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Just got my heart broken today, and I’m not sure how I can handle this. I cannot take it anymore, first my themes and now this. This is too painful :(

I've been going through hell for months and months. Recently diagnosed with BPD, suspected OCD that kind of switches between Real Event and Relationship focused, but of course also I doubt whether I have OCD at all and the relationship focused stuff is actually "my gut" or "my subconscious" or whatever. Started Prozac a few months ago. For the past few days, I've actually been feeling really good. Less rumination, less drive to "figure out" the questions and doubts that pop into my head. Less desire to "investigate" my thoughts and waht they mean. A bit less "testing" of my feelings as well. So I was so happy, because I felt better just in time for my birthday! Like yesterday, I felt pretty consistently ok and almost had the feeling that maybe I do know myself, maybe I can trust myself to know what I want. But today is my birthday, and I feel a bit worse than yesterday :( My gf took me on a surprise little sailboat tour, and it was so fun and I had a good time and I am so grateful, but I could feel that sense of uneasiness taking me out of the moment a bit. The worries about all of the things I have thought and doubted in the last few months, and even if everything gets better, I don't know how to deal with the fact that I got to the place where I was questioning the things I was questioning and doubting my relationship so much. Do I feel a bit worse because it's my birthday and there is some "pressure" to be present and have a good day? Just wanted to know if anyone else could relate. I really want to be able to just let go and enjoy the rest of my bday with my gf. She is so amazing, and she's taking me to a surprise dinner and I really just want to fully be in the moment, no matter what! Once again, I doubt my OCD diagnosis especially since my decade relationship has been through so much shit due to me being a bad person and very dependent. I am trying to learn how to love my girlfriend more healthily and selflessly, and the change/growth can be a bit destabalizing. So I'm sorry if I shouldn't post about ROCD stuff if I'm not 100% on a diagnosis, I just relate a lot to the community

Today i dont know what hit me i just deleted it removed everything like i was getting too much dependent on it i was sharing more there than actual people because i am very inexpressive irl .. i feel really really uncomfortable and have this weird feeling because i used get all the reassurance and literally everything from there like i would share my thoughts and everything basically .. does anyone else has ever done it? Like idk how to explain this feeling but i feel lonely ik its bad very bad but it kind of gave me a space where i could just put my thoughts and vent out which i wasn’t able to do irl

Well,as the title says,I have real event ocd over online activities I already deleted that no longer aline with my values or that I realized if someone sees their perception of me might change the same way it did for me to realize my behaviours were pretty much "not normal".I had a pretty bad flare up last night and ended up confessing in a reddit sub,no one offered reassurance because i clarified i had ocd and possibly shouldn't be doing that and a person who also had OCD gave me some advice on what to do along with what seems to be an official account from NOCD on reddit,wich I appreciate very much,since I can't really afford therapy specialized in OCD 🤕. The thing is I've been pretty paranoid abt people close to me finding out,no one knows abt the reddit account I made but even then I realized i committed the mistake of naming it as any other account of mine,and I can't change the name,along with that,I had a pretty vivid dream of uploading a story to a platform out of boredom and someonr investigating on me and finding out my deleted internet data,wich has made me wonder if I should tell my friends abt my real event just so " They are aware and im not trying to fool them" because honestly the dream made me pretty scared and I think I would rather them to find out from me than from any other person,but at the same time i feel pretty unsure abt doing it because of the uncertainty+ its pretty much reassurance seeking as I have realized that the way I have wanted to approach this topic is the typical "what would you do if someone you knew did this and you had not know". I know this might be flagged as reassurance seeking too sigh but I just wanted to let it out in this account,I won't delete my reddit account as I have been learning to use it and found many communities besides the OCD recovery ones and mental health support that are great and have found many new hobbies i might want to try,so I figured to post this here because I don't feel like leaving any more " proof" of me trying to hide as the "" terrible person"" i may or may not be in the eyes of another+ mine as I have realized that im pretty dependant on what others think of me and it affects me more than I see some other people be affected by it.But meanwhile,im trying to work on the feeling of constant doom and fear of someone just going into the internet as soon as something I do goes slightly viral and exposes me because in my mind this person who could be absolutely ANYONE can have access to data centers and things people have deleted years ago and even knowign what they saw and with what intentions!! I guess its a little bit magical thinking in that sense,but at the same time it feels both super real and like something that its meant to happen and that I have to prepare my friends for (even tho I don't even think i will ever get that much attention as stories and anything you upload to the interner are just viral for a day or two before no one remembered it unless you are EXTREMELY SUCCESFULL on getting people to remain engaged)

