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When I'm around that person (sister), I constantly have images of the sexy type and a feeling that I like it.

I’m going to be very vulnerable in the post which is hard because I’m very ashamed of myself. I started a retail job last year in July when I was 18. I had worked as a server for like 3 months prior when I was 17. These two jobs were the first jobs I’ve ever had. My boyfriend and I had also just switched to long distance after about a year of knowing each other and 6 months of dating. Moving here is when my Rocd really started. I worked with people who I found attractive and it really freaked me out having to be near these people everyday and having to interact with them. I had never been in a position like that before ever and this is also my first real relationship. I was in one for like 6 months prior but that wasn’t as serious. I’ve always been insecure and I’ve always cared what others thought of me. I was also so used to being ugly and I was finally pretty. I started caring what cute people thought of me and I’d change the way I walked and my mannerisms to appear more attractive I guess. Once I started my retail job, a specific coworker would go out of his way everyday to interact with me. I found him attractive so I found it really difficult to interact with him and I didn’t really like it. I was mean but in a playful way and that’s how most of our interactions went. Somewhere along the way I became obsessed with the fact that I might’ve cheated or maybe I flirted or maybe I did something wrong and crossed a boundary. I went out of the way to interact with this coworker once by checking out as his register. I also cared about what he thought in regard to my appearance. I never complimented him, exchanged socials, or did anything to make myself seem single, at least that’s what I thought. I never talked about my boyfriend to him either though. It wasn’t because I wanted to appear single, i just didn’t know how to bring it up in a way that wasn’t weird. I wasn’t sure if he would flirt with me or if he was just being playful. He never said anything blatantly flirty. This made me spiral so bad that I ended up shaving my head and eyebrows to make myself ugly, then I went to the hospital. After I came back, he stoped talking to me. I did go out of my way once to talk about my boyfriend and that was like our last interaction. He didn’t even know that I had one. I did tell my boyfriend about this coworker and our interactions though. I told my boyfriend I might’ve had a crush. I’m not sure why I did that but my confessing was out of control. Then a new coworker came and I also found him cool and attractive. I’d basically be myself x10 and I’d try to be more noticeable. I wanted him to think I was cool and attractive and I wanted to be noticed which I know was wrong. I’d make my jokes louder, try to dress a little cooler, I’d draw at my register but I’d try to make it noticeable or maybe I just hoped he’d notice idk. Once I had realized I was attention seeking I completely tried to stop, to the point where I was overly aware of every single thing I did. I honestly struggled working or interacting with any guy at my work. I feel like I just convinced myself these people were attractive sometimes and I’d always become super aware of my mannerisms and I’d try to do everything in a more attractive way. My pocd also started to get really bad. It was too much to handle so I decided to apply for a job where mainly, if not only, women worked. My mental health was literally in the gutter. I’d go to the bathroom multiple times during my shifts, I’d always check my Reddit posts, I’d feel sick for days and I wouldn’t eat. Once I started my new job I noticed a big change in my mental health. I’m so much better now though I have days where I still feel sick or still feel like a horrible girlfriend/person. The problem is, I only work like 10hrs a week and I need to save up for so many things. I literally can’t afford anything right now. I’ve been applying for second jobs but I haven’t heard anything back from any place I’ve applied to over the course of 2 months and I’ve applied to so many. My old job offered me a full time position and I was only working part time when I worked there. I’d get better pay, more money, and better benefits. My boyfriend and I have also been discussing us moving in together and if I went back to my old job, we might actually be able to afford it. I just know that my mental health will be at a horrible risk though. I can’t imagine working in an environment with mostly men again, men my age. I’m scared I’ll start attention seeking and stuff again or I’ll find people attractive again. I don’t want to feel sick every day again. I’m just not sure what to do. I still attention seek whenever walking by an attractive person, like I’ll try to seem more attractive. I don’t know how to stop. I genuinely don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to like experiment or date other people. I want to be loyal and marry my boyfriend. We have so much in common and he’s such a good man.

