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I am so embarrassed because I have a substance abuse disorder that no one knows about. This time last year, I was going through a breakup. I started hanging out with new people. They smoked weed. I started smoking. A bowl a night. It was the first time in my life I ever felt real peace, real contentment. I guess it wasn’t ‘real’ but I mean that my mind was bearable and I was happy. I felt more able to engage with people. I started smoking before seeing people or with people every time we hung out. I always wanted to be high. I started smoking before class. My grades suffered. I suffered. My anxiety and depression and self shame grew, it feels now the worst it’s ever been. I want to quit but at the same time I’m terrified of getting through this. I don’t know how. There were several times this semester I got high or drunk at random times a day just to feel a sense of ‘joy’. i also have a vaping addiction. this isn’t who i want to be. but i feel like it’s all that i am im so lonely but i don’t get real with my friends anymore because my thoughts scare me and i don’t trust my thoughts or see them as valid because the reason for my breakup was how much i suffered with sexual orientation OCD. I really thought I was questioning my sexuality. I loved him so much. I was so scared there would be a reason I couldn’t be with him. Growing up, I was religious so I was taught homosexuality was a sin. I was not attracted to girls (and didn’t understand why that would be a sin) Nonetheless. I had a best friend who came out to me as gay and in love with me. I started worrying about it, little thoughts, around this time. At first the diagnosis was encouraging It meant there were explanations for this But now I just don’t feel like I can trust myself at all Because it derailed my life before I just know two years ago/every other version of me would be so sad to see where we are now. I have very little hope for myself.

It feels dumb asking this as if I want it to be clarified to prove something, but I was on tiktok and saw something on tiktok (I don’t feel comfortable saying what) and I got a intrusive thought because of it. I wasn’t trying to let it bother me but I couldn’t just forget that that happened in my head. Why would something like that happen? Then I searched up “sexual obsessions POCD” on Google and the first site that showed up basically listed a lot of the stuff that’s been going on in my head. Then I started to feel better and relieved cause I was like “oh good it’s just ocd”. But it still makes me feel like it’s not…I hate this.

Hey everyone! I’m new here and thought that it might help to get my OCD story off my chest. My intrusive thoughts are so bad that I never want to talk about them to anyone so maybe that’s why I’m here. When I was 13 my grandma was in the hospital. She was my best friend in the whole world. I imagined so much life with her. I remember pulling into the hospital one day with my Dad and immediately knocking on “wood” (the car door) to help put me at ease about my grandmas health before going in. I knocked on wood because everyone knows that’s what you do when you don’t want something to happen. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her so bad that all I could think about in that moment was something bad happening. So I knocked on wood. It made me feel better so I kept doing it whenever I had bad thoughts. But then it going confusing. If this was helping ease these thoughts, why was I starting to have these thoughts more frequently? 13 year old me didn’t understand what I was doing or why these bad thoughts started. It had got so bad that I was knocking on wood every second of the day, every surface I came across that felt right, and if I didn’t I would force myself to turn around and touch that surface. I would have to knock on wood 8 times every single time but the 7 would have two knocks because the word 7 have two syllables. But then the 8 times wouldn’t be enough, I still wouldn’t feel satisfied so I would do it again and again and again until my entire day was overpowered by intrusive thoughts or knocking on wood. My family and friends started to notice, asking why I do it. I would always avoid the question or make a joke out of it because I couldn’t tell them these terrible thoughts I was having. I was so deeply afraid of something bad happening to the people I love the most or myself that it was debilitating. A couple years later I noticed how bad it had gotten and wanted a change. So I forced myself to stop knocking. I would tell myself angrily that nothing bad would happen if I don’t knock. It took me a lot of convincing and small steps to realize this, but it worked. I got better. I went to the doctors office at about 15 and told them everything. How I did this but how I solved this. They told me it takes great mental strength to be able to fight something in your brain like that. I have always been so mentally strong but hearing them say that made me feel so much better. And I was better. For years. Yea I went through times when it was bad again but it was so much better. The past couple years it has gotten worse again. I noticed that it gets worse when my anxiety about things is higher. New changes, new people, new things. Now, at 21 I won’t let myself get back to the point I was when I was 13, but recently I can’t seem to keep the intrusive thoughts out. I am so terrified of myself or someone else getting hurt of getting older that I put the whole toll on myself. I am so so so happy with my life right now that I don’t want anything to change. That is why it’s been so bad recently. Life is amazing which is why I only want it to get better and I’m so scared something might get in the way of that. I realized after talking to my friends that I never want to say my intrusive thoughts out-loud because I believe strongly in speaking things into existence so I only speak good things out loud. That’s how I’ve always been. But when I talked with my friend she said she’s the opposite, she says the bad things out loud because then you jinx them and they won’t happen. Her saying that gave me a little peace because it made me realize that it’s okay to get these things off my chest and that saying these things out loud isn’t so serious, it’s not life or death like I thought it was. Honestly, the weight of getting my story off my chest has already helped me feel a little lighter of a load on myself.

