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I'm here to listen to someone to vent or just need someone to talk. I'm overcoming perfectionism, anxiety and intrusive thoughts. I was diagnosed with ptsd ( us army combat vet = Combat tour Iraq =

guys i was wondering if anyone with harm ocd or that has similar intrusive thoughts had a horrible time trying to watch the new jeffery dahmer show on netflix??? just for a little background, i struggled with harm ocd when i was like 8 and it lasted for a whole year after watching a show about a daughter murdering her mom. i was 100% convinced i wanted to harm her and the thoughts haunted me for soooo long. i had no clue what was wrong at that young of an age. i also have borderline personality disorder and i had the worst day possible with it today and tomorrow is actually my birthday and i was trying to watch an episode of it and these thoughts come in and make me feel like i could do those things??? when before i watched/watch stuff like that i obviously experience remorse about hurting people and now i’m just questing if i was putting on an act about feeling bad about emotionally draining my own boyfriend and hurting his feelings. can someone PLEASE give me advice on how to handle these thoughts ?

So I read one of the NOCD Blog’s new posts about differentiating GAD vs OCD and it made me worried a bit. The first psych I saw said that I had GAD and unspecified OCD which may/may not change, and when I asked them a few weeks later, they said that if they HAD to say, they said I probably have it. When I started therapy here, I was further diagnosed with OCD and GAD. Because of the shiftiness, I’ve often wondered if I don’t actually have OCD and an misinterpreting normal behaviors/anxiety behaviors to be compulsions. I have discussed this with my therapist of course, but I also wanted to see if anyone on here has been diagnosed with OCD that later turned out to be wrong? Are there any resources that could help me further differentiate so that I’m not doing/treating the wrong thing? I’m also aware of the irony that asking this question in and of itself may be more aligned with OCD, but I feel like people with anxiety disorders may do the same so I’m not sure anymore lol.

I am terrified. A few weeks ago I was hospitalized for low platelets and it was concluded after what seemed to be hundreds of blood tests, that a viral infection had attacked my platelets. Luckily I have been going to the Hematologist to check on my blood, and my platelets are back to normal. However, I was given a choice of whether I wanted a CT scan for peace of mind or not, and because I of course refused to live with any doubt of what my body was going through at the time or any other time, insisted. So I had an abdominal and pelvic ct scan when they found I had an ovarian cyst. I freaked out and started googling insanely and saw how most ovarian cysts are nothing to worry about but that rarely (less than 1 percent) can be cancerous so now I feel like I am going to die. Tomorrow is my transvaginal ultrasound where they are going to see my ovaries and I am beyond terrified. I keep living with this sense of doom that is just waiting to happen.

Hi! I recently started meds for ocd, lexapro 10mg, and I was wondering how long it took any of you to start to feel better? I've noticed recently there's days I feel good and the thoughts aren't as loud so I get hopeful but then the next day it's bad again :( I would love to hear everyone's experience on meds!

I’ve been struggling with magical thinking for at least 2 months now, and I feel like it’s getting worse. If anyone has any coping skills for this or advice on how to reassure oneself, please let me know :( I’m tired of feeling tormented by my thoughts.

Okay, so for the most part, if you have harm ocd/intrusive thoughts, you’ll understand (hopefully). If you haven’t seen, everyone is talking about the Netflix documentary “Dahmer”. Most harm ocd sufferers (myself included) that I’ve gotten to know all struggle with fears of being evil in any way (like a sociopath/narcissistic, etc). Do we need to make ourselves watch it? Even some of my friends without OCD say they couldn’t do it. The reason I don’t want to watch it is because I’m afraid it’ll trigger me. I’ll look for any common traits (this is what I do) and it’ll send me into a panic attack. But aren’t we SUPPOSED to on purpose watch things that bring us distress? The series has everyone talking about mental health and it SUCKS because OCD is considered “mental health” and I feel like it lumps us all into a giant category. Everything true crime triggers my harm ocd. I don’t even want to know humans are capable of such things because then it reminds me “it’s all possible”. I don’t know if I explained it well, but does ANYONE understand where I’m coming from 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Did learning about your specific type of ocd make your ocd worse or increase your anxiety? I feel like it has for me. I have somatic ocd and before I looked up what it was it wasn’t that bad/I didn’t worry about it as much but now that I know what it is I feel like it’s increased my awareness and has become my life now. Like I feel like I have to live up to the name in a way? Anyone relate?

TW so yesterday I tried to take my own life beacuse my thoughts just felt so true.. I took alot of sleeping pills and i went to sleep but my heart started hurting so i told my mom and she took me to a hospital ( that was about 12 at nigh ) I just feel like i fucked my life over.. my sisters hate me my mom is mad at me my dad is also mad and confused beacuse he dosent know whats my problem Idk its just my harm/Pocd thoughts just got so real and i got so fied up with it so I tried to end it all Im so tired of living with myself and im so tired of being in my head i just want my old brain and self back i cant livr anymore.. im not gonna attempt again dw this is just a vent and i need advice’s pls

Hello, if you don't mind me asking, do your parents accept that you're mentally ill or do they insist on the delusion that you are okay, desperate enough to pass you as "normal" to everyone else? My mother took a while to accept that I'm mentally ill, and as much as she tries to hide it, she considers it shameful.

