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I actually started feeling almost numb today after watching some couple getting married and that for some reason triggered something aha 😅. Like right now me and my bf are watching anime and he’s being silly and cute but I don’t feel anything in my stomach or that lovey dovey and this does happen to me every now and then randomly and it’s making me think that “what if I actually don’t love him and I’ve just been faking it or convincing myself?” Or “what if this is how I truly feel when I’m not anxious?” But honestly I try not to act on it and don’t try to like end my relationship cause of it. But it is such a hard thing to deal with and it makes me feel guilty and uneasy and I just don’t like this feeling cause it’s messing with my head and now I don’t know what’s real or what isn’t real. I also notice that now when I think about my boyfriend I get that tense feeling in my stomach again and it makes me panic thinking that he’s the problem (btw he’s done nothing wrong and treats me with respect and love) when In reality my anxiety is the problem. I don’t really know what to do other than just sit with it and not do anything rational just cause I started feeling this way randomly for an hour or two.

Hello all, i’ve been on fluvoxamine for just over 4 weeks and i was on 50mg for 2 weeks and now i’ve been on 100mg for over 2 weeks. My psychiatrist wants to get me up to 150mg but i’m a little nervous to go up higher. Is anyone else on 150mg? and how long have you been on to go up to 150mg? Also they told me i cannot drink alcohol at all. Has anyone drank alcohol on fluvoxamine? Do i just have to wait til my body is used to the meds? bc i’m still young and i feel like i’m missing out not being able to drink a little when i go out with my friends.

Hey y’all, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been needing some support though. I recently decided I wanted to get married to my partner who is a man despite having what used to be (but is now a whole Lot less…)TERRIBLE ROCD and SOOCD. The SOOCD came after and I’ve been dealing with the thoughts for about a year now. I’ve recently just told my grandmother about our plans and she said “congratulations! I’m surprised and glad you are marrying a man!” That didn’t send me into a spiral but it sent a shock through me and I gotta say it didn’t make this any easier. I’m trying my best to keep my head above the water but am struggling bc I don’t know anyone who understands what having OCD is like in these scenarios. I am happy to be getting married especially to my partner but I will be honest, I’m really fucking scared. I can’t really feel a lot of my excitement and my brain doesn’t let me picture our happy moments together without ruining them or making me question whether or not I really want life with him. It’s draining. I’ve been doing so so so good in the realm of OCD and I half the time can’t even get myself to truly believe that I have ocd and am not just lying About the whole thing. I could use some love right about now and maybe some personal experiences or stories. Thank you for taking the time to read

I used to have issues feeling like I was “making deals” with God in regards to Him taking my abilities. God has shown me in so many ways how that’s not at all how He works and that He won’t take from me, but would rather comfort and better direct my mind into healthy thinking… so fast forward to today, I keep thinking I’m making “deals” with the devil when I don’t want to at all. Now I get intrusive thoughts making me feel like if I don’t complete my compulsions “it’s a deal with that guy” (it’s triggering even typing what it is) and I just feel stuck. I was watching a video of somebody jumping in a lake. I got it in my head “if I don’t pause it before she jumps in, it’s a deal with the enemy” and I failed the compulsion miserably. What am I supposed to do now? I feel like I’m just giving away my abilities when I don’t even want anything to do with the enemy. he’s a broken opponent, and has been since the moment he left heaven. Somebody please, this is getting really bad.

To those who have been on this path for a long time, what do you tell your friends and family how to support or help you through your difficult moments. I have supportive people who want to be there but I have no idea what they can do to help, my mind always goes blank when people ask "how can I help?"

