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What are some examples of mental compulsions and how can you identify them in yourself? I am struggling with what counts as a mental compulsion since it’s not as black and white as a physical one.

I really hate this trend of people going "my intrusive thoughts won" in reference of something that is not a intrusive thought...at all. This whole trend of people conflating intrusive thoughts with impulsive ones is exhausting because when these same people actually hear about the types of intrusive thoughts that people with OCD have they paint them as some sort of monster when the whole basis of OCD for most people is the anxiety of being the opposite of what your morals and beliefs are! This trend definitely adds more to the stigma, everyone is always pro mental health and want better for the mentally ill until the mentally ill actually show symptoms

Does anyone else feel like a switch in their head gets flipped and they become the worst version of themselves. Like I can love life one second and then the anxiety hits me like a truck and I’m completely winded. I’m exhausted on every level. I feel it in my stomach. I’m tired. I’ve had OCD my entire life and I’m not sure I’ll ever live peacefully. Trying to stay hopeful.

This is the first time I’m posting here but I really need to. Basically, I have known this boy for about 4/5 years now. We usually just talked on snap as we were too shy to meet irl. We were just friends. He did have feelings for me for a long time it I didn’t until recently. I did him really bad as 2 years back, when I got into a relationship. I blocked him out of no where. I know it’s really bad and a messed up thing to do but I was dumb. I hurt him a lot. A year or so later I realised my mistake and reached out to him again with an apology (me and my ex broke up by this time). I helped him get a job with me. So we started working together as well. During this time once again I didn’t have feelings for him. But sometimes he would flirt and stuff. I’m kind of a bitch. A few years ago, and even a few months ago I’ve said a few bad things about him behind his back to other people. Like bad things. Just to give you guys an understanding I’m 18 atm. Old enough to know what’s right and wrong but I still messed up quite a bit Recently, we have started working a lot more and meeting in real life unlike before. And I have caught feelings in the past few weeks. We both confessed. Aren’t official yet as I’m worried about my parents finding out (I’m not allowed to date). I feel really guilty tho. Whenever I talk to him, I remember the past and the things I’ve said about him and just want to confess. I’ve confessed a lot of things already and he’s told me that the past doesn’t matter. But I still feel the need to confess. I know for a fact that my feelings have changed a lot towards him. I feel like I took him for granted in the past and his attention for granted but I really really like him now. I’m started to love him. But these feelings of guilt keep coming in my way. Please help me.

Do the urges to perform compulsions ever go away? Even with ERP? I feel like I’ve been doing good resisting compulsions but the urges lingering in the back of my mind are making the healing journey very difficult. Anyone experiencing this now?

Went through absolute hell last week sticking with ERP and not seeking assurance on a massive obsession of mine. Since those three days, my thoughts have been really clear of that issue. And now here it is again. I hate the cycle. It makes it hard not to anticipate that things will randomly get worse on a good day.

Diagnosed with Pure O, Bi Polar, anxiety and Major depression. I've tried so much medication that I don't know what's left. I thought Capylta was helping and felt good, but after 3 months I crashed. Anyone have any suggestions?? Don't think my Psychiatrist even knows

When I was 6 or 7, me and my family would watch House a lot. It’s a tv show about a doctor who diagnoses weird stuff and rare diseases. So in one episode this school women’s diving team had a girl get sick and at the hospital they had to swap her private parts. So after that episode a girl from my neighborhood and me went to the bathroom and play Doctor, and I swapped her privates and mine and reinacted the show. Like I remember being like ok we are professionals divers and this and that. Any fast forward to when I was 10, I learned what rape was and I had my very first HUGE panic attack about what if I raped her. I have been afraid ever since, so the event took place 20 years ago but I’ve been living in hell for 17. I have been afraid that her dad would send a hit man out to kill me, that she killed herself, that I’m not worth anything, that I shouldn’t get married or have children. This is the worst thing I ever did in my life regardless of being told by people that this was normal and children do this daily. Am I rational in my fears or is this actually OCD.

