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Will trying 10mg of citalopram help my existential ocd? I don't want to use big doses because of side effects.

Why does my hocd just feel like denial 😕

Hello my name is Oliver..I am 35 and have OCD since I was 13. I am also Bipolar. Things I'm really struggling with right now are rhe following; I cant get comfortable while sitting on the couch or driving in the car...I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin. Like if I don't move to try to become comfortable that I'll explode or something. I struggle with some HOCD issues and intrusive thoughts about young kids. Also religious ocd issues like trying to pray just right and praying way to often. And definitely a huge thing is trying to have almost everything just right I got diagnosed with Bipolar in 2017 and had my first manic period in the summer of 2020 ( first time that I remember anyway) Also I now call a manic period me Running Hot ..little side note That was from May-Sep. Then that was following by 4 long months of very low depression Now I'm dealing with horrible anxiety/can't get comfortable/OCD is way bad I have been seeing a Psychiatry since 2017 and am seeing him 1x month We are working on getting meds situated right I also see a therapist 1x week It's been a rough past 12months for sure but a lot of good things have happened as well 1. I haven't had a drop of alcohol in 297 days..I was a raging alcoholic several years ago, especially in 2015-2017. I then only drank here and there, but 297 days ago I said no more. 2. I haven't had any nicotine in 167 days. I smoked cigarettes for 7yrs starting and was able to quit in 2020 3. I haven't had any Adderall in 475 days. I honestly never abused it meaning I wouldn't take more than 40-60mg of ER and that amount for me it would make me focused and feel awake but not bouncing off rhe walls. But still I was using it as a crutch big time for over a year to get through most days 4. I haven't had any energy drinks in 124 days. I was consuming 1-2 of rhe most powerful drinks per day aka Bang. All Energy drinks are so horrible for us. Even if they are sugar free and all that. I truly believe energy drinks are Wreaking havoc on our world 5. I haven't consumed any cannabis in 93 days. I am a huge fan of cannabis..I firmly believe the world would be much better off if every switched from alcohol to cannabis. But that being said I stopped consuming it because I needed to be able to see how my meds were doing without any chemical interference. Also both sativa and indica were making me jittery which wasn't good at all. I am hoping though that someday I'll be able to find an indica that I can consume that doesn't interact with my meds and calms me down but well see 6. I lost about 50lbs. I had gained weight over the years from taking horrible care of myself especially all the drinking 7. I am now drinking over a gallon of water per day and eating mostly vegan/vegetarian/gluten free which is making me feel way better 8. I got a job in May of 2020 that thankfully I only have to work 3 days a week and even when I'm not doing well I'm still able to handle it..job is merchandising 9. Started changing my contacts 1x month...I used to wear them in my eyes for several months and would end up causing irritation every once in a while so I committed myself to changing them monthly 10. Haven't touched any Cocaine in 643 days. I had stopped in 2017 but then had 1 slip up a year or so later. I will definitely never touch this crap again. Wow 11. Its been 1435 days since I touched the horrible stuff known as meth. About poison. 12. But the most important thing that has changed in my life is that I have found a woman who truly loves and cares for me no matter what. Even with all my baggage. With all my daily emotional struggles. She deals with my night terrors ( horrible nightmares every night) She is my rock. My hope. The reason I keep going. Everything is going to be ok because I know she is there with me I apologize this was so long but I just wanted to get this out there in the hopes that maybe it can help someone else

Has anyone here that has just anxiety/OCD had meds help them? I know everyone has different experiences. My doctor gave me celexa but I’m SO scared. So scared of the horror stories I’ve read online but my mom aunt and sister all take them and say it has really helped them which has me thinking it could help me too. I just can’t get over that fear. :/

Ocd is a coward that backsoff anytime you decide to ignore it and live your life, refuse compulsions, ignore the obsessive thoughts, have faith!