I have a fear of committing sin and every day I think of going to hell. I have a fear of disrespecting God, knowingly or unknowingly. I realised recently that I only pray out of fear and not because I’m some “devout Christian”. I pray because I feel if I don’t then something bad will happen to me. Everytime i have a thought that i think is “blasphemous” i feel the need to apologised to God. Its to the point where i avoid reading my bible because i don’t want to be triggered or be scared. When i was younger i remember being told that it was a sin to have friends that are atheists. that scared me at the time because most of my friends group were atheists. they often made jokes about Jesus and it triggered me and i thought because i didn’t defend my religion that i would go to hell. i also have these distressing dreams about judgement day and i’m always left behind in the dreams. i avoid talking about the end times because it triggers me. i’m a little scared typing now. i feel like i’ll never be worthy of God’s love, and that scares me. does anyone have any advice?

So I’m not sure if this really was a script. I couldn’t figure out what to do for ERP today. I don’t have just one theme bothering me. I think it’s just OCD in general. So instead of writing anything in specific. I took myself back to the memories of when ocd was at its worst, when it felt like my life was over, and I just wrote down all of my memories from that terrible time. Because I’m so focused on how terrified I am of going back to that deep nothingness and that hopeless void of depression that ocd caused. I just decided to write out all the memories and the fears. It just became a bunch of rambling. But maybe it will make someone feel less alone? Idk. OCD comes back strong, I can’t watch tv anymore without feeling my ocd. I can’t drive and go shopping anymore without feeling close to panic. I can’t have sex with my boyfriend without having intrusive thoughts. I lay in my bed and sleep because the pain is to much to take. I desperately try to find things to relieve the anxiety and fear that come from the depression. I constantly think about my family being broken up and losing everything I love. I question everything I love. My ocd comes back strong. My ocd takes over my brain and makes me want to run away. I can’t go home. I can’t go to work. I sit in my car. I sit in my car alone, but I can’t be alone. But I feel like I need to be alone. I question if I have ocd at all. OCD takes over my life. OCD causes me to become depressed. Ocd causes me to be panicked. Ocd takes away my Breath. Ocd makes me feel like I can’t go on. Ocd takes away my boyfriend, ocd takes away my dog. Ocd takes away everything I love. Ocd makes me numb. Ocd makes me pain. Ocd makes me scared. Ocd comes back strong. OCD makes me think I need to avoid my dad. OCD makes me think I need to avoid my mom. OCD makes me think I need to break up with my boyfriend. OCD wants me to isolate from anything that can hurt me. OCD says I can’t handle pain. OCD makes me feel weak. OCD makes me feel alone. OCD makes me feel trapped in my head. OCD makes me lose my boyfriend. Question my boyfriend. Judge my boyfriend. Nit pick my boyfriend. OCD makes me think my dad is a perv. OCD makes me never want to be alone with my dad. Ocd causes me to have uncomfortable gronial responses to my dad. Ocd makes me question myself around kids. OCD makes me think about depression. Ocd makes me feel sick. OCD makes me think I need to break up with my boyfriend over the tiniest things. OCD makes me think I’ll never be happy. OCD makes me think I need to be alone. Ocd makes me think I need to isolate to live. OCD makes me question everything. OCD makes me feel close to panic. OCD makes me scared. OCD makes me feel weak.

My aunt and her family came in from out of town, and we all want to go on a road trip. I was already anxious about it before and now because I got my monthly a couple days earlier, I’m even more anxious as my contamination OCD is always so much worse when I’m on it. I feel like going would be a great exposure for me but at the same time I don’t know if it will be too overwhelming for me staying in a hotel, and just generally coming into contact with all of these germs. I know going will be a great exposure for me, though I don’t know if I’ll even enjoy my time and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else. Ugh OCD can be so debilitating.

How long do setbacks last and how do you get out of setback quickly cause I’ve had plenty of setbacks but every time I have a setback I get sticky thoughts that don’t go away. Like I’m not doing recovery wrong, this will last for a while. And I always think about how I’ll stay like this or lose it I don’t even know. I’ve been trying to not give these thoughts any energy and not asking reassurance but it’s been so hard like my heart starts beating fast and my head feels heavy and also brain fog. Since I’m doing this recovery thing on my own I usually come on this app and ask for advice. I’ve been doing recovery work for about a month or two I’m not sure. If there’s anyone who can relate please give me some tips I could really use it.

