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Hey guys, I've heard a lot of things about zoloft. I usually stay clear of medication due to insomnia. Can anyone share any experience about their zoloft experience?

I keep getting thoughts like… “I hope she sleeps now.. and longer” Or “i look forward to she gets older and can take care of her self…” I don’t want to think like that… i just want to fucking enjoy the time with my little beautiful daugther… Are these thoughts intrusive… (i don’t want to think like this…. But it makes me question if i don’t like her or being a dad…. 😔

I’ve always wanted to learn how to shoot a gun and just have knowledge about guns. Gun safety. Self defense — Whatever it may be. I don’t want a concealed but we recently moved and we don’t have a security system or dog yet. My boyfriend has his concealed and is ex military, he’s very responsible and educated with it. But I get SO many bad thoughts thinking about getting my own gun or being responsible for it. My grandpa took his life with his gun and so my mom has always ingrained into us that guns are horrible. Now I know that it’s the person behind the gun but with ocd it’s not that easy. I get thoughts like what if: “I snap” “I lose control and get mad and go off the handle” “sleepwalk and kill someone I love” “what if I’m secretly violent and I lose it”. All of these terrible what if thoughts. I haven’t had horrible harm ocd in awhile. when I did, it was around knives and when I’d hold them around family or my bf in the kitchen (I wouldn’t even want to do dishes). Anyways, please share you’re experience or advice on this. I’d like to overcome it. I love my boyfriend more than anything in this world and constantly worry about my family. I know OCD contradicts what you love but as we all know, the thoughts can feel so real. So, this may be controversial, if you’re not about it then please ignore and disregard your rude opinion.

Why do I keep asking why people are so cruel? I'm never going to find out. I've had a long day that started out fairly well, but then I started exerting myself, and now I'm in a lot of pain. I'm dreading going back in the motel room because it was housekeeping day, and I know my boyfriend put some things where they don't belong. I don't want to face it. While I was in Walmart--which I avoid as much as possible because of many reasons--I was already exhausted, sweaty, breathing heavily, and in pain, when I went to get bottled water. Two big pallets were blocking the aisle, with one guy working there. Other people wanted to get in there, too. I finally did, and found the water I wanted was blocked by one of the pallets. I struggled to get what I wanted, and I almost didn't get it into the cart. The guy working there ignored me, offering no help at all. I could have collapsed, he wouldn't care. When I was struggling to put things in my car, which would have been a lot easier if my boyfriend had cleaned out my car as asked for several years, and I heard and saw people laughing at me. I'm literally sweating in the heat, miserable, out of breath, and in pain, and they thought it was funny! Only one person offered to help at my car, and a woman in the store asked if I needed help, but I'd already gotten the water. I can't go back to the doctor because I still don't have my SSDI and Medicare back. It wasn't even my fault! I want to know how they got the wrong address. I broke down crying in my car. Now, I'm wasting gas, sitting in the motel parking lot. I just don't want to go through more physical work, but I'll have to use the bathroom and deal with the location of my stuff when I go in.

I made the biggest mistake of my life last December and I don’t think I’m ever gonna be okay again. It’s like every now and then something will happen to remind me how fucked up I was and then I go back to just not wanting to be around anymore. I can’t forgive myself even though the people involved have, I can’t stop thinking or feeling like I have to tell my partner that it happened even though I had barely met him when it happened so he wasn’t even involved. I’m living a really painful life, to the point I don’t really see an escape. Everyone keeps shouting so me and I don’t feel very supported. As well as that the guy I’m seeing has been acting off, I was talking about it with my mum and she basically just shouted at me that I’m delusional and that I need to get a grip and a reality check. Then my dad did the same thing and my sister just sat there agreeing. How am I meant to deal when the people around me won’t let me make my own decisions and figure stuff out the adult way. He’s going through a lot rn but that doesn’t seem to matter. Basically I’m on the brink of losing myself and not coming back, it’s getting harder and harder to fight it and I’m not sure what to do. I don’t have the energy to talk to anyone about it anymore

I posted earlier about not being amused by some of my boyfriends jokes. I would say they’re edgy but they’re more just like cheeky I guess and I make them a lot too. The problem is sometimes when he makes them I really don’t like it because I think it’s inappropriate or I wouldn’t have made that joke. I talked to him about it and we are having a hard time sorting this out because he doesn’t understand what’s okay and what’s not because sometimes I make the jokes too. It’s hard because I don’t even understand it’s just sometimes he crosses the line where I wouldn’t and I don’t know how to figure this out. He said he will just stop with most of those jokes until he can see where the line is with me and we can go from there but I still feel really anxious about this. I’m worried about breaking up over this because I see people online that are always fed up with their SO because of things like this. I’m scared and I don’t like it. I love him so much and I don’t want this to be the thing that will break us up.

