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working to conquer OCD
does anyone else deal with the need to tell their parents everything bc if you don’t you feel like they don’t know you? especially if you feel like you’ve done something wrong?
i have two dogs, and i love them both so much. but one of them spends more time with me than the other. but that doesn’t mean i love them less. well i was working with one with training, and my mind was like “you don’t love him, you never loved this dog, you hate him, he sucks” i have never EVER felt this way about him. but now i can’t be near him without thinking i secretly hate him, but i don’t. i love him so much
So I had a good day yesterday but last night and today I've been ruminating over what I could have done better and what I messed up and it's basically ruining my memory of the day by making the less good stuff bigger in my mind than the good stuff. I'll have to bring this up with my therapist but in the meantime, does anyone have any thoughts on how to better focus on the good aspects?
Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been a skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure is being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Keep in mind I am a literal atheist and all about facts, science and evidence, I am a skeptic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lose this little bit of insight I have. I hate these thoughts so much, I don’t want to think about them, but now that they are here, I feel like I can’t forget them. My dpdr is already making everything feel so off and weird and unreal and I feel like it’s only giving these thoughts more credibility and realness. I feel like this could also be partly a terrible form of existential ocd that’s being thrown into the mix with all these “what if thoughts”. Ugh I just want to be normal again ): but I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore because I’m constantly on the lookout for symptoms that I can’t even be normal anymore. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.
I honestly can’t deal with this anymore. I have a 2 year old who needs me, a partner and family who love me. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to leave my family behind. I just wish there was a magical fucking cure to heal me!! I can’t confess anymore because my partner put up his boundaries. And literally drowning in thoughts. I haven’t stopped obsessing about these things for days on end like the whole time I’m awake, till the moment I fall asleep. I never get a break. I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I’m over living a life that doesn’t even feel like I’m living. I’ll probably just be stuck this way forever so what’s the point… I know that sounds selfish but I can’t help my feelings. I cry every day almost. Had a full on mental breakdown today. Feel so fucking bad. Feel so guilty for these thoughts. I literally have been in the backyard screaming like I’m dying over these thoughts for atleast an hour today. My daughter hears all of this from inside. I’m a terrible mum and a terrible partner and a terrible everything. Everyone would be better off without me.
Hey, well, this is my first time ever posting in here but I figured why not? I’ve been struggling with this issue for almost three months now and it’s been a constant battle, I guess I just really need some support, so almost a year ago now, I got in a relationship and I realized I may be Asexual since I didn’t really have any sexual desires towards my partner, starting late November though, I began to have these intrusive images in my head of us having sex. These thoughts have caused me a lot of anxiety and stress as well as depression. It’s weird, I know deep down in my heart I don’t desire any of that with her but the thoughts feel so real at times and sometimes that makes me feel like I want the thoughts. I’m pretty much lost at this point and don’t know if whether it is OCD or if I’m just in denial. The thing is, I don’t want to see her that way, she doesn’t want to ever engage in any sexual activity and I want to respect that and respect the decision we both made to never do so unless it’s to have a baby. I just feel a sense of doom I guess, I’m scared that I might like the thoughts when I don’t want to like them. I’d feel so much guilt if it isn’t OCD and it’s actually me, and the thought of that terrifies me. I hope every day it’s OCD.
i don’t want it to seem like i’m wanting reassurance, because i really don’t. but i was wondering if this is an ocd thing. randomly during the day, i’ll hear something, i wish i could describe it. like i will hyper focus on a sound or the way something was said/pronounced. here’s an example, i closed the fridge, and the way the sound was, i overthink it! i was thinking “why does it sound like that, did i like how it sound, does this sound scare me, why am i overthinking something i never have before” and i do this a lot. just wanting to know if this could be a symptom of ocd. i never used to do this until these last few months. now i over analyze sounds,words,eating,drinking. can’t catch a break 😞
i can’t stop having these thoughts it’s been taking over the past few days and i think i’m having an anxiety attack right now i have these thoughts “what if i don’t make this through this is like an everyday thing”, “what if i hurt myself or what if i want to do it” or it’s like “what if i go grab a knife and do something” and it scares me and it gives me anxiety and i’m scared i just want this to go away i have my thoughts telling me all of this my dad was saying to take me to the hospital if they get worse i didn’t go today because i didn’t want to but it’s 8 pm here and i think i might ask if i could go tomorrow i’m just so tired i want a therapist to talk to right now but my parents are low on money until they get paid on friday and my dad was gonna see if we go to the hospital because they can just get billed it’s like if i get reassurance nothing helps and even if i have a distraction nothing helps it’s like my thoughts continue and it makes me forget things
Does anyone else think of their ocd as like, a separate entity? I do, and I think it’s helped me a lot. I feel like it kind of is a parasite sometimes, especially with intrusive thoughts. What do you guys think?
