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Has anyone felt very anxious from OCD and still successfully gotten through school? If so do you have any tips? (I’m an engineering major in college)

My OCD has gotten way better, but I still struggle with one thing in particular. This does not necessarily have to do with my ocd but I also struggled with it while I was still struggling. It is this feeling of always needing to do better, to evolve, change things etc. This affects my relationship. Everyday I bring something up to my partner that we/he could change. Everyday I insist on having deep/meta psychological talks about how we feel, what we need, what we should change and it is really taking a toll on my partner. It feels like I am constantly trying to be better, to make him or us better and it is hurting both of us. He is not a better partner at all, I am just sooo scared of things not turning out okay or right. I just have this heavy pressure on my heart, idk if it is fomo, anxiety or whatever but it sucks joy out of things. I feel like I‘m constantly trying to live im check lists. „Oh this was a cute moment, check“ „okay, we just had a good conversation, check“ and so on. Every moment i spend with him has to be evaluated and it. Is. Draining. It drains me so so much. I am just so scared of not being mature enough, that m partner and I don’t talk enough, don’t know each other enough or that things should be different. Do any of you have the same problem? This is not just a relationship problem for me. I also feel like I am not doing enough, I should be experiencing more things, etc. I know i should just let go but I can’t. Do you have tips, advice or similar story? Please share, I feel so frustrated and alone. I don’t want to be this serious, strict being.

Does anyone else just feel like their mere fucking existence is bothersome to any living or breathing creature. The amount of times I say sorry for absolutely butt fuck nothing is insane. The amount of times I need someone to double check that what I’m doing is right or tell me that the text I’m sending is okay or that whatever situation I just experienced is okay and that I did nothing wrong. And then I actually become more bothersome by trying to not be bothersome cuz I burden the fuck out of the poor people in my life by asking them if every single thing I part take in is OKAY!?!?!!?? Ugh. I’m so sick of this how do I stop.

I have a Big fear of pregnancy/childbirth/newborns. My partner wants kids of his own and adopt but I’d rather just adopt. I feel like I like the idea of it sometimes and now it’s terrible fear. I’m also on my cycle so I know that affects OCD too. I feel like I get some validation from knowing my partner wants kids with me like I’m of value and wanted but then when faced with the reality of having kids in the near future it haunts me. My reasons seem more irrational though. From body dysmorphia in pregnancy to the pain and complications of birth, I also hate hospitals. I also deal with people pleasing a lot so that works it’s way in too. The way it’s portrayed on social media doesn’t help either. My own past with mental health, fear, the way my own family was dysfunctional, trauma and ptsd has definitely put my mind in a one track thinking of fear. I know fear just needs reframing most of the time and I feel better about things once it clicks. I know this is probably related to OCD bc it seems irrational and I have a skewed perspective on most things in life bc of it. For me, I feel really sad and grievous even about having a newborn, it feels like the end of my life and my own survival and the start of bondage. But for some reason I want to adopt or foster and raise kids anyways so I don’t know why I fear my own kids. Weird to say but I always felt like these things were out of reach for me and my own life would end with me like not beyond anyone else like kids. Even calling myself a mom feels weird bc to me there is only one mom my mom. I guess it sounds like I just need to warm up to a new reality possibly? I never grew up wanting to be a mom or get married like other girls. Not that I was against it I was just too busy being a kid myself or fending for myself. I also feel in ways I’m unprepared, immature, and like how can I abandon my own need of survival which is how I felt my whole life and cater to someone else’s survival? I can’t function on my own a lot so how could I possibly be a mom? I know i cant trust myself due to OCD and the skewed beliefs and perspectives my brain adopts bc of it. Even the messiness of birth and the sensuality of motherhood makes me very uncomfortable, I’ve kinda always felt uncomfortable in my own skin and body. The idea of someone else using my body feels violating almost and like I grieve my old self in the future. I’m also a terrible perfectionist so that is a part in these fears too. So I’m just going to be journeying on my own with God to help me dismantle these fears. I can’t afford therapy anymore. I also have a terrible Interoception and gauge of my feelings so the lack of desire for kids has me concerned but I know I develop feelings and desires slower than others. I also lived life in extremes so anything in the middle feels off or numb. So right now just trying to get to the bottom of the fears and see the truth in them. These fears make me very sad and broken like something is wrong with me. I wish I didn’t feel this way or deal with this stuff and I wish I was different. I’m not content with the way I fear this and not wanting my own kids. Any advice would be very helpful. #pregnancy #birth #healthocd #rocd #newborns

