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This is about OCD but also I just want to rant, I feel very lonely at times. My dad died when I was very young & as the oldest daughter I feel like I’ve had to be strong my entire life. My friends & family love and support me but for some reason I’ve never felt comfortable being vulnerable or discussing my feelings. Everyone tells me I’m the person they go to for advice/support but I have never once opened up to anyone, it almost feels impossible to do so. I mask so well that none of my friends or family know I struggle. No one has ever seen me cry. Also, as a college student with a small group of friends who go out of state, I don’t have many friends in my area so that contributes to feeling isolated. I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, anxiety, & ADHD. As long as I can remember I’ve felt like a bad person and undeserving of love unless i prove myself by being good or useful. I try to keep myself working, volunteering & double majoring in school to feel worthy of love. I genuinely do love life & am so thankful because I feel very blessed. I have good friends & family. But I also feel isolated. (Ik I isolate myself but at the same time I don’t know how to stop). Anyways back in December I broke up with my bf who I had dated for yearsss. He really violated my trust & cheated on me after making me feel crazy for so long & swearing he would never betray me again. It hurt deeply. But ofc I handled it the only way I know how. By being strong. I self isolated. I didn’t tell any of my friends for weeks that we broke up and when I did, I didn’t tell them why (to preserve his image). No one saw how badly it hurt me. To everyone else I seemed fine. I started coping with it in embarrassing ways. I had casual sex with multiple people very quickly that clearly only wanted that from me & didn’t care about me as a person. I am ashamed of this. I’ve stopped meeting new people and decided that’s not the way I want to be and I want to put my energy into healthy outlets. But sometimes in moments of weakness I have had relations with past people (wanting to feel loved & desired & wanted). Anyways my recent theme of OCD has been health + morality related, specifically the fear that I have an STD. I started having some bodily sensations (that i’ve had in the past & aren’t STD related) and started worrying that I may have an STD. When I get health anxiety, I sometimes avoid doctors. I did that for about a month but finally scheduled an appt for Monday. But now the guilt is eating at me and saying “what if you had an STD this whole time & knowingly gave it to others bc you avoided doctors?” That causes me a lot of guilt & shame. I know this is OCD so I’m trying not to ask for reassurance. Sorry that was so long, this is the first time I’ve ranted in a very long time. I just want someone to see me.

I would like to raise awareness for an OCD subtype that is almost never talked about and is not included in the official OCD subtypes. This subtype includes obsessions about: 1. Thinking that something is wrong with your brain 2. Being convinced that you have forgotten how to think 3. Being convinced and paranoid that you have lost your inner voice 4. Being extremely afraid that you have lost the ability to feel 5. Being hyperaware of every thought, tracing it back to see how it occurred 6. Being convinced that something is wrong with you when something doesn’t go the way you expected it 7. Thinking that you are not thinking about it in the right way when trying to think your way out of it Compulsions include: 1. Mentally trying to figure it out 2. Trying to prove to your self that nothing is wrong with you 3. Putting your life at a stop until you figure it out 4. Excessive googling, using chat bots, reddit, researching, reading books & trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle I am sure there are other people who relate to this. This subtype isn’t mentioned anywhere and it’s really confusing for those experiencing it. Please, if you feel or think in a similar way like this post and reply in order to raise awareness.

I have false memory ocd and harm ocd and I’ve really lost it this time, I read an article about a girl going missing in my city and I convinced myself I had something to do with it and don’t remember cause I had 1 drink a month ago in the pub with my gf. The girl herself commented saying she wasn’t missing and I became obsessed with checking her page to make sure she was ok, I then blocked her to stop myself getting in the spiral of checking but in a moment of panic I unblocked her and I saw that she liked a video about being blocked so now I think that was in response to me. My gf told keeps telling me I did nothing wrong that night and it’s just my ocd again and I’d remember if anyhting bad happened cause I only had one drink and that girl doesn’t know me so it’s just a coincidence that she liked a video about blocking but I worry about it all day everyday, I just can’t stop checking or trying to find a way to ‘prove’ nothing happened, the more I check the worse it gets, I’ll going to lose my gf if this keeps up, I know she’s getting tired of my ocd, pls help

