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I’m proud of myself tho it’s been making me anxious today. Last night I watched this movie called “Bronx Tale” with my bf (good movie actually I’m not usually into old movies but it’s been re-enhanced) anyway, there was this scene where two gorgeous woman walked past this group of Italian guys and they were obviously whistling at them etc. Now my ocd is sexual themed and has prevented me from doing so much. One thing I do as a compulsion is try to just focus so hard on the persons face and the second I look anywhere else ocd convinced me I’m “checking them out” or something along those lines. Before ocd I never used to worry about where I was looking, and was able to look at a whole person (body and face) and know I wasn’t being inappropriate towards my partner. I’m trying to learn there is a difference between looking at someone and checking someone out! So my exposure was to try and look at their outfit, their face & their body (not in a sexual way at all) but just trying to be normal somewhat, I still struggled to do that the whole movie pretty much but it was a tiny exposure that did help. I want to get to a point where I’m okay with seeing someone’s face and body and knowing I’m not being a pervert, knowing I can appreciate the fact someone is beautiful or attractive and knowing I’m not sexualising that person or “checking them out” as ocd always says I do. I never had thoughts like that before ocd (just saying)… I know this may not seem big but this was huge for me! Being able to even comment to my partner about the fact that they were beautiful and had nice bodies - and he didn’t even bat an eye when I said that. That was a huge step for me… I know I still have so much ERP to do, and I always put it off because I’m scared, but even for me to watch a movie that anything could have popped up - I still was able to enjoy a movie with my partner and also do a little exposure which will eventually get me back to how I used to be… I’m slowly learning there’s a difference between just appreciating that someone is good looking with no intent behind it - to actually being a pervert and checking someone out. Wanted to share my ERP experience with people who get how hard it is.

Hello wonderful people! I am noticing that my intrusive thoughts come mostly at night while I'm drifting off to sleep - and they come in phrases sentences or words relating to my fears. Doesn't happen during the day for me! Does anyone else relate to this?

my ocd lately is convincing me that I'm agreeing with my intrusive thoughts when I'm avoiding mental compulsions, it's hard to explain but it's giving me the gut feeling that I'm agreeing and letting my worst fears happen.. it's literal hell in my head

It’s been two days since I ended up not going to check in my fridge to see if I did lock a stray kitten inside of it, if there was indeed one, it’s most likely dead by now, and I’ll never know if there was one because it’s possible my parents who also use the fridge have seen and removed it, though they might not have seen it because they are quite careless, or found one but didn’t tell me because they now about my mental illness and don’t want to hurt my feelings. I’m still not sure it was the right decision, I could’ve taken 15 mintues to thouroughly check the fridge one last time. I feel like shit...

My problem with OCD/ERP is that it’s very situational and hard to trigger. So it’s hard to create exposures. My trigger is job offers. I obsess obsess obsess about them if they don’t feel just right, ask for lore time, call everyone I know, do obsessive Research, lose all perspective, and then either accept or reject the at the last minute without much confidence. Then my brain tells me I made the wrong choice, and my compulsion is to prolong the decision-making process by undoing and redoing the decision (“I accept! [2 hours later] Actually, I don’t want the job. Oh just kidding, I do! Oh wait, I don’t.”) How the fuck do I do ERP for this?! It’s not like germ phobia where exposure to the trigger is easy (there are germs everywhere). Job offers, real ones, don’t come around often (thank goodness) but when they do it is hell. This used to happen with smaller decisions but thank god that seems to be less so now

Can anyone give me tips on how when I have an intrusive thought that doesn’t mean I did it. Like I’ll have a thought of something then my head will tell me that I did this .. anybody else deal with this

