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Hello, I am going through a really bad OCD flare up. It started over the weekend when I drank heavily and before that I was completely ok. It started the next day when I saw a post about someone dressing up for Halloween as devil and a thought came up to my head that was offensive and it triggered me. I just feel like something is going to happen to me since I offended them but that was never my intention but now it’s also that my punishment is that I probably hurt people while I blacked out and I don’t remember and that everything I am living right now is not real, is just a cover up that my brain made up but in reality I am in jail because I hurt someone. I know it sound messy but all that is going through my head and I do not know how to help my self. I may be seeking for reassurance but I feel like I’m loosing. Nothing feels real.

I was doing well for several days, but today I'm struggling with rehearsing and replaying conversations. I'm getting myself worked up over slights and feeling misunderstood. Does anyone else struggle with this?

I could really use some encouragement and reassurance from people who understand OCD. For some background, I’m a 27-year-old male! Thanks to medication, I was able to recover from OCD and live relatively symptom-free for about three years. Earlier this year, I made the decision that I felt “cured” and “recovered” and stopped taking my medication because I genuinely didn’t think I needed it anymore. Fast forward about 5–7 months, and OCD came roaring back. It initially started with POCD fears, then moved into worries about past mistakes, work-related concerns, and other themes. I immediately got back on my medication, and slowly, things started improving again. I genuinely felt like I was getting my life back. Unfortunately, over the past 2–3 weeks, things have taken a pretty significant turn for the worse. I finally reached out to my doctor, who felt that my previous medication may have stopped working effectively. We decided to switch medications, and I’m now transitioning to Zoloft. One of the hardest parts of this relapse has been the return of an old theme I struggled with between 2020 and 2023: SO-OCD. This time around, it’s especially difficult because I’m currently in a three-year relationship with a girl I absolutely love and care about. OCD has been attacking that relationship, making me question myself, my feelings, and my identity. It’s telling me that I’m a fraud, that I’m being dishonest, and that the return of this theme must mean something because otherwise, why would it come back

Around the start of October, I started getting stronger anxiety, and I have no idea what triggered it exactly. It slowly got worse. It's anxiety about death, the fact that it's inevitable and time passing, stopping me from being happy in the moment and it really is at its worst. I see that seeking reassurance can be bad with ocd, and with this specific fear I'm having I don't know what counts as seeking reassurance- I cry a lot and my boyfriend sometimes sits with me on a video call and we watch shows we like. The only thing I think might be that seeking reassurance is when I crave for him to just tell me it's okay and I'm okay, but often I start that by telling myself repeatedly that I'm okay. But I don't know a solution.. what everything tells me erp is seems like something that wouldn't help at all with what I'm feeling, but I could be wrong because of how severe it is? I mostly just wanted to get my thoughts out here, but what would you count as unhealthy seeking reassurance vs a healthy interaction that might also help my anxiety ease?

I don’t know why, but with my OCD, I always have this feeling, whether it’s a heavy feeling or just in the background of me feeling like I did something wrong or committed a crime and forgot. Like especially with my cats too. Or me remembering times I was drunk or even times I remembered clearly in the past. It’s like my brain tells me I have harmed someone/or my cats without any direct proof. Like the feeling is enough proof and that’s what my brain runs off of.

I saw a tik tok of a teacher saying how the brain thinks what you repeat to it is true. If you say, I have no friends, your brain believes it. I understand ERP is about sitting with discomfort. My homework today is to write a script of a worst case situation of being excluded by my friend group and then to repeat it over and over to myself. I get the purpose of it being to reproduce sensations and thoughts to allow yourself to see you can handle it. But is it not counterintuitive to read a script to yourself of things that aren't true? I am already believing some of the things I've been saying to myself. But after seeing this I wonder if I'm reinforcing it more?

Does anyone else have horrible nightmares? Mine are usually one of the two 1.a horrible graphic of someone I love dying (including my pets) think the car scene with Sarah from obsession.b I feel that grief. Waking up sobbing and grabbing my chest. 2.running from someone wanting to kill me (school shooting, serial killer etc.) Then of course I am in a panic attack as soon as I wake up. Mornings are the hardest for my OCD. Anyone else?

I would hardly call this ocd, more anxiety and social insecurity, but I guess this would fall under relationship ocd. I'm starting to make more friends online and in real life, which is great. It feels amazing to try new things But I typically run out of things to say at some point, and tend to obsess over the silence and delayed responses. I wanna get better at coming up with new stuff to say. If the other person doesn't wanna talk, I totally get and understand that. I just don't want to get so anxious and overthink every little thing, even if the friendship is going well. At the end of the day, I know I could always talk to someone new. Does anyone else relate, and how do you handle this anxiety?

