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Guys, I am really stressed rn. My psychiatrist is telling me that OCD is just a spectrum or something like that. My therapist has diagnosed me with OCD. I am scared that I don’t have OCD. Did someone go through something like this?

I’m getting married in November to the love of my life. I’ve been with him for over 5 years and I’m so excited but I’ve struggle sexual identity over the past and now with the wedding coming up, my intrusive thoughts and the constant theme of identity keep showing up in my head. From what I wear to how I act, I can’t just enjoy being myself. I know who I am but anytime my SOOCD comes up, it just wipes my identity completely out. I’m trying to ignore it and tell myself I don’t need to label myself as anything but I’m having constant intrusive dreams lately and it’s messing with my daily life

Does anyone ever feel like they are “reaching” for the thoughts almost to check it shows up? It makes it feel like it’s intentional but if is very much not because I believe the content of the thought, rather it is almost a sick need to have the thought even though I don’t want the thought. Does that make any sense?

I’m feeling anxious right now my roommate and I were watching a disturbing show and now I want to punish myself for it. My heart is racing

Anyone struggling with intrusive thoughts that only seem to pass when faced with evidence? I had people knock at my front door to hand out leaflets. After looking back at my ring doorbell and the video cutting out after a while I realised the video didn’t pick up on them leaving. I now have intrusive thoughts of what if I did something and now I have no proof of it. Anyone else have this?😭

Ever since the pandemic I have had this fear of germs. However this fear then turned into being scared of sperm. Germs were not the problem anymore. For the past two years I have been battling with my mind trying to convince myself that it’s impossible to get pregnant from surfaces, from the toilet, from chairs in public. I have this irrational fear that I might somehow get sperm on me and then that will somehow get onto my underwear and then I get pregnant which Ofcourse will be a cryptic pregnancy, so I won’t know until I am actually giving birth. Unfortunately, I have these thoughts about every male I come into contact with, whether that is brushing up against them on the bus, or the train or them being the cashier at the supermarket. I can spend hours cleaning my phone and my glasses just in case. However when I’m actually having intercourse, the fear of getting pregnant doesn’t even cross my mind and doesn’t worry me even a little bit as I’m on contraception. But what worries me is if I touch a door handle which was dirty with sperm and then getting pregnant by a complete stranger. Does anyone else have this type of OCD?

Sorry in advance for the long post. I had a conversation with my mother a while ago, where she was trying to help me with something that could either be false memory or real event (at the time I thought it was completely real and didn’t want to even think about the possibility of it not being real because “that would be cheating and would make me a horrible person” but in hindsight there is a possibility it’s false) and anyways, that wasn’t the point. I was talking to my mom, and she made a comparison to a character I really loved, by saying “well this character probably does cuz’ and you still really like him” which made me spiral even further because that character would never ever do what she said and I didn’t want to think about that character doing that, and what she gave an example of was way worse than what might’ve happened with me. But I got over it. (My mother ended up telling me that, no, she doesn’t believe that character would actually do that, she was just trying to make me feel better/ find something to relate to or hold on to) but now I’m obsessing over the fact that her example was worse than my memory, and the fact that she thought that would make me feel better. The current thoughts are “does she really think I’m that level of scum?” And “if she thinks that you are equal to that character doing THAT, then what you might’ve done is just as bad”. And I really don’t know what to do because on some level I think I agree a tiny bit.

Guys please help. Did anyone of you find a way to break the sleep obsession cycle? For my whole life I was able to fall asleep in 10-20 minutes. Had one sleepless night few days ago due to being excited yet scared for a special day. Since then I have this fuck up in my head that even though I'm tired as hell I cannot fall asleep because I'm still checking it. It's like don't think of a pink elephant. I am naturally not the type that would have difficulties with sleep. It's because this obsession. I know my thoughts cannot just disappear so I have to find a way to work with it somehow. Any help appreciated. Thank you very much.

My partner was high and so was I and he just said “is this real like is this really real” and my theme right now is I’m convinced I’m in a dream or not real and this is a false reality or something, I had therapy early today and that helped so much and then I was feeling hopeful that i was gonna get better and the theme was going away and then he said that and I’m spiraling, please help

Ever since my terrible ocd started since march 2020 (i was 16, almost 17.), school was very hard to do. i was still at 9th and 10th grade level. i eventually dropped out in 2021 (i was 18.) My Life had been wasted for 4 years, i feel like a failure. im 20 now, and still unwell to do school. the ocd is so bad that i lose connection with reality, it makes my bipolar worse, and i just feel like im losing my mind with the constant anxiety and depression and manic and everything. I feel like a failure. I look at my friends who are successful and on the way to graduating or already in college in university, and im sitting here feeling like a horrible failure. im a failure. i didnt ask for this ocd to happen, i wish it never happened, i just wanted to be successful and graduate and start college, but i cant do that anymore. Why me? why is everyone else lucky to not suffer from such debilitating mental illness? why me? now im just a failure with no life and fully reliant on my parents for money, food, shelter, etc. i tried so hard to go back to school, to try to work, but it was too unbearable. if i never got this ocd, i know i would have graduated and been successful and head straight to college. 4 years of my life wasted. and more years to come.

