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working to conquer OCD
I keep reading about cancer risks and people who had it and didn’t know and I just went to my doctor but I want to go back already and recheck because I’m afraid. I just want someone to take a look and screen me for breast cancer because I’m getting pain but also I feel like I need screening for colon cancer because I keep clenching. I don’t know what to do I’m crippled by these fears.
Hello everyone, I wanted to share something that helped me cope with OCD. I have been in therapy for years and different therapists have recommended I name my OCD like it’s a monster. I always had a hard time doing it. I recently tried a different approach and it’s helped me. I realized this week that my OCD isn’t a monster, it’s a younger/teenage version of me who has been through a lot. She is scared and angry and upset at the world, and when she presents herself within me, I talk to her. I don’t yell and scream at her because she’s already yelling and screaming at me (everyone hates you, this is dirty, etc). Instead I talk to her: “You don’t have to scream, you don’t have to cry, it’s alright, you’re right here and now.” Thought this might help someone. We can get through this!
My mind won’t let me trust that my boyfriend loves me and it’s the most frustrating thing ever. Honestly idk if this is rocd but recently we’ve been really great and our relationship has been strengthening so much. He gives me no reason to fear him leaving or anything or even cheating. He’s very loyal and has shown that he loves me. But my brain keeps pushing me away and at the smallest things he does I think maybe he doesn’t and I’m scared to fully put my all into him bc I think I’ll get hurt, every time i notice a small thing I don’t like abt him, it worries me and makes the thoughts worse. Basically to sum it up I won’t let myself just trust that he loves me and that we’ll be okay, I keep focusing on the future and what ifs like if we break up or something happens and it’s like I’m trying to protect myself from the future. It’s so stressful and annoying, I can’t predict the future so I just wish my mind would be calm and let me live my mind. No matter what I do I can’t shake off the fear.
UPDATE: ive reduced my posts to once per day in hopes of trying to overcome this... but right now... i genuinely feel so horrible and anxious that i need to post... (For context, in the past, I have been catfished by a man pretending to be a woman, had a minor on a dating app who lied about her age and i unknowingly flirted with her because I assumed she was 18+ and her bio said so, and sent a n00d to a "woman" online who now I suspect of being a catfish... this is the reason why I'm so scared of whether or not I unknowingly explicitly chatted wjth a minor... i know that this is all my fault, but still...) Its making me feel like I cant remember things properly... making me think i unknowingly explicitly chatted with a minor online or being catfished by a man or kid... making me question every woman Ive ever been flirted with or explicitly chatted with... intrusive thoughts of me "explicitly cybering with a minor or a man" and of me going to jail because my worst fear of "unknowingly cybering with a minor(s), or being catfished by one" coming true... im genuinely depressed... and I feel so alone... uncertainty has brought me nothing but hell... and theres no getting out... it feels like im waiting every day for my intrusive thoughts and fears to be proven right, and ending up with me going to jail... I have never felt more alone... I just keep getting intrusive thoughts that one day, when I become famous or get my dream job, im going to get a future moment of any girl I explicitly cybered with in the past, saying... "Hey, I was a minor when we cybered and while you didnt know, im going to get you arrested or cancelled." Or that im gonna get catfished by a dude pretending to be a woman online... Im genuinely scared of the future... and this is honestly why I dont want to be famous or an influencer... Because not only do i fear someone will "expose" me for my POCD and my Real Events OCD, but im also scared about this entire situation...
Hey everyone it’s been a while since I posted on here. Honestly, I try to stay off of this app unless I really need advice because I find it triggering at times. But right now I’m feeling pretty down and just would like some hopeful and helpful advice. Has anyone ever felt like they’re just not capable of getting out of this? Has anyone ever felt like ERP therapy isn’t working or that they just can’t get it’s a click? . I’ve been in ERP therapy for over a year just about a year and a half actually and I literally feel so stagnant and stuck still. I show up every week I do my exposures, but my body is in such a chronic fight or fight all the time that it feels almost impossible to apply the tools. I’m super sensitive to begin with and I feel things very deeply and because of that it feels like I’m not gonna be able to ever change. It feels like no matter what I do or experience I’m just gonna always feel it so deeply and it’s gonna just rattle me all of the time. I’m honestly so frustrated. I’m tired and I’m overwhelmed. I so badly wanna change these patterns that I have and grow and be out of this OCD spiral, but everything just feels impossible. I’m just wondering if I’m alone here?? Has anyone ever felt this way? Has ERP taken a long time for anyone else or am I the only one that just can’t get my brain to click with it? Any encouraging and helpful words would be greatly appreciated thank you 🙏
My recent theme has been time and time passing. I’m so aware of time passing and nervous about it. I’m nervous that we all die eventually. I’ve always been a normal amount of nervous about this, but it has definitely been more time consuming and anxiety inducing. Anyone have any ERP tips I could do for this? Right now I’ve been telling myself “ya time is passing super quick and you are gonna die eventually” but I want to know if there is anything else I could be doing? I don’t meet with my therapist till next week so thought I would ask on here
! 4 years OCD ! Not giving up ! Thank you for being here! Hello Everyone! I got questions about OCD. It would help so much to get the answers. 1. How do i know if a fear is a real threat or an OCD threat? What is real and what not? 2. Doing exposure, its very scary and so loud. Does anyone know how to make it more comfortable or on what to do if you are doing exposure? 3. If im not doing a compulsion what OCD wants, how do i know if im really safe for the hour, day, week or any time? I want to say THANK YOU to all the people who are helping the people! Nocd is really one of the most best things the world have ever known. It can help people so much. You are real heroes.
