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One of my ocd symptoms is hyperfixations, and i fixate on my girlfriend’s face- like, itd as if my ocd tries figuring out if something’s wrong This has caused me to avoid looking at her because ocd numbs my feelings from the anxiety- i have difficulty video calling, she doesn’t mind at all cause she doesn’t really video call w me (were in an ldr, she just doesnt really mind it at all) but i still mind. I love her, shes my beautiful princess and it enfuriates me that i cant get in touch with my real feelings cause of this :’( Same thing is happening with like, intrusive feelings aggainst her like random irritability- its so exhausting, im very tired, but im NOT irritated at her. Its disgusting how repulsive i feel to certain actions she does when she asks me for help, like, its as if I’m anxious and overwhelmed cause I have to help her with a lot of stuff, but I am not irritated or mad at her, thats intrusive :’( but it bugs me that its here :’( She knows about my intrusive feelings im just so frustrated

So I’m a musician and I just realized today that I don’t really intentionally listen to music anymore or discover new music. I’m Always listening to the same stuff. And I have made so many “happy playlists” for myself. If I heard a song that was sad I wouldn’t want to listen because I didn’t want to cry. And I realized I’ve lost a sense of my taste in music. I don’t know what music I truly like anymore because every time I played music it was so that I can have it in the background and “Happy and upbeat music” to ignore or distract myself from my intrusive thoughts. Which I realize now is compulsive behavior. I’m learning more to embrace my fear and uncomfortable emotions. So I’m challenging myself to listen to new music of all kinds. Even if it brings up negative emotions I want to embrace it 🩷. Has anyone else done this or something similar?

I'm worried I'm gonna get hurt. There is a guy I'm talking to and we plan to hangout soon. We have been talking for awhile and have talked at school. I have a few ex boyfriends, two to be exact. One turned out to be awful, but I found out early on because a bunch of women came to me with their concerns of how he creeper them out and used to send them weird messages, he also for awhile would have people message me to get me BACK MONTHS LATER. My other ex was a good guy, but extremely shy and bad with expressing feelings. It didn't feel like I was his girlfriend. That being said I now kinda assume (mainly from the awful guy) that everyone is gonna turn out to be awful and that I can't trust my judgement. This guy I got now knew stuff about ocd already, loves horror movies and art like me, loves cat, good with kids and has a little brother, he remembers little things I say and sends me pretty pictures of the sky and forests when he is out, he warns me when he is sleepy incase he falls asleep when we are texting at night, he knows alot about mental health. He is everything I could want and I just can't believe it's real, that someone like this exists and out of all people LIKES ME. My brain is telling me he could secretly be racist or homophonic or a rapist and I just don't know. My friend who barely knows him and has never spoken to him before but is good at reading people says he is 9 out of 10 percent sure he isn't any of those things. which considering they have never talked or anything it's good. But idk I don't trust myself. I'm scared he will crush my heart. I went through his following on insta to look for people of other races and sexualitys. He follows a girl who is a friend of a friend of mine who is gay, the smosh account and Ian Hecox, he follows Good Mythical Morning and Link (idk why not rhett), and I once joked that I was better then him and he said we are all equal and has said things like he doesn't Haye anyone we were all babies once and stuff like that. I wanna trust my self and my friend but idk.

TW: Trauma , ab*se( I dont want to trigger anyone,I hope I won't) I just cant move on from a horrible mistake.When I was 16 a kid told me another kid hurt them.It was very bad.It was an abuse..and I didnt do anything.And honestly I am scared, Idk what to do right now.I want to apologise because I didnt help them..to apologise to their parents, tell them, but I am scared they will blame me( ik,I am a foul) .I am ashamed because I am scared.I could have helped the kid and I didnt.And the fact that the kid trusted me and I didnt help them is killing me.I am so sorry.I want to apologise , do something now,but it might be too late and I dont want to trigger or scare the kid.And since then I got the same ,horrible , repetitive thoughts when I see the kid: what happened, how I didn't help, how terrible it must been, especially because they trusted me.I cant stop these thoughts.Is a cycle.I am thinking that I am complice because I didn't help and that I am a criminal and should be punished.I will go to a therapist soon and Idk how to start telling them about these thoughts.I wish I can go back in time...

