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Did my ERP for HOCD and it spiked me way up worse, obviously the goal but there was something else. Instead of making me feel better, it made me “feel” gay. Obviously you can’t feel gay and gay people don’t feel gay like we don’t wake up feeling straight but when I tell myself I’m straight I feel like I’m lying and I’m actually believing the OCD thoughts that say I’m bi/gay and thoughts about women that wasn’t there before is coming. I told my therapist and she said “it gets worse before it gets better” and I have to go through it to become better. Did ERP make anyone feel like this afterwards? Am I on the right track with this? Is this really part of the process? I don’t fully feel comfortable with my therapist yet to tell her everything but I do tell her enough and I don’t think she understood when I told her this. This feeling of it feeling like it confirmed my worse fear of doing ERP and realizing it was the truth but obviously I know it’s not but I doubt what I even really want. I have two more ERP sessions to do today but I really don’t want to do it again if I feel this low. It takes me several hours to bounce back after ERP. Any resources about ERP would be great.

Hi, I have struggled quite badly with relationship ocd for about a year now and am always getting new worries coming and going at different times. Was just wondering if anybody here ever creates situation in their head like: ‘how would I react if an ex partner or someone else wanted something to happen between us’. Even though I know I would never do anything as I am very happy with my current partner the more you question the deeper into the intrusive thoughts you get. I can tell it’s stemmed from ocd as it just randomly popped up recently and took off really quickly in my head, I still become obsessed in my mind with things like: ‘why am I thinking that’ ‘I shouldn’t think that if I’m with someone else’ even though I know it’s the ocd I find it very hard to differentiate and not ruminate. Thanks everyone

Having an extremely difficult time. I honestly just want to vent. I understand if you accidentally give reassurance but try not to. This is long. So thank you if you read it all. Hoping I will look back at this one day and be like “Wow. I actually got through this.” But for now, my OCD has been UP. A. WALL. since I moved back in to a toxic household. First it was ridiculous obsessions over coronavirus when lockdown started but being too depressed to even actually clean anything so I just would freak out all day but I’m like well nothing can be 100 percent clean so there is not point. Flash forward about month into April, a lot has happened in my house and my parents are getting a divorce. My dad is extremely abusive and has mental health/alcohol problems himself but is untreated. I’m trying my best to be here for my mom but also dealing with my own issues. It seems like my dad’s actions have triggered me into thinking I’m a terrible person and will do or I have done exactly what he has done. And I’ll back on that bullshit where my favorite shows I watch have content that makes my brain go “Oh you would do that.” “You support that.” “Your mom is dealing with your dad cheating but your favorite character cheater and you love her blah blah blah” “You’re a terrible person for thinking that/doing that” it’s like something every day!! And now I’m having this guilty about killing bugs, or just literally every single thought all day is like “Hey remember you did this/thought that. That was bad” My brain latches on to some guilty thought I had, something I said, or some action I did. It’s like my thoughts have to be 100 PERCENT PURE or I’m like “I’m a terrible person. I should die, I don’t deserve to live.” There have been several things I have done/said that I absolutely cannot stomach right now and feel like I don’t deserve to live but I have no intent on killing myself. I do want to run away from home though but I know I can’t. But then I feel like I just want to cause a scene and I feel bad about that. Everything is just like “Remember when you said that? Or your posted that. You shouldn’t do that!” It’s like all day every day. Or if I think back to something guilty I feel about a friend I just want to completely cut them off and start over and not hang out with them but I know that is a compulsion to avoid. Today I forced myself to hang out with a friend even when I felt that urge. I could be here all day and telling you every single obsession but that is basically what it all is is moral/guilt/shame OCD, as well as several other topics I’ve been having like harm, contamination, perfectionism, obsessing over flaws, sexual orientation etc.. I am so overwhelmed. If you made it this far, thank you so much for your time. I could have made it way longer my trying to resist that perfectionism urge LOL

For those of you that have successfully managed your symptoms, what helped motivation-wise? Did meditation, reading, etc help you find the courage to stand up to OCD? I feel like I’m lacking the mental/spiritual/psychological energy to *really* do the work, and it’s so discouraging.

I am freaking pissed. I wasted a year teaching my nephew how to read. Except that he puts zero effort into his school work and his dad puts zero effort into trying to help or motivate him. I am really freaking pissed off. Not only does my nephew not even try in his school work, he is EXTREMELY disrespectful of my husband and I who have done nothing except try to help and support him. And his dad bold faced lied to me about him completing his school work when he didn't. And he was dumb enough to send back the uncompleted work! If you're going to fucking lie right to my face, at least be smart about it.

