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so i cant seek reassurance and i cant confess. so what. i bottle it all up until i burst into a million little pieces??

During school, I went with my friends to get food but there wasnt enough room in the car so my friend offered their lap to sit on. I said yes and went to sit on her lap but there wasn’t enough room vertically for my head so i ended up laying down across the people in the back seat. I made sure my head and butt were on my female friends but there was a guy sitting in the middle so i arched my back a bit so it wouldn’t touch him. i felt really uncomfortable the whole time but there wasn’t anything i could do because we already started driving. I made sure he didnt touch me and i didnt touch him but i feel really guilty and i dont know what to do. I dont know if i should tell my partner or not. My friend that offered me her lap was trying to console me saying that its okay and that i didnt touch him and she made sure that he didnt touch me but still. please help

Now i know i need to accept when i feel anxiety or fear, ive been avoiding it or pushing it away.l, cause im afraid ir will take me and to be honest i cant really deal with fear. I noticed when i feel it a I say its okay, im feeling this but theres no danger and by this i pushing it away. But when theres is signs of an aczual danger i ho crazy. I try to push away the fear but it says that "there is a sign, we are in danger, are you crazy?" Ane i keep spinning. I heard alot about accepting thatbwe feel anxiety or fear but thats always makes me accept that theres a danger. Cause im accepting what i feeling but then my mind wants to know if theres a danger and im spinning over that, then i feel like i need to avoid it cause i cant handle... or if i say theres might be a danger or there is i go crazy... then i start to have the selfharm automative thoughts and in the panic i cant see that its ocd, im trying to say it but i feel like im lying, then everything feels true... i cant accept that i feel anxiety but its not a danger but even this you can see i start to rumminate over "okay i feel this but is there a problem? Yeah is see this this is a problem, im avoiding, i have to do something about it quickly, then i try to stop to not act based of fear but i feel bad cause im avoiding. I cant see the reality when i feel panic or afraid, even trying to see reality becomes compulsive. What im dealing with now is that i get hit by anxiety, i accept it and i get a feeling that but theres no fear and i get hit by this toxic good feeling like i avoided a danger and i dont like it cause that feeds the fear

About 2 years ago when my daughter was younger she would get scared at night sometimes and come sleep with me. One night I woke up to her saying “mommy!” So I briefly woke up and said “sorry mama” and moved over and fell back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning I thought nothing of it at first figuring I probably just rolled over on her but then my ocd kicked in making me believe I must have done something horrible to her and it has bothered me so badly ever since. While I know people without ocd wouldn’t think anything of it, I have been questioning myself and feeling so depressed ever since. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

I'm having such a hard time dealing with a false memory, it kills me to know that I'm not going to get the details of this memory. My aunt tries to calm me down by telling me that I didn't do anything bad to my little cousin, but I can't stay okay for long. The fact that this memory occurred on a day when we were just starting to wake up makes it worse, because immediately the thought comes that my aunt might not have been fully awake at the time to confirm anything, plus it's practically impossible to ask my little cousin to remember anything either. But all of this is frustrating because I have a memory of waking up and just lying there thinking about random things, apart from the fact that my cousin never changed with me, he never acted as if I represented some kind of danger. And one thing that also confronts all these bad thoughts is that at that time I already knew I had OCD, I always remember what they say about people with OCD never doing what the intrusive thoughts say they are capable of, and at that time I was scared to death just thinking about something bad, like, I didn't even want to think about it, how would I have the courage to do it? And on top of all that, I remember the memory I have of just lying there thinking about random things, why doesn't my mind trust that? Why does it keep coming up with horrible details that make no sense? Like, before I discovered OCD I never behaved like that, I never wanted to hurt anyone, why doesn't my mind just focus on that? I know they're traps, but this idea that I'm a bad person is desperate, it makes me think that I'm not worthy of living, that I don't deserve good things and that I'm deceiving everyone and myself. I don't know how to get out of this cycle, sometimes I'm okay but it always comes back, it's like something saying "No matter how much you run away, you've done something bad and you're not as good a person as you try to tell everyone" or something like "The only way to get rid of this is to have all the details and you'll never have them". It's just scary, I have no words, it's scary and suffocating. How can I live with it?

