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Just made a stupid mistake and now I need to throw out 3/4 of a pizza. And I have no outlet to talk to. Just frustrated.

Here is all my symptoms that I have been experiencing: 15 years old - first symptoms playing Fortnite and when playing my brain will tell me “go pickaxe that tree, do it or you will lose the game” and if I attempt to leave it my brain will say “go back, you better go back, you better do it or you’ll lose” until I give in and do it 18 years old - symptoms worsen with obsessions (such as certain games or tv shows) and I start to worry excessively and asking for constant reassurance that things are the way I think they are (if people like me, if people think the way I think etc) Present day - much worse symptoms: Noise sensitivity with doors in rooms being open and I can hear TV extremely loud or when people are talking in huge groups around me so I got noise cancellation headphones because I became so unbearable I couldn’t study or focus in education or at home. Obsessions with order such as sorting figurines in order of colour or name for hours at a time and excessive leg bouncing and tapping on tables for hours at a time (sometimes I don’t even notice until someone point it out), zoning out or becoming hyperactive. Feeling of extreme boredom very quickly after finishing tasks and extreme irritability especially when things aren’t done my way or done incorrectly. I can read people very well before anyone else does and I pay attention to details no one else can. I also think more in depth that other people sometimes in a manipulative way (I wanted to win certain things so I would act and do certain things so ensure I would win or I would say things so people would do what I wanted) and the biggest symptom I’ve had longest is lack of empathy and emotions. Are these all related to OCD or is this something else?

I gave into a major compulsion after a major trigger. I haven’t done that in many months. My anxiety spiked because of a trigger. How do you forgive yourself? I feel like a failure. 😞

Video games. I'm losing my enjoyment over them. I either get annoyed at a game, angry that I'm losing because I just can't help but take it personally I guess, or just flat out bored with games I'm not really used to. They just aren't what they used to be. Idk if it's because of OCD or depression or anxiety or whatever, I just no longer enjoy them. No matter what I do, a competitive game just puts me in a bad mood even if I'm trying my absolute best to not take it personally. It just happens.

Please someone leave any advice or similar stories. I had identified as bi and then had fears about my sexuality a few years ago, and decided on the term unlabeled to describe my sexuality to anyone who asked and it made me the most comfortable because i was confused about my romantic atraction and sexual attraction towards women vs men. Recently, seemingly triggered by pride month and people discussing comp het, while in a relationship with my boyfriend I have been dealing with fears of wondering if I'm really attracted to men at all or what attraction really feels like and being sexually aroused by explicit images of women I had seen by accident. I am worried that I am experiencing comp het or I'm in the wrong relationship or I'm going to hurt my boyfriend. I have also voiced all of this to him and he is there for me, but that doesn't mean it's easy. I have other anxieties about my relationship and worry if those are ocd related or not as well(such as worrying about limerence) but I'm just so terrified. I feel that just because I have ocd that doesn't mean I can have these experiences that other queer people actually have and it makes me worried that I coukd go years without ever knowing just for one day to know and my whole world to be flipped upside down. I'd rather die than for that to be my reality. Someone please leave advice or tips it's all so appreciated.

I know I probably ruminate but I have a hard time knowing it. I am also kind of obsessing over if I’m doing it right now. Can rumination contain what ifs? Like recently I’ve been constantly obsessing over whether or not I’m doing compulsions, and what if I’m doing erp wrong and stuff. I try to lean into uncertainty, but I also feel like I deliberately force myself to feel uncertainty and I can never be present. Is that rumination? I constantly wonder “what if that’s a compulsion?” Or “What if that’s a compulsion?” Or “what if I’m avoiding this” “what if I’m not doing anything right” Is that rumination? I’m very frustrated, stuck and confused with this theme. I really want to stop and am willing to do what it takes but I genuinely feel like I have no idea. This wasn’t a problem with other themes. I’m even questioning right now if this is a compulsion, if I’m being genuine or just want reassurance.