Im Christian just to preface. I recently remembered something very bad I did when I was MUCH younger (like 7-11). Someone did something to me in which i did to someone else. I’ve been very considerate and morally just pretty much since I was a kid besides that instance. I feel awful disgusting and gross. And now I am having TERRIBLE scrupulosity OCD now. I NEVER ever repeated what happened that day and never ever plan to. However I feel gross and honestly the guilt is eating me alive. I honestly can’t take the thoughts rn I have NEVER felt guiltier. I feel like the worst person on the planet now and feel like maybe I dont deserve the life I have. And like I can’t be saved again? I feel the grace and love of God every day. But this guilt really affected me :( im afraid.

I’ve never been one to have anxiety or anything before but have known about OCD for a while. I woke up about 6 weeks ago having a panic attack about my health (I have a baby boy always worry about dying) this then turned into relationship anxiety. Me and my partner have had a baby, we have a mortgage together and he’s recently proposed to me. But I still can’t budge the fear of him cheating on. He’s constantly reassuring me and I’m convincing myself something isn’t right. He has a very strong opinion on cheating, the same as me. We can’t stand it. My mind is playing so many tricks on me, I’m constantly tracking is location and checking the ring doorbell.. I’m noticing things that have probably always happened such as him taking his phone into the kitchen while he makes the baby a bottle instead of leaving it on the sofa. It’s driving me insane and it got to the point where I convinced myself he was sleeping with the neighbour and then my best friend. He’s been cheated on in the past and so have I. I fully trusted him then all of a sudden (he didn’t do anything to make me feel this way) my brain is convincing me he’s cheating on me. He has 2 other children and literally says he wants them to look up to him and that he loves me so much he couldn’t even look at another woman in a certain way and he loves my family so much basically explaining that there is so much to lose for what? But all of this doesn’t seem to help me. It’s like my brain won’t chill out until I’ve found that he’s cheated on me but I’m not going to find that. I then started worrying at how do I know what he’s saying is true and he isn’t just saying it to make me believe he isn’t a cheat and that’s when he and other people have said you just have to trust what he’s saying. My argument is a cheat would say they aren’t a cheat. He’s said if he ever did (he explained he would never) he wouldn’t be able to live with himself, he’d have to tell me as he couldn’t cope with the guilt and also having to hide his phone but my point is he sometimes has to work away with work and what’s stopping him telling someone a completely different name and then never being able to contact him? I’m also worrying that what if he picks another girl up on the way to his hotel when he works away and when I ring him to speak she is just quite (because some girls really would do this) & then when I FaceTime him in the room she just waits outside. I just don’t know how to budge this feeling or what I can do to help????

18+ TW/ Mentions of Sexual Stuff and Age Gaps I've decided to compile my real events into one big post, maybe I'm doing this as a compulsion or maybe I want advice. I don't really know to be honest, but it might make me feel better. Anyway, I've been dealing with this for a while, my real event OCD really likes to cling to age gaps from when I was a minor. There's only really 2 things it can cling to but they really distress me now. The first event isnt as distressing to me but occasionally it can be. Years ago someone added me over Snapchat and they were 3 years younger than me. We spoke for like 5 minutes and I even sent a picture of myself to them, nothing bad just a picture I took a couple months prior. Afterwards I actually thought about the difference in age and immediately blocked them. Nothing bad was said but I still feel guilty about it as I should have realised the difference in age was weird sooner. I also don't think they were real as the way they spoke felt like a snapchat bot but I can't be fully sure. Then the second event was an event I've spoken about before in previous posts. I used to role-play with older men online in a sexual way. I don't know why, I didn't really get much enjoyment from it. I think I did it to feel better about myself but I always ended up feeling worse after. Then one time someone who was 2 years younger than me messaged me. I can't remember how we met but we agreed to role-play. Initially, I didn't think a 2 year age gap was bad so I agreed. I think I even thought something along the lines of "finally someone who is around my age". From what I remember we didn't speak too long as I had second thoughts and made us stop. I think we did start and stuff was said but ultimately we didn't get very far in. I don't know how I didn't see it as wrong then, I do think I stopped because of the age gap but it's so long ago I can't remember any details. Theres a chance we didn't even start, there's a chance we stopped way sooner than I remember, but the memory is so fuzzy that I can't be sure. I'm an adult now and I think about these real events constantly every day. I don't know if I deserve treatment or if I deserve forgiveness, I just really don't know. My family knows and for some bizarre reason they still support me and tell me I didn't do anything wrong. How can they say that? I feel like a monster. I should have known better and I just wish I never had Internet access. I quit role-playing pretty much immediately after the second event and I haven't had any real events like this since. I've seen people on this app talk about events similar to these and I can feel sympathy for them, after all we were kids and didn't know any better. But I just can't think in the same way for myself. I hope I never hurt these people. That's the only thing I care about at this point. Anyway, sorry for the long vent and thank you for reading all this. I'm going to continue to try and be a good person, even if I potentially don't deserve the ability to be one. I hope you all have a good day 🫶