Don't let themes pigeonhole your treatments. Many of us get so focused on how "special" our themes are that we allow OCD to grow and convince us that something is truly wrong with us. In fact, trying to fix the theme head-on almost always makes OCD worse! All OCD is treated with a health amount of uncertainty centered around ERP (sometimes with addition to other treatments). The theme is just what OCD uses to grab your attention. Those of you with experience may notice the theme can change if you're making progress or you get bored of the same theme over and over. Guess what doesn't change? The anxiety and time wasted on these thoughts and compulsions. That will always stay the same regardless of theme. I suggest you consider treating your OCD like it is an invisible ghost bully. It doesn't matter what that bully knows about your theme, your goal is to remove any power from what the bully says to you so they have no way to bother you anymore. Making a special theme is just a trap used to ensure you continue to listen to OCD, but it can't work if you remove power from the meaning (ERP does this). I know what you're thinking: "But MacDuffo, why would my theme be so specific to me if it wasn't true?!" Well, as people with OCD, our brain is unfortunately more active than people who don't suffer from OCD. We have much less control over our danger signals than people without OCD. As a result, our brain (which knows you pretty intimately by the way) fires distress signals until we can resolve our (non-existent) problem(s). All it takes is a single intrusive thoughts for this to begin and you'll find you cannot switch the thoughts off. For the record, this is the same signal fired when you forget to turn off the stove or lock the door (for those of you without this theme). Compulsions are the actions you take to neutralize these thoughts to no avail (because, again, you have no actual problems to solve in the moment). This is why we discourage reactions (compulsions) to thoughts in treating OCD, because by not reacting we help to remove any meaning to the thoughts. I hope this makes sense because I see a lot of people getting hung up on themes when it really shouldn't prevent you from getting the help you need. Ignore the theme and get focused on learning to sit with the feelings your intrusive thoughts give you. It gets better, I promise. That's all. Hope you all have a fantastic day. Give OCD the ol' 1-2 today! Rooting for you all!

I can’t stop researching, I can’t stop googling, I can’t stop fantasizing, I can’t stop checking, I can’t stop my groinal responses, I can’t stop thinking I want to hold a child’s hand or touch them as I’m walking by them, I can’t stop thinking about how I loved my relationships in the past and how I loved the sex but I could never orgasm unless I was watching porn, so I thought that it was my porn addiction that didn’t make me feel a lot of attraction towards adults when having sex. Then I started working at the daycare and I loved hanging out with the kids and I loved taking care of them whenever I could. I knew that I was always good at babysitting and that I thought that maybe my career path was meant to be a teacher. Then I started to wonder if maybe I liked hanging out with kids to much. If maybe I liked their hugs more than I should. What if I wasn’t having a teacher student relationship with them but if I wanted something more. It got so I bad that I broke up with my boyfriend and I made it very adamant to him that it wasn’t his fault and that he deserved more. Then I wondered if I liked the relationship at all. Then I wondered if I liked hanging out with the kids more than my boyfriend. As soon as I found an out I quit my job. Now all of my thoughts are coming in as groinal responses and urges to test myself to see if all of these are just thoughts or something more and I can’t believe that I wanted to hurt kids like this. Everytime an adult looks at me now or asks me questions I keep thinking they are just looking at me because they want to laugh and point at me when I’m not looking. I never liked people my age or of any age and now I’m convinced I only like children. I hate this I hate this so much but now I’m wondering if I always liked it and I’m just forcing myself to hate it or if ocd is an excuse so I can go and test my attraction and I don’t want to. I keep hitting myself in hopes it will help me want to stop but now I can’t tell anymore. I really want my life to be over I can’t handle this.