The other night my friend and I were having a super deep conversation. She suffers from OCD as well, albeit a different form, but she had opened up about this and the fact that she was bisexual (which I was not aware of but thought was great), so I decided to open up about my HOCD. She was extremely understanding and super supportive about it, and even told me she was surprised to hear it since I don’t really seem like that. But I feel like after finally telling someone that isn’t a therapist about what I’m dealing with it makes it feel like I’m actually confessing and saying things to make it look different when it’s actually just me not being straight and lying about it. I thought it would help to open up about it (exposure) but now I feel like I just made it seem more real and that I’m finally being honest about my sexuality and was just saying things to make her think that I didn’t actually want these thoughts to make it seem that way. But I don’t want them. I’ve also been having less anxiety surrounding them which made it a lot worse. Like now it feels like I just confirmed my fears even though I was speaking rationally. I am a very self aware person which makes it super difficult. Just going through it right now. Smh

I really need to talk with someone

If anyone on this forum is experiencing what I’m experiencing please share your thoughts & experiences with me 🙏. I believe that I have gone insane with the awaful existential thoughts I’m having… I feel like I’m constantly looking for myself , questioning where I am , am I real? Is the world real? Am in a purgatory? What is I’m dead and I don’t know? I’ve become so unsure of myself and of everything around me , I’m constantly doubting reality , I feel so disconnected and feel as though my brain is falling a part and only little parts of it are functioning … I feel trapped inside my own head it’s like own head it’s like I want to escape out my head but I can’t and that triggers severe anxiety. What if I have already hurt someone & I wasn’t aware ?I have forgotten what it’s like to think and live like a normal person ! In fact my brain is now wired to think and live with my awful thoughts 🥲. I can’t cry or react to any happiness or sadness , I often worry that if something happens to someone I love , I won’t be able to show emotion … taking Lexapro but it’s not helping it helps with the depression but not with the intrusive or anxious thoughts. Another reason why I think I’m going mad is for example I’ll be driving on the highway then a truck drives past me, immediately I picture that I had a car accident and I’m not sure if I’m dead or a live because I’m so depersonalised that I don’t know if I’m still here . The hatred at part is trying to explain to a therapist what and how I’m feeling hence I’m reaching out to anyone on this forum who can relate and share their thoughts with me please 🙏

Hey everyone I finally have built up the courage to get a therapist. I feel like I have Harm OCD(struggled daily for the last month)& I’ve struggled with anxiety (for the last 4yrs or so). Its been getting the best of me for the last month or so. Unfortunately the HOCD goes after the people dearest to me who I would never hurt in my life. It’s been so bad that I’ve lost sleep and avoided people out of fear of those intrusive thoughts actually happening. The shame that it brings is almost unbearable, it’s brings deep depression without wanting to live. like my family deserves better along with feeling like I’m absolutely nuts and belong in a hospital. I would love to get my life back on track mentally so I can enjoy the people I love the most without being scared of hurting them and being able to function normally throughout the day(work,ball games etc)Any tips or pointers would be greatly appreciated until I am able to see a therapist(waiting on medical referral)

I just signed up for this app and it looks really interesting. I am learning so much and really that ocd is so broad. I’m sitting here thinking is my anxiety and depression coming from a type of ocd?… I really obsess over past events mostly stupid stuff none of my friends think twice about. Stumbling on words in-front of crowds, to laughing too loud in a quiet environment, to getting a question wrong in class. Everything I think I do wrong. During the day I’m pretty good at distracting myself but when I try to fall asleep the thoughts almost paralyze me- Which could be the obsessiveness leading to anxiety. When I get like that I see myself in the situation over and over and over again. I KNOW my brain is over exaggerating these events soooo much but I get so anxious. I have put myself so down I developed almost a anxious stutter, and I can’t look someone in the eyes with out my brain skipping a word or stuttering. I feel like I know it’s anxious because when i start drinking it goes away😂. I have a very outgoing personality, and love being with people and being the jokester. I loose so much sleep because of this. I’ve tried melatonin,thc, and even prescribed sleeping pills. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m also in high school so it’s hard when your peers think you different than them. Sorry for the rant. If anyone relates to this let me know :)

Hi everyone, I’m really struggling today and wanted to reach out to see if others can relate. Not sure if this is a symptom of OCD or is separate, but I’ve always had a big intolerance for change of any kind, big or small, positive or negative. Just got back from vacation which was super fun, but being in so many places & then back at home has me really shaken up. I also brought back my cat with me since she was at my mom’s & even though I LOVE my cat, having her back again after 8 months feels very uncomfortable & stressful. I’ll be moving to another apartment (same city) in a couple weeks & know in advance that it will be extremely hard on me mentally/emotionally to have a new space. It takes me longer than normal to adjust & I feel quite depressed with moving, the season changes… really anything that’s new. Does anyone else experience this & could share their coping strategies?

