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I am so afraid of developing schizophrenia or completely snapping im always checking to see if im hearing voices or if im seeing things im always making sure that I really heard what I heard from people and not in my head.

I really am not doing well my Prozac is making me feel worse I think I’m gonna switch to another med because I really can’t focus on school or work I can’t eat I can’t sleep can anyone relate? I’m so close to quitting my job because this is so debilitating to me

I CAN'T STOP THOUGHTS. I think about meaning of life, time, afterlife and other shit. I can't stop thinking. I cannot distract myself. When my thoughts are the worst I'm thinking about su*cide, and it scares me because I'm not suicidal and I don't want to die. But what if I do something with myself? Please I want any advice what to do, I can't afford therapy at the moment

Hi everyone, I’ve been spending more and more time at the gym and with that means I’ve been spending more time disinfecting and washing my hands. There are certain numbers I try to “hit” when carrying out tasks like the number 4. When washing my hands I will pump the soap 4 times. But then I think about how the running water + paper towel used adds on +2 pts and so I end up at 6 but I don’t like the number 6. So to combat this I will do 4 steps of 4 actions because I don’t like numbers in relation to 3,6, or 9 ( bc of course washing, rinsing, drying 3 times would not be adequate in my mind). But I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll mess up a sequence of what I’m doing and then try to combat the compulsion I feel in the moment and try to forget the number of actions I’ve just carried out. In my mind doing something “♾️” times is better than knowing I for sure didn’t do enough. (In cases like these I equate ♾️ to an undefined/ unknown #). It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I’m wasting so many resources and a lot of my time too but I still struggle to stop until I feel like everything is fine again. I spray my sanitizer spray 4 times on a paper towel and tell myself that 4 sprays + 1 paper towel is okay because at least 4x1 =4 and 4+1 =5 but it really just drives me mad but because 4-1 =3 I have to combat that with wiping an adequate amount of times.

hiya, it's been a while because i was finally getting better.im a straight girl and i've been dealing with so-ocd severely for about a year now. i originally used to obsess over this one girl at my school and it was so bad and literally interfered with everything. after lots and lots of patience and avoiding compulsions i got over that false attraction and i felt myself be okay again. this year i have developed another attachment to someone, and im struggling all over again. also i thought id share that i experience friend crushes which is where you just wanna become closer to someone if that makes sense. anyways originally i was experiencing that and then my ocd keeps telling me what if its more and what if i am gay? i've completely forgot what it felt like but the thing is, it feels so real!!! i feel excited to see her and wanna be around her but everytime i freak out and obsess about the thought i could like her as more then a friend. deep down i know i don't because i don't feel any romantic feelings and i shouldn't feel such negative emotions and anxiety if it wasn't my ocd. i am so sorry for the rant but im back to square one. 😭😭

i figured it’s better to reach out than to keep this buried. if you have anything—resources, insights, advice—that could help me, please send it my way. anything that might bring clarity, support, or even the smallest sense of direction would mean a lot. diagnosed Borderline w/ OCD July 29th i haven’t written in quite some time. journaling, once a refuge, became a mirror i no longer wished to face—each entry echoing the same obsessions, amplifying them, feeding their rhythm. i lost the spontaneity, the irregular cadence that once made expression feel free. instead, it became a ritual of rumination. recently, i’ve begun making small, deliberate changes—adjustments wherever i feel the pull. i’m starting to understand that who i am is an ever-shifting convergence of thought and temperament. my personality isn’t fixed; it’s a reflection of my internal weather. tracking my moods has helped illuminate certain patterns, revealing how my triggers unfold—but pinpointing those triggers remains elusive. the inconsistency, that quiet turbulence within, makes it difficult. there’s always a friction between my need for comfort and my hunger for transformation. i’ve always judged that contradiction in others—yet here i am, mirroring it. i’ve slowly dismantled many of my defenses, not out of strength, but out of exhaustion. in surrendering control, i’ve made room for meaning. for once, i’m not chasing perfection—I’m chasing something that feels true. psychology is calling to me. it feels like a path that might finally align with the way i think and feel. i’m changing schools, moving in with my father for a while. i need distance from this space that has become both a sanctuary and a cell. my environment dictates so much of my being. that’s how i know: if i can shift the world around me, i can begin to reshape the world within. i’m tired of this ache, this heaviness that keeps finding me no matter where i go. there’s still a part of me that longs to disappear into it—to wrap myself in the numbness, to retreat into that dark shell i’ve outgrown but never quite left behind. but i know now that denying my humanity only deepens my suffering. this endless attempt to regulate every thought, every impulse—it’s tearing me apart in slow, invisible ways. each obsession is a tiny collapse. i pray for the still moments, the ones where i’m not paying for the chaos inside me. i want to take responsibility, i truly do, but none of this feels like something i chose. i didn’t ask for this. i never would have. nothing so far has brought me the fulfillment i crave. i need to rebuild—to design a life rooted in stability, in truth. but it’s hard when i wake up feeling like a different version of myself every day, like i’m holding court with a rotating cast of souls, each demanding a different truth. i hope therapy can help me unburden all of this. i want more than survival. i want peace. i want joy. i want to be loved in a way that doesn’t feel conditional, and i want to love back without the fear that i’m incapable of giving what i receive. i want to be able to hold my instability in my hands and say: i am not afraid of you anymore. but that courage flickers. depending on my mood, my willingness to change rises and falls like a tide. i remain, at my core, a frightened child—haunted by the same small, inconsequential fears. i don’t know why i want to live, and that unsettles me. i don’t know why i long for connection, and that unsettles me too. i just want to emerge from this with something real, something that belongs wholly to me. i’m tired of being fragmented. i’m tired of being stuck in this cycle of becoming and unraveling. i want to belong to myself. i just don’t know what that truly means.

