). then i think “what if i’m okay with being bi but not being a pedo bc one is socially acceptable but one isn’t?” (this is the OCD talking, right??) my POCD is mostly regarding young girls not boys though, so does that mean the POCD and the HOCD are both false? i just don’t know. it could be these are separate. i know the ocd is what is making me think about it. i want to reinforce that i would try hooking up with a girl / talking to a girl but i would NEVER go near a child. i would sooner kill myself. does this mean one is real and one isn’t? my worst fear is that they are both real and i’m only okay with one because that one is morally okay. idk idk idk. it’s all i think about. my ocd keeps telling me i want to look at, you know, those pictures of children even though in reality i really don’t think i do?? but then i think...what if i actually do but don’t because it’s very wrong??? okay i’m starting to spiral and let my OCD thinking get to deep in this post but i just needed to vent to people who understand. am i a rare case? does anyone relate at all? (also i hope this doesn’t trigger someone. just because i might actually be bisexual doesnt mean that you are bisexual / lesbian / gay as well. you aren’t. it’s your anxiety.) a final thought: i would be kind of sad if i wasn’t bisexual, but i would be happy if i knew i wasn’t a pedo (and i mostly know i’m not) but maybe i would only be sad bc i finally came to terms w the idea of being bi. idk. if you read this all and especially if you respond, thank you for your time and compassion. i’m having a lot of anxiety about posting this so pls be kind:)

hey guys. this is morning i saw a post on fb that was talking about how people want to add pedophilia to the lgbt community (the post was disagreeing w that, as it should) but people were commenting about how it should be considered more of a mental illness (since it is one) and not like “all pedophiles should die” which i don’t agree with. however, i get sexual intrusive thoughts when it comes to pedophilia and start to fear that i am one (even though i know i am not) so usually in those moments i ask my mom to reassure me that i am not, but bc i am trying to resist my compulsions more, i sat with that anxiety all day and it has been a TOUGH day with this anxiety. i have just been extra sensitive and afraid of everything. so i vented about it on my private instagram account (that only my close friends follow) and my friend just texted me an hour ago asking what facebook post triggered all this. So because i trust her i told her the whole story, but she seemed to misunderstand and ask me if i was actually having thoughts of pedophilia, which like super set me off anxiety wise because now am i not only having the acknowledge the all day suppressed intrusive thoughts, but am worried that she thinks i am ACTUALLY feeling this way. I am so anxious and feel like so mentally ill today. ugh.

Do any of you men have the kind of ROCD where your OCD makes you think your girlfriend might be doing something sexual with another man? The intrusive thoughts are torturous. It would be nice to know I’m not the only one who suffers like this.

I’ve got to the point with my OCD where I don’t really have compulsions anymore, just a few intrusive thoughts which I’ve learnt to deal with quite well now. But my main thing is anxiety about getting anxious (which obviously makes me become anxious?)or being the way I used to be. Has anyone else experienced this?

I’m not really sure how i feel. I thought i had pocd with groinal responses but I literally can’t get the arousal to go away at all. Like all day I’ve been hyper aware of how my groin feels. It’s also like during all thoughts and conversations. I know I’m worried I’m a monster and it’s making me sick but i also feel like the constant state of arousal is actually NOT POCD related but just. Something else. Can anyone else relate? It’s really hard to not focus on it.

I’m panicking!! Haven’t been able to get a hold of my bf the last four hours and ROCD is kicking in!

Hi everyone. New member here. I have OCD, anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. I’ve kinda learned to live with it. But, as of now, I’m tired of chewing the insides of my cheeks, tired of the jaw clenching, and tired of the comfort eating. I participated in almost 4 years of psycho-therapy. The only thing I came away with was being able to recognize my own self-soothing techniques. I was never really able to figure out what my stressors or triggers were/are. “IT” just seems to be omnipresent. Any words of advice are certainly welcome. Thank you for reading. KD

