- Date posted
- 1y
Do you call someone? Look for your compass? Or runaway?
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working to conquer OCD
Do you call someone? Look for your compass? Or runaway?
I feel like my life isn't my own anymore. I live by OCD's rules. I can't ever switch it off. I spend most of my day mentally reviewing and constantly checking myself. I have to do things in a certain way or i dont feel safe. All this time that i've lost and for what? Idk how I let thoughts have so much power over my life and yet here I am. Every day. I can't even get away from it in sleep because i have dreams about it and I wake up anxious if i manage to get any sleep at all. I'm so over it all.
I thought I was the only one who experience this kind of thoughts. I've been struggling intrusive blasphemous thoughs and sexual scenarios towards Jesus every minutes and seconds it so distressful to me. These thoughts inside my head also affects my church services as member of liturgical ministry during Eucharistic mass celebration. This lead me to asked myself "maybe I am bad person pretending to be a follower of Christ." Everytime I feel shame and guilt these thoughts much even getting worse. Asking myself several times "Am I going to hell? Am I mocking God? Am I experiencing a spiritual warfare or demonic attacks even I filled with the Holy Spirit? Am I committed a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Am I suffering from a mental disorder?" These questions made me realize that this was just my thought and I found out from the internet that these intrusive thoughts are severe symptoms of scrupulosity OCD. I'm afraid to share this with my family and friends because I'm scared to be judge. My dear brothers and sisters of Christ I respectfully ask for your advices. Please include me to your prayers. 🙏
So thankful to have found this app 😭 my 15 year old is struggling with what is unofficially diagnosed OCD (counselor is starting the process to diagnose but she fits SO much of what we’re reading and she’s at least 4th generation OCD’r). We are in a bad spiral right now with her, especially centered around sleep and it just feels so hard. Just wanted to say thank you for helping me not feel alone.
My all-consuming compulsion is to coddle someone who shows opposition to my boundaries. My boyfriend and I love each other dearly. In fact, he's going to propose soon. But we're working through some really difficult things. When conversations get difficult for him, or he feels the slightest bit of guilt, he totally freezes. He can't talk or make eye contact for awhile. I've been incredibly compassionate about his coping mechanism and his needs (he grew up in an emotionally abusive household), but at the same time, I have needs that must be met, too. The conversations in which he freezes up are ALWAYS ones in which I'm expressing discomfort/hurt about something. What I NEED is to feel validated, to have the space to feel hurt/uncomfortable WITHOUT judgement. Because I am super attentive to him and always ALWAYS validate his hurt, even if it affects me personally. But whether it's big or small, he KEEPS getting really hurt and affected by the things I bring up. His mom is not nice to me, she hasn't been since we met. He's not responsible for her actions, but he IS responsible for defending me when his mom is being super judgemental and rejected me outright, multiple times, even though she didn't even know who I was. I just automatically wasn't good enough. I should be able to trust my boyfriend with valid concerns of mine/expect him to apologize when he's caused discomfort, and he unintentionally invalidates me by guilt-tripping me like crazy. And I've talked to him about this stuff, which is SO HARD. I explain what is and isn't helpful. I brought up therapy, because I can't make him go, but he says he's been trying to ease off his coping response for years to no avail. For this and many other reasons I think he needs professional help (I'm seeing a therapist myself. We both got chronic mental illness that needs addressing somehow). I explained my feelings, I explained what I need. He's starting to try harder to give my emotions space, and say things that validate me. I appreciate it cuz I know the freezing response is something he's trying to fight. It's SO HARD for me not to fawn. My OCD is screaming at me, telling me that I HAVE TO accommodate my boyfriend's feelings, oh I must have hurt him SO BAD, oh imagine how horrible things will be if I DON'T give him reassurance!! But this isn't about him. These conversations with him start because a boundary of MINE has been crossed!! Even if he has a whiny reaction, or has a freezing response that stems from trauma. It STILL causes me too much emotional distress and places blame on me in an unfair way. For example (this is a BRIEF explanation), I've made it clear that I don't want dogs. I've never even had dogs and he knows this. And my boyfriend got really pouty after I reiterated this once, because he thought his dog back home would come live with us after we got married. Mind you, he's NEVER brought this up with me before. I had no idea he wanted his dog to move in with us. The dog has only ever lived at his parents' house. His parents assumed I'd be fine taking on the responsibility of an OLD, SMELLY DOG!!! WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME!!! And when I explained my frustration about this assumption to my boyfriend while ALSO sweetly acknowledging how SPECIAL his dog is to him, he broke down and shut down!! It's SO FRUSTRATING when he does that, it's so stressful, it's SUCH a burden on me when my boyfriend doesn't have the capacity to validate my feelings the way I do his! Holding back and not compulsively fawning is SO HARD!!!! But I gotta stand firm---it's NOT fair that I have to edit my true feelings because he's not equipped to be more emotionally present for me.
