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So i bought this product last year. The total for all the purchases was 68 dollars. It was a combination of 10 dollar products, 6 of them. Well they forgot one product and wouldn’t send me it/ it took awhile for them to respond and i got annoyed by that. I also thought they sent me expired products but it turns out that wasnt the case. Anyways i emailed about this gave up on trying to find a resolution and asked my bank to reverse the charge. Then i ended up feeling guilty because i found out the products WERENT expired (my OCD was going off thinking they were tampered old, or expired, but after some sleuthing i found out that wasnt the case. They just missed an item. So then i felt too guilty to use any of it. I thought of giving it away at some point and repurchasing or purchasing some similar but different to make up for it. Writing it feels a bit illogical now but… im wondering what to do. Because reversing that bank charge on all of those items seems ridiculous/wrong for only one item but it happened already, a year ago. I think my magical ocd was telling me it was wrong to use and I would taint/ negatively impact anything i used it with because of what i did… or is it guilt because i really “stole” more than they “stole” from me?

My husband suffers from SEVERE ADHD and he claims that he “forgets” whenever I ask him to do something like clean up after himself or pick up his clothes off the floor. But it’s everyday now and we’ve been together for a year going on 2. We also have a 5 month old and I feel like I’m going crazy worrying about my mental health and taking care of the baby AND still having to come home and worry about him. At this point I’m done telling him anything as he sees anything I say as me “attacking” him rather than me just telling him why I’m upset and that this is now affecting my happiness in this relationship. I no longer feel close or want closeness. I’ve also mentioned this to him and he doesn’t take me seriously. “All this, only because I don’t pick up after myself.” I get stressed very easily over the smallest things. I don’t know if I’m at fault and need to seek help for getting mad over small things or if he’s just not mature enough to own up and be responsible for himself(he’s younger than me). Am I overreacting? I’m just a very clean person and can’t stand that he’s a “I’ll clean it later” type of person and forgets. I just don’t feel I’m getting the support of a mature spouse. I want to lean on him and feel like I can’t do that. Like I have to everything myself. Does anyone else feel like this? PLEASE HELP. I’m reaching my limit and feel like I need to break things off.

I wouldn't call myself an OCD conqueror, because do you ever truly conquer it? I think I've become more of having a PH.D. in OCD! Just like a PH.D student, I've gone through years of turmoil and successes, each granting me more and more understanding of what OCD looks like to me. The future is always unknown just like a student leaving school, but I'm going to try and take the tools with me when those scary moments happen again. Nothing is permanent, everything flows, and here's to whatever is coming in my future. Cheers to trying to live a happy life!

I look back at various past events in my life where I said or did things that I feel really guilty, disgusted, and ashamed about. I replay them in my head for hours. I feel anxious about crossing paths with people that I've hurt or upset in the past or who perceive me badly, to the point that I will avoid going out in public as much as possible. I go out for work, errands, appointments, and occasionally to eat (even though those all give me a lot of anxiety), but I avoid community events where people might recognize me and I tend to isolate myself. The only people I see regularly are my boyfriend, my parents, and my coworkers. I live in a small community and I'm worried about people confronting me publicly and proving what a bad person I must be.

so I feel like I’m finally having an academic comeback after years of failing & I’m currently looking at pinterest for that motivation. there are videos that are helpful tools for college students like websites that read chapter books and summarize/create notes & it seems pretty cool. but I somehow deny using those tools bc it feels like I’m cheating. my mind is like, “no, you will study the TRADITIONAL way (which idek what it rlly is)” I don’t know why my brain is doing this to me. I feel like these apps could be beneficial to my learning. what’s ironic is that I literally googled all my assignment answers for one class at the last minute to get some grades in. this is a retake class but because I was so behind on everything, I just looked up the answers. so that really does count as cheating. like bruh 😭 I did it to save myself from a bad class grade. I’m definitely going to study the rest of this semester. I have officially began taking notes and actually doing schoolwork. someone help me!!! these videos look like great resources but my mind is telling me otherwise. another thing is that I’m still lost on what to major in. I keep changing career choices and my head’s gonna explode. there are so many things I wanna say but I don’t want the post to be long. I just want to get good grades and understand the material!!! someone help me >n<