In the past 2-3 years ive been having extremely distressing thoughts that for a year(towards the beginning of when it started) made me have extreme panic attacks every day and I was extremely miserable 24/7. The thoughts relate to pure ocd and pocd. It happened literally out of no where one day and it hasnt stopped since(it has slowly tapered down or i just got used to it to an extent) I have a thought and i begin to feel overwhelmingly anxious and horrible in general. I begin to question myself as a person. Not sure if im something that I dont ever want to be in a trillion years but never able to truly answer myself. I spend every day an hour and a half minimum looking up ocd symptoms to alleviate the mental anguish and questioning im going through sometimes it can be as long as 4 hours. Im not sure if this is just extreme anxiety but it hasn't stopped for years. Strange thing though is sometimes the severity of my struggle gets extremely bad ranging from a day to a year at a time and then other times its less severe to where I dont feel like its taking over my life unless my trigger (if I really do have ocd) is reminded to me but no matter how severe it gets Its always lingering over the back of my shoulder and can show up at any time. One thing I can say is ive dealt with sever anxiety since I was thirteen to where I would have panic attacks every day (18 now, symptoms for ocd started at around 15) and the level of anxiety I have now related to what im experiencing now is on an unbelievably higher level than what I used to have. Is it possible I could have ocd? If it is possible, does it sound like mine is severe? Or on a lower more treatable level. Please help I dont want to live like this anymore

I’m. Lowkey freaking out a bit at the moment. So I’ve had kind of a thing for hyperfemininity most of my life (really just on men but that’s beside the point). A lot of what I find attractive is similar to Sabrina carpenter’s aesthetic. Like frilly lingerie for example. There was this clip where she was wearing like a babydoll or whatever they’re called and everyone said she looked like a toddler. I thought it was ok bc I’m only attracted to adults, and in this case it’s only concerning my attraction to men, but I was listening to a podcast today about Sabrina Carpenter (bc while I do think she’s very pretty I disagree with a lot of what she does) and the person speaking said she presented as a “sexy baby” and that it was pedophilic. Now I’m pretty frightened because I can’t just go “that’s false attraction” and be done with it. I AM attracted to hyperfemininity and now I feel like a predator for it. I’m scared

can someone with pocd, socd, zocd, intentionally create images in their head and add details, even try self pleasure as a test, conscious or unconscious? Chat gpt says he can't, that it's a fantasy, while before he said he could?! I'm honestly in a panic!

First post, kinda scary. I’ve been trying to figure out for the longest time if this is an ocd thing or something else. For context, I used to have a really big problem with watching porn, starting for about 11-12 yrs old and only stopping a few months ago (I’m 24 now). I constantly have sexual thoughts about nearly every person I see. My family, friends, strangers, and more. It feels completely out of my control and it eats me alive. I have no one to talk to about these thoughts but I feel like if I don’t tell someone I am condoning and accepting these things as good. So I tell my wife. And it breaks her heart every single time. I want to say 95% of the time, I don’t want those thoughts but I can’t say with certainty that there aren’t times I do want to think about porn. Or maybe I don’t. Idk. It’s so exhausting. I’d like some help determining if this is a result of OCD or something else (like porn addiction symptoms or something). Thank you.

I feel shaken up by staring and noticing private areas. One of the recent events where this happened involved my sibling, and noticing that area and underwear freaks me out a lot. I chalked it up to a peripheral vision thing and that I was just my mind being paranoid but it all feels incredibly unbearable. (I said my mind noticed underwear but idk if that's the brain overdramatizing it, it seems possible but this is me ruminating about what my peripherals saw for seconds at most)

I’m 19 I hadn’t had pocd or false memory ocd during this time when I watched porn btw so I trusted my memory back then. I switched back to those themes and now my ocd is telling me I watched immoral porn. I remember being grossed out by titles that had ‘teen’ in it, even wrote down in notes how I’d only watch porn between adults and get off to that. I looked back at my Reddit history/ porn history when I was watching it during that time and it says I clicked on the titles with teen twice, the first time I remember being disgusted and switching to a different subreddit, and the second time covering the screen, now my head is trying to tell me I purposely clicked on those. But I also remember being happy around that time that I don’t associate with gross porn, and that I scrolled past it. Should I confess? I’m so confused, I heard Reddit doesn’t allow that sort of stuff, plus I remember talking to people about how gross that stuff is. Plus I would’ve felt guilty if I actually watched it because I sometimes accidentally click on things with my crappy iPad. Plus I know I’m only attracted to adults because all my crushes are older men and old women, I genuinely can’t bring myself to find anyone under 18 attractive.

So I struggle with my motives. Like I’ll have an intrusive thought that says “what if you did that because you wanted to attract this person?” And then I ruminate and always come to the conclusion that I did it for that bad reason. The thing is when I did that action I didn’t even think anything of it. But now I’m like how could I do that? Maybe it’s my mind twisting things but I genuinely believe I’m a p. I had another panic attack today because of this.

