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I really need someone to talk to about mg health related OCD. I feel so alone.

can those who struggle with health concern ocd tell me about their stories with it? i dont want to feel alone

Hi! (first post lol) wondering if there is anyone else here that also deals with medical/ health concern type of OCD with also having chronic and sometimes scary health issues? if so, any advice on how you might help yourself through a OCD flare up and fears over symptoms and unknowns? (But mostly it would be great just to know that I’m not alone in this <3)

What was your most absurd obsession? I’ll start. I once convinced myself I didn’t have blood. Yes I am fully aware that you need blood to live, but I just didn’t believe I had any and I was resisting the urge to try and find out.😂

I’ve been diagnosed with OCD and GAD. I pick my skin to cope with this sense of impending doom, then become more anxious because I’m afraid I’ll get an infection through the wound so I immediately pour hand sanitizer on it. The burning sensation provides temporary relief and it’s like I can “feel” the microbes dying? Like idk how to describe it. I also get unwarranted thoughts of self harm. I’ll randomly be like “being dead is easier” or “I don’t deserve to be alive.” I just get so overwhelmed with the future and then my brain is like “you could unalive yourself.” I know there’s some overlap between both disorders so I’m just wondering if anyone else has similar experiences? I feel like even though I have a diagnosis and am on medication and have been in CBT that something is off.

Hey yall. Some back story: I have had OCD since I was a young child. It manifests as compulsive behaviors, a LOT of intrusive thoughts, relationship ocd, harm ocd, and contamination ocd. I also have PTSD due to having been abused and neglected (I nearly died of scarlet fever as a child). On the first day of 2020, shortly after becoming a single mom, after a year of complaining of constant, heavy periods, bloating, hair loss, exhaustion, and abdominal pain, it was discovered that my uterus was bound to my bowel and kidneys- a complication from having two back to back emergency c sections. I had a complex vertical abdominal hysterectomy in the height of the pandemic and over 15 pounds of scar tissue were removed from my abdomen. After 4 years of recovery, I've been feeling the healthiest, happiest, and most attractive I've ever felt. I was in a bad car accident three weeks ago, after which they discovered a mass on my one remaining ovary. Today, I learned that the mass is 10cm (the size of a grapefruit) and that, if it doesn't shrink in 3 weeks, I will need another abdominal surgery to remove it, along with my one remaining ovary. They mentioned that part of the reason for possibly removing the mass is to rule out ovarian cancer. I am ok right now. But I know that the intrusive thoughts are about to be bad. My fears of being abandoned and or undesirable to my partner, having serious health problems that prevent me from enjoying my life, and having health problems that hurt my children have something to latch on to. Please send me advice, reassurance, kind thoughts, advice on how to remain positive, or whatever you have that may help.

hi everyone, i’m new to this app and it’s taken me a lot of courage to even post this or publicly say anything regarding my OCD because i feel so much shame and guilt and distress because of my POCD intrusive thoughts. it’s one of the most draining, most anxiety filled things ive ever been through. i’ve had OCD since i was little. i’ve had different themes ranging from my sexuality to health ( i still struggle with health OCD ) from awful morbid thoughts about my mother and now i’m having thoughts about children. i’ve been struggling with POCD for maybe almost 2 years and even though i know it’s OCD, im still constantly being mentally reminded it is a reflection of me. i keep getting to a point where i feel as if im starting to get better and even though i keep having a strong urge to compulse, i don’t proceed to and it’s been helping a lot. but then i get into a state where i start questioning “ what if i really don’t have OCD and these thoughts are genuinely who i am “ then i give into compulsions to check if im really an awful person. so it feels as if im back to square one. i really need advice and help and i want to know if anyone is experiencing the same thing and how you deal with it. thank you for taking the time to read this :)

Hi everyone I honestly feel so defeated My anxiety and ocd has been so intense I have intrusive thoughts about everything for example I suffer w harm ocd I suffer w the thought that I feel like I’m not genuine I suffer with being terrified of mental illness such as schizophrenia I get scared I’ll snap n lose control I suffer with the fact that I’m scared my anxiety will never go away n I’ll never get better I suffer w being so irritable w the people I love Recently I’ve been terrified people r staring at me and can read through my body language of how I think Today my brain felt scrambled, I woke up for work when I didn’t have work - in my defense I didn’t check the schedule and took this day off a month ago I went to the wrong location for a workout class And I went to a friends house took off my shoes n can’t find them. So now I’m fearing that I’m losing my mind n becoming delusional. I want to try medication but I’ve heard so many bad things. I’m just so sad of feeling like this. This is my outlet bc some of you understand. But it’s really isolating idk how some people even work it’s hard sometimes I push myself every single day and it’s been 3 years and I feel like I’ve had no sense of peace. Any advice?

they don’t go well with OCD. I was asked by my mother if I could make some chocolate covered strawberries for her boss+coworker. I have made them multiple times before and they always end up okay. now im worried about making it for them though. what if i get them sick? what if they get sick and my mother loses her job? what am i supposed to do about it…. obviously i wash everything before i make the strawberries so i know that everything is clean. i have only ever made them for family so i don’t use gloves or anything (gross?) should I just buy some gloves to make it for them? is that me being dramatic?? it’s either i wash my hands constantly or make them with gloves. i feel so bad for all the ones i already made for my family, what if they get sick?

