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Does anyone else feel numb from very heinous and disturbing thoughts/images? I’m talking to my friends and guys I like and I keep remembering that specific thought and I don’t know what to do with it.

i havent been on here in a while everyone has told me i cant rely on validation with ocd stuff but i just wanna feel normal and feel not so alone and get advice. so recently my ocds getting bad again my bf visited and just all my intrusive thoughts were eating me up again it was worse i think cus he was with me but anyways my compulsion is confessing i’ve been able to control it and not tell past things or intrusive thoughts he doesn’t wanna know he doesn’t care we’re trying to move past it but i kept obsessing over one thing in particular and it’s one thing i still do bc ive done it since i was a child and it brings me comfort it’s a way to escape my life ig. you’ve ever heard of maladaptive daydreaming ig it’s like tht but different more extreme for me i actually have 1 specific story i think ab and i actually act out as if it’s happening. i do things like pretend to be in a band and act as if its me singing and performing like actually get up and pretend im on stage. i have friends and im in a band and i have a background and characters and ive been doing this exact same scenario since i was in my early teens. it’s comforts me. this is weird but when i pretend im performing i dance sexy sometimes or just dance in general around these friends and it’s just makes me feel cool and sexy and my love interest in my scenarios are always my bf whether we’re strangers or know each other. in my day dreams i do it to get attention from him and people to think im cool and sexy bc ig i don’t feel like tht in real life. i act as if im actually having convos with people or dancing with friends or performing and interact with friends while pretending to perform. i kinda think its weird. anyways im not gonna go into anymore detail but last night i gave in and confessed to him. which im so mad ab ive been so good with not confessing stuff and i slipped up. also now tht ive confessed tht i feel like confessing a while much of other shit which ik i can’t do and my trying not to but it’s hard. anyways he said its not weird but he’s does feel weird and upset ab tht fact tht i imagine dancing sexy around other guys and daydream ab other guys even if hes the love interest in my scenarios. i dont want to upset or hurt him in any ways ive already done so much to hurt him and im trying to work past it but he says he doesn’t care if i keep doing it or not and tht hes not mad or upset with me he just wanted me to know how he felt ab it. idk what to do this scenario has been with me since i was young and it’s been my comfort my escape from reality and i like doing it. i just feel like a bad gf if i continue and i don’t wanna feel like tht. should i stop? he also made a point tht if he did the same i would feel weird ab it too. which yes i would if i didnt understand or do it myself but i cant really know how i would feel because i do it so idk. i just dont wanna hurt him i told him i would stop if he wanted but he said he doesn’t care and he’ll just forget ab it in a week and tht he knows it would never happen in real life so he doesn’t care but i feel like he does care and im gonna feel guilty ab it. it just brings me comfort and ig im sad tht i probably not gonna be able to do it anymore without feeling guilty. i need advice on what to do and if this is something tht needs to be stopped.

This one is really hard cause i used to suffer with this before i started taking meds. I didnt wanted to but my therapist instead of helping me, she dealt with it like medicine will save my life...Like we never talked about what should i do differently, i always got that i should take medicine and its on me if i dont recover... and after i started taking it still we didnt worked on things deeply, it was like we are waiting to the medicine to magically solve my problem. This is very toxic and wrong. Sadly not many doctors and therpists will tell you the truth that medicine is just a helping tool, many treat it like you depend on it. So now that i stopped taking it after a year, ocd uses it and tells me im suffering now becuse i stopped taking medication, it will be worse, i should take it again... and i feel scared and guilt that it was a wrong thing to do but at the same time i know this is what i need to do to recover, i need to face my fears without medication cause thats how i can train myself to be able to live without it. Its just scary cause this is a risky thing and its hard to trust in myself that im able to do it. And ocd likes to accuse me that i will not, and now im here cause i stopped taking meds...