the past week has been one of the hardest weeks of my life i tried to kms a couple times and i just cut myself really bad but what caused this all is my mind saying ive done something wrong even though i haven’t. I’ve asked many people they said i haven’t done anything wrong i even asked my parents and i know the answer but my body can’t seem to accept it. There’s genuinely something so wrong with me and i’m so tired of living.
In the past few months, I've been worried about the body proportions of women I imagine. I'm confused, and I don't know what ERP for my niche case looks like. It might sound silly, but I appreciate your advice. I've had HOCD symptoms since 2020 though I didn't know much about what OCD was or that my condition was OCD until 2023. My main compulsion has been to "correct" intrusive homosexual images by replacing them with a heterosexual one. However, as I learned about OCD and realized themes such as ZOCD and POCD exist, these themes eventually began my main OCD content. Lately I've been worrying about the incorrect, too small body proportions of the images of adult women, sexual orsexualthat instantly come to my mind. That's especially distressing when I build these images during wanted sexual fantasies or, admittedly, when doing other OCD compulsions. Sometimes it feels like a bully in my brain is making these images small or makes it tiring for my brain to maintain a more realistic (at least as I precieve it) body proportion, although my aim is to imagine adult women. Sorry for the long text. My question is, how does ERP look like in my case? Am I to let these images go on, including in the middle of my fantasies? How about when these images are themselves OCD compulsions? What if I let them go on and they become smaller and smaller, and I begin enjoying and preferring those smaller proportions? I've been avoiding (and also not much interested in) my sexual imaginations mainly due to this. Is not engaging in these imaginations avoidance? Again, thanks for reading this and advice.
I found out my mom was molested by her dad when she was little. My parents got a divorce when I was a teen and my grandpa became like my dad. He was a well respected man and he was a little weird but I chalked it up to him just being a dirty old man (when he would joke about things). My mom started having flash backs later in life and blocked them out. I was so sad to know this happened to her and that it happened at the hands of some I loved and trusted. Now I want to be a mom but I am afraid of someone hurting my kids. My grandpa has passed away but I have OCD and my intrusive thoughts are: what if someone I love and trust does this to my kids? I love and trust my husband and he is an amazing guy for an example but I over analyze things like the dog sitting on his lap and stuff like that. We talked about me going to therapy and my husband said hell come with me but I keep having bad experiences with therapists so I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me? I want to be a good mom and let the past go but im worried im going to overanayalze everything and that scares me because my friends, family, and husband don’t deserve me thinking horrible things
Hello, I'm new here. I went through a really intense and traumatic breakup about a year ago and I'm currently working with my university for a SA/Title IX case against him as he was abusive in varying ways and very manipulative. I have the need to check and search the parking lots, the spaces around me, etc.. for him and his very distinct car frequently. It's been getting a lot better as I'm seeking therapy and back on medications. But some days I still have frequent urges to check, I feel like if I don't check, then something bad is going to happen. Aka, I'll run into him, and I fear he'll hurt me or say something to purposefully distress me. I get incredibly nauseous, panicked, obsessive overthinking if I don't which doesn't allow me to be present and learn in classes. Something that has helped me cope is having headphones and sticking to a strict routine and limiting my time on campus.