Has anyone ever used Fluvoxamine for OCD? Did it cause massive sleep onset insomnia? I've only been on 25mg for 3 weeks, and it's working wonders for my retroactive jealousy, but the insomnia it's causing is almost worse than the ruminating thoughts. I've tried taking it at all different times of the day, with countless sleep aids, but I cannot consistently fall asleep.

Hi everyone, I don’t post on here very often because I’m honestly scared of sharing my thoughts. I’m afraid people won’t relate, will think I’m weird, or even think I’m a bad person. This year I’ve really been trying to get better. My psychiatrist and I finally figured out that what I’ve been dealing with is OCD. I’ve started medication, and it has been helping a little, but I’m still trying to understand how my OCD works. One thing I struggle with is that my brain makes really strange connections. For example, if I hear someone say something like, “Have they gotten their life together?” my brain immediately turns it inward. Suddenly I’m questioning everything. Am I doing enough?,Am I failing?,Am I a bad person?,Am I behind everyone else? It feels like my brain takes one comment that wasn’t even about me and turns it into a judgment about who I am. When that happens, I spiral into feeling hopeless and depressed, and all I want to do is stay in bed because everything feels pointless. I’ve also noticed another type of thought. My grandmother was talking about a family member who passed away before I was born and who had really hurt her. My OCD immediately came up with the thought, “What if I’m the reincarnation of that person? What if I’m actually bad?” Even writing that feels embarrassing because I know it sounds irrational, but the thought still feels so real when it happens. Another thing I struggle with is weighing myself every single day because my brain has connected my weight to my self-worth. I’m trying to work on that too. On the positive side, I have been making progress with taking care of myself. I’ve been doing better with showering, brushing my teeth, washing my face, and consistently eating breakfast and dinner. I’m proud of those improvements, even if they seem small. I guess I’m posting because I’m wondering if anyone else experiences OCD making bizarre connections like this. I know reassurance isn’t the answer, but it would help to know I’m not the only person whose OCD creates these kinds of stories. Thank you for reading. I hope you’re all doing well, and please stay safe. 🧡

What is progress? Everyone has an answer ready before you even finish asking. Start small. Commit to this. Use this framework, use that one. Reflect daily. Fine. You can start small. That was never actually the hard part. The hard part is what happens when you miss a day, or two, or a week, and you're back where you started, the way you have been for five or six years every time you've tried this exact advice before. Because here's what nobody selling "start small" accounts for: you have started small. More than once. And it still didn't turn into progress. So the panic underneath this isn't "will I start." It's "I've started small before, and it went nowhere, so why would this time be different." That's the real weight. Not the starting. The history of starting and watching it not stick. There's a second layer under that too, one you don't say out loud much: part of you doesn't even want to start small. Starting small feels like admitting something. It feels weak. Pathetic, even, set against five or six years of failure and lost time. Starting small feels like nothing, a rounding error against a debt that big. You know intellectually that small is the only honest starting point. But emotionally it feels like conceding you're still at zero when you should be somewhere else by now. And underneath that is the clock. Your responsibilities aren't shrinking. Your parents aren't getting younger. At some point the time you've spent not progressing stops being an abstract regret and starts being a bill that's actually due. That's what's catching up. Not just you, everything you're responsible for. Effort is part of the problem, sure. But it's not the whole question. The real question, the one you keep circling and never actually land on, is simpler and harder: what does progress even look like? Say you clean one part of the house, like everyone tells you to. Fine, you can do one part. But then what. Do you stop there. Do you keep going. Do you move to something else that day, or leave it and come back tomorrow, next week, next month. Nobody tells you that part. Say you study for five or ten minutes, because you haven't studied at all in a month. What is five or ten minutes actually going to do. Is it a start, or is it just this month's version of last month's nothing, wearing a smaller costume. And here's the part that actually scares you, more than any single outcome: it's not that you're afraid of failing. It's that you genuinely don't know what progress is made of. What it looks like in different parts of your life. How small an action is allowed to be and still count. How you're supposed to get from fifteen minutes of work to four hours, to six, to eight hours of real, productive, quality work a day. Nobody who tells you to start small ever shows you the bridge from small to that. They just say start, as if the rest handles itself. You know, logically, that starting small is the only real way in. There's no other honest first step. But knowing that doesn't make it less anxious, because the only way in is small and slow, and you don't actually know how you get from there to somewhere real. Your past says progress has been slow to nonexistent. Your future says you don't have time for slow. So you end up wanting to move fast precisely because you've moved so little, which is the exact tension that keeps you from moving at all. So the actual question isn't whether you should start small. You already know the answer to that. The actual question is what's supposed to happen between the fifth minute and the four-hundredth hour, between one clean corner of the house and a life that looks different, between the first small step and the point where you can finally see, in front of you, real fruit from real labor. That's the gap nobody has ever mapped out for you. And until you have some kind of answer for it, even a rough one, "start small" is going to keep sounding like advice for a problem you don't actually have.

