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I’ve been struggling quite a bit lately, I’ve got POCD and I don’t so much have intrusive thoughts all the time but when it comes to get dressed, using the toilet etc is when it happens where I have to make sure I’m decontaminated of any germs from young people so it’s not inappropriate or anything. This has become difficult with my boyfriend as he has a new baby nephew that has lived with him for about two weeks and has no moves out. I’ve never met the baby and I’ve not been to their house for a while but I’ve now got it in my head that my boyfriend’s clothes have been in the washing machine where the babies clothes have been. I was stressing today because I desperately needed a shower but my boyfriend was here and I didn’t want to get contaminated or caught up doing rituals whilst he was here as they’re time consuming and get me upset and stressed and I don’t want him to know. I decided in the end it may be best to get ready with him here because then I have him as a distraction from thoughts where as when he’s not here I’m on my own to think and do ritual after ritual. I showered and was getting dressed and I use a sock to put my bottom half on as a ritual to avoid any germs from my landladies grandchildren who have been in my place before I lived here from my feet from the floor getting onto/into my underwear. It took several different knickers and attempts to get dressed as I felt I hadn’t got the germs that may have passed from my boyfriend off me well enough and felt they were on my clothes. I then managed to get one on and knocked my socked foot on the bin but was stressing I was taking too long so put it on anyway and managed with that but realised my sock had a hole in it, exposing my foot. I’m pretty sure it didn’t touch the crotch part of my knicker which is what I worry about but ocd is doing its thing where it’s making me think it has and that I’m saying that to get out of blame etc. I tried to ignore it and was in my room for ages because I could feel myself getting worked up and my boyfriend came in and I had an open bottle of anti bac spray and hand sanitiser on the side which I’d been using to try and decontaminate which I could see him looking at and I got teary and said I was struggling. He doesn’t know the full extent of my ocd just that I have a thing about germs (he thinks in a broad sense) and I said that I don’t know why they’re open I just don’t feel clean enough and got teary. He was his usual amazing self where he distracted me with his humour and I love him so much for that. He then had to go home and I got so anxious because I find I cope better with him here, he’s a distraction and company. I’m now here with part of my mind saying to get reshowered and redressed to protect myself and the other half like don’t because it’s ocd and another part just too lazy to do it. Can’t give in but also can’t get rid of the niggle in my brain

I've been married for a year. My husband has completely changed. Lost his job. No motivation. Etc. I would rather be miserable with him than without him. But today I'm just frustrated and lost. I've thought about what it would be like to crash my car. Idk I don't want to die. I just want him to get his shit together and idk how to get him to listen because he won't.

Just came back from a night session with my therapist. This is the third time I seen her and I mentioned about erp but doesn’t seem like she have a clue about it. Feel like I was more educated about it than her. And I kept telling her that it’s my thoughts that fuel my anxiety. It seem like she was surprised that I have intrusive thoughts like it’s an uncommon thing. She even mentioned I show try “thought stopping” which I know it’s not good for ocd. All she was telling me was I should try medication....feel so disappointed. ??

I wish we could blacklist certain forms of ocd lol some of these really don’t make this app as great as I hoped it would be

I have this friend and I thought I can trudt her and Im having a hard time rn and I told her that I wanna kill myself and she was like ‘’Im tired of you,stop looking for attention’’ and I feel so bad rn Idk what to do..

i think i might be developing sexual orientation ocd because i identify as a lesbian but when i was a kid i only ever crushed on guys. im starting to wonder if i just had hocd the entire time and believed the thoughts so hard that i tricked myself into thinking im gay. but i really don't wanna be straight ?

Re: HOCD/bisexuality So I'm sure a lot of us here are familiar with the old "no one is 100% straight or gay," "sexuality is a spectrum," etc. etc. etc. Obviously those things don't offer sticking reassurance to those of us with a feelings of intense doubt, urgency & guilt telling us we are liars, need to immediately live in accordance with our true selves, and so on. I'm just curious whether anyone here is actually somewhat comfortable with the idea of bisexuality, like I am sometimes. What mostly triggers me are thoughts that I would like being with the same sex MORE, that I'm MOSTLY gay, that I shouldn't have a boyfriend because it's dishonest to who I am and going to lead to pain and wasted time, that I SHOULD go have sex with a woman because otherwise how will I ever know who I really am? It's basically a desire to have a complete understanding of my orientation and live in a way that perfectly represents that. But obviously this doesn't completely make sense because human behavior is complex and people don't solely get involved with one another to test their sexual responses, lol. They do it because they just follow their motivation and if they make a mistake, they deal with it and redirect. Honestly not sure if this post is just me having a compulsion to vent (I've compulsively journaled in the past, sometimes going until I end on some note of reassurance). But I'm hitting send ?‍♀️

