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What can I do if I am extremely worried of running out of money?

Obsession or compulsion? I'm getting so confused. So normally something scary pops into my head and I start thinking about it. And I pull in other things, related things, or make it a lot worse than it it. I can think myself to the point of a panic attack. I thought this was a compulsion, because I can do it for hours and if I'm interrupted I have to start over. But I stop doing it because it does me no good and brings me to panic levels of anxiety. I'm really confused now because I'm starting ERP and the goal of exposure is to get myself really anxious. Well googling and ruminating is what makes me really anxious..... but it's also what I do for hours and can't stop... so.... what do I do? If I obsess and google to the point of a panic attack to "expose" myself then what? I would still just google and obsess. ? If I have the initial thought and just don't ruminate it just goes away and I'm no longer anxious. And that seems way too easy. I can't be doing this right.

Title: first pOCD story + false memories [Trigger warnings] pOCD, false memories, self-harm [Introduction] this is the earliest story I remember I have dealt with pocd - I don't remember how it all started. It causes me panic, sleepless nights, suicidal ideation and motive to cut myself. [basic information] female, 20s, I identify as demisexual panromantic (you can think of myself as bi), in therapy with a non-ocd specialist but diagnosed with it by 2 different psicologists since November 2019 (though I haven't had therapy since February due to the virus), I suffer from pOCD since early-mid 2017. My OCD exploded into major proportions in July 2019 - - - × - - - Like I've mentioned before, this is one of the first events (or the very first) that made me wonder if I was a "p". Summer 2017, I went to a friend's house and I met her younger sister (8, at the time). She was very sweet, pretty, adorable and I liked her so much! She showed me her toys and she was always around me... But in that moment, I feared I felt some sort of romantic attraction to her... Sometimes I get on the verge of tears because it was so strong... - this felt like attraction. As I'm recalling the day, I'm remembering the warm feeling I experienced (like I was developing a crush). I spent the whole day panicking internally, wondering If I was "p" and if I was attracted to her - I tried to dismiss the thoughts believing my head was trying to fool me so I still enjoyed the day and tried to fight those thoughts by engaging with her and playing with her, despite the fear I felt. I've always wanted a little sister and one day (at that time), I wanted to have a daughter someday. Later that day, we went to the pool and I played with her again and even gave her piggyback rides and grabbed her and thrown her into the water (like I used to do with my brother). This where my false memories begin. (due to my OCD and constant worrying, my brain became fried and the wrong portions of the memory are broken and make me wonder what I did) December 2019, I put the idea on my head that I have "hurt" a child on the past. And this is the only story I have where I interacted with a child. While I gave her the piggyback ride, I don't remember where I placed my hands: under her legs (the right way) or under her butt. For this reason, I am absolutely terrified that I placed my hands on her butt with evil intentions. Part of me believes this "memory" is false because I have never done anything inappropriate (that I remember); my piggyback rides are always the right way (but I I also vaguely remember pondering that I obviously had to hold her correctly); for the longest time I had a "clear" conscious (which means that I thought I didn't do anything wrong except wondering if I was attracted to her); I don't remember having evil intentions. But my mind... It doubts everything... It's tiring. I don't think I felt arousal or any groinal response. But I can't be sure. My memories of that day are very blurred. I've shared this story with my therapist and she told me that the reason for this fear is because I was mentally sexually abused by a family member and I'm terrified of doing to others what people have done to me. (and I always hated being touched in the butt) plus, according to her, due to the lack of affection on my childhood, I can't tell the difference between affection and attraction. I remember enjoying her company and wanting to spend more time around her... But I'm so scared that I had bad intentions, because "p" people want to be around children. I feel like there was more than "having a child/sister for a day" because of my strong feelings for this girl. At the end of the day, I remember feeling guilty for fighting those thoughts… because I was afraid that I did something inappropriate that I didn't notice. I regretted this whole day. When I went back to her house, I avoided the child at all costs. I also would like to add that, thinking back about this event, I felt so disgusting and so evil… To be honest, I've always felt that way. Whenever I am insert in friendly social interactions, I feel like a monster, like I don't belong there. And that day was no exception but these these "evil" feelings were a lot bigger because of my thoughts and I honestly felt like a "p". Does it make sense? I felt so disgusting because I felt like one. I felt like a pervert… I felt dirty. This distress of thinking that my actions or conversations might have been inappropriate led me to crying, cutting myself and suicidal ideation.