Hello, I’m a mother. My son is 17 and he has contamination OCD. We have been trying different ways to support him but he refused to see any therapist. He is struggling with paranoia and intrusive thoughts. Those thoughts make him so angry that he get yelly, throwing and breaking some furniture, and just yesterday he put a hole in the wall. He admitted that these didn’t help him feel any better, in fact it made him feel worse (because he didn’t want to act as such). We are doing our best to support him, talking with him but he refused to talk about those intrusive thoughts and paranoia. What do you suggest me to do? What would be helpful for me to do so he can talk with me more? We desperately want him to get help but he wouldn’t. Thank you in advance!

Hi all it’s been a bit since I’ve posted. I’ve been doing ok ish Today has been weird, idk if it’s cuz I upped my vyvanse to 20mg and it’s making me anxious or if everything is just colliding rn It feels like idk myself anymore. I’ve been flipping between ROCD, soocd and tocd the last couple of days/weeks. Rn I just feel horrible and idk why but I’ve been on my period for 11 days now. My period usually lasts 7. When I’m not on birth control. I’ve been on birth control since October of last year and hadn’t had a period till coming home end of April/early may and now it’s back again. I’ve been ranting to chat gpt (Ik it’s bad, I just didn’t know who to turn to) Rn I’m just really in my head about my gender and I’m anxious and crying and I just don’t feel good. Context for tonight’s thought I was doing my skincare, I’ve been trying to develop a routine cuz I’m bothered by the texture on my face and how it makes my makeup look. I’ve always felt less pretty than other girls tbh. Anywyas. As I was doing my skincare I had this thought just happen across my mind of “what if I dislike my skin and face so much cuz I’m trans? What if the reason I’ve been depressed lately is cuz I’m slowly becoming dysphoric and hating myself?” When in fact I think the issue is: I haven’t seen my bf in a month and a bjt. I’ve been bleeding for 11 days. I’m in summer classes and stressed about the comjng semester and how much work I have to do to catch up cuz I’m in pre med and I’ve been fucking slacking lately and I truly hate myself for it. I miss being hugged by my bf. I’ll admit I need a good dicking down tbh. My brother is a whole other story while I’m home. I just feel. Gross and bad. And I’m worried I’m trans. I’m worried I’m a lesbian or smthn. I’m worried I don’t love my bf deeply enough and it’s all just circling in my head a lot and I just feel like curling into a ball. I’ve always been a tomboy, I mostly hung out with boys cuz the girls never liked me. I was weird. I loved dragons. I had imaginary friends. At one point as a kid I tried a different name, I think it just didn’t fit and I grew out of that and just went back to my normal name. But now I’m worried I just repressed that. But I see a lot of girls who also went through the same thing and are also just women. But I’m so scared that I’m “not letting the TV glow” like that trend (that shit made me so anxious. I have trans friends and I love them but im scared of it for myself) I feel still sorta tomboyish but dress feminine, once in a blue moon ill dress semi masculine and now I’m worried that means im either trans or a lesbian who wants to be masc. but I’m not. I don’t think I am Idk who I am anymore. Idk if it’s just ocd or if im actually discovering smthn Im just anxious as hell tbh. So I don’t think that’s the case. I’m just sitting here. Looping in my head. My typical “drown out the noise” tv shows won’t load properly cuz of our new wifi and it’s really irritating me. What if I’ve been lying every time I try to do a “are you trans/genderfluid/non binary?” quiz. What if I’ve been lying to my bf. My friends? My family? I keep thinking to myself, if I wasn’t with my bf would I dress the same? Yes I would. I’d still wear my cardigans. My sweaters. My dresses. I’d try out new styles like I want to rn with him. I’m just worried that teying smthn would make me realize smthn about myself but I don’t think it would. Idk. I’m just in all these irrational thoughts. Jumping to conclusions Any advice would be appreciated. I mostly just needed to vent about this.