I had to cancel my therapy because it was no longer available with my insurance. And I just kind of feel hopeless with OCD. Even when I was doing therapy, I think my OCD started getting too complicated for my therapist and she didn’t even know what to do. My fears are so complex it’s crazy. So my big fear is my OCD being bad and being super depressed again like I was a few months ago in high school. I attended a public highschool for a semester and started the worst flare up I’ve ever had. I was harshly bullied for no reason whatsoever, and not accepted by anyone. I am an athletic kid who usually keeps to himself so I didn’t understand why people targeted me, especially when I wanted nothing to do with them. From August to now ( March) I CANNOT grasp hold of my OCD. I am very hard on myself about it. Going into dangers anytime I see one so I can expose myself. But constantly obsessing about if I’m doing enough for my OCD. And comparing myself to how I use to be, before the flare ups. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep I’m obsessing about my OCD and if it’s bad and comparing. Another HUGE fear of mine is being treated differently because I have OCD. So being bullied for so long I always assumed it was because I was shy and didn’t want to stand up for myself - due to my OCD- so I blamed myself for everything that continued to happen, . from people bullying me in the past . The people at that highschool were downright crazy. Even the teachers and coaches had major issues and I’m so glad to be out of there, but I still obsess the same everyday and hold so much resentment for that school and when I try to let it go, I just feel more passive pain and obsess even more about it weather my ocd is okay or not. I feel mentally sick. Please someone give me some advice for my fears, because I feel like I’m doing everything in my power to expose myself to everything but nothings working.

I got a therapist appointment in about a week and I'm scared I will get misunderstood, or I feel like Im not telling enough details, I'm scared that I have something else. This week alone was so draining

The repeating thoughts about insecurities, negative self talk, and not being good though are just more of OCD. I feel so done.

hi! i often fear im going to lose my job because i made a “mistake” (not really) that my manager caught and is waiting to tell me about or i fear im going to be kicked off the roster of a team im on for small mistakes that everyone makes. this often compels me to ask those people if i did good or not and gauge their reactions to see if theyre going to remove me and i fall into a cycle of asking and asking. how do you guys deal with these feelings / compulsions? when im flaring i often just spend as much time around these people as possible to gather “evidence” of their opinion on me, but then i get nervous that they hate me for being clingy. i also abandon other duties / tasks so i can spend time with these people to make sure they like me. what do you guys do? anyone else experience the sentiment?

OCD doesn't take a break just because you have work to do. What are some ways that OCD has popped up for you at your work?

In ERP, but have made no progress. I’m also on medication for ocd. I actually feel like I’ve resorted back to when I was at my worst. Is this normal? I feel ERP helps everyone and not me. It actually makes me more anxious and want to stop, esp because my ocd is on something physical (imperfections/hair color) I’m not giving up & going to continue through this journey regardless. I long for mental stability 😭

Every morning I wake up im always fixating on something and texting chat gpt, whether thats my relationship or my sexuality. I try so hard to resist it but I just can’t handle the uncertainty or the idea of hurting him or leading him on. We aren’t even official because in the past my rocd caused an issue between us where it led to him breaking up with me so now I have a fear of his intentions being ingenuine, especially because friends and family have called him a love bomber, saying he used me for attention, and narcissistic. This takes over me because I feel like I will never be able to be happy with him or trust myself or the relationship because of what other people say. I am very content on my own and single, this is the first relationship where i have experienced debilitating anxiety and doubt about the legitimacy of both of our feelings to the point where I cannot function. I’m trying so hard to not feed into it and not give it energy but I just hate the idea of leading him on or being inauthentic to what I truly want. My current therapist who I only see a couple times a month doesn’t think I have ocd, which makes me spiral and think I should end it with him, especially because I always hear things like “The right relationship will add to your life” and I feel the opposite is happening not directly because of him but because my brain takes over and paralyzes me with indecision about if i should be with him or not. I know that his intentions are genuine, but I hate that everyone is so cynical and assumes they’re not just because my rocd and his emotional baggage created a messy situation. From the moment i met him I convinced myself it was too good to be true and my therapist even said I was self-sabatoging. But i hate not knowing if it is rocd and my insurance doesn’t cover NOCD. He is so patient with me and supportive but I keep hearing things like “the honeymoon stage is supposed to last 3 months” and “it shouldn’t be this hard with the right person” “you’re not good for each other” and my friends tell me i didnt do anything wrong etc bc he did at first say my ocd didnt affect him when in reality that led to him ending it initially. But he has been more upfront with his emotions but then my mom and people will say “more to come” “there’s so much more out there” and its just so isolating not having that support and wondering if im too young to settle and if I’m just an idiot convincing myself I have rocd when really i just don’t want to be with him/it is a toxic relationship. When in reality the only reason it is toxic is because i am so sporadic about whether or not I want him in my life because of my distrust in myself and my decisions. I love him but I know love isn’t always enough and I get existential fixating on what’s “meant to be” and what’s “supposed to happen” its like this debilitating urge to control everything and make everything go perfectly how it is supposed to go. Please help i just want to make the right decision and stop paralyzing myself with doubt