I’ve been struggling so much these past few weeks. I’ve been so anxious and just have had nonstop crazy,weird disgusting thoughts and idk anymore. Like I’m not diagnosed but I recently researched about it and it explained everything I’ve been experiencing like exactly. But I’m also very young so idk what’s happening I’m just so confused. I barely slept today cause the thoughts just wouldn’t stop. I have only told my dad about what’s been happening and he told me that he does want to help me and stuff and find someone that could help me but then I just feel like he dosent care, like when I talked to him about it about how I suspect I had it he just like completely changed the subject. But he did bring it up yesterday which was good i guess. And I’ve posted here before and people have been really nice and told me that just because I’m not diagnosed that doesn’t mean my experiences aren’t valid and I appreciated that a lot but I don’t know I just keep doubting everything. I’m also worried because my brother actually has OCD and ADHD and more stuff and I know how stressful it was for my parents to understand him and stuff and if I turn out to actually have OCD as well then I just feel like I’m going to be something else they have to worry about and stress about.

i have been dealing with anxiety and ocd like symptoms for the my whole life but they’ve gotten worse the past 2-3 years. im not diagnosed nor on any medications. my boyfriends has been with me nearly every step of the way of this anxiety and is a great help to me. i was raised in a family where anxiety is “just part of life” and everytime i try to talk to my parents about it they shut me down saying things like “i get anxious too” or “you need to work out more”. while i’ve tried to do the things they recommend, eating healthy, working out, staying off my phone, my anxiety is very much still there. i experience obsessions and compulsions frequently but have just learned to deal with them because i had to. they’re also not always constant anymore, i do have days without anxiety. my boyfriend has recently started lexapro and is on 5 milligrams for his own anxiety and he said that he feels so much better even after just two weeks and he thinks it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try to get on it myself. i agreed at first but after talking to my parents they again made me feel like my anxiety wasn’t bad enough or that i was making it up and that i didn’t need medication, i just needed to learn how to manage. yesterday i had another conversation with my boyfriend about this and he said he felt really bad about all the stuff i go through. (this anxiety and also some physical issues which is either EDS or POTS) but to me, and how my parents think of the whole situation, i think im fine “because its just part of life” now im afraid that im shutting out my own emotions bc thats how my parents think i should be. i just don’t know what to do. i know my bf is right and that im not a liar and everything i experience is real but i’ve gotten so good at living with it and its not as often that its debilitating that i don’t think i deserve medication. i don’t even know if its actually ocd because im not diagnosed but i talk to my brother and one of my friends (who are diagnosed) and we go through the same things. idk what to do or how to feel. i know my bf is worried about me but i don’t want to be dramatic or let my anxiety control my life

Hi all. I’m writing this because I can’t stop spiraling and I don’t know who to talk to without feeling judged. I (27F) have OCD, so emotional safety and perceived red flags are something I hyper-analyze. My boyfriend (24M) and I are in a long-distance relationship, Im just on vacation right now . We’ve had our ups and downs, but overall, it’s a loving connection. That’s why this particular moment is bothering me so much. Last night, we were on a video call, flirting. At one point I said, “Go to the bathroom first,” before things got more intimate (he has a roommate and wanted privacy). After a few minutes, he came back and said, “Okay I’m alone.” But I hesitated. I was acting playfully shy and holding back. That’s when he said something like, “You said if I went to the bathroom, you’d show me something. This isn’t my (my name)—she’s not shy with me.” He said it smiling, and I was smiling too, but later it started to gnaw at me. My OCD kicked in. I started spiraling: Did that cross a line? Was that pressuring? I brought it up to him, and while he tried to be supportive, I could tell he was caught off guard. He said something like, “I’m trying my best to support you, but I feel sad that you would think I’d ever pressure you like that.” And then, in what he admitted later was a “dumb joke,” he said: “I’m not like your dad—I won’t get mad if you say no or disagree with something.” (For context: I’ve told him before about my father’s anger issues from my childhood. It’s a very sensitive topic.) I got upset and told him never to bring my father into things like that. He immediately apologized and said, “I realized it right after—that the thing I said as a joke to get you out of overthinking was serious. I’m so sorry again, and I feel really bad right now. I respect you and I respect everyone in your family.” After that, he was very gentle. We stayed on the call for a while longer, I felt heard, and we ended things with “I love you.” But today I still feel emotionally sore. Not because I think he’s abusive or manipulative—he isn’t—but because I felt something shift. He saw me cry like that for the first time, and now I feel exposed and over-analytical. My OCD brain is stuck on what if this was a red flag? Even though he apologized and explained himself, I still feel unsettled. What’s making it harder is that I haven’t even told my best friend. I usually tell her everything, but I’m scared to bring this up. I know she already has reservations about him (she’s very protective of me), and I feel like if I share this, she’ll just add it to the “reasons he’s not right for you” list. But I don’t want her judgment—I want clarity. I’m scared that sharing it will make things worse instead of better, and that’s an isolating feeling. I want this relationship to work. I don’t usually cry like that in front of people. I don’t usually feel safe enough to. And he did show up in the end. But now I don’t know how to trust myself—is this a moment to work through together, or am I ignoring something important? Would love some kind, grounded perspective. Thanks for reading.

