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When you realize that your thoughts will never go away, but that you need to create a world where you and those thoughts can exist in harmony, is where you find peace. ✌️

Made up scenarios have gotten so much worse lately. My intrusive thoughts make this whole story up where Im an awful terrible person, and vivid images show up in my mind. I feel so so guilty about it until i finally snap back into reality and realise its just my brain trying to trick me. I am so sick of this.

Does your ocd ever make you feel like people/pets/loved ones are somehow "contaminated"? I have about 1 real bad episode per year.. that my dad & my cat are somehow "contaminated" just because I had scary thoughts about them. The belief that they are "contaminated/messed up", leads to depression. It is the scariest thing. It's like an emotional contamination fear.

I (20f) adopted a cat about 7 months ago from my local animal shelter. I absolutely adore him and he is the light of my life. However, I can’t help but obsess over the fact that I am not giving him the quality of life he deserves and that he’s actually suffering and depressed. He is a healthy cat and I’m giving him the best quality foods/toys and attention that I can as a busy college kid, but this thought just plagues my mind and I can’t seem to think that the life im giving him is sufficient. How do I get over this guilt?

My OCD gives me the need to confess things. It’s really hard and exhausting. How do you combat this, anyone else had this problem?

So I'm not sure if it's just me, but I've been diagnosed with OCD for a couple years, and I've had symptoms since as far as I can remember, but I still feel like maybe it's all in my head and I'm just imagining all the compulsions? I sometimes feel like maybe all the struggling from compulsions is just me trying to sub-conciously manipulate other people to do things for me out of pity. I don't like the pity, and I want to be able to easily do things for myself, so I know it makes no sense, but sometimes I just can't talk myself out of it. Any thoughts or recommendations?

i’m very aware that one of my main compulsions is confessing/seeking repentance, specifically from my boyfriend. however i can never seem to get past this one specific event from my past. to sum it up, i remember while having me time (if yk what i mean) i kept having random ppl that i know in my daily life popping into my head and sexual images of them kept coming in as well. i felt like i couldn’t fully control it which makes me think it was OCD and i didn’t know it at the time. however, a specific person that kept coming to mind is now standing out to me. i would be lying if i said he was not an attractive person, but i would never in a million years actually want to be with him in any way. i love my boyfriend with every fiber in me and i am confident i would never do anything to jeopardize that. the thing is that since i know i found him attractive at the time i am struggling with my intentions behind those thoughts i was having about him. although its out of character i wonder if it was real thoughts and not just intrusive. it feels like a cycle of me trying to figure it out and i feel so incredibly guilty at times over it that i feel as though i should confess this to my boyfriend. this happened over a year ago and this person is no longer even in my life but i still can’t shake it. is this something i would need to confess to him or is it just my OCD taking? also, something that feeds into my obsessing over this is that i remember distinctly trying to make sure i looked okay when i was around this person in the past. not in a way that i wanted him, but just that i didn’t want him to think i was ugly or anything. i don’t think this is uncommon to want to look good in front of an attractive person, but at the same time i wonder if i was seeking attention for the wrong reasons or something. it’s just so conflicting bc it’s very out of character for me.

How to know are your thoughts OCD or it’s just you. (if that makes sense)?

What’s your favorite way to combat your OCD morning anxiety? It sucks and I sit with it, but it still sucks. I get up rather than hide in bed and I start getting ready for the day and I start doing some ERP. How about you? I’m looking forward to this evening!!!!

