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So, I wanted to know if, just in case I can't afford the therapy sessions here, is there any way to learn and apply ERP for yourself?

My ex and I broke up a few months ago.I learned his license plate number while we were dating as it was silly, and I had some joke about it with him. Anyways now I find my self checking license plates as cars drives by ( as I live on a small island ) worried I’ll see him. But like even cars that aren’t his make and model. Also… what does this even mean.

Any tips on how to regain sex drive/libido while suffering OCD? I have been suffering with sexual orientation OCD for around 3 months, and have lost complete grasp of my identity whatsoever. Constant sexual thoughts about guys creating a uncertainty in whether I am straight or gay. I have tried accepting that I am "gay" which in a way makes the thoughts feel justified to there existence ,however it doesn't sit right when i try place the thoughts of my actions on the people. The existence of these intrusive thoughts feels to have created a complete crash in my sex drive, creating more uncertainty in my life which I feel incapable of actually dealing with. How do I even know that it is OCD and not me just struggling to accept myself? Apparently that's something il never know, but coming to terms with this feels very scary and confusing. The fact that I have a girlfriend doesn't make this any better. Life truly flipped upside-down. And all I crave rn is to get my life back to a place where ik who I am.

I want to start by that I have no proper OCD diagnosis. I've got a GAD and ADHD. I downloaded this app because I've been suffering from horrid obsessive thoughts and somewhat mild compulsions for a while now. My thoughts are mostly fixated on my partner (what if I'll cheat on her or hurt her in some other way), and on my sexuality (I used to identify as a lesbian, but I don't label myself any longer because of said thoughts; the fears and obsessions are everything from porn preferences to thinking that I haven't found the right man to thinking that I'd never be complete without a man to that I'm leading a fake life). I love my partner, oh so much, but my thoughts are trying to convince me into thinking that we're not actually queer. It's worse because I've previously felt really proud of my identity; it feels like I'm losing a core part of myself. Feels like I'm drowning in these thoughts of uncertainity every single day. I'm afraid I'll hurt my girlfriend or somebody I love and the whole queer community with how I am and how I act. Less anxiety inducing things include leaving the door open or oven on, I've caught myself going back again and again to check if it's actually closed or off, even taking pictures and still worrying excessively over it even if I have proof on my phone. I also repeat certain sentences (like "I am really thankful for another day") in my head, because I feel as if I don't do that I'm actually wasting my life and will regret it when I'm dying. Death and illness are also a severe distress of mine; I've probably diagnosed myself with twenty different terminal illnesses, got them checked out but the worry never left me. Also seemingly surreal things like getting pregnant magically or from a toilet seat for example are included in these. For compulsions, I constantly beg for validation from my partner and my family. Some other things include checking back and forth, less that, it's more of mental begging and praying. I live in a small town, and we don't have any proper mental health services (unless they're very costy which I can't afford). This is why I'm not working towards a diagnosis on OCD. I'm not even sure I have OCD, I feel as if I'm begging for attention but I feel so, so anxious and defeated by my own head I had to write this down. So sorry if I'm taking up space where I don't belong, it's just that I feel slightly better after reading these posts and this app makes me feel validated. Thank you.