Okay so, I feel like I’m going to become a monster, I feel like I want to do my intrusive thoughts. But in my heart I know it’s wrong. I cry and cry because I’m scared I will listen to my thoughts. I have been praying every single day. I want to be a good person. I tell myself do good, and do not do evil. My intrusive thoughts are about hurting people, especially my siblings. It’s makes me cry. But I’m scared I will act on them. I want to be locked up so I don’t do anything. I’m 21 years old now, I still live with my parents. And I want to tell them so they know, and so I can get help, I just don’t know how to tell them, and I don’t want to scare them. I don’t want them to think I’m a monster. I don’t think I can do this anymore. Every time I see something horrible, my brain thinks I should do it. Please give me advise, what do I do

Eventually? Can anyone relate to this I mean it in the nicest way possible because I think this community is fantastic and very helpful but I have also realised that a big part of my OCD is reassurance and craving certainty as I'm sure it is with most if not all OCD sufferers and the irony in that is whilst a lot of the questions and answers we all give can be very helpful and educational at the same time some of it could be deemed as OCD itself as in reassurance seeking and reassurance giving Therefore I ask myself this. When am I going to be content within myself that I have asked all of the questions and got all of the help and knowledge thay i feel i need to strt moving forward with my life and i no longer feel the need to ask anymore questions regarding ocd because whilst it has been helpful it came also serve to keep you stuck.

I’m going through the worst ocd flare up , I can’t stop crying and feel like I’m the worst person in the world and that no one understands how it makes me feel and how I feel so alone and that I’m a horrible person. Why do I feel like everything I’ve done makes me the worst unlovable person. Why is it when I pray I’m still so sad and nothing get fixed so I can be happy. I just want to be happy and at peace and stop having these intense overpowering thoughts. I know they say it’s best to sit with the thought until it passes instead of trying to direct my self but it just won’t go away and I’m trying hard to let it pass but something will always remind me of it and bring me right back to square one. I’m just so miserable that this is my life and thought process every single day😪

Hi friends! I feel like I am hitting a wall with my OCD and ERP. I deal with a LOT of mental compulsions. Often when I am doing ERP it can be hard to know if I am giving myself reassurance OR is it a logical thought. For example: I have this fear I will be fired for being late to work which spiral into many deeper fears. One may say well “people are late all the time or it is normal to be late” or “is it realistic to think I would be fired for being late”. How do you guys separate logical thinking and self reassurance? It’s something I really struggle with. I will start to habituate and then I think well was what I did reassurance? Mental compulsions have been so hard to identify. But yeah how do I tell if it is self reassurance or not? Any and all advice would help so much ✨🖤✨

I could use some advice or encouragement. I made it 33 days without a genuinely bad ocd day. Every day was hard and almost a constant battle, but I was winning those battles and refraining from going into my ocd stories for the most part. Then yesterday, after a great morning, I got triggered and decided I needed to engage an ocd story I have about the possibility that I harmed someone through negligence two years ago. I had dealt with this fear before and decided it was ocd, but it tricked me into considering it yesterday, and I spent about seven hours off and on going over the same details, trying to reassure myself I was okay. When my wife came home and I told her how bad I had done she just gave me a blank expression. I think after sixteen years of dealing with my ocd, she’s out of sympathy. But she was disappointed, I could tell. So was I. I feel so ashamed of having given in to rumination. But I still feel anxious that I need to “figure it out.” I’m just so tired of this disorder. I want to be well. I want to be my old funny self. I want to talk to people and laugh. I’m scared I’ll never get better and that I’ve ruined my kids’ lives by neglecting them to obsess. I feel so tired, alone, depressed, and hopeless.