i'm trying the maybe maybe not method but i keep getting hit back with anxiety and the what ifs 😣 what else can i do 😢

I'm stuck in a cycle of checking and I can't stop. I've checked porn, Google images, listened to gay people talk, gay people with makeup I've looked at everything trying to tell what I am but I can't get a conclusion except anxiety and more confusion I also get groinal movements from checking sexual things but apparently that can happen from anything sexual? Im so confused I can't tell if I'm bisexual in denial or just straight with OCD anymore it's so stressful I spend everynight repeating the same thing which is researching trying to find an answer good enough to stop this suffering I just want a girlfriend and my life back to normal bit I'm scared to get in another relationship due to them having to go through me having these doubts and loss of attraction at times :( I need help I don't want to live this life I want this to all go away and back to how it was

How can I help as a parent of adult daughter experiencing OCD. Intrusive thoughts, rumination, false memory ocd. Psychiatrist upped antidepressants and antipsychotic. She did some NOCD treatments but hasn’t in a while. She said she was doing better and that’s why she does NOCD once a month if that. Now she’s in a bad spot and won’t listen to reason. Delayed response to questions. Lost in her thoughts. Irritability, insomnia, absentminded…. How can we help her? We have offered to pay, go with to appointments, everything. What do we do? We are stressed out, tired, exhausted, hostages. We love her so much but just can’t seem to be able to help her. Any have any advice?

Guys I’ve been very hesitant about getting on meds but my OCD thinking has gotten really bad. So I decided to just get fluoxetine and start it. But my reservations about meds is carrying over into my ocd and i’m scared when I take the medicine i’m going to start freaking out due to “placebo” in a way. Like i am going to start getting symptoms or freaking out and wanting to throw up the meds or something idk