How can you be afraid of effort? Not bored by it, not annoyed by it. Afraid of it. That’s the part that doesn’t add up on paper. You want to change. You want to get better. You know this is the path, you know obstacles come with it, you know you’re dealing with anxiety, limited time, limited energy. You’re ambitious, and you try to stay honest about what’s realistic. So how does all of that add up to being afraid of the one thing that would actually get you there? Maybe it’s this. Five or six years of not much moving. Failure after failure, or what feels like failure, and you can’t even tell which kind it was: not enough effort, not enough ability, not enough time given to it, or it just wasn’t the right fit. Not knowing which one it was is exhausting on its own. It’s worn you down past frustration into something closer to hopelessness. And hopelessness doesn’t fight you. It just makes you too tired to keep fighting. Distractions aren’t the real explanation, they’re the easy one. Everyone has a phone. Everyone has something they’re hooked on. That’s not unique to you. What’s harder to sit with is this: the thing you want most, every day, every minute, is to feel like you’re actually making progress. Not performing it. Making it. And you have what you’d need. The tools, the knowledge, people have handed you exactly what to do. You still forget to use it, or you use it once and don’t come back. First try, second, third, even the fourth or fifth. You quit. Not because the method failed you. Because somewhere in there you decided you were the failure. Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not. You genuinely don’t know. But here’s what you do know: action is the only thing that has ever moved you forward, not thinking about moving forward. And you’re not incapable of action, you do things, you clean, you eat, you sleep, you see people, you walk. So the problem isn’t that you can’t act. It’s that you can’t sustain acting on the thing that actually matters. Two weeks into a workout, a study method, real studying, the business, and then a show pulls you in, or something you already know you shouldn’t be doing pulls you in, and it’s gone. You’ve never once made it to three weeks. You stop, and somewhere along the way you lost track of what effort even means. You’re not sure you ever had a clear answer. Part of the weight is volume. You’re not short on ideas, you’re buried in them. Years of collecting knowledge, tools, potential you can see clearly in your head, and none of it converts, because you’re trying to hold all of it at once, which means none of it moves. And every day you don’t act, you’re also replaying every day before it that you didn’t act. It compounds. So how are you supposed to be kind to yourself in the middle of that? If you were actually doing the ERP the way it’s meant to be done, the honest move might be to sit with “maybe I am pathetic, maybe I’m not” without needing to resolve it either way. You can do that. Until you can’t. Because part of you genuinely wants out, wants to be proud of the work, the relationships, the body, the effort itself. And another part of you wants to stay exactly where you are. Because it’s familiar. Because the self-pity, the rumination, even this, talking it through again, watching another video, reading another framework, gives you something that feels like relief. It tells you it’s not fully your fault. That’s not nothing. That’s peace of mind, technically. It’s also why you don’t leave. You know what the discomfort costs. Physically, mentally, socially, and you have a rough sense of what it costs later, even without being able to see the future. Five or six years of data on yourself is not nothing either. And that’s part of what makes this so disorienting: resisting the discomfort has become its own discomfort. So you convert it into something more manageable, you turn it into pity, into searching for the next video, the next resource, the next person who might finally hand you the real answer. Some part of you is still waiting for the moment that fixes this from the outside. It hasn’t come. It isn’t coming. So what are you actually waiting for. Why is it so hard to do the next thing in front of you instead of the hundred things in your head. Why does failing once mean stopping instead of adjusting. Why does discomfort get treated like a stop sign instead of a toll you pay to get through. You already know, somewhere in you, that effort, the unglamorous, repeated, often boring kind, is the only thing that has ever built anything real in anyone’s life. So the real question isn’t how you can dislike effort. It’s why you keep choosing the comfort of the hole over the discomfort of climbing out of it, when you already know which one you actually want.