Hi all, I’m really having a hard time with my OCD. I start ERP therapy on Friday, I had an intake session last week. I had a horrible OCD episode that knocked me off my feet last April and made my life so small. I lost my Nana, who was dying a slow death from cancer and I obsessed over this and criticized myself so much and started having existential obsessions. I worried if I loved her too much or not enough and it made me sick. I’m an artist, I stopped making art because I was having doubts and intrusive thoughts that I’m a bad person and I’m not truly an artist. I stopped doing freelance, which was my entire income. Then I got my dream job at a museum, then I started having doubts about deserving a good life and “living a lie”. Then I started obsessing over my sexuality and my relationship. Terrified that I can never get married or have kids because of my OCD. I was abused as a child and have a lot of shame about myself and also fear of trusting people. As a kid I dealt with horrible intrusive thoughts, as well as obsessions about my health that took so much of my childhood from me. The thing that scares the living crap out of me is many of these recovery stories where people had to “let go” of their entire lives and entire selves in order to get better. I feel like I’ve worked really hard to give myself a chance at life and I’m following my dreams, but I feel like OCD derailed those plans. So in order to get better, do I have to give those dreams up for good? I’m so scared. Would love to hear from someone who is in recovery or anyone who has similar fears.

My dumb ass has been reasurance seeking so much, researching, Reddit, quizes, gay Vs denial, bisexual Vs denial, and checking aesthetically good looking men and now nothing reassures me for long periods of time. It's ruining my relationship I'm losing attraction I have porn addiction too not compulsively checking but I do check alot of the time and it's also escalating onto things I wouldn't do in real life. My life feels ruined by this relapse because life was finally good I finally got a beautiful amazing girlfriend, went gym, got new clothing, haircut and was overall happy but just finding men handsome, liking their voice etc causes me alot of anxiety because it's not every so often it's a very common thing now and it makes me so upset not because being bi or gay is wrong but because I don't want sex with men it doesn't make me happy or excite me I wouldn't even do it for money. Women make me feel so good inside, excited, butterflies I just want to be married and spend my life with a beautiful women but with this shit I doubt everything I can't even have same sex friends out of fear that it'll be more than platonic. I wouldn't care if I was 10% bisexual and 90% straight because id always be straight over everything I love women even though they make me nervous my response has always been positive. I really REALLY need help I can't live like this I'm not suicidal or anything but I'm extremely depressed it's causing my girlfriend to become distant we don't do nothing sexually even though before this relapse I was craving it all the time cuz of how much I love her. How do I stop this anxiety and doubt? Why is there even anxiety around this? I'm confident enough to say I find men handsome but that's all it is? So why can't I figure this out? No matter how much research the next day I just find myself repeating it trying to solve the big question if I'm gay or not. Even though logically I'm attracted to women exclusively I may have done things growing up as curiosity but crushes have always been women, sexual fantasies always women, women have always made me excited I loved it even growing up I was obsessed with wanting a girlfriend not because of society but because that's what I wanted? A romantic and sexual relationship with a woman. If the cure is to sit with this discomfort why do I have the discomfort in the first place? Because I can find men handsome? But that doesn't make me attracted to them sexually I've never looked at a man and thought "I'd love to have him all to myself and fuck him" I've only said that about women? Groinal responses as well they're a pain in the ass especially when I check porn it's a massive anxiety trap and makes me question shit even though it may cause a physical response I don't like it mentally I want it gone I want this all gone without any doubt. If anyone spent their time reading this thank you. I feel so alone at the moment and isolated with confusion with no one to talk to

We shouldnt expect the thoughts to instantly go away when we are ignoring them, this will make ocd worse, but i still sometimes question is this ocd or not when after ignoring a while, some thoughts still come with that strong feeling. For me now, i dont know what can be the main problem, im struggling with that but im trying to find out, since a week im on this reactive state where i feel like i had enough that people blame me, and i feel like everyone is against me and im sensitive to any critisicism. When im in this state i have so strong thoughts about me hating others, criticizing, having random negative thoughgs about others and i started being afraid that i think that im better then everyone(this is my ocd about being egoistic). So i do ignore these thoughts but still the next day or one day in the same week with the same reaction and feelings these hateful thoughts come back, and its not like the usual ocd thoughts like i want to harm someone or something, if i have that now i dont give attention to it cause idk its jjst automatic now that i see those as ocd and not important but when i have these judging thoughts i do not like them. I start to have thoughts about others, like i criticize others, im being negative and hateful in my mind but at the same time i dont like it. Then i start to be afraid that this is me, this is how my week will be, i have to work on myself again, or im being depressed, so ocd judges these. However when i do ignore as i said and it still comes back with the same reaction then i say to myself that maybe theres something deep in me that i need tk woek with, its not ocd its actually a real emotional problem, and i dont like to say that cause the i start to spin aboit whats the problem... then these thoughts turn against me and i think that maybe im not good enough to do what i wanted,maybe its not for me, there are many judging thoughts about myself and its tireing mentally and im afraid its not ocd but actually im having a real problem that i have to deal with...