I have been doing very well managing my OCD over the past few months amidst the most amount of life changes I've had in years. However, today I had something catch me off guard that I just want to get off my chest. I'm getting ready to serve a mission for my church, and I've been spending a lot of time praying and getting closer to God. I've had a thought pop in my head few times that, sometime in my life, I'm going to experience divorce. I've been trying to treat it like any other OCD thought, but today when I was visiting my parents, my stepmom told me a story about when she was younger. She lost her little girl in a fire, and she said when she was young and before that happened, she heard a woman speak at church with her same name that had just lost her little girl, and she had a premonition and a really strong feeling that it would happen to her. She forgot about it, but years later, it did happen. During the story, I thought about my divorce thought, and it felt like it was from God and that it is going to happen. I got instant cold sweats and chills, and it's like my heart just dropped. It was suffocating. I'm worried that it was from God, and that divorce will happen in my life. This terrifies me, because my parents got divorced when I was a child, and most of my extended family members have been through divorces with the minority staying with their spouses. More than anything, I want to build a loving, nurturing family, so this is just really scary right now. I prayed to God about it, and He told me to trust Him. I'm trying to keep it together but I'm just so scared I want to cry.
I’m really struggling because i think i like girls but im freaking out because liking girls goes againt my religion because im a girl and girls cant like girls.
I’m constantly finding myself getting irritated easily and sometimes it even confuses me because I was happy and fine two seconds ago. Like I feel emotionally unstable. I also randomly will get sentimental or sad and I just start crying. Is this just me??
Hey everyone I know I’ve mentioned this before but, I wanted to share again just in case if anyone new sees this. I deal with cheating ocd really bad, like I always have thoughts about the past and such and get worried about things. I know my morals and values and I know id never ever cheat, but my mind always loves to play the “What if” game. It really sucks. My boyfriend is the sweetest and a god sent to me and he is always there for me but ugh this ocd dealing with cheating and false memory/real events kills me, anyone else relate? I dont know how to put up with it anymore, Just today I remembered I had an old twitter account which is now X, but I remembered I deleted my account a long long time ago but ugh I used to be on twitter so much awhile ago and my ocd acted up and was like “You better go check to make sure you didn’t do anything.” And I remembered I sat with myself and said “I know my morals I would never do that to him.” And then my ocd was like “Are you sure? What if you did?” Etc and my anxiety is now so bad about it now :(
I'm tired of people not understanding how terrifying OCD can be. Just saw a video about OCD with no mention of other disorders and someone commented "Try having BPD". I got angry and started arguing (I know there is no point in that, but I got so pissed off) saying that it's not a competition and OCD can be as bad as BPD and sometimes worse, it's different for everyone and depends on the severity (I saw people online who have both, and for some of them OCD is worse than BPD, not all for course, but that was my point, depends on the person) And then the user just started insulting me saying that it's a proven fact that BPD is the worst (it's literally not true, I checked it) and OCD is bad but not as bad. I know they are just a dumbass, because the second I asked for proof they just started insulting me and saying that I'm "uneducated", but I got so angry anyway for some reason lol
Long vent: First off, please don’t judge and meet this story with kindness. You never know what people are suffering through. My moms the kind of person who won’t say anything if she’s suffering. She usually suffers in silence because she’s afraid people will see her struggles and meet her with judgement like past people have in her life unfortunately. Although I’m not a psychologist nor should I be diagnosing, I do think my mom suffers from OCD. She is overweight, and she’s been struggling a lot with eating. As of late it’s gotten to the point where people in my family are questioning if she’s at the point or no return and it’s been terrifying me. I already feel responsible for this for some reason, like I’m a horrible daughter because I don’t do enough for her even though I do try to. I love her so, so much, she’s my best friend and nothing can happen to her under my watch. I wish I could keep her in a bubble so she lives forever with me, but I know that’s not true. The past two years, she’s had these massive wounds on her legs from an accident