I’ve had this issue for a veryyyyy long time, but I never really put it in the same world as ocd. I flex my stomach, and can’t stop. To explain that a bit better, I feel like my skin is in the wrong position and I squeeze my stomach tight to try and “ fix it”. It never gets fixed really and I keep flexing my stomach until I A, fall asleep or B, forget about it. I keep think loosing weight is the answer, because where I feel uncomfortable has a little more fat than other places in my body. I want this to stop because it’s painful and really exhausting but when I try to leave the feeling alone I end up squeezing harder. Does this sound like an ocd thing? Please have an overweight raccoon for your troubles today.

I’ve come to a point in my life where I can be very happy. I have a safe environment, a loving community. Yknow I’ve really healed through or moved on from a traumatic past and as I say to my boyfriend from time to time like a broken record: I feel like nowadays the only thing bringing me stress or at times misery is myself. I am a fairly joyful person, when I’m comfortable I’m very goofy and like to sing dance and have fun. I find that I relate to so many amazing people I meet that are the nicest, most fun, elevating individuals, who also struggle with the hardest sometime debilitating things. It truly sucks because when I find those moments of peace I see the power of what an ocd mind could be as a person. We are people who may over analyze, but I myself also always find the good in people. And aye if in a moment I don’t think anything is doomly wrong and if I don’t try to understand it I may parish 😅 then that moment feels like the best one in the world. But on the other side of that when I’m not in a quiet mind moment and I’m left with myself to take control of what life in front of me looks like in or around me. I almost have been crumbling. Like I said at the beginning of this story here, the life around me is not so situationally stressful. And it’s also fairly simple. My boyfriend and I live together in a small cozy trailer with our two cats, he works full time very hard and I work part time where I spend as much time as I can working and then have a few days around the house. We’re saving for a home and are quite content with our lifestyle at the moment with work and being “lazy”, or resting and going out for fun now an then on our time off together. Most times though I do have day or two off during the week by myself, which usually goes one of only two ways. Like I said before I do like to work hard, especially now that I have a part time job that’s fairly easier than others I’ve had in the past. So I work 6-7 hours then drive home, air up my tires and wash my car sometimes because I like doing something after work while I still have energy.Or I go to the store. Come home make food, prolly nap and not really worry about too much because I’ve worked all day. But on my days off. I find myself waking up with a lot of anxiety. I usually fight it off by going back to sleep. But my OCD is heavily circled around shame. Even though I only sleep in till 10-11, 12-1 at the latest. I find myself thinking about how wrong (in nice terms) it is to do that. And the funny thing is the older I get (I’m a 21F). I’m not as pressured by this thought, even though it’s still stressful it literally just feels like a thought I can’t escape from. To put things in simple terms. I truly psycho analyze my actions breath by breath and my intrusive thoughts are critiquing those actions bit by bit. I’ve recently have started medication and it was a tremendous difference in the beginning and it helped me cope with the acceptance and letting go (f it or just care less) of those thoughts. But let’s say I forget to take it, or I wake up one morning by myself all day and I’m super tired or unmotivated. That day will feel truly debilitated. And now I’m definitely to the point where I’m battling that, but also have a thin vale behind that where I now know what is going on. And the thoughts are shameful for “not trying to get better or be better” Because I do Like I write a lot, and it truly is one of the best coping mechanisms for working through intrusive or obsessive compulsions. I could also write all day, and if I don’t listen to that ease of the anxiety from writing. And try to keep going the writing will turn into a compulsion itself I feel like I should not stop or critique it as well. But luckily I’ll hopefully find my place in explaining the cycle of what I do when my brain is very loud about things. The next time it’s too loud:)

