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Does anyone else suffer with existential OCD/mental illness OCD? Feeling like the world isn't real or you're stuck in a dream or schizophrenic? Any tips on how to cope?

TW pocd stuff, 18+, and starvation?? Can stop thinking about something that happened maybe a month ago. All I know is that I was sleeping and in and out of consciousness/dreaming or SOMETHING and waking up feeling guilty. Back then I’m as like “you were sleeping stop feeling bad” but now I’m starting to convince myself I’ve done something horrendous because I was in the same bed as my nephew at the time. Caught between “you ******** him” and “you were sleeping calm down”. I think the more I ruminate the more I’m going to misremember. I know I didn’t hurt him PHYSICALLY but I feel I’ve done something egregious. I haven’t eaten all day mostly because of ruminating but also feeling like I don’t deserve to.

I fucked myself up and looked at something that I thought would be fine but has spiraled me. I’m acting different and I know it takes time to erp through but I just feel so hollow and upset. I need to take time to really walk myself through worst case scenarios and sit with them but in the meantime I’m acting like a bitch and feeling like one. Partners birthday is coming up and we live with their roommate who’s their ex and they haven’t told them we’ve been dating for almost two years next month and I feel like I’m going to fucking snap if the roommate does anything nice for them. I feel so defeated but I can’t bring this to my partner because it just makes our relationship worse when I get like this and the fears 1000xs more intense later. I’m so frustrated I just don’t want to be with them, but I know that’s my ocd tendencies pointing and screaming look at the signs!!!! I want to tear my brain out There is more to the story in which I know and have moved past (multiple times) feeling that they’re cheating on me or are ashamed of me. So it’s just genuinely a case of my brain freaking out because I saw a message from 2017 where they were happy together

i’m so worried that if i hang out with my boyfriend i’m going to think of someone else while i’m with him. is this an intrusive thought?

tw// pocd , nsfw another panic! great! so i used to read miraculous ladybug fanfics when i was younger like 13 maybe and some were nsfw but i liked the plot or angst behind mari and chat blanc. so i read them. the characters in miraculous are 13-15 and i feel like i kinda forgot that bc a few months ago i remembered how much i loved those fanfics and i looked for some but i don’t think i really read any. but now i’m horrified bc i remembered that i’m 17 and those characters are in fact younger than me and idk if i was directly looking for the nsfw fics but now i find that disgusting and again i know a real pedophile would never rlly find it disgusting like ever but i find it rlly nasty when i realize that those characters are in fact younger than me like that’s so nasty ew, but i’m panicking bc regardless of whether i knew or not i still wanted to find them bc i remember i used to rlly love them but again i think i tried to read a few but nothing rlly grabbed my attention (none were nsfw i think even now i’m not a big fan of reading any nsfw like i rlly don’t like it tbh) so i just forgot about it but i’m panicking bc those characters are younger than me now and i think i forgot that whilst looking a few months ago at least i hope I did bc now i’m like so disgusted by even the idea of reading abt ppl younger than me do anything remotely nsfw that’s so nasty i just ugh idk what to do is this smth i should let go as in it’s just my ocd or is this a legitimate mistake or problem i can’t tell anymore. (also i’m aware it’s just fictional characters but that still grosses me out like tremendously)