Ok, so I need to get this out of my chest. Today I've been dealing with immense feelings of guilt, of fear, I slept for hours during the morning and early evening just to avoid dwelling on these thoughts. I think I'm developing pocd, after dealing with hocd for two years. My trigger was reading a story in a website. I won't go into much detail, but it was bad. Immediately after I started feeling sick, I don't know if I ever had an anxiety attack, but that was close to it. I felt grossed out, and so afraid that now the police would barge into my house to arrest me. I've been having some paranoic thoughts in the last days, and I'm afraid that people will label me as bad and denounce me just with this post. I think this panic is something that may have caused this strong reaction in me. This was yesterday and I'm feeling awful, caught up inside my head. I couldn't concentrate in class today, couldn't get my stuff done, I just wanted desperately to sleep it off. If anyone has something to say, please do, I really need advice right now.

Getting weird false memory things about when I was younger I used to look up to the older girls at school/ my cousins/ babysitters and things, I used to always want them to like me and think I was cool and I wanted to be cool like them. Now I’m worried this was just a sign And I actually just fancied them :( Trying to accept the uncertainty but this thought won’t leave me alone ahhh, childhood memories and “past signs” terrify me

I am about to cry because my sister is going to prom with this guy and she may get her first boyfriend or kiss before me and I am 20, she's 16. It makes me feel ugly and hopeless. I don't even really eantwant a bf that much rn. I just wish I had already had one or something so I didn't feel such a hopeless loser. I just feel like everyone is judging me and I feel really hopeless right now

18+ So I've finally reached a month in not watching pornography. I am proud of that, but I don't feel so happy as of today. I think I've decided that my next step into getting my psychological health to be at a much better level is to use my phone less and less. I often use my phone to cancel out quite noise. To cancel out my boredom and to pretty much get me out of the present. I often ruminate with and without my phone and I need to do something about this. Last night I didn't sleep the best either. My mind is trying to convince me of things that I can't even get the energy to think of right now. Multiple thoughts crowding each other in my brain at such a speed that I can't even comprehend any of them. I feel like my mind is clouded and foggy and I absolutely cannot think. Occasionally, I've been reading articles that focus on less phone use. All of my problems that I worry about in the past are related to my phone, social media, and excessive use of it, one way or another. I want to find ways to use my phone less, and I feel like I'm developing this new fear of leaving footprints online that will come back to bite me. I'm trying to not let this get to me because I just want to be in the present moment and I just want to stop worrying about.. pretty much everything. I live in fear and it's definitely due to OCD being in my life. So I guess my next goal as of now is to not use my phone so much. That totally means zero use of Instagram as well because now my mind tries to tell me that if I see a celebrity or a professional wrestling diva in a bikini, that's porn, even if I'm not intentionally finding those things, which I'm not. If there's anyone that also has problems with their phone use, maybe we can band together and work on this. Start with smaller goals. For example: See if you can go without your phone for 30 minutes, then an hour, then a day, and then weeks. Slowly build up. This is what I'll be doing. I hope everyone is having a wonderful day/afternoon/evening/night. ❤️

Does anyone have somatic OCD specific to breathing? Sounds crazy, but whenever i get in bed these days I cant help but start focusing on my breathing (because, diabolically, I know it makes it difficult to breathe). It’ll then become impossible for me to sleep, my breathing will be irregular, and I cant get my mind off it unless I become super busy. Has anyone found any solutions to this problem, between therapy, medication, etc? I exercise/otherwise take care of my health, but have had this problem the last 8 years and its getting more and more debilitating I dont want keeping busy to be the only solution- I want to be able to relax and not be plagued with the thought of breathing Thanks

Hi everyone, I just wanted to give my view on this illness. I've had ocd since I was 5 or 6 years old. I'm 55 now and in all those years I've been through most of the common themes, I hear people talking about on this app and through other resources. I know many people feel, "my ocd is not the same as others" and that is true in a way, as it adapts to finding the things we fear most and as a result is terrifying to each of us. The one truth I can say at this point, is that we cannot think our way out of our obsessions......the content is not the real issue, the ocd is. In the midst of an obsession I know it feels as though we have to just resolve this, to get back to our lives, but after all this time and years of despair I now know looking back that trying to reason my way out of any of those obsessions was a mistake that kept me on the ocd hamster wheel. We need to take a leap of faith and take on our fears, head on, through cbt/erp with a good therapist, that understands this illness. Dont be afraid to discuss the obsessions, they will understand, you are a good person, that is suffering and will want to help. I would plead with everyone that is suffering now to take that leap and stay determined to follow that path. Love to you all......