on a truck. The wounds have gotten so large and painful, and they haven’t healed after this many years. I had to literally force her to go to urgent care last year because she was too embarrassed to talk about or show anyone these wounds. They gave her advice, said I was right in making her go, and that the wounds aren’t healing most likely because of circulatory issues and the blood from her heart not getting to her legs is stopping the healing process. They showed her how to properly clean the wounds and told her elevate her legs. We did that, but they still haven’t healed but she refused to see a doctor once again due to embarrassment, or she’d put off doctors visits because she couldn’t afford to go or her job would interfere with the timing. Fast forward to today, we had a party for Father’s Day at my aunts house and she’s been keeping the wounds bandaged and using all these sprays and buying adhesives and medicine from Amazon. She has spent so much money on this medical stuff it’s literally done nothing. She can barely walk now, and sitting in a chair at the party today, was like “torture” she said. The dogs at the party were wet, and their tails whipped the back of her legs when they’d wag and I guess she was secretly trying not to cry. I’ve been hearing her whimper quietly from pain for a while and I feel so fucking guilty, like I haven’t done enough for her. I’m trying to help her fix her eating habits, and eat clean with her, but I feel guilty for the times we’d get junk food. She’s a teacher, and she usually goes a full day without eating and it aggravates me so so bad. My first thing when she gets home is asking if we can go out and get food because I just want her to take care of herself and eat something. I know junk is absolutely not the answer here, but when it’s quick and convenient I’d rather my mom eat junk than eat nothing. Yes, I know grocery shopping is the answer and we recently started doing that again. The thing is, she and I hate going in public due to OCD. I feel so bad, because now I’m responsible for this it feels like. She’s been overweight the majority of the time my brother and I have been alive. She confessed to me last year that before the divorce with my dad, she purposely gained weight so that my dad would never touch her again. He cheated on her, and she never wanted him to touch her again, and he was physically and emotionally abusive to her. So, she divorced my dad and took us with her and moved north to be with the rest of my family. I still feel like I contributed to it though, and that I’m a horrible daughter. I never meant to contribute to any of this. I would never fucking to that to this woman I love this much. My brother and aunt said that I enable her and that I’m at fault for a lot of this. My brother I believe also has OCD himself, said I enable this and am responsible for this because I’m not hard enough on my mom. If this is true then I feel fucking horrible. I already regret not doing enough hence why I’m trying to change it now. My aunt says my moms getting to the point of no return. I’m taking her to the emergency room now. I’m trying not to cry and I wish she didn’t feel like she has to keep all these problems to herself. I’m scared to talk to my brother later because he’s going to scold me and yell at me. I don’t know what to do
Hey, yesterday my ex told me something I did that hurt them. This was that I didnt respond in a supportive way when he came out to me. I genuinely had no idea he was coming out (I thought it was a flippant comment) and I was frustrated as we had been having issues with intimacy for months. He said it made him feel awful and it’s only since telling his friends that he has realised how painful my reaction was. I apologised as I do feel awful I made him feel that way but now I keep questioning my reality or perception of what happened. I also keep wanting to reach out to explain why I responded the way I did. Any tips for when you genuinely feel like a monster or did something so outside of your morals? I feel awful
Few years back I went to a funeral when I come home I have developed irrational fear of death my legs were shivering I am unable to sleep at night my life become hell. I could not take food properly and irrational fear make my life worse after some time I developed blasphemous thoughts about God and religious figures and it becomes worse everyday was hell for me the fear was so terrific that God will kill me some numbers comes in my mind like next Friday I will died etc then my sister helps me in it that is just thoughts you are not doing then gradually I started living with them in between these thoughts used to come but I was normal but now again one of my loved one death trigger these thoughts again and I am suffering all the above mentioned stuff in a horrible way. I cannot sleep fear of hell blasphemous thoughts what will happen with be afterward the first night in grave everything is horrified me I don't know what to do death fear making it more worse.