Hi guys. Just a question. If you do something subconsciously does it mean it comes from your true self? Because I did something and I’m now realizing I had a bad motive. I’m so anxious right now Im spiraling.
I’m really trying to be better at not washing my hands every second and I proud of myself the days I didn’t give in to compulsions, but today I feel a little defeated. I was getting ready for work and I was trying to cover up a pimple on my face, but I had sunscreen on. I wanted to put a pimple patch so I tunrned around got the paper towel in my bathroom and the towel touched the shower wall. I had a wart 6 months ago and although I didn’t have it on my hand… I did have it on the palm of my foot. I’m almost sure I sprayed Lysol on the wall but I forget because I’m ruminating constantly and my mind likes to play tricks on me. I was also in a rush today for work so that’s triggered the thoughts more. I put more sunscreen on my face to camouflage the pimple patch/ pimple. I’m scared that I contaminated my face . I even looked it up on gpt (which is another compulsion.) it was basically saying the percentage was extremely low. It’s like the answers right there but my mind won’t believe it. And I know you shouldn’t trust everything on google. Too lazy to edit, but a small part I left out was that after touching that part of the towel where I thought is contaminated …. I rolled that part on the floor and broke it off. But then continued to still roll it because the part I touched , had touched the other pieces too. I don’t know if that makes sense. So when I finally had that “just right feeling.” I put the paper towel down , washed my hands again but my hands weren’t as soapy bc it still had the tinted sunscreen on them. Washed my hands more and just got fed up and dried my hands off with the paper towel I still feel is contaminated. Ugh😞. I’ll be honest too after having the wart on my foot, I cleaned the shower in itty bitty sections. I think cleaning the whole thing at once had me overwhelmed and especially the early stages after my wart was gone I didn’t want to clean bc I was nervous I would catch another one. I had used so much Clorox to wipe down where my foot had touched the ground on the shower floor. I don’t think I wiped down the outer perimeter but I’ve recently just sprayed Lysol on the floor . I could be better at cleaning my shower more but it is what it is right now.
I’ve been gone for about a month, mostly because I kept seeing messages on here that felt super anxiety-inducing and not understanding of OCD at all. Honestly, it got to the point where I started getting nervous to even open the app. Lately, I’ve been stuck in this OCD loop that I think might be moral scrupulosity or something like that. I’ve been dealing with this thing where I feel like I have to “challenge” stuff mentally or verbally, like if I don’t say something out loud, it feels super uncomfortable. And the thoughts are about heavy stuff, like assault or deportation or just really morally loaded topics. My brain starts picking everything apart. It’s like I have to look at things fairly, and then I get trapped in all these little technicalities. For example, if someone gets assaulted, my brain fixates on stuff like “what was she wearing”even though I know how harmful that line of thinking is. That is exactly the kind of thing my mind zooms in on. It happens with a bunch of topics too, not just that. I feel like I have to give the benefit of the doubt to the aggressor or see “both sides,” and then I end up doubting the victim. And the worst part is, it feels like I truly believe these devil’s advocate thoughts. It feels so real. It’s like I become convinced that the victim might be lying or that there’s some justification for the harm, and I don’t like it. This even happens with my boyfriend and especially his family. I’ll catch my brain flipping narratives or making me question people I trust. this has been a “habit”for as long as I can remember but now it’s happening so much more. I cannot stop doubting. It feels like I’m siding with people who I should have no doubts to be against. I don’t know what to do or what kind of ERP would work for this. I don’t know how to change this. It’s been apart of me so long, it simply feels like me.