• Fear of the unknown, not knowing what I’m walking into • Fear of missing out on other things I could be doing instead • Fear of starting something and not finishing it • Fear of not doing it “right,” of not being able to do something messy or half finished, of not being able to tell if what I did even counts as progress • Fear that even if I do the thing, it won’t add up to anything that actually moves my life forward Underneath all of it is confusion. I don’t know what to do next, and when clarity shows up, even for a second, it’s the single biggest relief from anxiety I know. I also know, intellectually, that action produces clarity, not the other way around. But every time I take an action, I start doubting whether it was the right one, immediately. That doubt isn’t just before I act. It’s there during, and it’s still there after, picking apart what I just did. A lot of this starts with a belief that everything has to be set up right before I can start, that the environment has to be correct. But when I actually look at what I mean by that, it’s not really about the physical setup. It’s about whether my own ability feels good enough yet. “The environment isn’t right” is a stand in for “I’m not sure I’m capable enough to do this well.” Before I start anything, what I’m actually trying to avoid is the discomfort of doing it wrong. I want the things I do to be meaningful and I don’t want to be bad at them. Part of that is about time. I know that the first time you try something you’re supposed to not be good at it yet, that figuring it out is the point and it takes time. But I’m scared that if I let something take as long as it actually needs, it eats the time I wanted for the other four or five things I also want to be doing. So there’s a second fear behind the first one: not fear of being bad at the task itself, but fear of not being able to stay with one thing long enough while everything else waits. A lot of it starts before I even get out of bed. I wake up already knowing I have to plan the day, and planning is the scary part, because planning means prioritizing, and I am constantly afraid of prioritizing the wrong thing. There’s a running list in my head of things I feel I have to be moving forward on at the same time: • Learning AI • Working on my business • Building another skill • Keeping my grades up in classes • Applying to internships, applying to jobs, networking I want all five happening at once, because if any one of them isn’t moving, I feel officially behind, and I already feel behind before the day starts. All of it hits at once, before I’ve even sat up, and “start the day” turns into pressure to get everything right from the first move. The standard advice is to break things down into small steps. But breaking a task down is its own source of anxiety. Sitting with that anxiousness long enough to actually do the breakdown takes energy I don’t have yet at that point in the morning. And once I have broken it down, the smaller task is still hard. It still takes real time, I’m still going to be bad at it starting out, and I still have the fear that I picked the wrong thing, or that I’m moving too slowly. That last one carries its own weight, the sense that the world, especially around AI, is moving fast enough that I have to be tracking the news and building the skill at the same time as everything else, on top of everything else. I know what I’m “supposed” to do with all of this from ERP: stay with the feeling, let the anxiety be there, don’t escape it. But in the moment, doing that feels like I’m wasting time, like I’m not doing enough, like I’m not doing it correctly, which is the exact same fear the exercise is supposed to help me sit with. Even “making progress” isn’t safe ground. If I’m not visibly progressing I feel like there was no point, like it was inefficient. And I don’t actually know how to measure it. If I did something for two minutes today, how do I know if next week it should be five. I end up overanalyzing that too

I’m considering trying meds again but my main concerns are weight gain and sexual side effects . I know everyone responds differently but I’m curious what people have found that works for them? Also if anyone has any tips for working through the shame/stigma that’s something I’ve battled with a lot. I value more of a holistic approach so it sometimes feels like going against my values which is why it’s conflicting for me.

