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Sharing some observations I've figured out something about my OCD, but note this only applies to me. I have read a lot of stuff on how to best react when i'm struck with catastrophizing and panic. A LOT of sources would say something like "you need to accept your fears, as if they were going to become true and see that they won't". Somehow that made sense, but never felt right to me personally. Because whenever i did that, i spiraled into depression. If someone, say, needs to tap a wall 3 times so their family wont be harmed, they might learn that its fine even if they don't tap the wall. But if someone who is scared to lose control over everything if they don't tap the wall, the downward spiral and the belief of losing everything will actually make them believe so and it's a terrible road from there. It seems to be a known fact that dwelling on intrusive thoughts can lead to depression. It will also increase the anxiety for next time something like this happens, because i learned that believing my irrational thoughts indeed leads to catastrophes. At least it doesn't lead you where it should lead you. Tldr, i (personally) don't think that believing your intrusive thoughts is the best approach for everyone. There are healthier mindsets one can adapt to when one is overwhelmed. After all the end goal is to not care about our fears, not to believe them. Again note this is just my observation, but i think advicing people to believe their intrusive thoughts is a badly worded piece of advice that can be dangerous in the worst case. But then again OCD is horribly tricky and recovery is best guided by a specialist.

Any dating advice when you live with OCD: *I’m a young man in his early twenties, if your curious. Hey, I am finally starting to feel confident enough in myself again to try and date. Since I experienced symptoms and received an official diagnosis, I notice it has become a little more difficult to date; I was diagnosed late last year. While I am truly myself and good at hiding my anxiety to a great extent (OCD), I can’t help but feel it gets in the way of things. Most women I talked to have said I make them feel very comfortable and/or they really like me or we’ll be really attracted to each other, but nothing really progresses beyond the talking stage as of recent (a month or so max of just talking). Dating can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a little anxiety inducing with questions that pop into my head: Am I being too much, too little? Is she feeling me just as much? Did I send something offensive? Another obsession is what if I send a mean or ugly message, so I can be hard sometimes...I know it might be somewhat of me issue, though I am not entirely sure what the problem could be. Any advice on dating when you have OCD? I can share a brief story that made me take a break from dating because after one date, if anyone would like about one young woman who really kicked my OCD into overdrive.

Please help me. Does anyone have real event ocd that makes you feel you cheated? My mind is going back to a few years where I got drunk at a concert with my husband and sent funny texts to a friend that I saw there (a person who I had cheating ocd themes about prior but didn’t know it was ocd). My husband spotted this person at the concert and since I had cut him out of my life completely, I asked my husband if I could reach out to him to say hi (I thought it would help normalize everything and stop my OCD). Little did I know that it would trigger another episode. I was drinking a lot and I thought I was being funny and showed my husband all the texts back and forth as I was writing them, but after when we got in the car he was upset with me for “ignoring” him. We got into a big fight because I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong but after reviewing all the texts it was clear I sent many back and forth. This was years ago and he forgave me but I can’t forgive myself. I feel like I cheated and wonder if I was being flirtatious in the texts. My mind still won’t let it go. My husband is my everything and I wouldnt want to hurt him. He says he’s over it and he was drunk that night too but I know he was upset. We have kids and I just want to move on and live in peace. But i feel like I don’t deserve it. Please help.

anyone here into astrology? i’ve been trying to see if i can find ocd in a natal chart. if u want me to look at urs lmk cuz i’m trying to see something. lol drop ur birthday, time, & location