I’m struggling with intrusive images. How do they work for other people? The flashes are getting to me

So I am like 99.99% sure that I have Pure OCD. I have horrifying intrusive thoughts about a variety of topics, and because they’re so scary I’ll ruminate over them again and again for hours, trying to find the answer. I’ll feel horribly ashamed and guilty and ask for reassurance. Sometimes, although rarely, I’ll do physical compulsions like taking a breath and trying to “breath out” the intrusive thought, or counting. However, I’ve been doing a lot of research on ocd, since I’ve been dealing with this for a long time, and have been trying my best to not do compulsions. When I get an intrusive thought, I try to acknowledge it, and then just continue on with my day and let it fizzle away naturally, even if I have to sit with the anxiety. A big thing for me is not avoiding the children in my life. There are a lot of children who are very dear to me (my little stepbrother, little cousins, family friends etc) and I don’t want ocd to control my life and ruin my relationships with them, especially with my little stepbrother. Even though ocd is scary, and can feel very real at time, I know, for a fact, that it is illogical, and that I pose absolutely no threat to children. Recently my step mom offered me a job to babysit my little stepbrother, and I took the job. I find that it has helped me a lot. When Im busy and get an intrusive thought, it’s a lot easier for me to just continue on without doing compulsions, because I’m busy taking care of him. Plus, I am consistently proving to myself that I am a safe person for him and all children, which helps immensely with separating the lie that ocd tells me with who I actually am as a person. I find that these days ocd comes in waves. Sometimes I’m able to easily dismiss intrusive thoughts as just that, intrusive thoughts, and continue with my life (although I am finding that ocd can be sneaky and pop up where I don’t recognize it at first), but other times it’s just horrible and I’ll spend hours on ruminations, and spiral. When I spiral I have a really bad physical reaction, my brain feels like it’s being stabbed by thousands of needles and my stomach twists into horrible knots that still hurt for hours, sometimes even days, after the spiral attack. Luckily, the good phases last longer than the bad phases, with the good phases lasting multiple months and the bad phases usually only lasting half a month-two months. But now comes my real dilemma: I don’t have a diagnoses. It’s been really hard to find anywhere that I can get a diagnoses, and I’ve been asking my mom if I can get a therapist for a while and she just hasn’t been getting on it. However, recently I’ve been speaking up about my mental health, ocd as well with just other stuff that I won’t get into, and things are actually finally starting to happen. And so in a few weeks my moms friend is going to take me to a walk in clinic where hopefully I can get a diagnoses. My fear is that because I don’t avoid children, they might not believe that I have ocd, and they may think I’m actually a pedo. I had a sort of scare the other day when I went to a walk in clinic, I told the lady there about my intrusive thoughts, as well as my real suicidal thoughts and self harm thoughts, and she conflated the two when they are extremely different in nature, I want to hurt myself, I DO NOT want to hurt others, especially kids. She also kind of implied that my intrusive thoughts come from some pent up anger towards my brother, which just like, what the actual fuck? She then also asked if I felt that I should continue babysitting him and if I pose a threat to him, which I was extremely adamant that I am not, and that these are INTRUSIVE thoughts and ocd, but I’m not sure if she was completely assured, but I may be looking too much into it cus she didn’t ask any further questions about it, and if she genuinely thought I was a danger she probably would. Every time I brought up ocd though, she told me not to, since they don’t do diagnoses there and are most focused on ending the symptoms, which like doesn’t even make sense to me cus how are you supposed to treat me if you don’t even know what’s fucking wrong, but either way I’m getting kind of heated rn as I’m typing this but it really really scared me as she didn’t seem totally assured when I told her I’m not a danger, but again, I might be looking too into it. I told my moms friend, who knows about my ocd and my subtypes and is very supportive, and they agreed that the ladys actions were weird and that they’ll take me to a different place that is more specialized in this sort of thing and will better understand. However, like I said, I’m still afraid that because I don’t avoid kids and because I am good a lot of the time, they might not believe me that this is ocd. My moms friend said that they’ll be there with me and will vouch for me, so that’s reassuring. Plus writing this down has given me a lot of perspective because just reading this out, I see no logical way this isn’t ocd, and I’m sure a specialist will believe me. Plus I have other subtypes other than pocd, like general sexual intrusive thoughts, responsibility ocd, morality ocd, etc. I just wanted to get this off my chest, I feel a lot better now 👍