Hi everyone, i was looking for some advice. so i’ve been dealing with HOCD for about 3.5 months now and it has been utter hell. before this all started i can remember my crushes in elementary school and my entire life (i am 23) have always been boys. i dated boys and always dreamt of my wedding day with a boy and what it would be like to have a boyfriend my entire life up until these thoughts started. ive had an episode of HOCD in the past but it went away within a month and i went completely back to normal until this relapse 3.5 months ago. i’m on medication, ive been going to weekly therapy, and although there has been a lot of improvement i still feel so sad and defeated because it has not gone away again. i can’t tell what i get turned on anymore whether that be guys or girls when before this all started a naked model could have walked by me and i would have hardly noticed but now it’s all i can think about. i wake up multiple times in the night with these thoughts and it’s just like am i just gay and in denial? i know it all sounds so crazy but i’m just so tired of this all. i’m writing this just to see if anyone else can relate or has any advice on what i should do to finally get rid of this monster OCD. i just want to go back to how i was before and never to think about or have any desire to be with a woman. at the beginning of when this all started the thought of it would make me sob uncontrollably, have panic attacks, and not leave my house to see my family and friends. now i don’t get that way and i can leave the house it’s just really hard for me bc i’ll always be on edge to see if i feel attraction for any females around me.

This is just too much...and it just sucks because no matter what I do... in reality ocd doesn’t care about what it’s doing to me... it’s gonna keep doing this. My brother is sick with something that causes diarrhea...he was sick with it 2 weeks ago, got better last week, and we all got the stomach flu this week which caused his sickness to come back...he’s playful and doing normal 1 year old things but ocd keeps saying he is going to die. I don’t completely understand how a 1 year old would just magically die from watery shit, but just because this worry makes no sense, it doesn’t mean I’m still not scared.And it showed me a scenario of his funeral and it’s so fucked up.I think the worst punishment God has ever given me was ocd... ocd hurts me more than anyone else can... it’s so fucked up... I used to ask God for help but I guess mental health wasn’t that saving worthy so I just stopped praying about my mental health BC I’d be “wasting my time, he doesn’t answer you.” I just have so mu ch in. My life that isn’t going right and I’m started to get low key sad and miserable about my life at this point. I need help lately but I’m really depending on some sort of relief... just thought control and to get rid of bad people in my life and to get some of my grades up and...to be happy

Does anyone have any tips on how to feel more comfortable telling your therapist things and how to not feel too nervous to tell him/her everything about your ocd?

Anyone here a Christian and dealing with ROCD? I’m in a really great relationship with my boyfriend who is a Christian like myself. We both have our own solid relationship with God. However, every time I pray specifically about my relationship (and have for 4 years) I feel like God gives me affirmations or feelings soon after that conclude with my boyfriend just not being the person God has for me and I know God loves me and wants the best for me no matter what. Every time I pray about this, the ROCD comes in, like, “God has more for you”, “God has someone better for you”, “Am I disobeying and disappointing God if I stay in this relationship?” “Am I missing out on someone more fulfilling that God may have for me?” You get the point. After that part of the process, I beat myself up in guilt both for my boyfriend and thinking that I’m not listening to what God wants for me and I’m just holding onto something that’s good but I could have better. Then I just stop praying about that question and feel like I avoid God. And lastly, inevitably, I feel numb around my boyfriend because I’m exhausted from the whole process and I live in a feeling of settlement even though I do love him. My boyfriend believes that God has put me in his life and that God has grown him so much in part for me and because of our relationship. He is amazing, and I agree slightly, but that just leads me to more questions. Why don’t I feel that was too or why don’t I feel love for him the way I should If God out us together? Sorry if this triggers anyone. I have just been dealing with this for 4 years and have never actually typed it out this way. Any comments, advice or anything is welcome

Anyone else struggle with real event type OCD (OCD latches on to a real life situation you’ve experienced)? How can we know the difference between what actually happened and if it’s just my OCD making me feel like a horrible person? Specifically with harm/pedophile OCD. Anyone ever experienced this before?