sometimes when I read all these posts I just start crying 😭😭 I hate that we are all suffering like this… ocd is not for the weak and its so frustrating 😭 Im really tired honestly… my ocd has its good and bad days but im just exhausted by all of it. I cant enjoy simple things because my ocd has to overcomplicate every little thing and create these “signs” as to what I am and what I am not. Ive had ocd for over a year now im a just upset 😭😭😭 I dont want to live like this forever… I have a lot of people who say, “you can talk to me if you want” and its really sweet 💓 but I dont think anyone can understand what I am feeling because even I cant… I dont know what im doing- how im feeling- who I am- or even what my values are 😭 ocd just makes me question everything. I am a 14 year old girl 😭😭😭 how am I supposed to know what to do? Ive talked mom about my ocd a few times and she tries to help but she doesn’t even understand 1/5th of what I go through daily. I appreciate her caring even if its a little but I just want some help 😭😭 I am a bit scared of therapy though. But im willing to try but im not sure if my mom will let me… Ocd just makes me feel so unlovable. I hate it.

My OCD is getting really exhausting, it makes me take double the amount of time in almost everything. I really don’t want it to be part of my life. I have had OCD for as long as I can remember, and mine goes through phases where some months it’s less things to do, but for the last few months it has been crazy. I have intrusive thoughts and bad anxiety, if I don’t stick to my routine or do things a certain number of times my brain involves it with something bad is going to happen, and if it doesn’t feel perfect to me I have to do it again. It is just getting so annoying at this point and I need to learn how to always stay at a low amount of OCD, because I know that it will never fully go away but I want to get it down as much as possible.

i think doing erp is making my obsessive thoughts worse. i feel like im ruminating more and triggering myself in my sessions. is this something other people have experienced?? does this mean erp isnt for me?? someone please help me )-:

so before this mess when i knew who i was i was very sensitive and emotional and compassionate. and i feel like somewhere in me i still am. i still cry when i feel bad for someone. i still try to be as best as i can to others. but these thoughts make me question everything and it feels so real. “what if emotions aren’t real?” “what if you don’t even need to be kind to others?” “you are being delusional and you don’t need compassion.” “good and bad aren’t even real” “that’s not bad everybody is brainwashed to think it is.” i’m so tired. i cannot feel, i cannot be in pain from my ocd because they just tell me that im stressing for no reason and that these thoughts are the truth. but i don’t want to believe them. so what do i do? i need to prove them wrong. i need to prove that i am still me and that i am human. idk im losing it, im losing everything that was important to me. i feel like there is no hope. i hate my life

I fear that my ocd will cause psychosis or that it already has..

I really can’t deal with this anymore I question everything about myself every second of everyday. The I intrusive thoughts never stop and they make me feel like such a terrible person. I really don’t know what to do I’m scared to talk to a therapist or anyone because I feel like people will think I’m crazy. Is there any medicine I can take that may make me feel normal again that really all I want is to be happy and feel normal again

Not even for a minute. This Is exhausting. I'm trying to say ok maybe you are or you are not, Who knows, but I Just can't stop thinking and trying to solve this.

hi everyone, really need some advice if possible!! me and my boyfriend have been going through a rough patch. we’ve both realized that we really are complete opposites. he’s an extrovert, i’m an introvert, he has an avoidant attachment style and i have the anxious attachment style. scary, right!! anyways we’ve both been talking through how we’re going to work through it these past two weeks because we both genuinely feel we can make this work. i’ve been in therapy and he’s going to start therapy and we’ve honestly just made progress. and i was FINALLY feeling a relief of anxiety through this and he told me yesterday how he’s scared i won’t be able to adjust or enjoy his extroverted activities. i reassured him im willing to try but just him having anxiety and small doubts gives me the worst anxiety!! i feel confident we will make this work and find middle grounds to everything like we have before but i don’t really do too much of his interest and he’s scared i won’t like them or he’ll find difficulty being okay with my adjustments right away. he said he’s also confident in us but he also has anxiety about this whole thing. we’ve been dating for two years now and i really want this relationship to work but my rocd keeps telling me to leave now and not try out this new lifestyle. that this is too scary to even go through. that he’ll leave me because i’m not “perfect” or “enough” for him even though he’s reassured me. i keep wanting to budge and keep asking for reassurance even though i’ve asked a bjillion times. any advice on how to get through this scary times? we’re both scared of change and we both know we’re capable of it but i’m scared this won’t work out so my ocd is telling me to leave now so i can be stress free. to leave now because it’s never going to work ever and why try but i don’t want that. i don’t want my thoughts to control actions that i don’t even know are true since i haven’t even tried this new change in our relationship