I feel like I did something bad now because I went to put the blanket on my brother and my hand was close to his back I had a thought before like “it’s time to touch him” and I stood up and he was on a call but he was sleeping so now I’m like why did I stood up? Was it to take the iPad or what exactly? I feel like a child molester I don’t remember touching his area or butt because I didn’t but I had my hand near his back I asked my brother if I did anything he said no I asked if I did anything when I put the blanket over him he said he was sleeping so that doesn’t reassure me So I almost acted on it?

So Im staying at my uncles house until Saturday or Sunday and I feel like I’m filthy and making his house infected and idk what to do so when I first got here his house had grass I walked through to get to the door so I made sure to wipe my feet at the door and leave my shoes close to the door but I still feel,like I’m infecting his house he gave me and my little brother a room to sleep in and the first think I think of is how I need to wash the sheets when I leave. The first day was hard because I couldn’t shower and I felt so dirty because we had to go on a walk and I was sweating and we also had to water the grass outside and I had the same socks on as I did yesterday and I just felt like they were filthy and I was walking with those socks around the house so now his carpet is filthy and the bed I was laying in is now filthy. And I couldn’t shower because I didn’t have any cleaning supplies to clean it after I was done because I didn’t want to wash in their shower and now clean it afterwards. But I got someone at the store and took a shower and changed clothes and I felt weird about where to put my dirty clothes I hung them on the shower curtain rod but I feel like I just infected the rod. And afterwards I tried to spray off the shower with some Clorox foam cleaner but I feel like I didn’t clean it good and even feel bad about cleaning it because I was afraid the chemicals I tried rinsing off the shower and the bottles I was using in the shower but still feel like it’s infected. And don’t get me started on how I feel about the bags I’m keeping my clean clothes in and also the other bag I’m keeping my dirty clothes the bags are laying on the floor and I feel like my clean clothes are getting dirty from the floor and my dirty clothes are dirtying the floor and the towel I was using I used to dry the bathroom floor and asked where to put my towel he said on the dryer but there was stuff on it so I put it on a box above the dryer but I feel like I just infected everything and also Ik he touched the towel WHST if he gets THISE germs on his kids . Also the covers me and my little brother were using fell on the ground and his kids were playing in them and stuff like that but my little brother said it was fine and still used them but idk and his cover he brought touched my dirty clothes and the floor and he still used them and I just feel kinda ill about that. And today me feeling filthy just multiplied because I can’t SHOWER again today because someone’s toys are in the shower and idk how to get clean becuase we leave soon and idk what to do do I just change clothes? Idk about wipes because I can’t just ask for baby wipes and now I’m walking around with no socks because I only brought one pair and my others ones were put in my dirty clothes bag and now I have to go places no socks just in my flip flops. And last night I went to the restroom because I didn’t want to have an accident in the night because I’m always anxious about that stuff and I went but I feel like I just infected their toilet and I washed my hands after but I went back into bed but my feet touched the bathroom floor so now the bed is hay I feel actually infected and since I’m laying in it I’m infected too. Idk why I woke up so depressed and feel so filthy and guilty idk if it was the pose I was sleeping in or if I think I had an accident idk but we a lot of places to go today and idk what to do I was going to get Lysol at the store today to spray stuff but I don’t think I can get everything and I feel so sick he has kids what if I give them bad germs I can’t live with that

