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Hi is anyone available to talk. I am in a really bad place right now.

Hello all, I suffer from different types of OCD. My main fear is that something bad happens to my kids. For about a year I have been supper scared of toxic stuff. I have changed everything in the house to non toxic stuff. Just a week ago I realized that I live next to an Apple orchard and berry farm and that my kids have lived here for ten years. I had never considered that to be a problem or a way that my kids were being harmed by the pesticides. Now, I feel like I’ve caused irreparable damage and I feel so guilty. I feel like because I did not take care of that sooner now my kids will get cancer and die or something. My daughter was raised in this house since she was born. I can’t even look at them without crying. I’m going crazy! I need help.... I don’t know how to deal with this.

i’m new to this app and i’m not sure on what i’m doing but i know that i’ve been struggling for a while. after researching, which i know is not what i’m supposed to do, i’m unsure as to if im stuck in real event ocd surrounding some childhood memories, it’s causing intense guilt telling me i am a bad person, anxiety and it’s disrupting sleeping, i have less of an appetite, it will take over my mind for hours sometimes, it came on suddenly and hasn’t lessened since. i have been referred through my doctors to a therapist but i’m not sure on how to talk/open up about it without 1) being judged 2) it not being ocd and me actually being this terrible person and 3) i just don’t know how to get the help but i know i need it. i’m asking for some advice on how to be open about it enough without it being a compulsion but enables me to get some help..

Around a month ago I gave up my porn compulsion. But one thing that still kind of confuses me is that for me, the compulsion didn’t feel “complete” unless I would look at porn I am aroused by. I think I did this to “prove” to myself what arousal was or something like that. So I would look at the porn that I’m scared I was gonna be turned on by, then I would look at porn I do like. But sometimes when I looked at porn that I do like, I wouldn’t be aroused AT ALL. Which confused me. So can ocd screw up your normal arousal? And make you feel as if you aren’t aroused to things you know you are aroused by?

I don't know if I am doing my recovery work right. I have real event OCD and always fear that I may have already done sth that could upset my bf so much that he would leave me. My main compulsion is confessing these things to my bf. If I don't do that, I feel extremely guilty most of the time. It feels like I don't deserve to live a happy life with him because I am practically lying to him by not confessing. I was in therapy, but my therapist only did cbd and it was nice to talk to someone but I don't really know what to do now that it's over. So I always browse on Instagram sites or this app to find something that helps. First of all, I don't really know how to do erp with a real event. Someone suggested imaginery writing (sth like that), but I don' t think I am doing that alright. So my "recovery work" consists of not confessing my current obsession to my bf and enduring the feelings of guilt while I try to live my life. But I don't know how or if I should label them as "OCD Feelings", because everytime I do, my head goes "you don't know that, you are just trying to get away with sth bad you did, you just pretend to have ocd...", So I just endured it without saying "those are my intrusive thoughts". So here is what I did different lately: Maybe it doesn't sound like a big difference, but lately I have been labeling them as ocd feelings and I have been "putting them automatically in the ocd box" and I started to feel better. My mind is still screaming that it isn't true, I don't know it for sure etc. But I feel better labeling them as OCD than I did when I just endured the feelings without labeling them. Because the problem with just enduring is that it really sucks. Everytime something romantic or nice happens in my relationship, the guilt ist excruciating. I can't enjoy my time with my bf anymore because the nicer it is with him, my guilt gets worse. I feel like I've lost him. But as I labeled them, I felt better, I can almost imagine that these feelings might go away in time. I was really depressed before because nothing really changed... So what I wanted to ask is, do y'all think this is reassurance if I say that my feelings are ocd feelings?

My definition of recovery is not having these thoughts because I never had them before. The intrusive thoughts I’ve had before ocd where not towards harming my family. So if this is how it’s going to be with harm thoughts every day then I guess I’m not gonna be recovered.