I just remembered that at school we have swimming class every couple of months. But now I suddenly started questioning „what if during swimming clash I had touched another classmate inappropriately?“ and now I keep trying to remember when I had swimming class. I know that up until 2021 I was always around my sister and like the years before that too and there I was quite damn young so I wouldn’t say anything like this would just cross my mind. I also remember that, due to covid, we didn’t have swimming class until idk, maybe 2022. I also just now remembered I had sth on my foot that I was really embarrassed abt and I didn’t want to get bullied so I skipped as often as I could back then and even had sth from my doctor so I could skip. Basically I was at swimming class maybe 2-4 times that entire year. Then, the same in 2023. I also was around one of my friends at the time then so there wasn’t a lot that could’ve possibly happened either. But now that I remembered the time in 2022 that I skipped so often that I had to show up on some Friday for a few minutes after school to get a grade and now I’m worried sth might’ve happened there. And like, back then there were some children in that pool too bc the teacher had some children’s swimming training for like 5th graders or sth. And now I keep thinking „what if I had touched one of them inappropriately?“ and like the thing is that from my memories I remember that I didn’t even get close to them bc I was in the 3 meters deep part of the pool and they in the 1,50 meters deep one. So basically there was no way for me to get close to them at all. I also only was in that part of the pool for like 1-1,5 minutes, I then switched to another part in which there was some kind of border thing to the other part of the pool. I also of course was only swimming normally and I remember I still had the thing on my foot so all I thought abt was trying to have nobody see it and there were two swimming teachers, they probably would’ve seen if I had actually done anything, right? I know this all just doesn’t make sense but I keep thinking „but what if?“ even tho I have no memory to doing that at all.
I try it but it makes me feel overwhelmed and the i feel like im starting to believe the thoughts. I also realized i need to let myself fall into full blown up panic, bacause some of the thoughts come with the panic and i dont like that i have to let myself go into paniking cause there i just believe the thoughts or im avoiding and make it worse. Also i dont like that i have to accept and let every emotion to be, im a sensitive person or im am now cause i have anxiety, but i could cry for anything, even my dog makes me cry cause im so happy for him, i see something on the tv or i think about something that its wonderful and beautiful and it make me cry. If i let myself feel everything i become an emotional baggage, and i eill be lead by my emotions. In that state i just feel like the thoughts are real and then i have to get out which is avodiance... i don not understand
I deal with false memories, I’ve had a few that have been pretty bad, but normally I’ve been able to tell myself “hey, this is false.” I remembered something a few months ago, and a genuinely don’t know if it’s false? When I first remembered it, it never crossed my mind at all that it could be false. I just assumed it was entirely true. But now that I’ve been thinking about it, there is a possibility that it could be false. It supposedly took place last year during the fall or winter, I remembered it last august. It’s an extremely extremely specific scenario, and the memory is kinda complex. I also vaguely remember remembering it earlier, but it now affecting me that much? Although that could have just been having intrusive thoughts related to the subject. With my confusion on whether or not this memory is false of course comes my ocd shoving it’s way into everything. Something my brain has been telling me recently is “if the memory could be false then maybe only parts of it are and you’re actually just a terrible person” (that would make more sense if I explained the memory). And now I have to keep reminding myself that it’s either all true or it’s all fake, because our ocd would not produce the “better part” of the memory without producing the “worse part”.
So many posts I’ve seen say ‘treat the thought as a thought and behave based on your values’ I have SOOCD. It’s so confusing I have no idea what my values are anymore. Do I assume whatever i was into before ocd started is my values? Like I don’t think I have any real ambition/want for a relationship with a guy, but I’m so numb, it’s been so long, I have no idea? What to do?
My new physician who is evaluating me for OCD asked about if I hear voices. I immediately got anxious and still am 24 hours later. I am deathly afraid of going schizophrenic and losing my grip on reality so my intrusive thoughts are very much surrounded my sounds , imagining I’m hearing a voice , being hyperaware , or being afraid of silence. When I said no I do not have auditory hallucinations I then begin to tell myself that I was lying and I probably am having hallucinations but just sane enough to lie about it? I am in a cycle of self doubt and it is driving me nuts. Why can’t I just take my diagnosis for what it is? And believe it is the right one?
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