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Is it possible to beat SOCD by yourself?

My first post here. Background: I’m a 29 year old child therapist with autism, anxiety, & OCD. Finally felt brave enough to navigate dating for the 1st time & within 2 weeks developed ROCD. Was getting to know an amazing guy. He’s been nothing but kind, has autism, & is also a Christian like me. I’ve had the most horrible intrusive thoughts about him. In the past week, I’ve had 2 days where I didn’t sleep for over 24 hours. I experienced paranoia & felt so disconnected. Last night, I had a reoccurring intrusive thought that he’s a narcissist or has antisocial personality disorder. I didn’t sleep and cancelled our date and ended things. Such self-sabotage but I literally couldn’t go because I hadn’t slept all night. I’m so sad because I couldn’t last more than 2.5 months. He’s confused and thankfully he’s open to talking but I’m not sure how to let him now about my ROCD. My fear is that he’ll be understanding (and I know he will be which makes me sad) and my OCD will tell me that he’s doing that to manipulate me or do something bad to me. I want to be his friend SO badly but I’m scared. Is being is friend the exposure? Idk what to do??? Any advice or kind words are appreciated ☹️

Experiencing a theme switch and it completely blindsided me. I feel very alone. This was the one theme I didn’t want. It’s not super awful my harm ocd was much more difficult but this one is way more isolating. I can’t share my thoughts 😭😭 any encouragement would help. Thank you..

Anyone else get so deep into the OCD cycle that they can barely disprove the thoughts anymore? Compulsions don’t even help me anymore. I have no relief. I have been thinking about taking my life every day and have no will to live anymore. I can’t see my future, have no idea what life is anymore. I look in the mirror and have a panic attack because I feel like I don’t know the person looking back at me.

For the most part anything under 16 I can usually (?) tell- but a few times I’ve incorrectly guessed an adult was a kid and a kid was an adult and that’s really worried me significantly. I’m really stressed, does anyone else have this problem? Am I overthinking it???? Or am I a dangerous person for having these thoughts…? Recently I found a girl on Instagram who was the tallest oldest looking 15 yr old I’ve ever seen and I panicked. I just hoped she was lying cause she looked like she was 25 :( The comments were people also not knowing her age and then a stream of people shaming them for it. I felt really gross inside, I wasn’t even attracted to her or anything I was just worried that by not guessing her age correctly that I was a P.

I've been doing so much better these past 2 weeks, I actually thought I was beginning o recover... However a few minutes ago I had a horrific thought about one of my cats, she was lying next o me on the bed with her belly up and I was stroking her, I was actually comfortable being by her and was petting her and kissing her and she looked so cute when suddenly my eyes drifted to the lower part of her belly and these horrific thought popped up saying: "I wamt to r*p3 my cat " I also got a horrible intrusive image, and I was absolutely disgusted but felt little to no anxiety to the thought which is really scary. I had to get away from her out of fear of hurting her and now I feel like i'm spiraling and falling back down into the deep dark hole I was at. I was feeling good today (i haven't felt like this in almost a year) and now I can be with my cats normally, comparing when my harm OCD was at it's peak I couln't even be near them. So why is this happening again, and why did I look at my cat's pr*vate parts and felt I did it purpose w bad intentions????!! I don't want to hurt my kitty 😭

Researching if its the end if the world 😱😱😩😩

So someone I know has just been through a major life event thats change then massively. They told me personally and I will never ever tell anyone their business if they don’t want anyone to know, that’s our secret. But we broke up and people have asked why, so I’ve never told them what happened in their personal life or what they went through or what the event was, I always said it was just their personal life they went through something and I will always understand why right now isn’t the time for us, but now I’m scared this is me starting rumours! I haven’t told them an event, I haven’t told them what’s happened, I’ve just said it’s their life and personal to them is all. It’s not my stuff to talk about, I can’t share someone’s secrets, that’s not right. But when people wanna know why we’ve broken up it was a mutual decision because they’ve been through a rough time! Is that right to say? Or wrong? Because I’m shouting at myself that’s it’s bad right now, it’s not starting rumours nobody knows expect my closest friends that it’s a personal something for him. No details, no need to share that, it’s not my business yk. But the reason is because he’s not ready, he’s changed, that’s it. I feel wrong for saying that now. Ugh my brain always shouts at me

I’m trying so hard to be optimistic and have good faith in God but sometimes I wonder is he really going to help me out

I have this classmate, we are going to call him L. L From the moment one was strange, starting to say that he liked gore and things like that, guess what, that activated my H-OCD again, it made me very bad. I talked to him, I told him not to talk about things like thst whit me. He didn't listen and now I'm trying to get away from him. People, if you are around people of this style, stay away, you are not exaggerating, if it hurts you it hurts you and that's it, you deserve to feel good This guy is really disgusting and strange, he scares me and makes me extremely obsessive

I was thinking about random stuff and then started thinking about what it would be like to raise a baby. After thinking that I had a random wave of arousal? I know it wasn’t from thinking of babies but I’m still worried it was. How do you know if it was or not? I wasn’t even thinking of babies specifically just what it would be like having one. It was random arousal and scared me.