Has anyone on here recovered from POCD and willing to share any helpful tips. I’m sick and tired of worrying about this I just want it to stop. And my therapist says I just need to accept the presence of the thoughts but before I had POCD I don’t remember ever having thoughts/urges/feelings like this. I’m terrified of myself and I don’t trust myself or anything that my brain says. And when people say oh you need to just carry on with your values ? What if my values aren’t even my values ?? I’m not even sure what my values are anymore and who I am as a person. It’s so scary. I feel like I’m actually just a terrible person capable of horrible things. All I wanted since I was young was to be a stay at home mum and have my own family but that’s never going to happen now coz I honestly don’t know what happened to me. I miss my old self so much I grieve her everyday. Idek who I am anymore

I’m constantly having groinal response to thoughts and people I don’t want to have them to. Does anybody else hold them in if that makes sense? I find that makes it worse and cause an arousal feeling and I absolutely hate it, don’t know what to do.

i've done a few posts today and not got any help, i really need some help i'm in desperate need i'm struggling the what if thoughts with the fear they're true and have already happened from a past event i think i've thought it through so much i've convinced myself it's true i really need some help just to be pointed in the right direction 😣😢

To start off, yes I have a therapist, yes I have a psychiatrist and so far I am only diagnosed with ptsd, ocd, gad, hypochondriasis, and panic disorder. So for the past 5 months I’ve been dealing with a terrible ocd/hypochondria theme where I have COMPLETELY convinced myself I am in the beginning stages of schizophrenia or some other related horrific psychotic disorder. Ive read way too much on common delusions, symptoms, hallucinations, personal stories, Reddit stories etc. Anyway, for some reason my ocd has really latched on to the common symptom schizophrenics have which are religious delusions, at least I hope it’s just my ocd and not actually schizophrenia. Everyday I get these terrible existential/demonic “delusional thoughts”. Like “what if my wife is a demon” “what if my cat is a demon” “this song has demonic energy” “the face that person made was demonic” “this house has negative demonic energy” “what if you are possessed” “what if these ugly brown mushrooms growing in your yard are a sign of demonic energy”, shit like that. Literally everything I look at now has some sort of “negative energy” or feels eerie or “demonic”, everything I look at always has to have some sort of malicious intent or negative undertone, I can’t watch anything on YouTube anymore, I can’t listen to my favorite bands anymore like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc, these thoughts have made me become so avoidant of dark things and even normal light hearted things! Now first off, I am a literal atheist, I am a complete skeptic, I have never ever been superstitious. I was a huge Marilyn Manson fan in my teens, I’m a horror movie junkie( or at least I used to be before this theme took over), i literally have shirts with pentagrams and upside down crosses etc. why has my ocd suddenly branched off into this religious ocd/delusional thinking? Is this maybe a dp/dr thing too? It literally feels like I am in a horror movie, when I’m really REALLY spiraling and ruminating hard, it feels like I’m in another world filled with pure DREAD and horror.I know for sure that every single one of these thoughts and feelings are untrue and very unlikely when I’m not as panicked but when I’m in deep rumination/obsession it seriously makes me question what I believe. I do not believe any of these thoughts at all when I’m calm! Yet the fear they create and the vibes that accompany them make it feel real. When I’m in full blown panic and start to spiral really bad sometimes I feel like I almost believe these thoughts, and feel paranoid almost, when the anxiety and fear passes though I can have a brief moment of clarity where I can laugh these thoughts off and almost be myself again, but it’s very short lived before these thoughts start creeping back up. The content of the thoughts is scaring me but the fact that I’m even having these types of thoughts and fears in the first place is scaring me even more because it is reinforcing my fears that I am becoming schizophrenic/psychotic. Why have I suddenly become like this? I can’t enjoy anything anymore without getting these awful awful thoughts. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?

