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this is hard to explain, but i am always ruminating on the mistakes i made during my last relationship (july 2019-november 2019) during the relationship, i was struggling really badly with intrusive thoughts and relationship OCD but i was undiagnosed and much less mature. i had constantly avoided kissing my boyfriend as i was obsessed with the idea of my first kiss and i wanted it to be perfect. i was so scared i would do something and he'd break up with me and i often questioned if i was just lying to myself about liking him just so i wouldn't be lonely anymore. i was overthinking everything i said to him, sometimes i couldn't even look him in the eyes because of how badly i was worrying. he broke up with me in november 2019 (very nicely lol) but i still talk to him and we are still friends. the problem is, i look back on our relationship all the time and blame myself for everything. i do think i still love him, and sometimes i find myself thinking "if only i had known about my OCD" or "i wish i could tell him about my OCD now so he can know it wasn't his fault it didn't work". he is a wonderful person and i was lucky my first relationship was with him, but im scared he thinks he did something wrong that made me so closed off and weird. many times i consider texting him an apology or a big explanation, but considering its been a year and a half i think that's a little weird. has anyone ever experienced this or does anyone have any advice? it keeps me up at night and i don't talk about it with my best friend because she knows him and i don't want her knowing how much i still think of him.

Starting ERP today. For the last few days, I’ve been calm about it. Now that today is the today, I am so anxious. My heart has been beating out of my chest all day.

I’m just so fuckin pissed. I don’t understand why I’m being triggered. I’m not fuckin gay. I’m never going to fuck a dude I’m never going to ask a guy out or hold there hand or kiss them or any of that shit. I just have weird thoughts that pop up when I see a girl now which causes this fucking endless arousal feeling cuz I just can’t see a girl like regular anymore. I get that. There isn’t a perfect erp for this ocd. Yes there’s times to where I can get a visual of a women and get an erection thinking about sex with a girl but I know it doesn’t stop my ocd of the stupid shit that pops up. Cuz I can go out and see a girl and boom there’s my ocd again saying “dick” or saying “dude” I’m not an idiot I understand this it’s never going to stop it’s never going away it’s going to be there and I have to live with this the rest of my life. I just want to stop being triggered in purpose cuz it’s not helping it’s just not. It’s just taking me away from being able to do something I love which is working out and being able to go to work to so I can workout. I know my life will never be normal again but I would just like peace and quiet when I come home from work so I can go to bed and wake up in the morning feeling good enough to go workout and go to work that is all I ask. I know I’m never going to be the same and live a normal life again I understand that but if I can have some normalcy of going to the gym and going to work then I will be just happy with that.

Wow its so damn hard to stop avoiding. And not to ruminate. I literally feel like I’m agreeing with the thoughts and like I’m gonna act on them, since I can’t prove myself otherwise. It is really hard because I feel something telling me to act on my thoughts and I can not fight back. It’s crazy and scary af.