My M33 boyfriend just called me F29 the love of his life at 4 months, and consistently tells me I’m his “life.” When I told him that I think he should only say such a thing if he is certain and say that to someone he was planning on marrying or getting engaged to soon - he said essentially “oh, I didn’t realize that’s what that meant to you, I’m sorry for saying it.” Then I brought up the concept of marriage for the first time in our relationship, and said clearly that I wouldn’t be ready to get married right now but that it’s a concept that I’m considering with him in a real way he said “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to marry you tomorrow.” He went on to say that he feels very optimistic about our relationship and that “I want to want to marry you.” We also discussed what kind of timelines, if any, we each felt were appropriate for such a big decision. We both said 1+ year for engagement. And we also discussed the idea that we weren’t completely certain we wanted to marry each other at this stage. He has said both that “I want to love you forever” and said that he couldn’t promise me we would be together forever. “No one can predict the future.” “I can’t tell you what is going to happen between us in the future.” It does not compute for me how both can be true. He is AuDHD and I don’t think he realizes the significance of what he was saying. I have ROCD, and so every time he says something big like this, it’s very difficult for me not to spiral about if he means anything he says, if we are compatible when the things he says now all feel hollow. My OCD spiral “How do I know now that he truly means anything he has said?” It feels like he’s engaging in a fantasy relationship, and I’m left to pick up the pieces AND contain my ROCD at the same time. I feel really hurt - it took so much courage for me to have this conversation with him and stave off ROCD (still in the process of doing!). To hear that he didn’t mean these big things that he said - it’s hard not to take all this as a sign that things are going wrong. For him to say all this and essentially take it back feels like he’s then specifically saying I’m NOT the love of his life, he does NOT want to marry me. With ROCD as well, it’s hard now not to compare myself with his ex, who he was about to propose to before she broke up with him. He was prepared to “marry her tomorrow” - My OCD “so what’s wrong with me where this isn’t true?!?” Separate spiral: I kind of feel like now (with perfectionism) I’m going to try to jump through all the right hoops, and try to be the perfect person to reach whatever criteria he has — so that I can prove I am “good enough.” Regardless of whether or not I really want to marry him, it feels like proof of my worth or lack thereof (now) whether or not he wants to marry me. And our whole relationship would just be better off in the first place if he’d never said any of it and just let our relationship be at the 4 months stage. I don’t know how to get back into that mindset now, of just getting to know each other and be in love in the early stages. I am quick to demonize my own behavior in the relationship as ROCD - but I feel like with all of this he is setting me up for failure again and again and making ROCD even harder. I’ve expressed this to him, but the urge to circle back and overexplain is so strong. He has agreed to not say these things anymore. My OCD: “What if he never means it? What if he never says it again? What does that mean about me?” (YEP seeking meaning) This is now the third person to call me the love of their life, and not really mean it. My OCD: “What is wrong with me where people don’t mean it?” Any non-engagement responses or tips for breaking out of these spirals?

My family and I are sick atm, but i feel like they are lying about being sick to make me feel more comfortable and at ease. Every time i get sick i automatically assume its rabies and i get a little bit of comfort knowing when someone else is sick aswell so i can rely on that and tell myself rabies doesnt make everyone around me sick. Although my mom was sick before me I feel like shes lying to me somehow even though she looks sick and acts sick, and was even sick before me. I feel so self centered and bad for even thinking this, Is this ocd or is this just me being self centered?

