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Anyone have any suggestions for ERP exercises for Partner focused ROCD?

Had a shower this morning, and while I was drying off I had one of those muscle spasms that I get a lot, the ones where brain goes, "omg did we just pee?", the ones where... nothing ever happened. Always dry, and I do check, probably too much. I told myself, "no, it's fine," and continued. Patted down that area with the towel a few times, smelling in between. The first couple times, nothing, just towel smell. The third time was different, not necessarily pee smell, but brain is confused. So now I am afraid I am contaminated all over my body with "pee germs," or "pee," and I am afraid to leave my bed lest I contaminate the house too. I don't really think I leaked anything after my shower, but the fear is real... and potential shame of "knowing" those kinds of germs will be on furniture, my mother, and potential guests... and that I was just too lazy/scuzzy/etc to shower again. I am getting so tired of this. The thing is I don't genuinely know if there's a problem so I don't know what action to take. If I shower again, the next time I have those spasms while drying off--which will probably happen the very next shower--it will start this cycle again. Not to mention "is the towel contaminated..." This happened last night too but I moved on, thinking "I'm dry and wearing clothes, it's fine. It was probably just water." I lysol'd the downstairs/my couch (avoided sitting on the "main" couch, which belongs to mom) and other stuff when I got home from work last night, so now brain thinks it's legit... I feel like I should just bite the bullet and not shower. But I'm scared and TOO OLD FOR THIS NONSENSE.

Me and my boyfriend have been together for two years. He is the most supportive and lovely person I know.i love him so much. But I have trust issues because my ex did horrible things to me (he cheated on me and posted photos that I sent to him,and many other things that hurt me) I was in a deep depression for 5 months after that. Then I met my boyfriend.He is so sweet with me and he is a person that I know he'll not cheat on me or hurt me in any way. But I feel like I can't trust anymore. I was in a good progress since yesterday. I had a panic attack and I started crying and told him that I don't want to get hurt again and if something happens tell me and I will respect it. He said nothing is wrong and he would never want to hurt me. I told him that it was a bad day for me and I can't easily let myself calm and he told me that he told me we will get through this together. Every time he talks to another girl I feel like he's going to leave me to be with her or that she will cheat on me. I feel terrible for doing all this to him and for putting myself in this situation.

Well, I’m 38 weeks pregnant, about to give birth. I felt great until my third trimester hit. I thought this time was going to be different. With my first baby, I didn’t know what was happening to me postpartum. I had such intense anxiety and ocd symptoms. My husband had no idea how to help me. I eventually did some therapy, but not enough. I was breastfeeding at the time, and I absolutely refused to even try to give a bottle for a while for fear of contamination or making the baby sick somehow. Because of this, pretty much all responsibility fell on my shoulders, along with lack of sleep and thus created the perfect storm. I likely needed medication, but the thought of taking something that would harm the baby terrified me. I didn’t leave my house for months. In short, I started to feel a bit better as the baby grew older, but I still have my moments. Fast forward to right now and my symptoms seem to be coming back again. I’m terrified. I don’t think my marriage will survive this again. I don’t know if I will either. I am not suicidal currently. In fact, I desperately want to live and be better for my family. However, there were times last year after my first baby when I felt my family could do this without me. I know this is untrue, but I did feel it. I’m having trouble making decisions right now. I get the feeling that I would be better off formula feeding the baby from the start so I could get on any medication I needed and be present for my babies and family….. but then I worry that by not breastfeeding, I’m also harming them…. Can anyone help, or share some insight? Currently awake at 3:47 am …… just in my thoughts.

I’ve had these really overwhelming and difficult thoughts regarding my ability to care and empathize with others. These thoughts are new and I never ever had any problem with thinking this way up until a month or so ago. Basically, I’ve convinced myself that I fake empathy and when I can understand how a person is feeling, the only reason I bother is because I’ve been conditioned to and I want validation. The only reason I do good things and show kindness to other people is so that I’m liked and appreciated because I don’t want them to be mad at me or dislike me. I’ve been incessantly researching antisocial personality disorder and reading about “sociopaths” online so much that I downloaded a chatbot app for when I have questions that I can’t get an explicit answer for. And when I feel sympathy for others I believe it’s all because I’ve been conditioned to feel that way and I don’t want something like that happening to me. And my brain also goes through a sequence of “since I don’t want something like that happening to me, that’s why I treat people good.” But then my brain says “but if there weren’t repercussions for your actions, you wouldn’t really care about whether or not you treat people well.” And I end up defaulting on that. Also, whenever something happens that causes people emotional distress, like something violent or harmful, I usually check to see my reactions and oftentimes I don’t actually have a strong one which causes me great distress. I’ve always struggled with feeling my emotions, unless they’re happy ones and I never really know how I’m feeling and with stuff like this that you can’t really get a definitive answer for, it almost consumes me because most of my intrusive thoughts I can logic my way out of but with this it’s practically impossible. I wish I could find somebody with similar thoughts or someone who has gone through this because I feel like these thoughts are so specific that I can’t find anything similar so if someone could share their thoughts that’d be amazing.

