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Because is controlling my life

Yesterday was one of the most challenging days since I was 15. I fell into a rabbit hole and did all the mental compulsions and sought reassurance in various forms. I completely broke down and cried and showered two times and felt alone. I talked to my sister yesterday and shared all my thoughts and what if’s. I needed comfort to know I’m not alone. At the end I asked her one of the greatest ways she can support me is to not reassure me. I was crying when I asked her, afraid that I wouldn’t be a reassured from a loved one anymore. I have dealt with SO-OCD since 15, it was through ERP and medication it became tolerable. Since then I’ve dealt with different themes from POCD, Health, Harm, Death and others. But SO-OCD is always the strongest. The days feel long and the nighttime feels like a battle. But last night I chose to practice mindfulness and to breathe. To not be afraid of my thoughts and what if’s and let them pass by. SO-OCD can feel so isolating, it feels like I’m denying or lying to myself even though I don’t see myself growing old with a woman. My mind twists that I have internalized homophobia or biphobia. And it’s just so tricky. Two weeks ago I was obsessing over a guy crush. And it feels like all my experiences with guys are false and has distorted normal interactions with women as signs. Not seeking reassurance in this section. I even went a long period without using NOCD. I know I’m not alone in this, we will get through this. We need to take it one day at a time. We will get through this. Sending strength and courage to all of you.

Dr has prescribed me Lexapro for ocd until I can get in to see a psych eventually, I’m about to start therapy in January aswell…. Was just wondering if anyone has had positive experiences with Lexapro? I know everyone is different, so maybe I could just ask for anyone who has found a medication that works for them, I just wanted to know a thorough explanation of how it makes you feel & how it has helped with your intrusions/ocd… I am quite nervous to try it because of side affects and fear it’s just another trial error phase…. I have quit smoking pot and going to stick with taking it same time every day where as in the past with 2 previous meds I was still smoking and not having a routine with when I took the meds. So obviously it didn’t work properly… can someone just give me a bit of hope, please?

Does your them cause you so much despair that you get terrified to your bones? Mine is health OCD, and I’m always worried that I’ve missed a symptom and it’s some stage 4 something. The OCD is also really tied to PTSD for me from my mom passing of cancer. Since June, I’ve thought I had breast cancer, colon cancer and now gallbladder cancer. If I feel the slightest twinge by my right rib, I absolutely FREAK out. As I type this, I can see that it’s the OCD latching on to something else, but to me it feels SO REAL. That THIS TIME, it WILL be cancer. The distress makes me physically ill and causes me to constantly have a full bladder. Whenever I start to fall asleep, I wake up in a full panic gasping for air as I remember this fear. I am really having a hard time coping rn and am finding that I’m telling myself I’m safe. I know it’s a compulsion but omg, I’m a 10/10 right now, borderline panic attack and it just wont go down. I don’t know what else to do?

Sometimes I feel absolutely fine, then the next few moments I’m gasping for air and it feels like it won’t fill my lungs no matter how hard I try. Sometimes it comes on so suddenly without me consciously thinking about it so I’m having a really hard time differentiating between what’s physically happening and what’s caused by somatic OCD. I wonder at times if it’s a mix of both, but either way it’s a terrible feeling and makes me feel dizzy, weak and anxious. I want to break this cycle so badly but I don’t know how to tackle it. Breathing should be such an easy, mundane thing but now it takes everything in me just to make it through each episode.

I have severe acid reflux and I haven’t been eating recently due to pseudo-dysphasia. But I had crazy chest pain and burning today at work that radiated to my back. I don’t know what’s a real sensation anymore or something created in my head. I have been is so much pain today that I broke and gave into the compulsion of going to the ER. Well shocker it didn’t make me feel better. Have had hundreds of tears done on my body and to see how my heart is and they say my heart is really healthy. Why can’t I just live and not convince myself that I’m having a heart attack .

