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Sometimes when I’m in the OCD spiral I find it difficult to remember my tools so I keep this in my notes on my phone to realign myself. This is not reassurance these are just pure OCD facts. Sometimes it just give my brain the little shift it needs to put all I have learned into practice, hoping someone else might be able to find it useful too. 1 - You are not your thoughts - they are egodystonic and go against the things you value 2 - OCD will cling onto what you love the most 3 - OCD will trick you into fear and will cherry pick things in your life that could warrant a trigger 4 - you don’t need to react to these thoughts - simply say - this is an OCD thought/feeling and will go away as long as I don’t engage in the content 5 - call it bob! Cheers bob for that disgusting thought and laugh 6 - continue what you do with your life. Don’t avoid places or people, you win every time not OCD 7 - treat each day with point score every time you resist a compulsion it’s 1 point to you! 2 points for an exposure - 20 points for reward at the end of the week. 8 - rumination - catch yourself like holding yourself gentle to recognise that you are ruminating again, put a full stop on it when you notice you’re doing it and bring yourself back to the present. Tell OCD you can see what it’s doing… 9 - don’t compare yourself with other people - why do I have to be like this, why can I just be normal like that mum, dad or person. In life If you don’t get one thing, you get something else. 10 - everyone gets intrusive thoughts your just a bit more sensitive to them and you need to learn to let them pass by without any interaction After this a bit of self compassion is essential, I always imagine me but as a 6/7 year old scared of these thoughts, and it helps me really transmit that compassion power for that younger scared self xxx

rocd is ruining me and my life and my relationship. i feel so disconnected from my boyfriend bc of it and it’s so frustrating but i also feel so numb that i can’t even feel frustrated or upset or anxious or anything bad when the bad thoughts come bc it’s been so excessive over the past couple of months. i don’t feel anything like i use to and i just wish i could love him peacefully and purely the way i use to with no worry or doubt. i feel like he deserves better bc my mind is constantly telling me i want someone else secretly or makes over analyze anything and everything with him or about him and creates so much doubt in my mind. it feels so real to the point that i feel like i’m betraying him and even though i’m not actually DOING anything to him or behind his back or anything it feels like i would be lying and deceiving him to continue being a good girlfriend and just being good to him if that makes sense. like when i’m actually with him or talking to him it’s mostly good im not thinking badly too much but as soon as he’s gone it all comes and it feels like i’m hiding a different, bad, personality from him when he’s not around. he’s such a good person and i’ve done everything to be so good to him bc i want to and he deserves it all. but inside i feel like don’t know myself at all anymore. i want to get past it but i feel like even if i do i’ll feel like i’m hiding a past betrayal from him. i don’t want to lose him. can anyone help with any of this or share ways they’ve gotten past this.

it feels like theres a monster in my head that just keeps poking and poking and poking. I dont know how to stop this, i thought i was getting better. I dont even believe the thoughts anymore, im not giving them the power, so why are they still there? How is it possible to be so enraged at your own BRAIN. I feel my body slowly drowning and i dont know how to escape. Even when i get a brisk of happiness, my thoughts always remind me of my triggers, or my past intrusive thoughts. Its a never ending cycle that i cant seem to find the answers to. Ive lost all hope in getting better. How do i get help when i can’t even explain whats going on inside my head? Its like i know theres thoughts, but i cant hear then clearly. Is this even ocd anymore? It feels like a physical weight on my head.

Does anyone else feel the need to know their diagnosis and want to find exact explanations for why you feel the way you do or have certain thoughts. I’ve just had one NOCD therapy session so it’s just the beginning portion with assessments and have more this week but I keep having thoughts like “Is this OCD or GAD or something else?” and “What if this actually isn’t OCD?” which leads me to Google the diagnoses and also ask others for reassurance (“Do you think I have OCD?”). Any advice on how to cope with this?

Do y'all ever have intrusive thoughts that you're faking or being manipulative when you try to be kind to someone or do a good deed?

can’t see anything on social media about kids ill immediately get intrusive thoughts and groinal responses and thoughts like “u are a p, u can’t have kids because u are a p” and it genuinely feels like im destined to be a p. like impending doom. that no more what i do i am one and i can’t change or stop it. does anyone feel like this? can it get this bad? my brain feels convinced and it’s like whenever i say im not my body gets all uncomfy and then the groinal responses come. i hate this. am i a p? if i am one i want to get help. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I would rather be gone then be a p but if I am one the least I could do is get help for it but im stuck between ocd and this. what if im just a fraud hiding behind ocd

Sometimes I feel like if I didn’t have my OCD thoughts to focus on…what else would I be thinking about? Like my rumination has almost become my hobby - and my brain doesn’t know what else to focus on instead. Has anyone ever experienced this? My OCD ruminations involves a tv show/characters and my compulsions include checking social media incessantly, news outlets, etc - anywhere that I can get information. There are days I feel like this will be the rest of my life and I am trapped. How do I break out of this? Thanks for listening.