So Im staying at my uncles house until Saturday or Sunday and I feel like I’m filthy and making his house infected and idk what to do so when I first got here his house had grass I walked through to get to the door so I made sure to wipe my feet at the door and leave my shoes close to the door but I still feel,like I’m infecting his house he gave me and my little brother a room to sleep in and the first think I think of is how I need to wash the sheets when I leave. The first day was hard because I couldn’t shower and I felt so dirty because we had to go on a walk and I was sweating and we also had to water the grass outside and I had the same socks on as I did yesterday and I just felt like they were filthy and I was walking with those socks around the house so now his carpet is filthy and the bed I was laying in is now filthy. And I couldn’t shower because I didn’t have any cleaning supplies to clean it after I was done because I didn’t want to wash in their shower and now clean it afterwards. But I got someone at the store and took a shower and changed clothes and I felt weird about where to put my dirty clothes I hung them on the shower curtain rod but I feel like I just infected the rod. And afterwards I tried to spray off the shower with some Clorox foam cleaner but I feel like I didn’t clean it good and even feel bad about cleaning it because I was afraid the chemicals I tried rinsing off the shower and the bottles I was using in the shower but still feel like it’s infected. And don’t get me started on how I feel about the bags I’m keeping my clean clothes in and also the other bag I’m keeping my dirty clothes the bags are laying on the floor and I feel like my clean clothes are getting dirty from the floor and my dirty clothes are dirtying the floor and the towel I was using I used to dry the bathroom floor and asked where to put my towel he said on the dryer but there was stuff on it so I put it on a box above the dryer but I feel like I just infected everything and also Ik he touched the towel WHST if he gets THISE germs on his kids . Also the covers me and my little brother were using fell on the ground and his kids were playing in them and stuff like that but my little brother said it was fine and still used them but idk and his cover he brought touched my dirty clothes and the floor and he still used them and I just feel kinda ill about that. And today me feeling filthy just multiplied because I can’t SHOWER again today because someone’s toys are in the shower and idk how to get clean becuase we leave soon and idk what to do do I just change clothes? Idk about wipes because I can’t just ask for baby wipes and now I’m walking around with no socks because I only brought one pair and my others ones were put in my dirty clothes bag and now I have to go places no socks just in my flip flops. And last night I went to the restroom because I didn’t want to have an accident in the night because I’m always anxious about that stuff and I went but I feel like I just infected their toilet and I washed my hands after but I went back into bed but my feet touched the bathroom floor so now the bed is hay I feel actually infected and since I’m laying in it I’m infected too. Idk why I woke up so depressed and feel so filthy and guilty idk if it was the pose I was sleeping in or if I think I had an accident idk but we a lot of places to go today and idk what to do I was going to get Lysol at the store today to spray stuff but I don’t think I can get everything and I feel so sick he has kids what if I give them bad germs I can’t live with that

I feel like a horrible person. I am in AA and this guy who is older than me but part of my community is funny to talk to sometime and I feel like I flirt sometimes? Anyways he invited me to go to Fourth of July things today and he was kind of flirting back and I immediately got uncomfortable… Here is why I feel uncomfortable… he is like 42 and he has a hunchback from an accident he sustained I believe and he is not the most attractive in my eyes… I feel horrible for even saying that and I feel horrible because brain said “you know if he was hot, you wouldn’t hesitate to go activities with him” My therapist and I talked about how we are influenced by the what the world tells us is beautiful or not, but I am feel like a TERRIBLE person. So now my ocd is saying that is not what God would want you to do or something like that and I feel in danger… Someone please tell me what to do… I am so ashamed