Title says it all. Biggest compulsion I can’t seem to stop doing even if I notice I’m doing it is ruminating. How do I stop? It’s almost like my brain automatically does it and I keep getting so lost in thought.

I’ve tried to be really open about having OCD, but I often hear back “I’m really ocd too” or “everyone’s a little ocd” or “that makes sense because you’re so organized”- just comments that show they don’t really understand the disorder, or that they think I’m referring to a personality trait. I was wondering, how do you guys react to this or deal with these situations? And how does it make you feel? I try not not get frustrated, because OCD is not commonly well understood or spoken about. Still, sometimes I’d like it if people would process the severity and know I’m not saying I’m a neat freak.

Currently I don't really have a relationship with my parents not that is bad or good it just isn't there cause of a situation... anyways that's another topic. The question I'm asking is, is it okey to tell a family member something they did triggered you? I have contamination OCD and saw my dad doing something unsanitary after 1 minute later my mom asked something but I didn't reply cause like I was still "shocked" or didn't know how to react to what my dad had done. I apologized to my mom for not responding to her and told her something had happened to me and did not know how to react and that was the reason I left her hanging. She asked what was the thing that triggered me but I haven't replied to her message.

please know that i am here to lean on. we know how much it sucks to have OCD — and to be labeled by others. this disorder attacks us in the most horrible ways…it’s not pretty, but that is the nature of our disorder. just wanted to say that, no matter what your themes are, or how bad you’ve got it…i’ve got you! let’s keep doing the hard work

Wow - last night I had a terrible night of sleep and the OCD symptoms today are really strong and harder to deal with than normal. For those who have experience in preventing response to exposure, I could use some encouragement (not reassurance) today. How did you get through your hardest days during recovery?

Since friends and family are going to be busy im probably gonna be spending it alone… i truly truly dont think that anyone cares about me… especially on here… people will tell me on here that im probably being overdramatic or just tell me not to post at all or just think im being mean… but for a long time, this place is the only place where i can actually talk about the extent about my ocd without people assuming its a cleaning thing, or thinking I have serious issues… the reason why i post my stories is cause i feel triggered, guilty, anxious, and always just hurt inside… and it doesnt help feeling alone… ive thought of deleting myself a few times in my life… but these past three years have been the most amount of times i thought about it… i see everyone help each other… take care of each other… and then i look at myself and say when will it be my turn to be happy… and then i realize i have none of that… college debt is coming after i graduate… my friends and family are too busy to care about me… which i cant blame them… and i just feel like Im not doing anything in the world other than… just annoying or making people angry with my existence… whether its on here or somewhere else… Im never going to be happy… I want to accept the fact that this will all be over soon… but it wont… cause this will never end for me… so… happy birthday to me… cheers to all of the people who have blocked me on here and cheers to myself, who i hate every single day for this mental illness… cheers to all of the people who hate me and despise me… whether it be on here or RL… and cheers to god… wherever he id…

hii !! usually i pop in and out of here a couple times a year, but i just realized it’s been over THREE YEARS since i developed sexual orientation OCD. wow. so of course i redid my account… like always… but with the commitment to stay and answer questions and help out as much as possible ♡ i developed sexual orientation OCD during COVID. at that time, i identified as a lesbian, and i got the thought “what if you were attracted to guys, but didn’t know, because you had no romantic experience?” and ever since then, it was constant panic. constant panic that then led into addiction, a loss of all my athletic performances, and constant anxiety. my compulsions were 80% of my day, and was considered severe. i failed ERP three times before i decided to stick to it two years later, and finally could consider myself recovered. if anyone has any questions or would like any insight — please ask away !! ⭐️

I’ve become utterly convinced that my friends don’t truly like me, and are hanging out with me out of pity / obligation. It’s making me spiral worse and worse as the days go on. The evidence feels very real, and I can’t tell if it’s OCD or this is actually the case. What ERP statements do you guys think I should use? What are some methods of counteracting this? I’ve become completely fixated on this, and it’s making me depressed

