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I’m confused when people say accept your thoughts why would I accept the thoughts that are making me feel disgust and filth what if I start accepting them and then the thoughts actually become true?

a little bit of TMI but please don’t judge i HATE using the bathroom because i never feel clean no matter how many times i wipe. i spend hours in the bathroom (2+ hours) just wiping. its so uncomfortable, upsets my family which just induces shame, and i cannot stomach the idea of getting up without wiping until im absolutely 100000% sure i’m completely clean. i’ll wipe, check the toilet paper, it could be completely white but my brain says “no no one more time just to be sure” and its a cycle that loops for hours on end until i just can’t anymore and i’m either in pain, about to cry, or i just give up because its been hours and i just can’t do it anymore. i hate this, can anyone relate? how do you manage it?

Hi i’m a teenager in high school and I don’t really remember when it started but I’ve been having really bad compulsions for the past few years. I think it started small with just little things like touching the light switch a few times because if not there’d be a house fire. But lately I think for the past year it’s gotten progressively worse. I haven’t been diagnosed and I don’t think i’m ready to talk to my parents about it so I don’t really know if I even have OCD or how to combat it. So i’m just gonna list some of the things that have led to me to believe I might have OCD: My number is 4, I have to touch things, do things, step on something 4 times. This has been happening for a while. The consequence of not doing it varys from the situation. If i’m home alone and I get scared I need to do everything 4 times perfectly and sit there until I do it right or else i’m unsafe and might die. I also have this “bedtime routine” you could say. Every night I need to check under my bed and look at each 4 legs of the bed and then say the number as I look then I need to take 4 deep breaths as I check too. After that I need to check in my closet and make sure the black hangers don’t touch the white hangers or else it’s contaminated and I might get sick. Then I need to fix my curtains to the way that I need them to sit. There’s a little more detail to each step that’s just too confusing to explain. Another big thing is stepping on something so it touches the middle or my foot and do so 4 times. I can’t explain everything because this is already too long but that is just some of the things I have to do. I also sometimes question myself and it scares me. Like I convince myself that I’m a psychopath and I am going to hurt my friends or family - but I am an extreme empath and can’t hurt a fly? It’s really scary and I just don’t know what to do anymore. So I guess moral of the story: Do I have OCD? And if so what can I do to try to combat it alone for now without alerting my family.

I've just started dating this really great girl. She doesn't know about my ocd which is fine but I've noticed that a lot of my intrusive thoughts and worries about not following routines now revolve around losing her or her believing I'm a bad person. I just don't want this relationship to make me so paranoid. I also know have this where if I see a girl on my Instagram or on the Internet, I'll feel an overwhelming urge to clean myself and the device I viewed it on. This is part of a moral reaction and I also worry I'm not being loyal. I feel I should try and not follow through with these compulsions but as they now revolve around keeping my girlfriend I'm not sure. Any advice?

so basically I’ve been overthinking Thursday. basically this whole week I’ve been getting intrusive thoughts about doing sexual or inappropriate things with objects, and it got so bad that basically everyday I was throwing my toothbrush away and buying a new one because I was afraid I did something to it and it was contaiminated. please understand I DO NOT want that at all. well I told my mom about it like I told my mom how I thought my toothbrush was contaiminated and I kept getting distressing thoughts (I couldn’t tell her exactly what) and she basically got mad and said I was wasting money and that she wouldn’t allow me to buy more so then I’d just have to use the same one. Well I’ve been replaying all the events that Thursday morning and I can’t find where I could’ve done something inappropriate but idk why the day after so Friday I kept getting those images even though on Thursday I felt fine I think. I couldn’t use a new one my mom forced me to use the one I had and so now I’m going crazy and I think my mouth is contaiminated. What do I do actually please help. I can’t live like this. I think these thoughts were triggered by something I read on the news, but now I’m afraid I might’ve done something and now I’m contaiminated. What if I actually did whatever those intrusive thoughts showed me? What if they were repressed memories? I can’t live knowing this please give any advice.

