- Date posted
- 1y
Good morning everyone I’m having a bad morning and I wanted to know what things you use to cope to feel better. I want to watch my favorite show but I keep doom scrolling What are coping skills you use that make you feel better?
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working to conquer OCD
Good morning everyone I’m having a bad morning and I wanted to know what things you use to cope to feel better. I want to watch my favorite show but I keep doom scrolling What are coping skills you use that make you feel better?
Been checking this lately but is it ok to experience both my mental image and reality at the same time? Example: I can have an intrusion of a car crash pop up whilst sat in my kitchen. I can see both the crash and the kitchen at the same time like a double layer I’d say the image is more vivid than reality for a moment
Hi. My name is Alec. I've had this app for a year, maybe less, but never used it really. I don't know why, if it's a lack of motivation, or confusion about myself. Maybe a lot of things, piling on top of each other, day in, day out. I've had no platform comfortable sharing things with, no real community to try and be a part of, because I couldn't take the first step. I'm shooting a light into a dark night here and I don't know where this is going but here I am. I don't know what medical issues I've had, and my whole life it feels like whatevers been going on with me has been swept under the rug or categorized as just another part of autism. I may be on the spectrum with aspergers, diagnosed, but it always felt like there was something else, like these people just generalize my brain into something easy to work with. Well it's not. My brain has periodic attraction to minors, but that's being nice for the sake of it. They're kids. KIDS. And any time I've wanted to come out and get some help, maybe float the idea of someone coming out to people with that issue, I always hear the same response. Commit suicide, people like that deserve death. "If you in any way are attracted to kids, there is no excuse, people like that should be;" shot, stabbed, raped, etc. So I never have seeked anything or anyone out for help, and just sat in my own disgust and lust that I've grown numb to it. I think my brain obsessively targets a mindset to make myself feel less bad about drawn porn of the content, because that's all it's been, growing numb to sickening ideas and maybe even normalizing it. You can never be as mad at me or anything as I am, because I have to deal with these thoughts just about every day. I don't know if it's much better, but I don't look up CP. While I can't help these strange obsessive attractions, I've put so much energy directing it into fictional porn, specifically the drawn stuff, just so I couldn't be tempted in real life, and seems to be working so far, but if I can snuff out this issue for good, I don't know how I'd feel, but I hope relieved. That's simply a smaller chapter in my life, despite its vulgarity, so still be aware that I am being vulnerably open right now to a bunch of strangers that may not want to see this. I dont know. I really don't. There has been no option for me that I could find, and I'm already past the option for suicide, so I'm just crossing fingers that maybe some answer will come to because who can afford a therapist when they have no money, and listen to the comments of an ultimatum for various problems probably associated with a mental issue is murder or some twisted version of justice? I simply just want to figure out what's wrong with me, and maybe even fix all of my mental problems and blocks, despite this being an app for a target group of people. Maybe this is my root, who knows. But thank you anyways.
Seriously major trigger warning for this one!!!pocd!!! Take care of yourselves! Okay wow, this is really hard for me to talk about. I've never talked about this with anyone before but I've struggled with it long before I even knew what pocd was. I've always had intrusive thoughts about...that. They often involve inappropriate people weather they be relatives, inappropriate ages in either direction, and sometimes both. It makes me feel like an absolutely horrible person and to some extent I'm sort of hoping that I actually do have ocd just so that I can know I'm not disgusting. It's to the point that I actively avoid seeing family and always turn away whenever something like a diaper commercial comes on because I don't even want to think that! Anyway about a month ago I had this dream. It was almost like I was in gta kinda??? (I've never played gta) I know that sounds weird but I basically was running around a city causing public disturbances with a faceless friend. It was odd because sometimes it felt lucid enough that I could control myself and other times not at all and I think I knew it was a dream. Sometimes it would even be like an out of body expirance like it was in 3rd person. I also wasn't in my own body. It was like I was playing a character. I was and older man probably around late forties early fifties who was tall and slim (im 18, afab, 5'7, and chonky.) Anyway we ran into this like children's dance studio??? At one point I was in a child's pov and they all started climbing the walls to get away from us. But I ran in there as the older man and started...SAing the dance instructer and then one of the very young students and I couldn't stop. The police then showed up and that's when I woke up. Ever since that dream I've literally been unable to cope. I really don't know what to do. I feel so horrible and dangerous. I haven't even really been out of the house since it happened and I feel like my general anxiety has quadrupled. I'm so scared. I keep thinking that dream could have revealed who I "really" am. It doesn't help that SA has been a topic i literally couldn't get out of my head in general ever since I was young. Like I don't believe I was ever SA'd but for some reason it's like something I've read a lot about, heard a lot about, etc. I just can't stop thinking about it and because of that I keep thinking that im so hung up on it because I'm actually a horrible person. I don't know what to do but please if anyone can relate just a little bit or knows for a fact that this is ocd please tell me! I don't think I could live with myself if this wasn't ocd and I really am just a terrible person.
