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Have anyone tried erp for soocd? How does it look like? I heard that it's about not caring or exposing yourself to the trigger or many other things. I'm a little confursed now how it all works

It always happens to me where I have 2 really good weeks of anxiety free days where I don’t miss any days of work.. then I feel proud of myself for not missing work and having good weeks. Then this week I’ve missed 2 days of work and can’t get myself to get dressed and do anything. It feels so hopeless. Just when I think I’m doing better I have a really rough week

hi okay so i don't even know if i have ocd i mean i have been told i do by multiple of my friends who do and really relate to like. everything but i feel bad even considering it bc i don't think mine (if it is) is nearly as bad as other peoples so i feel like ??? i don't deserve to say that i have it since it's not too bad??? i don't know if that makes sense. anyway that wasn't what i was going to go into detail abt here but im currently having an issue that my friend said sounds like ocd and it's really bothering me so here i am this is going to sound really ridiculous probably but. so i'm a kpop stan right. and i ult this one group (i'll call them #1) and i have for years. one time i did ult another group over them (i'll say #2) and my ult bias was someone else. and then they disbanded on my birthday bc of unfair circumstances. So then after #1 became my ult group again. now i just saw another group (let's say #3) in concert and when i was there i was like wow i kinda love my bias in this group more than anyone in the world. and i had to consider like ulting him above anyone else and having #3 as my ult group. but after what happened when i put #2 above #1 im terrified something bad is going to happen to #3. and i know that it will like. I don't know how to explain it but im sure if you're reading this you understand the feeling of being so sure you're going to cause harm to people you care about. and i know i can't ask for reassurance that it won't happen bc 1. i know that doesn't help in the long run 2. it's not like i would believe it if people tell me bc i think about how it's not physically possible to prove 100% that something won't happen 3. i think that saying it won't happen will make it happen and then a few days ago i saw that my #3 bias was sick (like a cold) and i had a really bad breakdown and couldn't breathe and felt like i was gonna be sick and almost had to call off work (i should have i was shaking for half my shift). and i feel like because i even considered it that it's my fault. and that something even worse will happen to him if i actually do it. and that scares me so much i don't want to hurt him i don't. i don't i don't i don't im so worried. and then i learned that he got sick after the concert i went to. where i thought abt how i love him more than anyone else. so now i really think it's my fault and that i'm hurting him by loving him. anyway im scared and stressed out and i don't even want to talk to my friends rn bc all i can think about is this and i'm sure they're tired of me hearing this but i just. i don't know what to do. i have this bracelet i made that has his name on it and now i can't take it off bc i think something bad will happen if i do. i was driving the other day and said if i saw a yellow car by the time the song i was listening to ended then something bad would happen. and then next song i said green. and i never saw either color but i saw blue and yellow and green make blue??? and i had thought blue for a second so something bad might happen then??? and then i said something bad would happen if i was behind a car with y in its license plate but i wasn't paying attention sometimes so what if one had a y but i missed it and now something bad will happen. i don't even know if anyone can help me but. Idk if this needed a trigger warning but i put one just incase