Not really sure if this is the right place for me. I've always had a hard time dealing with my urges to do things at certain times or having things just right. There were definitely signs in my childhood that have carried on to my adult life. Some people say it's OCD some say it's not. I like to have things done by certain times of the day and if they aren't I get severe anxiety and can be a little crabby until it gets done. I do try to get out of my "routine" but I'm not always successful. I feel like a prisoner to myself sometimes. If that makes any sense. This app doesn't accept my insurance so I won't be able to do the video calls but it would be awesome to find someone to talk to. And if anyone could tell me if that sounds like OCD to you. I have to have a shower before I eat dinner. I eat dinner at a set time everyday. I will not allow dishes to sit in the sink, as soon as they hit the sink I have to wash them. Everything has to he put back in it's place by the end of the night or I will not sleep. I hate sleeping because it takes me forever to fall asleep with my anxiety but I go to bed at the same time every night and my urges won't allow me to go any earlier unless I literally fall asleep sitting up.

Does anyone know if I might find it easier to treat my OCD now that I'm about to go on sick leave? I'm really exhausted and need a break, but I'm also worried because I've been working for a very long time and I don't know if I'll be able to go back. I'd love to hear from anyone who has found that a slower pace and less stress has helped them overcome their OCD.

It’s been almost one full year, and I’ve cut off ties with my “best friend”. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I ultimately decided to do it. Why? Here are my top reasons: 1. He consistently made me feel like I was an ugly fat guy who couldn’t get laid. He knew I was lonely and wanting a romantic relationship, so he said “just get ripped and stop whining”. I actually agreed with him and set out on a quest to lose weight and get in shape. But the more I progressed, the more I got criticized. He told me that he never thought I’d get laid because I’m too shy and scared to be intimate, that nothing will happen even if I somehow get “lucky”. He also told me to go on Tinder, but then blamed me for my failed attempts. Laughed at the fact I was getting scammed by bots and said I should actually pay them $$$. 2. As an indirect consequence of 1., I decided to hire a sex worker (where it was legal). I thought I had to prove to myself that he was wrong, and that I in fact was physically able to do it. That I wasn’t “disabled” or that nothing was wrong with me. I went through with this act and although I enjoyed myself, I got backlash from my friend. He called me a “sex offender” and “rapist” and said my family should disown me for this. He wanted me to feel shame and guilt and made me promise that I’ll never do it again. That I “need to fuck a real woman”. 3. Unrelated, but he also never showed up to my graduation and insisted that I needed to get a “real job” and that I need to be making at least 6 figures out of graduation. That I shouldn’t become a teacher because it didn’t make much money, even though he knew I liked teaching. Also got annoyed when I didn’t find a job immediately after graduation. Ok, so I think there’s a lot of gray areas in this post, but ultimately I keep questioning my decision to go no contact or just cutting off the relationship. I blocked him in my phone and deleted my social media accounts. But I’m questioning this because I keep reading how ghosting harms the other person. I also still believe I’m a horrible person for doing that to him, but I just felt it was necessary as I needed time to heal. Does anyone have any advice on this?

I hace contamination and magical thinking ocd. Sometimes i am not even sure if something is contaminated and that i hve touched it but my brain just tell me i might have touched it and it may be contaminated. I am doing so much compulsions from the past few days which is making my ocd worse because then i want perfection. Everything to be washed and perfectly clean. I am just tired of this ocd. I dont want to live with this level of anxiety. My life is ruined😭😭😭😭

So I had a good day yesterday but last night and today I've been ruminating over what I could have done better and what I messed up and it's basically ruining my memory of the day by making the less good stuff bigger in my mind than the good stuff. I'll have to bring this up with my therapist but in the meantime, does anyone have any thoughts on how to better focus on the good aspects?