Can anxiety make you lower ribs/upper abdominal tense? Idk why but for awhile now my upper abdominal feels tense/sore like I just did an ab workout but I didn’t. Like almost as if I’m sucking in my stomach but permanently. Like I try to let my stomach go/relax but it almost feels uncomfortable and not natural like how it did before all of this. It also moves so easily like it’s a weird feeling lol that muscle never use to do that, has anyone else had this happen to them too?

I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin in the morning. ROCD is insistent that I break up with my boyfriend, that I am in denial and it’s too hard, that I’m just lying to myself. And I’m terrified that deep down that’s what I want! I’m obsessed with not being a bad person or hurting him.

mental repetition is killing me! after i stopped feeling anxious it felt like it was denial so i started mentally repeating stuff and it keeps escalating and actually feeling like denial. idk how to stop it. i physically cannot stop it because it’s making my thoughts worse. and idk what to do. yesterday i was out with my bf all day and i tried so hard to not mentally repeat but sometimes i’d get really bad intrusive thoughts and it brought my whole mood down for a bit but then i’d accept uncertainty and feel calm. but then sometimes something little would happen like someone of the same gender stared at me and i felt weird and that has literally never happened before and it killed my mood so so so much. i hate this debilitating disorder i want to know if there’s a way out of this.

I realized I haven’t done a Q&A with y’all in months! Hopefully this is the right time for some folks, at least. Please comment with any questions you have and I’ll do my best to answer ❤️👏🏻🌸

It’s SO hard not to focus on the horrible feeling of OCD alone. Like what if these thoughts never go away? What if I can never get better? Why can’t I see things for as simple as they are? My OCD makes me want to think wayyyy beyond what is actually right in front of me or obvious in the world or people. Like it constantly wants to discover something new or find meaning to things, answer questions that can’t be answered, obsessed whether my mind is like no one else’s, scared that I’ll never go back to feeling like the old me and was the old me just an illusion. I’ve been so sad about my new OCD theme and it’s obsessions that I can’t even imagine how life was before this? It almost makes me feel like I’ve uncovered this massive secret that I have to keep from the rest of the world and be stuck knowing it all alone… like my brian is broken and alone and everyone else is just blissfully unaware, like robots or in la la land around me. It’s hard to feel connected and be present when you have to force it. So it makes you wonder what is even legit or real, right or true…if that makes sense. How was my calm mind before this even real? Like is that how everyone is just “supposed” to be? Surely so, because we aren’t supposed to worry about irrational things and over analyze things that aren’t even meant to be analyzed or questioned. Why does my brain do this now?? Whyyy does my brain want to find answers to things that don’t have answers! I just what to relax and enjoy things again. And stop analyzing why life is this way and what is real or not. Can anyone relate??

How has OCD affected your friendships? Because I’m starting to notice my friends are getting very frustrated with me when it comes to my intrusive thoughts and me always wanting reassurance.

I was raised very religious so whenever I hook up with a guy (not even intercourse) my body responds HORRIBLY. It doesn’t happen often but when it does I LITERALLy feel like I am dying. Chest pains, vomiting, guilt, headache. Honestly to the point of what feels like no return. Does anyone else experience this?