Does anyone else struggle to do ERP with some compulsions because you genuinely have a belief that what you are doing is protecting you? I want to be able to touch doorhandles and not avoid things when someone in the house is sick, but k can’t help but really believe it’s protecting me from getting sick. It’s just common sense isn’t it? I know I should handle the uncertainty but surely I’m protecting myself? How can I work on changing that so I can do ERP and conquer ocd?

When I was 13 (4years ago) I went through a period of time in lockdown where I was obsessed where I was obsessed with the idea that my parents would get COVID and I was sure they would get it and die even though they're young/not at risk. I had: prayers repeating in the back of my mind 24/7 Everytime I went downstairs I'd say a prayer, everytime I reached the top id put my phone in a risky position to show id sacrifice materialistic pleasures and say a prayer, I prayed in multiples of 5 (4people in my family plus God,) I assigned all of my family a teddy bear and said a prayer whilst hugging each one, I kept praying by shutting my eyes every second, when I was about to go to school id have to quickly take my shoes off and pray which meant od be late but I couldn't not do it and ignore the prayer for my parents to not get COVID Then I became obsessed with the idea that I could be gay- my brain told me this 100X over and I couldn't concentrate on work Then I thought I'd definitely have cancer and I thought every little thing wrong with me was a big scary illness- my screen time on google was 10+ hours a day during the second lockdown HERE is where I don't know if I have OCD. All these went away but I still pray all the time and if j see a picture of god I can't ignore it I have to pray. I'm so obsessed with the idea that my dad could get cancer now and I keep praying that he won't. Materialistic pleasures (e.g smell, taste, sight) are ignorance in my religion so I keep thinking if I give them up my dad won't get cancer. Everytime Im about to do something like a play a song my brain thinks 'give that up' or sacrifice it and I have to or else I think my dad will get cancer. It got so bad I couldn't eat or sleep or even study Now I can do things like listen to music if I 'promise to God to do it' (not on my Dad's life) The thing is I don't know if these knew symptoms look like OCD. They just look weird and I'm scared I don't actually have OCD because j can't get diagnosed until next year ( I don't want to tell my parents) and I was just wondering if anyone could help me figure it out :)

Has anyone tried N-Acetyl Cysteine for their OCD? My psychiatrist told me to buy it from the store and try it. Wondering if anyone’s had any experience and what’s it like?

Please only read this if you are 18+ (contains mention of s**cide) I have had severe body dysmorphia since beginning college. I’ve been skinny my whole life and have an entirely flat chest. I was doing really good for a while, but I made the mistake of looking at social media today… There is an influencer who is built exactly like me and I always go to her page to find positivity…I looked at some of her recent posts and the things men and women were saying about her were horrific. Among some of the many hate comments were things like “nightmare body”, “genetically inferior to other women”, and just brutal things each of which would take a person years to recover from hearing. There were countless gifs of dancing skeletons, and a lot of surprisingly attractive people brutally bashing her. I haven’t felt suicidal in years and all at once I see very little point in going on. The world has finally defeated me and I just can’t see what the point is in seeking happiness if I could only ever possibly be lying to myself when i feel good about myself.

Ughhh I don’t understand why. I guess maybe it’s because I haven’t been sleeping well but my stomach has been killing me. I’m currently here at the ER waiting to be seen to make sure I’m not getting some kind of stomach bug because my OCD thoughts went CRAZY a few hours ago

Please help I'm so scared. So I've been focusing on seeing pixels for 2-3 days now and today I woke up tired and I can't seem to make my eyes stay focused. I can unfocus them on command and I've been doing that the entire day. I can't seem to make them stay focused. Unless Imm distracted and focusing on something else. I'm so anxious that this is another symptom of something serious. Has anyone experienced this? I have extreme health ocd and I can't stop thinking about this