From this app, I got reported for asking for reassurance. Sorry guys. That wasn’t great. I will try to do better for self care

If anyone else has had or has the theme of narcissism, do your thoughts sometimes have a selfish, narcissistic theme or attitude to them? Like “you know that person right there? You’re better than them.” “No I’m not- I’m not better than anyone. I don’t think that- I hope I don’t think that.” I’ll actively try and fight it off, humble myself, do something to make sure I don’t ACTUALLY think or feel that way. “You’re the best at everything- you probably think you’re the best at everything.” I’ll fight it off with “no I don’t think I’m the best at everything- I probably can’t do (whatever it is insert here)” “That apology wasn’t real- you didn’t mean it.” “Yes I did…wait- did I..?” I fear accepting these thoughts- or not combating them because then it feels like I actually think like that. “You’re not feeling overly guilty about that mistake? Or about that thing you did that contributed to something? You must not be able to handle accountability.” If I ever think something along the lines of “yeah I should’ve done this better or done this more, shouldn’t of done that, but I’ve never done anything extremely horrible, I don’t do anything or I try very hard not to do anything with the intent to REALLY hurt someone or do bad things- so it’s okay, I can try better next time.” My thought will come in with “we making up excuses now? If you don’t feel absolutely destroyed over that, if you can’t find something you did that you still feel incredibly guilty for, if you are not keeping score with all he bad things you’ve done to remind yourself every day how bad you are, you must be narcissistic or a narcissist.” Can anyone else relate to this? I would love to hear someone else’s perspective, i would like to know I’m at least not alone in this theme.

my ocd triggers my ptsd everyday and im struggling to escape these vivid intrusive thoughts. i feel so detached and unaware, like im not me. am i in denial of reality in some way? if so, how do i snap out of this daze? im in a dream state all the time i think cuz of the pain im in. i just want one day without sinister chatter in my mind and gross feelings invading my body whenever my mind goes blank. instead of silence in my brain, there's something that fills the emptiness with negativity. it feels like a gravity pulling me down into a terrible place like something wont let go and im being gas lighted into thinking i want it. it's also like im compulsively mocking myself in the most cruel ways i can think of, but it's a voice that is definitely not me. then i follow it up with a defense compulsion even though i shouldn't need to since the truth is obvious that i am not evil and i dont wanna do bad things. my trauma is taking away my sanity/consciousness and im tryna gain it back, but i welcome any positivity.

I’m constantly feeling unwanted arousal by my thoughts and it feels more intense than normal arousal. It’s driving me crazy. Any movement down there causes it, any of the thoughts I hate causes it. It’s all day everyday and I cannot focus. It’s super confusing because the physical part obviously has a good feeling but I hate how it is being caused so it’s a very BAD feeling. I’m so scared.

It seems like the toughest thing is to continue my day and get out of bed even though I have intrusive thoughts. Starting to think my response of quiting or throwing the day away is my ritual that needs to end.

Sometimes i feel like i say its ocd to everything when i shouldnt, and i get triggered when i hear ocd is when you feel the urgency to solve the thought, sometimes i call the random negative thoughts about myself ocd too cause it feels like i have to think about this. However now idk what happened, i just remember i got stressed last week and it just got stronger and steonger and now i feel like the whole world is against me, i get criticism from everywhere and then for days the situations that happened or the things others said keeps spinning in my mind, and it makes me feel like i did something wrong and i should feel guilt. Im really reactive to everything right now, i get angry really easily, i used to not care about some things but now even a little spark will start a fire... its annoying, however i still say this is part of ocd. I really feel that i want my old self back and when i have this reactive state i beat myself up cause i dont like this, i want my normal self back. I think this ads more to the problem.... what should i do, any advices?