Ocd Recovery a guy I follow on Instagram talked about science and what happens after death. I believe in God and pray and stuff like that but there is always that doubt that persists in my mind. Like for example, when I die where will I go? Well his post talked about eternal blackness. Basically when you die there is nothing but blackness forever. Which I guess doesn't really matter seeing as your dead. But it still bugs me a lot. I'm afraid if I dont believe in God I'll go to hell so I know I do believe in him but the act of even questioning him feels like a sin. Sorry for the rambling this post is kind of all over the place just venting my frustrations.

I’m upset again because I’m not sure what I said or if I said something, it was while I was on my way home and my mom had the music blasting so loud I can’t even remember anything yet could I even hear myself whisper but my thoughts were annoying me I don’t know if I said “shut up” out loud for some reason I remember being cut off because my mom was telling me something but it had to be that because my mind was annoying me, and I said that in my head just before and I might’ve been trying to repeat it for reassurance I might not have said it in full so like a because I feel like I was cut off, my mind thinks I might’ve just said “shu-“ which isn’t even a word but my mind is overthinking and trying to point it to the fragile and hurtful topic that was annoying me, and the music was too loud I have no memory but I don’t know my mind is making me think/feel like I am crazy. I couldn’t hear anything and I can’t get past what exactly I said or if I even said anything but at least I know what I meant to say ? this was towards the intrusive hurtful thought in my head btw not to my mom, please help me

for girls only !! okay so i had my favorite dress on when i suddenly got my period completely unexpectedly. there was a small stain in the dress and I washed the dress 4x and I even went over it with rubbing alcohol :( the stain is completely gone but I still Dont dare to wear the dress because I think it is dirty :( what can I do? someone tips ???

It feels like I don’t even care anymore what I do, like I can grab boobs and do that and just not care anymore but I don’t wanna I hate this I just wanna be straight This isn’t how a lesbian feels if this is I HATE IT

I'm really struggling to deal with this, any advice would be helpful honestly. I keep having this memory from several years ago when I saw a daddy kink video which had acting in it that made me uncomfortable. The actress had made several videos like this so she was 18+, so it was okay like that but it's just that the nature of it is disturbing. This never really bothered me before moral scrupulosity/pocd themes came into my life, before that I just pushed it off as another weird video Online catering to weird fetishes (porn is full of them). But now I feel like I have to ruminate on it, feel shame and guilt for ever coming across it because that acting had made me so uncomfortable. I keep trying to think if I turned it off immediately. I'm sure I did. But OCD keeps making me feel uncertain. This was literally when I was a young teenager (14/15 maybe 16? I'm not sure, but I was young). :(

Guys I would like to hear your experiences: What is your theme and what exposures you'are doing. Right now I'm dealing with pocd and sensorimotor ocd and I'm doing self erp and I feel it's working,mindfulness has been helpful too,even though I'm not seeing a therapist.

I posted on Reddit last night with my entire sexual history and someone said to me maybe you’re bi. I feel helpless

I know that this really sucks. I'm tired of this...every single day all the time. Can I get a break??? ?

Hi guys... I'm new here & not sure how this works but I could really use some help. I have the kind of OCD that hasn't let me eat or sleep in over a year now. I'm 8kgs under weight. I have not been able to function. I have nightmares & paranoia and sleep with all my lights on (if at all I manage to sleep). I'm always scared and struggle to breathe. I'm really restless & I have suicidal thoughts, sometimes. I also have anxiety disorder, depression & panic attacks. I don't know what to do. I want it to stop. Even if its for a few hours. Can anyone help me...? Please...?

Found out today my grandma has cancer and things aren’t looking so good. My heart is broken and I’m afraid my ocd with come back worse again. Idk I’m just really sad and don’t know who to talk to.

It kind of worries me that there aren’t a lot of people here who deal with Suicidal and Existential OCD. It makes me feel like I don’t have OCD and that I won’t get out of this spiral. Really feeling the need to talk.