I think a huge lightbulb moment for me in recovery was learning that I am not my thoughts and I am not my feelings. When I first learned this idea I could not for the life of me wrap my head around it, if I’m not those things, then what am I? For so long I was in the thick of what was going on in my mind and in my emotions that I did not see myself outside of them. Through recovery and especially meditation I was able to realize that thoughts and feelings are just filters. We all experience them and go through them in varying ways, what we are is whatever we choose to be. I can’t help that I experience feelings and thoughts that feel uncomfortable and make me unhappy, but I do choose how much attention I give them and whether I am going to feed that thought until it grows and grows. We so often try to control what we think and feel when what we really only have control over is how we engage with these thoughts and feelings. When we realize this the sense of power you have over self is amazing.

How’s everybody doing on this fine night. Use this space as venting box⬇️

Anybody up dealing with thoughts ? I’m just so tired

I was crying so bad, because I feel like I could actually act on my thoughts. I don’t want to, but I feel like a part of me is capable of doing it. When I’m around my family I get a feeling of disturb running through my body. This disturbing feeling, I feel it all the time. My head replays horrible scenarios that feel so damn real, they feel like if they were reality, and they feel like they are going to happen any second. I instantly think, do you want that to happen? Is that really what you want? And sometimes I just can’t prove that I don’t, and that is just too much for me to handle. I feel like a perverse monster takes over me. It’s hard for me to believe that I’m not what my thoughts say. I hate these horrible thoughts, they are so terrible and terrifying, but why do they feel like they have a big possibility of happening? Why can’t I be sure that I won’t act on my thoughts? I don’t want to act on my thoughts but why do i feel like a part of me does? I feel like they could really happen please help, the uncertainty is killing me...

Is anybody else extremely scared to start an SSRI? I can’t seem to get over the horror stories I’ve read online but my anxiety and OCD is so bad I don’t know what else to do. My biggest fear is them making me suicidal. Sometimes I wish I never had went on google looking for side effects cause it led me to all the horror stories. :/

My bf of 6 years accidentally said I have big beautiful brown eyes, while on the phone with me, but I have green eyes. He said it was just a mistake, instead of say big beautiful eyes and brown hair he mixed them it it just slipped out and felt really bad about it but I’m really triggered now. we had a long talk and I feel I trust him but anyone else in the world would say it’s a red flag. And I get why. So I keep thinking about what others may think and that they are right even though I know him more than others. And I have no one to talk to about this.

Hello everyone, My name is Tor and I have OCD (my nod to past AA meetings :)). Currently I’m listening to a podcast from ‘The OCD Stories’ with guest Dr Michael Greenberg. He has a slightly different approach to ERP. He calls his ‘RF-ERP’ and it focuses mostly on discarding rumination and habituation. I’m still deciding whether his approach is ‘better’ but I did come away with one thing: I realised that the ‘question’ my OCD constantly poses (or, taking agency, the question I constantly pose to myself) came before the intrusive images. Before I had OCD (age 19) I asked myself a question unconsciously and put it out of my mind, not thinking much of it. Then I started smoking cannabis (age 20) and the OCD began. But actually the question was asked before and I had no problem with not having an answer. Do you see? It’s as if the images were my mind’s way of offering an ‘answer’ to the question — a question which reared up again after the cannabis. But I was disturbed by the question this time because my thoughts (the images) did not align with my feelings. So that was a helpful thing to learn because if I go by Dr Greenberg’s approach, my focus ought to be on discarding the rumination. In simpler terms: discarding the question. With his approach, this is the first focus, before any exposure therapy. For me this is much easier than trying to go headfirst into exposure without having made peace with the question. Perhaps you can consider what the ‘question’ your mind is trying to answer is, for you. “Am I X?” “Does this thought mean Y?” etc. I also noted that he prefers not to use the term ‘intrusive thinking’, and uses a phrase that allows us to take more agency. You can find the episode online (Apple, Spotify, etc.) and it’s called “Putting Rumination and Agency at the center of ERP”. Good luck, dear warriors. Sincerely I hope you find something that eases your symptoms even just a bit, in the quest for complete freedom from OCD; that funny and awful condition the French call ‘the doubting disease’.