Hi I’m new to the community and I have such weird ocd tendencies I was curious to see if anyone else has so I’m just going to list them in no specific order: 1. My brain goes “I hope” every time I think of something bad happening. Like “I hope that pedestrian gets hit by a car” or “I hope a demon snatches me under the bed right now.” 2. I have dermatillomania mostly on my arms, chest, face, and shoulders. If I have a bunch of open wounds on my body, I make myself feel “cleaner” by doing an everything shave in the shower. Conversely, if I’m having a period of mostly healed skin, I like to leave my body hair growing out for a couple days as a way to gloat to myself how “clean” I am even without shaving. 3. After my whole life living with these symptoms, most of them I’m able to brush off. But this next one still shakes me and disturbs me to my core every time it happens and it’s picturing sex acts with people I would NEVER want to do sex acts with. My earliest memory of this is when I was a little kid, as young as 5 years old, I had an image in mind of what I thought God looked like. Every time I would imagine God, I would automatically imagine him naked and I would shove my head under the pillow and shut my eyes tightly and try to make the image go away because I thought I was being blasphemous by imagining such a thing. 4. This one is relatively new, the past year or two, but cutting my own bangs. The only reason I consider it an ocd tendency and not just self sufficiency is because I SUCK at it and botch it every time!!! But I keep trying to find the perfect parting that contours to all the existing cowlicks and kinks in my hair and try to carve out my “natural bangs.” I convince myself a hairdresser is just not familiar enough with my hair growth patterns to give me what I want. This one is particularly embarrassing because it’s like I’m wearing my mental illness on my face. I have been wearing a headband for the past year to try and hide it but it doesn’t stop me from cutting it again because I am so insistent to get it right. I always regret it after. 5. I don’t know if this one is ocd but I suspect it might be and it’s that I rarely ever am not drinking water. If I finish a glass I’m filling up another one. Sometimes it will be a different beverage like coffee or matcha but I almost always am sipping compulsively on something. I use the bathroom about once every hour and 3-4 each night. That’s all I can think of for now but I wanted to share some atypical traits to see if anyone relates! This isn’t by any means all of my ocd tendencies unfortunately:/ just the ones I’ve never heard anyone else share before!

Anybody here worried about this bill that just passed? My OCD is firing up again. I’m a community college student here in California who is about to turn 26 this mid November, which means I’m going to be booted off of my father’s health insurance as the law requires. And right now, my mental health (OCD that I’m trying to get diagnosed, anxiety, depression, PTSD that I’m trying to get diagnosed) is the worst that it’s probably ever been!!! And I don’t see it getting miraculously better anytime soon, these conditions are definitely chronic and will be following me for the rest of my life due to my long history of them (never got formal help until I was 16 though). I’ve been battling this stuff since I was just a little girl in the 2000s. After I turn 26 this year, I was just planning to enroll in Medicaid (Medi-Cal) when the time came so I could focus on continuing my schooling and treating my severe mental health issues along the way. I was actually feeling hopeful for once about my life. It’s going to be absolutely devastating if I lose healthcare coverage just because I won’t be able to bypass the red tape being put into place and meet those rigid requirements that the bill is going to require. There is only so much I can handle at one time due to my disabilities. I admire people who can do so many things at once (work a job, go to school, take care of children, etc.), but it’s just not me. It’s a miracle after everything, that I’m even in school and doing okay with it (4.0 GPA). I’m even enrolled in my school’s DSPS (program for disabled students). There has to be something that can be done. Losing my access to psych meds and therapy is going to make my life so much harder than it already is. It could probably even straight up kill me, which would be devastating for my family to have see me pass so horribly. Whether it’s from untreated mental illnesses or from the simple fact that I could get sick and die from whatever else due to not being able to access healthcare. Sorry for the long post. But I seriously cannot be alone in this right now…

I opened one of my old bibles and it was mark 13 talking about Jesus second coming which is what I’ve been thinking about a lot recently because it’s a heavy topic right now and my ocd also clings to that and I try and pray and pray but I wonder if He was speaking to me telling me He is coming soon because I never ever read that bible I just felt like looking at it and now I don’t know what to do with the information if it was confirmation that he’s coming soon I don’t know how soon or he’s telling me to get ready and I’m kind of afraid and don’t know how to find comfort.

I have contamination ocd, and one of my compulsions is avoiding eating non-cooked food prepared by other people. I had a session with my family to plan accommodation reduction two months ago, and this compulsion was on there but we decided to focus on other accommodations first. Tonight my mom made fresh food (totally fine), but acted very offended and angry when I couldn’t eat it. I get where she’s coming from, she worked hard on the meal and it sucks that I couldn’t make myself eat it. But it also sucks that she knows this is a compulsion and can’t be understanding. Maybe I need to explain this compulsion to her better? In the family session we talked about the compulsion but not about the specific underlying obsessive thought (today my mom specifically said that I had to explain why I wasn’t eating and I didn’t). I’m really sad that OCD is affecting my relationship with her in this way.