Hi. I’m a nineteen year old from Australia experiencing OCD. I needed some advice. I am currently enrolled in university. I finished my first semester of university in June. Since then, I have been on break. I start the next semester in August, 7th to be exact. Now, my first semester was horrible. It’s my first year of university and I completely hate it. And my OCD makes it worse. In high school, I was a top student who excelled and even enjoyed school. Now, at university I HATED IT. And as I said, my OCD made things so much worse. I experienced a lot of uncertainty towards what I wanted to do at the start of the year and that spiked my anxiety, which triggered my OCD. Being at uni made me feel so trapped in my anxiety. It’s triggers so much stress. From questioning whether I’m taking the right path, to questioning if I can succeed, to double triple and quadruple checking EVERYTHING. I’m talking my emails (it used to take me hours to read them and would sometimes cause panic attacks), timetable, due dates, assignments ect etc. I kept doing compulsions and it was so exhausted. I had to read my emails three times, i would constantly seek reassurance etc etc. I’m so terrified to go back. I almost dropped out and deferred several times. I have never experienced that kind of stress in my life. Truly. I don’t know what to do. The thought of university makes me want to throw up. I keep telling myself that I should try just one more semester, or even a couple of weeks if it’s that bad. Most of my classes next semester are online anyways, I only have to go for 2 classes. But it still makes me so miserable. And the workload added to the stress. Once i started I already had quizzes due. I don’t want to leave, and then later regretting it. I’m scared that I hate it bc of my anxiety, not bc uni is necessarily the problem. Does that make sense? I don’t want my anxiety to dictate my decisions. But I’m just so scared. I keep looking at who I was back in high school and I am not her. She was so confident and she of herself, now I’m a wreck. I need advice ASAP.

Has anyone had to care for a elderly person at home either long term or short term that has significant mental and physical health issues. I am dealing with this right now , it definitely is challenging and stressful. It seems to make my own mental and physical issues worse. Any suggestions on how to remain as positive as possible for myself and those around me?

My ocd is literally the worst it has been in my life, it's targeting my beloved cats and it's killing me. I can no longer be in the same room with them, pet them, play with them or anything, because the horrible thoughts and urges make appearance and I get so disturbed and start having so much anxiety I feel physically sick. I've tried every advice i've been told to try not to engage with the thoughts/urges and all that, but I just can't deal with it, when I try ignoring the thoughts and urges they just get stronger, even when i'm doing something I enjoy and distracting myself they're still there. Yesterday I really felt like I was about to act on a harm urge when one of my cats was standing beside me while gardening, of course I didn't want to do that, but I started panicking and even knelt down closer to where she was but I can't really remember if I did it intentionally or involuntarily because I was working with the plants, I didn't even touch her, but I still don't know why I did that isntead of leaving immediately. It hurts me so much because I can see my cats look at me differently, as if they can sense something is wrong and i'm not the same happy and loving owner, and i've been avoiding them at all costs. My babies deserve a better mom than me 😭

