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How do y’all deal with the concept of sexual fluidity?

Hey so basically I’m struggling with having a desire to pursue in the healthcare department. I’m okay with doing other extracurriculars, it’s just that I’m upset that I can’t appreciate wanting to go to Harvard. Like, my mind wants to appreciate, but when I watch videos about it, I think my anxiety is kinda telling me that I don’t actually want to go to Harvard and my mind has also been thinking about other schools like wanting to get into Stanford or something. But when I think of Stanford, I get a little bit anxious and my mind is like “well what about Harvard?” I’ve been starting to not press my anxiety’s buttons because anytime I try and watch videos about harvard, it just kinda gets a hold of me and I see this anxiety as a boundary, even though I would feel better if I could appreciate wanting to go to harvard. I haven’t told anyone else this because I feel like everyone wouldn’t understand and they would just tell me to think of another school, but the thing is, I don’t WANT to think of another school. The same thing happened with choosing a major, I wanted to pursue in neuroscience and it’s like my mind flipped the switch one day and was like “hmmm I don’t want to” but I kept on pushing it because I want to settle and stuff, and later on I started to appreciate it again and it made me feel better and stuff. I’ve been trying to do ERP and it’s kinda hard cause I just think that the anxiety is some boundary and it pushes me away from doing ERP even more. I also feel bad about asking God to help me out because I think I’m being ungrateful and I kinda feel bad and stuff. But He knows how much I want to go to an Ivy League—especially Harvard. I at least don’t want to stop thinking of Harvard and such, and this is just making me not feel good about the future and I feel like it’s at a bad timing. I’m hoping that God can help me out because my mind is seriously set on going to a prestigious school, of course I’ll think of other schools, but I just want to get into a prestigious one. I’m also worried—yet again, that my therapist just won’t understand how I’m feeling (she’s a school therapist), however so far she hasn’t said anything that invalidated me or anything so I think it’s just my anxiety acting up. These past few days have been what I think is considered normal, and I’ve been feeling a lot better now that I’m doing more things, I just tend to avoid this subject because my anxiety acts up and pushes me away from this topic.

TW: OCD-hoarding We are likely moving in the next few months. We are in the process of buying a home, but this market is crazy, so we won’t believe it until we have the keys. We also don’t know when we’ll be moving because while our closing date has been listed as 8/31, we know the sellers do not plan on leaving till mid-September - late-October. Talk about embracing the unknown and dealing with change! I have so much to pare down. I’ve struggled with holding onto too much my whole life, but have been really working on it. My partner has even mentioned how much progress I have made. However, he just went through all the crates above the closets in our large living room alone. He just threw out or mistakenly recycled all of it. While there were a lot of things I was looking forward to tossing myself and thought would be motivational for me to discard, there was also all of our camping cookware. He claimed that just because there was dust on it that I hadn’t used it in 10 years. When I saw him cleaning all the empty crates, I asked him what he did with the camping gear. I didn’t even press him on getting rid of my tea or the things I wanted to discard for my own motivation. He claimed there wasn’t any camp gear. I finally got him to admit it was in the recycling bin. I had to go through the recycling bin because even if I just bought all new camp gear to replace things, I knew so much of what he put in there wasn’t recyclable. He then told me I was being a lunatic and a trash person. I tried to calmly explain that this felt like a big break in trust, and that that tends to make it harder for me to purge things and definitely harder to let him help. It then quickly escalated and I meanly yelled back too. So now I have two trash bags and a bunch of dirty camp-kitchen equipment with me inside a room where I have barred the door. I refuse to let this break in trust stop me from purging. I will still toss all that I meant to, and now I must also toss things that have been ruined by being out in trash bins in the rain. But I just don’t know how to make this all work with my partner. It’s like we make progress both in paring down and in being able to trust each other and work together, and then he boils over at “my stuff” and trashes things I actually use. He also keeps telling me he thinks I’m oblivious to the piles of stuff I need to pare down, despite how often I’ve confided that they eat away at me and more so knowing that they aggravate him. I don’t even mention anymore that he actually made many of these piles by taking my ADD-type of current project piles and tossing them and his things out of the way throughout the years as quick fixes for when company came over. I had already come to terms with the fact that I won’t know where everything for a while, maybe even until moving in because he’s been “helping me” by just boxing things. But these setbacks between how we work together are breaking me. I am already so stressed by many good things. Next week a new and very packed semester starts for me with 5 courses, the start of student teaching, and a quickly approaching deadline to complete work from an Incomplete last semester. I am having so much trouble moving on my schoolwork, and I know part of it is that I am so stressed, overwhelmed, and feel so guilty for all this STUFF. Thanks for letting me vent. And suggestions would be absolutely appreciated. I know there’s a way out of this hole, and I know I am strong and smart enough to get out, I just don’t know how, and I guess that’s ok. Peace, strength, and comfort to you all. ☮️💪🏼💜 Doggo snuggles to those who would like them. 🐶🧡

How do I know if I didn’t actually like a thought? Because I feel like I actually genuinely liked it, like no question or anxiety or anything in the moment.