I’m sharing my story in hopes to find others who have gone through similar experiences or understand this, because I feel very alone with my ocd. I’ve had ocd for as long as I can remember, first memories of it was from when I was like 2 or 3 years old, and it just got worse as I grew up. I had “pure ocd” so I almost never showed outward signs of compulsions, nothing that wasn’t normal for my age group. No one knew I was struggling with this disorder, and I had no clue what ocd was, so I thought I must be just a terrible person. Around 6 years old, intrusive thoughts that I would end up k*lling my parents started, mainly from the normal childhood fear of being without them. This consumed me for every second of every day, I couldn’t get away from it. After two years of trying to prove to myself that this wouldn’t happen, which I never was able to prove, I saw my sister watching “cyber bully” movie, and I saw the $uicide attempt scene. This planted the idea in my head, that the only way I wouldn’t do all the terrible things my ocd was telling me, was to commit $uicide. I thought about walking into a hospital and telling them I was going to k*ll my parents so they could lock me away and prevent me from doing that. I developed a plan, once wrote a note and then got scared and threw it away, and one night I decided to try. I won’t get into details but I wasn’t hurt, I didn’t have the strength to do what I was trying to do. I would go to sleep crying almost every night because I was so terrified of myself. I was 100% convinced that I would become a serial k*ller, even though I didn’t want to. I started to think that I didn’t have control over my actions and my movements, and that even if I don’t want to, it will still happen, which only fueled my $uicidal ideations. Eventually I got over it all, aka I used every compulsion possible to push it out of my head, swore to myself I would never ever tell anyone that I had those thoughts. And those thoughts weren’t even the only intrusive thoughts I had, there were many more but this was one of the most distressing. I got through a very traumatizing middle school experience, which masked my ocd, and presenting with the other newest developed disorder, ptsd. I went through years of treatment and partial hospitalizations for depression and ptsd, and the first time I heard about ocd was when the intake lady said “this kind of sounds like obsessive compulsive $uicidal ideation” because attempting $uicide was the only thing I could think about, even though I didn’t really want to die. Though I did end up having multiple attempts, because the thoughts wouldn’t stop and all I wanted was a break from my own mind. I was addicted to self harm to cope with the constant swirl of obsessions. I did my own research, and finally, years later, at the age of 17, I was diagnosed with ocd after constantly asking if I had it. I started intensive outpatient treatment at a clinic that specializes in ocd. I could never have predicted how hard ERP is. I would get out of a session, and just ruminate about the next session and having so much anxiety just waiting. Between school and my lack of knowledge about ocd and my own ocd, I stopped intensive outpatient treatment, to be able to pass my classes. I start back again in later May, and honestly I’m terrified. One of the most scary parts is that I can’t tell if I’m doing it right, or if I’m making the progress they expect me to make, or if I’m going too fast, just somehow not doing it right. I end up ruminating about if I have ocd, or if I’m anxious enough, or if I’m not anxious, or if I’m faking ocd somehow, or if I’m not making progress even though I know I have considering I’m able to drive again, after being terrified for months. I don’t know how to comfort myself because seemingly every comfort I have is a compulsion. Everyone keeps telling me that it will get better but it doesn’t feel that way. It kinda feels like you’re drowning, and instead of pulling you out of the water everyone is just pushing you deeper, telling you that somehow this is how you’ll be able to breathe. How do I live a life without ocd, what is that even like? Will I ever even recover from this? I’m so lost in it all, and usually I’m considered a “know it all” but I could not know less about my own illness which is stressful in itself. I have left out many details but if I wrote it all, this would be a 100 page essay. If anyone has any advice, or encouragement, or just really anything, please share.