I'm actually gonna crash out. This was the one day of the week that I worked, which normally I worked more. But because I worked a night, on top of going to college I couldn't hang out with my boyfriend. And I was yapping with him in like d m's, and I happened to go through, like one of the discord servers we were in, and he offhandedly mentioned that he relapsed, and now i'm like, kind of crashing out, cause I feel like it's my fault, because I wasn't with him. Like logically, I know, that's not how it is. But like, holy fuck is my anxiety through the roof right now. Like, we were sending voice messages back and forth and I hadn't gone through that server. And I just happened to go oh, there's a little notification. There and I clicked on it. And I saw that, and now I don't even know how to continue on the conversation. Like he routinely has to talk to a doctor like because of his medications and s*** so like, his doctors gonna find out. But like, of course, this is almost midnight when i'm nowhere near the campus dorms and I can't just up and leave and go like talk to him in person.

I have been struggling with my OCD only allowing me to buy things on Mondays. My OCD tells me that technically Sunday is the first day of the week which makes it perfect for buying things but it is not allowed because it is a sin to purchase anything on Sunday so it skips ahead to Monday as the best day. However; there is one caveat that if Monday is on a day of the week that has a 6 in it (except 16-Don’t ask me why) or the 13th it makes the day cursed and whatever I bought is imperfect. I recently purchased something I needed (a new phone) on a Tuesday because Monday was the 26th and “bad”. I figured it would work the same way as the Sunday rule and instead of the purchasing day being Monday it would just move to Tuesday. This instead backfired and has caused me extreme anxiety that I feel will never go away. The anxiety is nearly all day long to the point where I don’t even want to use my phone. Every time I even look at my phone or think about it the word “Tuesday” pops in my head and makes me very anxious. It has been a few days and I am still nearly the same and feel the urge to return it even though there is nothing wrong with it and order another one on a Monday causing me lots of hassle. I have been hoping that eventually the anxiety will go away but I feel unsure. My OCD tells me if you had just waited another week it would have been a “Good Monday” but you didn’t and ruined your phone making it imperfect. Does anyone have any advice on what to do or experienced something similar? Any help is highly appreciated.

i keep forgetting to consult a professional about this but i genuinely need to know where this stems from/what drives it. i’ve always liked to take notes in the way i deem “perfectly” which is taking up as much of the paper as possible so that it was thoroughly used. this includes having all the material in order and together. like topic 1 has to be all together and before topic 2 and i need to fully use the paper neatly and so on and so forth. also with skin picking if i feel a scab or raised skin on myself i pick at it to get rid of it essentially. so that my skin is even. and then i can go in with products to make my skin tone even. obviously this causes more scabbing and scarring that i need to get rid of. which i find myself thinking about taking chunks of my skin off. and in my defense most of them have come from pimples (i don’t have acne my skin is just weird and i don’t know how to take care of it and how to help it when a nasty pimple decides to arrive and my skin kind of hates everything and sucks at healing idk i need to see a dermatologist but alas). anyways. thank you for coming to my ted talk. also i’m fairly certain i have undiagnosed adhd hence the horrible memory and forgetfulness. ok bye.

I have such bad ppd, & ppa. I am struggling everyday with that alone, but now it’s been popping up all over tik tok about ppocd. I use an owlet, every night. I still wake up panicking checking if she’s breathing nearly every hour. I’m scared to give her baths alone, what if she drowns, what if she falls, what if she gets hurt and I’m alone. I have a really hard time driving with her alone because I’m always scared of car crashes, I always think that will happen to us. I have to check her car seat 5 times before we leave to make sure she’s in good enough. I’m exhausted, it’s been 5 months I’m just waiting for this season of my life to pass, does it pass?

my intrusive thoughts are kind of quiet right now which is giving me more anxiety bc if i don’t feel anxiety rn does that mean i actually want to act on them..

Things got too heavy and Its like my glass broke and I opened up about my ocd to my friends and now I feel guilty and that I ruined my future have tou ever guys opened up to people about your ocd or I am stupid for doing that

Good afternoon everyone. Been a while since I’ve posted on here, but life has been so good for me these last few weeks/months …… my life is operating at 98 percent. I can confidently say I’m living life and loving it. This journey has been so crazy but I put the work in and fought my way out of that hell I was in! Was promoted at my job, had my second child whos now 5 months, my son is doing well! I’m going out with friends, and family! I look back to last year in shock out how bad my ocd had took over my life, but I never gave up hope. I kept pushing and fighting! I knew there was light at the end of that long ass tunnel, and if not fuck it I had kids that needed me! I wasn’t going out without giving it my all, and I can say I’m benefiting from all the exposures and hard work I put in. I hope everyone finds this peace of mind the way I found it. Bless you all. Till next time! ✌️