I can’t tell if I have anxiety or OCD. I tend to think I’m anxious loops aboht a very specific topic and it gets worse and worse until it’s unbearable. There are a lot of things I need to do “just right”, like the timing of my music when I’m on walks, or the color mixing and fit of my outfit. I am never satisfied in my relationships (romantic and platonic) because I always question whether I’m in it with the right person. I’ve developed a set of rules someone must meet for me to like them, except these rules are all just manifestations of my own personality traits, no one ever meets them, and I am always dissatisfied with all my friends. I had to break up with my last (almost) boyfriend because I couldn’t decide if I liked him or not because he didn’t have the “right” traits. I have never known if I liked any of my friends and this even extends to my mother who may be difficult but who loves and cares for me very much. It makes me feel like a bad person and relationship partner, but I get over this by telling myself it’s okay to treat these people poorly because they are not my “true” friends, partners, etc. I always need people to think I’m “good” - there are parts of my life I HAVE to portray properly to different people so they like me and I HAVE to share it with them so I can control the image of me they have in their heads and so they can like this manifestation of myself I’ve created. I have trouble making decisions because I always consider every possible outcome, and if I do it for too long, I just lose the ability to make the decision because I can’t choose the right option and I freeze. This has happened to me while driving and I’ve almost crashed my car because of it. I often get flashbacks to times I have humiliated myself, and I sometimes tense up my body and close my eyes to get rid of them, sometimes ruminate. I go in and out of phases of lining up all my things in certain ways and I have very rigid moral principles that when I stray from them, I get immense guilt. I have also developed a recent problem where I worry I have a certain mental illnesses (I’ve had a BPD phase, and NPD, OCPD, and autism). I NEED to know immediately if I have the mental illness so I can use it as a scapegoat for all my problems, so I google everything about the illness and obsessively read multiple studies to prove if I have the illness or not. This usually makes my mental illness speculation cycles worse. I also go in and out of phases of having a rigid daily routine, but this is usually only if I have something to “accomplish” (often weight loss, social activity, or homework related). I also have a problem where I HAVE to do things in the most time-efficient, cost efficient, or resource-efficient way possible or I will feel guilty or bothered by the waste. Whag complicates this is a couple things. I have had specific rumination cycles for quite a while, but I don’t always do compulsions to get rid of them. Sometimes I just sit with them till they drive me crazy. This makes me worry I don’t have OCD and I actually have anxiety - in fact I have a GAD diagnosis from an ex therapist (I dumped her because I kept worrying she was “wrong” for me and wouldn’t understand my problems and give me an improper diagnosis. This to me is reminiscent of ROCD but maybe I am also just picky). I also have ADHD - pure ocd is often comorbid with ADHD as I have read, but I fear my problems may just be a manifestation of people pleasing + RSD (adhd symptom) + other ADHD tendencies. I have also read about overfocused ADHD (a newly researched ADHD subtype that is not yet in any diagnostic manual) and worry this may be my issue. I also think I may “forget” whag compuslions help me due to ADHD working memory issues - but this is just a personal theory backed in no research. I also worry that all these issues could be a manifestation of autism (rigidness and social difficulties) but maybe the problem is my worry about this and not an actual presence of ASD, who knows. And maybe my worries are just a result of my upbringing - I did have an extremely strict, rigid, and rules and image-oriented mother, who also claims she has OCD but takes it lightly because she doesn’t like mental health diagnoses. She definitely seems like she is always in distress but it doesn’t seem to bother her. So is my problem genetic from her (OCD or some sort of anxiety) or is it just an imprint from the rules and things she put on me as i grew up? I have also been anorexic for a few years now. These symptoms i describes have always been there, but never were intolerable really until the onset of my anorexia. That made them pretty bad, and then I gained a bunch of weight when I went to college which made these thought processes I described go completely out of control. I don’t know if this is a problem of having an eating disorder that would go away if I recovered, or if I just worsened a prexisting problem by developing an eating disorder. That is another concern. By the third month of being in college, my thought cycles would get so bad that I would sometimes lose the ability to properly communicate and make a fool out of myself in front of everyone. To combat this, when I felt my thought cycles coming along, I would lock myself in the nearest family bathroom or lactation room for a few hours of guaranteed and unadulterated privacy. I have genuinely spent multiple hours sitting on the same bathroom floor, it makes me hate myself and it is horrendously disgusting. I am genuinely an extroverted, fun-loving, and funny person, but whatever is going on with me has robbed me of my personality and made it near-impossible to make any friends in college. I often worry that I will end up alone forever because of whatever has started happening in my head. Out of all these differential hypotheses I have provided to OCD, my strongest doubt about myself is that a therapist diagnosed me with GAD and told me I didn’t have any other issues - I just had anxiety about having other issues. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I’m also not sure I can have confidence in my opinion over a trained professional. If anyone had the energy to read all of this… thank you, you’re an angel, I appreciate you so very deeply, and PLEASE give me an opinion on what you think is wrong with me. There’s got to be something diagnosable and I think it goes a little deeper than simple GAD.