This morning I was thinking (and talking) to myself about the various issues I have and I noticed how much I mull over these same issues. Even talking to myself, I replay the same problem and loop my responses and ideas about the issue over and over again, wondering if I'm doing the right thing. It reminds me of how we look in the fridge for a snack and, finding nothing, we walk off and come back to look again as if food is magically going to appear 😂 Except I know I can always go to the store. With rumination, I'm trying to make sense of something that is missing key points. I try to plan for every possiblity, but in the end, I still have no idea what will happen. I realized is that my issues have something in common: they are over situations that are BEYOND MY CONTROL. Rather than accepting, I attempt to affect them in what little ways I can, pretty much unsuccessfully and not worth all the effort. Wouldn't it be nice to redirect all that energy into something more productive?

I am really worried because I felt confident about my appearance today, then I found myself thrown into imagining if I did certain things like flipping my hair or just looking good around a certain coworker and they'd find it attractive. I don't like that coworker at all and I'm in a happy relationship with my boyfriend, this made me feel awful and I starting feeling disloyal again. I don't know if it's an old habit, a desire for external validation, or what. I can't tell if this was a thought pattern connected to my last post or not. All I know is that I'm really stuck right now. I feel like every time I pick myself back up, I fall right back down again, like there's ice in the road. I can't help but feel like everything I touch or everything I think about crumbles. I feel like my own mind is against me and I don't know who to trust anymore. These small OCD spirals are really messing with my work life, s*x life, everything really, and it's getting to me. I feel with every spiral that I'm getting sucked into a depression again and I don't know what's next. It doesn't matter how small the "bad" thing that "i did" was, but I feel that every little thing is building up to a point and something is going to crash down. I need help. What do I do? Right when everything around me seems to be going up, I feel like I'm being dragged down and I can't do this anymore. Please help me.

Hi everyone. I haven't posted on here in quite in some time. I'm hesitant to post but I'm battling some things that are compounding onto each other. I've had ocd since 15 I'm 30 now..I feel it's still there but much better than years ago. Currently though I'm really struggling with depression and trauma too. Atleast I believe it's trauma and my psychiatrist saw some indicators. Long story short I was in a relationship with a narcissist and I'm still recovering. I feel my nervous system is still kinda on fight or flight. I've learned that our bodies very much stores trauma. Alongside this I'm pretty critical of my appearance and my self esteem is not so great. I've been putting myself out there more and socializing but I can't shake this feeling of being stuck in an endless loop. It's hard to tell what to tackle. It's difficult for me..I don't know if ocd treatment is for me or more so trauma based therapy. I think there is some overlap..any advice or feedback would be appreciated. A side note I've done ERP in the past and I've been to treatment centers such as mclean. I feel like I need a community because I feel pretty alone but I'm having trouble putting one foot in front of the other.