I’ve given up on all this. I made a post here like a day or two ago about the same thing but it’s worse now. I dealt with some stuff over the last 3 years. Though I feel like I’m lying now typing that and that stuf go dealt with combined with music that helped me influenced me to want to make music that helps other people with my bad if we were to somehow make it. Anyway, I’ve dealt with a lot of thoughts about the band from saying I’d have ghostwriters to accusing me of disliking the band members etc... but this ones by far the worst and I can’t drop it. So the other day, I listened to a song I used to listen to in the first year of that stuff I dealt with and I got butterflies/anxious feeling in my stomach my brain set off saying I missed those days and what followed was a long talk between myself trying to convince my head that I truly didn’t miss those days and just looked fondly on the song. The past few days I’ve been arguing about it constantly over whether or not I miss the last 3 years and the stuff I dealt with and multiple times it’s made me feel like I’m lying and I didn’t actually go through anything. Anyway today’s been the worst day. I woke up at 1AM due to my messed up sleeping schedule from lockdown. I quickly went over why i didn’t miss it and after a few back and forths I tried to ignore and was confidentish I didn’t miss those days. After a bit it began again and I can’t remember how long this continued on with me arguing but I ashamedly and embarrassingly got so mad and frustrated and upset etc that I started tearing up out of frustration, broke my gaming headset out of anger and actually smacked myself a few times because I was so sick and tired of it. I felt like shit for ages and tried watching a video, at this point I said to myself “I don’t care about the band anymore I’m done, it’s over” and then as I watched the video and cared less. I seemed to notice that when I thought about whether or not I missed feeling like shit I could easily say I didn’t. I went into another room randomly and started going on about it all, again stupidly out of frustration and anger smacked myself a few times. I went downstairs later on and being home alone, I wandered around the living for 30-40 minutes going on about why I really did go through stuff over the last 3 years, the fact that a lot of the songs I’ve written are personal, the fact I don’t miss that stuff, the fact that if I really did miss it I wouldn’t be doing everything I could at the minute to change my life around to be happy and more. I felt better and more confident but still like a liar at the same and in a way felt like I had already gone past the point of no return if that makes sense. Like my brain had said too much and and I couldn’t do the band anymore. I got on with my day and later began playing my bass when I played a song from one of those years not meaning for the thoughts again. The anxiety/butterflies started and my brain began sating the same again and not too long after I went up and began watching YouTube, ignoring my brain saying all that stuff but it was building up in the back of my head. I began arguing eventually again and decided to search up the definition of “missing something” which said “to feel sadness or regret over the loss of something” which instantly led me to feel confident again because I said “I know 100% I’m so much happier and stress free in college than I was in high school whereas if I missed it it would be the opposite, I’d feel sad and want it back”. I felt better and went downstairs to grab something only for it to start with “you do feel sadness that times gone” which worried me. Then the last few hours I’ve sat here and it’s the same Stuff going over in my head and again ashamedly I’ve smacked myself a few times out anger and frustration. On top of that, I feel like I’ve gone too far like I said earlier. I feel like my brain has said too much and it’s kind of over band-wise. My brains telling me I went through nothing over the last 3 years despite the fact I know deep down I did. It’s telling me the songs I wrote aren’t personal even though I know a lot of them are, it’s telling me that certain things weren’t problems and I faked them swore overwhelming evidence I did really feel bad. It feels real too but I think my brain might be twisting stuff if that makes sense. Basically, like I said music really helped on those nights and I used to go out for tea with my dad every Wednesday who I only see every fortnight and that was nice because it was an escape because for like an hour I’d forget the thoughts and be out of the house. Every time I think if the last 3 years it makes me think of going out for tea with dad and the music which i obviously look back on in a good light but not the sitting inside night after night and dealing with the thoughts. I keep considering writing the whole 3 years out to prove to myself I did deal with so much but writing out 3 years of events when you dealt with it every day is such a long, drawn out and tedious task so I never do it. Also this will sound dumb but I think my brain “romanticises” it all if that makes sense. Because it’s been a year pretty much since I left high school, it can manipulate facts and what happened a lot easier. Like trying to make out that this is some great story or heroic thing when it was just me feeling shit over presumably OCD and never going out. Shouldn’t I just think though “at the end of the day you know you went through stuff otherwise you wouldn’t be influenced to do what you want to do. If you truly missed it you’d be trying to recreate that setting instead trying to be happy”. The thing that gets me with that though is I ashamedly admit in my final year of high school I kind of self sabotaged. One night I thought “why don’t you ask so and so if you can go out with them, they’ll let you” and I said no and never did. I forgot about that night up until last quarantine where the thought ate me alive and I felt so wrong about it. It was a question of “did I stay in to feel sorry for myself or for the band?” Sorry for this ramble but I really don’t know anymore. I noticed that ever since I made the band my primary passionate and love, I began to have thoughts that upset me about it and they’ve got worse as time went on. For example, due to the foundation of the band for me being on what I went through. For months, my brain would scan through the last 3 years searching for anything to trip me up and upset me over.

I feel like I’m evil for not being vegetarian or vegan. Like I’m scared I don’t care for animals

Hi everybody. It feels like it's been a while. A few weeks maybe. I just wanted to say that for the most part, I've been feeling better about myself. I felt like I was able to really be happy these past days throughout the month and I really feel like with the practice of not doing compulsions and truly being able to forgive myself for the things I ruminate constantly about, it's been an improvement. Like usual unfortunately, OCD likes to shift what it worries about back and forth over and over again. My OCD has always stayed in the topic of sexual themes. Mainly mine have to do with masturbation, arousal, and orgasms. Lately I've been feeling guilty about simply being aroused by things. By things that have always turned me on in my life, which is the beautiful nature of women. Everytime I feel aroused by the physical presence of a woman, I feel guilty. Very guilty. I feel like I should not sexualize anyone and I shouldn't get feelings like that unless I am with a partner or if I'm taking the time to fantazise. For a few weeks I haven't masturbated and it's made me feel very different. In a more positive way than a negative one. I was able to fight against the urge for a pretty long time actually, and I was able to really enjoy myself doing other things! It felt really good to look back on, but unfortunately I had a relapse minutes ago tonight. Suddenly, it felt like, the more I didn't want to masturbate, the more stressed I became day by day. My thoughts aren't that intrusive but something about my feelings made me feel a little worse the more aroused I was. Or how much I thought about wanting to give myself self pleasure. Tonight I had woke up from my second nap that day. I have bad sleeping habits I need to work on. I woke up extremely horny, breathless, and in the mood.. I felt like at this point I couldn't get rid of it so I just did everything I could to make it go away. And I did. There were so many triggers for me, mainly attractive female celebrities that I thought of. Instagram is also a big trigger for me since there are a lot of sexual themes hosted on that site. I came across plenty of them, got more arousal out of them, and then I gave in. At first after finishing, I felt bad but then after a while.. I didn't feel so bad? It really confuses me and I don't know if this is normal or not. I always get anxious when it comes to how I feel sexually and this is something I ruminate over greatly. Does anyone else get feelings of guilt for simply being turned on? For masturbating? Even if it makes you feel so much better afterwards? Especially in a long time, like weeks without it like I went through? Is this normal? Or am I going down a bad path? My usual OCD thoughts still linger in the back of my head, but not as much as this topic does.