Hey guys, I just downloaded this app. I believe I have OCD on certain things. I check the stove before I go to bed 100 times over and over again even though my eyeballs clearly tell me it's off. I sometimes switch the light switch on and off multiple times until i am finally satisfied that it's off correctly. Sometimes I even count when i do it. I also obsses about my birth control. One of my fears is to get pregnant. I take my birth control every morning at 6 am and go back to sleep but sometimes get intrusive thoughts that I didn't take it even though I did, or I think irrational thoughts. like for example. I think my birth control will go back up my throat when I lay back down to go sleep after taking it. I'm a big drooled, so I always think my drool will bring the pill back up. Makes no sense. I know :( but it's just something I fight in my head every day. Even now, as I type this. Sometimes when I park my car I have to check 100 times that it's in my park because I worry it will roll backwards or forward and it crash and me become carless or even worse. Hurt someone. Anybody else go through this?

Recently i have been struggling with a false memory situation where i feel like i have cheated on my partner on my 10min walk home from a club (slightly tipsy but remember most the journey) , after obsessive rumination over the situation i pictured me kissing a girl on the walk home from the club, with no details of her face or how i got into that situation and i deep down know its a false vision / memory and i would never do such a thing, and thats how i have been going about it. Its a month now since the night where i thought i may have cheated and i have now got to the point where, i struggle to define weather it is a fake memory or not and is my brain is capable of making up such a vision? If anyone else has experienced this or knows how to deal with this it would be nice to hear about it, thankyou

Last night I came home from a long day at work and greeted my boyfriend. The way he greeted me back was a simply “hey” and he kept playing on his phone. His tone read like he wasn’t excited to see me and I got upset and said nothing to him. I just dropped my stuff, got ready for bed, and laid down. He tried to ask me if I was alright and I just told him that I was tired and wanted to go to bed. He proceeded to tell me that he thinks I’ll be fine come morning and that he’s going to go bed too, and if I’m not fine he’s going to be pissed off. I haven’t said a word to him, he hasn’t said a word to me. I keep thinking that because he didn’t respond to me in excitement he doesn’t care. It spiraled out into me thinking about the little things that have happened throughout the past couple days. Ex: I left him a little note with those rubber band bracelets I made for him and he moved the bracelets to a safe place but never said anything about the note. Ex 2: On a different day - I pulled a little necklace vial out of the box he keeps it in and put it back on a chain. I used the chain to make a little heart and left it sitting in a very obvious place with a little note as well. The note and chain have not moved. It’s been nearly a week. This was after an argument, so I don’t think he wanted to talk to me and wanted space. However, he still hasn’t said anything to me about it. Not even a comment like “I saw you put this there - it means something to me” or whatever. I know these things are little and I know he responded to this way me not because of me but because he just wasn’t in a good mood but I can’t help but internalize it and think he’s constantly mad at me, he hates me, etc. I feel unappreciated, unloved, and like he doesn’t care. Can anybody please help me?

I am feeling very calm I am on zoloft almost 2 months and I think that it works..my muscle are little tired but I don't care Do you think that I will se a bigger improvement?

I have schiz ocd, which triggered after I’ve read a lot about the ilness (dumb me). That happened after a THC cart panic attack. On my way home I had my first HOCD and 2 weeks later, after reading about psychosis , it switched to schiz ocd. I don’t have any more HOCD, but I would rather have it instead of the new one. I got over every other aspect of this ocd (hallucinations, flat affect , etc), but I can’t get over delusions. The problem is, I get every single delusion I’ve read about. Sometimes those “fake” delusions feel very very real, like I almost believe them. When I am calmer I can easily label them as nonsense. And that could sometimes be even minutes later. Sometimes I spiral very hard and I caught myself even telling to me things like “this is not true in reality, it is just psychosis that is making you think those things”. I use to have days without such bad moments, but there are also days that it is extremely overwhelming. Could someone please tell me, is it normal for ocd thoughts to sometimes feel much more real and sometimes not? Like depending on the mix of anxiety, fear , spiralling and etc at the moment? Also I need to mention that I’ve never had even the slightest such thought ever before reading about it. I think this is my first ocd theme, although I had some minor ocd traits for many years before.

I feel as though my contamination ocd is only progressing into more draining and irrational routines. It started off as excessive handwashing - now it's disinfecting every surface of my room because of the thought of flying lint touching something contaminated therefore touching everything in my room. Its so exhausting. I feel as though the world is ending if something is unclean or dirty according to my OCD. Its making me feel like I'm going crazy, I've been looking on this app for anyone with similar experiences but it's no use :(