Hi! So I just recently got my OCD diagnosis but I haven’t really seen any of my symptoms listed anywhere online. I’m mainly pure O, but I do have one physical compulsion where I am constantly cracking my knuckles/ other joints. To the point where I cant go over 45 seconds without cracking something without being incredibly uncomfortable unless I’m asleep. It doesn’t help that I have super lax joints so cracking repetitively is just something my body naturally allows. I feel so awkward going on dates/ job interviews/ work meetings/ etc… where I’m around new people because everyone I’m close to in life knows and just accepts the cracking since it’s been going on since at least middle school, but to new people it must seem incredibly rude if not just plain annoying. I also do not have to crack a certain amount of times, but I have to get a “satisfying” crack before I can do anything else. It started interfering with work to certain extents because I could have my report all typed up and then sit there for 5-10 minutes before being able to hit send because I HAD to get the right crack before doing anything else. Or when I have a patient that I’m taking vitals on and pause for a solid 3-4 minutes after putting the blood pressure cuff on them because I can’t continue until I get the right crack. As for the “O” part, I feel like my thoughts don’t fit neatly into a single category of OCD. There will be nights (most of them lately) where I cannot sleep because I’m overthinking things to the point that I become suicidal. Not to the point of acting on it, but where I simply want to give up and not exist. Most of these thoughts seem to be about things from my past that I consider embarrassing. For example, I went on a date with a girl about a year ago now where I word vomited and was so embarrassed about it that I still think about it daily. I have since gone on dates with many other woman and don’t have any attachment to the girl this date was with, but I think back on how awkward I was and the self loathing is fueled for the night. If I hang out with friends or people I’m super comfortable with and I say something stupid, not even thinking about it in the moment, I’ll go home at night and think about it until I’m nauseous and crippled with sadness and regret. I’ve been having panic attacks a lot lately because I can’t seem to quiet the thoughts and I just get so worked up. Night time is definitely the worst for me as its typically when I have the downtime to sit with my thoughts as opposed to during the day when I’m working or out with friends my mind has other things on it. I also go through really bad obsessions, different from thoughts that keep me awake at night but just things that I become utterly obsessed with for weeks on end (if not more). For example, I was watching the show Supergirl a couple months ago and got so incredibly obsessed with it that once I finished, I had a huge depressive episode and felt like I couldn’t get out of bed for over a week. And the obsession continued for weeks after. This sounds more like ADHD to me but I thought I’d throw it in here as a symptom as well since I’m still super new to the diagnosis and am not 100% what is what. Lastly, I have a weird thing that’s been going on for years now where I’m deathly afraid of intimacy. I’ve had long term relationships, and along with them sexual relationships, but overall I am so uncomfortable with anyone perceiving me that the past couple months I have not been able to even put myself out there because I’m so scared of being judged. I dated a guy for 4 years and maybe made out with him 2-3 times the entire relationship because I was scared of kissing because I felt like I wasn’t experienced enough with it and was always overthinking everything that I just never pushed through and got myself comfortable. Its been 3 years now since that relationship ended and I’m still scared of kissing someone or touching them in case I am doing something wrong. I don’t mind being kissed or touched as much as I mind starting the act myself. I’m just so self conscious about anything that has to do with my body that I feel like I cant function as a normal human. I also have an issue where I can’t eat in front of anyone other than a few close friends or family. I feel like I gave myself an eating disorder because I don’t want to be seen doing anything with my body that I don’t have to, and it’s made some normal life tasks incredibly uncomfortable. I’ve been really depressed lately and have been having a hard time managing my health, work, and school all together. I’m not sure if this is due to the OCD or just depression on its own, but that’s another worth mentioning I guess. A lot of these symptoms I assumed were maybe autism for a long time, and I thought maybe the finger cracking was tourette’s at first, but I was given an OCD diagnosis and am curious if anyone else has anything similar going on with them because I really cant seem to find anything relatable online. Part of me feels like I may have been incorrectly diagnosed, so I would love to hear from others!

So I took out a loan for my college. And it said it covered the costs, and I was all set. I only had to pay eighty bucks per month because of the loan. Suddenly. And I mean SUDDENLY. I have 7k to pay off?? The loan was SET. And covered it. I am really confused and scared and my compulsions have come back because of it. I feel like vomiting I can’t call the school as it’s too late. What if I get kicked out? Because I can’t pay that amount? What if they won’t work with me? I’m so scared please PLEASE I need some advice. ANYTHING.