It’s getting so bad I think I’ve been dealing with scrupulosity but I’m always doubting if it’s actually ocd or if I’m just telling myself that as a excuse for being a “bad Christian”. It’s not only that, it’s everything I have had ocd thought loops in the past but they’ve been so unbearable lately and once one goes away another one starts. It’s been really focused on making me feel liek everything is my fault and I don’t know how to stop that when it actually could be. Then there’s this guy we were talking and he was telling me what he needed out of a relationship and asked me to tell him the same and now I’m so scared I’m gonna ruin something he said trust is really important to him. I was taking to one of our shared friends about us and I’m scared I said something he wouldn’t wanted me to say and that he’s not going to trust me now and I keep thinking about how I really should not have talked to her and it’s killing me. I’m also scared that I’m not gonna tell him something that happened in the past because I don’t think it’s important and he’s going to find out and be mad I feel like rocd is ruining my relationship that’s not even a relationship yet. I just keep thinking through all the different scenarios how I could ruin us up or it could work and I promise myself it will be the last time I think about it and it never is and it’s just constant from the moment I wake up to the moment I sleep and then I think maybe Gods just trying to warn me but I’m so exhausted or being this anxious because that doesn’t seem like Him but then maybe it is and I’m just trying to get what I want. I want to ask for help so bad but every time I do it feels like there really isn’t anything wrong and I don’t actually have any ocd. I don’t want to talk to my family about it, when it’s come up before they either make rude comments or make fun of me for it they really just don’t understand and I don’t know what to do anymore. sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it’s worth getting better tbh. Thank you for reading it all if you did :)
I’ve been on Zoloft for 3 years almost for somatic ocd/anxiety/panic attacks and I slowly tapered myself off the correct way because I’ve been good for awhile and I felt like I was gaining weight from it. It’s been almost 2 months off the meds and NOW the last few days my anxiety has been so bad I’ve had no appetite and diarrhea and waves of panic is this me relapsing or a delayed reaction? Am I gonna have to be on meds my whole life because I really hope not :/ idk what to do I don’t wanna go back on my meds tho
My girlfriend, who’s become increasingly controlling, read my therapy notes while I was sleeping (the one thing I told her not to read). She found a note I wrote, forgiving myself about a past guilt that I hadn’t in detail told her about, and she accused me of exactly what I fear about myself. A week later, she left me. I am destroyed. I’ve spent the past week desperately trying to rekindle the relationship, and I had some level of peace. I got heavy reassurance from a friend, but I think this was a trigger. A day later, while still focused on the relationship, my brain shifted to the guilt itself, and it went deeper. I am now back to where I was 2 years ago torturing myself over my real event OCD, and thoughts that I’m afraid to mention. I am losing my mind and can’t talk to the person who always accepted me, who I feel almost cured my OCD for two years. Now, here I am back to this app, I really need help, I feel I’ve lost everything.
tw: slightly nsfw I don't mean something like "I made a sexual joke and a child was nearby " or "I was 19 and thought a 17 y.o. was attractive" Like something actually bad not the "I'm freaking over this because I have OCD" type of situation, but more like "I did something horrible and I happen to have OCD which makes it even worse" type of situation I did some really fucked up sexual stuff at 14-16 and they haunt me.