Today my sister sent me a recording of her singing, and in some parts her face "cut me out" somehow because it looks like a sex act. And I went back to watch it a couple of times, because my brain imagines the scene with it and I get a certain feeling and a lot of anger at her for sending me that, even though I know she doesn't know...

It is so hard to think about anything else apart from the thoughts feels like I’m so disconnected from life

I've never shared anything on here before but I read a lot and I will say I am thankful for this community. I have had OCD my whole life. When I was a child I remember having thoughts in my head that made me uncomfortable, although I couldn't remember what they all were. I would neutralize them with a word. I would have nightly confessions to my mom. I do remember a very specific intrusive thought about God that made me panic and I remember exactly where I was. I would wash my hands until they bled to "prevent" something bad from happening. I developed sexual Instrusive thoughts of my brother being romantically interested in me and it scared me so much, I always fought with him for the imagined fear that played in my mind. I have a bit of harm OCD and my biggest nemesis is POCD. I am in ERP therapy but my mind WILL not let me do what I need to work on because I'm living in constant fear or what if this isn't just OCD. I cut out my compulsive prayer after a thought, but my big one is mental checking. I have to gauge the perfect reaction to a thought to figure out I don't feel any way about it. My mind puts myself or children in situations to check how I feel and it's constant. I can't even call that intrusive anymore, it's an automatic compulsion. One "compulsion" I find interesting and wanted some insights on is when I see an adult on tv talking, I imagine them as a child. Not even sexually. Just how they might have acted as a child that led them to their characters personality. I also have trained my mind to think sexual relationships with adults are "dangerous" because they used to be kids. My mind will not stop ruminating, will not stop trying to show me proof of my obsession. I have dreamed of finding life since I was 9, I identify as a straight female, always interested in adult men. I've struggled with this theme since my early 20s and it started out so little, with just random words and images that I dismissed away with my compulsions but now it has spread and over taken my mind with excessive doubt.

There is one Athlete who is a month younger than me and he looks extremely young. Earlier this year I used to like him and his personality a lot but ever since I developed pocd, I keep getting scared over it. Add to that I just searched up on Twitter if finding him attractive is pedophilia or not and there was a tweet which was telling about 19 year old girls lusting over him when he was 15 years ago. I looked at his 15 year old pic thoroughly as a compulsion and he looked young in that but also beautiful/cute like any other teenage boy with pretty genes. I freaked out over thinking that he was beautiful and felt afraid that 'Was it sexual?' Then for a moment I tried to see in replies if anyone says that it is normal for a 19 year old to think a fifteen year old boy is beautiful and not pedophilia. Then I realized that why I was trying to justify a wrong for myself and I'm just so disturbed bcz why was I trying to justify it?

I’m just realizing I have OCD. I have been diagnosed with adhd, autism and CPTSD but OCD never occurred to me until recently. My OCD manifests internally (pure O) then I seek reassurance for whatever topic I’m fixating on so of course I chalked it up to anxiety but it’s so much more than that. And I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. Now it’s really messing with my life. Lately, it’s been ROCD that’s been ruining me. I had a couple deep wounds created by my husband a few years ago and I’m constantly fixating on if he’s lying, really loves me, and or he wants to leave me. I’m constantly asking for reassurance and I think he’s getting tired of it. He’s an otherwise great partner but the OCD has really kicked in after I found out he was hiding a porn addiction, he hid it twice and it really ruined my self esteem and trust in him. Now I get triggered by every pretty girl I see, every social media post about relationships, I fixate on how unattractive he might find me or what’s wrong with me. I’m also aging in my thirties so I obsess over if he is getting less attracted as I age . I feel pathetic. Of course he always tells me I’m beautiful and he loves me but I’m always suspicious that he’s not being honest. I’ve always had OCD but this is the worst I’ve been with my relationship. I’m melting down and doubting us often and especially at night. It’s been a few years now and I feel like it’s gotten so hard. When I was younger it was health OCD, then it was existential, and I definitely fixate on if I’m “good” morally too. I’ll confess and overshare to people all my mistakes. And on top of the ROCD, I have pure OCD and get the worst images and intrusive thoughts at work/ random places and it’s horrible because I work with vulnerable people. My biggest nightmare and fear is pedophilia or assault, and I care deeply about my kids and vulnerable people so it’s like my mind hates me and these horrible images and thoughts fly at me l. I would never ever harm my kids or vulnerable people so this is especially disturbing and mortifying. I learned that OCD is ego dystonic and that’s helped but the images still make me feel awful. I also have been the scapegoat and black sheep in my narcissistic abusive family so I will my OCD will fixate on if I AM the narcissist! It’s exhausting. It got worse after I encountered my abuser in my family earlier this year and he brought up a lot of trauma. He is actually a narcissist but my brain will try to convince me that I am, and I will give in to the compulsion then do quizzes and tests and of course they tell me I’m not a narcissist, but then my OCD will make me think I am. I’m very empathetic and terrified of hurting people yet my brain tries to convince me I’m horrible, then the reassurance seeking and anxiety that manifests from my OCD and trauma makes me feel so self absorbed and sick of myself, convincing me I’m narcissistic for thinking of myself so much. I’m so exhausted by this. My brain tortures me. The overthinking is hard to combat. I really try hard to accept these thoughts as just thoughts but there’s always that voice creeping in that maybe the intrusive thoughts are right. Maybe I’m terrible and unlovable. I hate it.