How can you tell if you feel the urge to confess because it's a compulsion or because the person you want to confess to genuinely needs to know that information? I deal with real event OCD based on an event that no one will be affected by unless I confess it to them, but I've been having a flare up that's telling me that I don't have OCD and that I am just feeling normal guilt because I haven't disclosed the event when I should have. How do I know if I feel like not confessing is morally wrong because it actually is morally wrong and I need to seek forgiveness, or because my OCD is trying to convince me to give into a compulsion? Would it be better to just confess regardless so that I can stop worrying about whether or not I'm doing something wrong by keeping it to myself?

Hi there, I just downloaded the app yesterday in hopes of guidance. For me, I believe I may have recently learned I have OCD several weeks ago. In looking through what has occured, I believe I might be struggling with Hit and Run OCD. Roughly two weeks ago, I was driving to meet my friends with the window down and radio on. I looked to adjust the radio briefly in combination with hearing a child outside. While the thought occured if I may have hit a child, I continued to drive thinking nothing of it. Closer to my destination, I became more and more panicked, and involved looking at my car for any new damage or blood on the tires. Even though nothing was noticeable, since then it has been dehabilitating with checking news and police reports, mental reassurance, etc. Then two days ago, when driving through a parking garage, I ran over what logically would be a speed bump (checking that the garage has speed bumps in multiple areas) and did my best not to check and continue to my destination. However, I can't remember exactly when I hit that speed bump, so I'm panicked over another possible hit and run scenario I was unsure of. Even now, I have doubts about my dented license plate from years ago was new and from a pedestrian, or even if I have OCD at all and am using this as an excuse of some sort. My apologies for the long winded response, as I am researching and trying to put ERP into practice, but any guidance would be extremely grateful.

growing up I was fully convinced that I was straight. even when people would tease me and my girl best friends about “being gay for each other,” I took no offense because I was entirely secure in being straight. however after my first kiss with a guy I THOUGHT I liked my senior year of high school, I suddenly spiraled with SOOCD. I spent a ton of time reflecting on why I didn’t enjoy the kiss, how I possibly could’ve convinced myself that I liked a guy that I didn’t, and completely lost trust in my feelings and attraction. I spent hours doing groinal checks, analyzing how I’ve felt in previous friendships and about “crushes,” gathered “evidence” about my personality that might somehow “indicate I’m gay,” and couldn’t even leave the house for two weeks because I couldn’t stop checking people around me. I finally went on lexapro for a bit to settle down my brain, and after about a year, I felt pretty secure in the idea of me being bisexual. fast forward to now—I was doing pretty great off meds, and now I’ve suddenly spiraled the same thing this week. I’ve progressed a lot with a guy recently and now I’m having attacks again, convinced that I’m lesbian and deceiving myself and him, even though we’ve agreed to not being in a relationship for now and just see where things go. so I guess I want to ask, does anyone experiencing SOOCD genuinely think they’re lgbtq+, but they can’t stop obsessing over it? at this point, I feel like there is genuine evidence that I’m bisexual and maybe even lesbian, but I am having an insanely hard time accepting it, even with the support of family and friends. I also don’t know if my SOOCD has just gotten so bad that I’ve fully convinced myself of this, but regardless of whether or not I’m actually lesbian or bisexual, I just want to be ok with it.