I didn’t know I had OCD until this year but I’ve know from a young age that I have disordered eating habits. My cousin thought I was anorexic when I was 7 but at that point I just had ADHD and my appetite couldn’t hold my attention. My life kinda stayed that way, very unintentional, but always commented on, until I was 12 or 13, and grasped the concept of body image and what food intake meant for it in the early 2000’s. I learned to count calories at 15. It wasn’t all the time. My ADHD was going untreated so I guess I would hyperfixate for a while and then lose interest. Looking back, my OCD has had steady, overarching themes that live in the background until the ADHD part of me craves the stimulation from them and latches on. Morality, existentialism, crisis prevention, lack of control. When I feel like I have no control, I start restricting food intake. When I perceive a crisis situation, I act accordingly and then catalogue minute details so that I might preempt the next one. When I feel amoral, I ask for reassurance. When I can’t get a grip on reality or think of how boring the afterlife sounds, I ruminate, because who can reassure me when the answers lie with the dead? Everything went out the window when I had my first kid. All of it. Like starting from scratch. Except. I vowed to never let my disordered eating affect my children. I fucked up in the first week. My baby had lost weight because I was starving myself and trying to exclusively breastfeed. I fixed the problem. A crisis situation, and I’m good at reacting, even if I suck at preventing. I ate, I drank, I supplemented formula until I didn’t need to anymore. But now I was checking. Every day, putting my baby on a scale, logging numbers, feeding times, naps, spit-ups, diaper changes, convinced my spouse to get an echo dot so I could log feeding times hands-free. Logging my own meals and fluid intake and pumping sessions. Watching my child’s growth chart on the app as though it would change moment by moment. When I stopped having to supplement formula, I was probably overproducing, but baby didn’t think so. Started outright rejecting the formula and seemed to want to nurse 24/7, even after introducing food. I had succeeded, but I was still checking. After going from the 63rd percentile at birth to the 6th, in his first week of life, my child reached the 97th percentile for growth by 8 months old. I did it. There was nothing more to check. But had I overdone it? That felt like a dangerous thought. All I did was augment my milk supply. The rest of the time I went by baby’s appetite. He sure did spit up a lot from months 3-5. But that was because I was doing both breastmilk and formula, right? I started going round and round in my head to find something to confirm. Solid proof that I had not overdone it. Doctors approval at visits did nothing for me. Didn’t trust those fuckers at the time, because I’d TOLD them I had history of disordered eating. I’d TOLD them I was scared of how it would affect my baby. They just said my body wouldn’t limit milk production based on calorie intake. (So for anyone struggling with that, YOUR BODY WONT PRIORITIZE FEEDING A BABY IF IT THINKS YOU ARE DYING. So if you’re starving yourself you won’t make milk. Maybe this is common sense for people without eating disorders, but I was up front about mine, and it took a long time for me to stop holding my doctors responsible for my failings. I drank like a liter of Gatorade and then filled it with water after and drank that too, every day. Easy calories to start and then the more you nurse, the less you can ignore your appetite) Anyway, I was at this point and already had been, inflicting my disordered eating habits on my child. That was the only thing I knew without a doubt. For his entire first year of life, checking his weight, logging his food, checking his weight chart in the app religiously. It seemed so normal. The doctor recommended I track his weight daily when he was diagnosed with “failure to thrive.” Failure. This child couldn’t fail at anything. One week old. There was nothing that he was supposed to do on his own. The source of a “failure” is the person on whom responsibility falls. So aligned with what I always see clearest in my mind: my failure. And I was doing it again. I put the scale away. Deleted the app. Stopped drinking Gatorade every day and stopped tracking my food and water. One way or another, I was being led by my child’s appetite now. I set up a snack cabinet that he could reach and showed him how to get a snack and bring it to be opened. Nursing only on his time. Lunch and dinner whenever I thought of it, or when he showed interest. And now he’s 3. And he has a brother. And I don’t know how to find a happy medium. They need stricter routine and so do I and so does my spouse, but I’m so afraid of taking it too far. My spouse had a manic/psychotic episode last year and got diagnosed bipolar 1. He’d been having cyclical anger management issues for about a year and a half that I’d chalked up to my fault and having to do with my own cycles, but the cycle started shrinking steadily the more stress he was under. Then I got pregnant again. It was happening almost weekly and I knew it wasn’t me by now, but when his disorder is in control, he speaks with the words of my own. It was really hard to deal with. He took it too far once. There are places my doubts can’t touch, and he spoke his venom on my child, in front of my child. I made him cry. I was so mean to him. I laid into him with every vulnerability he’d ever shared. Every insecurity. Shamed him. He deserved it then. I want to feel bad, but I don’t to this day. There was no delusion to hide behind, only his abhorrent behavior and lackluster emotional regulation, suddenly a crystal clear pattern. Because by then, I knew what tantrums looked like. I calmed down enough to deescalate and we agreed he needed to get help. He did. His doctor put him on an antidepressant and it sent him straight into mania. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Now my OCD has its claws in something it never did before, and I experienced so much trauma that I don’t know what is rational and healthy coping behavior half the time. But it is so apparent that part of it is not, because up to this point, I’d gone my whole life undiagnosed. I’m scared to take the actions I need to get our family back on the path to stability because I am afraid I will create an unsustainable system, or that it will be sustainable but my spouse won’t adhere to it, cause stress that could send my spouse into an episode. Worst of all, I worry that he doesn’t or shouldn’t love me, that I am always making things worse for him, and by extension, our kids. Just venting, but if anyone has advice I’m open.

i woke up this morning with anxiety and i started spiraling and i had to continuously tell myself that i’m okay and i’m fine which i feel as if i’m doing it over and over again. my ocd is telling me that since it’s been a few good days that i want all of these things to happen and be real. im hoping to be able to move forward after this morning. does anyone else get like this or feel this way or is it just me?

Ok so I’ve started ERP about a month ago. It’s been really tough and I think I’m a little resistant to the work BECAUSE it’s so anxiety inducing. Although I don’t want to be. Could someone please clarify for me what the eventual goal with ERP is? I had thought the responses were supposed to help me “accept” the thoughts, aka feel relief. Now I believe I was using them as a compulsion. It can feel so shitty to sit with the intrusive thoughts, I don’t understand how to do that yet. I worry that it will never get better. Also one thing I really struggle with is believing my thoughts are 100% real. Makes it hard to accept. Makes me feel like a shitty person. Does anyone have any advice?