Okay, so, I know it says I have a conqueror badge, which is partially true, but doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m better, NOCD and medication have helped, but I’m not where I want to be yet. There are still things I can’t get past. For context, I have COCD and POCD and they feed into each other. A few things I still struggle with thinking that they contaminated or going to cause harm to someone: • Any kind of bodily fluid, especially my own. (I worry with my male bodily fluids, that I could somehow spread this to people and worry especially that I could spread nastiness to children.) • The floor. For whatever reason I feel that the floor is really gross and that I’ve put bodily fluids on the floor and they are going to be spread to people. (Same type of issue) • Sink handles. • Shoes and socks and my own feet even after a shower. • Trash cans, bags, and dumpsters. • Playing cards. • Other people’s cell phones. • My phone after using it in the bathroom. • Doing laundry. I could use some advice on dealing with these things. A huge thing for me (and here’s where I say only 18 and older should read this,) is a very natural thing that happens to me a lot. Pre-ejaculate. This probably causes me the most stress of anything in my life. I get this often, even when not feeling sexually aroused. I worry that it’ll get on my clothes when I go to the bathroom and then I’ll end up getting in on someone. I worry that it’ll go through my clothes and same result. I worry that when I take my clothes off and some is in my underwear that I’ll get it on the floor and then it’ll end up in my feet, socks, shoes, and/or anything that goes on the floor at all. I worry about getting on the machines or my hands while doing laundry and have to scrub my hands after doing my laundry and/or wipe down the machines or use paper towels to open them/close them/start them/stop them or just touch very specific spots on them. I worry that I’ll get it on me before bed and then my bed will no longer feel clean and safe and I’ll feel like I need to wash my sheets/wipe down everything that comes into contact with my bed. I’m so scared of the possibility of all these things that I avoid doing things like touching my feet or shoes without washing my hands, spraying down the floor with Lysol Disinfectant spray, wiping down anything I think may have had contact with something that may have gotten some on it. I don’t know what to do anymore. I want to be able to just exist and not have to shower before bed or as soon as I wake up or have to wash my hands while I’m doing laundry. I could go into more detail about the other things but they’re relatively self-explanatory. The precum thing is not so I wanted to be v more in depth while describing this issue. I do not have any attraction to children btw, (Back to the POCD) I will protect every child I can. And that’s why this freaks me out so bad because I worry about other peoples wellbeing over my own. Please if anyone has any ideas. Help me. Thank you.
I’m going through what is hopefully just a really bad hypochondria episode where I’ve convinced myself I have schizophrenia. It’s been about 8 months and I’ve been through a range of crazy symptoms but the most prevalent symptom is getting crazy delusional thoughts like “what if my wife is a demon and trying to get to me” “what if nobody is real and these are all monsters/demons out to get me” etc etc. the thoughts are absolutely terrifying and they make me look at people differently, and i have to question myself whether I truly believe the thoughts or not, they feel so real, when they come on I almost catch myself genuinely feeling paranoid that they are 100% real and having a panic attack, but then the tiny bit of me that’s still rational brings me back to reality. And from then on I have to question myself all day “do I really believe this?” “Well you technically can’t disprove those things” “if it’s not real, then why does it FEEL real?” “This really is schizophrenia” “ what if it’s not schizophrenia but ACTUALLY real?” “who do I go to for help?” “What if I can’t trust anyone” etc, it’s literally hell. I can never give a satisfying “No, I don’t believe this” to these thoughts. I can go days and weeks and be able to confidently shrug them off and tell how ridiculous they are only for them to come back with a vengeance the next day. I could really use some reassurance even though I know it’s bad. I have never been like this before until I started obsessing over schizophrenia. I’ve been like this for 8 months now.