Years ago when i struggle through p*rn addiction I watched p*rn in a private shower stall several times at the gym after seeing many people wearing explicit clothing. (no audio, no sound, alone in a private stall). I never intended to make it inappropriately public and I never did. No one saw or knows. In the army i was exposed to public nudity all the time and hated it so of course its against my values and i never did it. Im just worried since i did in a private stall is that illegal? Am i going to be a offender or arrested. Even though its completely not who I am. Im worried sick and ruminated on every detail from years ago.

Sometimes my ocd causes me to be overwhelmed that I’m physically tired, and don’t want to move to not trigger my symptoms…

i can’t move on. the guilt and shame over my actions but also struggling to remember and 100% know what happened because I was very drunk is crippling. i hate this feeling. i quit drinking because nothing is worth losing her. i feel I done something awful like semi cheat or cheat and i feel the urge to confess. i even told to my partner about the situation and she forgave me and let me with so much grace and yet i still feel like there is more to confess even tho if she’s moved on why haven’t i when im the one who was a horrible person. like i ruminate and kick analyze and essentially find/create another detail that i dont even know if its relevant or real. my partner is the love of my life and i never want to hurt her and we plan on getting married so why does my brain try and convince me i want other people when all i want is her and our life together. then if i get too drunk it’s like my subconscious comes out and tries to sabotage my life and go against all of my values and trys to get me to act on intrusive thoughts? i can’t even put it into works im so confused and feel so lonely and shameful and at rock bottom. everyone is always telling me how good of a person i am and how incredibly lucky they are to know me and i feel like a fraud and a horrible person because of my mistakes. how do i move on and recover. and then everything becomes and obsession and my comparisons worded and it’s a downward spiral. anyone else shave similar experiences or helpful tips and ways to move forward without guilt. i just want peace and love.

Did your anxiety over yourOCD ever get very intense for a period of time and later go down even though you still have the same intrusive thoughts and the same obsessions?

Yesterday I had the thought “Do I like having the thoughts just so I can fight them off?” And then I found myself almost WANTING an attack just so my ocd could be proven real to me

hi ! i am so happy with my relationship and suddenly i have thoughts and fear of what if im cheating in the future? what if i really want to do that ? i know that my thoughts is against my value and belief but these thoughts is going crazy everyday and it makes me believe that i will do it and i want to do it 😭 but the fact is i know i never wish to do that and it never popped up in my mind before this , this just makes me feel so crazy and extremely anxious that i cant sleep, i will going to University this October and i fear what if i accidentally like someone else ? what if i do that on purpose? plus my feelings is keep telling me to do that and it kinda whisper to my heart and makes me want to do that, i know that i never wanted to cheat or like someone else but it makes me feel so real 😿 i keep thinking is that mean i am a terrible person or i really want to do that? i dont know why it’s kinda gives me the wrong feelings and informations to myself . Pls dont judge me when you read this and i hope someone could help me if this also what you feel or any tips to deal with this. Thank you

I have this memory of playing with my childhood friend like lifting him up in the air putting him back down just playing. And my brain is taking that memory and saying I had sex with him or I humped him or something like that. It makes me sick to my stomach to think I had sex or raped a little boy. I’m scared. Please give me some advice