So for the past month I’ve been throwing up after eating. As time has gone on I’ve done it more regularly. I’m scared though that I’m just doing it for attention and there’s nothing actually wrong with me. I don’t necessarily binge it’s more so I eat and if I feel any bit full I force myself to be sick. It’s been happening almost every single day. When I feel full I feel like I’m getting fat and I get terrified of gaining weight. My OCD is making me feel like an attention whore. I’ve told my mom and my boyfriend. And my mom is very upset and doing her best to help. Same with my bf. I keep thinking my poor mom I’m just doing this to get extra attention. But I’ve done it for a while and only just recently told her. It’s almost like I feel accomplished when I’m hungry. And I feel good about it. It started last November. I had been excessively working out before a group cruise to be in shape. After the cruise I lost motivation but didn’t want to gain weight so whenever I felt full I would make myself be sick.

I guess I’m really wondering if anyone else is experiencing this or has gone through something similar. I hate feeling high or drunk. I highly dislike the feeling of being out of control of my body. I am constantly scared of eating at my mom’s house because both her and my brothers living there partake in marijuana usage (which is perfectly fine!). But I am scared it somehow gets in my food. That’s how it started around 2 years ago. Since then, this has progressed to concerns with food spoilage or cross contamination. I am a trained food safety expert for over 10 years. I worry I didn’t wash my hands good enough after handling raw chicken and I’m going to give myself food poisoning. I actually rarely handle or eat fresh meat because of this fear. When I do it’s a complete anxiety attack for a good 24 hours. I worry and throughly inspect all fresh produce for signs of mold. Then cook it and wonder if I somehow missed it. So I started taking pictures of it to reassure myself. Also I worry someone will poison me if I get food at a fast food restaurant, either by accidentally drugging me or intentionally. This has progressed to now being scared in public restrooms to set specifically my phone down on the toilet paper holder because maybe somebody put their drugs there. It will get on my phone and I’ll touch it then eat and become high. I wash my hands probably 15 times a day on the low end, they are cracked and bleed frequently. I don’t even know what to do. I’m so sick of living with these irrational fears. Just wish I could live normally.

Guys I’ve been very hesitant about getting on meds but my OCD thinking has gotten really bad. So I decided to just get fluoxetine and start it. But my reservations about meds is carrying over into my ocd and i’m scared when I take the medicine i’m going to start freaking out due to “placebo” in a way. Like i am going to start getting symptoms or freaking out and wanting to throw up the meds or something idk

So, I’m absolutely done for. It’s 2am and I just scratched my back/butt and I felt something, it felt like how dried sweat can feel like little packets of water or something. So I just had to scratch it to hell till the skin felt normal. Then, I just had to smell my fingers cuz I needed to know what it smelt like and it smelt weird ish, but then I was like now I got to look at it. So I’m trying not to blind my partner or wake him. And I see this bloody looking sight. It’s freaking ring worm at least I truly believe so after my thorough search. I couldn’t handle the thought and I didn’t know how to handle ringworm. My friend got it way back in elementary school and it looked rough. So in a panicked state I get up and stop petting my cat, which good lord. I scurry to the kitchen to then wash my hands, which I’m so glad I did. Then, I proceeded to attempt to take a picture to google search it through my camera, which is embarrassing bc it’s me bum. And it’s like could be exema which I do kinda have but it only shows up on my finger really. Or it’s definitely ringworm. And it’s round and it’s prolly bc I’ve been having night sweats, but jeez I still shower. It makes me feel gross, but also GrEaT because now I don’t know how I’m even gonna sleep. How many areas of my body did I touch? How many things might I have touched, is my boyfriend gonna get it now, like it’s a lisssst. And now I’m tryna figure out how do I sleep with this, and like the best thing to do is to not wear tight clothing or bandage the sight bc it could make it way worse. On top of everything there’s no way I could see a doctor bc I’m traumatized, and so I really hope some topical medication and stuff is gonna get me thru this. I’ll be praying like a mad man for God to help me cuz I really don’t do well with something like this. It’s contagious man. And all of this has to happen at 2 am bc I couldn’t sleep. I’m so done for. Like all I can do is laugh bc that’s all I can do man otherwise it’s full meltdown and it’s 2am and everyone is asleep in the house. I have no one to talk to about it and I’m low key still freaking out. So, ig I’m gonna sit somewhere and watch Hulu and YouTube till I figure something out or some safe way to sleep. Like I really don’t want to spread it. I guess I could whip out clean sheets and sleep on the leather couch and pray. Oh jeez, if anyone’s out there pls pray for my peace of mind. This is tough and btw I’m on my period too so hormones. This really sucks. Idk I hope this made someone laugh a little. Ig it’s not really funny but it just seems so funny to me at the same time. The whole adventure to finding out what was on my bum. This is just like the worst. And I swear if I passed it to my cat… or got it from her?! I hope she doesn’t have it, guess it’s vet time. Which is what sucks too like am I overthinking everything? But it said you can get it from animals and normally it’ll look like a missing patch of hair, which! I noticed after her last vet visit (she’s a kitten) and I thought maybe they just shaved her down or something, but honestly the hair hasn’t really come back. Dear goodness folks.