It’s been a week since I’ve been experiencing one of the worst OCD episodes I’ve had since I was 15. I did ERP therapy two years ago. I engaged in so many mental compulsions and rituals this last week. I feel calm and normal and it worries me, what if this time it’s different? How do you navigate back door spikes and give your body permission to rest? It worries me if I get out of this I will become a lesbian or bisexual. It worries that when I come back to my senses. That when I get better I will want to explore? I’m trying to be okay with the possibility, but I don’t want to. I can’t tell what’s real or fake anymore.

does anybody else hate breaks? Like christmas breaks or summer breaks? i dread them personally because I can always remember my ocd flaring up and getting the worst in this time periods.. As much as school and work can stress me out, I never have time to let my mind wander because i’m doing other things. But when breaks come around and i’m just left to my thoughts, it feels like my intrusive thoughts get worse and worse.

I already don't like this app. It has the same problem as being on the OCD subreddit or in any OCD online group. It inevitably just devolves into people doing compulsions (reassurance seeking, mainly) at each other. My unpopular opinion is that people with OCD shouldn't have support groups unless they're HEAVILY moderated by a clinician. This one clearly isn't. I scrolled for 5 min and almost every post is someone saying "I'm worried about x, do you think it's true?". That's a compulsion! This app is not facilitating ERP it's hindering it.

I’m really feeling awful this morning. I thought I was getting better but now I just feel worse. I keep telling myself it’s not OCD and that I want these things and that something is seriously wrong with me. And I can’t shake that feeling. I feel so stuck and alone because my thoughts are so awful. I am so scared. I have my fourth session today and while it’s been nice to have someone but I feel like yesterdays session made me feel worse even though it didn’t have to. I think my OCD latched onto something my therapist said and now I am running with it. Sometimes I will make every situation about something sexually inappropriate, do you guys do that? and I mean listening to songs or watching shows or just having a random thought? I also feel like a bad person and when people sympathize with me for OCD i feel like I don’t deserve it bc i don’t have OCD and want to do those things and i’m gross and awful and why should my family feel bad for me? Truly am having the toughest time telling the difference. Everytime I say it’s just thoughts I find myself saying no it isn’t. you have the urge to do things. Idk what to do.

My girlfriend and I had sex a about 10 days ago. She is not on birth control, I wore a condom but in the moment I put it on the wrong way at first and then switched it around. I’m terrified that I got her pregnant from precum. I’ve been absolutely obsessing about the possibility of it happening. From what I read it’s extremely low possibly, but OCD is saying she is pregnant. I cannot shut my brain off. I love my girlfriend more than anything and was going to propose to her later this year. I just keep thinking if she is pregnant will I be able to provide, even though I have a steady great income job and so does she. I think will my OCD get so bad that I can’t go to work and lose everything. I used to deal with Sexual and harm OCD, and I just keep thinking will this come back and start if I have a kid. Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you everyone

Early morning havnt slept and ocd hasn't stopped for days I just want to be able to breath it's so debilitating in every way and I just feel the ocd thoughts start to pop ideas in my head and the things it comes up with like the worries are not just thoughts they are fully formed situations and very specific when I haven't even thought about it before it's like it forms this whole thing in my head subconsciously and then before I know it I'm chillin and then I'm just 50 ft under water drowning because it just throws a whole spacific situation at me that I never even thought of this effects me in every way possible and I just lay here misrible all day having seizer after seizer from stress being suicidal and just suffocating and so much more I just dread every moment I'm awake because the moment I am counsious it starts ugh it's every moment of my day just suffering so yeah really not looking forward to waking up 10 years of this and I'm exhausted the only relief I get is switching to another theme like i just wamma get pregnant so i csn obsess over that instead of what i am rn ot effects everyone around me and im just so miserable