Answer is no. Ocd likes to create distortions of God. For example, thinking God is controlling everything you buy. God gave us free will and already knows what you will do before you think about it. He predestined and knows the future. Think about it, like the previous example, how will buying this or doing that ruin the will of God? It can't. God does not want you in constant anxiety or fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 ESV [7] for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. The word of God is a good place to see if it's really God's will. You will know once you read the Bible. God loves you and wants you to have peace. God bless.

I’ve had the feeling I had ocd ever since I found out about it at the age of eleven, I don’t want to self diagnose thought but I want to find out and I would ask a professional but I am a minor and live with my parents, my family is not from America and any disorder even stuff like depression or anxiety means crazy to them so I’m scared to talk abt it to anybody. Ever since I was like 7 I noticed that if something happens or I feel something in one part of my body I immediately have to do it to the other cause it just won’t feel right, as a kid I even explained it to my parents in the car once and asked if they feel like that sometimes too. I used the example of me accidentally touching water on one foot and then having to do it to the other or else it just isn’t fair to the other foot and I’m like evil. It’s also like that for me if I like hit my arm then I have to do it to the other too. I have many other symptoms of OCD but idk if I actually have it. For example every-time somebody leaves me on read or something I feel like they hate me and don’t wanna be friends with me anymore. Idk it just feels so weird sometimes. Also sometimes when I’m writing something maybe for school or anywhere I always have to reconsider every single sentence because what if somebody takes it the wrong way or it makes somebody mad. And sometimes I feel like the rudest and meanest person in the world. I actually don’t know if that’s an ocd thing idk at this point. edit: after thinking some other things that could be a sign of ocd might be when I was about ten or nine, for about a year I had the biggest fear of losing my mom, it came out of nowhere and I would cry begging not to go to school because my mom won’t be there bc what if she dies. I cried at tennis practice once even tho I toke it with my mom because she went to the bathroom. I was genuinely so scared idk what made it go away tho. Like whenever I had a thought of her it would immediately make me think she’s dying and I would just sob. tysm for reading!! 💕💕

buying a rug and nail clippers would send me to hell. Why do I worry that these things would send me to hell? I'm always gauging every impression upon my mind and heart, and wondering if God is speaking to me or not. I often wonder if God is warning me against little things that could send me to hell. What I have learned is that people who have OCD often have a lot of confusion about hearing from God. Sometimes their OCD is telling them they can't do something, but they think God is actually warning them. I'm working on this. Like I said, it took me an hour, but I eventually went in and bought the rug and the nail clippers. Was I SURE that I was going to be safe and not destined for hell? No, I went in and bought the things even though I still wasn't completely sure if it was the right and safe thing to do. But in the end, I think I am being obedient to God when I take steps against OCD. And so, even though I still had uncertainty, I went and bought a rug and nail clippers. And now I'm going to trust in the promises of God that I am still saved, even though I did something I wasn't sure about. I've had a lot of practice doing this over the years. I wish just making a shopping trip was straightforward and not full of rumination. But life is not that easy for me. OCD sure makes life harder than it has be. Lol 😀😀🤣😂

Is it wrong to not want to help a narcissist I feel bad because as a Christian you should but then also need boundaries. It’s so hard and I feel selfish for not wanting to help and it’s probably making these situations worse but I always just try to not be around this person any chance I get. If anyone has advice or has experience with narcissist people that would be appreciated

