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Hello everyone my name is Ash and I’ve been struggling with contamination OCD since I was a kid but it didn’t get as bad as now until I was about 16. I used to take hour long showers, use bottles and bottles of soap, and wash everything I thought was dirty/contaminated. When I was 16-19 (I’m 21 now) I was functioning, like going to school & work and I could function outside in the world, however I would come home and that’s when the rituals and routine washing would start. The environment I lived in during those years was not the best in terms of cleanliness and supportiveness. I would be belittled and judged basically everyday about my OCD by my mother and when she would get mad at me because I was doing a compulsion or something she would call it “bullsh*t” among other things. Within the past couple months my sister got a house and she let me come and live with her. The environment is amazing, and she’s very supportive. However I’ve still been messing up and still dealing with doing OCD behaviors and compulsions. I take less time in the shower but soap is still an issue I’m working on. Since the pandemic started everything has become worse. My fears of germs and contamination before were just really in my head, but now they are kinda confirmed because of this virus and that makes me really anxious. It’s more of the confirmation things are dirty contaminated then touching something and then worrying if I’ll get sick if that makes sense. Since the pandemic I haven’t really left the house that much but I’m starting to make an effort to go out and see friends with masks and stuff just to try to expose myself but I have to come home and make sure I don’t use too much soap or take too long in the shower. She’s said I will have to leave the house if I don’t get better and she’s 100% serious. I am starting to speak with a therapist who specializes in OCD and i want to get to a better place. I don’t wanna be like this anymore. Recently, it’s felt like so so overwhelming, more then normal and I can’t talk to her about it because I fear that if I do she will just get mad and kick me out. She’s said I can talk to her when I’m anxious but I don’t feel like I can. She’s the one person I’m the closest too but she’s said some pretty hurtful stuff as well and I just don’t feel like I can talk to her at all. She’s said i have destroyed our relationship, which I get because I’ve been living in this prison but still, it hurts to hear that. I’m just so afraid of her kicking me out, cutting me out from her life and never speaking to me again because she will do that. I want to get better, more then anything. It’s just very hard when you wanna talk about something to get it out there but feel like you can’t because then you’ll be kicked out with nowhere to go and will lose my sister which is not what I want to happen at all.

I used to have a friend before i met my now boyfriend and i found out he had a crush on me and I'm kinda worried about the fact that i might have feeligns for him even though we haven't talked in a year and i truly love my boyfriend

Don’t see many people with existential OCD posting on here. I have bad existential (am I real, are the people around me real, am I in some kind of Truman show/matrix world etc.). With existential I think reassurance from other people is basically impossible because we understand that you can never know if the world is real, and I think that’s why doing something even like posting on this forum for support can feel unhelpful and meaningless. But maybe that can be a good exposure for us, like by allowing this forum to mean something we will fight against our OCD? Idk just a thought. Also these thoughts are just so scary that talking to people about them can seem very scary. Like how do you tell somebody you think they might not be real? I avoided talking to anybody about this for years until recently because I thought I was going crazy (I have some schiz-ocd as well) after this thought came to me after an LSD trip. Wondering if anybody relates to this, and maybe we can get some more existential posts in this forum as I think it’s under-talked about, and it’s something that probably will get worse as a society with all the dystopian tech themes in movies and stuff. Also how have you been doing ERP exposures? I’m just starting

Do you ever just fall into a rabbit hole of rumination to the point where you feel like you’re in hell?

I need help please My mom passed away in december of last year and only haver passes some months and It appears my father is talking with another woman. Me and my sister, dont know what we should do. I am starting to get depressed about this. I was feeling better and now I dont know what to do. My sister is angry about this and me too. We havent talked to him yet. What makes me confused is that my sister looks to be talking with someone too... And then theres me, a person who doesnt have any friends, that doesnt talk with nobody. I am a lonely person. Again my sister talked about leaving and without saying, I would end up alone with my father without knowing what to do, like a lost child I feel sometimes I am to people like a poor toy who nobody wants, but that I am used and then they throw me away I dont even know what to do or to feel and yet I need to hear my sister saying I am selfish...

