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Anyone else’s OCD come in waves? That’s the only way I can describe it. I’m doing good in therapy for a few weeks, and then all of a sudden it gets really bad, with no apparent trigger?

Lately I've been having a bit of paranoia due to one of my events. I do art commissions for money. Late last year I took a kind of big commission. It was something I hadn't tried before and wasn't super comfortable doing but I took it anyway because I wanted the money. While working on it I got less and less confident and ended up getting too anxious to work on it and kept putting it off. Because of my avoidance I didn't realize the commissioner was trying to contact me about an update until I finally worked up the courage to check my socials until early this year. I apologized genuienly and refunded them immediately. I then took a break from taking them because I had a habit of taking more than I could chew. There was another commission I forgot to do, nothing big, and I refunded that one too and apologized as well. I started taking them again, this time making sure to limit myself to a manageable amount and not take payments until I've actively started working on it. It's been great, I haven't had any trouble finishing them and any I thought I couldn't I didn't take. But now I've been having an OCD theme lately where I'm worried people are calling me a scammer behind my back or spreading that I am one. I haven't been able to find proof of this but I also wouldn't be able to if someone just posted it to their followers and not publicly. This has been really making me want to quit doing art for money even though it's nice to have the extra income and I genuienly dont want to scam people, I just have bad avoidance problems I'm trying to work on. I dont know what to do, I can't stop thinking about it and it's making me anxious to advertise. I want to compulsively delete my accounts and change my name so I'm unrecognizable. But I don't want to not take accountability, I want to be honest and open and prove I'm different like I've been able to so far. I still get commissions, but i feel like its not as many as i used to. Or maybe I'm just paranoid. I don't know what to do, I know it's my own fault but I dont want this to follow me forever.

Lately my ocd is latching onto my children. In my opinion, for me, this is the most painful and most debilitating theme of ocd. My daughter asked me to help her wash and rinse the shampoo from her hair while she was in the shower because she has thick hair and sometimes she has trouble shampooing and rinsing it all out. A normal, common task for me. At some point I caught a glimpse of her private area and my ocd immediately tried to make me believe I looked intentionally. I know I didn’t and I know I do not think of her or any child in that way but now my ocd has me questioning myself. I was just doing what I always do so I don’t remember at what point I saw it. Was I reaching for and looking down for the shampoo when I saw it or was I reaching up to her hair and saw it as I looked up? Did I look due to just normal human tendency to look where we know we’re not supposed to and if that’s the case does that make me horrible? I’m driving myself insane trying to prove I do NOT feel or think that way about her. I don’t want to live if this is how my brain works. Ocd is evil and this is the hardest kind of intrusive thought to get past. 😩

Does anyone ever get compulsions when it comes to texting? I will receive a message from someone and if I don’t want to respond right away I won’t open it, but if it’s been too long before I open it I just can’t until they text me again. Or if I text someone I have to reopen the message multiple times every few seconds in case they responded and I didn’t notice, or in case they read it, or to make sure I said what I meant to say and it can’t be perceived differently. This usually leads to me having a crazy amount of unopened messages, and a crazy amount of anxiety. Texting has become an unreliable source of communication for me so I usually call or don’t talk to anyone unless they’re in person

I have some questions as to how to distinguish avoidance vs. self-care. I am struggleing a lot with things like rumination and obsessing over certain topics. But at the same time I know that full-out avoidance of triggering topics/material is also bad for OCD. So how do you draw the line between the too? Like not compulsively engaging with certain things but also not to avoid them?

I’m a 31-year-old woman born into a Muslim family. I don't know if my childhood was good or bad because it was strange. When I was born, my parents left me with my mother's sister, but my mother sent money and gifts. However, I never felt the warmth of a mother or father. Even my aunt was not present; she left me with the housemaid. This affected me significantly, and when I speak, my language is weak. Don't ask me why I didn't improve myself during those 16 years; I was utterly lost. I sought motherly affection from every woman I met in school. I don't know if this is the reason for my homosexuality. Suddenly, without warning, my aunt returned me to my family when I was 16. She would contact me, asking if I prayed, even though she never taught me how. When I turned 20, I searched online for how to pray because even my parents never taught me. From then on, I started suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) related to cleanliness and repeatedly performing prayers. By the time I was 27, I stopped praying because there was a voice in my head that wouldn't stop. Even after I stopped, the OCD continued, and the voice persisted. I don't know if the OCD is due to my childhood lifestyle.