I've experienced a fairly wide range of ocd symptoms throughout my life... Contamination ocd, magical thinking, checking window locks, intrusive thoughts about cheating on exams, obsession with praying, several months of chronic guilt when I was 12 for breaking a school rule, body symptoms where I would have to jump, or contort my body, move my head etc. I'm 31 now and started dating a really wonderful woman 4 months ago. We clicked fairly quickly with similar interests, and had been having a really great relationship... a couple of weeks ago we discussed the types of things we would like in our futures e.g. marriage, desire to be parents one day. We found out we both have similar life goals etc. and it felt really great. I've never had so much fun talking with someone, hanging out or been so impressed by their character and compassion. It felt so easy to fall in love once I felt safe. A few days after checking in with one another about life goals, I was having a bit of a stressful night unrelated to the relationship. I visited my gf after her work shift and noticed I was more anxious in my body than usual. We meditated together and then put on a tv show, while I was watching the show I had this thought flash into my head saying "what if you don't love your gf as much as you could, and deep down you are obsessed with women who are white / from the same country as you" the thoughts flashed again the next day, i ruminated and "cancelled out" the thought by thinking of my ex as an example that i would never choose anyone over my gf. the following days i felt consumed by guilt and shame, thinking of myself as xenophobic and obsessed with the idea i am racist. I selfishly confessed to her about everything, without considering what burden it could place on her. i felt like i was lying and she should know the truth but now i feel more selfish for sharing. my gf is south american. we are both white / of european descent but i feel very much aware that she can face xenophobic discrimination where we live). I've been in love before but have never felt so confident about a relationship. She studies psychology and researched ocd the night I told her everything and has been really understanding and supportive. I love her so much and feel so committed, but keep feeling as though I must be xenophobic and even racist due to the problematic nature of the intrusive thought i had. inhave been feeling like I do not deserve her love, or to feel pleasure like reading books or even just enjoying working. my logical mind says of course ocd attacks your values in creative and messed up ways but i can't help but think that's a stretch from typical rocd and maybe i am a really bad person. has anyone ever experienced anything similar or the brain being extra evil / tricky?

I’ve been struggling a lot recently with my anxiety and ruminating about a health issue that I’m reminded almost constantly about. Has anyone dealt with this type of thing and if so how did you manage? I’m used to more intrusive thoughts and “pure” OCD but this is different. 😩

Having ocd makes me always think the worst and that the only explanation is that I did something horrible. I have had 2 incidents over the years that have made my life miserable. I guess they are real events and possibly false memories as well. When my son was little he would crawl into bed with me sometimes. One morning I got up and he was still asleep. I went about my morning tasks. When I went back upstairs to my room he was awake sitting up wrapped in the blanket. I said good morning and told him to come downstairs with me and get breakfast like I always did but when he got out of bed he didn’t have his underwear on. I yelled at him demanding to know why he took his underwear off. He was 2 or 3 so he could talk but not fully yet and he pointed at me and yelled “You!”. My ocd immediately kicked in and made me think the worst that I must have done something horrible to him in my sleep. Why would he say that? 😪The other was years later when my daughter was younger she used to crawl into bed with me at night alot. One night I woke up to her saying “mommy” and I was really tired so I just remember saying “sorry” and moving over and going back to sleep. I know it was probably nothing more than I just rolled over on her or something like that but my ocd keeps telling me I must have done something horrible. I don’t want to live thinking I could have done something horrible. It has made my life so hard to live. Now all these years later since my memory has faded my ocd tells me maybe I was drinking and just don’t remember doing something horrible . People without ocd probably wouldn’t think much about these situations and would just shrug them off as weird things kids do and say or that happen in life and parenthood but my ocd makes the worst possible scenario out of everything and makes me hate myself and living. 😞