Hi, I don't really know where to start but I was diagnosed with OCD around 2 years old so it's something I've been aware of my entire life and something I've been struggling to manage for as long as I can remember. I've never received OCD therapy but I had started going to an art therapist after a su*cide attempt for about 2 months in my teen years. When I was younger my parents didn't want me on medications or going through therapy as they felt it was "too intense" of a treatment for me, so I had tried many herbal and homeopathic supplements to help treat my OCD, though it helped with my vitamin deficiencies it didn't do much for my OCD. During my late teens, my primary doctor finally decided to start me on medications for my anxiety, depression, and OCD. I have been on Zoloft, Prozac, Wellbutrin, had been prescribed emergency Lorazepam and Xanax, and recently tried Paxil, but I just don't feel like any have helped. Over the years, I've basically struggled with every typical OCD symptom and it has only gotten harder and harder to get by. When I talk to my friends about it they tell me that these thoughts are normal and everyone goes through it but I feel like they're dismissing the degree to which my symptoms are becoming rather debilitating and don't really understand what I'm trying to since none of them have OCD themselves. I just feel so alone and that nobody understand, I'm tired of having these thoughts and I just want a way out. Does anyone have any tips for like medications or treatments that help? I just want to be normal.

I’ve been debating medication for 3 years. I was wondering about other peoples experiences bc I don’t know many people with OCD. Or what types of medications have helped or if they even have? Can someone please give me some insight. The thoughts are extremely annoying and feel very REAL and uncomfortable. It makes me think everyday something I think can become true or I want it to be true. Any insight please?

Hi I’m new to the group here and I look forward to getting into therapy here as I believe this is OCD again cuz I can’t stop obsessing & thinking the same thing over and over again. Let me back up a bit cuz I have been having these horrible thoughts & feelings for over a month now. So Since my dog has died at the end of October I’ve been having horrible feelings that I’m going to die at the end of the year… I’m so scared and worried. I feel like I have so much to accomplish and do in life, but my brains telling me I’ll be dead by for sure by the end of this year, like i don’t want to die. Like is this OCD or something else? I want to hear if any of you guys have suffered with something similar. I don’t want to die now! I have never had obsessive thoughts about this before so it feels so real and scary. But I’m so anxious constantly, I have barely eaten much, and just feeling so disturbed by my thoughts I can’t focus or do anything it feels! 😞 So obviously I made it past the last two nights cuz I have been having consistent thoughts thinking I was going to die by Friday the 15th, but here I am still alive!… but last night I really screwed myself when I gave into searching up more of “why am I still thinking I’m going to die, etc etc” I went to Qurora where people put there thoughts & opinions on a certain question. A certain word really stuck with me and I searched it up, it was “premonition” I started researching what is the difference between horrible anxiety & premonition and I started reading articles… since last night it’s been freaking me out!!! Like what if this is a true premonition feeling compared to me just having anxiety? 😥 There was some people who posted in the comments on quora saying “I knew something bad was going to happen, etc etc and it did, or I had a feeling my dad was going to die and a few months later he did, etc etc…”. I’m constantly thinking I’m gonna die for sure now… it’s gut wrenching to think this. I know we all die but I don’t want to die now. It wouldn’t make sense for me to die now, I have a little 3 year old boy I wanna be here for the rest of my life! I’m a single mom, I don’t want him to be without any parents. Ugh I’m so sad, anxious, on edge I can’t function. I can’t stop crying sometimes. I have therapy this week but it’s gotten so bad where now I feel like I CANT distinguish the difference between a gut feeling and just my thoughts as intrusive/OCD. Can anyone of you really relate to this?? I just wanna feel at peace again with myself…. And I certainly don’t wanna die young. 😭 But also my thoughts have switched up on me like “well you lived past this Friday, but you’re for sure gonna die in the next few weeks etc etc.” like a gut thought. There’s moments I feel like I need to go to a mental hospital cuz idk anymore…

I feel like my intrusive thoughts are worst than most.😔 I am ashamed and alarmed by them. I know they’re just thoughts. My OCD will come up with the most taboo, disgusting, and worst things that could happen and put the words “I want” in front of it. Not what if xyz happens, but “I want” xyz to happen. Obviously I don’t want those things to happen. It makes me feel like the worst. Does anyone else’s OCD use the words “I want” to inflict even more guilt and shame?