I just got immense anxiety. I have OCD and I’m a 19 year old gay male I just wanna say first. Basically, two months ago I was watching a tv show, and there was this like 11-12 year old (I don’t really know how old he was) boy who I just noticed beauty in, and it was in this moment my Pedophilia OCD started. I started thinking ”was I attracted to this 11 year old?”, and I got immense anxiety. But then I googled and did research and found out about POCD, and that you can obviously notice beauty in a kid without being attracted to them, like a parent telling their kid they are pretty or handsome doesn’t mean they are attracted to their own kid. So, today I went back to look at this kid to check whether I was attracted or not, basically checking compulsion, and then this whole weird situation happened. Basically, I googled the guy and went to pictures and I first saw a picture of the guy, and I thought ”no I am not attracted, I am just noticing beauty, there is nothing weird about that”. But then in the title of the picture, it said ”season 3”. So I assumed that picture of him was in season 3, and then I googled how old he was today, and he was 23 years old today, and season 3 of this show was filmed in May 2016. Which would mean he was 16 years old. Then it got all weird, because then I got so confused, because obviously there is nothing weird about a 19 year old just being attracted to a 16 year old, it is a different thing if I were to date a 16 year old which I never would want to. So then this all got so confusing, because that picture of him I saw then I assumed was in season 3 which meant that he was 16 years old in that picture. But what was so confusing was that he didn’t look 16, he looked younger, but I started being able to see 16 in him. Like the more I looked at the pic the more I could see him being 16. Then it all got weird, because when I first saw the picture I didn’t find myself attracted to him because he looked to be 12, but then when I saw ”season 3” in the title, which would mean he was 16, it all got so weird. But then later I googled how he looked in season 3, and he looked older than in the other picture, so the other picture of him I saw that had the title ”season 3” was not in season 3, it was in maybe season 1 or 2. So the title was wrong and said ”season 3” when it was in season 1 or 2. And now I got immense anxiety, because it was all sooo confusing for my brain. Because it went from ”no I am not attracted to him, I am just noticing beauty, that is not the same as being attracted to someone” to ”wait, he is 16 in this picture? so I can be attracted to this guy… wait what, so am I?” to ”wait, no, he isn’t 16 in this picture, he is 12”. It was all so confusing and I am scared I was attracted to a 12 year old. Now I am scared I was attracted to the guy. But it is all so weird and confusing, because it was as if when I saw ”season 3” and thought he then was 16 in the picture it was like my brain tried to tell me that ”yes you can be attracted to him, he is 16”. It is all just so confusing right now and I feel so anxious I don’t know what to do. This is such a weird thing that just happened. I feel so depressed right now and as if I don’t deserve to live.

It’s been a rough road for a bit now where I feel numb, I’ve been in a similar spot before but I got through it kind of quickly. But now it’s been probably about a month and a half. I’ve never felt so numb to emotions, I’ll lay in bed trying to fall asleep and randomly just start crying, I don’t even know why. Sometimes I know why I’m crying though, and it’s because I’m sad I can’t easily feel positive emotions anymore. I used to be so bright and constantly positive, filled with joy and energy. I always had a smile on my face and I appreciated and loved everything. I find myself so confused though, I know the road of helping myself through my mental illness won’t be easy and probably be a huge obstacle in my current teenage life but I hate that fact so much. I don’t like feeling so happy and energized one day and then the next day I can’t even smile without forcing myself to. I already knew I was definitely depressed, I have been since a very young age, but i also realized I have OCD and probably have had it for a very long time, I’m just scared to tackle the situation, and I’m confused about everything cus I’m kind of slow, I tend to be very not confident on how smart I am or can be, so I just know it’ll be really hard to dig into everything. One thing I’m just really scared about it the guy I’m talking to right now. I’m recently 17 and he’s turning 18 in august, we’ve been talking for almost 6 months now but we have kind of a complicated situation because we haven’t even become official although we do everything a usual couple would do. I really would like to date him but the issue is I am constantly questioning myself in the relationship, like if I still like him or if I really do want a future with him and sometimes I even wonder if I still want my ex and I feel so guilty because I know I don’t want anyone else but this man, it’s just I also feel so numb that I can’t even answer some of my questions since the numb feeling doesn’t let me feel anything. Not just that but I fear I’m not good enough for him, Im not very smart, not that pretty, I’m really shy and not good at taking to anyone. Like I’ll start doing a bit better like just this past Friday and Saturday I was doing amazing, I felt so happy and I had no doubts about the guy I liked so much. But Sunday I was a wreck, i don’t know if I’m in a spot to date but I don’t want him to get the wrong idea, because I hat I would want is for me to work in myself with him by my side, but what if he finds someone better who can give him 100% of attention while I’m doing my thing you know. Because recently I haven’t been able to do what I want to do for him due to all of this. I used to always get him little gifts, make him random handcrafted stuff, give him love notes. He’s brought up the fact that I haven’t written him a love letter in a while, I keep saying I will but I haven’t. I want to do some much for him, I want to give the world but I’m afraid that I’m not capable of it. And all the questions I ask myself make me wonder if I’m worthy to have him in my life. I just always think he deserves someone better in his life, someone smarter, with better grades, prettier face and nice looking body, has a bright future and doesn’t spend all her time in her phone but is actually all put together. I want to be that girl for him but it’s so difficult. The only thing that keeps me going is him, he always manages to make me smile even when I feel the most numb. And not a smile I force myself to make, my real smile. I want him in my life I’m just so scared that I’m not meant for him, or that he’ll do me wrong. He just feel too good to be true you know?