I am having a really hard time with what I think is a form of memory hoarding that started about 3 years ago. I have seen multiple therapists and explained my symptoms, but they are not aware of what memory hoarding is and have a hard time understanding what I am experiencing prompting them to try to address a possible underlying issue. While it may be beneficial to address the underlying issue, it is still not helping me get through the episodes of panic and severe anxiety that has thrown me into a cycle of depression. I am now taking Wellbutrin and Fluxomine, but they are only slightly helping me. I am constantly trying to remember what I am thinking about, talking about, listening to or doing and often times things will "slip my mind" (almost like a feeling of amnesia) and I cannot move forward until I either remember or convince myself that I remember. Sometimes this will take days to get out of the cycle of trying to remember and I am so stuck I cannot think about or focus on anything else. These are not important things which is the hardest thing to explain. This is causing major issues in my life, family, work, personal to the point where I could not get out of bed, had suicidal thoughts and thought I would need to quit my job. I used to be able to forget things and be able to laugh it off and think, if it was important it will come back to me, otherwise who cares! Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I have seen a lot of posts on reddit, but never spoke to anyone that has the same or similar issue.

i’m having a really hard week. my intrusive thoughts have been super bad and i’ve been compulsing the entire time. on top of that i feel like im not sleeping enough. i might just be over exaggerating but im having a lot of nights where i wake up, check the clock, and then it feels like a minute later i check the clock and its been 3 hours (is that normal??). or i wake up and really cant fall back asleep and am aware of it (today i was up at 4:30). i think im only averaging 5 hours at night im really scared that like im going into a psychosis or something. please someone help

Yesterday I had an ending session with a therapist I had been seeing for almost 2 years. This is because she doesn’t specialise in OCD and actually when I spoke to her about my diagnosis it was quite triggering for me as she didn’t think I had OCD (she thinks it’s only excessive cleanliness etc). She’s a humanistic therapist and I have worked with her through so much that i’ve formed a really strong attachment. I’m so nervous to start doing ERP/ CBT work and i’m really frightened that it won’t work for me. My old therapist has said i can always come back whenever, but I feel alone and scared and like my safety blanket has completely gone. I realise this is probably because she provided me with so much reassurance. Does anyone have any advice or can give me any words of wisdom if they’ve gone through similar things? I can’t stop crying and feel very depressed.

Has anyone experienced OCD regarding a particular individual? This person is absolutely meaningless to you, yet your brain has been giving them a sort of “god complex.” This all started a few years ago for me with a classmate from college when Covid began and this individual made me feel bad about something, although they didn’t know they did. This particular thing really bothered me and I was never sure why. They did nothing wrong, my brain did by latching onto that trivial thing and feeding the obsession. I still struggle with it and sometimes it feels like it’s constantly in the background and it causes severe anxiety at times. Anyways was just wondering if I could get anyone else’s input or thoughts on this particular issue.

Hey everyone! Here is my story and I would love to see if anyone relates or if the same thing may have happened to them. Back in August of 2022, I tested positive for COVID for the third time (yippie🙃). I have to say that this was my worst bout of COVID yet and I had massive brain-fog, migraines(previous diagnosed w/ chronic migraines), all the fun stuff. A week after I got over this round of COVID, I tested positive for strep and found out I had a sinus infection that had been untreated for about a month. Needless to say, my immune system was shot. After all of this occurred, I started having severe panic attacks constantly.. every morning I woke up and was already panicking, I would feel like I wasn’t in my own body, my brain was a foggy mess, and I absolutely hated the life I was living. This went on for three months before I finally decided to see my health care provider about it. In November of that same year, I started taking Sertraline and have been moving up in my dose ever since. In June of this past year, I started having extremely distressing thoughts about my boyfriend, who I have been with since January of 2022. These thoughts were ones that I was able to push away at first, but as time went on they became more and more anxiety provoking. Thoughts such as, “do I love him enough?”, “do I even love him and if I do, why don’t I feel it?”, “you should break up with him”, “are you attracted to him?”. Deep down, I know I love him VERY much, he is my best friend and I feel so safe with him, and he is the first healthy relationship I have had in my life. It’s comfortable and he feels like home. These thoughts come and go for WEEKS on end, and then the anxiety calms down and the thoughts get quiet for awhile.. and then they come back full force and cripple me with anxiety and sadness all over. I’m currently having a flair up on these feelings (I have not been diagnosed, but I find myself relating to a lot of what other people have felt or are feeling + have talked to my doctor and they believe I could benefit from therapy with these symptoms). I find that when I am extremely stressed or anxious, these thoughts appear. The first time I had ever had these thoughts or feelings was in my 20s and it is something I have never experienced before my immune system gave up on me for awhile. Long story short, I wanted to see if anyone else may be dealing with this or if long-term COVID has messed with others’ psyche. Thanks for reading!!