I think since I suffer from ocd in several forms daily that maybe I could find possible her as well with the same type of behavior but is different issue that your typical ocd types but I am severally struggling with body repetitive disorder type or skin picking hair pulling it's no well heard of as far as I've seen in my research but it stems off of anxiety alot and is my imideiate response to self sooth or calm myself even when I'm unaware I've been doing and no I've always picked and been scolded constantly if I was caught as a kid it never even registered on my radar as like a thing or habit to me that I have actually been doing all my life .when I do e into a deep very dangerous iv drug addiction after going through some severe long term abuse I did the stereotypical tweaker picking thing that everyone assumes u must be doin if you have sores around your body.but it wasn't a frequent issue or habit.but after being clean and not being into picking at all for the last 4 yrs I randomly started doing it again but more regularly then spend way longer doing it hours and if alone when I'm doing that I've had two e now where I start to become delusional and my hypochondria jumps in and I start having thought that I think I'm seeing things like on my skin or hair and it escalates into paranoia to the point I think I might have a fungal or parasite causing the wierd flaws I'm seeing on my skin and I just desperately then want anything on me that looks out of the norm to me to be gone like I need to get rid of all the infection I think I might be seeing it sounds crazy now me typing it but I do have bipolar PTSD bpd ocd major depression and see a therapist but I don't feel like she knews how to help with that area of mental health or even ocd I have to find help I have already a couple's year ago was put in ICU and almost died from a picking area getting infected and I ended up with blood poisoning I can't put my body through that again my immune system has suffered since please help me I feel so alone and embarrassed.......thank u

I'm a girl interested in men and I've had a close female friend for about 10 years now When we were younger, we used to like exactly the same things and bond over them. I'm older than her, so I kinda took the role of the "older sister" - listening to her vent, help her find a school and so on Now she's sort of drifting away and having her own interests and stuff, while I feel like I'm stuck in place and with nowhere to go About a month ago my SOOCD started and I immidetaly started to think about her because we are/were besties. The thought that triggered it was "Jesus I'm acting with her like we're platonic lovers or something" Through this period I isolated myself from her and I'm morbidly scared that I've ruined a great friendship My OCD makes me think over and over about whether this is some kind of platonic/QPR type of relationship that I wasn't aware of my whole life or just a friendship I couldn't keep myself from googling and I think it may be closer to something platonic. The thing is that I don't want any platonic relationship with her or any girl. It affects my thinking about boys, because when I see a attractive guy my thoughts immidetaly jump to "what if you love your bestie and would ruin your boyfriend's life" I'm trying not to break my friendship so I write messages to her from time to time (before the SOOCD I used to do it literally 24/7) and I'm super anxious about the future. I can't write to her normally without any weird feelings now, and when I don't talk to her I'm afraid that I'm gonna lose her. I feel jealous when she goes out with other friends, everything reminds me of her somehow and I can't move on with my day I feel like I should end this because of all these thoughts. Or at least limit my contact with her to just make her one of my many friends. But I'm just so afraid of whatever may happen and what if I ruin a beautiful friendship? I'm writing this to vent, but also I wanna know if anybody had a similar experience and how it affected your life. Thank you in advance

Hi there! I’ve just recently received my OCD diagnosis and found out that I’ve just been raw-dogging OCD since I was a young child. Im considering taking medication to help me and my therapist suggested Zoloft. Has anyone taken Zoloft for OCD/anxiety? Any side effects that I would want to be aware of from personal experience? Thanks !!

I get very anxious when I forget someone’s name or a memory that I can’t remember. I spend a lot of time searching until I find the name and memory. I purchased a 360 pages notebook to write down names and memories so I won’t forget; it temporarily relieves my anxiety. I have always had the urge to remember names and memories but I didn’t have anxiety until now. My first panic attack happened 4 weeks ago due to forgetting a person’s face and name. I hope someone can relate to this or help me understand what’s going on. I booked the 15 minutes free consultation. I’m feeling sad, scared and exhausted!

To the ones who have been working with their OCD for awhile now and feel somewhat experienced in handling symptoms, I have a question… If you could go back in time and tell your younger self (pre awareness of your condition) one thing, what would you tell yourself to help with your condition? I have no means to treat my OCD, and only have just joined this app and acknowledged my condition and my, now, desperate need for help. Anything will help and I honestly am needing some sense of community to feel less alone. Thank you for everything!