I am a man from the Netherlands and I am in my early 40s. When I was 36 years old I became diagnosed with ADHD. At that period of my life I already have had treatment for borderline personality disorder. I might have an impulsive nature due to my ADHD, though unlike many people with BPD I don't act impulsively but I am hindered in my life by indecision and perfectionism. It wouldn't surprise me if I turn out to have OCD. Thanks to a blog from NOCD in which transgender OCD was described it became more clear to me my doubts and anxiety of possibly being a transgender + a coward because of remaining in denial for that, is more likely the cause of OCD. I noticed as well I made progress during the years, because of course it didn't take my doubts away, however I was able to believe dealing with uncertainty probably contributes more to my well-being than finding the answer of my doubts. This specific type of OCD keeps coming back, because it is a fact that I as a homosexual man am very insecure about my masculinity. I had experienced an unsafe childhood with emotional neglect from a mother with autism and also emotional abuse from a father with definitely traits of a narcissistic personality disorder. As an only child who also turns out to have ADHD I felt chronically lonely and grew up with the belief I was a complete failure: not only my actions were wrong, but also my thoughts and emotions. At school I was an outcast. I felt unsafe everywhere. I often escaped into daydreaming and fantasies, because for me it was the only way to bare the reality. As a child I was introvert, anxious and feminine. That's why I developed a feminine alter ego of myself in which I could escape in my fantasies. However I didn't develop an identity align with my biological sexe. When I hit puberty I became worried about it. I was convinced I eventually have to come out of the closet as a transvestite or transgender. I really didn't want that; I wanted to have a stable self-identity align with my biological sexe instead of regularly pretending to be a woman, because I am not a woman. However as you all know very well the suffering is about not having control over yourself. When I was 17 I decided to look for a psychologist, because I definitely didn't want to waste precious years of my life. I assumed a psychologist can help me, because I definitely am not the only homosexual man struggling with his masculinity and sexual orientation. I felt so much ashamed of myself I repeatedly held myself back explaining my problems, though I forced myself to speak up my mind; after all he can't help me if he doesn't know what it's all about. I was very disappointed he replied with "What are you complaining about? Count yourself lucky you live in the Netherlands where you can be yourself." He was bringing up my perfectionism: in my perception he did so because he refused to admit he couldn't help me, so by bringing up something else he still was able to profit about my suffering. Looking back to it now I can understand why he responded like that. Still I think it's disrespectful, because I feel treated in such a way like a disobedient dog that has to learn to obey. I have had a lot of therapists and they regularly responded similarly. What I find striking is that my perfectionism and worrying is one of the first things they notice, but it doesn't occur to them that I may have OCD. I have now signed up for another treatment and at the intake I indicated that I suspect OCD in myself and am open to following exposure therapy, but so far they just don't seem to take it seriously. Over the years, my fears have become less strong. By that I mean that it no longer leads to panic attacks and street fear. The more confident I feel, the more comfortable I feel with my masculinity. But when I feel less good about myself, I get doubts again and especially shame and guilt. It makes me hesitate going to the gym (in the past the gym was too much confrontational) and I cannot at myself in the mirror. I am quite sure my so-called borderline personality disorder at least partly refers to complex PTSD. Actually I don't care anymore which name is assigned to my problems. I just want to be helped. I understand bringing up fears like "Am I transgender or not?" doesn't help me. However it doesn't help me either if they refuse to respond to me. Then I feel like it's some kind of test to observe if I am able to figure it out on my own, and if not then I cannot get better.

Hi! I was given exposure HW that I chose to do by my therapist but lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by it and thinking that maybe I need to start with an easier exposure. However I can only see my therapist every other week due to her schedule and I’m really having a hard time feeling like I’m not following the “rules” of therapy. I feel like she’s not going to help me if I don’t do the exposures and that I’m gonna be all alone again and have no where to turn. So, part of me was gonna just force myself to do the exposure to avoid feeling bad. I don’t want to let OCD run the show also by not doing the exposure…but also feeling like doing the exposure is not quite right either. Please if anyone can relate I could really use some help.

I am struggling to feel like I deserve any of the confidence I used to have. I’ve done a lot of pretty cool stuff in my life, and I used to think it was impressive. I was so proud, and I would light up when others gave me compliments. Now, it feels like all a lie, and I can’t stop thinking everyone would hate me if they knew the terrible things I’ve thought or said or done. I make art, for example, and I’ve had a lot of success with it. But now, I feel like others would troll me or destroy my work, and then tell everyone that anything I touch is trash. Basically, I fear being bullied for the mistakes of my past — or even just for my thoughts. My therapist keeps telling me I’m completely normal and I’m the only one beating myself up, but my OCD says, “No, she’s wrong — you should stop pursuing your dreams and push away anyone who likes you, because they’ll all hate you eventually.” I know it’s ridiculous, but it feels so real. Anyone have advice for rebuilding confidence in the face of OCD?