My name is Tom. My first intrusive thought was related to sexual orientation. It haunted and traumatized me for 4 weeks until I finally spilled the beans to my wife after she came home from work ti find me in tears from having panic attacks related to my intrusive thought. The relief was immediate but so was my first harm ocd intrusive thought which came as soon as I told her, and it was aimed right at her. I lived with that repetitive violent intrusive thought for 4 years, starting every morning I opened my eyes. It morfed from harm ocd to sexual orientation to pedophile ocd but always came back to harm ocd which manifested itself as a command " kill her ". It just about ruined my life and my marriage which is when I finally reached out for help. I was finally diagnosed with ocd. It was a relief as like many others who have gone threw this, I thought I was schizophrenic or a very bad person... it took several more months for me to accept trying medication. Escitalopram was for me a life saver. I was on 10 mg for about a month and upped it to 20 mg. I was on that dose for 8 years. It made my ocd close to 90% gone. It was gonna for so long that I pretty much forgot why I was on the medication in the first place. About 8 years later, I had an incident at work and tested positive for thc. I was forced into a rehab program. As soon as I wasn't able to medicate with Cannabis, all my ocd intrusive thoughts came back with a vengeance. Left me wondering why I was on this medication in the first place, so I decided to qeen myself off. After doing research on how to successfully tapper off, I started using cbd to eliviate the discontinuation symptoms which totally worked. Unfortunately the ocd didn't go away as I hoped. I did a lot of work on exposure and excepting my intrusive thoughts. It did help with making my intrusive thoughts less potent. I decided 6 weeks ago to go back on the SSRI. Life is too short, and if I can get relief from my ocd then it's worth it. I've only been back on 10 mg, half the dose I used to take and I find it really helps my intrusive thought unlatch. I've also accepted that the thought " kill her " will always be a part of me and that's ok. I'd rather live with it and accept it then live the rest of my life in misery fighting it. Acceptance is defenetly the answer here. I know I'm a good person, a lover, a husband, a father of two wonderful little girls. I'm not ever afraid of following threw with my intrusive thought, I might have been in the beginning as I didn't know what was going on. But now it's more about just having the intrusive thought itself. So I accept that it's gonna be there, it's just a part of me, it doesn't mean anything about me or my wife, it's just OCD. I hope to grow old with my wife and get to meet my grand kids, I have lots of life to live, my girls are 7 and 11 years old, so lots of road ahead. I've stopped wondering why me, why it happened, why that thought, I'm over it. It's OCD and it's as much a part of me as my arms or legs are and for that I accept it for what it is. When my intrusive thought chimes in, usually when I open my eyes, I just agree with it and say totally and go in with my day. I love my life. OCD has been my biggest teacher. I am probably better off with what ocd has taught me over the years. I feel like I wouldn't be as mature as I am today if I hadn't gone threw all this suffering. So to all out there, keep your chin up and be fearless in the eye of anything life can throw at you. Choose to be your best self every minute. Be here now.

How can I date women if I feel like this ?😔

I just experienced two cases of "unintentional ERP" back to back. I was in the middle of doing a compulsion that just wasn't working, and in the end, it didn't. It was not recoverable by means of just another compulsion to make up for it, I ended up not being able to fully follow through with or carry out the compulsion successfully, as it was just no longer even a physically possible demand that my OCD was asking for at this point. I didn't expect I would cry, but I did. I broke down, because I'm just not use to it, like I can't even remember the last time I didn't just give in to a compulsion because it "felt" absolutely necessary, when I "logically" knew, and still know, that its not. Tonight, it was just some ridiculous thing again as always, a matter of my clean clothes and/or accessories brushing up against something that I perceived NOT to be clean, like specifically, the old tissue that I had lazily just left sitting around, forgot to throw out, and now have forgotten what I even used it for in the first place. Based on that, I don't know what's "on" the tissue, all I know is that it touched my glasses. I had already had a very stressful shower, filled with compulsion after compulsion of overly-perfected washing related actions, that usually always adds up to about an hour of me having run the water, so at this time, I just didn't have the energy or the willingness anymore to rinse off my glasses, smear soap all over the lenses, and probably still have some dried up soap on them by the end of it, just making it hard to see through them. So I cried again, for the second time in just 5 or 10 minutes, this being after my clothes had "already" come in contact with something in the bathroom before I had even gotten a chance to change into them yet, causing me some sort of irrational distress that most people would not get, as they just wouldn't care. It's not even a public bathroom for god's sake, it's my own bathroom in my own house. I have convinced myself over the years that I should avoid at all costs, touching the floor, the counter, the mirror, the doorknob, the light switch, with the palm of my hand, unless of course...I wash my hands right afterwards. I can touch all of these things with my elbow however, and I have trained myself to be able to turn some things on and off with that part of my body. As for anything else, I can resort to maybe the back of my hand. Anyways...moral of the story if you've even managed to get this far, is I haven't been able to start ERP'ing from a "voluntarily" standpoint, despite really wanting to, because my OCD is just that stubborn, and I hope that ERP will eventually become something I can more easily practice, but ya, perhaps it was a good thing that this exposure to discomfort happened (even if by accident, involuntarily, and unplanned), so I could get that first taste of what ERP is like. Now there was nothing NOT emotional about it. I know that ERP can sometimes stand for Emotional Response Prevention, but there was definitely an emotional reaction. But I'm sure this is okay and not unheard of in the beginning of ERP treatments for others as well. Anyways guys, I'm exhausted...

NSFW 18+ only please so I was watching p0rn the other day, and because of my ocd i only look at videos of older women, but sometimes my ocd will say “how do you REALLY know they’re not young” and i tried to ignore it last and resist my compulsions time and continued going (as there was truly no question she was an adult, looked it up later and she’s 40, which seems about right). but it feels awful i did that.