I have difficulty filtering out my worries and anxieties when talking to other people. I am a very lonely shy guy with low self esteem and I have a very self deprecating sense of humor. However I find that I tend to reveal way too much about my insecurities, worries, obsessions to anyone that can listen. A lot of the time I have this “magical” thinking where someone would say something or be compelled to love me or be my friend to fix me. However, I just make myself look bad, ruin dynamics in relationships/friendships, and say something inappropriate. It is hard for me to talk about superficial stuff or pay care to other people’s lives. When I am obsessing over something, that is all I can talk about. And I am tired of seeking pity or sympathy from others. I went out with some coworkers (I never go out to bars or socialize outside work ever with anyone) and I find that I divulge way too much personal details about myself to anyone that listens. It is hard cause I don’t always realize I am doing it and it is hard to stop myself from telling everyone about my shit. Sometimes it is just to make others laugh—that is my humor. But it always leads to me asking for advice from everyone and then people get sick of me being a wet blanket. Some days I don’t feel like talking to anyone cause I am too caught up in my head. And I know if I start talking to someone, I’ll tell them things that I am worrying about and it ruins my reputation and how people see me. I want people to admire me and to want to be my friend. I don’t see myself as being self absorbed in a selfish way, I am very empathetic to others, but I seem to only know how to communicate with others as if they are my therapist. And I have one, I just don’t feel comfortable not opening up. Or I am just completely unable to filter myself.

Been having a tough time with OCD beating me from all sides and feeling like I’ve taken steps forward and triple the amount of steps backwards lately. But just had a silver lining. I have a mixed relationship with this app. Sometimes I find it so reassuring to see that there are other people like me and other times seeing posts similar to my OCD can trigger new intrusive thoughts, obsessions, rituals etc. Lately I’ve found that whilst struggling, I’ve taken comfort in confessing or getting my intrusive thoughts out through posts on the app. I know we’re not supposed to do this as confessions and seeking reassurance continues the OCD cycle but hey ho ?‍♀️ Anyway, I’ve been on the app for a few hours today just looking at posts and found myself commenting a lot with advice or tips or sharing experiences with people. So much so, I’d not messaged my boyfriend for a while, which I never do as I find him such a distraction from my ocd and thoughts, he just messaged to say he was still awake and I said I was too. I then found myself telling him how I’d spent so much time in here (he knows I have ocd and he knows about this app but doesn’t know the nature of my ocd etc as I choose to keep that to myself). And as I was doing this I realised that for years I struggled so much with OCD because I went through it alone. I felt like a weirdo, crazy to have such awful thoughts and if I was having such awful thoughts then I must be what they’re making me out to be! This was furthered by family reactions to my OCD. It’s not until recently that I’ve seeked and am undergoing therapy that I’ve gained knowledge and understanding of what it is, how it makes me feel etc. And finding this app and seeing that other people go through the same or similar has helped me gain a self acceptance of the fact that I have OCD, I have irrational thoughts pop into my head which I can’t control. Sometimes I may feel I’m controlling them as I’m thinking about them or trying not to think about them and they happen anyway but in essence I have an illness of uncontrollable thoughts that everybody has. It’s just that having this illness causes me to ruminate with these thoughts rather than letting them slip through like “normal” people do. This ruminating makes me feel awful and believe that I am what the thoughts make me out to be and in reaction to this I feel fear. To squash or reduce this fear I do actions, think thoughts, seek reassurance, confess to the thoughts etc to get initial relief from my anxiety. By doing this I’m not facing the fear I’m furthering it and continuing my OCD cycle. I’ve learnt that in order to break this cycle I need to start sitting with the thoughts and deal with and let the anxiety slip away naturally and not do compulsions to get rid of it. Because in turn this will make me realise that nothing bad happens from these thoughts and I’m not the thoughts. Sometimes I can do this, sometimes I struggle to. It will probably be like that for the rest of my life with varying degrees depending on how strong I am at the time or how well my mental state is. There may be times I can come on here and give out loads of advice and help and that makes me feel great and strong and in control. There may be other times I come in here and I’m rambling my thoughts and fears and feel guilty and disgusted and sick and my heart’s racing and worried that people will react negatively. There may be times I come in here and instantly have to close the app because I see a post of POCD and I get scared it’ll trigger mine. It’s the perks of an irrational disorder, I can be up and down. People won’t always understand and that’s not their fault. As I mentioned, my family had very negative reactions to my ocd which made things worse but I don’t blame them. We’re not educated enough on this disorder so someone newly experiencing this, will probably be terrified that they’re losing their mind or that they’re this horrible person because ocd is so widely publicised as being a perfectionist with colour coded notes, organised storage systems etc. When in actual fact it is a tormenting disorder that physically and mentally drains us. I have given up my education 3 times over because of this illness. I have spent so much money on this illness on cleaning products, new clothes due to having to throw items out that I can’t bare to wear due to contamination obsessions and rituals. I’ve had family members fall out over me because of lack of understanding and my irrational behaviour during very bad periods of OCD. OCD has affected my life so much, it’s taken a significant chunk of my years away from me which I will never get back. It’s caused me to cut my skin, nip my skin, hit my body, pull my hair, cry myself to sleep, forgive and deal with shitty people in my life through fear of losing people incase one day ocd becomes to much for another person in my life that they leave and then I’m left with nobody. I won’t always feel as strong as I do in this moment, or feel as in control as I do now. I will spend days sat on my bed terrified to get dressed because of contamination. I’ll spend other days getting dressed straight away with the first pair of clothes I pick. Of course I wish there was some magical treatment to take it all away and take me back to my 15 year old self with no worries except my friendship group and GCSEs and to continue growing up without all these thoughts and fears but unfortunately my mind has this illness and all I can do is deal with it, seek support, look after myself and take each day at a time.