​​​​I'm traveling in a few days and I'm worried that my health concerns will make me more anxious when I'm on the plane and when I reach my destination as well. I'm very sad and stressed about my health concerns and although I always have been worried, with this upcoming short vacation it has made me feel like I might not be able to handle the thoughts/worries etc. It has also been making me feel more self-conscious about how I look and feel. I know that travel plans have added extra stress (although I'm excited for this short vacation, I'm worried about my mental and overall health which is making me have more intrusive thoughts that I might not handle while I'm on vacation). There is also the added stress of feeling self-conscious and not feeling confident. I have been avoiding going to the doctor because that is a whole other set of intrusive thoughts (fear of going to a doctor appointment). I just have been feeling really sad lately feeling ugly and struggling with mental health and struggling with life in general. It is interesting how after a long time of struggling with intrusive thoughts I still get a little bit surprised by how intrusive thoughts evolve and change and sometimes I don't think or feel like it is an intrusive thought but it is? (especially when it concerns my health and self-esteem). For the most part I have been managing a bit better with intrusive thoughts. But I have been feeling strange sometimes I feel numb/I don't know if it is depersonalization or derealization. I feel worried/stressed/sad etc but at the same time I'm trying to enjoy life. I really want to feel better when I'm on this vacation but I worry that traveling will only trigger more stress and intrusive thoughts. I've been wanting to travel for a long time and now that the chance is here I don't want to feel stressed/sad. I want to enjoy my trip regardless of my struggles. *Some of my health concerns are real but I have a fear of going to doctors because I struggle with intrusive thoughts and I find myself wanting to book a doctor's app a few days before traveling but at the same time, I feel this will trigger more intrusive thoughts and just before traveling

So I have episodes at night where I can’t sleep. Like it’ll feel like hours have passed and that I slept fully through the might. When in reality maybe an hour has passed. And most of these nights I have bad dreams. My bad dreams are bad lucid dreams… They’re not uncontrollable…because I have a conscious and am aware. But they’re bad because of the situations I’m in. It’s like living in an alternate world Anyways, In my dream I was up north. It was a school night. Actually Sunday, like it was when I went to bed. In my dream all these animals were walking to this side on the street near the woods and dying. In my dream I concluded they had a disease that made them all travel there. But then my dog started to walk over there. Across the street at night. I was sobbing because this dog means more than anything ever could to me. I would do anything for this dog. I mean it. And she was what I concluded as “infected” I had to go to her because it was a school night. And I walked into this house that was the place I was staying. It was a friend of my mom’s boyfriends. But when I walked inside my room in the hours was destroyed like people were trashing it and rearranging it. Which is horrible….. like I irl, panic over people Rearranging small things of mine…. But this was crazy. My stuff was ruined and everywhere. And there were like ten people in there just chilling after doing this. When this happens irl I do compulsions, and I did. I found a sink. I washed my hands a lot. But then I had to eat dinner and as I was eating my sandwich I remembered how all those animals were dying of a brainwashing diessease. So I started panicking and sobbing that I was now infected and was going to die. Like eating my sandwich was going to cause me death. I started counting yo my safe numbers like I usually do. But it wouldn’t help. So I ran to the bathroom in my dream and started to vomit up everything I could and LITERALLY wash the inside of my mouth. I woke up thinking I was about to get ready for school, but maybe an hour had passed…. I can’t fall asleep again, It’s 00:48 I went to bed at 11:30-something Or tried It took me so long of feeling out of place. I can’t do this anymore. The worst part was - actually two. My compulsions weren’t working in my dream which was very upsetting because I needed something to calm me down…. And two, WHY DID MY DOG GET INFECTED- The nerve wracking thing is, my dog is up north with my grandma right now. My brain keeps telling me to text my grandma and ask how my dog is…. But what if I text her and that CAUSES something bad to happen….. I don’t know what to do- I need sleep- I wake up at four.. (4:00 am) I can’t- Sleep- I don’t want to dream again, being tapped in my own head. Sorry for any typos, or if this makes no sense. I’m half asleep. Very tired. Scared and just got done crying.

I feel so clouded. I wish I could just stop thinking. I don’t even feel present around my daughter. I am acting the part, but my mind is so lost in my obsessions. Lately I am obsessing that my head pain is something more than it probably is. It’s all I think about. Constant fear of dying 24/7. Is this it? Is this the moment I keel over? What if my daughter isn’t safe? How do I keep her in a safe environment so if I do die, she’s okay until my husband gets home? 3 weeks of this, triggered by the stomach flu. Since THEN I’ve had the following obsessions: tobacco poisoning, stroke, csf leak, tumor, ms, colon cancer, and aneurysm. It’s hard to find joy. I’m just waiting until it’s over. But 3 weeks and I’m still in the trenches. How do I get out?

how to deal with hyper fixation or hyper awareness? I can't seem to stop noticing pixels in my vision when looking at the walk or in bad lighting. It's been 2 days with this obsession. They cause me so much anxiety and I can't stop thinking about it or checking. I have health ocd as well as this which I think is somatic ocd. So it's making me even more anxious

An animal in my county tested positive for rabies in my county last night. I’ve been feeling so weird and all that since getting bit by a cat on the 6th I’m actually gonna end it all if I have it. I can’t do this anymore oh my god