Long story short it feels like I might have cheated on a class final project and my ocd is causing intense rumination and mental checking that I did nothing wrong or had no bad intentions. Also feel the urge to get validation from others if what I did was cheating or not and even confess to make the thought cycle stop. My question is how do I discern what I should truly feel guilt for vs what’s ocd just making my life harder by telling me I’m a bad person and done something terrible. How do I just let it go and move on without knowing for sure I did something wrong or confessing?

hey, i saw this on tiktok and i’ve been struggling really bad my whole life. i’ve never been diagnosed but im too scared that people will tell me im being dramatic or im making it up to get help. i think it started when i was in 1st or 2nd grade, i would come home everyday and confess things to my mom. like not taking my usual routes in the hallways and not returning a pencil to anyone. i dont know why it has to be her but i still do this. it’s like she’s my only comfort person and sometimes it feels like im just bothering her with it. i dont know who to talk to or what to do to fix it. everyone has told me that getting on medicine will only make it worse because if i come off of it it will be a whole lot worse. as i got older, it kind of left me for a while until earlier this year. i’ve always been told that having an extreme conscience was a good thing, but this feels awful. i turned to God which i still believe it but i don’t think it was the right way. i was overly paranoid that the end times were coming so much that i couldn’t do my daily routines. my sister has 2 babies and when i turned to Jesus it was also because i was having insane intrusive and embarrassing of doing horrible things to them. i didn’t even know who i was. i love both of those babies like they’re my own, i constantly come over to see them, bring gifts, etc and i could never intentionally hurt them but when i have these thoughts it’s like seeing yourself in a different perspective. when i signed up for this app a few minutes ago i think it said that was POCD. i would never do anything to hurt anyone, ive always been a very gentle and caring person so it’s kind of hard to argue with yourself. i was also at the time hitting an extreme point of paranoia about my health, constantly obsessing over everything because i thought i was dying. it left me again for a few months but now it’s back and i don’t know what else to do. i don’t know if this is ocd or if im straight out just a terrible person. any advice, comments, or anything is welcome!

Hi! I am wondering if I am going about this wrong or backwards. I havnt spoken to a therapist and don’t even have a Diagnosis, I am only assuming I may have a form of OCD and well, not even sure if therapy would actually help. Never really thought I needed help. But I am curious about learning about myself more and bettering my self. Anyone have OCD/Hair pulling/ occasional intrusive thoughts? Im not sure if I am even in the right place. Also this took me over three days many restlessness nights and half my afternoon to actually type out….

Ok so like already mentioned I’m extremely scared I might have sexually abused my dog in the past and now I feel terrible. I know back then my sister or even more family members were around and have already thought of asking my sister if she remembers sth. But just now my parents had called me for dinner and I just simply started to have tears running down my face because I feel so terrible and so of course my parents noticed and asked me if sth was wrong. My father doesn’t know I have ocd so I of course couldn’t blast out that I was scared I might have abused our dog and our dog was right next to me and that made me feel even worse. My mother kept asking if everything was alright bc the tears just didn’t stop flowing. At first I had excused it saying „oh that was just randomly in my eye I don’t know“ but the tears wouldn’t stop flowing and started forming in my other eye too so my parents knew sth was up. My mother asked me if I am being bullied at school or anything. If only she knew it’s even worse what I’m hiding. She said she would go upstairs after dinner and have a talk with me. Rn I’m sitting in my room and can’t stop crying anymore. But maybe she remembers this event or can ask my sister and maybe they can help me. I don’t know anymore I can’t deal with the uncertainty of this event. I don’t want to sexually abuse sb and I would never forgive myself for such a horrible crime. I keep hearing things from similar situations and people saying even worse things and then people responding by saying „you’re a different person now, everybody deserves a second chance“ but I’m not feeling this. If it had indeed happened the way I fear it, then I don’t want a second chance.