So this morning I wake up depressed in trouble really my thoughts are worried embarrassed ashamed I think mostly worried and troubled that I had a trigger about my kid in which his genitals were involved. I am ashamed that I was embarrassed and didn’t know where to look and I am scared about the fact that I got triggered and that I don’t know what’s wrong with me I know that I have OCD but POCD it is a relatively new thing and I haven’t talked to the doctor that much about it I didn’t have much fear about the actual balls is about where I should look which I guess is similar or the same thing now that I have been set free from the anxiety of the moment I am now feeling the after effects which is wanting to be reassured so I’m back in the cycle and I’m wanting to be reassured that I’m a good person that what happened was definitely POCD and that I can have a normal relationship with my son I feel that going to his room to hang out with him was compensating and may have felt strange because I never go and hang out there I was trying to create an exposure but it may have been some sort of compulsion I am altogether just embarrassed by the whole thing I am embarrassed by going in to hang out with him I feel it may have definitely been compensating to create a exposure but it ended up really feeling like a compulsion in any event I just feel that I am exposing myself to him with my OCD with that behavior going to hang out in his room made me feel like I was just sort of trsnspsrent. I feel so embarrassed and I wish that somebody were here to help me understand this illness better and I wish that I could feel a little bit better about what happened it certainly wasn’t my fault but it affects my kid (what I mean is my own exoerience if my kid, not my kid; it affects ME, not him; I continue givinf my all and being appropriate etc)…and I feel embarrassed when I have this experience and it’s about him because he didn’t ask for it and I didn’t ask for it and when I saw his balls if anything I wanted to look at them because I thought if I look at them the anxiety would go away, and also because well that’s really the only reason. I feel like I need to repent that’s exactly how I feel I feel like I need to repent like there’s something I did that I need to make recompense for because I because the attention I put on the moment of the trigger and how it has to do with his genitals makes me feel (anxious, not knowing where to look); goes against my values I suppose although those aren’t my values i am a humanist so I’m a little confused like how are used to feel when I was little and I would masturbate (we were religious) like I should be ashamed of the anxiety (i know diesnt make sense. and be corrected about that that like it has to do with my own deficiency and grossness but I have to remind myself I was afraid of them really; and I was afraid of what they might mean about me but they don’t mean anything about me I’m just his mom and there is genitals and I’ve seen in 1 million time is it in there’s nothing wrong with me I just have OCD right now I need to remember this. Need to remember that OCD does not have any meaning and even though I may want to give it meaning because of how I’ve lived my whole life OCD is not involve to give me meaning is a pedophile or someone who is deficient morally deficient or who should feel ashamed OCD is there to make me feel scared and that’s about it. Ocd exist to make me feel scared in this as I interpret it bad about myself but OCD is just there to make me feel scared like touching a hot stove it’s my interpretation of it that makes me feel bad about myself so I need to change my interpretation I had an experience where my son came into my room for whatever reason OCD has attached alarm to these things so I get alarmed by these things and being alarmed by those things makes me feel that I could be wrong with me because the fear of it pulls my attention and pulling my attention makes me feel that there is a reason for me to pull my attention and that reason must be that I am morally deficient but the fact is my attention is just being polled because I’m afraid and I am afraid because OCD is latched onto that and is pulling my attention to make me afraid and I’ve got this from reading several different articles so I’m gonna have to assume that this is true

Ok so, I have an ex best friend who I used to be very close to, 3 years ago in 2019, I smoked some weed with her and I freaked out so bad to the point where it caused me so much anxiety and panic attacks for weeks that it unleashed my OCD and I had to go to a facility. We were still friends later that year, but we had a big falling out in late 2019, then in 2020 became friends again, then pandemic happened and we had one last falling out and never really spoke again. In 2021 she tried to come back in my life by texting but I just didn’t respond. Now, for some reason she has actually been a topic of my OCD for almost 2 years, she’s almost like my “go-to” topic because I think of her constantly, and I have an intense fear of her and that one day she may be out to get me, or get someone to come and k*ll me, or do something to harm me, and the reason I say that as well is because she hangs with such crazy looking young guys who have literal military weapons and drugs and things in their profile pictures and they look like they are big trouble, they look like people who would commit a terrible crime. I feel like she would get these people out to get me and hurt me. I hate HATE the fact that I have let her have this much power over me for the past 2 years, it makes me feel like I’m a weirdo and that I have more than just OCD and that makes me feel sick to my stomach to think about. The reason also why this is happening so suddenly where I’m thinking of her often is because I am moving into the same apartment complex that she is in, and I signed a 15 month lease, and I didn’t know she lived there at all, so I’m freaking out a bit. I just want to not let her have this much power over me anymore, I try to avoid her SO much but I can’t stop thinking about her and it scares me, I want to be able to live in this world with her not having this much power over me anymore, it’s making me sick!

Very tmi topics but I really need help. I feel really scared and alone right now A couple years ago my family and I went to Florida and visited my step sister while we were there and she let her children run around without any clothes on in the front yard and when we pulled up to their house I immediately got a panic attack and my mom had to have a talk with me in the car to calm me down because she knew about the intrusive thoughts and ocd and all of that. I kept getting mental images from the traumatic moment and what I saw especially when I was really having a hard time with the POCD theme. Anyways later on before we were going home in the hotel I kept getting the mental images and they wouldn’t go away to the point I had false feelings like groinal response, my body would get tense and I would have so much anxiety because I kept having thoughts that I liked it and I knew I didn’t. I was terrified. A few weeks later I then struggled with masturbation because I kept getting the mental images and false feelings and I was so scared but I tried so hard to just get through it and not let it bother me and when I did I felt so much guilt because it felt like I was acting on the thoughts of something that I actually did witness in real life, not an intrusive thought made up in my head from ocd. It felt so real and still does and im so scared that im a terrible person because a real life thing that kept popping in my head when I definitely didn’t want it to during the self time like I mentioned and would that make me a monster. Is it even ocd at that point. And then it scares me because of real event ocd and some other intrusive thoughts I struggle with to this day. Im a woman and im on my period too and when I am my anxiety goes through the roof and im reminded of all the things I’ve been through and it makes me feel so disgusted and sad.