I am going through a hard time right now. I feel so alone. I am scared that I am not taking care of myself. I know it could be worse but I am just so stressed out, it has been a while since I have had to deal with my ocd, but I can sense it slowly eating at me. I am just having such a hard time.

I feel so embarrassed in my sessions. I have a nocd therapist and every session she asks what I want to work on and has me come up with an exposure and idk the whole thing feels so embarrassing, i don't want to say the wrong thing or come up with a stupid exposure. I cry after every session because I feel so put on the spot and so embarrassed and I feel like i'm so difficult for her. idk what to do it makes me want to quit therapy all together. ive had good sessions in the past but its so hard to get past the embarrassment every time idk what my problem is.

Hi, I'm 17 and I'm not sure if I have OCD My symptoms started in lockdown and I was really scared my parents would get covid and something really bad would happen so: I kept praying to God, taking my shoes off to pray again and again before I left to go somewhere In my religion(Hinduism) materialistic things are ignorance so I'd balance my phone in a risky position and pray everyday --- then I thought that by sacrificing materialistic things (ignorance) like chocolate and music I could go to my dream uni ---then I kept thinking about my mum and I kept thinking she might get cancer so I kept sacrificing things like wearing make up, nice clothes and I kept limiting how much food I ate. I 'fasted' a lot and I prayed for an hour every night. I thought I would regret it so much if I wore make up because id suffer from the ignronave of the materialistic pleasures When I was eating,I would keep looking at a picture of Lord Krishna and swallowing really fast to avoid the materialstic pleasures of taste. I can only do some things by thinking 'i promise to god I'll eat this chocolate' for example. I don't think my symptoms are normal and I really don't know what to do.

So in high-school I had a great GPA and life was good but 12th grade is when my ocd kicked in I barely graduated and now I'm in college I bet all can guess how it's going 🙃 and my GPA has plummeted I do the work and go to class but it's never enough especially with ocd constantly ruminating and doing compulsive behaviors the tight anxiety feeling in my chest everyday every morning the times I wished I was dead because of ocd I don't know if I can bounce back from this I f%$#king hate ocd I don't know what to do

i know people say to just accept it but im so tired i genuinely just dont care if im this or if im that. I just want the thoughts to stop. Thats all. But i feel like a bad person for not caring anymore. any advice?

My thoughts are so loud today even just normal overthinking when I don’t know what’s related to my ocd anymore I’m trying to stay positive but sometimes it’s hard to get through the day especially when I can’t talk to anyone My head hurts and my sleep has been not good lately like I know I’ll be okay but sometimes just feels like a mess and my head won’t shut up

Intrusive thoughts destroyed who I've always known myself to be, I wish I could go back to when I trusted who I was and my morals. I'm constantly paranoid that I've lied about terribly awful things and theyre gonna come out and haunt me. What a sad way to live :(

How do get rid of intrusive thoughts?? And how do you know that they’re intrusive thoughts if you started thinking of them? Or if you feel like you’re the one who’s thinking of them rather than them just popping in your mind? Like if you’re looking for it, like you’re looking for trouble… Anyone else feel like this too?

Anyone have any compulsions they didn't realize were compulsions? I ruled out OCD as a possibility for a long time because I didn't think I had any compulsions, but I'm realizing they can be a lot more subtle than the common examples, like locking doors over and over. I'm slowly discovering many small things I do that could be compulsions (excessively proofreading my posts, ruminating, seeking validation for my feelings in comments sections, etc), and I'd like to hear other people's examples too

Hello, bit of an odd one, but I got out of an abusive relationship about 18 months ago and I am really worried that I was the problem/ people think I’m the abuser. Im trying to separate my thoughts into ‘facts’ and ‘feelings/fiction’. I know that i was abused. For a long time i couldnt call it that, but then I went to therapy and sought help from external sources, including the university I was attending. It was emotional abuse, which makes it even harder to understand (even after therapy). I’ll spare the details. But … “what if youre the abuser?” “What if you were trying to manipulate them?” “What if when your career takes off, they say things about you and ruin it?” “What if that housemate backs them up because you never got along?” “What if you really were the abuser?” These thoughts plague me. I have friends who know everything, who saw the abuse and what it did to me, who could reassure me in an instant, but I am trying not to rely on reassurance. I am trying to find acceptance. Is is so hard. (I don’t even know what to tag this under.)

How should i manage this automatic reassurance behaviour??? Pls someone help me Plsssssssss This automatic reassurance behaviour failing my hard work😔

i know compulsions are not helpful on the long run. but they can help to give certainty and a bit of peace for the moment. i usually imagine scenarios and check how i feel about them. has anyone experienced that sometimes this does not make you feel certain and safe, but somehow confirms what ocd is telling you, e.g. after imagining a scenario it feels like you could actually want it? so compulsions sometimes don’t even help on the short term and i feel the need to ruminate more and more to come to the solution i want

I’m kinda laughing at myself because I’m extremely disappointed that I just now found out that seeking reassurance doesn’t help anything…y’all wanna guess why I’ve been scrolling this app for the last hour and a half? … welp someone tell me what to do because it’s the only thing that seems to help me…