I thought I was doing better with not having rocd intrusive thoughts for a while but then they started up again. I always blame the thoughts on pms, but whenever it happens any other time, I think they’re real. I feel like I’m always critiquing my bf in my mind, and think small things are genuinely big problems. It’s like I can’t accept that he has flaws, just like me. Also yesterday I hung out with this new friend I made, and afterwards I kept getting thoughts like “you like her, you think she’s hot”, etc (she’s a lesbian and I am straight), and then a trailer for a new movie w/ kristen Stewart keeps popping up on my feed and I think that I’m gay. There would be nothing wrong with that ofc but I’ve been straight my whole life, but I’ll get thoughts saying “you’re gay and you’re not attracted to your bf anymore”, etc. I generally get intrusive thoughts that I’m not attracted to my bf but it’s never bc I’d be attracted to the same sex. Also, I think this is normal with intrusive thoughts but whenever I get these types of thoughts about my relationship/my bf, it’s like I don’t recognize him, or even fully realize that I have a bf, and it scares me so much. I’ll be with him and I’ll suddenly get the realization that I’ve been in a relationship with him for a year, or I’ll look at him and I’ll start getting nervous that I don’t find him attractive anymore. Recently it’s been the not recognizing him and thinking about “alone time” with him and not feeling turned on or thinking that he doesn’t pleasure me the same way anymore, which isn’t true. I just feel guilty everytime these thoughts pop up.

Does anyone ever get or even force yourself to think an intrusive thought to test your response and then think that didn’t make me anxious enough therefore…. I like the thought or I could end up doing the thought

Do we choose what we're attracted by? Or it is simply something subconscious that we can't control? Because I have no problem getting attracted if I notice the curves of a girl my age, but I get extremely uncomfortable and anxious when I notice those same inappropriate parts on a young girl. Instagram reels trigger me often. I obsess over the fact that I've noticed those parts in the first place because a normal person wouldn't even notice them at all, and I wonder if these are the signs of being a p***. I feel the need to check the inappropriate parts to check if I'm attracted or not, and to see if I can stop seeing it as triggering but as something that is just there without being unwantedly se&ualized by pocd. (I also feel more gross because I'm staring at those parts, even though for a compulsive matter and not for malicious intent). I'd feel like ending my life if these things were all just subconscious instincts of my brain making me one of those monsters, like you can't change that and I'm just lying to myself. I'd feel more at ease if everybody notice those things the same and just chooses to not be attracted according their morals, the fact that physical attraction could be a choice and not an instinct would make me feel better. There is freedom of action, but is there freedom of feeling and being? Or is that already predetermined? If I see a girl my age who's my liking I have no issue feeling attracted se&ually. If I'm born with the genes of a monsters it wouldn't matter what I do, I'd constantly be in denial of my sick twisted nature, right? Obviously I'd end my life before even dreaming of doing those horrible things that happen in my mind in the form of intrusive thoughts and image, as costant daily torture. Maybe there are people born bad but that overcome their nature and live a life of good deeds, but I can't tolerate it. If I'm born as a **** I have to die. I'm clinging of the fact that this is just POCD, just an ocd theme like the others that've come before. One thing that reassures me is that I've memories and proof of lots of different ocd themes throughout my early life till now. I'm diagnosed with OCD, but I don't trust it completely because my psychiatrist was a bit of a weirdo and his answers to my questions more triggering. I don't feel attracted on young girls, I avoid them, I only have interest on girls my age, but I'm so afraid that sometimes I could be because what I feel when I get triggered is so confusing and fuzzy, I feel like throwing up and I squint my eyes and contort my face (even more these are not enough to prove the fact that I'm disgusted because I think I could be just faking it, lying to myself), and maybe in that mixture of distressing sensations there is an element of denial of the horrible truth. There have been a lot of triggering moments when I genuinely thought to myself that I was attracted and that made me feel desperate, wanting to cry.

Do you ever process through ocd snd then months later the same issue comes back to haunt you and its like rumination all over again? Please advise. Do i just reuse the tools from the last time or do i try additional new tools

I just got diagnosed today and am feeling unsure about it, like I fed my therapist information to incline her to diagnose me. Everything I said was true, but somehow I feel like I’m misrepresenting myself. Life is not debilitating and I don’t ever have panic attacks or major breakdowns, so what if I’m just a little neurotic and do not have OCD? I felt like I was self-reporting and in my mind it would only be legit if I accidentally divulged my symptoms instead of reading off the list I made. I felt like I was trying to manipulate her into believing me.