Treat the immense guilt that you feel as a result of receiving ocd thoughts/feelings the same way you treat the intrusive thoughts themselves. It doesn’t belong to you. Don’t beat yourself up for receiving thoughts you never asked for in the first place. Show yourself compassion for fighting through your daily struggles despite the OCD and give yourself a pat on the back for the commitment required to simply stay afloat. Beating yourself up might feel justified but it’s not.. and it helps nobody including yourself. It’s all good. Move forward 🫡☮️

I am just lost. I do not know what I want or think anymore. I don’t feel anxiety anymore. I’m scared that if a girl would flirt with me I would like it and if a man did I wouldn’t feel anything. I don’t even feel stress when I imagine myself with a girl, I don’t feel butterflies or anything but idk the anxiety stopped. But when I imagine myself with a man I feel like I don’t want it? I mean not that I don’t want it but like I’m forcing all of it and it’s not true I’m just imagining it to convince myself that I’m straight. I’m genuinely losing my mind. I feel numb but not at the same time. I don’t want to want women but I’m tired from fighting with my own mind. I just really wish I had never started doubting in the first place. I know that I don’t have to be with girls if I don’t want to but what if I do want to? And I’m just denying it? Like I feel like it’s real this time.

My boyfriend and I are in a long-distance relationship, and we recently had our first argument. I’m wondering if I’m overreacting or if there are bigger issues here. For some background, my boyfriend is 21, still lives with his very religious parents, and they have a lot of influence over his decisions. About a month and a half ago, my grandpa was in a very tragic accident that completely changed our lives. He is now a quadriplegic, has a trach and a feeding tube, and we’re taking everything day by day. He’s been transferred to another hospital, but his condition is still very serious. When everything first happened, his parents allowed him to stay with me for several nights because they knew I needed the support. Recently, we planned another visit. I was going to buy his bus ticket because he’s currently unemployed. He lost his cafeteria job at his college due to an issue with his application, and his original goal was to become a firefighter. Unfortunately, he didn’t pass the test, and we really haven’t talked about what his plans are now. I know that’s ultimately his decision, but it also affects our future together, and I guess I’m just unsure what his goals are moving forward. Before I bought the bus ticket, he told his parents our plan, and they didn’t object. After I bought it, they changed their minds and said he could only stay one night because they didn’t want us sleeping over together. Since they were going to give him spending money for the trip, they felt they should have a say. The part that hurt me the most was when he said this situation wasn’t the same as before because I’m “not grieving.” That honestly broke my heart. Just because my grandpa is still alive doesn’t mean I’m not grieving. I’m grieving the life we had before, watching someone I love suffer, and living with the uncertainty of what comes next. I don’t expect my boyfriend to fully understand because he isn’t going through it, but I do need him to understand that my pain is real. Another thing that’s been weighing on me is that I work multiple jobs, go to school, make time for our relationship, and have still been able to save money over the almost two years we’ve been together. I didn’t mind buying his ticket this time because I wanted to see him, but I also don’t really see him saving money, and that worries me. I love him, and I know he loves me. I’m just wondering if this is a normal disagreement or if we’re starting to see some bigger compatibility differences when it comes to independence, communication I’m planning for the future. I’d really appreciate any advice

Yesterday I went to the grocery store and planned to chat with at least one girl who I found attractive and exchange numbers with her. I did say hello to one girl who wasn’t interested in chatting so I walked away. Several other girls I could have spoken with but ultimately did not was because I could anticipate myself feeling very hurt, embarrassed, and weak if I were to do that and I could not bear those feelings let alone be seen that way. It was a brutal drive home and night of tears and sadness where I was just basking in the harsh reality of how much my anxiety has affected my social life and career life in my 24 years on this earth.