Can harm ocd give you thoughts like when you’re in front of a trigger “why don’t you do it” and sometimes I either freeze don’t know what to do with myself and then an urge to throw the item away. Is this something else? And sometimes I get thoughts like “what if I’m lying to myself” and “do you think you’re lying to yourself”
Is there someone here who can do my diagnosis free? I did self diagnosis and for a year firmly believed its OCD but now I get thoughts that it's not OCD bcz I did on my own. It says it's only bcz your religion prohibits the things you have thoughts about, that's why you repulse them so it's not OCD. I can't take therapy as well so I'm very disturbed
*PLEASE READ* *any help appreciated* So I work with kids and it’s a lightning rod for triggering my POCD. I work with a mental health org that supports kids with autism and other intellectual development disorders. And so I’ve grown really close with one kid since I started since I was his first ever staff and he was the first ever kid I worked with. I’ve grown really protective of him and we’ve become really close and our relationship truly means the world to me. But before I get into my little incident, I have to provide context: so I am hypersexual and struggle with compulsive masturbation and my urges are almost uncontrollable sometimes. I have a lot of trauma from foot fetish stuff/pornography as a kid and it’s carried on into my adult life unfortunately. And so as I was waking up my kid and trying to get him out of bed to get him into the shower (I usually give him a few extra minutes but if he’s uncooperative I have to pull him out of bed gently) and so I just shift him by his legs bc it’s easiest. And my urges and thoughts have been so bad lately and when he wasn’t cooperating, as I was shifting his legs today, his foot touched my private area and I carried on normally but now I feel like a monster and everything I fear. I need some advice bc I’m scared to even talk to my therapist about this bc I think I will go to jail. I don’t want to be like this and I hate POCD so much and I rlly care so much for this kid and would actually die for him to protect him. I just need someone to tell me I’m not crazy bc idk if that contact between us was intentional or not and I have not spiraled like this for so long. I truly am losing my mind and want to give up bc I know I am not the person my POCD tells me I am but now I feel like I am everything it calls me. I feel so ashamed and repulsed and disgusted in myself and wish I didn’t exist. I feel like I’ve exploited my kid and taken advantage of him and that I don’t deserve to have him in my life and that I don’t even deserve to life and would be better off in jail or dead. im so broken and I’m sorry if what im saying is confusing
no matter what situations you guys face, no matter how difficult, you will get through it!
I stated dating my boyfriend about 3 months ago. This is my first boyfriend ever. He’s been in 2 serious relationships in the past and multiple sexual partners. I’ve had neither. When we first started dating/ at one point were just friends, he told me a lot about the last girl he was in a relationship including their sex life. Fast forward to us dating for about a month and I found out he had been texting her. We almost broke up. But also for context she broke up with him because she figured out she was a lesbian. But still… anyways we moved past it. And now… I’m sure we can all see this coming… I have this theme! I think about his ex gf all the time. I stalk her on social media and try to find hints and clues about their relationship. I compare myself to her. It really impacts my relationship because I’ll get mad at him for no reason. For example we went thrifting recently and he picked out stuff that completely wasn’t my style, but was hers. Which made me spiral. Is he purposely dressing me like her? Does he want me to be someone else, someone like her? The whole texting her thing was put in the past. I’ve forgiven him. But I can’t help but have resentment towards him and think/ visualize all these thoughts about them together and how I’ll never measure up to that. It makes me think I shouldn’t have got into a relationship. That maybe I’m better off by myself. But like all of us. I wish I didn’t have these thoughts. I wish I could believe he liked me for me. But sometimes it’s really hard.
Hi Everyone - has anyone else had problems with executive functioning - forgetting things, multitasking, attention, not following directions closely, etc. ? If so, what do you do to help? I brought this up to my therapist and she mentioned that I wouldn’t need a therapist Or specialist/coach to work on it - as it would be skills we know to do (take notes, put on reminders, etc). However, I’ve been struggling with OCD for years and none of these “tips” have helped enough. I have had trouble multitasking/ remembering details/forgetting things with jobs and had to quit. It even applies when I am at home - one thing goes in one ear and out the other. I also do not have or been diagnosed with ADHD or any other disorders (just depression from OCD). Does anybody have suggestions? Is it just to manage my OCD better and these things will get better with that? I don’t recall how I was when my OCD was “good” or in better shape (Up until age 18) to gauge this as I didn’t have a job or other life responsibilities. Only thing I can think of is maybe I am so caught up in my head that is causing these issues, aka the severe OCD. Thanks!