HARM OCD MY LONG STORY. I wanted to post my story just incase someone else can relate to my intrusive thoughts. I’m am 16 years old and I suffer with anxiety but lately I’ve had intrusive thoughts to do with harming myself and others on and off for about a year now but they are really bad at the moment. I remember I had my first set of intrusive thoughts when I was around 11. I was on Instagram ( I know you are not supposed to have it till you’re 13 but all my friends had it at 11 so I felt like I had to haha ) I remember I read a post about someone commiting suicide and I quickly googled to check what that meant as I didn’t know and as an 11 year old that freaked me out as I had never thought about suicide before and I thought to myself “that’s awful what if that happened to me and I wanted to kill myself” I remember this thought scared me and I thought that just by thinking that maybe I did want to and I remember I kept getting thoughts that said “I wanna kill myself” in my head and they scared me so much so I told my mum and she told me these thoughts were just triggered by a scary post and I quickly forgot about them. It first started around a year ago when I was on summer break from school and when I was at my friends house and we was watching a documentary on YouTube about a serial killer as my friends and I found them quite interesting. I remember suddenly as I was watching it I got a random thought “what if I became crazy and wanted to kill everyone”. I remember my heart skipped a bit and this thought terrified me as I had never thought about anything like this before and I thought “Oh my god no you’d never want to do that” and I quickly forgot about it as I was with my friends and I got distracted. The next day I continued that documentary at home by myself as we didn’t completely finish it and they thought returned “what If I wanted to become a serial killer” and again I was completely terrified. I was terrified that this thought meant something and I kept asking myself why do you keep thinking about that and I couldn’t get it out my head. I then kept thinking about this thought for about a week and I kept wondering why I was so obsessed and kept thinking about it. I remember thinking to myself “what if you are thinking about it so much because deep down you actually want to do it?” I remember this made me burst into tears because I’ve have always been such a caring and kind person and I’d never want to hurt anyone I can’t even hurt a spider if it’s in my house I have to remove it careful lol! After obsessing over these thoughts for about a week I returned back to school where I got completely distracted and didn’t have these thoughts for about 4 months! I then remember getting a scary thought again 4 months later when I was watching the news with my mum, dad & brother and on the news was the story about I think terrorist attack in London where someone had stabbed a couple of people and I remember watching it thinking “oh my god this is awful, I can’t believe things like this happen” etc. I then remember a random thought popped into my head and it was “what if that happened to me and I went crazy I went round and stabbed people” I remember this thought made me cry and I had to leave the room and my family and I went up to my room and I started crying and I thought to myself “why the hell would you think of that” and I kept telling myself “it’s just a thought you know you’d never do that” and the thought actually passed and I didn’t think of it again. I then didn’t have any harm intrusive thoughts until now. I hadn’t had bad obsessive thoughts for about 5 months since now. About a month ago I watched a video called “reacting to the scariest 999 calls” and I really wish I hadn’t but it didn’t even enter my head that this could trigger my intrusive thoughts. One of the calls in the YouTube video was a serial killer who after every kill rang the police to tell them he couldn’t help it but he just kept killing people. This again absolutely terrified me and I straight away thought to myself “what if that happens to me and I can’t help myself and I just want to kill people” I straight away turnt off the video and my heart was beating so fast. I remember I straight away burst out crying and I just kept thinking to myself “what if that happened to me” and “what if I become a serial killer” and “what if I want to do that deep down but I don’t want to admit it”. That last thought was the one that triggered my anxiety the most because I believed that if I’m thinking this it just mean something and maybe I actually want to do it even though these are genuine fears and things i fear happening so much. The next day I woke up and straight away these thoughts popped into my head again and stayed through out the whole day and the whole next week. As the weeks past and I kept worrying and obsessing over these thoughts the worse and worse they got and I literally could not get them out of my head. After a week of worrying about becoming a serial killer my thoughts then moved on to another set of worries. As we are in a global pandemic and we are in quarantine I am quarantining with my mum, dad and brother I remember I got a thought “what if I just went downstairs and grabbed a knife and just stabbed all my family isn’t there stories of teenagers doing that? What if that happens to me and I do that” This thought made me feel so sick and I literally could not stop crying and again I started to obsess over it. I then started to feel weird when I picked up knives because I was having these horrible intrusive thoughts about stabbing family members that literally disgusted me. I also had thoughts about “what If I just took a knife out with me without even thinking and I stabbed random people when I was out.” I literally couldn’t touch knives for a week straight and if I didn’t I felt extreme anxiety because I had fear I was going to act out these thoughts and I just felt so so so scared I can’t explain. The more I worried and obsessed the worse they got and quickly. I remember I’d just be watching a video on YouTube of a random girl and I’d think “omg she is so pretty” and then out of nowhere my brain would go “I wanna kill her” and then I’d think “NO YOU DONT WHAT THE HELL AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING THAT THATS HORRIBLE AND DISGUSTING”. I could also just be talking to my mum and having a normal conversation and my brain would go “I wanna kill her” out of nowhere which made me feel