Recovery (long post but please bear with me ?) I feel like I’m in a place where I can consider myself mostly recovered from OCD, (just anxiety to tackle now) and I thought maybe sharing my experience and how I got to this place could be helpful for some people, especially when a lot of the time, recovering feels so damn impossible. I got ROCD when I was 15. It was awful, completely debilitating, and my boyfriend of the time wasn’t overly helpful. I don’t know why I didn’t google it and find out what was wrong. I think I was just so convinced no one could possibly help me. If I’d found this app back then, I would have made a lot of progress. By the time I was 16 I also had fairly regular anxiety attacks (mine come on in the form of severe diarrhoea episodes) and the relationship was crumbling around me, partly due to ROCD and partly due to toxic relationship problems that couldn’t be fixed. Ultimately we broke up, and the ROCD went away. I started dating my best friend at the time but within months the ROCD was back, and I understood it was something that needed to be dealt with, but had no clue how to proceed. Around this time I got really sick. Diarrhoea anxiety attacks after every meal, and I also started vomiting really frequently due to stress and anxiety. I lost weight, I never went out, never did anything, it was awful. This went on for like 2 weeks. I was watching Game Grumps (youtube channel) to unwind when one of the hosts talked about his experience with OCD, which lead me to a diagnosis. I got therapy but the treatment didnt seem right to me (ERP? How would EXPOSING myself help??) and I refused to accept I had OCD, only something that was similar and refined to relationships. So ultimately I barely tried to recover and do my therapy and suffered unnecessarily for a long time. My ROCD went away after I decided to break up with him, but I was left with severe depersonalisation due to stress and anxiety that I just didn’t know how to cope with. I had the shortest respite period ever when I suddenly got hit with a new obsession - could I be sexually attracted to animals? This came from a false memory of a meaningless incident that happened when I was really young, and I just...couldn’t remember what had happened, if it had happened at all, etc. I got groinal response which didn’t help and couldn’t understand what was happening to me. It FELT like ROCD, but it wasn’t. This was when I accepted I had OCD. I put my depersonalisation on hold for a while (it had become much worse due to the new stress of my OCD) and tried to find the resources that could help me. I ended up on intrusivethoughts.com and used their chatbot to help me make sense of it all. Eventually I found this app, and immediately got to work making myself a heirarchy of fears and working through them step by step. It felt like one step forward, two steps back, but I must have been improving without even knowing it. Aside from daily ERP I met with my therapist to work through the feelings of confusion and guilt that came with this false memory (she is amazing, I cannot thank her enough) and was able to embrace the uncertainty. I still have the thoughts. I want to make that clear. But they are thoughts, and they mean nothing. They don’t make me anxious anymore. That doesn’t mean I’m attracted to animals, or even okay with people who are attracted to animals. It does mean Im able to dismiss them as misfirings in my brain and not obsess. Recovery is hard. Its so hard. And unfortunately I had to accept that it would make my Depersonalisation a lot worse before it could get better. But being in this place of recovery is amazing. That doesn’t mean it won’t come back - I know I’ll probably have to start again for ROCD in my next relationship, but that doesn’t scare me. I have the tools I need and I know I’ll overcome it when the time comes. I think later today I’ll post some general self care tips that also helped me enormously, if you guys think that would be helpful. I just wanted to reinforce that recovery is possible, you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone. You can do it. I know you can ?

I’m really upset. I just left a therapy session where my therapist said she doesn’t think my relationship with my bf will last or that he’s the right person for me ??? it’s very upsetting

I'm remember having OCD at age 6. when did you all start having those problems?

my ROCD constantly makes me think my boyfriend is up to no good when he is a very trustable and respectful guy. does anyone else go through the same thing. i have been putting the poor guy through a lot because of this...

Hi everyone! So I have a subset of OCD called sensorimotor OCD. Does anyone else have this? I have had obsessions with breathing, blinking, and now how my lips/mouth feels when I speak. I am constantly aware of how my lips feel and how my mouth is moving when I talk and it is so distracting and debilitating to the point where every social interaction feels so forced and unnatural. I feel like I will never forget about this thought. It is so embarrassing and feels so ridiculous. Has anyone had experience with this? I’m feeling very alone and trying to find the right therapist... thanks in advance.

Hey everyone, just wanted to say that I conquered something really big with my OCD yesterday and I feel really proud about myself. I told the person I’m most close with about my ROCD and she was so understanding of it and we talked a lot about what she could do to help me when I get into one of those moods where it’s really obvious that I’m trying to more or less ‘interrogate’ her (Don’t worry it’s not by giving reassurance I talked to her about that). All this really helps me because a lot of the time after I have an ROCD type of mood swing it can trigger my Harm OCD and I think I’ve really hurt her and that what I do might cause her to self harm and all of this so it’s not a good cycle at all. I’m not trying to flaunt my success by no means and the reason why I’m saying this is because for once in a really long time I feel proud of myself and happy that I was able to take the first big step in dealing with my ROCD For anybody out there who thinks that they can’t get help or talk about their feelings, stop it. If I can do it (The person who’s incredibly introverted and has big trust issues) you can do it. I believe in all of you that you can all have success no matter how big or small it may seem it’s still progress. Have a wonderful day folks and remember to take care of yourself ?