i’m new to this app, im sorry if this post is inappropriately long. ever since july of this year, my very under the radar ocd has jumped gears and completely taken over my life. TRIGGER WARNING for people who don’t like s!ckness or anything of the sort, i don’t wanna make anyone panic! but i had a bad UTI and it made me loose my appetite for two weeks with a fever, stomach aches and nausea. all the symptoms and worry accumulated from a camping trip i went on with my boyfriend, while i loved being with him, it stressed me out because we weren’t at a campsite, there was lightening and we were to far from the car to leave in the night. we barely slept, and left very early, and when we got back from eating a bagel at dunkin i felt extremely nauseous and tired. i’ve always been afraid of getting sick like that, but this caused me extreme distress. my boyfriend and dad sat on my bed with me to make sure i was ok, but it all just was to much for me. finally my boyfriend left and later i was able to fall asleep. after this for the next many days i dealt with the feeling of being ill, and it scared me so much. i feel like that was all such a small event that triggered it and i’m wondering why? i don’t really understand. ever since any inkling of being sick i fall into complete panic, hysterically sobbing and begging my parents to take me to a doctor. in the past i have been prone to convincing myself of many different sicknesses, specifically different cancers. right now all last week again i had a UTI, with a stomach ache all week, i felt better for one day and now i have a cold/flu and before i had a fever of 101-102. i’m so terrified that it’ll go into my stomach, but there is a rational part of me that tells me that by reacting so strongly, i am literally the one making it traumatic. it’s turned to me taking an hour to get dressed because all my outfits will leads to a future where i get sick. i have to wash my hands constantly to make myself feel safe, i can feel a wave of ecstasy like run through me when i wash my hands. it makes it hard to kiss my boyfriend, who tries so hard to support me but i’m afraid to kiss him and get sick from him. i mean i cant but feel like all of this makes me such a weak, insufferable person. i’m really scared to push everyone away from me, but i have lost all control. what do i do? am i overreacting? are my fears stupid? any imput would be so helpful

To start off, yes I have a therapist, yes I have a psychiatrist and so far I am only diagnosed with ptsd, ocd, gad, hypochondriasis, and panic disorder. So for the past 5 months I’ve been dealing with a terrible ocd/hypochondria theme where I have COMPLETELY convinced myself I am in the beginning stages of schizophrenia or some other related horrific psychotic disorder. Ive read way too much on common delusions, symptoms, hallucinations, personal stories, Reddit stories etc. Anyway, for some reason my ocd has really latched on to the common symptom schizophrenics have which are religious delusions, at least I hope it’s just my ocd and not actually schizophrenia. Everyday I get these terrible existential/demonic “delusional thoughts”. Like “what if my wife is a demon” “what if my cat is a demon” “this song has demonic energy” “the face that person made was demonic” “this house has negative demonic energy” “what if you are possessed” “what if these ugly brown mushrooms growing in your yard are a sign of demonic energy”, shit like that. Literally everything I look at now has some sort of “negative energy” or feels eerie or “demonic”, everything I look at always has to have some sort of malicious intent or negative undertone, I can’t watch anything on YouTube anymore, I can’t listen to my favorite bands anymore like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc, these thoughts have made me become so avoidant of dark things and even normal light hearted things! Now first off, I am a literal atheist, I am a complete skeptic, I have never ever been superstitious. I was a huge Marilyn Manson fan in my teens, I’m a horror movie junkie( or at least I used to be before this theme took over), i literally have shirts with pentagrams and upside down crosses etc. why has my ocd suddenly branched off into this religious ocd/delusional thinking? Is this maybe a dp/dr thing too? I know for sure that every single one of these thoughts and feelings are untrue and very unlikely. I do not believe any of these thoughts at all, yet the fear they create and the vibes that accompany them make it feel almost real. When I’m in full blown panic and start to spiral really bad sometimes I feel like I almost believe these thoughts, and feel paranoid almost, when the anxiety and fear passes though I can have a brief moment of clarity where I can laugh these thoughts off and almost be myself again, but it’s very short lived before these thoughts start creeping back up. The content of the thoughts is scaring me but the fact that I’m even having these types of thoughts and fears in the first place is scaring me even more because it is reinforcing my fears that I am becoming schizophrenic/psychotic. Why have I suddenly become like this? I can’t enjoy anything anymore without getting these awful awful thoughts. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?