Hey there, I just joined the site, and I thought I’d share my OCD story in an effort to relate with a person or two; to remind you that you are not alone. I first noticed my OCD around 5th grade. It came in the form of compulsive hand washing and fear of toxins. None of my family understood and I pretty much just lived with it. It quickly evolved around 6th grade when a friend told me it was possible to break your own neck. Then the questions started coming - “is it possible? How do I know?” I would wrench my neck back and fourth in effort to convince myself that it wasn’t possible - so much to the point that my whole neck was in pain. But I felt as if I had to know! This evolved further throughout sixth grade and into 7th grade with various other self harm fears. It then that I began to see a psychologist and we concluded that I had OCD. Freshmen year of high school was when I began to take Zoloft, but before that I felt with fears of North Korea nuking us. And that what when my worst enemy came to visit - THE INTERNET. I would spend hours researching on the likelihood of a nuclear attack. My OCD in high school is a little fuzzy, but I remember at some point a fear of getting rabies emerged. Again, the internet was my compulsive outlet and I researched constantly to see if I was at risk. I couldn’t go outside at night because of the bats flying overhead. There were multiple other fears, mostly related to complex religious themes that I won’t get into right now, but by my freshman year of collage I was mostly free of the OCD! I could function and live with it. This was the case until April 17th of this year when I began down a rabbit hole of research into my own faith as a Christian. I wondered - is all this Christianity stuff even real? Is God real? Again, I took to the internet (and even worse - I began researching on Reddit) to the point where I sat alone one day weeping my eyes out for fear that I had lost my faith. This has been tormenting me ever since. The fear is that I will loose my faith, to which I hold so dear and to which I attribute the immense growth in my personality (becoming a much kinder person; seeing others with absolute love regardless of what they do to me; etc). My compulsion is to do research and try to deconstruct my faith. Every time I find what I see to be an argument for Christianity/God I feel like I need to immediately find all the arguments against it. This, as you probably can tell, is an endless rabbit hole for someone with OCD. No amount of research or philosophy/science will ever cure the desire to find more answers. So that’s my story, and my current state. I’ve been fighting it constantly but the fear that I might be wrong or that I am being willfully ignorant persists. I hope that I can relate on some level with someone in this community.

It just never feels like I'm completely present. There's always something my mind is searching for to blame me so that I never get out of the rut that is this disorder. It feels like I'm never free and I've also noticed that I've just been forgetting things more and that I just don't feel fully alright. I'm really sick of the intrusive thoughts that don't seem to stop at all.

Hello, im New here,since one year i have shocking thoughts and fake memorys.Since i Read about OCD i'm very sure that i have it.It Was good to learn about OCD and it helped me.But how can i be sure if its OCD.By a diagnosis?I heared that in the most cases they diagnose OCD wrong and harm more than help.Now my thoughs are always like "Have i OCD" or "Am i just making excuses".

My boyfriend talks a lot to a girl in his friendgroup. I know her because I go with him sometimes. They knew each other way before I had knew my boyfriend. He now says she challenged him to do a running race with her (and I think another girl of their group) because he runs sometimes. But I don’t know why but it made me worry. I see on Snapchat he also sends a lots of snapchats to someone else because of his score going up. But I think it’s her, I don’t know. Should I be worried if they’ve known erachter way before we had something? Everything is going great together and we’re going on vacation next week together and going on skiing next year together.

I'm looking for any thoughts on a list of recommendations published by the IOCDF. It seems to me this is an otherwise reputable organization. I've highlighted with asterisks the pieces of advice which seem extreme, incorrect, or counterproductive. Quote 1: **Always try hard to agree with all obsessive thoughts** — never analyze, question, or argue with them. The questions they raise are not real questions, and there are no real answers to them. **Try not to get too detailed when agreeing — simply say the thoughts are true and real.** Quote 2: Never seek reassurance from yourself or others. **Instead, tell yourself the worst will happen, is happening, or has already happened.** Reassurance will cancel out the effects of any therapy homework you use it on and prevent you from improving. Reassurance-seeking is a compulsion, no matter how you may try to justify it.

For the life of me I cannot stop ruminating. My fiancé shaved a few days ago, and I’ve maybe seen him beardless once in our relationship prior, but my mind on repeat keeps telling me “he’s ugly without a beard” “this angle makes him ugly” “look how weird this one tooth is” and it’s really irritating. My compulsion is to confess. Which I know is unproductive in many ways, in addition to just being kind of mean and selfish. I’ve already confessed twice and immediately regretted it, even though he accepted my apology. I’m extra stressed and unhappy at work which is probably adding to it. I’ve been trying to use the NRE “I don’t have to share that” but it isn’t working, my brain just keeps continuing the loop. Any tips/advice/support, is welcome. We’re getting married in a couple months and I’m so sure he’s my person, but these thoughts are just beating me down.

how can i stop thinking about a past event that i regret and it easts me alive 😣