my intrusive thoughts are so scary and i hate it so much. they are also just so annoying it makes me cry a lot. i don’t wanna live like this im only a child. (i am not suicidal btw im just upset)

for the last several months, OCD has had an absolute chokehold on my career as a self employed artist. Just constant new subtypes and intrusive thoughts popping up one right after the other, all boiling down to the fear of me potentially losing my career. I'm not currently in therapy (nOCD does not take my insurance) but currently waiting to hear back from a therapist and OCD specialist while taking advice from OCD resources in the meantime. I've been doing everything I possibly can to keep my life going and working through my OCD, but it is so exhausting. I'll be working on a project and when intrusive thoughts pop into my head, I do my best to do some self ERP and tell myself the usual "well, maybe!", or "oh well!" ect, ect. but the anxiety will still linger and i will experience such extreme anxiety symptoms like sweating, dizziness, disassociation, and nausea to the point i will start gagging while I'm still trying to get my work done. It's become physically debilitating to deal with, it takes so much longer for me to finish work, and I don't even enjoy what I've created once it's done. I decided in a few weeks I'm going to take a short hiatus from my art account, so I can take a break from having to deal with the constant physical symptoms ontop of dealing with social media/algorithms which have also been frustrating me. I even plan to wipe my page so I can come back to a clean slate when I decide I'm ready to post again. But now my OCD has taken a hold of me wanting to take a step back. 'What if you don't recover when you come back?' 'What are you hiding/running from?' 'Maybe OCD is just telling you to take a break?' I am so tired lol. I don't know what the right choice is for me right now. But I do want to take a step back from work to work on my mental and physical health. So I think I'm at least going to listen to what my body and brain needs. if anyone has some advice or words of encouragement (not reassurance) pleaaase drop it here bc I'm gunna need it!!

Does anyone else do repetitive actions?? And I’m not talking about when we think “oh I have to do this three times or else my family will die”, I mean more like turning on the shower and just sitting there while it runs bc it’s the only thing that brings me comfort. I know it’s horrible of me and a waste of water which is why I’m trying to stop and find something else that brings me that comfort. But when my ocd strikes I just wanna sit in the bathroom with the shower on😭

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to stop ‘joy checking’? Like I feel the need to keep checking my emotional state, both in the moment and in the past, to make sure I am feeling happy and joyful. This is due to my fear of developing depression which will lead to suicide (or so my ocd tells me). It’s quite distressing. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!

Hi guys also another question I’ve been doing ERP for awhile now. And I’m just getting into exposures and when I’m doing them with my therapist like writing out the things that scare me and saying them out loud it doesn’t seem to scare me. It’s more so when I’m alone having these constant thoughts daily is what becomes overwhelming and makes them feel real. Any insight on this?

my ocd is being the most annoying thing in the world right now. my intrusive thoughts keep telling me to cut myself and its keeping me from falling asleep. i have to be up in 5 hours. i dont want to and im not gonna but i feel like i have to to make the thoughts go away. this is really hard :(

Don't understand ocd, especially so ocd, i'm so sick of people coming in here and saying "well there Is nothing wrong with being gay i don't understand this" yeah i know???? I'm literally in an ocd space so why assuming it's about me being homophobic? If I could stop obsessing I wouldnt give a f!ck about being gay, I hate people so much. There are so many people trying to trigger us on this app, like how evil to want to hurt people who are already suffering.

i’m panicking because i remember when i was younger when i was 13 i found porn on instagram and i was scrolling and i was pleasuring myself and was always trying to make sure the videos that i was watching weren’t bad like someone being forced and i remember as i was scrolling while pleasuring myself i came across a video and it looked like a movie but the man was on top of the woman and she was crying but i don’t know if she was crying because of that im not sure but im pretty sure it was a movie or something and i still pleasured myself but not to that video but like just thinking about something else and the video just played in the backs it i had my eyes closed and i didnt watch it but it worried because what if i did watch it and pleasured myself while watching the video, i feel like im going to throw up i cant handle this, i wish i never got exposed to porn at such a young age

Can intrusive thoughts feel like your actual thoughts and who you are as a person the longer you have them? It feels like it is a reflection of who I am but a year ago when this started it was easier to point out. Now I don’t know.

Has anyone here ever been able to get relief from an intrusive thought by ruminating and going over and over it in their memory to try and figure it all out? Is it even possible?

I’m trying my best to resist the compulsion of seeking reassurance with a friend, I really really want to text her and tell her my thoughts to see what she thinks about it, but I know it could be a compulsion :(. Any tips for keep resisting?