A big mix of emotions... staying with my partners parents on their farm in NC right now and it’s been really good! We went out to eat tonight, and I was targeted by a man who kept commenting on my genitals and how he wanted to r*pe me, and then threatened me and my two in laws. I am a transgender male, and went to the men’s restroom - in NC I typically steer clear of that although I have had sex reassignment and have changed my gender marker on all of my documentation. I went to the men’s restroom because the other restroom was occupied and I really had to go. It was single stall bathrooms and so I didn’t think much of it. I was doing my business and I heard someone trying to unlock the door and banging on the door from the outside. I cleared my throat and in my deepest voice said “occupied” but they kept banging on the door. When I finally came out two men were laughing and I kind of chuckled along and was like “oh sorry guys you know how the pad Thai is here!” One of the men laughed and just said that they were joking about women using the men’s restroom, and I laughed nervously too and just wanted to get out. The man who said that went to the bathroom, and the other guy started making inappropriate comments to me, saying “you know you don’t have a penis so you’re not a man.” Now I was dressed in a suit and was wearing nice shoes and all around looked sharp. I was dumbfounded and kind of sarcastically said back “man, you don’t know what I have.” I kept walking and he said “yes I do, you don’t have a penis but I do and I could f*ck you with it.” I looked at him shocked and said “yeah, sure you do.” And went to sit down. He kept making comments as I was walking away, saying I was disgusting and a few other things. I was looking concerned and so my in laws asked what was up. I recanted the information and they were furious. They confronted the man when he came out of the bathroom and he admitted to making comments about my genitals. He then hurled racist comments to my in laws - father in law is Filipino and mother in law is Ecuadorian. After some more altercations and a few other people in the restaurant getting involved, we ended up calling the non emergency police number. I filed a report and everything but I still feel so weird. Honestly, I feel strange not because of his comments (I get harassed a lot unfortunately) but by the reaction of my family and other people in the restaurant. I brush it off so much, I don’t think I realized how much it bothered me. It was somewhat relieving to have my in laws react this way. All the way home they were reassuring me that people don’t treat our family this way (I’m unfortunately estranged from my biological family because of my gender identity). I’m still baffled by the whole ordeal and want to take action. I want to write an article about this or something. It was wild! But I felt so supported and loved. I’m going to press charges for sexual harassment and see if it will go anywhere. So many times this has happened and nothing has been done, or supervisors haven’t believed me, or police officers have put their hands in the air, saying there is nothing they can do. I’m concerned that the HB2 bill will be used against me and I will be seen as breaking the law. Any advice on this? Also as it pertains to ocd, some of my obsessive thoughts are “I am not safe because of my gender identity,” “nobody cares if I get hurt so I have to be on my guard,” “people won’t believe the things I say so I shouldn’t say them,” “I endanger people because of my gender identity,” and “I have no home.” This really was an exposure exercise in a way because that is one of my worst fears just playing out- but as the thought was creeping in my head, I chose to speak up about the incident even though it was uncomfortable. The police are a big no no for me but I’m glad we reported the incident. It honestly helped me work through a lot of my fears and thoughts in a way I didn’t know was possible. I was proven wrong. And although I may still have those thoughts, this was definitely helpful in combatting those feelings and the desire to perform my rituals to escape the situation.