my roommates are great people and very supportive, but they don’t understand ocd. they try to fix me by telling me things i’ve heard a million times before, and by doing things that actively trigger me as a kind of exposure therapy. i’m very particular about contaminants in my water, but i have a specific aversion to tap water, which is why i have my own water dispenser. every few weeks, i fill jugs with filtered water and keep them upstairs so others can use them too. after getting home from work, i filled my cup with ice water and, for once, didn’t inspect it like i normally would. i drank it down. when i went for a refill, the ice had melted a bit and i noticed particulates floating in the water, instantly recognizable as calcium and other minerals from our tap. i don’t explode when i’m triggered. instead, i shut down. the anxiety starts to crawl in. i felt myself spiraling while i pulled out the jug. i know it sounds stupid, but i swear there’s a real difference in smell between filtered and tap water. i checked it, sniffed it, and confirmed what i already felt. and once that thought was in my head, it took hold. i felt disgusting. i wanted to make myself puke. i couldn’t tell if it was anxiety or the water itself, but it felt like something was burning a hole in my stomach. i sent a message in our group chat asking about it, and one of my roommates said they had done it to prove i wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. they said water is water, so i shouldn’t care. i know they meant well. but when people who don’t fully understand ocd try to force those kinds of steps on you, it sticks. it reminds me of my parents. they do things like this a lot, pushing back against my compulsions, trying to help by challenging them. and sometimes, i do appreciate that. but this felt like too much. it crossed a line. and i just needed to rant.

How do I tell them? I think I’m ready to do so. I’ve lived in silence for years. I’m wondering how long it took for you all to tell your family or friends. P.S. I’m not looking to confess. I want my family to know to feel less alone in this.

my psychiatrist is starting me on a low dose (10mg once daily as needed) of propranolol in two days. i’m very nervous as i really don’t like experimenting with new meds..it makes me so scared and so anxious. but i think my anxiety has gotten so bad that i need to start using stronger meds. before i was on hydroxyzine which is basically just benadryl. and then i was on buspirone 3x daily, which was basically like taking tic tacs for me. and what i struggle with in anxiety is the physical symptoms it gives me. which causes my anxiety to get stronger. which makes my medical OCD super aggressive. it’s a vicious cycle. so i’m feeling sort of optimistic that a beta blocker can help. i know it won’t take the anxious thoughts away, but knowing that it’ll help the racing, climbing heart rate, and loosen my chest muscles, AND it’ll help with my vestibular migraines? i think that’s a win in and of itself. i’m hopeful 😌🙌🏻 and i would like to point out that i know medications will never do all of the work for you, that you have to meet them halfway, but the medications i previously mentioned ^ weren’t even meeting me a quarter of the way!

Anyone have any advice for dating with OCD? Specifically the more taboo themes like POCD, incest ocd zoophilia ocd, harm ocd etc. I’ve never really dated in my life and the thought of approaching these conversations with people not in the ocd community is kind of scary

I’m spiraling right now because I don’t want my partner to cheat on me in the near future or think about anyone else 😭 I know it’s normal to find others attractive but I don’t want my partner doing it to other people or cheating on me and never telling me I’m sorry I saw someone else post now I’m tripping out right now that my partner may have done that to me I want to be single for life

i'm a lesbian, i was sure of this for many years, until soocd started messing with me around a month ago. it's hard because lesbians with soocd aren't well documented and it's hard to find similar experiences from others. i hate this, my mind is telling me it's not ocd and that i actually like men. i don't even know if i wouldn't like it. i guess that's accepting uncertainty but i don't want to like men. i want to marry my girlfriend. i don't want to be with a man but my mind doesn't let me feel anything regarding that, neither good nor bad, and i cannot tell if i enjoy that thought or don't like it. it's horrible. i'm so exhausted. i get groinal reactions too which i've never even had before this subtype flared up because im on the asexual spectrum. it's insane. has anyone else had any similar experiences?