I’ve tried so many things and my ocd is extremely stubborn. I’m trying TMS for ocd now and trying as hard as I can with ERP, and the ocd has not budged. I’ve done 18 deep TMS sessions and haven’t noticed a single difference. I’ve tried Prozac, Zoloft, buspirone, abilify, memantine, and chlomipramine and noticed no difference at all. I met with an ocd trained therapist twice a week for awhile driving on a busy section of the highway to get there when one of my fears was driving, and besides more confidence driving, it has made no difference. My ocd doesn’t change no matter what I do. I want to try spravato or brain surgery like deep brain stimulation or anterior ventral capsultomy but my parents are stopping me from doing it (I’m 20 in college but I rely on them financially). I have to wait another year to graduate college before I can do some of those options probably. I want to do something to make the ocd better this year, but it won’t budge. Maybe some medication will work but this is frustrating

Fear of of crazy ocd theme. I’ve been dealing with this theme for a while but I read about a new symptom of psychosis and my ocd has really latched onto it, it’s called having “ideas of reference”. Basically some people with psychosis think their tv is talking to them or about them or random billboards or random things are specifically directed toward them. Well, surprise surprise, now every time I listen to a YouTube video or TV, my brain gets this weird intrusive feeling for a split second, that the video is talking directly to me. I absolutely don’t believe this to be true whatsoever but it’s weird, my brain gets this split second feeling and I turn my head or react as if what the person just said in the video was about me or talking directly to me, it’s more so an intrusive feeling rather than a “what if” thought. It’s the same kind of kneejerk reaction you get when you hear someone call your name, except I’m getting that while listening to YouTube videos or music or similar things, as if it’s being directed to me. Like I said, I KNOW 100% this is not true and I don’t believe it at all but this intrusive weird feeling is freaking me out so so much and brining me great distress, I’m so afraid this is just the beginning stages of psychosis and I just so happen to still have enough insight to tell.

I have a very toxic work environment (not just me vs boss but boss vs everyone) and I just had a two hour meeting with her and I where she’s telling me how poor I am doing at the job. There’s really nothing wrong and all her claims are based off of “(she) feels like” and no actual facts. My mental health has been plummeting the last few months due to this role- causing a huge spike in my ocd symptoms. I feel like I truly need to leave but I financially can not. I’ve had many jobs before and I am currently applying and interviewing for a few but the job market is rough right now especially in my field. I am constantly being manipulated, told one thing and when it’s done get told that’s not what I was told to do etc. it’s a lot of mind games with her. I have an app that helps me track my stress levels and it’s very bad, my blood pressure is up etc. essentially it’s an emotional, mental and physical stress on me. Advice on what to do to be financially ok if I do need to leave?

I had a lot of OCD loops about exes or guys I knew when I was dating my past boyfriend. And I wrote them all off as OCD, but when I saw my ex somewhere in public after the breakup I was CONVINCED I wanted to get with him again and even dmed him. With one of the other guys, the exact same thing happened when I saw him. I totally disbanded any stupid decision I made directly after I did it, and felt that even though I felt feelings upon seeing them they were either not true/faded within hours, I should feel eternally guilty. My past bf even knows about this and says it’s okay if I don’t like them still and it was just a few dumb choices, but I’m SO GUILTY IT WONT STOP!!!! He’s also tried to go back on his words and tell me how absolutely stupid I am for doing those things and he’s right and I still can’t figure out why I felt so strongly in those moments Everyone says I did nothing wrong to warrant such a bad breakup and then I mention how I tried to see my ex AND another guy that I convinced my partner and myself was ROCD and then it’s like oh….thats weird. I seriously don’t know how to fix this at all and I’m scared like, maybe I still feel feelings for these two people but I also never think about them

Hi there. How are you doing? I hope good. I’m feeling extremely distressed about my real event themes and I’d really appreciate it if somebody could chat about it. Also, feel free to use this post as a place to vent if you need to ^^

I found out yesterday that my boyfriend used onlyfans. We only started dating about a month ago and met about 3 months ago. It showed up in his recently closed tabs on safari and he claims its old and he hasn't done it since before me and I do believe him and I want to trust him because he hasn't given me other reasons not to, that I know of, but I know itll linger in the back of my head and I'll doubt and question him constantly. I always have this issue where whenever I feel betrayed or lied to in a relationship I get extremely upset and reactive and it never really subsides and I'll dwell on something for years of that relationship and project it onto new partners. It makes the relationship feel like its ruined and contaminated and won't ever be the same because it'll always be in the back of my head and come up randomly and I'll always overthink if they're doing it. Any ideas on how to stop doing this or what this is?