I screwed up so bad. I’m so behind on these papers I need to do for my college finals. My parents hate me, I hear the disgust and resentment in their voices. They know what a bad person I am. At my age they were actually responsible and self-reliant, they worked hard and functioned on their own as adults. I’m such a child still. I’m such a lazy, selfish, terrible person. And honestly my three siblings are just like me. My parents really really don’t deserve us. I will not be able to take care of my parents when they are old. Why did I let this happen? I messed it up so badly. I hate myself and I am a terrible person. I am not suicidal at all, and have been very firmly not suicidal for years; but I am only not suicidal because it would devastate and destroy the lives and happiness forever of my parents, my three siblings, and probably my extended family also. Even though they probably hate and resent me. Because even then, they would still be disgusted and horrified at what a monstrous selfish person I would be to kill myself, and they would always be scared and hateful that one day someone else they know might also turn out to be a really horrible person. I wish there was some way out of this, some way to escape this horrible feeling and dread. But there isn’t. It feels so bad, I hate the feelings of disappointing people so much. I hate it so much. It’s a torturous feeling that makes life really painful. Although the feeling isn’t nearly as horribly intense as when I was in high school and felt it really really badly all the time. So I guess I’ll get through this current bad situation. But I really did a terrible job, and it’s all my fault. I’m such a terrible person. And they will all hate me, forever. And they should. Every interaction with my parents for the rest of my life will be colored by their disgust of me. That muted and cold voice, and talking like they want nothing to do with me. Once I screw up these college finals I will have made them feel bad. They will feel sad and miserable because they will be so disappointed in their kid(s).

Any Christian OCD sufferers out there? I’m just curious lol

Hi all. I'm living with major ocd to the point where I get a feeling that something is wrong and I am unable to move past the thought or feelings. All I feel like doing is hurting myself to make to stop. Does anyone else have this feeling of wrongness, how do you move past it

I'm so distressed by OCD right now. I'm in floods of tears because I feel so paralyzed mentally from it. I tried talking to my Mum but she is worried about something else so she can't talk. But a bad OCD episode doesn't consider if it's a convenient time. I'm on the verge of giving up my faith because this religious OCD is too painful.

Hello everyone, I want to say that I’m so scared right now. Because it feels like that’s it, I already turned into what I feared. I literally feel like I’m going to act on my thoughts, if I go downstairs I feel like I’m gonna do it. I feel like I’m capable I literally feel like I’m gonna act on these thoughts! I used to create horrible scenarios in my head to prove that I would never do them. But now, when they come up in my mind, I feel like they’ll just be a reality. And no compulsions are giving me relief right now help!!😭 I don’t know if I’m capable of hurting MY OWN family, what kind of person thinks that way?!! I feel like I’m already a monster and I can’t think of me in the future as someone normal again with no bad intentions. Help this is making me really desperate and scary, I feel like it’s gonna happen, like I’m gonna act on them and like I’m gonna become into a m**derer who doesn’t give a f on doing things like these. Help omg.

Hey everyone, I’m really struggling with something and it’s definitely triggering my ROCD and obsessive/intrusive thoughts. This might get too personal but honestly, I don’t know what else to do besides write it all out for people who understand what ROCD is like. Also this might be long and probably is NSFW so just keep that in mind... Okay, so 1.5 years ago, my boyfriend went away to work in another province for awhile. We were toying with the idea of “opening up” our relationship and so I basically told him to do whatever he wanted while he was away and i had the same freedom. But the whole time he was away was just kind of messy and we were not in a great spot in our relationship. He didn’t do anything with any one else while he was away. I’m not even sure that’s relevant to the story but anyway... Long story short, he came home for Christmas a few months later (2019). We went to buy something off marketplace and when he entered the “message” portion of the eTransfer, I saw it auto-suggest “for pics”. I questioned him on it and asked what “for pics” meant and he told me that some girl on FB was selling “sexy photos” for $10 and he bought them. He said they weren’t even worth buying, he’s never talked to her before or after, and that was that. I was obviously upset but eventually we talked it through and I forgot about it. Until this morning when I randomly remembered and got really anxious about it again. I’m not even sure I care that much- I obviously don’t like it, but don’t see much of a difference between that and just looking at porn online. I googled it to try and see if it was a big deal or not... Well, that was a mistake. Post after post after post about what a scummy, creepy loser guys are that pay for this content. And how it’s 100% cheating and I should have dumped him long ago. So now I’m obviously very upset and anxious over this thing that happened so long ago. I feel like I need to break up with him even though we had worked through it. I’m RACKING my brain trying to remember the exact conversation we had and where exactly we were in our relationship at the time. If it was during the period of “doing whatever he wanted” then technically he didn’t do anything wrong but...I can’t remember and I’m going nuts. Sorry for all of this. I feel stupid even posting about this. This feels super personal and stupid to write about to strangers on an OCD forum...I just don’t know what to do. I’m hoping for some gentle and level-headed advice. Not this “dump him ASAP” stuff I keep reading online. Thanks all!

