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working to conquer OCD
I was doing so good the last few months. I was beginning to be social again, hang out with friends, watch tv and listen to music, and suddenly it feels like I’m back in square one. I watched a triggering TikTok, I turned 29 recently, I got drunk, and feel like I’m going through a flare. I’ve been here before, but it’s so scary when you’re in the thick of it. I don’t want to be bisexual or a lesbian. There’s nothing wrong with it, I have queer friends and they’re amazing. It’s just not what I want. OCD makes me feel like I’m in denial or that I’m lying to myself. I will get through this. It’s just so hard, the doom feeling of what if I have to rely on my family and never find a career or get married because of this.
i've always loved kids and they bring me so much joy and light and laughter into my life, i was an infant teacher at a daycare for years before going to college. i've always wanted a family , a husband, kids, a cat (already have my baby boy kitty witty), a nice dog or two in a nice house with a job i love or to stay at home with the kids blah blah blah . now that i've been struggling with HOCD i'm terrified. i'm scared that if i have children one day i'm gonna go into psychosis and act on intrusive thoughts which i would never ever ever ever do but it's a scary feeling . it has made my whole view on my future change so drastically. im scared of having kids now even tho it was my dream for so long. when i was a kid if anybody asked what i wanted to be when i grew up i would say "a mommy" . it's just kind of annoying. anyone else struggling with this ?
Today I have been having an okay day. Nothing too bad has happened till I started to get into a deep thought. I started to think about when I was younger. Everything was fine till I started to think about something that happened when I was little( I was about 10). I did something really bad and I haven’t thought about it for awhile. During this moment In my life I did something really disgusting. Now I feel disgusted and uncomfortable, but idk why I did it. It definitely has triggered my OCD. Now I’m scared. I hope I was just a kid who didn’t understand what they were doing. My anxiety is so bad right now.
i've seen there are actual posts on here that straight-up talk about actual actions associated with "p", while i absolutely need help with this, i cannot and will not tolerate seeing such posts and nor should anyone else. this is disgusting.
So I’ve been having these weird guilt issues and I feel like I’m lying to myself. I had this weird thing where I thought I had feelings for children even though this is 100% not what I want and it goes against my moral code. But I keep trying to make sure that I feel 100% sure that this is the truth. It is just more distressing and causing more issues. Can anyone help please or have some advice? Thank you:)
Can’t even look for jobs or consider any type of job that has anything to do with being around kids, my brain just tells me I want to work there for a bad reason, the thoughts feel so real, it tells me that I am a P. I just want to be normal. I can’t even look at myself, I just feel like there’s something off about me, and that I’m a bad person.
I was doing fine until I went out in public and now I’m spiraling and feeling sick. It makes me feel like I’m a sicko and like I want it and it gives me so much anxiety. I feel like I know that my core beliefs are I want to be a good person, I would never do that but OCD makes me question if I’m faking it and then I just feel sick all over again. This is seriously so exhausting. Any words would help. I just want to get to where actual children don’t trigger me anymore.
Hello I’m 16 I have always had girlfriends and liked girls about 5 months ago I was on a call with friends and they said I was gay and made me take a gay test I got gay and I was very worried and had lots of anxiety I had intrusive thoughts and images at first I have lost full attraction to girls fast foward to now not that much anxiety or intrusive thoughts my mind says oh that guy is hot and I get like nerves idk if that’s anxiety and I always stare at guys I don’t know if that means I’m bi or gay or if it’s ocd I was never like this before though never questioned my sexually never someone please explain
My adult son is suffering so much. He is basically non-functioning. He can’t get a job, focus on his college classes, or do much around the house because of his intrusive thoughts. He doesn’t want to hang out with his friends because his intrusive thoughts make him think he wants to be with them sexually. He refuses to take medicine or go to therapy because he is afraid that it will somehow prove that he doesn’t have OCD. He relies on me 100% to help with his OCD. It’s not working. He suffered for four years not knowing what it was, then finally broke down and told me about it about nine months ago. He stopped doing all drugs (he was self medicating). He’s an adult and can refuse treatment, but any advice about how I can encourage him to at least try would be greatly appreciated. Note: he did try Zoloft for a month and said it made his anxiety better which made him worry even more. Thanks.