Well well well Its been a long time i didnt show a reaction to ocd but today i was watching someone and he talked about how people who are attracted to anime are pedos and in denial. I thought a little about it and tbh i actually had a little attraction to anime waifus who looked like kids... It was pretty scary but i stopped to search about it my old themes were all about something that really didnt make sense but this one is weird because im pretty sure i am attracted too it, i mean half of the people who watches anime have some sorta attraction to characters and anime characters are made to look underage, there is even a genre about "lolis" that is all about underaged and alot of people watch that stuff, even i did sometime ago Im not asking for reassurance, i just want to know if its ocd or not because im pretty sure i have some sorta attraction

Read a comment on here that really triggered Me “you don’t avoid / run what you’re attracted to” I’ve always avoided guys & hanging out with them alone because I’m scared to embarrass myself & scared of intimacy. My lack of self confidence & lack of experience with guys always made me doubt myself and avoid it all together... also I would always have intrusive thoughts like “what if they aren’t the right one for me” or “what if they want to hurt me” ... I’m so scared that this means I’m just in denial :/

Having an ocd episode and I don’t like it! It’s causing me distress! What articles or stuff can you guys help me with? I always think if I can’t figure out my ocd it makes me feel bad.

Anyone else afraid to be alone due to self harm OCD

I’m trying to cope with arousals I had in my past and it’s actually been really hard. I was a little kid who was super fascinated by boobs and would look as pictures and become aroused/masturbate. As the years went on, I began to like boys more and more and never thought much of this. last night some drawing of a topless woman aroused me and brought all this up again. I just feel so sad and helpless considering this feels like real evidence. I’m married and every day I feel like a liar.

Tips for getting to sleep when I can't be alone with my thoughts? I'm scared of putting my phone down at night because my brain goes into overdrive. Anyone got advice? I've tried melatonin, white noise, music, etc

I haven’t been eating well for awhile or drinking enough water smh. I just don’t feel like it anymore🤷🏻‍♂️. I’m on lamictal but I’m still not myself 🤦🏻‍♂️😔

Does anyone dealing with hocd happen to look at the same sex in the same way you would look at the opposite sex, but you don’t mean to? For example, ever since my hocd started, I feel like I notice guys butts the same way I check out girls. Only, when I do that with a guy, it’s uncomfortable and it’s like I notice it when I don’t really care or want to notice it. Almost like, with a guy, it sticks out to me like a sore thumb sometimes even though I’m not looking directly at a guys butt or chest if they’re built. With a girl, it I check her out and am attracted, there is arousal like how it’s been my whole life. I feel like every other symptom/compulsion I’ve ever had is hocd, but I shouldn’t be “checking out” men like I do women with hocd. Even though I don’t WANT to check out men and don’t find comfort in doing so. Can anyone relate?

Please reply! Do you think its possible to not watch any shows, music, or videos, books anything from the past? Only things made from today and here on?

i don’t feel good. idk why. i just feel like something is rlly trying to convince me that i’m gay. i’m even worried about figuring out i’m gay in the future 😔

I can’t even tell myself I’m straight anymore.

I feel like im just thinking about men all the time sometimes it feels like im fantasizing and being gay i feel like im going to have this stuck in my head forever im so depressed 😥

What’s the balance between ruminating and researching on a social justice issue -over doing it vs not doing it at all vs doing it the “right amount”? Previous advice I’ve seen on here says “just don’t try to solve that problem”. But really my VALUES say that people aren’t investigating enough their own biases - how to remove obstacles at work based on ability, race, never identity. For example, we’re problem solving at work for our equity plan. We’re changing our curriculum to make sure it’s not just white males, adding our pronouns, adding accessibility for the blind, etc. but I’m constantly thinking about it. It seems a bit heartless to say “we’ll just stop. Just stop trying to improve things for people” Thoughts on the grey area of when it’s “too much”?