I’ve been struggling so much with contamination ocd especially when having to go/do anything that involves a bathroom.I feel like every time I use the bathroom I need to take a shower. And that’s exactly what I do. But before I get into the shower I use Lysol to wipe down EVERYTHING the toilet seat,the hand flush, the door nob, and the ground. I wipe everything down at-least 3 times sometimes more. Then after cleaning and wiping everything down i immediately have to hop into the shower. I am fearful that pee or something touches me. I only allow myself to use the bathroom once in the morning and shower right after. I’ve noticed this has also started to affect my eating habits as I try to avoid eating/drinking anything to avoid using the toilet. I also have a hard time using the bathroom after anyone else has used it. If i notice a drop of water on the ground my mind immediately goes to ITS PEEE ITS PEE and I panic. This is long sorry but I’ve been struggling and also haven’t officially been diagnosed with ocd since I have no insurance and am #broke but I am working towards getting an appointment. Has anyone else struggled with this? And has it gotten any better?? :,)

A month ago, we went to my sister’s place. There, I took care of a kitten. The day after I started taking care of it, the kitten died. We returned from my sister’s place three weeks ago. Three days ago, I went to the doctor, and the doctor told me that I had been bitten by ants or fleas. As a precaution, the doctor gave me two things. I am using them, but because of my OCD, this process is even harder for me. Now I need to go shopping, and my OCD tells me that if I shop incorrectly, I will never get rid of the fleas. It also tells me that if fleas jump onto my cleaning supplies and I use those supplies again, the fleas will infest me again. I have difficulty closing the lids of my cleaning supplies because I’m afraid that if the lids stay open, or even slightly open, they will lose their effectiveness. On top of that, I stay in a dormitory for university, which makes everything even harder. Sometimes I think that I will never be able to get rid of the fleas, and I’m afraid I’ll never be free of them. Other times, I wonder if I ever actually had fleas.

Hey, I’ve been doing some research on OCD and think I may have it. I’m not 100% sure, but I have a lot of the symptoms. I want to get myself diagnosed, but my parents won’t let me. They agree that it’s very likely that I have OCD, but they think that if I try hard enough, I can get over it. I don’t know what to do anymore or if what I have even is OCD, and I want to be somewhat sure before a I do anything. Right now, I’m a junior in high school, but freshman year was when my “OCD” was the most severe. I think I had (and still do) the symmetry/order subtype and “just right” subtype. I was obsessed with writing things neatly to a point in which I kept forcing myself to erase and rewrite things until all the letters were straight and all the graphs were neatly drawn (typing wasn’t safe either because I use Notability and felt the need to align every text box and make them all the same length). Handwriting was especially a problem in calculus A, and it got to a point in which I couldn’t keep up with the notes, and the homework was taking hours a night because I was obsessed with making my work perfect. Needless to say, I didn’t get a good grade in calculus A and didn’t build a good foundation for future math classes. This makes me really sad because I was previously really good at math and had a bright future in the subject. Eventually, I just stopped trying in calculus A, but by then, I felt burnt out, couldn’t concentrate on anything, kept putting things off, and lost the ability to properly manage my time. I think it may have escalated to executive dysfunction at that point, and it carried over to all my other classes. As someone who was previously pretty productive and good at planning, this was a huge hit on my self-esteem. I was also obsessed with symmetry. If I touched one side of my body, I had to touch the other side in the exact same place. If I was coding something, I would have to evenly distribute touch across each key on the keyboard. It felt like everything was a heatmap, and the colors had to be kept in balance at all times. I also avoided odd numbers because they were considered “asymmetrical”. I was obsessed with routine and had to complete tasks in a certain way, a certain order, and a certain amount of time. Even something as small as combing my hair for five minutes instead of six caused me extreme distress. Writing one word that “sounded off” on an English paper left me unable to keep writing until I fixed it. I had to keep the sound of my phone at a certain volume (6 normally, 10 when exercising, and 12 when cleaning, divide everything by 2 when using a computer) and had to walk a round number (any number that ends in 0) of steps a day. I kid you not when I say that some days I woke up and didn’t want to live anymore. Sophomore year, my mental health improved and I probably seemed overly perfectionistic but not to a point of concern. However, this year, the handwriting issue relapsed in all its glory during physics, and I’m not able to keep up with notes or homework. I feel the same way that I did in calculus A, and I don’t want history to repeat itself. I want to ask my teacher to let me do my homework on paper rather than the iPad (it’s easier for me to write on paper due to increased friction), but I’m scared to ask because I don’t have a formal diagnosis. I don’t know what causes my behavior. I feel like if I can’t do things perfectly, no one will like me. I’ll lose all my friends, and no boy will ever want to go out with me. I know it’s irrational. Literally no one cares what my notes look like or how long I spend on each step of my morning routine or whatever, but I constantly feel like people are judging me and will hate me the second I mess up. There are two more times in my life that I can think of when I displayed symptoms of OCD, contamination OCD when I was 9 and pure/religious/magical thinking/health concern OCD (they all just kind morphed together) when I was 11. I can go into more detail if you wish. As of now, I just want to know my behavior sounds like OCD, and if so, how to more forward. If not, I would love to know what I do have and how to treat it. Thank you so much.