Hey nOCD Fam! Opening up a Q+A session all day today if you have any questions on OCD Recovery and what life is like in recovery with OCD still there but maintained, if you are a skeptic if it because you are suffering so much, how ERP worked for me, anything. Love chatting with you guys, thanks for letting me lend a hand!

I have been in OCD recovery for about 7 months now. For the first 5 months I was making steady improvements but these last 2 I feel like I've hit a roadblock and can't seem to get past it. I don't want to settle for 'good enough' in this and I want to fully recover buf I don't know how to get past it. My therapist says I am self sabotaging but I'm not sure I agree with that. Anyone relate or have advice?

So I feel like I always have a hard time making any decisions or staying fully committed with something. I’ve been going to school what feels like an eternity and I feel like I’m not happy and want to change my major.. but idk if it’s really what I want. I’m always second guessing myself. Also I’ve been with my bf for about 2 years and I do love him but find myself second guessing our relationship..?? Is this just me or does this somehow have anything to do with my ocd?? I overthink everything...

Sucks when ocd and trauma leaks into your dreams. I had a bunch of weird nightmares and such the last day. And I’ve mainly slept all day and most of the night (it’s 1 am now I just woke up again) different nightmares about my dog that passed away, his cancer, and then one nightmare dealt with my fear of sharp objects in the body and holes in the body.. and then one dealt with my sexual intrusive thoughts and family which made me feel gross. I’m always having nightmares and have been more than not for years. Dunno why I’m not used to them by now. And I’m still anxious because of guilt so I’m just kinda like lying here wanting to isolate myself from everyone and trying not to. I’ve been feeling guilt for 3 days now like... I said last year I almost said I was 17 to do a reading program (I just wanted to do a reading program I miss childhood a lot) and my friend said something but later apologized but it set me off. Funny thing is I didn’t think about it at all until the other day. Not once has it been on my brain until the other day. Now I’m obsessing about it like crazy. I don’t get it. Ughhh i don’t mean harm and didn’t mean harm. Most of last year I was obsessed with my health and my fear of dying and then my best friend leaving me. So not once did that cross my mind at ALL. I completely forgot about it and now it won’t leave me alone.

It’s hard to be a Therapist when your own OCD is at a 10. That’s what I was dealing with for the past month. I had to fight through my desire/obsession to hospitalize myself to get stable and do everything I could to work on things myself. Hospitals are not a great place to be right now. I got the mental health support and medication adjustment I needed as well as so much support from family and friends. I’m so grateful! I was really in a bad place. And it was hard as hell for several weeks. I felt trapped, helpless, and terrified. But I’m doing so much better now and I’m back to being the Therapist I need to be for the people I serve. OCD doesn’t define me, it just makes me a stronger and more effective Therapist and advocate to End The Stigma!!

I began struggling with pocd about 3 months ago. I’m the mom of two boys ages 3 and 7. Soon after that theme started for me, I discovered I was pregnant which was a surprise. At some point I latched on the the “what if I acted on my pocd fears and that is how this pregnancy came to be.” This led to me exerting all my energy to figure out if that was true, checking my memories ect. I began feeling like I had a “memory” even though that memory is very vague and details of it sometimes change when I try to recall it. Anyway, I’m struggling a great deal by now thinking I’ve acted on my pocd fears and now I’m carrying a child of incest. I get thoughts such as “what if I was half asleep?” Ect. And maybe that’s why I can’t remember it clearly. I’ve even gotten to the point of contemplating terminating this pregnancy because I just don’t know how to make it through with these thoughts. I feel like I will have the baby and something will be majorly wrong with it. Eventually tests will be run ect and all of my fears will turn out to be true. Then I will be separated from everyone and everything that I love and have to live out the rest of my life in a prison cell.

Idk who needs to hear this but ERP always works. I've tried everything. I've tried thinking my way out of it. I've tried doing good acts of kindness to make myself feel less guilty about my obsessions. I've tried relying on meds to solve the problem. I've tried reasoning with OCD so it gets itsway and I have my way. It doesn't work. You can't reason with OCD, you just have to look at it in the eye and say, "Fuck you, fine. I'm (blank). My life is going to be ruined and everyone I love will hate me or die. That's just how it is I guess". It will put up a hell of a fight, but it will slowly wither away. Please do it if you haven't tried it!