I’m 54 yrs old and had my first episode at 17. Didn’t know what it was at the time. Intrusive thoughts that made me feel like I had lost my mind. It’s continued off and on since then. But just recently found out I have ocd. I was too stubborn or embarrassed to ever admit or ask for help. Anyway, when this is triggered and I get chronic severe anxiety that lasts months I get these symptoms and wanted to see if anyone else experiences these? Severe memory loss from recent events. Even feeling like I don’t know people. A numbness always on the left side of my face. Extreme ear ringing. Feeling like my head is in a vise, but not a real headache. I was just curious. The memory thing is a real issue for me and makes my anxiety worse. These physical symptoms always go away when my anxiety is gone but it’s concerning to me. Please share any similar experiences. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Jeff

I feel like I’m going crazy and second guessing everything rn. I keep wondering if I did or said anything racist and I just can’t remember or I did and i didn’t acknowledge it. I feel like people at my school hate me or are ignoring me. I don’t know how to get out of this endless loop of doubting myself. I know I would never do such a thing but I keep second guessing myself. Im starting to believe I’m a terrible person and I don’t know how to prove myself otherwise.

With a little backstory, I've been struggling with physical sleep issues that a medical hospital is trying to to help me with (sleep apnea, TMJ issues, etc.). Anyway, I guess my OCD knows that sleep is a problem, so it's created an obsession around it. I was laying on my two pillows, on my side, and had the thought "Hmm, my shoulder is up against the pillows, is this squishing the pillows in, bunching them up? Is the level of the pillows now unevenly distributed because of my shoulder against it? How soft/hard is my shoulder pushing against the pillow?" It's ridiculous, because I've slept this way my whole life. But now I'm hyper focused on how my body is laying against the pillows and having to have the pillows perfectly even, without any dents or flaws in them. This sucks because on top of the physical sleep issues, now I'm having OCD sleep issues. Im just so tired. I wish I could ignore it, but OCD gets so strong when I lay on my pillows now. Any advice? Anything to tell myself that could help? Thank you ahead of time.

My ocd always makes me think the worst and tells me that the only explanation for things is that I did something horrible. I had an incident many years ago that has made my life miserable. I guess it’s a real event and possibly false memory as well. When my son was little he would crawl into bed with me alot. One morning I got up and he was still asleep. I put my daughter on the school bus and went back upstairs to my room and 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 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? 😪. At the time I didn’t think too much of it though because toddlers randomly do weird things and take their clothes off and they yell back or blame you because they don’t like getting in trouble or getting yelled at so I shrugged it off but out of nowhere all these years later my ocd brought this back up. Since it’s been so long my memory has faded so my ocd adds more “evidence” and tells me things like maybe I was drinking and did something to him and just don’t remember. I try to think of all the scenarios that could have happened as to why he took his underwear off but my ocd won’t let anything make sense except that I did something horrible and I can’t live with that uncertainty like other people can. It makes me not want to be alive anymore 😞

two weeks ago i read a book after that i started to questioning my relationship which is four years long and everything was going perfect in our realtionship. we werent fighting for a month. we were in love su much. but then and i started to think there must be a reason why i thought that way and i started to feel extreme guilt and anxiety which i couldnt eat for a week i lost 8-9 pounds and i started to cry all the time. i told about this to my boyfriend. he was acting nice to me even when i told about my concerns about our relationship and on the valentines day i coulndt take it i gave a break on our relationship bu i cried for 4-5 hours than i said sorry multiple times because i felt that i love him but i cant be sure there is always what if sound in my brain. Then i went to therapist she said these sound like obsesion. and i started to doing research about my problems and i learned about rocd and intrusive thoughts for the first time in my life. when i read the rocd i know that this is whats happening to me. but still i cant be sure. what if i dont love my bf (even writing this words makes me wanna cry) please help if u experienced somthng like rhat

Okay so yesterday my bf told me he can't wait to kiss me and suddenly anxiety hit and i felt triggered also felt numb 'cuz reading that text made me feel nothing. I freaked out. We are going to have a sleepover tonight and im scared the numbness won't go away and i won't able to be intimate with him. I barely managed to not answer the thought (not really) and tried to sleep. Now it's 6 am and im suddenly woken up by the thought "i don't really miss sleeping next to my bf and my bed is comfortable". Like i did really think that😫😫(my bfs bed is small tbh) And like 2-3 seconds later anxiety and the fact i thought that hit. But i did thought about it. I feel the anxiety and guilt now but since these are actually my thoughts. Am i falling out of love? Is this ocd? Is this normal? Am i forcing the anxiety and ocd? Does this mean we have to break up? What if the feeling of wanting to kiss him or sleep next to eachother doesn't ever come back? Also i am scared tonight when we have our sleepover i won't able to feel a thing and the break up thoughts are gonna come creeping in. I don't wanna find out that it was me all along😫 I tried to imagine him kissing me and us sleeping next to eachother to bring back feelings but it's not working😭😭Am i hopeless?