My TOCD is really bad today, I can’t eat anything without throwing up. My panic is just so bad, please any advice?

so I am not diagnosed, but recently for the past week I’ve been having something similar to contamination ocd, but it’s not the typical germ type. It’s the fear of doing something gross, and I keep getting intrusive thoughts where I see images or like actions play out in my head. It took so much to say this so please don’t take this the wrong way. Basically my fear is toothbrushes and doing gross sexual things with them. Actually I get these intrusive thoughts about so many objects, and I don’t know why. I feel like I can’t do anything alone in fear that I might act on these things. I have to throw things out everyday because I’m afraid I’ve done something like this. I always try to look back on past events to make sure I haven’t done anything like that, but I feel like that only makes things worse. Please seriously give any advice, and believe me when I say I DO NOT want to do anything like I just described. I’m losing my mind I just feel so gross. I think this was all triggered by something I read online, and ever since then I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.

It’s 3am and I’m not doing well. I’m having an overwhelming amount of anxiety. I need to feel mentally clean but I’m dirty. I’ve had bad thoughts and I’m ashamed. I feel like I can’t even write it down. I want to say it aloud to someone but my wife is sleeping right next to me so doing a therapy call would be impossible. I’m feeling helpless. And so guilty for my thoughts.

TW: toilets, guilt, water, local idiot complains that her toilet isn't flushing properly and it causes her mental pain Hi everyone. For many years I have been struggling with contamination OCD. The worst trigger for me is stuff involving toilets and water/water droplets. I hate using toilets so much, especially public automatic flushing ones because of the fear of sitting in toilet water droplets and the dreaded toilet plume. Toilets in general disgust me so much. The last time I used a public bathroom, I felt like I couldn't use my home bathroom or touch anything at home until I took a shower and washed everything. I feel very embarrassed and guilty because I spend so much money washing myself and using so much soap and water. I recently moved into a new place that I will be staying in for many years due to my personal and financial situation, and the toilet used to always flush and leave little water droplets on the seat where I sit after, even with the lid closed. I have found a way to reduce this from happening but it's 50/50 whether or not I will see water on the seat every time I flush. I always open the lid and check the seat if the toilet to see if there are water droplets. If there are, I have to spend so much time cleaning the toilet with soap, then disinfectant, and then wiping it down and flushing it again until I get a "clean flush." I feel so awful and ashamed because I finally have my own bathroom after sharing one with my parents that I was constantly cleaning, giving me more stress, but now I still feel like it isn't good enough because I am still stuck in this stupid loop. I have homework to do why am I stressing over a toilet?! Now I keep a spray bottle of soapy water on the bathroom counter to spray and clean but this is also something that bothers me because the OCD tells me that it isn't enough and that the toilet is going to break or something. On the same note of toilets, I also have a lot of triggers regarding water droplets (not showering but like the water that drops off and bounces around I'm not sure how to explain it all) touching my feet, legs, other parts of me. All this mixed with my awful toilet related OCD has cost me so much soap, water, and time. Sorry if this is really weird and tmi and if I sound like a total brat or something. I wonder if anyone else goes through this and how they deal with it. My school counselor once told me that I can wait for the triggers to pass through or something like that, but that takes many hours and I need to clean so that I can sleep I am losing my mind gah

this morning I was really rushed and stressed and that literally triggered my anxiety and like contamination ocd. I want to say I don’t have typical contamination ocd, I just have this gross feeling and certain objects trigger it. I can’t even say fully what I mean because it sounds so strange and weird. As I was getting ready I kept having gross images in my head and it felt so real and then I got worried if it actually happened and I just didn’t notice it because I was in a rush this morning. I’m so confused and stressed I am so done with this. I feel like I have to throw everything away now. like I can’t even say what happened exactly and that stresses me out so much more because I don’t know if it actually happened or what. I’ve cried over this so many time and I can’t even tell anyone because they’re going to think I’m crazy. how do I know if a memory is false or true? later on in the day I retraced my steps and everything and I kept thinking back about every event that happened before after and during and I can’t tell if it was real or not. if it was real I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive myself and I can’t live like this. I thought I was getting better and I started not caring about the thoughts, but this morning because I was rushed and doing things in a hurry I feel like it started all over again and I don’t know if this memory is true or not. seriously what do. I do?