A post dedicated to all of those who are struggling with sexual orientation OCD, I see & hear you all. I spent a large portion of my teen years OCD free. I was anxiety prone about certain areas of life, but not to the extent of OCD. When I grew and started to develop into the person I am now, I remember a distinct moment where everything changed, and it was like someone slammed onto the acceleration and before I could stop to breathe, I had OCD. Health anxiety/OCD. A lot of people have health anxiety that isn’t OCD, but A LOT of people have health OCD that isn’t health anxiety... if that makes any sense. I was unknowingly apart of the latter group. It started when I had mindlessly approached my mum about a hard feeling in my chest. She felt it and looked concerned, thinking that she felt something that shouldn’t have been there. There was only a few occasions prior to this that I had felt this level of panic, for example, I was on a ferris wheel and the controller man shouted into the megaphone that we needed to ‘brace for impact’, as I was suspended about 40 metres in the air, terrifying... The two situations have something important in common - they were both false alarms. The ‘lump’ that my mum thought she had felt was actually just my chest bone, and the man screeching ‘brace for impact’ was actually just playing a really bad prank. The moment my mum did this, I developed full blown OCD, and did not even realise it. I was Googling for long periods of time every day, and within a couple of months, I had convinced myself that I had basically every illness in the book. I had grown miserable. When I tried to find out what was happening to me, and why I was so obsessive, the term health anxiety came up often, but so did OCD. I remember raising an eyebrow to OCD, but never really thinking that I had it - like many, I ignorantly believed that OCD was just that illness where people clean all day, I was wrong, very wrong. About 4 months after capsizing with health anxiety/OCD, I finally started to feel human again. I was back at school as the lockdown restrictions lifted, and my anxiety levels were lowering a lot. But, OCD being OCD, this was short lived. I was chilling, reading a magazine that I found on my living room coffee table. I was bored and had nothing better to do, so I started reading it. I turned to a page all about sexuality, I was intrigued and didn’t know too much on the topic, so I read on. The memory is almost engraved into my mind, the article involved different middle-aged women talking about how they had thought that they were straight their whole life, and then all of a sudden they realised they were lesbians... This article invoked such intense and sudden panic that it’s hard for me to even reflect on it without feeling my heart speed a little. I was convinced it couldn’t get any worse then health anxiety/OCD, but... it could, it definitely could. Of course, like any OCD theme, I was on a mission to find absolute certainty. I scraped my childhood and life up until that point for evidence ‘for’ or ‘against’ this question. Without going too in depth, (as I’m aware this is getting long) if you have this theme, I’ve probably experienced exactly what you have!! I tick every box in the book. And, to make matters even worse, I had no idea this was OCD - I thought that I was on a path to coming out... all because of an article. I’d managed to find myself on a ‘coming out story’ forum, and I read and read, trying to find similarities in how I felt in these stories, and of course, HOCD and the coming out process can appear very similar, and not knowing that I had OCD - I. Was. Convinced... I was terrified. Finally, I was at my breaking point. It occurred to me that something was wrong with what was going on - why was I so resistant to accept what I feared? What if this wasn’t denial, and actually something else. That’s when I found HOCD (also known as SOOCD) and everything fit into place, the health anxiety made much more sense now. I’ll admit, I was so deeply relieved and reassured. I actually remember crying. I’d felt isolated and at war with myself for weeks, I was at the point of breaking - I had no idea who I was. I then found myself Reddit, of all places. I guess the sense of community is a good thing, but in such an unregulated place like Reddit, the negatives out way the positives with OCD. I had made a post describing what had happened to me, and was essentially asking for reassurance - in my defence, I didn’t know that this was bad!!!! Anyway, I definitely did NOT get that. A guy direct messaged me lecturing me that I ought to accept my sexuality and stop resisting it and leave Reddit and live out the life I subconsciously wanted. As you can imagine, this destroyed me. This is the last thing a person with this form of OCD needs to hear, and I’ll be completely honest, I was suicidal. Now, on a brighter note I’m better now!! Months and months down the line, I am much, much better. If there was hope for me, there is hope for you, I PROMISE you. ERP is gonna be your cure!! So if you haven’t already, research and get started - however that may look for you. You are never alone. in those moments where you feel alone and scared, remember that there is inevitably gonna be other people with your fear sat at home worrying excessively about what’s happening to them, or what’s gonna happen to them - just like you. You are worthy, and you have so much potential. I love you.