Used to think my having HOCD was some magic guarantee that my fear of being not straight couldn’t be true or ever come true; obviously now I see that was a dangerous compulsion but it’s extremely hard seeing examples of people with HOCD recovering and then discovering/accepting they are actually bi or gay. That’s the biggest fear that I think keeps me from properly throwing myself into recovery because I feel like my anxiety is proof of my sexuality or something.

Hocd apparently there is Core fear everyone has in the there belief system has any therapists spoke to anyone about this

At this point i’m using that app as a place to vent so this is gonna be long sorry. I feel like anytime someone makes a sound like a grunt or a moan or their tone of voice or anything of that nature my mind automatically sexualizes it even if it wasn’t in a sexual nature. And this is hard for me because those are noises people just make on a daily basis like if they’re picking something up or if they just woke up and now it’s become a thing where automatically if i hear it i’ll get a groinal response or like a twitch or something and it’s even worse for me since now i’m always home so those reactions are from hearing my mom or my sister which then makes me feel terrible cause then it’s like i’m attracted to a family member literally just making a fucking sound. For example my mom was all groggy talking on the phone because she just woke up and i heard her and then boom i was triggered. like wtf. And this time i noticed the response that i got was different to other times because usually i know the difference between a groinal response and when i’m genuinely attracted to someone like when i’m talking to a guy but this time it i felt like i responded as if it was someone i was attracted to which took away the security of it just being a groinal response. And this time i kinda just sat there with the thought rather shutting it out right away or panicking so now i feel like the reaction was genuine or that i wanted the thought and feelings to come. And sometimes i feel like things that probably shouldn’t trigger me put me on edge because i’m afraid of the possibility that it could and because i’m trying to fight off the possibility of triggering me it becomes a trigger cause my mind now associates whatever the thing was with panic or discomfort. This is hard because something that i was doing to protect myself from triggers is what causes the trigger. And i feel like it’s harder for me to move past things when it comes to my family members because if it were a friend i could deal with the possibility of being attracted to them and the uncertainty of that, but i can’t deal with the possibility of being attracted to my fucking mom or sister. And when i sit there and allow the thought to pass my mind and i have a response i feel like i just allowed myself or wanted the response to happen otherwise i would’ve fought it off as i normally would. I know i need to not question everything and be okay with the uncertainty of things but i literally feel like i can’t help but obsess over why i do things and why i reacted in a certain way.

I never thought I would say this but this app triggers me so much and brings me a new theme. My OCD themes are usually religious and ROCD but since yesterday, I found a lot of post about HOCD, i began to fear that what if this will be my next theme/problem. And then this morning when I woke up, I felt so scared that I may be not as straight woman I thought I am. This is frightening as I do not want to be gay nor my ocd to morp into something else. OCD really sucks.

I relapsed over watching porn and masturbation, this is not so much ocd related, but it weakens me and my faith, also I start to fear my pocd came back again

Made a comment earlier saying that if it wasn’t for society’s view on my fear I would enjoy it/ already commited it. I also said that I had done some questionable stuff that could/would lead up to me doing my fear. Most of which if I told people, they would be like “uh, wtf? seems like you are into that.” Katie replied and said “Maybe you would, you never know”. I 100% understand that this is supposed to make me deal with the uncertainty & overcome the anxiety. But i’ve been crying over that for a couple hours now. I don’t want to be that disgusting person. And because I have real-event OCD, it seems to me I already was that disgusting person. I just never went to far into my fear. It’s excruciatingly painful to think about. At one point I thought that certain stuff was okay. I was a kid, but still, I thought it was okay. Meaning, if it wasn’t for me maturing, I would’ve done that stuff, if it wasn’t for society, I would be that horrible person. I cant live knowing this.

I have a headache and I’m scared ?

i hate when i test myself thinking that i’ll be able to control my response or just to see how i would react to something but then end up with the complete opposite of the response i wanted and then begin to stress about why i reacted that certain way even though i did because it’s literally a trigger. but then i feel like i did it to myself or that i wanted it because i purposefully thought of it. it’s a terrible cycle.

I rly truly feel alone. I see everyone else’s posts on this app get multiple likes but then mine always seems skipped over and it makes me wonder if everyone else must think I’m messed up too. And I’m panicking all over again. I’m really tired and my pocd is constantly triggered. I’m just tired of it.

So my bf and I have been calling every single night for like a few hours (1-2) for the last two months and tonight we couldn’t and it was kind of nice to take a break from the phone calls....How do I handle these thoughts can anyone relate? How do I handle feeling guilty?