I didn't understand the concept of boundaries much when I was 14-15 (like 2 years ago) I eh out of nowhere sent one of my friends who was my age said wtf I just found fat furry fetish content on YouTube ! And I took a screenshot to show them and didnt spoiler the image and they were like WTFF and I was like yea it's gross but then they asked me to link the video for some reason I was like what no I don't want to watch it but did it anyway on discord I'm scaredddd I don't want people to think I'm a groomer even though they asked for the LINK of the video after I sent them a screenshot ? 😭😭😭😭😭

This might be super specific, but something I struggle with is feeling the need to consistently look up things for reassurance. I feel the need to look up the same things over and over again just to make sure. Example: googling what to do in serious situations like a car crash, if someone’s having a heart attack, seizure, etc. I’m (soon to be) a healthcare professional and I feel like I know these things like the back of my hand. I feel like if I ever get to these (extremely unlikely) situations, I won’t know what to do. I feel the need to constantly reassure myself the proper protocol for situations that will probably NEVER happen. Anytime I think of this possibility, I can’t help but become trapped in a spiral of googling what to do. It’s come to a point that I’ve started noting down what to do over and over again if these situations happen. I really just want to know if anyone relates.

So I’m severely emetophobic but these past few weeks have gotten SO bad. I had a bad reaction to an SSRI that made me feel like I was gonna throwup, I stopped taking them over two weeks ago but ever since then the fear has got even worse. I haven’t left the house properly in weeks because I’ve convinced myself I’ll be sick. I feel nauseous even indoors a lot of the time (there are hours when I don’t, like for example this afternoon I was fine). But I challenged myself to go for a short walk this evening and omg it was so hard I really thought I might throwup. The thing is I KNOW it’s anxiety and not real nausea because it feels completely different to when I was actually nauseous from the medication. This feeling is more like a tight throat/sensation of a lump in my throat that makes me feel like I’m gonna gag. I also have RCPD (I can’t burp basically lol) so I just feel like I have trapped air in my throat that’s gonna make me puke. The phobia has gotten really really bad. I have started therapy recently but I’ve been scared of throwing up since I was a kid and I’m now 31 lol wtf. I remember last Christmas my mum said someone at her work had been sick and I was so scared my mum had caught it and would pass it on to me that I refused to leave my bedroom without wearing gloves and a mask and wiping everything with anti-germ wipes. But right now it’s so so bad because I have literally gotten to the point where I’ve convinced myself I feel nauseous pretty much 24/7 and I am taking anti-nausea meds almost every day. Has anyone else dealt with/has tips for this??? I’m literally desperate 😭

I can’t stop myself from taking photos of my teeth. I have had numerous fillings and I definitely have staining / some other fillings that need done / one extraction / one root canal. But they don’t look terrible. However I have a lot of decalcification spots by my gums. One dentist told me that if they all broke through I’d need like 20 fillings. I keep checking my mouth of cavities… stains… recession… white spots. Everything. It’s driving me insane. And it got to the point where I was scared to eat… or drink fizzy drinks (I drink carbonated water) in fear of erosion. 🥲 I used to scrub the shit out of my teeth so that’s doesn’t help. I also went through a medical issue and after I was taken off of a medication I was on - my teeth went to shit along with it even worse than before. Genetics at play too. But holy hell. Does anyone have obsessions over oral health / hygiene? I brush and floss daily, too. Other than an occasional depressy day or when my ADHD is ADHDing and executive dysfunction kicks in. Sigh. Almost 28 years old for reference and I feel like I have a monthly subscription to the dentist for how much work I’ve had.

i feel very, very guilty. i'm resisting the urge to confess right now. i don't think it's a good idea, but it's hard. i'm starting college in a bit and going to meet new people, see a new side of life... and it's been 3 years with ocd... i'm feeling very guilty about potentially hijacking my success by doing something that was fun in the moment but kind of dumb in restropect. :( sending hugs to everyone else struggling

So I've had ocd for about 9 or 10 months so I'm wondering will it ever get better without a therapist