I’m new to the app. I’ve bene struggling with intrusive thoughts that my boyfriend will leave me. It leads me to contact him while he’s working and frantically calling him to get reassurance. I’m trying to manage my emotions but the thoughts are constantly there and he doesn’t give me the responses I’m looking for such as don’t worry I’m not. So I am in constant fear

i haven’t been happy in months it feels like. and i feel like i never will. this sucks especially seeing that people will go through this for years. it hardly seems fair. hopefully they come up with some instant cure soon lol bc this ain’t it especially if it’s for the rest of my life. when i was a kid i felt like i had ocd but it was never this debilitating. i felt like this hit me all at once and now it’s the new normal. trying to date is a night mare because it feels like i’m trying to force the attraction but if i liked the same kind of people all my life why change now. i guess because i’ve had terrible dating experiences so far as in like the people i’ve chose have just been not good but i still had genuine feelings for these people. and i hunger for that old life back. did anyone ever get their attraction back after this if so how long did it take?

Does anyone ever get scared that they are just trying to convince themselves that it’s OCD. I have this fear that my intrusive thoughts about harm aren’t actually intrusive nor is it actually OCD and I’m actually some sort of crazy evil human being all of a sudden. As I’m writing this I can see how silly that is. Of course it’s OCD, but there is always that “what if” and it makes me scared of myself. I know that this could be considered “obsessing about obsessing,” but like I said, there is always that, “What if you are different? An anomaly.”

I've been having SOOCD attacks/triggers for the past three weeks I always thought I'm a straight female, I've never been in a relationship and never had male friends I know it won't kill me if I'm bi, but I'm really scared of completly losing attraction to men I know I'm still attracted to men when I have moments of clarity, but sometimes I feel like I'm not "attracted enough" and experience false reactions/memories I've always had dreams of having a husband and it hurts so much to think that I could never achieve this When these OCD attacks started I completly isolated myself from my friends, because I'm morbidly afraid that I may fall in love with one of my close female friends When I have my moments of clarity, I know that I'm not attracted to them, but these moments of clarity are very brief I'm deeply scared of getting too close to my friends and I keep on making plans for a "new life" without them Because my OCD tells me that I'll break these friendships if I don't talk to them everyday It triggers a terrible panic attack whenerher I try to talk to them and I keep thinking about this failed attempt for the rest of my day My hobby is art and when all of this started I wasn't able to write/draw anything Whenerher I see any motif of love (no matter if straight or gay, my reaction is the same) or want to continue/start drawing something about love I get a panic attack I used to imagine love scenes with characters all the time, I absolutely loved it it was my thing and made me sooo happy Can I ever go back to how it was before? Can I get back to my friends without fear? Can I ever create art about love without feeling pain? I just keep crying all day and can't move out of bed How do I help myself?

Does anyone else have weird periods where they become obsessed with certain people in their life? I’ve had this a couple of times in the last 2 years and recently with my colleague. We get along really well and I think of him as a good friend, but recently i’ve become weirdly obsessed. I’m thinking constantly about posting things to impress him, speaking to him, wondering what he’s doing. I’ve never found him attractive before but all of a sudden i’m thinking about him sexually. He’s actually the opposite of the type of person I would go for and I am in a relationship with someone (3 years strong). It’s to the extent i’ll want to post things on instagram to try and make him think i’m cool (cringe) and want to get to know me more. He’s also been with his girlfriend for 6/7 years and i’m not jealous so it’s not a physical crush, it’s an obsession. It’s overwhelming. I’ve had this before with a colleague who also had a partner and I think it targets people that do because they are less of a threat to my ROCD (I have the excuse they are also in a relationship). I’ve started having dreams about him and thinking about him constantly or what he would think about this/ would he find this funny. I want to be best friends with him and spend loads of time with him. Last night when I was having sex with my partner he was coming into my head a lot, which was irritating. In my experience this disappears after 6 months or so, but it’s annoying me. Weirdly it’s not that triggering for me at the moment but i’m worried it will become so. Has anyone had this and have any tips? I feel so weird and strange for having this, and I genuinely really like him as a person so don’t want to sabotage it for myself by having to distance myself because i’m scared.

Had for ocd for years about loyalty towards my gf would feel awful if I thought bad off my gf and thinking other girls r goood looking missing my ex ect but now I’m almost better and now don’t avoid looking at girls which I did for a year I find my self wanting to look at girls and get an overwhelming attraction feeling that I don’t get towards my gf? I find every girl attractive now and feel awful like I’m better off alone as I feel Numb a lot towards my gf but thY would be because of all the trauma towards her from ocd. Any one else struggling with this ? We have been together almost 24/7 for 2 years is this normal the lack of attraction ?

Can someone please explain false memories related to OCD? I feel like I have had these but have never realized it’s related to OCD