I’ve been recently mulling over past and present memories/feelings when it comes to my creative process and every time i start something new, i am an anxious spiraling mess: constantly checking the first ugly stage of a painting over and over again thinking i’ll eventually like what i see but i never do (that is until i start painting it again). i bet all artists deal with feeling like an imposter but with every new painting, i don’t trust myself it’ll be good, even though it takes time for a painting to reach the “good” level. i’m just curious to know if anyone else has OCD and is also a creative person, just too feel a little less alone in this :’)

I wish I had friends although I don’t know if I even deserve any

Hi there! I'm new to the NOCD community. Up until very recently, I thought I just had anxiety but hearing some of my friends talk about their OCD and realizing I related to a lot of things has made me really confused (I always thought OCD was limited to contamination OCD). The way my anxiety/OCD presents is largely through comparisons to other people and this is enhanced in relationships. I'm not sure why but if my partner/friend is doing X or Y that day I have to do that too and if I can't or don't I feel like shit about myself and I ruminate constantly about it. Another example would be if my partner/friend has X number of friends I have to have that exact number of friends (that have the same "characteristics" too). I've always been really ashamed of this because I know it's stupid and I feel like a jealous/envious/bad person so I've never really talked about it. I had a 3 year relationship and this constant comparing and trying to do the exact same things my partner was doing made me so miserable and depressed. I never wanted to talk about it to anyone because I felt like it was stupid. Another way my OCD/anxiety presents is I get obsessed over the process of things rather than the results. Like when I study first exams I have to revise X topics a day (and do so in a very specific way, not leaving any details out) and if I can't I ruminate/make myself feel bad. Or if I'm building a chair from IKEA for example I have to follow the exact instructions and if I don't but it still works I will always feel like there's something wrong with the chair. I'm really lost right now and I guess I would really appreciate any insight/resources that would help with this. I've been in therapy for anxiety but never really gotten diagnosed with OCD so I'm just confused like is that not something that your therapist should tell you??

Hi everyone. I am new to Nocd. My story: The first time I got intense intrusive thougts of religious ocd is when I was 11 years old. They were very intense. I was ashamed of those thoughts and didn't know what to do with them. I literally didnot tell anyone and suffered alone. It made it hard for me to pray. Over the years it took many forms. I didn't know it was OCD. My mental health deteriorated with waves of depression because of OCD as I got threatened from my OCD thoughts of death of me and my closed ones. They were scary. I also imagined things and felt like seeing things out of fear. These phases of depression brought me down everytime I stood up somehow. Soon I was struck with existential and identity crisis, questioning the meaning of life and existence, nothing seemed valuable and worth it. I questioned my academics and everything. Definetly my grades and health everything deteriorated. It showed in my physical health too. I started having mental fog and questioning reality, my self along with a lot of changes in my life. After class ten, there were suddenly a lot of changes when my mental health was already not okay making it hard for me to adapt. I saw everything blurry and removed. I couldn't connect to anyone. I associated fear to all the things, plus my home. And because I already had so much threatenings of death, I couldn't even recognise the reality. I felt far removed from my reality like I went somewhere far away, a lot of time has passed and there's not much time for me and I struggled with memory too. After 12th, I joined University. One year later, I met a boy with whom I instantly felt sparks. Note: I never dated anyone before and feeling a spark like that with somebody which made me take the step is a lot. I wanted to commit to him but then my ROCD kicked in. I didn't even know about it but I did some mistakes because of it I feel like because ROCD was so intense it made me feel like an emergency to leave the relationship. He had OCD too as he said. He have it in terms of 'perfectionism'. Also he was very sensitive, enraged kind of person, I got to know later on. Had a lot of emotional outbursts making me more question the relationship to leave. We became like an anxious-avoidant couple. I regret many things like what I have avoided if I knew its ROCD and worked on it and so many. He 'abused me. He started abusing me. Idk I started feeling like I made him that kind of a person because he actually compared me with his former gf, with whom he used to even secretly talk. I couldn't get out of the abusive relationship sooner but recently which added extra trauma. Well, here am I 'single' but I feel a lot of guilt and also I need to make my mental health better because this experience made me realise how my bottled up things made an explosion. Thankyou! to whoever reads this! Oh yeah I also deal with a Lott of decision making difficulties, indecisiveness and regret over small things and doings. And also because of my life going like this and getting ruined where there was so many expectations from me, I regret a lot I guess. I think of many possibilities how my life would have gone and always put infront of me possibilities and choices. So I am currently dealing with my thoughts and uncertainty about my future after a Lott of trauma. Oh my god..there is so much

Finishing my thesis this weekend. Im actually for real scared Im not gonna pass, its so much work to do still :(