No one’s responding to my previous post at all and I’m just thinking Is anyone who reads it agreeing and just doesn’t want to tell me the truth. I’m losing my mind here and it’s like if u think I am just say it :(

I’m sometimes plagued by thoughts about what might happen if I go to sleep and don’t wake up the next day. I hate these thoughts, especially since they just pop up. Anyone else experience this?

Hey guys! I’m always around here for occasional positive insights on our terrible disorder and I have another one for you. OCD is a lens, it is not the truth. What do I mean by that? The worst feeling in the world for OCD is finally coming down from a particular theme and all of a sudden a new and improved theme corrupts your brain and you not only feel like your starting over but you actually feel like it’s an even worse hell. Why is this the case? Well in the moment we feel as though we unlocked a new truth that we somehow were fortunate enough to never think about prior to the focus on it for whatever myriad of reasons we began to focus on it. But we didn’t, we didn’t unlock a new truth. The OCD filter has attached to that thought. We as humans think with emotion, it’s nearly impossible to 100% think objectively without a sliver of emotion attached to the given thought. OCD is no different than an emotion linked to a given thought however it is transparent enough to where we can’t identify it as a regular emotion. So we forget the idea of a thought merely being a thought and we attach such meaning to it to the point of it weighing us down to minute by minute thinking. I don’t want to trigger anyone here, but I implore you to do something I have done in the past. Which is forcing myself to have a theme. By doing so, it’ll reveal to you how petty and ridiculous OCD is. I’m sure the majority of you have heard of the white bear experiment and if your willing to do what I ask, pick an article of clothing or piece of jewelry that your currently wearing and try not to think about the way it’s sitting on your body. You may think I’m crazy here but if you continuously avoid trying to think about the way the certain article of clothing is sitting on your body, it’ll then become your theme and something you obsess over constantly. Why is that? Because it is not about what we focus on in ocd that matters, it’s the lens in which it’s portrayed through. I deal with heavy Existential ocd and it genuinely can feel like the most important thing in the world but the more I realize it, it really isn’t. In fact it’s one of the more meaningless things in the world. But I have an impossible time convincing myself this in the given moment because the meaning and emotion behind the thoughts feel so real. But it’s not real, it’s as real as a person in love doing something utterly baffling for a crush or a person making a fool of themselves while angry as can be. Once you realize this, it can set you free.

Hi! I’m Z, and I’m a 22 y/o living with OCD. I recently joined this community in the hopes of making some friends who share something in common with me, learning more about others’ stories, sharing my own story, and offering support to others to the best of my ability. I am currently at a time in my life in which my OCD is at an all-time high, or at least is among the worst moments I’ve experienced. I’ve suffered from various sub-types of the disorder throughout my life, including religious concerns, intrusive thoughts, repetitive behaviors, counting, checking, ordering, fear of contamination, etc. Presently, I deal mostly with checking, ordering, fear of contamination, and repetitive behaviors. I constantly feel like everything I do is done “wrong.” I associate negative thoughts with whatever I’m doing such that I have to repeat the behavior the “right way,” or the thoughts will become real. It’s kind of like my way of coping with things about reality that I can’t handle. So that’s a little about my OCD, but check out my bio if you want to know more about all the other things that make me me. I also study the brain, so I may offer some resources in case you’d like to learn more about some of the underpinnings of OCD in the mind and body. I’ve found that the more you know, the easier it can be to accept yourself and your symptoms. I live in KY, and am on socials, so reach out if you wanna chat :-). With love.