Hi!! I've been doing pretty good lately but the thoughts haven't stopped the anxiety is less now. But tired of hearing the thoughts. I'm a confident straight woman and all ai want to be with is a man. I've been single for years and i have been wanting a boyfriend. The thoughts are making me feel like I'm just lying to myself and it's annoying and frustrating.

So I’ve recently discovered my ocd, my brother had been diagnosed when he was younger and struggles to a lot more noticeable degree. My parents have tried to their knowledge to help him with his obsessions before he had started therapy. I’ve always been there for my brother when he’s really dwelling on a trigger. Over time I had learned more and more about ocd and started to discover things about myself I never understood. I have struggled with mental health since I can remember and always brushed it off as chronic paranoia. But I started notice a lot of similarities between mine and my brothers triggers and after researching, realized I too suffer ocd obsessions and compulsions. My huge concern right now is even though my triggers and obsessions are different than his, I feel doubt about whether it not I am valid to speak on it. I feel guilty because I have watched him suffer false memory ocd and I don’t experience that so to me it seems ultimately worse. I had opened up to him recently about things I’ve been struggling with since I was little and he confirmed all of it as ocd thoughts and obsessions. I feel like suddenly all these unanswered questions about what’s wrong with me suddenly makes sense, but I’m so behind in discovering this that I’m afraid of being honest about it, and it being perceived by others as me trying to combat with my brothers experiences. I can talk to a therapist and it’ll feel like I’m being seen, but in my personal life, even with my boyfriend I have the chronic fear that people think I’m lying

Since I was little I had a passion for mathematics. I'm currently 14 doing university-level math and have practically decided for math to be my future career path. Quite oddly, it seems like OCD started attacking this interest, as I'm really unsure if I even enjoy it anymore or not and I'm really scared because if not math, I'm not sure what I'd want to do. Is this OCD or a sign I should move onto something else?

I am having such a hard time right now. So I’m a person who suspects they have OCD. I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts about harming myself or my family, Also those of being a pedophile for years now. But the one that is currently in my mind is that I’m Asexual. I’ve always felt I was gay. I wanted to kiss boys I’d be aroused by the sight of them, and just wanted to be close to them. I always suspected why I never had a boyfriend was because of my apprehension and the small dating pool, and being in high school almost non existent one. So I vowed to just save it for the right person. But earlier in the week I got the thought that I subconsciously never wanted that, and that I was just lying about being gay and actually never felt attraction. Now I’m racking my brain of all the times I’ve ever liked someone, trying to find out if it was real. And it’s terrifying me. I know there’s nothing wrong with it but it just doesn’t feel right for me.

While I was praying I had some nasty blasphemous thought about Satan & my heart and I thought I said it out loud! I started freaking out and crying! It’s just sometimes the thoughts are SO loud they sound like I say them! I would NEVER say! Honestly part of me really doesn’t believe I said that because I feel like I’d know but it’s so scary to think “oh my gosh did I say that Satan & my heart intrusive thought out loud?!” Im just trying so hard not to be scared I prayed for forgiveness IF I did! Ughh I just hate these fricking thoughts and thinking I said them only makes me even more afraid and shameful because I’d NEVER say that on purpose! I love God & Jesus so much! Do you think I’ll be okay? Does they still love me?! Will they forgive me? Like I said part of me doesn’t think I said it but the other part makes me doubt myself and thinks I said that blasphemous intrusive thought out loud!!

Any moms of young children on here dealing with both ocd and raising kids? How do you guys get by? I’m feeling very off right now, very uneasy inside. I’m not sure what’s going on but I’ll take any advice to feel less alone or crazy. Thanks in advance !

Hey! I don’t want to get too political or upset anyone, but I just am feeling really alone: Has anyone else been facing moral scrupulosity or other intrusive thoughts about world events like the war on Gaza? It’s hard to know what’s an appropriate amount of concern and what’s OCD and it’s kind of taking over my life.