Does anyone else experience OCD revolving around other people mainly? Like people’s intentions or if people are real? I get intrusive thoughts about my family having been replaced by imposters, and then I worry that I’m experiencing psychosis or something because of these thoughts. Both the fear that I’m having psychosis and the fear of the fact that whether or not my family has been replaced by imposters is “unverifiable”, as ridiculous as it is, gives me bad panic attacks. What’s the difference between this and actual psychosis? Does the fact that it feels real make it real? I’ve never been evaluated by a professional which makes me even more anxious…I don’t know, just looking for answers.

So this morning, I was having quite a bit of anxiety and I was having the usual intrusive thoughts and all that comes with them. And at work I was listening to a podcast about my particular “theme” of OCD which initially was a total compulsion on my part, because I listened to it in an effort to bring down my anxiety. But at the end of the episode, the host, who is a licensed therapist and OCD specialist, went through a imaginative exposure type thingy, and I was at work so I didn’t really get to sit down and truly follow along, but nonetheless it made me anxious and got the anxiety going again. But something that this guy kept saying was “notice how you’re feeling right now. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, don’t label it. Just allow yourself to have that thought and to feel however you feel about it.” And honestly, I was at a point where I was willing to do anything to get these thoughts to go away. 😂 So I sat with those thoughts and it was super uncomfortable but I didn’t fight them, I just said “okay”, and then didn’t do a compulsion after that. I think I did ERP correctly for the first time! It didn’t feel good in the moment, but now, some hours later, I feel really good! Now for the original reason for my post. After work, I decided I was gonna go mountain biking. It’s something I’ve loved doing for over 10 years and it’s probably my favorite hobby. And I just went, and chose not to be afraid of my intrusive thoughts and just let what ever thoughts were to come to just be there. And I found myself having the thoughts, but focusing way more on how much fun I was having hitting these jumps on my mountain bike. I feel more like myself tonight than I’ve felt in months. I feel genuinely me! Not the obsessive compulsive me. And it’s a dang good feeling. It took me so long to build up the courage to allow the thoughts to be there and to lean into them. But leaning into them and allowing them to be there without attaching any meaning to them will help you so much. Try it!

Hey guys so obviously alcohol isn’t great to take with ssris but I’ve heard mixed conclusions about smoking weed with ssris. When I’m high I feel great and it gives me some room to breath from my ocd/anxiety/depression but I recently learned that weed can inhibit the therapeutic effects of the medication. I’m worried that even tho it feels good in the moment that it’s not letting my meds work correctly Right now I’m on Zoloft 100 and I have been on and off for the last 7 years and I’ve been smoking almost every night for the last couple years. Does anyone have an experience or hindsight on whether or not weed prevents the meds from working well?