18+ I remember a few years ago I was still getting dressed and my gf opened the door to her younger brother without noticing I was still changing and he’s like a little over 3 years younger than me. he must’ve been 14-15 at the time. But I had my bra on I was just putting on my shirt and I can’t remember why but I didn’t say anything even though I noticed. I’m scared I traumatized him. It took my girlfriend like 10 seconds to realize I was still getting dressed. I was kind of off to the side but it looked like he saw me so yeah.
My entire life anytime I saw something on the news or heard about someone hurting a child sexually or beating/killing them, I would get so angry and sick over it. I still do but ever since developing ocd, my ocd tells me i’m just like those people and really tries to make me believe it and question myself. This theme also latches onto my own family and my children. It’s the hardest and worst theme i’ve had. It makes me not want to live and is so unbearable😩😢
After that triggering dream where the worst thing could have happened, I don't feel legimitated anymore to feel genuinely distressed by triggers, to call compulsions as such. It all feels disingenuous. They don't feel valid anymore. Like crocodile tears. Because the one thing I didn't want to happen probably happened, that undoes everything else. I feel like a hypocrite, to feel distress and worry about those things, being anxious of that particular fear because in that dream it happened. I felt arousal and probably genuine attraction, I'm afraid that I could have agreed with it. Maybe it isn't true, maybe it didn't happen, maybe I'm misinterpreting, but then why I was left with that impression? All because of a damn dream, because ocd, all my triggers intrude even in my sleep, because I can't even be safe in my dreams. This is the worst mental illness.
Am I the only one who gets truly terrible and graphic intrusive images? They're too much.
Last night my friend and I did edibles for the first time. We accidentally did too much and we both became incredibly anxious. For me it made my ocd bad I started constantly checking to see if I was aroused and I got paranoid that I was and then kept checking and it really just triggered my ocd. I was wondering if anyone else has gone through similar things? I got really bad sexual and violent intrusive thoughts.
One thing that I’m struggling to bear with, is how isolating this feels… I spent all evening yesterday ruminating over intense groinal responses in response to intrusive thoughts. And then I had a dream where I experienced sexual arousal due to being in bed naked with someone… Not sure who, and I didn’t touch the person in the dream… But now my ocd is putting the two together and I’m triggered to the next level right now… I’m trying so hard to dismiss this as a stupid dream but I’m finding it increasingly difficult. I’m so lost, I don’t know what to do…
i've had a terrible dream this morning about my fears getting pretty much confirmed. I've avoided to address this the whole day doing a rehearsal, going at the bar with friends and playing games till 2 AM. I don't know how to move on from that dream. Something horrible happened. I felt genuine arousal and now everything seems meaningless. That dream basically confirmed my fears and invalidated all the things I reassured myself about false attraction and staring ocd. I don't know how to proceed after that dream. My hopes of being a good person got crushed. All is meaningless now. I don't even feel that much distress about it. Probably because I shut it down and didn't fully address the dream, reality hasn't kicked in yet I feel defeated. I feel like a **** and my identity is in shambles. Even at school I felt defeated and was wondering what's the point. "What's the point now of even avoiding sophomore and junior girls""who cares feel attraction like your friends do" and I felt like I stopped caring about my moral code and when I realised that I didn't like it. It all feels meaningless. The one thing I didn't want to feel I felt and now l'm empty. I don't even feel distress no more.
Lately my ocd is latching onto my children. In my opinion, for me, this is the most painful and most debilitating theme of ocd. My daughter asked me to help her wash and rinse the shampoo from her hair while she was in the shower because she has thick hair and sometimes she has trouble shampooing and rinsing it all out. A normal, common task for me. At some point I caught a glimpse of her private area and my ocd immediately tried to make me believe I looked intentionally. I know I didn’t and I know I do not think of her or any child in that way but now my ocd has me questioning myself. I was just doing what I always do so I don’t remember at what point I saw it. Was I reaching for and looking down for the shampoo when I saw it or was I reaching up to her hair and saw it as I looked up? Did I look due to just normal human tendency to look where we know we’re not supposed to and if that’s the case does that make me horrible? I’m driving myself insane trying to prove I do NOT feel or think that way about her. I don’t want to live if this is how my brain works. Ocd is evil and this is the hardest kind of intrusive thought to get past. 😩
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