I’m currently in a very emotionally stressful situation with my partner. We had a huge argument because I did something I had promised not to do again: I looked at my ex-partner’s profile. To me, it didn’t have any real emotional meaning. It was impulsive, meaningless, almost automatic. But my partner was deeply hurt – and I understand why. I told him about it. We talked. It was hard. But after that, things got even worse for me. I suddenly remembered that it didn’t just happen once. And since then, I’ve been stuck in this thought loop and I don’t know if it’s OCD or not So, should I tell him that it was more than once?”– if I should tell him, even if it might mean he’ll leave me. Should I confess this? I urgently need advice. I don’t know if this is OCD or not – the thought suddenly came to me in that situation. I have been formally diagnosed with OCD. But if I know that my partner would see this as very serious and might possibly leave me over it – shouldn’t I still tell him? I feel so awful and I’m having panic attacks. Is this OCD?

I’m a Christian with religious OCD something I’ve always wondered as a Christian is why did God send Jesus to die on the cross why didn’t God die on the cross? Every time I think about that, my OCD calls God a bad word. even as I’m typing this, my mind is calling that bad word I don’t mean it and I don’t understand it. I know I would never say that last night when I had that thought I felt so sick. I ran to the bathroom because I thought I was going to throw up. it’s terrible and something that is not true, I’m sure you guys can figure it out it starts with a p. I don’t wanna kill myself, but I feel like that’s the only option (edited)

My ex boyfriend broke up with me last summer and it was really rough on me even thought we only dated for a little while. He treated me terribly but I guess I wanted it to work. However during the fall I was healing well and met my current boyfriend. I knew him as a kid and we reconnected and started dating. It’s the most WONDERFUL relationship ever and I love him so much. However for the past couple months, on and off, I have been obsessively thinking about my ex, to the point of feeling so sick to my stomach. Just the thought will do it. I have been stopping myself from checking his instagram because that just makes it worse. I do not want me ex back at all and I am so happy now. I recognize these thoughts as intrusive and hurtful. I just want them to stop and be in the moment. Has anyone had a similar experience? What did u do? Also, I want to tell my boyfriend about this but I am unsure on how to do so.

The past month or so I have been in and out of OCD spirals. I’ll have a couple days of spiraling and then a couple days of being better. Then a couple days spiraling and then a couple days doing better. Today is one of those days where I can feel the anxiety under the surface and where I am monitoring it to see/keep it in check. Yesterday I was good, I had good dialogue in my mind, I was content with making mistakes in the past, but being a better human and person these days going forward. I can feel the ebb and flow of it today where the anxiety spikes, my internal dialogue say “am I going to freak out”, “confess this”, “say that”, “don’t say that”, “I’m a bad person”, “I’m a good person that is learning and growing every day” etc etc. Then the anxiety comes down, my mind feels clearer, less noisy and less physical feeling, and I feel like I don’t care about the OCD and me as much. Just been feeling the ebbs and flows of OCD over the course of months and days, and even within the day itself.