This is a very personal story for me, so keep that in mind as you read. But I feel prompted to share this so that it might help you as well. 9 years ago, I embarked on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Ghana, West Africa. I was 18 years old and I was so excited and ready to be a missionary. I was scared of going to Ghana, because I had never been to an African country before, but I was excited and ready for the adventure. Being a missionary was something I had wanted to do my entire life. Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to one day serve a mission. So there I was, a missionary, in Ghana. Doing what I had always dreamed of doing. Then one day, I got hit with the most terrifying thoughts that felt like a semi-truck just ran me over. They came all of a sudden without warning. “What if you’re gay and you secretly are attracted to your companion? What if you’ve been lying to yourself your entire life?”. These thoughts were accompanied by astronomic amounts of anguish and fear. “No no no, I would never do that! That’s not me!! No no no” I cried. I suddenly began to question and over analyze everything I ever thought to be true about myself. Analyzing every thought, and action I had ever produced. And I would talk myself down and try to rationalize my way out of these thoughts that after all, weren’t wanted. That didn’t work. I found myself in this overwhelming and uncontrollable cycle. I’d try to read my scriptures as part of our daily personal study but I’d just be zoned out, staring at the wall. And my companion eventually started to notice my behaviors and would ask “are you ok dude?”. In a desperate attempt for relief, I would get on my knees and pray, pleading to God to take this away. “I don’t want this!” I would complain. “God please help me! I’m suffering! And I’m trying to do your work!” But I felt so empty. So alone. So confused! I’ve never wanted any of this! So why does it feel so real? This lasted for about 6 months, and looking back, those were some of the darkest months of my entire life. I contemplated going home. I felt like I had totally lost myself. But, I made a decision. I remember praying one day and saying “God, I’m gonna stay out here, and I’m gonna do your work. Just help me get through this day.” And I started focusing on missionary work. And I felt the Lord strengthening me. I’d be ruminating constantly, until we went to teach someone, and then my mind would be so calm and clear and I could feel God helping me know what to say to our friends we were teaching to help them come closer to Jesus Christ. Then, once the lesson was over, I’d be right back to ruminating again. But each time we would sit down to teach and visit with our friends, the rumination would stop. Eventually, I started having fun, completely forgetting about the intrusive thoughts and I started to love my mission! Looking back, what helped was that I chose to stick to my values and live the life I wanted to live regardless of the thoughts in my head. And most importantly, I decided to lay this unbearable burden at the feet of my Savior Jesus Christ. And he guided me, and strengthened me, and prompted me on what to do. He prompted me to call the mission mental health specialists and they put me on Sertraline, which is a common go to medication for OCD. A scripture from the Bible that I think describes my experience perfectly is “…whosever shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it”. By the time my 2 years of service was up, I didn’t want to come home, and I was so confident in who I was. Those intrusive thoughts were no longer apart of me. I did exactly what that scripture said. I just surrendered everything to the Lord and committed to follow him and serve him. And he blessed me, comforted me, and delivered me. There’s a hymn in our church with a line that says “I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand. Upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand!” And that was so true for me. Now notice, that God did not immediately take away my OCD, but instead, he allowed me to pass through that trial and he essentially prompted me to do what I now know as ERP. I had no idea at the time that I was suffering from OCD. But he did! And he knew what the treatment was. Fast forward to now, I’m married to my amazing wife, and we have a 2 year old son, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted or thought it would be. I will forever be grateful for the 2 years I spent as a missionary. I just wanted to put this out there for anyone who is struggling, and to tell you that Jesus Christ is real! He knows you personally, and he will strengthen you in your trials and he is aware of all you’re going through. From personal experience, I can tell you that if you put your burden at His feet, he will strengthen you. It won’t be immediate, but if you allow him, he will guide you and strengthen you and cause you to stand. Hang in there everyone.

Its so weird. Does any Identify as straight yet do to a childhood trauma feel like they should be gay? My OCD goes over drive with marijauana and I find myself forcing myself to watch gay/trans porn. And its strange because for years I enjoyed straight porn and a little anal play but now Im so confused..... I have had many women lovers but.... I just dont know.....then- I always feel like people are staring or talking about me...Who Am I? grrrr

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 2 1/2 years and the past year had been really hard for me mentally and just in general - had no friends in my city, living in a different country, moved into my boyfriends house with 3 other filthy boys, no time to myself, intense depression and anxiety yadayadayada the list could go on. I feel like I’ve always had relationship anxiety but this last year has been extreme and has totally made me doubt my relationship and my ability to be in a relationship. We are currently in my home country for the summer but plan on moving back to his home country (which we have been living prior) and I am not super stoked about moving back and to the city. He’s not in love with the city either but it would hold opportunities for us to grow our relationship and careers. I just find myself going through a constant rotation of either feeling annoyed, un-attracted, doubt of my love, and doubt of my future love for my partner. What makes it so confusing is that he treats me better than anyone ever has, we laugh together, and he’s a total babe - so why do I have this unshakable feeling that we’re not right for each other? I’m just so scared that since I’m feeling so icky about our relationship, that I’m making a mistake by doing something that doesn’t make my heart sing. I feel like I’m constantly looking for reassuring moments that make me feel good about us, but every time there is a positive, I sabotage it with my thoughts and view it as maybe I’m being phony. What if the thoughts are true? It wouldn’t make much sense but I just have such a negative feeling about it and feel like maybe I have to accept this feeling and move on from the relationship - I have no idea. I plan on seeking therapy soon, and I haven’t been diagnosed with rocd but I resonate and seem to be suffering a lot with the symptoms. Does this sound like rocd? And does anyone have any advice or clarity on what I’m experiencing?