I think I have TOCD. It's been going for sooo long, 4 months maybe. I'd like to note that I'm 17 btw. It all started after reading a blog post from a non binary game developer talking about their story. I remember that after reading it, I felt more and more anxious about what if I wasn't a guy after all, which makes absolute no sense. I've consistently identified as a guy my whole life, this is how I drew myself, represented and called myself since I was a kid, and I never felt like I was someone else. Now, I had a period of time when I tried to be "cuter", like a femboy or something. I think it was more for internet attention than anything else, and even then, I still identified as a guy without doubt. I tried to make some female friends too. People on Twitter are very open about gender stuff, and so even though I didn't really want to see it, I had people sharing trans content in my feed. I was okay with this, sometimes even supporting them. I think that these two things combined might be what caused this obsession, I'm scared that like what if when I tried to be more like a femboy it means that actually I wanted to be a girl, but this doesn't make sense. I even remember that I was frustrated that I couldn't draw myself with long hair without making me accidentally look like a girl lol. And when a bus driver accidentally called me "miss", it didn't feel right, at least I hope it didn't, I really hope, I can't remember. I often try to figure out if distant memories mean anything and I'm so scared if I somehow find out that I'm wrong. It's been in my mind 24/7. It's the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last before I sleep. I'm constantly checking to see if I still feel like a boy, and I think that by now I must've reviewed all the memories I have in my hippocampus in search for an answer lol. Now it's been going for so long that sometimes it feels real, as if being the other gender was what I want, which makes me scared, it doesn't feel like it represents who I am, he/him is what feels right. I'm not a super manly man, but I don't think I'm something other than a guy either. Sometimes I think "ok, maybe demiboy or genderfluid", but then it would imply that I would be okay with they/them pronouns and I'm like "nah". I'm also scared that I'm in denial or somehow lying to myself, even while writing this it sometimes feels like I'm lying and I no longer know what feelings or thoughts are real or not, I'm scared. Now I find this situation really frustrating because no matter how much evidence I show to OCD, it somehow still finds a way to still make me doubt, just constant doubt. What if I'm trans? What if I didn't have OCD and deep down I was just denying it all? What if because I like this girl it means something else? What if I don't actually enjoy being with my male friends? I keep repeating to myself that I feel like a boy, it's who I am, but every time I'm sure I managed to get certainty, like "yep, I'm a guy!" it just goes back afterwards. I wish I went back to before this and it was just the part of my identity I didn't question. I try to accept the uncertainty, I tell myself that maybe I'll never be sure, but I seem to be going in circles. I relate to a lot of the symptoms of OCD but I'm not diagnosed. And also it's my first theme ever so I can't reassure myself that it's actually OCD. Also I'm scared to talk about it to my parents, I'm afraid they wouldn't understand :( Sorry for the long post, and I hope that everyone here is okay.