If you’re sensetive to the topic of divorce, needles, or self harm don’t read this. I’m really sorry for how long this is going to be I promise it has a point. So this morning I woke up. It was around 11 when I woke up. I had to get in the shower for a dentist appointment I had to get a cavity filled, which is literally horrible. I can’t describe how much I fucking hate getting my teeth filled the pain of the needle is so bad and the dentist is awful for me because I always think about how many other mouths might’ve touch the equipment. I got a shower and just went with my hair wet and I noticed a huge bruise on my leg from my bf accidentally kneeling on me and I thought about how much it hurt and I worried that the bruise might become something else because I read up on how sometimes small bruises can lead to really horrible blood pooling and internal bleeding. I got in the car and me and my dad left to go to my dentist appointment. When I was sitting waiting I was sitting alone with no distractions so I thought a lot. I thought about how this is the second dentist appointment I’ve been to in a month that my hair was wet for and how my dentist probably thinks my hair is greasy and that im gross. When my dentist gave me the needle to freeze me my vision went a bit wonky and I remember worrying that he sent the freezing to my nervous system and how this was just gonna be how my vision gets stuck forever. They finished the filling and I worried that my invisiline treatment would stop working because of the slight change from the filling and how I’d waste thousands of my parents dollars from one filling. When I was coming from the dentist my mom texted that she was taking me somewhere to eat so I went home with my dad and waited for her to come get me. We went to eat and it was amazing. And for context me and my mom usually can’t get through a car ride without being at each others throats. She even bought me a slice of cheese cake to take home. We got home and I was talking to my parents about whatever. I went into my kitchen to snack on something and my dad told me to get out of the cupboards. He told me to come here and sit down. I thought he was gonna tell me that I need to diet. I asked worriedly what they wanted to talk about. My dad said “oh just life and stuff” I figured they were gonna tell me some type of advice. That they were gonna give me the talk (I’m a teenager in a teenage relationship so this makes sense) I remember the hot feeling of the anxiety in my body. Of what he might tell me. Up until this point my life was all those worries I talk about in my so far day. My life was wake up worry about crazy impossible shit, worry about everything, the worst thing in my life to this point was my self harm that I ended up falling into around 2 years ago (I’m clean for the most part now). Up until this point my parents were together for 18 years. But today my parents sat me down and told me they’re separating. Right when my life finally felt so right. When the only issue was my ocd. When that was my complaint. There’s no one to blame for it. It’s just how life ended up happening. I’m so utterly confused. I don’t even know what to think. For the first time in my entire life I have no idea what to think. It is impossible for my brain to muster up something, anything. I just can’t. And the last time I felt like I couldn’t think I cut myself. And I can’t do that. I just feel so freaking lost. My life is about to begin. I’m about to graduate high school this coming year. And my senior year. My last year. It about to be so hard in so many ways. I just can’t. And I feel so alone in this because their separation is gonna go so smoothly with no issues they have it all figured out and they still love eachother. So I can’t complain that it’s gonna be messy. My brothers still very young so he’ll deal with it differently. And any of my friends who have divorced parents their parents divorces were messy and horrible and they were all so young when it happened. But I’ll be a legal adult next year. So I feel like I’m not supposed to be upset about it because it happen to me later in life. I just really don’t know.
Hi! I have just recently been diagnosed with OCD and it’s come as kind of a shocker to me. My friends aren’t that surprised (most of them are psych majors lol) but my parents/family are very skeptical and have been telling me that it’s just anxiety. I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and severe depression when I was 14. I’ve had hydroxyzine NPR since then and I’ve tried lexapro and propanalyl (both made me feel like i was going crazy) and then was misdiagnosed as having bipolar 1 (hypomania). I finally have found a therapist that specializes in OCD and we did the assessment and concluded that my anxiety/depression has stemmed from it. Most likely I have experienced my OCD symptoms since I was 11 (when my anxiety first appeared) and I am now 21. I mostly have obsessions, but I do have a few compulsions. Most of them relate to my personal space or social settings. I have a good amount of driving anxiety as well and I have a set route for every single place that I drive to regularly. I have a set morning routine that I am only comfortable with being disturbed when I have had ample time to prepare myself for a change. This new diagnosis and learning what it is and what the different types are has kind of uprooted my social life and drastically decreased my mental health. I guess I’m here to try to find some balance and some people who actually understand what it’s like to feel like there’s something wrong with your brain and no way to “fix” it. I’ve tried talking to my friends/bf/family and none of them truly understand or could even begin to imagine what it’s like inside my head. I’m just trying to find my bearings and feel the ground under my feet, but I don’t exactly know where to start.
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