Hi! I’ve struggled with bouts of disordered eating for years. It comes in waves and then settles down again. Today I realized it might actually be my ocd that causes it. The intrusive thought is gaining weight and the compulsion is the disordered eating/purging behaviors. Has anyone ever struggled with this? Could this be ocd?

So I dropped my phone in the toilet yesterday, and everything seems to pretty much work properly, but I can’t help but keep thinking what if it’s not working properly, what if something is working slower, what if the audio doesn’t work right etc. And like what if it’s not clean after being in the toilet even though I washed it to death. Someone please help and tell me if this is just my OCD, these thoughts will not stop and I’m stressed out.

I only recently was diagnosed with OCD and have started my journey which I am proud of, but am struggling with finding balance because of the dissonance between my work responsibilities and ERP. I have been attracted to the career I am in because I care about doing right by others, and I have a passion for helping leaders create a healthy environment for the people on their teams. I also of course like clear expectations, writing and following rules, so educating on policies and procedures is a strong suit. Unfortunately, I am just recently learning that a big theme for my OCD includes moral scrupulosity and it has opened my eyes to see why I have struggled so much mentally the past year. I work in HR as a team relations specialist which means I make recommendations on how managers should address issues with their teams, i investigate employee concerns or allegations, and also advocate for team members when they are being treated unfairly. Additionally my job involves doing nonstop documentation of the content of every call we have, every email received and sent to us etc. we then have to save them as files and write notes summarizing each file or piece of correspondence and key information from it. (There is very much the mindset of there being no such thing as too much documentation at my company) I have noticed that since taking this job a little over a year ago, I have not been ok. I love the work I do and the good moments where I feel like I helped someone. I also love that the company and managers put so much weight on doing the right things, but the expectations put on those of us in the roles also feeds my OCD and reinforces my compulsions like getting reassurance that my thinking is right, ruminating, or checking and rechecking. It also gives strength to the arguments OCD makes to me about needing to analyze excessively to make sure I am not missing anything, or that I am not mistakenly engaging in cognitive biases and factoring them into my recommendations. Since I have a large influence over how situations with team members are handled my OCD emphasizes this and convinces me that if I do not do my job adequately or make a compelling argument, I am doing a disservice to the team members I support.....but so does the HR leadership at the company. It is consistently emphasized that we are expected to be the ultimate moral voice in every circumstances and that we are responsible for remaining 100% objective in guiding leaders on what to do to ensure all risks are assessed, taken into account and avoided in addition to us making sure leaders are doing right by their teams. Many of the others in my role like myself also keep spreadsheets during investigations we conduct that documents all perspectives in situations of people we interviewed, track definitive evidence, and analyze all factors/ devils advocate arguments to ensure appropriate steps are taken to address and that every situation is handled fairly. I'm finding that even though I tend to be behind on work because of my just right struggles with documenting and investigations, I am seen as a star performer in my role because I am hyper-empathetic, scrupulous, and risk aversive. Unfortunately, those same qualities makes my OCD obsessions and compulsions stronger. Not sure if there is anything I can really do at this point because finding a new job isn't an option right now, I just needed to get this off my chest and see if anyone has experienced similar where they found themselves in a spot where their work responsibilities were at odds with their recovery or made it more challenging to use ERP tools.

how to not develop the mindset that if you slip up and do a compulsion you are set back in your progress and all of your hard work is gone?

Hey there, just wondering if anyone has ways to overcome the challenges that ocd brings when reading a book. I constantly feel the need to reread to make sure I have not missed something and it gives me a great deal of anxiety. It has taken away from the enjoyment of reading. Thank you

I’m not sure if I have OCD, but recently I’ve been feeling uncomfortable/uneasy when things don’t go as planned or when someone breaks the rules or if things needed to be a certain way. It would be the littlest thing that goes differently then what I thought would happen it brings out a lot of anxiety and the feeling of being uncomfortable also I feel very overwhelmed/stimulated. I’ve also developed a constant thought of death and how we are all going to die one day feels like an obsession at this point and it keeps me up, drives me crazy. Is this ocd?

Is anyone else a small business owner/freelancer with OCD? It’s really hard I always have intrusive thoughts about what will bring me clients or what will make people run away. I struggle to make deadlines because I am way too stuck in a perfectionism loop that I procrastinate until I have almost no time to do the project. I love the work I do and I really want to enjoy the whole business side of it but having myself as my boss is horrible bc I’m so hard on myself and need everything to always be perfect before I can exhale which is never so I’m always holding my breath D: can anyone relate?