I feel like I’m stuck like this forever

All I want to do is ask for reassurance about every single thought I have. I really don’t know how I’ll ever be able to accept the uncertainty when the thoughts are about my sexuality, I feel like I have to work everything out. It doesn’t help that I’ve never been in a relationship and I’m a virgin, so I don’t even have past experiences I can rely on :((

If the content of our intrusive thoughts don't reflect who we are, what we want, or set out to do, why does therapy want you to habituate to the content of the intrusive thoughts?

I get really bad anxiety attacks at night. My boyfriend always used to let me phone him and he’d help me. He’s told me recently he can’t anymore because it’s too much. My entire ocd is based around people leaving me. I can’t tell whether it’s due to unlucky things or because he acc does need space. Bearing in mind I get where he is coming from but it’s just come on right around the time when I’m dealing with unlucky stuff being worst.

I keep getting scared that my ocd is morphing or is going to morph into schizophrenia and I’m going to start seeing hallucinations and hearing voices. My anxiety is so high. I think I’m scared bc I just don’t know how much more I can take on top of ocd. I’m questioning every sound and second guessing myself.

Had my first date with a guy today! I think it went well, we were really chatty and comfortable with each other! However I am worried as I didn’t feel “sparks” with him (maybe because we went on a walk so spent less time looking at him kinda thing) and don’t really really fancy him, so obviously all the ocd thoughts are kicking in (especially the HOCD ones) and now I’m starting to really panic, should I see him again and see if the fancying feeling grows? :(

New here and a little scared. I think I have so ocd (I have all the symptoms listed), something that I believe was triggered by something a person said to me. I used to get panic attacks and throw up from intrusive thoughts, until I learnt it was a real thing. I still feel anxious and have this thing where I have to say to my bf what I thought or it gets worse. I used to do the checking thing a lot, but I forced myself to not do it and now it's for the most part under control. Because of reading, researching and the incredible support from my bf, I'm doing better than I was last year (I'm still bad and have it on my mind every day). When I see beautiful women on tv, especially blonde women closer to my own age, I do a sort of internal flinch and go to "check" but stop myself. I find that I notice them/pay attention to them more and feel intimidated by them which sets my anxiety off along with some intrusive thoughts. I message my bf and work through it by messaging him and calm down. I feel a little uncomfortable after it and don't know how to like continue watching. It'll be like is looking checking or looking away avoidance? And I used to have back to back nightmares linked to socd, so bad I got anxiety over sleeping. I still have those nightmares occasionally, however, when I wake up from normal dreams and normal bad dreams, I wake up feeling anxious and the first thought is "lesbian" or "I'm not gay" in order to reassure that I am straight first thing when I wake up and to replay any moments with a female figure in the dreams to "check" it wasn't anything where I liked her. These bad dreams wake me up early hours of the morning. What is the best way to calm down, stop thinking about the dreams and thoughts and go back to sleep? Also because I am doing better now I have a name for these unwanted thoughts and anxiety, and am practising the exposure thing on my own, I have anxiety about not having anxiety sometimes when a thought invades my mind, which makes me feel like I am lying and don't have socd and that I am gay when I really don't want to be. When my bf kisses me and says really lovely things about me, especially in a romantic way, I feel so horrible and like a bad person because I feel so guilty about the intrusive thoughts. That's also a trigger for me and one that I certainly do not wish to have. He's the most amazing man in the word. We've been together 8 years in May and one day I want to marry him. He's been super understanding and helpful about the socd and intrusive thoughts. It's not who I am at all and deep down I know that I am 100% straight. It's the response to attractive women and feeling uncomfortable, the bad dreams and the lack of anxiety that are now the main issues for me. I can't afford any help right now, being unemployed because of the pandemic, but am trying to find free help but with specially trained professionals (difficult for where I live). So any advice on how to watch tv comfortably, or how to fall asleep after a bad dream with anxiety, or how to stop feeling anxious and like a liar about having ocd in the first place, would be very helpful. Thank you :)