since i was little i had this inate fear of something looming over me. When i was very young it was the possibility of aliens. I was (or more my brain was) obsessed with the idea of aliens coming and destroying everything and everybody I loved. Certain noises would trigger that fear, ex. alarms and certain songs. I would normally have to turn them off before a certain point or else for some reason i would feel as if something terrible would come kill my family. (Keep in mind i’m only in 3rd grade at this point) I grew up from that point with mild symptoms like needing to close drawers and being oddly obsessive over certain little things. Eventually when I was older, I experienced self harm. (EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING) whenever i would harm myself i would feel as if it wasn’t enough, it was even and i did it wrong. This though caused me to harm myself more and more. although i’m not experiencing this anymore I am finally starting to notice OCD like symptoms in my life. for example, i always feel the need to keep my hands perfectly clean right before i sleep or else i feel odd and dirty. this causes me to get up many time in the night to go wash my hands because it’s so easily triggered. (certain textures even thoughts) Things in my room are cluttered, yet organized in a way and when other people move it i feel a sense of distress and dread. I also experience a symptom that i don’t hear being discussed a lot (simply because some may feel a sense of shame from it) but, I experience many involuntary violent ‘visions’ on a daily. sometimes little things that are simply disturbing and sometimes full blown scale thoughts of death and even murder. From that I always feel an extreme sense of guilt and fear that maybe it’s not OCD and maybe I really am just some f-ed up kid that wants to kill. this creates a cycle, whatever voice that is telling me these fears, obsessions, works off itself and sends me into a spiral. Now to any person this sounds like clear signs of OCD and i agree that they are. yet something that has really been bugging me is the ‘so what?’ factor of it. Every story i hear of OCD there’s an issue from it. For example contamination OCD: stopping somebody from having a good relationship with their best friend because they’re afraid of going out. (this is a made up instance of course) I don’t experience a huge ‘consequence’ per say, i haven’t lost any relationships and i still am able to do what I love. But i experience constant internal conflict and dread that it gets exhausting. I am constantly thinking, worrying, and obsessing over everything no matter what! (either it be physical or social affairs) I can’t seem to shut that voice up in my head that is telling me things, making me see things i don’t want to see. another aspect that confuses me very much and i think is the biggest thing that makes me question my ‘OCD’ is the lack of immediate thought triggered anxiety that somebody would experience after NOT doing the act. What I mean by that is i feel a sense of dread, a cool wind blow over my shoulder, and knowledge that in my hearts of hearts that everything is wrong and nothing will be right untill i fix that certain thing. But i never hear that voice that normally speaks to me say it, no, i just feel it and i know. and I think in a sense that’s what’s makes it scarier and that’s what keeps me in the shackles of whatever is causing this. I need help, i don’t know what to do. I’ve tried to tell people but i never manage too. where do i start? Do i even have it? If i was to get a diagnosis what good would that do? and most importantly do i have to live with this? i’m only a teenager, is there medicine that can help? Therapy? anything?

I’ve now been experiencing ocd symptoms for 3 months and they have slowly gotten less grip on my life. Is it bad for my ocd if I smoke weed, I’ve noticed it almost gets rid of my symptoms after I smoke it. I only smoke it on the weekends to wind down after a stressful week and to give me a break from the ocd stress. But was just wondering if this will effect my recovery?

I just was diagnosed with OCD and I’m still learning about it.. how do you stop from googling your symptoms and convincing yourself that there is something wrong with you? I’ve been doing this a lot recently.. in the past month I’ve convinced myself I’m having a heart attack, a stroke, and a pulmonary embolism. How do I stop this?