morning... as soon as I open my eyes, for some reason, various sex pictures start, and I feel that I like it, I feel that I want to imagine it, and that I simply don't have any repulsion anymore... can anyone help? I don't know at all why and for how long...it seems so alive, detailed, and some feelings always start, the groin, the question of whether I could touch myself on it...I don't know

(TRIGGER WARNING) To go more in depth with my question, can porn misconstrue or contort your grown up response and arousal, causing you to feel things to stuff you do not find pleasing? The reason I’m asking this is because something happened just now that is bothering me. I was on TikTok and I saw a video where a girl was explaining how her father SA’ed her. It was really hard for me to even get through the video and I kept pausing throughout because of how shocking it was. However, I noticed that I kept feeling groinal responses along with unwanted imaginations of what she was saying. I know, people typically kind of imagine stories in their head when someone else is telling them said stories, but I felt movement and it was bothering me because it did not match how I’ve felt about what I was hearing. Of course, I had to ignore the intrusive thoughts, but it was really hard for me to watch the whole video and I still have not watched it through. I felt like I was fighting with myself, however, when I think about it right now, I feel nothing. I know I probably should stop doing that because checking is only going to make the rumination worse, but I just wanted to see if porn could be a factor in this as I have struggled with pornography addiction as I was exposed to it around six or seven years old all the way up to now being 24.

So, I have been suffering from ZOCD for a little over 2 years, and my main fear is that I am into my favorite animal, cats. Recently, the intrusive thoughts and "testing" compulsions have gotten a lot worse. And by "testing", I mean imagining scenarios to see if that would trigger a response or not. I know that that behavior needs to stop ot I'll never break the OCD cycle, but I just feel this need to ensure that I am not attracted to bad things, so I keep doing it. It has consumed my mind, and I sometimes just test impulsively just to make completely sure, and then I end up spiralling. The anxiety has also decreased, so when the intrusive thoughts hit, it actually feels like a real arousal, even though it most likely (PLEASE) isn't. As a result of all this, I cannot look at cats the same way I used to, as this disease has effectively killed any chance of that. My eyes now automatically go to their private area even when I don't want them to and it disgusts me that my brain is like this. Actually, when I see a cat, the intrusive thoughts immediately set in. Is there ever any way for me to return to normal? I do not have access to therapy at the moment, so how can I deal with this by myself?

I’ve been struggling a lot recently with intrusive thoughts and images of the same gender, and I’ll often get a groinal response out of pure terror which then fuels hyperawareness to the groin and to salivation which then makes my whole body burn and ruins my whole day out of fear of it meaning something about myself despite all the evidence in my past that I am straight (e.g having a baby on the way, only being attracted to women), I try to tell myself that it’s all OCD and it is a lie, but the groinal response just keeps me in this horrible spiral constantly, to the point that I have nightmares about it, does anyone else have this problem? I’m so exhausted because of it and I can’t sleep because the intrusive thoughts keep me awake for hours on end, I’m getting the help I need but the wait is crippling :(

my parents just made me have a phone call with some psychologist and without going into detail about my POCD, and the psychologist said she doesnt think i have OCD. and im having a breakdown. i dont know what to do.

I want to start by specifying that I am not diagnosed. This feels too real, yesterday I was fine about this, I didn't feel much, I didn't think much and I felt fine, Today I woke up from dreams I had (not explicit) but I really feel like I am this, I don't know how to explain it, I feel like I sexualize everything, I feel like I like it and it makes me uncomfortable, I always feel different from everyone else, but in a bad way. I don't know how to explain it, but I really feel like this is who I am, and what happens to me is that I can't identify with OCD. I avoid everything that reminds me of this And I feel that sometimes I downplay the issue of my "OCD" as if it were not serious and it is