This is really hard for me to post and put out here, I'm not diagnosed with OCD, I just recently started talk therapy. But when I was a child my mom speculated because I had OCD. Because I would have compulsions from intrusive thoughts that always stemmed around SA. Everything for me gets stuck in a record player and a spiral and I can't stop. This is a really concerning and disturbing one, so I thought I would warn again if the topic seems too much for many people. I just recently learned about false memeory OCD and its the only explanation I can come up with right now. I've never shared an intrusive thought out loud but this one is too much. I have been in a really intense spiral lately, where I keep having these extremely vivid memeories of me sexually assaulting people not in my body like I'm sleep walking. It's extremely disturbing and I've convinced myself I have this sort of alter identity or a sleep disorder that is violent. Ive looked up a bunch of disorders like that. I asked a few people if I sleep walk but they don't remember me ever doing something like that, but what if they somehow surpressed a memeory too? I want to bring this up to my therapist, but I have been afraid to because it is so much and a spiral that has lasted for the course of months now and I have ruined my mental health and relationships because of it. I am extremely paranoid that everyone is lying to me or plotting to hurt me. But not because I think they are bad, but because I believe I deserve it. It got to the point where I now have memories of people trying to tell me I am creepy and that I had done things to SA them, along with memories of people talking while I'm not in the room about it. And I genuinely can't tell if it's real or not because I swear they are actual events that I just never put too much thought into in the past or completely dissociated from. (My main response to anything too much or difficult is to dissociate.) It's actually concerning me and the people around me because if it's true then I don't think I should be around society. I don't eat right, I'm too afraid to sleep without my door locked, I am unemployed with no sense of direction out of highschool because of it. It all stemmed from a surpressed memeory , witch who knows is real now, where my ex calls me and tells me I assaulted him, and that he was going to get me back, and that he had spread explicit photos of me. Now I genuinely feel like there is evidence to back up this because he brings up all my coworkers I had at the time, and I have memories of them making strange comments to me. If I somehow assaulted this guy without having an ounce of social awareness of what I was doing was assault then I feel like I absolutely deserve every ounce of mental spiral that is consuming me and worse. And I don't know how to stop this. And I'm afraid if I tell my therapist she might put me in a hospital and my family just doesn't have the money for that, and neither do I as an individual. The guilt would consume me. But I'm pretty sure I have no choice at this point. Because anouther "memory" resurfaced where I took a nightmare I had a long time ago and somehow turned it into me being Sexually assaulted by my father this time, and now I can't look at him or my family without absolute disgust. And I have "memories" of my family trying to talk to me about it but I completely forgot the event and processed it like a dream. I can't tell if something really creepy is actually happening or not but I'm starting to think it is because the way my brother acts around my family is weird but it could be my paranoia and the fact I have been freaking out everyone around me with my mental health. Either way I need to tell a professional because if I DID hurt my ex seriously, I need to take every ounce of accountability. But I don't wanna confess to a memory I don't even fully understand myself. I thought about contacting him several times and asking him if I have ever caused pain, but he blocked me and I feel like that crosses boundaries he has clearly set. Also I don't want to put this mental crisis on any other people, because my family is already freaked out enough. After writing this all out I'm starting to believe I really should force myself to tell my therapist no matter the consequences, I just feel like I need to admit this to a someone to get over my fear of saying it all out loud. Because everyday and every night I keep being plagued by these unwanted flashes of either me being hurt or me hurting other people In really disturbing and terrible ways. and it feels completely real with like context I've made to back it up. Am I unconsciously creepy? I'm just afraid I've become my worse fear and I was it without knowing my whole life.

can a false memory feel very very very real? because i literally don’t know if something happened or not. absolutely no clue but it feels so real

Can hocd create mental feelings or things that resemble inclinations Without a physical response?, but such as arousal and mental attraction, for example, I have so ocd and I'm afraid that I might like women.So, in the last period, when I look at photos of girls, especially beautiful ones, I feel something strange or attracted,sometimes their bodies.And I'm confused as to what that might mean, it's like sexual orientation, is this from me or OCD produced by it?'The feeling is like the feeling of discovering new inclinations and this breaks me, I just want to reconcile with myself in any sexual orientation or identity, but I just can't feel comfortable and reconcile with the fact that I may like women or it may happen in the future.And I have these feelings that telling me messing around the girls would be fun, and I feel something like desire, but I never come to terms with this.. I'm going to be 15 years old, I know, I'm not supposed to think like that, I don't have the right to determine who I am now because im young, and I shouldn't continue to dream of marrying a man..My mind keeps reminding me of the fact that I'm a teenager and the likelihood that everything will change is high, but right now, I'm not asking for anything but rest.I want to love myself and reconcile with her.

How do fellow OCD people feel about horror? I feel like us OCD people have such high anxiety and intrusive disturbing thoughts that i assume a lot of us ignore or avoid horror. I find that i love it but my OCD doesn’t. It’s good exposure. I also feel emotional dysregulation so it intensifies the experience.