So I have been battling OCD my whole life. And about three years ago it came to an extreme problem. During that year I was diagnosed with severe OCD with many themes and with the help of a professional I worked through it. It was a decently long haul of years but I have now tears of happiness. Within that time I started to write a book of my experience with it. I haven’t wrote more In a while but I will again one day. Please let me know what you think of the first chapter. At the end it does talk about my deceased grandfather that I was close to. He had the same issue with OCD and I felt he helped me to figure this out. WARNING ! I don’t have great grammar skills. Lol ! Chapter 1 Imagine being reborn Imagine being reborn at 35 years old with super hero powers. Not the power to fly, read minds, X-ray vision, or even to walk on water. Imagine you had the power to understand your mind. Why you went through your whole life with crap fogging your brain, things that made you anxious and sometimes scares you to the bone. Things that sometimes woke you up in the middle of the night and had you staring at the mirror wondering why or yelling at the mirror for it to stop. Sounds like a bad nightmare you would see in a movie ? Damn right it was like that. It was stuff I could never get out of my mind. I had many ups and downs but when I had my downs, OMG it was bad. My story of my life is to show strength, show that with a lot of will power it will never be overcome but there are ways to deal with it and cope with it. There are so many ways to help yourself from the bully of your mind. I’m a fighter and for years I fought it and showed it emotion but not to realize I was dealing with this bully wrong all along. But just like school yard bullies if you show emotion it will keep on pushing you from behind trying to get a rise out of you. You need to show this bully that you don’t care, that you are aware it’s there. Eventually this tool this gift I have unwrapped and learned amongst many others has made the bully subside. Not go away but get board of me cause I don’t care. Now sure as shit it can come knocking on my door tomorrow but I’m ready for you to become board of me once again. Now the bully I’m talking about is what lurks around in your head. If I told most people that I was diagnosed after all the years with OCD no one would believe me. In fact most people don’t believe me especially the close ones, but that’s ok they won’t understand but until you have it most doesn’t truly know what OCD is. Most people look at OCD as being just neat and clean. And I did for years as well and for a while I always said I am. Not because of anything but myself always needing to touch things with both hands and etc. but that’s a small portion of this doubting disorder AKA OCD. There are so many areas of OCD. Let’s break it down. The “O” stand for obsessive, the “C” stand for compulsive, and the “D” stands for Disorder. Basically the disorder is a misfiring of the brain. Instead of letting things especially thoughts go, the trap door of your brain never closes. It draws more things even topics to be obsessed by, it starts to have a ping pong affect in the brain. The argument in your brain starts to spirals quickly south. Now instead of teaching your brain to close that trap door. You sink lower and lower into the bullies grips. You fight and fight, you beg and pray for it to stop, you yell at it in hopes for it to go away but it makes it worse and worse. Before you know it you are looking for certain compulsions to stop it. You think these compulsions work but they do only temporarily. The temporary relieves just fuels the fire to roar harder and louder. You can’t stop it you need to except the fact that this is the way your brain functions. And until you admit there is a problem to understand and until you except it, it won’t go away. This bully of OCD won’t stop . For example some that feels that they can’t go into a room without flickering the lights on and off seven times or their parents will die, they will have a very temporary relieve from that compulsion of the light switch. Now it will work great for them until they enter a new room. Now that’s the OCD everyone knows. How about the OCD of Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts. Things that pop up into your mind for no reason and they make no sense but they throw you for a loop. You have compulsions internally where no one can see them, in your mind. This took me 25 years to say to my parents and then another 10 years afterwards to truly start to realize what it is. And to realize what it is and learn tools to except is the gift from Poppy. You will learn later why it was him that helped me. Poppy helped me unwrap a 35 year old gift.

I have a tricky one for you guys... Please help me in this. I don’t know what’s true and what’s anxiety in this situation and I need some help. I have a pretty paralyzing fear of being murdered by my partner. I don’t remember how it started but it’s a fairly new theme (within the last 2 years). I probably make it a lot worse by watching a lot of true crime documentaries and, of course, many of the killers are the spouse. Anyway, it usually comes and goes in terms of severity and I JUST felt like I had gotten over it. I didn’t really worry about it anymore. My partner knows about this. He has a twisted sense of humour and has made dark jokes but never threatened me or made me feel like I was in any ACTUAL danger. But he can say things that will just absolutely send me over the edge. He’s promised (and pinky-promised) that he will never murder me or anyone else. That sounds SO silly when I type it out but it’s how I ask for reassurance. Anyway, something happened today where this has now come up again and I’m through the roof with anxiety. I googled (I know, stupid!) and it sounds like a lot of people have this dark sense of humour and a lot of people think it’s normal to joke about killing each other with their partner..? I don’t know- it’s not like I feel like he’s threatening me. He always apologies when he sees how anxious i get and promises he was just kidding and he would never hurt me. But I just don’t see how it’s funny? Maybe I would if it weren’t for this intense fear? I don’t know, please help. I don’t know what’s really a threat and what’s not anymore. Thank you!