This is a big problem for me which makes me feel shame and alot of guilt, the feeling of denial is really misunderstood, sometimes i feel like they mean for certain ocd themes like harm or something when you feel like you did something bad and by ignoring you feel like youre in denial. Those times its normal that you ignore it. But i experience something different. Many times i tried to ignore ocd thought or emotions or even emotions or thoughts cause many times i couldnt decide if its ocd or normal problems, and this is why i experienced that im in denial, and this became stronger when i realized im still afraid of the content and it still comes back after time and i react the same way, they i use this fake positive reaction to it (i choose thatbits ocd, its not a real problem) which quickly makes me feel good, and then i get hit by the feeling that im avoiding im in denial. I watched a video about shame and denial, and the bad thing was i saw myself that im really in denial, that i avoid the problems, i react to the problem as its not a real problem, its ocd and i dont deal with it, its not real. But this limits me to see other problems. So realizing im actually in denial feels bad. And i dont know how to recover cause one people say do this, ignore every thought, dont listen to it, dont give any attention to it, and the other one says if you say this to every thought youre in denial. You do it as a cooping mechanism.. Just to give you an exemple, im christian so i will give that, i felt shame over doing something bad, and i was so afraid to admit it cause it comes with shame that i felt like i cant accept. I was so afraid cause shame said im a bad person, full of sin, im a shame for christianity, and because of this i didnt wanted to accept that what i did was bad and a sin cause then all of this is true. Then this made me feel like then i dont want to accept that i have flaws and im not perfect which is bad again, everyone has flaws, then i was worrying i dont want to accept that im not perfect cause i want to avoid shame, and this is where denial comes. Then what i heard that helps ocd is to ignore, i choosed to ignore it and be sarcastic with it, which made me feel more like im in denial. And after i watched the video I started spinning, cause it showed me im actually in denial to cope agains shame... so that would mean i have to accept that i did a bad thing and its okay, but that doesnt sound good to me and again i feel like im in denial, cause i should accept that what i did was bad but bc of shame i dont want to so im in denial. Im spinning so much and i dont know how to get over this denial thing. Expecially that the worries always come back and it makes me feel that i didnt worked with them as o should, i just avoided them i was in denial so thats why they come back...

So I’m in college. A FineArts major who’s a sophomore to be exact. And it’s fine, it’s as stressful as you’d expect it to be. But I had gotten this massive massive burnout. As no matter where I sit or sit I cannot for the life of me write or draw what I used to on my own. It feels like a chore. And even more than that, burnout. I’m scared I hate what I do, and I’ve abandoned my love for art. Which I know isn’t true because I still want to draw and create and write. But my mind just won’t let me think. What’s going on with me? Is this normal in college?

Another night of waking up at 5am with intrusive thoughts & fears. Fears of someone breaking into my house and harming me, fear of house fires and being unable to get my mom & cats out, being overwhelmed with “all the things I need to do” the next day. Obsessing to check the downstairs camera. It’s exhausting and causes me lack of sleep. And then I’m unable to sleep for hours after I wake up sometimes.. and my cat will wake me up in the morning. It’s driving me crazy. 😞😞😞😞 I also need all of my blankets perfectly aligned or I can’t sleep, make my bed every single day bc of it, cannot sleep with pants on or tight clothing. Etc. list goes on…

I really hate being forced to socialize with people, specifically family members who genuinely do nothing but gaslight you with their narcissistic behavior. My OCD comes with anxiety.. I never feel like I’m enough, I always have this need to prove I don’t need help because anytime I came across vulnerable, I was treated like I was a problem but I feel like I’m forced to baby feed my own MOTHER who refuses to get help with her OWN OCD. I just can’t rn. I don’t know if I’m venting or having ruminating thoughts about having to mask how I feel when I’m CONSTANTLY feeling like my feelings don’t matter to a person that thinks her feelings are the ONLY ones that are relevant. Someone please read this so I can get a better understanding of how to deal with being overstimulated by being FORCED to socialize in a FAKE environment.