I have co-occurring Autism, GAD, bipolar, and ADHD along with my OCD and I always thought I had this great insight but there’s something that I never realized. I hate transitions. I don’t like being between phases. Between getting to a restaurant and being at a restaurant. Between sitting and placing your order. Between done eating and paying the check. There are other non-restaurant examples, but those come to mind because I’m heading to dinner. My NOCD therapist asked what I do in these situations. I explained that I have certain things that I do and that I have the people with me do. She asked why I thought people should follow what I said. I told her that the way I do things is right and logical and if they understood that, they’d want to do it my way. If it doesn’t matter either way for them, they should just do it my way because it matters to me. If they don’t care and they won’t do it my way that means they’re being difficult. She asked if I realized that I was forcing people to participate in my rituals and that, even though it seemed very logical to me, none of it was actually based in logic. It’s all just compulsion. That never occurred to me before…

Coming from someone in their 20somethings, I can say that transitioning into adulthood has been the most challenging thing on my mental health. I find more often than not, my brain is racing about 94 different thoughts, worries, responsibilities ext. and trying to find the meaning behind all of them.

How can I go back to my studying. I'm having a one month break from classes to self study what I've left behind. It's already in the 2nd week of the month and I haven't done any studies. My OCD had been so hard lately. I don't have interest in my future anymore ( even though my future isn't in a state that I should be staying like this right now). How do you guys manage to study with OCD happening. How should I put myself to study

I feel like my body and mind are just so tired of being stuck in these same mental loops of torment with OCD and don’t know how to do anything else. I feel exhausted from not being able to cure myself out of these thoughts and self-destructive habits and that I’m not going to make it out of them because I’ve been tied down to this illness for so long. I wish things could have been different growing up and I took care of myself better so I wouldn’t have gotten so negative and loved myself more so these thoughts wouldn’t be so potent. I’ve had OCD most of my life, and I just don’t get how other people can live their lives normally and not suffer so heavily. I get really mad knowing I’m stuck in this vicious cycle and other people can enjoy life so easily. And now the summer is coming and it’s when I get the most depressed and feel so helpless from sadness, and my OCD has only just gotten worse. I feel like I just don’t have the energy to take care of myself anymore, and hate how anxious I am about actually telling people what’s going on with me in fear of judgment and not accepting me, so I just go along with self-sabotaging habits. I’m also afraid that nobody is going to want to help me. This only makes things worse, and it’s really hard for me to be happy. I just don’t know how to cope anymore. It makes it so hard to function as a human since I’ve been struggling for so long. I feel so disconnected from God because of this illness, and it only makes me more upset with myself for lack of effort and feel depressed. Please if someone is struggling with something similar or has advice, reach out ❤️

Anyone else feel like they will never be understood in a relationship? Like I want to get to know other people but its like I feel like I am boring and my ocd just makes my life a living hell currently. No motivation to do nothing even though I have alot to do and literally having no purpose in life.Like I literally dont feel like I have ever enjoyed any of my life because it feels like I am not real or I am like a shadow in my own body? Its frustrating because my last relationship was horibbly toxic and the guy I was with was horrible and I broke things off after years of abuse and I have currently been having a hard time not to reach out to him after no contact for 3 months.I feel immense guilt like I was mean to him even though he cheated on me and a part of me says I deserve to go back to the abuse. And I feel like maybe I am punishing myself because my faith in God is not the strongest Ive stopped praying and I dont read the bible consistently becayse I get very overwhelmed because I want to make sure I am doing bible study correctly or ill be punished. (sorry for the spelling mistakes)

Hello everyone I’m new to the app and I’m hoping that some others can relate. I have this idea (even though I know it truly doesn’t “work”) that I can control if bad things happen to me. More so bad luck. I have sudden thoughts of having to perform rituals like locking my car three times, making sure my clothes in my drawer are put away neatly, or cracking all my knuckles to make sure I don’t have “bad luck” if I don’t do these rituals I feel like I’m inviting bad luck into my life. Does anyone else have something similar?