physically sick as I’d never want to do that and I love my mum and these thoughts honestly just made me cry straight away. I also had a fear I would just randomly snap and hurt someone so I worry that I’d argue with my mum and just out of nowhere lose control and hurt her. I argued with my mum over something and I got angry and I thought “what if I got angry and I hurt her” which made me so upset and then straight away again after that thought I got another random out of now where “I wanna hurt her” thought which just I don’t even know to explain but those are the intrusive thoughts that scare me the most. I then turnt to my dad as he is always so understanding and he knows I’ve always struggled with really bad anxiety. I opened up about these thoughts and worries and fears I was experiencing and he laughed at me. He said these thoughts were simply irritational and did not at all fit with who I am and my character. He reminded me that they were just triggered by the scary video I watched and that just because it happened to someone in a YouTube video does not mean it’ll happen to me. He said I also don’t have it in me to kill or hurt someone as I am caring and kind and that not to let these scary thoughts get to me. Opening up about seeking reassurance actually made these thoughts a lot worse and more obsessive. I thought by opening up about these thoughts I’d feel better and reassurance from my dad would help but it only helped for about 3 hours then the thoughts came straight back and they started to come back worse. I was out with my mum and there was police near by and I remember thinking “what I’m an awful person for having these thoughts and I need to go and confess them to the police so they lock me up.” and when I was out I remember thinking “what if I have a knife on me and I don’t know” and “what If I brought a knife out with me and I didnt realise and I just stabbed someone” and “what if I brought a knife out because I secretly want to do it” and I remember I started crying so much in public and I thought I needed to confess my scary and horrible thoughts to the police because I couldn’t be trusted and I’m an evil person. I then remember coming home and I just thought to myself “why do you keep thinking of such horrible things” and “do I actually want to do these things?” I also remember thinking “I must want to do these things if I’m even thinking about it” and I then got a rush of thoughts like “I wanna kill someone then I’m horrible person if I’m thinking this” and these thoughts kept telling me “I wanna kill someone” I then decided I couldn’t take any more so I contacted my therapist and told her all the thoughts I was having. She reminded me these thoughts were normal and it was just my brain getting all of my fears out. She said the more I think these thoughts mean something and that deep down they have a meaning or deep down I want to do them the worse and scarier they will get. She said to remind myself I can not control the first thing that pops into my head and when I get these scary thoughts I should write them down on a piece of paper then throw it away and just think these don’t meaning anything. She also said “Your wild imagination is normal its what enables us humans to be creative but sometimes this can be scary.” This calmed me down and I felt reassured as it was coming from my therapist. After talking to my therapist I started to feel better and everytime I had a thought I would just laugh write it down and bin it and remind myself they are normal and everyone gets them. But intrusive thoughts are like bullies so they came back worse and this time I could see myself doing these horrible thoughts in my head but I still tried to stay strong and reminded myself of what my therapist had told me. I then started googling these thoughts and it led me to intrusive thoughts and harm OCD which I literally relate to everything I have read online but of course I don’t want to self diagnose but I’ve already been diagnosed with anxiety and ocd comes under that. Dealing with these scary intrusive thoughts are so so hard. I will tell myself “I don’t want to do these things they just intrusive thoughts and my anxiety will make me worry that mean something but they don’t” but then my Anxiety and OCD will tell me “ maybe deep down I do want to do these things and I’m awful person” and “I want to kill someone these thoughts must mean something” I read online and my therapist has told that everyone has these thoughts but most people just don’t think they mean anything but no matter how hard I try I can’t help but think these thoughts mean something even though I’ve been told by my therapist my dad and online therapists that they don’t. I am so worried that deep down I want to act out these thoughts and that’s why I’m thinking about them. I’m so so worried that I’m a psychopath and a disgusting person and that I need to be locked up. As soon as I wake up I worry and it only goes away for a certain amount of time and these thoughts and worries come straight back. Please tell me there’s people out there that deal with this stuff too!! I’m here for you

Please help. Does anyone have experience of the following (don't think it's a trigger)? Worrying about getting an OCD thought? The other day I was reminded about an OCD thought which I had already basically forgotten about for literally years (I was not actively worrying about it at all). I thought a very specific thought that made me remember how I worried about it before. I immediately panicked that I would get this thought again and I would start ruminating, so I did some ERP just in case. When I think about the actual thought, I'm not really worried at all, it's just like 'ok yeah that might happen, yeah ok'. But then I keep thinking 'ok I hope I don't start getting all worried like I was about that before' and worrying. So meta I know lol.

Isn't it fucked up that I would, at the age 10, put my sister's hand on my breast while she was sleeping? I have accepted my other childhood sex acts, but this one... I'm not sure how to deal with it. You cant confront someone about something they wont remember, and I've been doing research and it said this is considered to be child on child sexual abuse. I'm a monster, truly. I cant find anyone else with this specific story, and it makes me more upset.

I'm doing scripted erp based on something that I thought of when I was 13..do I say in my script I was 13 or do I have to do the script as if it happening now.