(This is going to be long but I just need someone atm) Hey guys I’m not sure where to put that as my therapy has been paused for a couple months as something came up in her life. I’m not 100% diagnosed with ocd but I may have some form. This is more of some advice that I’m asking and I’d appreciate some help. Me and my gf met roughly 8 months ago and everything is was perfect until around the 4-5 month mark. I’d have issues trying to figure out if I loved her or not. I knew morally I did and through my actions but mentally how does one know they love someone. I have a bad time with understanding emotions. I have no idea what love feels like and it gets frustrating when people tell me to take some time to myself and I’ll figure that and well that still won’t help. Me And my gf decided to break up and in a week we will asses our feelings and see what to do. My issue is I miss her when she not around but when we are together I just want to be alone. I miss the freedom of being single. I even caught myself interested in girls that I don’t even like at all And were def not pretty. I felt bored. I felt like the only times I loved her was when there was an issue and she ignored me. Ik it sounds crazy. Trust me I deal with it all day. Ik I love her because I just cried for 15 min today over the fact that she’s so perfect and treated me so well and she’s very pretty. I feel really sick because I’m so confused at what all this means and I don’t want to hurt her. This has been in my head for months and it’s driving me insane. Even simple questions like “do u see her In your future and is this the type of girl you want to marry” are super hard for to decided. Like how do I know that I want to spend my life with her or do I like her. This is so confusing and I feel awful.

Does anyone feel like seeking reassurance and then end up feeling worse after seeking it?! Gosh…

Is it possible to have OCD when I don’t have strong compulsions? My mind obsesses over my social awkwardness and I’m constantly thinking of different scenarios, what people are thinking, etc. I also overthink everything. And I mean everything. I know it’s a lot more than most people, even those diagnosed with generalized anxiety. I can’t stop, it takes over almost all day, and it’s started to cause insomnia as of recently. I’m not asking for a diagnosis I just want an idea of what’s going on inside my head. Also, I don’t think it’s ADHD because I’m not impulsive and I don’t take many risks at all.. it’s mostly a problem with inattentiveness because my mind is elsewhere.

I'm just curious about this and I will get to why later: 1. Mandatory Covid Vaccination, yay or Nay? Why? 2. Needing to show vaccine card to enter venues, restaurants, etc. yay or nay? Why? 3. Mandatory covid test for the unvaccinated, yay or nay? Why? 4. Mandatory masks for the unvaccinated, yay or nay? Why? 5. Are you an anti-vaccine, yay or nay? Why? 6. Are you afraid of covid? And to the point...: 7. Are you afraid of needles? 8. Has your OCD impacted your ability to get the vaccine? 9. Do you have GAD, Panic attacks, etc., which has impacted whether you get the vaccine? I'm generally someone who is in support of Science. I encourage others to use their judgement in regard to the vaccine. I mask up in public. I'm just afraid. I'm also rather isolated because of my OCD in general. I understand that I could get sick and it scares me,, but I'm not emotionally ready to tackle the vaccine. I have an excruciatingly hard time with feelings of being contaminated with bodily waste, so anything medical is difficult for me. I have obsessive thoughts regarding the vaccine in general, since it is relatively new and people (even on here) have been telling horror stories. I don't think the general public is taking into consideration that people like that exist when they post things. I don't have anyone to help me out, so I'm just afraid my isolation will take me to even darker places if a mask is not good enough (which I try to follow).

Everytime I'm out in public I'll be like what if someone is gonna take me or what if someone starts shooting in here.. I grew up always being told to not leave my sisters side or my parent's side and I don't and If I do I get so scared especially if I lose them... I don't feel lile someones out to get me I feel like what if this happens like in the TV's starting to wonder if these are delusions and if I'm going psychosis! D:

I was doing so good for like a month and now I’m back to stressing again. It started with groinals. At first I brushed them off because I was happy at the time and didn’t want to deal with it. Now I’m stressing about them and other things. I saw a tik tok about a girl coming out after being married and having a child and I’m scared that’ll be me. Im scared that I’ll never be satisfied in a relationship with a man even though that’s all I want. It might be heteronormativity but I’ve tried to think about women like that and being Intimate with them like that but I just genuinely do not feel that way. I’ve thought about having connections to women the way I have men and I’ve never had connections or wanted connections like that with women. And even though I feel this way it doesn’t change the way my brain thinks. Literally any doubt that I’ve had or any thought, it uses it as proof and I hate it. I’m so scared of never being happy in a relationship. I’m so scared to try to have a relationship, I’ve never had one, because maybe I’ll hate it. I’m just so scared. Terrified even. I hate all this and I can’t even talk to anyone about it so I’m just suffering silently. I wish I could be like everyone else and just know what I want. At this point I don’t know anything about myself just that I’m alive. I just want to be alone for the rest of my life because it’s easier then actually knowing what I want.