When I was in school I kept having unwanted thoughts of cheating..makes me think I just like the idea which I don't!!! I don't want to cheat on my boyfriend at all. Then when I saw some of the male students introducing thereselfs. My brain just automatically say that they are attractive or say like "cheating sounds fun" NO NO NO NOOOO. :< It didn't stop with one particular boy in my class which made me panic because it would make me think I had crush feelings and it didn't go away even when I was no many times. I was saying that my boyfriend is way more attractive and I have crush feelings for my boyfriend not this person and I don't care about this person. But it doesn't believe it would blame me because of my cheating thoughts THAT I DON'T EVEN WANNA DO. After awhile I was sitting in a different class and then I just looked around the room and just noticed him there. My thoughts would keep making him this woah pretty boy and the unwanted feelings did not go away at all. I would say I do not like cheating I never did I love my boyfriend he is better and way attractive. Then the boy came to my table and wanted to ask me like a question for one of the assignments. BUT MY STUPID THOUGHTS KEPT MAKING ME THINK I'M SHY OR I LIKE HIM. I stood still and felt uncomfortable. He sounded nice but THAT DOESN'T MEAN I'M GONNA JUST THROW MY BOYFRIEND :<. After he left one thought came in and said "if he said your boyfriend doesn't have to know would you cheat?" I said no no no no no but it kept making me feel different and I was trying my best not to scream or freak out. I WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING AND I MEAN ANYTHING TO LEAVE OR HURT MY BOYFRIEND. I DON'T LIKE THIS RANDOM BOY I NEVER DID. now it's making me think I'm a cheater because I didn't panic or did something to disagree more to the thoughts....it felt like I liked the thoughts but I didn't I love my boyfriend why would I think that. It's making me think I'm this toxic cheating planning 15 year old bad influence on my boyfriend but I didn't want to have thoughts of this random boy in my class or have cheating thoughts. I FUCKING CAN'T I HATE THIS I DON'T WANT TO THINK ANY STUPID FUCKING BOY IS ATTRACTIVE OR HAVE THOUGHTS THAT I HAVE A "CRUSH" ON A BOY WHO JUST HAS GOOD FEATURES. MY BOYFRIEND HAS GOOD FEATURES, I HAVE A CRUSH ON MY BOYFRIEND, I'M NOT GONNA CHEAT I WILL LITERALLY MURDER THEM IF THEY EVER SAID MY BOYFRIEND DOESN'T HAVE TO KNOW. I DON'T GET IT I DON'T FUCKING GET IT I NEVER WANTED TO THINO OF OTHER STUPID FUCKING BOYS. GOD DAMNIT. I'M NOT DOING THIS JUST TO LOOK GOOD I'M NOT DOING THIS JUST TO KEEP MY BOYFRIEND. I DON'T EVER WANT TO THINK OF THIS BOY IN MY CLASS I DON'T FUCKING GEY IT.

I think I may have had the worst day of my life yesterday. It started when I struggled with sleeping, only getting three or so hours in before waking up at 6am. Around 8 I had a bad panic attack. I haven't had one that bad in a long time. I had to call my mom to come hang out with me until it passed. Then I finally got some more sleep, not enough still but a few more hours at least until my partner got home from work. They were tired so I had my mom take me to the grocery store so I could get something for dinner for us but we didn't make it there. We got in a car wreck. No one was seriously hurt thankfully. I was pretty shaken up, we both were. I had another panic attack from it in the parking lot of some random hair salon that we pulled into to get off the road. I already feel pretty invisible and like I don't matter so when the paramedic only asked me if I was ok and I said "I think so" it hurt my feelings a little that he left and never checked back on us. Someone else did add before leaving that we could go to the ER if we wanted but it just made me sad to feel so dismissed after getting into an accident. It didn't help that the police officer was a little combative too. We had to wait there for a good 45 minutes before we could finally go home. Of course, with my OCD, I had to shower right when we got home before doing anything because I was "dirty" for going outside. That was frustrating, I couldn't even sit down for a second first. And now it's the next day and I'm still so utterly exhausted and my poor partner, it was there car and they've had to be on the phone with insurance and stuff so they're pretty stressed about everything too and I feel like the absolute worst partner because I can't be there for them more or comfort them. With my OCD I can't even hug them unless I know we're showering afterwards. :( Plus it was partly my fault for the wreck since I was the one that asked to go to the store. If I didn't none of that would of happened. There was a lot of reasons it happened though so I don't fully blame myself and I'm not beating myself up too much but still. Worst day of my life I think and today isn't much better.