At this point I don't care if I'm reassurance seeking. I don't know what else I'm meant to do. I know this next bit is practically another confession but I'm all out of other ideas. In advance I'm genuinely sorry and I hate this. So I'm pretty sure I romanticise like adhd and maybe autistic traits. I'm sickened by myself. I read, and I was reading and this character, while not said to have adhd, in my opinion had the traits that I associate with it. And I feel like I like those traits. Do I find them cute? Interesting? I literally don't know. Only thing I know is that I'm disgusted with myself. I also remember feeling "something", whether that be a groinal response from worrying about being attracted to these traits, or actually being attracted to these traits, I have no idea, it's 50/50. But I'm pretty sure that it's the latter. I feel disgusting all over. I'm going to have a shower because I was going to anyway, but this won't even make me clean again, I know it won't. I just want to apologise, that's all. I don't know why I'm like this. I don't like it. I wish I was different. I wish I could go back to being young when the only thing on my mind was what I was going to have for tea. I knew no wrong. Now look at me. I am the wrong. Also I can't tell people about my worries because all they'll say is that it's intrusive thoughts and ocd. Like, okay, sure, maybe I worry more than the average person, but these are real genuine worries and I hate them. Maybe I'm putting this on the wrong place but I have nowhere else. I'm sorry. I'm just sorry. Words can't describe how badly I'm sorry. I think of what people with adhd would think of me. I'm disgusting. Maybe I'm just feeling overly sorry for myself to make myself seem like less of a disgusting monster, but I genuinely am sorry. I don't want any of this. I just want to be a good person.

Can i have soocd and ocd at the same time, can someone explain to me what does it mean pure o with soocd?

Do you guys have certain shows/situations that are triggering to your OCD? Like for example since my brain has convinced me of thinking inappropriate things about children/babies, any shows I watch I get really uncomfortable when seeing kids and babies which makes me really upset. Also being around people or out in public and seeing kids or babies my OCD gets really bad. Does this happen to other people??

Ive already posted abt this but basically for the past two days I’ve been extremely afraid I might have sexually abused my dog a few years ago. To imagine what and how I mean it: So basically back then I would see her like she was my child or sth. And so, just like many parents do, I wanted her to lay on top of me and then I wanted to cuddle her. Now is the thing that abt a month ago I had also remembered this again and suddenly was like „Did I see that as sth sexual?“ and like back then I also still remembered the situation in a way that everything was fine and I simply had her lay on top of me. But the day before yesterday I then had the intrusive thought „what if I had rubbed my genital against hers??“ and ever since then this has been haunting me. It’s not sth I would do. And the chance is also really low bc due to a few points it’s barely possible (and yes I’ve been thinking for so long I even made myself a contra-pro list): •fully clothed of course •floor is really hard so moving wouldn’t be possible anyway without having the most insane back pain afterwards •my dog stood up after maybe 2 seconds • I don’t know if she had ever even laid down on top of me bc she’s a quite huge dog and usually I remember she wouldn’t do this so if she had ended up doing so, she would’ve stood up right after definitely •somebody was around when it had happened. I think it was my sister. I’m too scared to ask her but she definitely would’ve started screaming at me if sth bad had happened •I never had the intentions to do this • up until the day before yesterday I was 100% sure of the situation and never had any doubts if anything sexual was up besides way before the doubt if I may have seen that as sth sexual •it’s just simply not possible bc why would my dog lay herself on top of me in a way of touching my genital with hers? It’s not possible without a human forcing an animal to do so. • it’s gross and I’ve always been aware of not doing inappropriate things with actual human beings (back then I was 11-13, I can’t remember when exactly it had happened). •keep having intrusive thoughts showing me doing things in order to get her to lay on top of me like this but the only thing I actually remember doing is that I tried to get her to 1) even lay down bc like I said she doesn’t really understand it and if she had actually ended up laying on top of me, it would’ve taken a long time to get her to do so and she would’ve stood up right again immediately 2) lay with her head close to mine so I could actually cuddle her. But I still keep having those weird images. Up until yesterday I didn’t have them and I had never remembered the situation this way. •keep having intrusive thoughts abt my genital touching hers, but I’ve always found that gross and don’t touch her genital even when not for any other reasons besides normal ones bc it’s disgusting and I also can’t ever remember feeling that. Like how on earth would that work? It’s just disgusting. But like the thing is, I just can’t let it be. I can’t accept this uncertainty because it’s eating me up. I can’t go outside with the chance of me being a sexual abuser. Yesterday I even yet again had the thought of ending my life bc I felt I can’t live with this guilt. And I keep on analysing my dogs behaviour to see if she might have any trauma regarding this. For example a few minutes ago I came up to her and started to see if see did this kind of shock move when I touch her at her back close to where her genitals are (yk the back with the fur of course, I didn’t touch her genitals bc obviously that would make all my guilt even worse, I don’t want her to suffer bc of me). She didn’t move one bit and was happy to have me around. But today I also remembered that she doesn’t enjoy getting bathed and I don’t know if I remember this right, but I think she also doesn’t enjoy being bathed and cleaned at her groin area and now I’m scared she has a trauma. I think she has been hating this for way longer than this is ago but I think I’d need to ask my mother and sister to see if the timeline matches. And now I just feel horrible. I mean there are many things that she doesn’t enjoy and she also doesn’t like being bathed in general. And the bathing around groin area is mostly when she for example has a lot of dirt there so maybe she’s referring to that but I still feel bad. I know I’m asking for reassurance but I feel I need this one. Do you think this has happened or is my brain making it up?