Or watch violent media and etc, and how does it affect you? Just curious on ppl who deal with it
This is my first post on this app, though I made this account back in late September of 2021. I grew up in a toxic environment, and was mentally abused by my parents, included being taken advantage of because of my autism. I’ve been suffering from OCD as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a child, I’ve sometimes had thoughts that scared me, and I’d often try to find ways to calm myself down. I’ve had thoughts over the smallest and silliest of things, but as time went on, these thoughts suddenly became more violent, like wanting to step in front of moving car while waiting for the bus, or grabbing a knife on the dinner table and using it to stab a family member. Even thoughts of death and what happens afterwards scared me. Aside from being afraid of a kids horror show for a while, OCD did bother me at points in my life, but they never severely crippled me… until my teenage years. Throughout my teen hood, I would very occasionally suddenly imagine fictional child characters being SA’d. I would also sometimes imagine children getting injured while noticing them sometimes. I didn’t know why those thoughts popped up into my head and they would weird me out, but I would be able to usually push them aside and not think about them too much… but it got worse after I was dropped out of high school without my consent by my parents. In March of 2017, I was at a gas station when I saw a child and imagined doing a disgusting action with them. It freaked me out immensely and sent me into a panic attack. I was able to calm down from it shortly after, but I think it planted a seed into my brain, and it would launch a horrific attack on me the very next month. Me and my family were driving around a town for a special occasion when I had the worst OCD attack I’ve ever had. Every child I saw, I imagined doing something disgusting to them. I was having a full blown panic attack and it honestly felt like my mind itself was being sexually assaulted by this horrifying thoughts. This incident scarred me mentally, and to this day, I’m still afraid of being around anyone younger than me. I tried researching what these thoughts could mean, and I found out about these being symptoms of OCD. After talking with a psychiatrist a month later, I was diagnosed with OCD. For a while, I thought I’d be okay from that point. I thought I could conquer this on my own… but by early 2018, I was still struggling. I eventually came out to my older sibling and parents about what I was dealing with. They thankfully didn’t ridicule me, and did help me with getting a therapist. The first visit with my therapist went alright, but I was an emotional mess after finishing the session. The next time I went in however, I was seen by someone else because my therapist was out. The man I saw honestly felt condescending, and he basically made go to a group therapy session. The group therapy didn’t help in the slightest, and with more toxicity developing in my family afterwards, I stopped going after the group therapy. I did see my therapist at least once I think, but that was it. Ever since 2018, I was silent about my OCD. I was just hoping that someday I’d be free of my shackles both from my mental illness and my toxic environment. Two years later though, a friend (now partner) of mine heard about my family’s living situation and wanted to help get me out of there. I first visited them in 2021, and thankfully I stay with them for the most part. That being said, I was still worried about opening up to them about my OCD. I did talk with them about general OCD from time to time, but never got into P OCD… until last year finally. I opened up them fully about it, and both they and their mother told me that they weren’t upset, and that they understood where I was coming from. I think that genuinely helped me out, and I don’t feel as anxious as I did before. Just yesterday, I finally talked about my OCD to my older sibling (they’re super supportive and understand our parents toxicity). I was genuinely nervous about telling them for a while out of fear of them either abandoning me or ratting me out… but they understood. They were accepting and didn’t ridicule me at all. It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders… and honestly, I think I might have the courage to speak up on this app finally and hopefully find a therapist who can help me. I’ve been suffering with P OCD for over 8 years now ever since I was 18. I just recently turned 27 a few days ago. I’ve been suffering in silence for so long due to trauma, fear, and PTSD. But now, I think I want to take a step forward and get onto the road to recovery. It most likely won’t be easy and it won’t happen overnight, but I feel relieved knowing I have people who love and support me, now that I’m in a better environment.
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OCD doesn't have to
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