i’ve (22f) been out as bisexual for almost five years and i’ve known i love women my whole life. I’ve always still been “attracted”to men but ever since i opened myself up to women it feels very different and more comfortable, but i am worried this is just because of men-related trauma. i feel like i am lying to myself either way if i call myself bisexual or a lesbian. I have a really hard time distinguishing how i really feel from my so-ocd making me choose a label for myself. I know i love women but it really confuses me if i still like men or not. Like i said this might not even be my ocd talking, just confusion lol. but the ocd is making me obsess over figuring it out. is anyone else dealing with something like this?
I’ve always had a feeling of having OCD but I’ve never been sure. I’m a teenager, and I’m hoping people on this app can help me try to figure out if I have OCD or I’m just crazy. Starting off with these terrible thoughts I have all the time. Someone can come home late and I immediately think they got into a car wreck, and check my phone for recent car crashes and other thing etc. etc. number 2, I always have intrusive thoughts, terrible ones ever since I was a kid I can’t control. I immediately feel like thinking these will lead god to hate me, and that he made an imperfection on me. And every time I try to hide these thoughts away, like right now they’re coming out I just can’t stop thinking of them and it’s so hard to do anything. Just thoughts like, “you hate your mom” or, “you hate god” and stuff that scares me like spiders. It’s hard to do anything with these thoughts. I’m also a major perfectionist, if anything is out of order I freak out. Yes, my room is messy. But I feel a sense of incompleteness and anxiety if I don’t empty the dishwasher, or don’t clean dirty dishes around the sink. These are recent and I feel like God will punish me for committing the sin of laziness. I also have a thing with the number 5, when I touch something it needs to be 5 times and if it’s not 5 times I freak out. I’m also terrified of getting sick, every time my friend is sick I freak out and don’t get near them the entire day, constantly washing my hands. Writing this is triggering a lot of my terrible thoughts and I don’t want to continue writing. Please let me know your thoughts, mental illness runs in my family but my mom is constantly telling me there’s nothing wrong with me. Maybe she’s right.
Moral scrupulosity OCD can be very challenging to deal with, especially since it often presents with mental compulsions or rituals that may appear like religious conviction or positive moral habits. These may be hard to spot or even receiving of praise when people don't see the distress behind them. It can also join forces with other themes, such as false memory OCD, real event OCD, or relationship or harm OCD, and introduce moral elements to these themes. Thankfully moral scrupulosity and related themes can all be treated with ERP therapy - the gold standard approach for OCD treatment. Have you experienced any of these things? What other experiences would you add?
Always feels like I'm back to square one sometimes. I feel really off right now. It doesn't really feel like I can allow myself to fully enjoy something without my intrusive thoughts or anxiety disorders getting in the way. My life wasn't like this before 2020 came along. It was never about worrying about every little thing. It didn't have any worrying at all. There's two things that continue to bother me every single day. My teenage years and pornography. I hated my teenage years because there were a lot of negative things that were going on and being exposed to porn made all of that worse than it already was. There are some good things I can remember, but the bad things are always the overwhelming majority. Porn genuinely messed me up. I don't know what the solution is to move on from all of this besides taking medication. I don't know how to get through all of this naturally and I'm having doubts. I feel like medication is the only way at this point. I just can't stop thinking about anything that would make me anxious and I just can't stop feeling like something bad is going to happen every single day. Whether it's going to sleep and never waking up, having something wrong with my body, or never being able to move on from past hurts. I've been trying to practice coming to terms with my past self and basically being void of any judgement. There's some good days, some great days, and there's some bad days like this one. I just want to enjoy my days but I just get so much junk in my head that I can't basically.