Why do I feel I raped someone intoxicated, I’ve felt fear and guilt for months it seems real, Could you suggest what I do next please

Additional trigger warning topics of self harm I struggle with self harm. When I opened up to someone about my struggle with it they told me that my scars were so bad and that my future husband would have to see them. It hurt me really bad. I’m working on stopping and am in therapy to stop doing it. I’m honestly trying so hard. I’m now just afraid that because I have scars that look “bad” no one will love me. That was my best friend at the time who said those things abt my scars. Now I feel unlovable. My ocd tells me that I’m gonna die alone, and that no one will ever love me.

Okay, so to spare you the DISGUSTING details, I won't go into symptom details here. Context: After being on prescribed Adderall 30mg to treat ADHD while I finish my final year in university, I had to go to the ER a couple times because I got very panicky. Essentially, the doctors and emergency psychiatrist said I'm experiencing dopamine toxicity as a result of Adderall, which can cause extremely uncomfortable, delusional hallucinations. I've never gone through something this terrifying before and I don't know how to manage myself at home. It's making my sleep terrible, which only makes the physical sensations worse. I am okay with accepting that it's a temporary thing and that it's just based on my perception of the feelings I've been experiencing for the past 4.5 months. I thought it was "just my OCD symptoms coming back with a vengeance" as I used mindfulness to help with fear and reassurance in the past. However, I've noticed a longstanding trend of paranoia and that reassurance does not seem to help me often these days. My thoughts seem to loop between some form of "can't trust myself," "can't trust the world," and "everything feels unsafe." It's affected my sleep (demons/ghosts/intruders/death/bugs/etc), my ability to walk outside (ie. Storms/lightning), my ability to eat (ie. Contaminated water/food/etc). It seems to always relate back to something hurting me, and I have done CBT enough to understand that I don't need to give power to the thoughts, nor do I need to let thoughts or emotions control my behaviours. But HOW THE F**K DO I GET OVER THIS!!!! It ruined the last 12 weeks of school. I could literally only submit 2 assignments and had to get an illness form which essentially rendered me incapable. I am a huge people pleaser and I am extremely self-critical. I just want to feel normal, and I know that I can't continue trying to use Lysol wipes to clean my back, or challenge the doctor when he says antipsychotics are the quickest solution. Like I'm CHOOSING the harder route by making myself learn to trust myself, even when it feels like I can't trust my senses. I'm at a complete loss for what to do at this point and I have a lot of exciting opportunities coming up in January. I can't continue feeling like I'm going insane slowly... I KNOW I will get through this, logically. I just don't know what to do when reassurance doesn't work. It's like no matter what the doctors say, I just feel stuck on these thoughts that I know are false. Any thoughts?? 😕 Thank you for reading if so. This is my first post here, I apologize for how long it is and I appreciate your time and/or literally ANY words of advice/support ❤