I wonder what it’s like to think normally. I wonder what it’s like to not think so deeply and obsessively over something. I wonder what it’s like to not think so negatively about something you don’t even want to. I wonder what it’s like to not have anxiety over the littlest things

So I study film in high school and decided to make a film for my class on awarness on ocd and it's informative and covers many subtypes, mostly taboo thoughts. I covered probably every taboo subtype you can imagine on there, one of them being pocd. There's a part when I set examples of intrusive thoughts that feel more like urges and commands and I put an example saying "I'm going to grope the first child that walks past me". I got reported by a student to the counselors of my school and the counselors called me in not only for my safety but the safety of others. They said that they wanted to know if I was ok and then they wanted my therapist's information to make sure I would be ok after graduation. I gladly gave them her info knowing that this was for my own good and to inform them on ocd's scary reality. I got a call from my therapist last night telling me that the counselors shared my script with her and they were considering removing me from being of reach of children in my internship which is also my job. This is a huge deal for me not only because that job is my only form of income that I've been using to support my family but because I plan on majoring in education and becoming a teacher and have been working with children for years and I want to be a good teacher. This could literally run the risk of me being reported to the police and could open up a criminal record, possibly preventing me from moving forward in my career in child caretaking and education. I'm reasonably freaking out and she tells me that they will talk to me in the morning at school so I out of fear of losing my job and fucking future get to the main office to speak to them. I had made a gc with people that ik that have ocd that will be in my film and told them that I had been reported and needed back up and one offered to go with me to the office. When we get there the counselors tell us that I'm the only one allowed and speak to me in private. I'm angry and horrified bc they literally believed me on Monday when we met and then go behind my back to tell my therapist that I'm not supposed to be around kids bc I'm dangerous for sharing an informative example of pocd. Above all of this, in the script I never stated what MY obsessions were so they were the ones assuming that I had pocd of all the subtypes that I had mentioned. That was when they told me that my therapist had seen the example on pocd and told them that the fact I'm around children in a situation that can be triggering is BAD FOR ME EVEN THOUGH IT'S AN EXPOSURE AND HAS HELPED ME AND SHE WAS THE ONE THAT TOLD THEM TO GET ME AWAY FROM KIDS. She therefore implied to them that I have pocd WITHOUT my consent and this made the school remove me from my internship at my job. I go to get paid outside of school hours but for the time I'm in school I'm not allowed to be there bc my therapist shared information that I never gave them permission to share AND must think that all the exposures mean nothing bc they're too "triggering" for me and it can "make me suffer more". I met up during lunch with my film cast with ocd and they listened to most of it before I could finish but they kept telling me to report her to the medical board and to the conpany she works for because she broke confidentiality. How do I go about this?

Hi friends, feeling (very) sad recently. I had a flare up recently and going through it is just really tough. I was in a decent place prior and I’ve lost my footing because of some stress amongst other things. But I guess I’m just looking for some encouragement, I’ve been feeling a little discouraged since the intrusive thoughts are a little more often. I know it’ll get better but it’s just been tough. Send love ❤️‍🩹

Every day I make the choice to face OCD. It tries to bully me and sometimes it wins, but for the most part I bully it now (lol). I stand up to it by LIVING! I stand up to it by doing exposures that sometimes can feel so wrong and irresponsible. I stand up to it by not allowing myself to get stuck in rumination but yet refocusing on something I actually want to do. I stand up to it by saying I don’t know and just embracing the uncertainty that what I fear just may come true. I stand up to it by sharing what I’ve been dealing with in hopes that it will help someone to know that sometimes you need therapy and Jesus! Some days are easier than others and I truly have to remind myself that recovery isn’t linear. Life ebbs and flows and so does this journey. I am learning to sit with the anxiety until my body naturally calms down. I still go about my life as usual not letting anything stop me. I face things that surround the themes I deal with in real time. Uncertainty isn’t comfortable and I’m still learning how to accept it. Im still learning how to accept these random thoughts that go against who I am while also understanding they don’t define who I am nor are they true. I’m a believer in God and this is truly a process of renewing my mind. For 35 years I had no clue that OCD was there. I just found out last February because things had got so dark for me. But I can look back now and see signs of it starting around 2014 and probably even earlier. I’m claiming that I am already healed in the land of the living. What that looks like, I have no clue. That’s up to God. But I’m trusting the process and I will continue to thrive. Even on days that feel rough, I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. My prayer is that we all see breakthroughs as we continue to go through ERP. I’m so thankful for NOCD and that there are tools to help us navigate our way through this. Despite the lies of OCD, there is light at the end of the tunnel! Stay encouraged. We got this!