hey, i saw this on tiktok and i’ve been struggling really bad my whole life. i’ve never been diagnosed but im too scared that people will tell me im being dramatic or im making it up to get help. i think it started when i was in 1st or 2nd grade, i would come home everyday and confess things to my mom. like not taking my usual routes in the hallways and not returning a pencil to anyone. i dont know why it has to be her but i still do this. it’s like she’s my only comfort person and sometimes it feels like im just bothering her with it. i dont know who to talk to or what to do to fix it. everyone has told me that getting on medicine will only make it worse because if i come off of it it will be a whole lot worse. as i got older, it kind of left me for a while until earlier this year. i’ve always been told that having an extreme conscience was a good thing, but this feels awful. i turned to God which i still believe it but i don’t think it was the right way. i was overly paranoid that the end times were coming so much that i couldn’t do my daily routines. my sister has 2 babies and when i turned to Jesus it was also because i was having insane intrusive and embarrassing of doing horrible things to them. i didn’t even know who i was. i love both of those babies like they’re my own, i constantly come over to see them, bring gifts, etc and i could never intentionally hurt them but when i have these thoughts it’s like seeing yourself in a different perspective. when i signed up for this app a few minutes ago i think it said that was POCD. i would never do anything to hurt anyone, ive always been a very gentle and caring person so it’s kind of hard to argue with yourself. i was also at the time hitting an extreme point of paranoia about my health, constantly obsessing over everything because i thought i was dying. it left me again for a few months but now it’s back and i don’t know what else to do. i don’t know if this is ocd or if im straight out just a terrible person. any advice, comments, or anything is welcome!

This is my first post on this forum and I want to share my experience with OCD so far. I was diagnosed with OCD, specifically Harm OCD about 2 months ago. However, my OCD reached new heights at the beginning of 2023. My OCD began to manifest as extreme anxiety about my health, specifically my appendix and my heart. I was obsessed with a “made up” pain in my stomach and I constantly pushed on my stomach to the point that I bruised it. I ended up going to the hospital, spending thousands of dollars just for a doctor to tell me everything was fine. 15 minutes after leaving the hospital, the reassurance was gone and I was still worried. As that obsession fizzled out, I began to obsess over my heart and I had terrible panic attacks to the point that I could not breathe, I had physical pain in my chest, tightness, and pain in my left arm. I was convinced I was having a heart attack. Back to the hospital… and guess what? Thousands spent and the doctor said nothing was wrong. So I went and started doing traditional talk therapy and I did not follow the guidance and sort of faked my way through therapy and then my OCD reached an all new height and ventured into a very dark place: Harm OCD. It started while I was laying in bed and the thought was harm yourself, there were many ways that popped into my head constantly and I had to wake up my Dad to have a talk and get a plan. We scheduled an appointment for my therapist and at this point ultimately ended up scheduling with an OCD therapist. Shortly after the self harm ocd spiked, my ocd began changing themes to harming others. It seems ways to harm will just pop in, regardless of a trigger, and I started Zoloft which has calmed my anxiety and panic attacks, but I feel so numb it’s terrifying. Has anyone ever questioned their wants when dealing with with vivid harm thoughts that don’t go away? Do you question if these thoughts really bother you?