Any mamas of little ones on here trying to tackle this OCD beast while taking care of their kids??? Could really use a tribe of women right now. I’m finding it so much harder to fight when I have to care for her because she is only 3 1/2 and takes up all my time (it’s wonderful btw I am just finding it difficult to fight through the panic attacks in front of her.)

Out of control intrusive thoughts of all types have become a part of my everyday life I do not know who I am anymore and I see no hope:(

Omg, loss of attraction is kicking my ass....

Someone else that also get icks when a guy is overly kind and says he cares about you a lot, and I mean a lotttt.. I don’t know why but I want to distance myself from all of it, makes me feel weird

Help someone?

I’m on zoloft and I have been for about 3 ish years, but I’m also about to start Wellbutrin for depressive symptoms. How have others felt on this? Obviously everyone is different but it’s just interesting and comforting to talk about

I haven’t read it in a while but the master doc is freaking me out again :( I just read the content page and it’s all just terrified me. I’m convinced I’m just in denial right now, like I’ve had loads of crushes on fictional men before (a sign apparently) and a couple of times I’ve gone off of real guys when they start liking me back (I thought it was due to me being scared of change) and it just all feels like evidence :( Like there’s even a thing about blushing and feeling nervous around men being a sign and I sometimes feel so nervous before dates :( I’m not asking for reassurance as I know it won’t help I’m just in a state of panic and want to talk to someone, I can’t keep doing this, I just want it all to stop :’(

Has anyone had any success when dealing with a false memory within a real event. I did something and I have a false memory about that event and if that false memory actually did happy I want to confess to my partner about it. But if it’s false why would I confess to it. There’s no way to tell. So I either live with the possibility that it did happen and my partner doesn’t know about it. Or just say hey I have ocd about this thing and I don’t think it happened but I can’t remember. Option 2 sounds like the best option because this one doesn’t go away

Does anyone suffer from TOCD? I've seen very few people here who suffer from tocd.

Is anyone else scared of getting dental work because they’re scared they’ll tell people about their horrible intrusive thoughts in the post-procedure high?

Just wanted to say that from my experience consumption of drugs or alcohol makes OCD significantly worse and I'd avoid it at all costs if you can.

Does anyone else have a form of SOOCD / HOCD in which you worry about your appearance / interests? More recently I’ve started not caring at all about making myself look nice. Truthfully, I feel awful a lot of the time because of this. I look in the mirror and think I’m ugly. But on top of this thought I also think, “I look gay”, “I look like a lesbian”, etc. Then, it morphs into other thoughts such as, “Wait, I don’t care about makeup anymore? I must be gay”, “I don’t care as much about fashion anymore? I must be gay”, “I don’t feel like I can easily connect with other girls when they talk about “girly” things? I must be gay”, “I don’t like as many “girly” things as I used to? I must be gay”. On top of this, I also create false memories from my past of me faking being girly to fit a certain standard. I’m TIRED of it. Of course, I know straight women only liking girly things is a big stereotype, but it’s enough to scare the shit out of me.

What do you do when a compulsion no longer relieves the anxiety? My pocd is giving me hell. Lately my pocd has focused on child pornography and the google compulsion I’ve had isn’t relieving the anxiety. Before just searching the term was enough to clear the get rid of the anxiety and I was always left with the feeling of guilt that I’d done something wrong and that I was gonna be jailed for it. I never want to see the actual thing and I’ve been trying to resist the google compulsion but I feel like I’m not strong enough no matter how hard I try. I want feel like such a monster for it. What do you guys suggest I do?

For people who have experienced successes with SSRI’s or other antidepressants, what symptoms did they treat? The intrusive thoughts, anxiety, compulsions, all of it? I have tried other ssri’s in the past, with moderate success in reducing anxiety, but it didn’t reduce the unwanted thoughts. However, at that time, the theme of my intrusive thoughts weren’t as troublesome. So while the thoughts still existed, it didn’t limit my functionality. I feel like even if a new SSRI reduces my anxiety and compulsions, but not the intrusive thoughts, that I will not return to the functionality I had just a short time ago.