If someone could please read and respond to this, it would mean the world to me. I’m struggling a lot with a POCD obsession related to one of my favorite hobbies. Around 4 years ago, I sent someone I shouldn’t have a picture of me doing the splits (in a pair of short shorts). I was 20 years old when I sent this, and my intention with it was for them to think I was hot and to tell me so. I also sent them a video of me dancing (pretty suggestively, also in shorts). I was in a relationship at the time and this behavior was incredibly unfaithful (and not the only unfaithful behavior I displayed at the time). I know the infidelity is the largest issue (and trust me, I’ve been struggling with it for 4 years), but my current obsession is that I was 20 in the video I sent, but only 16 (maybe 17, but I think 16) in the splits photo I sent. And I sent it so someone in their late twenties. I’m not sure if I realized how wrong it was at the time, but I feel like a monster for sending an underage photo of myself to someone for attention (on top of being unfaithful). I was 20, I should have known and done better. I am still with the same person I betrayed, and I am so incredibly lucky to have been forgiven. I’ve confessed every part of these (and other related) events, and she insists that it’s my OCD making these connections. She has moved on long ago, and she wants me to move on as well. The POCD part of this has been haunting me for a few weeks. I know the infidelity part is what I should be most worried about, but I just recently picked up dance again and it has triggered this association. I just got done with my first class after a nearly 7 year hiatus, and I had the absolute time of my life. But now all I can think of is that association of me sending these (dance related) things to someone I shouldn’t have. And one of these things was an underage photo of me. It makes me feel like I don’t deserve to continue to dance. I know that my main focus should be the infidelity part of this. And trust me, this aspect of it is an ever present part of my conscious mind that I will never forgive myself for. But I can’t even take a break from my mind with my favorite hobby, because I’ve ruined it with associations of infidelity and POCD. I’m so tired of ruining everything I love.
My OCD seems to take things way too literally and make reason out of everything. I’ll see something that sort of relates to the topic of my OCD and think it’s a sign that applies to me and think “well if it’s not true why did I see that then”. Lately I’ve been struggling with the fact that “everything happens for a reason”. I am a Christian and cherish my relationship with God very much. Because everything happens for a reason, does this mean that every time I see something related to my OCD God wants me to have these thoughts? I suffer with false memory OCD. Are these signs God telling me I actually did do something bad in my past or is this just OCD playing tricks on me. I’m just really confused because I know God does create coincidence. So am I seeing these things because I did something bad? Ugh OCD is so hard. I just feel like my brain is in a big scramble and I just can’t seem to make sense out of reality. My thoughts feel so real
feel free to ask any questions about anything ocd thats stuck on your mind. I’ve been through a lot so i’m sure i will be able to ease your mind in someway, even if its very specific!
I had the thought of checking how I reacted to my obsession/fear. I didn’t even want to put that thought/image in my mind but it felt like it was really close to coming into my mind. I felt afraid- I didn’t want to know how I’d react to that image if I put it in my head on purpose. I had this morbid curiosity, that I just had to know but I couldn’t- I feel panicky, scared and I am genitals monitoring so badly rn that I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. Im shivering and crying, I doubt this even- I doubt this is my “real” reaction that I’m hamming it up just for myself to “pretend” I’m upset when ocd says I am not and I “want” this. This feels so real right now, I feel like if I let these thoughts in that a switch will go off and I’ll become a p. If I am one I will be completely and utterly destroyed and I’ll have to unalive myself immediately and as quickly as possible cause I can’t CANT live like this. No no no. I’ve got a family, I’ve got a life- I’m so afraid all of it will go away.
I really need help. I'm feeling extremely panicked and refusing to go into a loop, so I'm asking for immediate help. TMI, but I was master***** earlier and had an intrusive thought about a child. I pushed it out of my head, and kept going. I would stop, tell myself I'm ok and I do not like that thought, and then keep going. I felt like if I didn't keep going while trying to get rid of that thought, it meant I was letting the thought win and kind of "believe" it was true about my moral and about whether or not I'm a ped0. I felt immediately guilty after and now feel extremely stressed because I'm convincing myself I masterb**** to those thoughts. I feel disgusting. Now I'm ruminating and thinking "what if I did like those thoughts" and now am turning it into a false memory situation. I really need desperate help. Normally I succeed in ignoring the OCD and intrusive thoughts and I normally am ok after, but I tried to do an ERP type situation and still climax even after having those thoughts. I feel so so disgusting now though. Please help.