I’ve always liked boys and in fact I’m in love with one now. But I keep having these thoughts that are like “you are gay, don’t deny it” and I keep repeating to myself that I’m not but now I don’t know if I am or not since it feels soooooo real. I keep having this images in my head about me being with a girl and I get this uncomfortable feeling. But I loss almost all my attraction towards men and that scares me so much. Then my head starts being like “you like girls and you would enjoy it” but I don’t want that. I try to fight but they are too strong and I feel like I’m never going to be happy. I’m so depressed all the time and I just want to go back to not thinking about this. Now it just feels weird imagining myself with a guy and that I’d terrifying. Is this ocd or is it real??

Can intrusive thoughts be about anything?

I have a really awful habit of logging into my exes Facebook as I still know his Facebook details. I’ve not been with this person for over a year and at first I did it because our break up was messy and I wanted to know what he was saying about me, then when we spoke again I wasn’t sure he wasn’t playing me and in a way it was good that I did because he was. I then kept checking it because I couldn’t get over him and I wanted to know what he was up to. I understand it is a total invasion of privacy and is such a bad thing to do but I can’t seem to help it. I’m now over him and happy in my new relationship but I still can’t stop looking out of curiosity as he still searches me and my family and mentions me to his current girlfriend. I got bored earlier and checked again and decided to search my name in his messages. The majority o had already seen but there was a few between him and his current girlfriend where he’s talking about an event from his childhood and how he’s never told anyone but her and me before and how I’d laughed when he told me. The event was between him and someone older than him doing something to him, which when he told me he made the age gap sound a lot smaller and almost as if it was mutual experimentation and he didn’t appear bothered by it but to his girlfriend he was making out as though he was traumatised by it and I was insensitive which I’m annoyed about because I actually was amused by his lack of care and seemed more worried about the event than he did! But that doesn’t matter, what matters is ocd has now latched onto this and made me feel awful as my ocd is pocd. I also feel super guilty for always looking at his messages despite my lovely boyfriend knowing I do and being upset that I do because most of the messages upset me with the nasty things he says about me and I keep promising that I’ll stop but don’t. I feel almost as if it’s a self destructive thing, like I have to look for the nasty things said about me and to see how much of a nicer boyfriend he is to his new girlfriend compared to me and the messages where he said he always loved her and effectively used me to try and get over her but never did so that’s why he got rid of me etc etc. Not because I need confirmation he doesn’t like me so I can get over him because I’m over him, like I said I’m happy in my new relationship and my boyfriend is lovely but almost like to put me down more, I’m very self critical and that and also I find it effects my new relationship as I don’t trust that anyone can love me and I know my boyfriend has had interest in other girls who didn’t have interest in him, like my ex, so I get sensitive that I’m being used again. My boyfriend’s amazing and always tries to reassure me but I can’t shake feeling like I’m not worthy of being truly loved by someone or that my only use is to be used for other things. It’s awful for my boyfriend and myself and I know it’s down to mental health reasons but yeah ?‍♀️ I also hear people say you can’t love someone else until you love yourself and people tell me I should end things and focus on fixing these problems but how can I learn to trust other people actually can love me for reals unless I give love a chance. I worked on myself for a year and I got to a point where I felt ready for a relationship as I felt happy again and realised my ex did me wrong and I didn’t deserve to feel the way I did over a guy and had respect for myself again. I still do but I guess being in a relationship again has opened my anxiety a bit to being hurt like I was. Dunno guess I’m aware of it which is good because I can explain it to my boyfriend so he can understand where I’m coming from and I can make myself aware of it during bad times so i can sort things to prevent problems but I need to work on stopping this habit not just for my boyfriend but for my own sanity and because it’s an invasion of privacy and wrong of me to do

One of my compulsions is to constantly read things on google to try to reassure myself that I’m okay. Anyone else deal with this? And if so, what do you do to keep yourself from doing it?

I feel that my death is better for and my friends and family my girl who i love for everything i wish I had never been born.

Do your parents have OCD too? My mother definitely has it, and some themes I got from her. It’s brutal to have soocd since childhood, I never had those years when I could just live and love... Every crush, every feeling, sensation, glance and thought were always either for or against this theme. I don’t have this good times to go back to, all my relationships were a bit positioned by this doubt. I can’t help but blame my mom who was herself obsessing about her and my sexuality and knew no better than actually telling me all that crazy stuff...