Hi all, I've a bit of a dilemma. I have the "Pure" OCD themes (I'm not sure if thats what its actually called?) and they're horrible. However, I do deal with the more stereotypical OCD theme, such as perfection. I used to ruin my notes copy in school cause one line looked 'ugly'. I would tear pages, nearly soak the page in tippex, make holes on the page due to excessive overcorrecting. My mind would think what I was doing is making things better lmao. This wasn't just with my notes, it was in scrapbooks, things I would make in art class, etc. It was bad, but compared to the likes of my POCD theme, it was nothing. However, its acting up with a tattoo I'm after getting. Its in the healing stage and I'm looking at it. I've noticed it isn't as clear as it was on the first day. Theres a a few lines of ink that doesn't looked 'filled in', one line is croocked, and you can see the lines where it was filled in. But this his when I look *really* close to it, like I've literally my face to it and a light shining on it. Other than that, its not noticeable AT ALL. And cause I'm so up close, ofc I'm gonna notice the small things. I'm looking at it while I'm typing and I dont notice anything wrong. And the 'croocked" line, its on a star thats really tiny. Plus its HEALING. Like it's still scabby. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had their OCD flare up with a tattoo. I think i'm overreacting cause this is gonna be on me forever. I just wish my mind would leave me alone. And if a line wasn't filled in properly ever so slightly (or maybe it didn't heal correctly), it shouldn't be a big deal. Cause again, it's not noticeable at all. I'm hoping maybe if thats the case, I'll be content with it and not ruin it by getting it done again (cause I know I'd be temped). Other than that I really like it. Its a butterfly tattoo in the style of a Celtic knot with little stars around it. I'll attach a picture if anyone wants to see. But I've gotten sooo many compliments on it :) I feel like that should outweigh whatever imperfections my OCD has latched onto. Juts a pity that something I've been looking forward to for years has turned against me.

But thanks to doing ERP, I feel like OCD is barely a part of my life now. It's crazy because I have had maladaptive perfectionism for essentially my whole life, and I developed tics that were probably OCD-related at a young age. I've had a variety of themes (mental contamination, existentialism, symmetry, gender, etc.), with the most recurring one being the "just right" subtype. Even though the thoughts still come, I no longer give into the compulsions. Sometimes, I think "oh no, I erased and rewrote a word just now - isn't that giving into a compulsion?" and then I just accept that I can't really know and go on with my life. As long as you're willing to commit to truly exposing yourself to your triggers, to sitting with uncertainty or imperfection, OCD doesn't have to be your destiny. I really never imagined I could get to a point where, for instance, I could write a post like this one in 10 minutes, rather than 3+ hours of googling synonyms of every word, reading it over and over again, checking how I felt about it, and ultimately deleting it (feeling that pressure in my head and body all the while, that feeling of things not being quite right). It's honestly hard to remember how bad it really was. Life isn't perfect, but it's alright. I'm finally letting myself just... do the things. To anyone in the throes of OCD who is currently reading this, you don't have to believe me. I certainly wouln't have when I was in your position. You just need to commit to doing the exposures (and to not doing the rituals), as much as you can, even - and especially - imperfectly. And maybe one day, you'll realize that the thoughts aren't quite as anxiety-inducing as they once were, and the urge to do your compulsions is not quite so strong, and now you have time to do some of the things that you wish you could before.

I am looking for some insight to support my 8 year old autistic daughter. She has developed health concern OCD after a bout of norovirus that hit the whole family right around Christmas (the discomfort of the nausea seemed amplified by the fact that it affected the holiday, to which she is strongly attached). She has been struggling significantly with emetophobia since then, seeking constant reassurance. We have trialed an SSRI for the past two months. While the health anxiety reassurance seeking has diminished (from maybe 70% of her day being taken up by it to more like 5%), a new kind of behavior has cropped up that we, her parents, have never seen before. It goes like this: she is doing some very minor, everyday, benign activity like picking up a stuffed animal or putting on a seatbelt. She "sets a goal" for herself (her words) to do xyz in a certain way, such as pick up the stuffed animal by its fabric tag only, not touching any of the stuffed animal's fur, or putting her seatbelt on herself without touching her skin/body with her fingers while she's doing it. If she then "fails" this "goal," such as accidentally touching the fur or herself, then she starts crying, screaming, flailing, and begging us to "get this feeling out of my body." She will hit and scratch her arms and legs, because she says this "failure" leaves her limbs feeling like they are weak, fuzzy, wobbly, numb, or "wrapped in a numbing net." It takes quite awhile for her to calm down from these episodes, and we have tried a lot of things to do so: going for a car ride, me lying on top of her, taking a walk, etc. She has a lot of patterns that she makes walking on the floor (hopping and stepping in certain ways according to lines, scratches, or shapes on the floor), but none of those patterns seem to result in these same kinds of "failures" and subsequent distress. Is this OCD-- specifically Perfectionism OCD? The element of failure really stands out to her. I have been having a hard time even figuring out what is going. Any help would be so deeply appreciated-- this has been so rough on our family.