I went to a counselor and he said I don't have ocd and anxiety... While one psychologist said I have both ocd and anxiety... Just wanted to say fuck him and he issa fucking asshole for saying that because now my father has someone to back him up on his idea that I'm just acting like it and I don't have it, he just don't want to pay for therapy, he is so cruel, I literary have anxiety attack every day in front of his eyes... I started great with doing erp myself but now couldn't do it for 2 weeks... I don't know what to do...

I don’t know why god would do such a thing. Why after 22 years am I having to ask myself these questions? I shouldn’t even have to ask or reassure my self that I’m not the things my mind tells me I am. I just want life to be the way it was even though I still had imperfections in my life at least I wasn’t thinking or feeling the things I am now.

TW So recently my ocd focuses on rape and molestation. I tried so hard to resist the google compulsion but before I knew it I was googling how to rape/molest people, babies,dogs. I am absolutely disgusted with myself. I feel horrible. I would never ever do that to anyone or anything but the face that I listened to the ocd and gave in to it makes me feel weak and I’m horrified the cops are gonna show up at my door thinking I am going to rape someone. I made sure to take my ocd meds today so hopefully I can get back on track with my meds and the ocd will let up again. I feel like such a monster and horrible person.

im just remembering more and more things and it’s causing me so much stress. i just want to be normal oh my fucking god. i keep connecting what i like for myself and saying i somehow get aroused when it’s applied to kids WHEN THATS NOT THE CASE AT ALL! i dont like seeing kids get hurt that’s never been in my fantasies like ever why am i suddenly doubting it now i’m so irritated

I cant do This anymore, i feel so bad When i look at my mom cause she talks about our future plans and all the places we Are gonna travel and now im sitting in my room crying because i cant stop thinking about if i have done something to my sister in her sleep or not. I feel so guilty and it feels so real. I cant continue anymore. I need to Know if i did or not im so scared and i feel so bad

***IMPORTANT*** Hey, I have a very urgent question regarding my antidepressant, and I know it might just sound like any other OCD spike, or me just being a hypochondriac, but I really need to be made aware if what I'm doing is lowering the effectiveness of my medication, or even worse, causing it to become toxic. I store my antidepressants (which are in a tablet form) inside a small cardboard box, with a lid that doesn't exactly have an air tight seal, and I have found out, that after the 2 years I have just been absentmindedly taking them, there has been a crack in the box, meaning the pills have been exposed to air "constantly." I have heard that there are pills out there way more oxygen-sensitive than antidepressants, but I'm still worried, about whether or not they expire faster, or if the formula even changes. Keep in mind I have kept them away from heat and moisture. But ontop of all of this, I can't really swallow pills, at least not very well, so I've always just let it dissolve in my mouth and then swallowed it. During my research on the whole "longterm air exposure" situation, which I never found a straight answer about, I stumbled across a person saying that you should never crush your pills because they have a stomach acid resistant coating on the outside that allows it to only breakdown and get absorbed into the body at specific rate. Apparently if that exact rate of absorption doesn't occur then I may either feel no effect at all, or all of the effect will happen at once instead of spread over 24 hours. Please help, especially if you are a doctor or a pharmacist who knows a little about this, because I would hate to think that I have been doing something harmful to my body, even if unintentional, and if so, I'll will need to discontinue the way I do things immediately. Thanks!

my race ocd and POCD are really trying to fight for relevancy in my brain rn. this is going well. and both are about thoughts that i can’t remember. what a joy 😭

My husband and I had a huge fight because of my Rocd. I asked for reassurance and he yelled and said he is tired from the endless questions. He says he loves me but how can we be in a marriage when one of us is completely unhappy. We have a small baby and I feel so.confused. I believe he will never accept I have a mental illness and deep down believes that I somehow choose to be like that. I know that understanding is not easy but what can I do when I feel so bad and sick already. How do you cope when there's no understanding and compassion???

I think I'm still in the derealization state! But I'm trying for it to not bother me I'm aware of how I feel and how it makes me see and anxiety makes me fall more deeper into the feeling but less anxiety still keeps me on it but still won't give up! Quick question of derealization is it supposed to always be severe or can you still have derealization and be calm? :D