Since two days ago, I’ve had this new theme spiraling in my head. I have two cats and I recently just had a fear of getting r*bies (I’m scared to type it). It’s stupid, I know. I haven’t been scratched, bitten or anything of that sort, but I’m terrified that I could get it or that I have it, even though nothing happened. My cats are indoor, and we they are two years old, we are going to get them their shots soon (they had been up to date when we got them, but it’s been about a year). There’s no animals or anything and we don’t let them outside but there’s still that ‘what if.’ I don’t want to touch my cats and I’ve been monitoring myself every second I can. I wash my hands a lot more and I have such extreme anxiety and sensations that I can’t sleep at night (which worsens my anxiety because that’s a symptom of it.) please if anyone can help me or has gone through this, how can I calm down from this?😖😖

I experience a few different sup-types… I would say introspectively the most noticeable is Somatic OCD followed by Harm and Contamination. I have been in therapy for 11/12 years… pretty consistently. I heard about this app through some ads, and some friends and family started suggesting I try it. This is my first time using it. I previously did not realize I had OCD. At some point when I was around 16 I thought OCD could be the thing I was experiencing. The understanding of OCD in my general circle of people was limited. When I introduced the possibility of having OCD to others, I was met with the idea that I could not have OCD because I had always been disorganized and “messy”. Otherwise, I was introduced to the concept of “Pure” OCD- which wasn’t entirely fitting for me. I didn’t know, until today, that Somatic OCD was the word for what I was experiencing… along with a few other subtypes that I learned about today. Within the past couple of years I’ve come to realize that I experience symptoms of OCD. I have also come to realize that there is a strong pattern of a variety of OCD subtypes on the paternal side of my family. On the maternal side there is (sparse, compared to paternal side) history of Hoarding Disorder- which I know the DSM now classifies as its own condition within the OCD spectrum. TW: This is the part where I discuss personal symptoms, memories, and behaviors with some detail. Today while filling out the questions for this app— it really ‘sunk-in’ for me that I have been experiencing Somatic OCD for as long as I remember. I can’t say I can pin-point where it started… but I can say one of my earliest, seemingly-random, memories is being 5 years old- In Kindergarten Music Class. We were watching a movie and I suddenly became aware of my breathing. I felt like I wasn’t breathing, but I was getting oxygen… because I wasn’t feeling out of breath. I was very anxious as a child so I cannot recall if in this moment breathing awareness caused anxiety. I do remember thinking (with the vocabulary I had at the time) that it was maybe a cool thing? To breathe without breathing- is this something everyone can do? I’ve always experienced Magical Thinking as well. I also remember being anxious, as a young child, after I learned that we expel CO2 when we breathe out. I was very anxious to breathe in “stale-air” thinking it could harm me. This interacted with Harm symptoms where I obsessively worried about intentionally suffocating myself although I didn’t desire to. As I think back, I remember some of my earliest memories are of me trying to “even-out” some of my body-feelings. If I was playing with a textured toy for a few seconds in one hand, I’d have to switch it to the other until the feeling was the same in both hands. Many times this lead to me counting seconds while holding things, and continuing the ritual until I was inevitably distracted or re-directed. Other early memories of mine include me thinking I could control the weather with my mind. I was very worried that I would accidentally summon a tornado by wishing for it with a passing thought. I would spend hours staring out the window thinking “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t…” hoping that if I accidentally made the wish it would be preceded by negating it. I’m sharing this to cope with the “sinking-in” of it all. I’m looking back at these experiences with a “neutral” lens in the sense that I’m trying to be mindful of feeling triggered, and allow myself to sit with feelings that come up and observe them without trying to push feelings and thoughts away. Obviously it’s a balancing act because I don’t want sitting with my feelings to turn into sitting “in” my feelings and ruminating. Typing things out is helpful for me- I understand my thoughts and feelings better when I hear or read them back. A lot of feelings have come up for me in a short time since downloading this app and filling out the survey. I feel sad for my current, moreover my former and child-self. I feel bummed in general that our understanding of mental-health is/has been limited— I feel bummed that OCD is sneaky like that… Nearly 12 years of therapy, and the reality of experiencing OCD was just so normal to me that I didn’t notice it enough to share. I feel bummed that I didn’t previously have the vocabulary or the skills to be honest and speak about what I was experiencing with consistent detail. I feel sad for my parents and their parents and siblings who experienced similar things. It’s hard sometimes to allow myself to identify “feelings” (emotions) without thinking I’m over-processing it. Like I said, fine line. I do struggle to identify and sit *with* the feelings so it is something I inevitably have to do. So yeah. It’s just kind of wild to think this has been going in for SO LONG. I feel a relieved, having processed it a bit. So I’ll close out and re-direct myself now as this has been a long reflection moment.