I’m new to this whole ocd thing so I don’t know if the way I’m thinking is just my thoughts and cause I’m an awful person or if it’s my ocd acting up in a way. So I’m in this situation ship with a guy I dated for two months and I fell in love with him and we wanted to be married and everything. But I ended up having an intrusive thought about a family member of his and it was very overwhelming for him (which is understandable) and so he broke up with me and said he wanted me to get help. Now we’re kinda in this weird situation where we know we love each other and want to be together but there are other circumstances and things that are keeping us from being together again. He had dealt with depression for a while and I’ve helped him through suicidal thoughts and seasons before but now that all of this has happened he’s experiencing it again and wanted to last night. And so this is where it gets confusing for me. I know that I love this man, and I only want the best for him even if that means he doesn’t get back with me but because I wasn’t overwhelmed with fear and anxiety and I was crying and having a breakdown when he called me told me he was gunna end it, I’m questioning if I really care whether or not he’d take his life. And I don’t know if this could be ocd affecting my thoughts or if I’m just a really bad person. I know I love him, I’d love to live a life with him and stay together till death. I’d give my life for that man so it’s confusing to as to why I wouldn’t have a stronger negative reaction to him being suicidal and almost being like numb to it all. But I know I’m not in a numb state overall. And then it makes me question how true my love for him really is if I don’t have such a strong reaction to something like that. And then it’s like of course I don’t want him to die, I love him but then I question do I not want him to die because I care about him or because I don’t want to have to live with the guilt of him taking his own life and me not being able to stop it and me being apart of the reason why he did it. And that just makes it worse. And then it’s like I love life and I don’t want to die and I wouldn’t want to live a life without love and happiness but for me to continue on with my life if something were to happen would be like a betrayal to him and like I never really loved him. And then it just makes me feel like such an awful person and it’s so confusing for me cause I know that I really do love him. And then I feel so guilty about it I feel like I have to tell him but idk if that a compulsion cause I feel like once I tell him it’ll be all better but the reality is that it would only make things worse and it would hurt him and the last thing I want is to hurt him. Ugh this is so much and idk what’s wrong with me. I just want to be normal and love him and have healthy normal reactions to things. Does this mean I don’t actually love him? I know deep within me I truly do but idk. It’s exhausting being in my head but I guess I deserve it for having such awful thoughts and being an awful person. I just want to get help and love him truly and help him get better. Does anyone deal with anything like this? I doubt it but if you do (and even if you don’t) thoughts and opinions would be appreciated.

Hello, So with ERP has anyone noticed how anxiety weans and wanes the first few days you put your most effort in. For my anxiety has subsided by about 80% and it hasn’t been to the same levels it was before. One thing that does drive me a little mad is when OCD or intrusive thoughts try to catch you back into the loop and will try to throw anything at you to bring you back. How do you combat the waves I feel like the battle is easy but sometimes there was intense boss battles.

I just found out I have OCD last February. I'm ashamed to say I had a really stereotypical idea of what OCD is and was very surprised to be diagnosed with it. I keep trying to learn more about OCD but every time I sit down to read something, watch a video, listen to a podcast etc... I can't stop myself from pausing just to fall into a thought spiral for hours, analyzing my brain and thought patterns and my whole childhood and past relationships and just everything. Ughhhhhhhhh. Any resources or tips for combating this, if this even made any sense lol, I have been very stuck on my brain today yikes (p.s. do you like my pfp? she's my dog, daisy. I love her very much)

Hello, I am on my 6th day of ERP and with self-harm OCD I noticed my OCD is trying to pull all the stops to pull me back into the void. The central theme is suicide and self-harm and it's even making me doubt that ERP isn't the way out and suicide is and if I am the one who is having ideation aside from OCD. These thoughts are so strong and causing me much distress—any advice?