Okay, so to spare you the DISGUSTING details, I won't go into symptom details here. Context: After being on prescribed Adderall 30mg to treat ADHD while I finish my final year in university, I had to go to the ER a couple times because I got very panicky. Essentially, the doctors and emergency psychiatrist said I'm experiencing dopamine toxicity as a result of Adderall, which can cause extremely uncomfortable, delusional hallucinations. I've never gone through something this terrifying before and I don't know how to manage myself at home. It's making my sleep terrible, which only makes the physical sensations worse. I am okay with accepting that it's a temporary thing and that it's just based on my perception of the feelings I've been experiencing for the past 4.5 months. I thought it was "just my OCD symptoms coming back with a vengeance" as I used mindfulness to help with fear and reassurance in the past. However, I've noticed a longstanding trend of paranoia and that reassurance does not seem to help me often these days. My thoughts seem to loop between some form of "can't trust myself," "can't trust the world," and "everything feels unsafe." It's affected my sleep (demons/ghosts/intruders/death/bugs/etc), my ability to walk outside (ie. Storms/lightning), my ability to eat (ie. Contaminated water/food/etc). It seems to always relate back to something hurting me, and I have done CBT enough to understand that I don't need to give power to the thoughts, nor do I need to let thoughts or emotions control my behaviours. But HOW THE F**K DO I GET OVER THIS!!!! It ruined the last 12 weeks of school. I could literally only submit 2 assignments and had to get an illness form which essentially rendered me incapable. I am a huge people pleaser and I am extremely self-critical. I just want to feel normal, and I know that I can't continue trying to use Lysol wipes to clean my back, or challenge the doctor when he says antipsychotics are the quickest solution. Like I'm CHOOSING the harder route by making myself learn to trust myself, even when it feels like I can't trust my senses. I'm at a complete loss for what to do at this point and I have a lot of exciting opportunities coming up in January. I can't continue feeling like I'm going insane slowly... I KNOW I will get through this, logically. I just don't know what to do when reassurance doesn't work. It's like no matter what the doctors say, I just feel stuck on these thoughts that I know are false. Any thoughts?? 😕 Thank you for reading if so. This is my first post here, I apologize for how long it is and I appreciate your time and/or literally ANY words of advice/support ❤