I'm currently calming down from an anxiety attack caused by my narcissistic mom. I've been navigating the horrible job market post-graduation for 8 months now, with no luck, even in part-time jobs. So I'm stuck at home with my narc mom who is abusive emotionally and verbally, enabler dad with some anger issues, and codependent younger brother with anger issues. I'm doing the best that I can. I have had things going on for me, such as an unpaid internship and being a researcher. Both unpaid, but good experience in my field. I also got into a master's program, which I will be starting. I also choose to put the job search on my agenda every day and always know I can be better, and edit my profile. Living at home vs college is so different. If we're talking about today, for example, I was doing something. I had my first NOCD therapy session, and it went well. I had a to-do list for the day, I had a filling breakfast, I took a nap, and a shower. I wanted to bake banana bread because I've been forced to eat whatever my mom makes. After all, whenever I try to cook, I feel on edge. After all, she makes the kitchen so disorganized, and I've been too depressed to get myself to cook. Anyways, I have a full day ahead of me and I went to bake the banana bread happily. As soon as I started baking, she asked me if I had applied to the job she sent me on text. I have been greyblocking her because with narcissists, you don't give them your personal information or emotions. Also, the last time I asked for her help in job searching, she screamed at me in front of the recruiter's call that I was a liar and hopeless. So I didn't reply to her and kept baking, and she ended up calling up the recruiter for that job and asking, "Did my daughter apply to this job?" with a nasty grin on her face. It got me so good, which is why I had an anxiety attack. I rushed to her and said, "Keep my name out of your mouth and keep your mouth away from my business" in front of the recruiter, too, because I was so angry and done. She proceeded to push my buttons, which I trained myself not to give in to, but sometimes I mess up. She kept asking the recruiter if there were any other positions I'd be qualified for. She knows, after the whole yelling at me for being a loser incident, that she's not allowed to be part of my job search; I set that boundary. But she always crosses it. I couldn't handle i,t so I resorted to my habit of blasting my AirPods with loud music so I could not hear her and continue baking because I at least wanted to finish baking. I also do this every morning when I'm feeding my pets. Oh, and by the way, the most my dad did (while he saw everything) was say "omg stop". I'm so done with this family. I feel so trapped.

What are your thoughts on shadow work, the shadow self, and so on? I've been on a bit of a spiritual journey lately. If this concept offends your beliefs, please disregard. I've long heard of shadow work but today I really became curious about it. How does one even approach shadow work if they have OCD? If your brain is constantly trying to find ways to make you feel like you're secretly a bad or evil person, you naturally deny it. We spend hours doing this with OCD, unless we are doing ERP and then we try and accept it. On some level, we know it's not true. Shadow work seems tricky because OCD could easily say "you are a horrible person, and do you remember all the times you deny that when you're having a spike?" What are your thoughts or experiences with this shadow work business?

So like I continue to have the thought of.. is it messed up that I allow myself to be around/friends with this guy (for various reasons). Should I tell myself maybe maybe not? Or do I need to get my partner involved? The issue is this other guy is a huge ocd trigger for me and I don’t want to bring any confessing into this

I have risk factors for cancer and there’s stuff I’ve done in the past that’s killing me. Like now I’m fated. And I’m having symptoms of colon cancer and I feel like the sky is falling.

It has to be the most frustrating thing in the world. My OCD is mainly about doing physical compulsions in order to make sure that nothing bad happens to myself or my loved ones The really annoying thing is that by doing these compusions a bad thing is already happening because it absolutely dominates my life and stops me from living properly I've tried ERP and it didn't help

What if the reason I had that inappropriate dream with a man is because my 9 year old brother did something to me in real life while I was asleep and I just don’t remember?

Kinda spiraling. In one of my classes there was a girl that was a senior and I was a junior. We got put in a table group of 4 next to eachother for a unit with my friend also there and some girl that I knew from orchestra. I’m now scared if I was too close to her like physically. I never touched her obviously bc that’s weird. I think I was talking to my now gf at the time or maybe even dating her I’m not sure. There was this time we had to play quiziz on our Chromebooks and we got randomly selected in a group together with me her and one of my other guy friends. I’m worried that what if we were too close physically, what if my arm was touching hers or something. I know that my friend Jack was in the middle so he needed to see the screen and I also wouldn’t have went super close to her. I’m writing this bc I’m just super worried. I never talked to her outside of that class and really outside of that unit when everyone moved tables again. Whenever our teacher did demonstrations I feel like I looked at her too much and now I’m scared, even though I just look around but I feel like my eyes went to her. I would never cheat on my gf so this whole situation is bothering me. I also one time just curiously checked if she followed me on insta and we didn’t have eachother added and I saw her bf on her profile and I was like “aww that’s cute”. What if I was acting on attraction in the classroom, I’m scared

the past 3 ish weeks have been an ocd flare but one i can't seem to get out of anxiety has been high so i think it's time i speak about upping my medication see if that's what will help me. having to deal with thoughts and anxiety and just the ocd loop in general has been so tough for me kinda makes me feel like i wont be free from this loop