Okay so basically I'm 18 (almost 19) and my dad had been sick since I was 14. Like REALLY sick. He was practically bedridden for most of 4 years. It was a really rare and terrible disease and we very much did not have the financial means to take care of him. In November he suddenly passed in the night and I woke up around 8am to see my brother giving him cpr but it was simply too late. The police opened an investigation thinking there could have been false play but after the otopsy came back it was clearly because of his illness. Ever sense I keep having these thoughts of "what if I did it and don't remember" but mostly my thoughts are "you heard something that night and didn't check on him." And I remember when I was falling asleep that night I thought "it would be easier if he just died. No you don'tactually believe thag" so it feels like I some how willed it into the universe or something. Oh top of that for the longest time my (very spiritual) family has always told me that I was special and I knew things/could do things that are unexplainable. For a while before he passed I was buying into a lot of the spiritual stuff and I swore I felt this "fatherly presence" following me around. I thought it was like some old god watching out for me and kept looking for "signs." But I also kept ignoring it thinking I would reach out later when I had the time because I was a senior in high school while this was going on and was very busy. So sometimes I even thing my father dying was like a punishment or ignoring some God. I don't really know, at this point I don't even want to be into all of that stuff anymore but I don't know how to stop when my whole family is into it, especially if some thing is mad at me. I don't really know, I feel very trapped in some unexplainable way by all of this.
I’m going through what is hopefully just a really bad hypochondria episode where I’ve convinced myself I have schizophrenia. It’s been about 8 months and I’ve been through a range of crazy symptoms but the most prevalent symptom is getting crazy delusional thoughts like “what if my wife is a demon and trying to get to me” “what if nobody is real and these are all monsters/demons out to get me” etc etc. the thoughts are absolutely terrifying and they make me look at people differently, and i have to question myself whether I truly believe the thoughts or not, they feel so real, when they come on I almost catch myself genuinely feeling paranoid that they are 100% real and having a panic attack, but then the tiny bit of me that’s still rational brings me back to reality. And from then on I have to question myself all day “do I really believe this?” “Well you technically can’t disprove those things” “if it’s not real, then why does it FEEL real?” “This really is schizophrenia” “ what if it’s not schizophrenia but ACTUALLY real?” “who do I go to for help?” “What if I can’t trust anyone” etc, it’s literally hell. I can never give a satisfying “No, I don’t believe this” to these thoughts. I can go days and weeks and be able to confidently shrug them off and tell how ridiculous they are only for them to come back with a vengeance the next day. I could really use some reassurance even though I know it’s bad. I have never been like this before until I started obsessing over schizophrenia. I’ve been like this for 8 months now.
with my OCD I go through these phases where I believe I experience derealization and depersonalization and they are extremely triggering and terrifying to me I experience all the symptoms from foggy brain to feeling like there's glass dividing me and the world and everything feeling far away. But I also think what if it isn't derealization because no one will ever know how I'm feeling? What if something is wrong in my head? What if I have a brain tumor? And it's and endless cycle along with actually acknowledging that I have OCD.
Why do same OCD thoughts I get still trigger anxiety or panic attacks no matter how many times I’ve had them and they never come true? Why do they still trigger panic/ fear even tho I know they never happen? For example I’ve had the thought “what if you harm someone” or “what if you lose control” they cause so much anxiety but they never happen? And every time they pop in my head again they still trigger me? Any advice
how do u guys deal with it i feel like throwing up and crying from guilt. i don’t wanna get into what memories i’m thinking of, but they have to do with sexuality as a child. i can’t stop thinking that i had bad intentions and hurt someone because i was a few years older. i was doing fine and this came out of nowhere. i keep thinking what if it’s not ocd and i’m just using ocd as an excuse for my rightfully had guilt. i literally feel paralyzed and debilitatingly shameful. i don’t know what to do. i talked to my friends about it and they kept telling me experiences like that are normal, but i feel like an unreliable narrator or something. i just wanna cry and cry.
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