I need help because I’m really struggling right now. There is a masc woman/lesbian athlete that came up on my tik tok and it feels like I have a crush on her. Now I keep getting intrusive sexual images about her. I don’t want to have a crush on a girl but it feels so real. I absolutely hate this and want to cry because now I feel like Im attracted to her. Has this happened to anyone else???

i wish I didn't but my brain has prejudice and i feel kinda bad

Today I’m feeling very down. I lost my grandpa early this morning and I saw him before he passed, it was extremely scary and stressful. Seeing his body and being able to hear his lungs dying is so permanently etched in my brain I’m starting to obsessions/compulsions I haven’t had in years and it feels so so awful. I can feel my lungs and I’m obsessing over my own health now and it’s so scary, I’ve healed myself from that and now it’s back.

it consumes me and I am scared to even type this. All I do Is going on reddit and read articles..even when my partner is sleeping next to me. But there are so many signs this isn't Rocd and the relationship is just dying which makes me so sad to think about. This is my longest relationship I've ever had and we still have loving moments but being with him kicks my anxiety into overdrive. 1. I have loss my desire to have sex and now sex makes me extremely anxious..I'm not as turned on as I use to be as well. We use to have an amazing sex life and I craved it all the time until ROCD came...is this normal I would like to blame ROCD as I had a very high sex drive before these awful doubts attacked me 2. I criqitue, overanalyze, and obsess over every little thing he does. Any slight tone of voice or expression has be jumping to the worst conclusions and it makes me so anxious to hangout with him 3. I'm feeling way less loving. Yesterday when he first came over we laid on the coach and looked into each others eyes saying how much we loved each other and it was amazing. But as the day went on the romance began to slip away. 4. I feel annoyed by him way more often...I do become irritable towards anyone when I spend a lot of time in my head though These just all sound like signs of a dying relationship but I love him (typing this made me feel unsure) and we've always worked so well together. I miss being able to spend time with him without feeling like every little thing was a test and critiquing him in my head. I want to be able to love him for him again with all of his flaws included. Everytime I bring up an issue he is so understanding and makes an effort and I know he is a good healthy partner. I just want this to end.

Hello, I’m 25 weeks pregnant, and I’m having intrusive thoughts. I was molested as a child multiple times and have always been afraid to have children yet here I am. These thoughts came out of nowhere and I’ve been so terrified. I would never harm my child or any child. I’m so distraught, I’m thinking about abortion because I’m so afraid. God please help me, I can’t do this

Is it reassurance if I tell myself “if it happened the way you think it did then you would have remembered it without a doubt” the first part of my memory is real and when I first thought of it there was a feeling of shame attached. Now I’m been wondering if more happened or if i’m choosing to forget the horrible parts but I feel like if more happened then there would be shame attached to that too therefore i’d remember it.

So I’ve been dealing with this one thought for a while and I get ashamed that i had it for such a long time and it won't go away no matter how much i try. I've tried ignoring it, accepting it, letting it go, etc. Everytime I try to accept it my stomach tightens and I feel like throwing up. Does anyone have any advice?

Over the last two or three years I experienced many life changing events. First, I graduated college after taking 11 years to complete my degree due to having dyslexia and processing and developmental delays. Second, I finally garnered the confidence to get my driver's license in my early thirties and eventually bought my own and my first car. Third, I was lucky enough to have enough money saved up to buy my first home. It had not been long before my family noticed that I was taking longer in the shower than maybe I intended. I found myself washing my body and hair four times each and still not feeling clean. This evolved to being ultra sensitive to smells and germs regardless of if they were on my body or not. I wash my hands till they are red and raw. I have avoided going outside or even going to my house and garage. On top of that, if anyone mentions me needing to go outside, whether in my car or not, I get this stinging and tingling feeling all over my body that feels like my skin is burning or on fire. After a rough conversation with my mom, I now can get a hold of it and only feel clean if I run through a checklist of convincing myself that my hair, body, hands, and feet are all clean after a shower and before I get into bed at night. I have never done this before in my life but I feel like its gotten to the point that I have an anxiety attack and my skin feels like it is burning from the inside if I think about even just sitting outside with my dog. I have never been diagnosed or even treated for OCD, but I'm hoping through an OCD therapist, I can get the help I need.

Recently I’ve been feeling like if I look at myself in the mirror and think I look good / hot that this means I’m attracted to the same sex because I’m female and I think I look amazing, so I obviously think other females are hot too then. It feels like such a warped way of thinking 😭. Can’t wait to have my first therapy session soon and finally start to beat this!