Any tips on breaking mental compulsions? I’ve been in ERP since January. I have stomped out all my physical compulsions but I’ve really been paying attention and I’m hanging on to some mental compulsions.

Can OCD cause intrusive body reactions like let's say, you get an intrusive thought to press something you really don't wanna, and your finger feels like it wants to press it and it freaks out the individual. Is that possible?

So basically I decided to reach out to the girl over Instagram and apologize for the incident. It was just really eating at me so I thought it was the right thing to do. And she left me on seen 🥲🥲🥲. Now my anxiety has been peaking like “what if she’s now planning to ruin your life” or “what if she’s telling all of the people you mutually know and ruining your life over this incident.” As selfish as it sounds, but it’s what it I’m worried about. I’m trying to keep my cool but it’s already unfortunately been a sleep away the whole day kind of day for me.

I’m new here and to be quite frank I don’t have ocd as a diagnosis yet. I have a big problem a while back with anxiety and depression and already at a young age I had problems with obsessions and compulsion, the first ones were bacterial and washing my hands wiping after the toilet until it came blood because then I thought I was “clean”. Either way I also had a little of harming thoughts both about me and others. But I got help and that therapist help saved me, because I didn’t have severe thoughts for like a lot of years until recently when I started watching like crimes and I.e murder and killing series and movies. The thoughts started, like “would you kill someone” how and who. “Could you eat someone, would you like to” (i.e cannibalism and even the most disgusting one that really distressed me if I could have sex with a 💀person” which I would never EVER. And then a bit of pocd as well, “are you attracted to younger kids” “do that and that to a child/baby” it’s so crazy and disturbing for me. Im sounding like a complete psycho and believe me when I say I’ve done all the test online for it and it shows no indication what so ever. Also have a huge problem with sickness and diseases and washing my hands too much. Sometimes it’s so hard I get panic attacks and cry myself to sleep but sometimes it’s when the most gruesome thoughts come I’m “okey” with them and that really MAKES ME FEEL CONVINCED that these thoughts are desires and stuff like that. What do you guys think? I am in therapy process so already a step ahead but please tell me I’m not a serial killer or phedophile. I also made a pact that if these thought “were” true I’d rather kill myself then act on them. Thank you for reading!

Has anyone with ROCD managed staying in a relationship with their partner who cheated on them? He seems genuinely remorseful but I have previous trauma related to cheating with both my parents and previous relationships. Struggling with anxiety and rumination now.

Idk why but I am not feeling myself, I feel like I can't control this all anymore and wanna cry badly but can't cry. Everthing feels so heavy, (not trying to sound dramatic) but I really wanna hug someone tightly and brust into tears...

So I'm pretty much at the point where anything sexual is too triggering for my anxiefy one way or another. What sucks about this is that I have a lot of trouble stopping sexual acts. I believe I have a sex addiction and I can't seem to stop doing sexual activities even though I try to several times. I'm really worried that my neighbors heard me when I engaged with this behavior and I feel embarrassed or like a bad person even if it's such a normal human activity. Then I get a worry that someone younger may have had heard me and that's really messing with my pocd. In the past this happened and I was actually heard but I was too embarrassed and said it was something else but I wasn't this anxious about it before but now I am. Bad things always seem to happen when I do this but I can't seem to find success with stopping because I'm so used to it.

I don't know what to feel anymore. Loads of times I'm around my mum I feel what I'm going to call groinal responses, but they feel real. Whenever she makes any little noise it annoys me to no end, but also leads to these groinal responses which don't make sense. I don't know if they are them or they're real. I love my mum so much and would never want to do anything weird. I just don't know what's going on. I don't like it.

What are some highlights or wins against your OCD today?

Does anyone else really struggle to do their erps? When I do it with in the therapy session I can do it but when I’m doing it in my own I just can’t bring myself to do it The thought of doing it makes me feel sick Does anyone else get this?

I've got a horrible urge to search up CP and I don't know what to do. It feels like I really want to do it. I can't tell if I want to do it but it's telling me I want to and that I'll like it and I'll never enjoy anything again until I do it. How do I prevent myself from doing it, is this is a sign of ocd and how can I distract? I'm scared I'm a pedo but I'm perhaps more scared that this thought won't go unless I do it or that I'll do it because of ocd and then go to jail.