Hi everyone, so I’m way new to this kind of thing but I figured it might help to find more people that I can relate to as far as this part of my life goes. I will put a trigger warning for certain language regarding illness, violence, SH, COVID and obviously OCD. I was recently diagnosed with OCD, not really a specific kind just mixed obsessions and compulsions. Even so, I’ve known for a while that I might have OCD, my family did as well. I started having problems when I was about 11 when my whole family got sick with a virus, since then my whole life revolves around this disorder. Where to begin, I guess I’ll start with my fears, I think the better question would be; what don’t I fear, but my main fear would be illness. I know that this is usually linked with contamination OCD and that I deal with that kind of OCD the worst. I’m terrified of getting sick, specifically regarding illness that affects the gastrointestinal system but any sickness is scary. Since I was 11, I’ve had this crippling fear that controls my school life, work life, my diet, my friendships, relationships, my home life, the medicine I will take and treatments I will allow, and overall, my happiness. On top of having OCD I’ve been diagnosed with clinical depression and GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), I believe that both of these, although having a genetic factor, are severely worsened by my OCD. Things only got worse when COVID happened. It was like the world was ending and honestly I wish it had because that would’ve been easier. My fear was solidified during those years. On top of not wanting to interact with anyone, I lost someone very important to me from complications due to COVID. I miss this person greatly, and going through that grief was immense putting my fear at its peek. With that being said, I also deal with intrusive thoughts that are violent in nature, sometimes to others, mostly to myself. Those thoughts can be anywhere from hatred, disgust, anger, and just straight violence. I have lots of shame surrounding the intrusive thoughts I have because it’s hard for me to recognize that those thoughts aren’t a reflection of my real feelings of others or myself. I also have a hard time in relationships, including friendships, because I constantly question my feelings toward that person, not knowing how to differentiate between the intrusive thoughts I have about them and the actual feelings I have for them. During this time, I’m growing and learning new things about myself, exploring my sexuality and gender as well and becoming who am I today. I’m 18 now and a senior in high school and I feel like I’ve missed so much of my teenage years hiding from the world in fear. In person schools are hell for me, when I go I’m constantly on edge, overwhelmed with the fear of sickness and people and even just breathing the air that the other students breathe. Being there makes it so hard to learn, think, or complete assignments and because of this, my education looks a lot different from most. I’m in an online school, it’s still a public school but online. This school has been a positive experience for the most part, I can learn and get good grades that I couldn’t before, it also gives me a sense of independence and control of my education. However, it also means I miss out on a lot of things. My school does hold a prom and graduation for students but I have no friends at this school because most people aren’t here to socialize but to get an education and move on. So, I’ve never been to a prom, my only friend lives in a different state than me, I don’t experience parties or sneaking out or relationships outside of the non-serious ones I had in middle school, overall, this disorder has made me very lonely. My parents are amazing, they truly do their best to accommodate to me but they will never understand the extent of what I go through. I never want them to fully understand what it’s like to have OCD the way I do. I wouldn’t wish this disorder on anyone. They have gotten me doctors that want to help me and a great therapist but I still struggle. I will say in recent months I’ve been making some progress however there are still bad days. I understand that this disorder is for life but I hope that one day I can live in spite of it. I often think back to a time where life was so much more enjoyable because I wasn’t constantly anxious. I miss a time where I was living instead of surviving. I hope that this app can do me some good, I’m an adult now and I want to change how I’m living. I want to find more independence and happiness and most importantly, peace of mind that everything will end up okay. Now, this is only a summary of my story but I hope that if you got this far you understand that you aren’t alone in this. We aren’t alone. - Jay (he/him)

Has anyone taken shrooms or micro dosed before? I’m thinking about it but idk how it will effect someone with bad anxiety and ocd

People know that I’m a germaphobe. They think it’s funny. They purposely will cough on me or touch me with contaminated hands. They know me. They know how I am. Today I had someone hug me and then shortly after told me that they weren’t feeling well. They KNOW that I am scared of getting sick. I’m also a new mom to a 4 month old. We JUST got over being horribly sick (horrible time for all of us) and she’s even still on antibiotics. When I told him I was not happy he just said “you’re going to be around germs all the time.” Like duh… I know… that’s like a whole things for me. And there is this really really gross lady (sorry that’s rude) at much church. She is a hoarder of trash, so fat she can’t breath, she NEVER bathes, her house is FULL of cats and is so messy she didn’t even know one of them was dead. She trapped me and hugged me today. I had to change my shirt because the whole side of my body she touched felt heavy. It set me off for the day I think. I couldn’t get my hands clean enough. I’m just frustrated with how rude people are to me about this. They know but they think it’s just a cute quirk. It makes me sick. For clarification, the lady didn’t do anything particularly wrong… I just can’t stand to be around her, even though that’s rude.

I was told by my therapist that it's possible that I'm a covert narcissist. Since then I started feeling very anxious and ruminating when I did something that could be a symptom of narcissism. For example today, I was editing my social media profile and I started going over my posts and looking at them. I got a thought "why do you like looking at this? Why do you do this so frequently?" and started ruminating that I'm a narcissist so I must be a horrible person. So I wanna know if anybody also obsesses over mental illnesses (not particularly npd)? It's really making my state worse because everything there is on npd online is written in a vibe that all narcissist are manipulating monsters who know what they're doing and can't be helped so break your contact with them. I wanna cry when I see this because I didn't know what I was doing until the diagnosis, also I'm terribly scared of being left alone

When I had a meal today, I noticed that my stomach was aching afterwards. That's never happened before. I also read that not having good bacteria in your gut can take a toll on your overall health. I feel great fatigue in my head if I'm not moving or if I'm laying down, and it's connected to my gut. Has anyone else had this problem?