For CC97

I don't know what PMS does to the brain, but it's not good. My real event ocd is on 🔥.

why do i feel almost okay with liking girls???? i don't want to accept that or to like them :( saying that sounds like denial and like i am lying. i really feel like i am just struggling to accept my sexuality. i want to lash out on myself and tear myself apart

You know what the worst thing of it all is? Trying to describe your anxiety/OCD to somebody close to you in hopes they would help you and they only say “everyone has thoughts like that” or “everyone has anxiety”.

Ok guys need help. Ive got two job offers but can only do one with school coming up. One place i applied to is very unorganized the managers had no printer working, they couldn’t complete my paper work and had me come back to do it and the women doing it just seemed so out of it and was on the phone with a personal call? (Im not sure what it was) for a minute and then proceeded to say she was gonna hang up on the person cause she told them she was busy. She also said she would tell the people when i was ready to start but still haven’t gotten a call back so I’ll probably have to go and clear things up myself. But they pay better than the second job and are closer to home. The store makes me feel gross though and i feel the need to immediately wash everytime i come home. The second job is still early in the process but the manager seemed really nice i liked our phone interview i tried to negotiate the starting salary but it is pretty low considering my experience and he couldn’t budge because we get a bonus. This location is farther from home as well so those are the negatives. Thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

hey all, i’m gonna rant... it’s been a tough few days (psssht. even weeks). recently, my ocd has been attacking my relationship.. but has it really? that’s the problem i’m having. no relationship is perfect, i understand that. my relationship has had MANY ups and downs. and it’s just really difficult. it also doesn’t help that we’re long distance & i have intense fear of abandonment (due to my mother leaving me at an awkward time of my life) and attachment issues. ocd is such a confusing and debilitating disorder. i’ve recently started taking Zoloft, only for about 7 days and i feel too tired to do my usual mental compulsions. sometimes i realize that and i feel okay, other times i freak out that i can’t do the compulsions. my ocd has made me think me and my boyfriend should break up for many reasons, such as he deserves better and i deserve no love or a relationship with him. we’ve hurt eachother, but my brain likes to think i’ve hurt him more.. and i probably have. but when i think of this i just feel like a complete monster. not to mention i’ve felt really detached (& numb towards) from my relationship and i feel like i don’t recognize him, or us as a couple,.. sometimes i feel like i can’t recognize our good memories… just the bad ones. and when i’m around him (on facetime or in person when we have the chance) i just feel awkward as if i’m faking my love for/ attraction to him. and that really scares me. because then my mind digs through the past and shows me how i’ve treated him and makes me think i’ve never loved him and was never attracted to him and that i’ve just treated him so terribly. i was very toxic and neglected (his emotional needs) in the middle/ early stages of our relationship. anytime he’d ask for advice or reassurance, i’d brush him off and get upset and i didn’t even notice. then i would play my game with people online and act happy and then treat him like he was less. so are these feelings really an act of ocd? and i’m really a terrible person? we’ve been dating since halloween of last year and i moved in early december, then his mom passed away in february. so we’ve had a lot of stressors put on us. and i just feel like such a bad person. i start school back up in a week and i’m scared that i’ll forget about him and all of our memories and start to like someone new. i DONT want that to happen. but i cant avoid school. so if anyone has some advice, i’d like to stay away from breaking up or taking breaks. i know and am aware it’s more than likely ocd, but i’m doubting it’s ocd and that’s where most of the panic comes from.. i’ve felt incredibly stressed out and i just want to come to terms on what’s happening. i’ve posted a few little things but i thought i post the whole sha bang. so, to anyone who has insight or any advice whatsoever, thank you for taking the time to help out a fellow distraught human. (also please don’t think i’m a terrible person :( ) ❤️

Does anyone have a thought about a real event thing and sometimes be able to justify the situation and be like "whatever" and then sometimes it totally freaks you out and you feel like your life is over?? In my case it was such a small incident but my brain says "nope life is over for you" one minute and "eh it's no big deal" the next 🙁 i really want to ask a family member but I know I would be trying to relieve anxiety but I reallllllly want to relieve the anxiety. It doesn't help that I have things for college to go today and an interview tonight for an internship yet all I can think about is this small little real event

Does anybody overthink/ feel extreme guilt over their past? It’s become so tiring :(

I feel so gross about anything feminine right now. I just want to be a lesbian but I no longer feel attracted to women and the idea of being a woman or wearing anything girly makes me feel sick. I'm convinced I'm trans and just scared. I hate this. I want to be me again.

I read online that people with OCD have a higher risk of developing schizophrenia (x6 more risk). and this really sent me down a spiral since my only obsession is developing schizophrenia, and I was comforted by the fact that only 1% of the general population has it. idk what to do now

Hope everyone has a good Sunday! If not hopefully this picture of my dog can help cheer you up!