Hocd has tortured me for sure with all these confusing symptoms. It started with thoughts and images, those turned into urges and feelings like I want the thoughts or want to be gay, then came false attractions. The realness of everything is so crazy to me, like how could a disorder possibly do this to a person. While these symptoms drove me crazy, I have gotten better and have learned to accept some of the symptoms. The false attractions and urges still get me a lot but there’s been slight improvement. I’m just trying to figure out my next step is. Since I’ve dealt with this for so long my libido and attraction to women is very minimal which scares me. I guess I just don’t know how to get back to how I used to feel, we’re liking a girl just came natural and there was no questioning about it. I feel so unproductive because I’m constantly trying to figure out this unawnsered question in my head. I play college football and it’s so tough for me to stay focused during film and practice because I feel like I need to focus on the hocd. My hocd makes me notice everyone on the team and it drives me crazy. I was always very confidently straight growing up and had good sexual relationships with girls I dated, so this constant fear of my sexuality just changing still terrifies me. I just don’t know how to disregard these symptoms that make the hocd feel like it’s my sexuality that’s changed permanently. Just kinda wanted to hear some peoples thoughts on this.

a lot of people have POCD surrounding really young kids and sometimes I get intrusive thoughts about it too, but mine gets triggered by teenagers. I'm always afraid that I'm attracted to them and in denial somehow. I also have a fear of being attracted to teenagers when I get older (because a lot of older people get called out for being predators) even though I'm super against that. The thought makes me want to puke !! It's creepy and I never want to be like those people !! Is anyone here the same?

Hi, this is very long apologies lol ,I haven’t been diagnosed with OCD however Id like to share my story and questions, any advice appreciated!(I’m 23male, North of Ireland) In 2020 I started having thoughts about suicide etc however I never wanted to ever do it and had no reason to think like this, I have loving family/ friends/ my girlfriend at the time. When these thoughts would pop up it would trigger anxiety etc.. it was like part of my brain was arguing with the other,I eventually went to my doctor and was diagnosed with depression and put on citalopram(celexa). I had around a month of absolutely terrifying side effects, my thoughts about suicide became absolutely off the charts, I had my girlfriend sleep with me because I was scared I was going to kill myself. Even looking at my curtains would trigger me… throughout this time I never ever planned or consciously wanted to do such a thing. I spent basically 2 months locked in my room watching tiktok and sleeping..Eventually I levelled out and within 3/6 months I was back to normal life again and pretty much recovered having no intrusive thoughts. At this point I had never heard of OCD apart from the usual stereotypical “being clean” OCD. Fast forward 2 years of pretty consistent good mental health and normality for the most part. Last month I noticed that these crazy thoughts would slide into my mind about being a pedophile and over the next week would get worse and worse. I had a feeling my citalopram was becoming less effective so my dosage was upped, I think this triggered side effects again and caused me to completely fall apart and had the worst mental health episode I’ve had. My brain was fully trying convince my I was a pedophile and I stayed pretty much bed bound for over a month, I couldn’t work or socialise and even barely talk to my family, the shame was absolutely crippling I thought at a point I should just commit suicide because no one likes a pedophile and that even if I’m not, how can I live like this, it was insanity, and for a few hours a day I’d come around a little and realise I was being ridiculous. Most of the time I knew in myself that I’m obviously not a pedophile And the thoughts were absolutely abhorrent. This is also when I researched symptoms and found out about OCD and all of its different forms. This is where my question comes in. I didn’t think I had any compulsions as such. However I’ve just heard of avoidance, which seems to fit me. I spent the whole month in bed watching tiktoks and researching ocd and “ruminating”. And I mean like 13hrs a day on tiktok. It was really the only thing with the constant swiping and flow of different content that could keep me distracted. Another thing I was doing was just sleeping. I was sleeping a crazy crazy amount and anytime I got realllly bad, I would just sleep try sleep it off. Like if I woke up from 10hrs sleep and 2 hours later I was spiralling into anxiety, it would be back to sleep, sometimes sleeping all day. Would these actions be considered compulsions? I really don’t have physical compulsions and seem to fully line up with “Pure O” Anyways, my medication seems to be working well again considering I can even write this and I’m doing well and I’m happy again. As if none of that even happened only a month ago.. hopefully that gives someone hope. Does it sound like I have OCD and also has anyone experience with a diagnosis with the UK NHS? Thanks for any advice people 💪

TW I obsess over the fact that people don't need me. I'm not necessary to people, you know? Not even a future spouse wouldn't be just as glad without me. Of course, it's mutual -- I don't technically need a particular person in my life either. Still, it's a hard thing to think about

Hi all, I am curious what others experiences are with marijuana usage. I feel like marijuana exacerbates my OCD and provokes really visual intrusive thoughts. I am wondering if others can relate?