i made a similar post, but I didn’t really get helpful responses. also I’m not diagnosed and can’t get diagnosed , but the past two days I’ve been spiraling and I have constant anxiety. I feel contaminated and like I keep having actions replay in my head and I see images of terrible things and I just feel gross. also like I can’t do anything alone or else I’m afraid that I might end up doing something wrong. so then every action I do has to be in from of other people so I can make sure I didn’t do anything crazy. any time I’m alone and I go about my day later on I always get these thoughts and what I’m pretty sure is false event ocd and I’m stressing so much.

I’ve been EXTREMELY worried recently about associating things/ loved ones/ my own body even with the negative emotions, people, etc that my ocd is currently making me feel like I have to avoid. This is causing me to CONSTANTLY think about these negative things and CONSTANTLY repeat compulsions if the negative thought or the thought of associating the thought with the action/ thing comes into my mind. Like I’ll be doing something as simple as showering and get worried that I’ll associate/ contaminate my own body with the thing/ person that terrifies me. So I’ll have to shower again. Is this normal? How can I stop it?? And will I ever be able to un- associate something with the negativity?

im not diagnosed, but these past two days have been terrible. i constantly have this underlying feeling that i might do something that i think is gross and i feel like i can’t do anything on my own because otherwise i might do something wrong. like i feel like i constantly have to be in front of people so that i can make sure of my every action. this is so exhausting and I’m so confused. and like i keep getting terrible images and stuff replaying in my head. i also try to recall what happened but i feel like i have false event too. i used to have religious ocd and that eventually stopped completely, but now it feels like all my work getting over that was pointless. also like i feel like i might have contamination ocd but not the typical germ type. I just get terrible images and I can’t remember if those images are true or not even though they’re impossible and i feel terrible. I don’t know if i could ever get over this because even the thought of it is terrible.

I've never had COVID until now. I've tried so hard to avoid it. My family all got it first and I have a baby. We stayed away from the others as much as possible, even had my husband and other kid stay somewhere else, but it was too late and the baby got it and I had to take him to the ER for a 106 fever, and then I got sick from him and I am very sick, and I know the virus is everywhere in, on, and around me, and I don't know how I will ever survive knowing I can't possibly get rid of it from everything. I had to go to the ER for heart symptoms from my illness and they did lots of tests but I'm just very sick. I bet my anxiety was giving me heart palpitations. This really feels like my worst nightmare. Even after I'm better, how can I disinfectant every single thing, the carpets, my baby's stuff, so I'm not worried about infecting other people or even about just having the virus on me? I know it can't make me sick again but it's the contamination that kills me.

Hi everyone, This last week I’ve had so much anxiety that I’m going into psychosis. I have weird intrusive thoughts about contamination and other weird things like if I use my left hand or do anything left something bad will happen or certain numbers mean bad things when counting. My psychiatrist says it’s just anxiety but ever since my anxiety attacks last week I feel so weird and scared that I’m going to go into psychosis or crazy. My family doctor said it’s possible which scared me and now I’m feeling really scared. I started medication again but can’t seem to snap out of it. There have been some amazing people here that have giving my great help and tips. But I just need to be reassured that I won’t follow into psychosis. I know it’s a small percent of people but I’m just so scared. Any help would be great. Even my psychiatrist said I won’t but can’t calm down. Any help would be amazing, thank you!