Any advice please ? What do you think about this? So I dont know what is intrusive or real . I doubt everything. Recently , a friend that I had just cut the contact.I had a crush on them .I think I still have .I need to tell that I am a lesbian.The problem is that Idk if I really cared about them . So a long time agp they told me that I was dry with them .. And I continued to be dry .. The thing is that I was like that because I was nervous when I was around them .And I was pushing them away . I am an idiot . I made someone I care about suffer and think that I dont care. Please be honest .I feel like it was more like an obsession .. how can I say that I care about someone and hurt them... To continue to hurt them. I feel ashamed. I feel like I dont have the right to be ashemed because I hurt them.I am so sorry that I kept a secret my feelings for them . I betrayed their trust .. Also I had intrusive thoughts which made it worse. Like I need to convince myself that I didnt want to hurt them but they are not in my life anymore. Its one of the worst ways a friendship ended. I didnt told them what I felt because I was scared it will end our friendship and I didnt want to make them uncomfortable . I also think that I am manipulative in a way .. sometimes I realised sometimes I dont . They told me I was gaslighting them because I was dry and I really was in messages and I really was and I told them that I am dry in messages and told me this is gaslighting .I broke their trust they didnt belived me anymore. I fucking hate myself because I feel like I destroy every friendship that I have and I fucking hate having crushes on a friend . And how I handled it . I ended up being a bad friend anyway .I didnt told them especially because I didnt want to tell them because I didnt want to make them feel like I was friends with them just because I wanted to have a relationship with them . But I think: what if I just wanted that? What if I was using them? It makes me feel so gross and I feel like a creep.Idk if it is because of ocd .I realised I am a shitty person but I am scared that I am like my intrusive thoughts ... I dont know what is true anymore its like a nightmare. At the end they told me I was fake and Idk if I am really fake or not but I really enjoyed their company .One day I met them again and they gave me something and I heard them cry . I fucking hate it . I hate that I make them suffer. Bit I cant change what I did. I wish them the best.

Send any support you can for dealing with this. It is very difficult.

Does anyone have fear of just “thinking?” Like being scared to just think? My thoughts can get very racy, & intense. It can feel like I have too many thoughts at once. I’m afraid of being a bad person. Im afraid my intentions aren’t always good. Sometimes I have very negative thoughts about people. Im always scared of what my motivations are. I feel lost.

so it’s been a few days i lost my best friend it’s been hard my ocd has gotten worse but i had a therapy session yesterday it went okay i guess… but i was telling her about losing my best friend and telling her i’m still highly aware that it’s ocd… she was like well a psychiatrist would diagnose u with ocd then she asked if i pay attention to numbers and im not for sure sometimes i don’t even know my compulsions.. but i do repetitively like tell people my thoughts so i’m guessing that’s repetitive reassurance.. my ocd thoughts were rlly high this morning like: “what if i hurt myself” “what if i want it to happen” “do i want it to happen because i’m going through a lot” “i don’t want it to happen… but what if there is a reason to” but it makes me nervous that i’m afraid it’s true because i think this happens from a tramatic experience from losing a classmate even tho i wasn’t as close with her it tramatized me bc she passed away due to s*cide and i guess that’s why it started my fear because she had mental issues and that started that crazy maze with my thoughts.. but not the only thing after when my best friend passed away at the funeral it was a open casket, she was rlly pale and it was rlly scary i use to constantly check myself to make sure i wasn’t gonna turn pale but it calmed down but then last night i was having trouble sleeping because i was having racing thoughts while i was sleeping so i guess i was sleeping very light but i get scared i will die in my sleep… my therapist still hasn’t figured out saying if i have ocd or not and sometimes i feel like i’m depressed or if i’m bipolar

I don’t fight the thoughts I just let them be. I don’t ruminate on them, well not in the same way that I used to. Attempting to disprove them is not something I engage with anymore. But since I’ve been not trying to disprove them I feel as though the distress is so unbearable. And I weirdly feel as though it’s now real and it’s not even OCD. When will the distress stop? I haven’t been doing compulsions. Yet the distress never seems to go away.

sometimes i genuinely believe that i would be a lot better off as dead. i hate being like this. i hate being me. i don’t want to be a bad person or a burden on anyone. it’s starting to feel like i want the thoughts because they’re no longer causing me anxiety, i don’t know if that’s down to my meds or what but. it’s like i feel disgust and guilt but i don’t feel the panic if that makes any sense? i’m a terrible person, i don’t deserve any type of happiness. it all feels so real, i fully believe what my ocd is telling me even though i know this time a few months ago i wouldn’t have ever thought anything like this. when will this all stop? i feel like the right thing for me to do is end it all

I was checking my emotions and feelings so often I no longer recognize my own emotions