So I have a really difficult story to share. It's about one of my kitty cats. My girlfriend and I found her in a parking garage around 6 years ago, and we initially took her in as a foster. We did everything we could to try to find her original owners before moving on to trying to get her taken in at a no-kill shelter. Nobody would take her, so she ended up becoming our cat. This probably wasn't the most wise idea considering I also have a senior cat (10-11 at the time) that had a urinary tract disease that was super sensitive to stress. I stupidly thought that we would be able to introduce them and that they might live in harmony. This was a pipe dream, and they absolutely hated each other. We continued to try. About 6 months into having her, we moved across the country and then Covid happened. We ended up having to move from our original planned apartment into a studio due to a change in roommate plans, so we had 2 cats that didn't get along in a studio. We tried to make due with what we could, and we got a pet gate to separate the bathroom/small hallway/laundry closet from the living/bedroom area. Our new kitty was living in that hallway bathroom area, which looking back was entirely too small for a cat. We didn't have room for a cat tree, but I believe I tried to do my best to let her into the main area to hang out and explore when my old man cat was sleeping. We also occasionally would take her to our building's outdoor area on a leash, but she was not a fan. Still, I know this wasn't enough. It's already bad enough, but there are a few things that made this a lot worse. First, whenever we left the apartment we had to put our young girl in the bathroom to keep her from climbing the gate and fighting our other kitty while we were away. This led to her being in that bathroom for quite a few hours at a time, which I feel insanely guilty about. It was not a large bathroom, and I would never do the same now. Second, my girlfriend and I did not do a good job at keeping a clean house. We both struggle with mental illness (my OCD was very severe at this time and I was going through a multi-year real event fixation that ate almost every waking moment. I ended up coping with a lot of weed and alcohol). So the already small area was messy a lot of the time. The third and worst part of it all is that we lived like this for around 3 years. So for about 3 years of this sweet young girl's life, she knew confinement and understimulation. I tried to spend a lot of time with her and to make sure she could explore the rest of the apartment when the old man was sleeping, but I feel I still didn't do this enough. I can't believe I let her live in such a small messy place for so long. I don't know how I even justified this. I feel like a neglectful monster. I feel so guilty for giving my senior cat priority when it came to his space. I had no idea how long he would be with us, and I've had him since I was 10 so I didn't want to completely uproot and change his lifestyle. But this came at the expense of our younger girl, and I feel it's impossible to forgive myself. I let her down. I neglected her. What I did was considered animal abuse. I know she probably should have gone to live with someone else at that point, I feel like I couldn't see just how bad things had gotten. Well we've been living in a new place for about 2 years now. Both kitties are alive and well, and we now live in a 2 bedroom (the old man lives in our room and our girl roams the kitchen/living room area). We utilize a cardboard gate to let them explore parts of each other's areas when we can. We still struggle with cleanliness, but we're working on it and we make sure she always has clean water, food, and litter. I admittedly still struggled with keeping the litterboxes clean until recently due to the sensory problems of it all, but I've been doing much better than I used to. Our young girl now enjoys laying in the windowsill and hanging out on our couches and chairs. She always greets me in the mornings with a trill, and she frequently approaches with that happy upright question mark tail. Just yesterday she was making biscuits on my stomach. She still likes to play a lot, and I really need to get better at doing that every single day (still struggling with mental health and depression, partially because my old man cat has been going through it recently). So I feel like she probably isn't too traumatized, but there's no way of knowing. She is very loving and social, but also skittish. I feel like it doesn't matter. I feel like I don't deserve to still care for her because of what I put her through. I was 20 when I got her, and that was old enough to know and do better. I'm so sad that she spent nearly half her life like that. It makes me hate myself so much. I feel like she should have been taken away from me for all of that. I feel so guilty that she is still the sweetest girl after going through all of this. I just can't believe I put this darling girl, a sentient living creature, through that hell for 3 years. I don't know what to do or how to proceed. I just know that I am deeply, deeply sorry and regretful. I wish I could do it all again. I feel like it doesn't matter how hard I try now. I don't deserve her.

UPDATE: ive TRIED to reduce 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... I assumed that the women who werent verified on there were 18+ on an explicit chat discord server i was on were adults because of the fact it was an 18+ explicit server, so i assumed everyone was an adult on there... for me, I fear the future everyday... as well as despise my past... I dont belong in this world... Im genuinely scared of the future... and this is honestly why I dont want to be famous or an influencer... Ive also been to literotica, a website dedicated to adult explicit literature... they also have a chat room where you can talk to other users... i know ive made stupid mistakes going on here... i wont deny that... and now im paying for it with the uncertainty... veterans of the site, who have been on there for over 9 years, have told me that the chances of a minor lying about their age and coming onto the chat portion of the website are rare... but it still triggers me all the same... This is why I dont want to be famous or widely recognized... 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... (edited)