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I have really bad intrusive thoughts and I feel like I can never get rid of them they’re always there and I can never get them of my mind can someone help me ?

After that triggering dream where the worst thing could have happened, I don't feel legimitated anymore to feel genuinely distressed by triggers, to call compulsions as such. It all feels disingenuous. They don't feel valid anymore. Like crocodile tears. Because the one thing I didn't want to happen probably happened, that undoes everything else. I feel like a hypocrite, to feel distress and worry about those things, being anxious of that particular fear because in that dream it happened. I felt arousal and probably genuine attraction, I'm afraid that I could have agreed with it. Maybe it isn't true, maybe it didn't happen, maybe I'm misinterpreting, but then why I was left with that impression? All because of a damn dream, because ocd, all my triggers intrude even in my sleep, because I can't even be safe in my dreams. This is the worst mental illness.

I think I have suffered from some forms of pure ‘o’ OCD for a while now, but I am not sure as they come and go and change with time. At the moment I cannot stop obsessing over the thought that I must be a pedophile, despite having no desire to harm children and no attraction to children. Now even the thought of the word ‘children’ or the sight of them makes me feel anxious and on edge that I will for some reason harm them or everyone will know that I am a molester even though I am not and would never want to be. I also cannot stop trying to look into the past to see if I ever behaved inappropriately around children and testing/bargaining with myself when there are children around to prove to myself that I am in fact normal. It is very hard to focus on anything, so sometimes performing weird rituals like counting to 8 and not stepping on the cracks helps to soothe me, but I have resorted to harming myself at worse moments. Also, when I was growing up, I thought I had sexuality based OCD or anxiety because I was terrified of being a lesbian. I would try and bargain and explain myself out of the idea that I could be gay, and try to find evidence that would prove to myself that I was straight. However, I have since accepted that part of myself and dismissed it as denial, but now I am experiencing similar anxiety levels with this suspected POCD. Now I am afraid that this means I am not truly queer, or even worse, that it is not POCD and I am in danger of becoming a pedophile in the future. However, when I was anxious over my sexuality I think I did on some level know that I was attracted to women, whereas I don’t have a clue where these thoughts that I would harm children have come from. However it was a while ago and I can’t stop obsessing that they are the same thing; these thoughts are extremely distressing so I don’t know what to do.

Last night my friend and I did edibles for the first time. We accidentally did too much and we both became incredibly anxious. For me it made my ocd bad I started constantly checking to see if I was aroused and I got paranoid that I was and then kept checking and it really just triggered my ocd. I was wondering if anyone else has gone through similar things? I got really bad sexual and violent intrusive thoughts.

Hello, so I had some pretty bad OCD. I had intrusive thoughts and I would do very disturbing rituals/ compulsions to try to suppress the thoughts. It was extremely unhealthy. It pretty much took over my life. It was non stop. I got the help I needed. I saw a physiatrist and she put me on medicine. We found a good combination of medicine that worked great. Over time I felt the best I had in so long! It was great! But then we lowered the dose of the medicine and eventually I stopped taking it. It turned out I didn't do it right. The first mistake was at this point I had not taken any therapy, only medicine. And also I believe I didn't take enough time lowering the dosage before I just completely stopped taking the medicine. So basically at this point I unfortunately relapsed and started doing all those terrible compulsions again. It was horrible! It was a nightmare. So I obviously saw my physiatrist again and we went back on the medicine. And she then strongly recommended I see a therapist. So I did. I signed up to NOCD and started taking sessions. They taught me a lot! It was extremely helpful. So after the therapy and continuing taking my medicine I got back to where I was before the relapse. I was in a great spot again. At this point my physiatrist recommended we start to reduce my medicine again.. but this time we did it way more slower. I would take lower dosages monthly. I would cut my pills in halves, then quarters, then I would take a pill every other day etc. We got to a point ( about 3 months ago) Where we decide I stop taking the medicine. Now here I am now. So I haven't relapsed. What I mean is I haven't done any of my terrible rituals/ compulsions that really spiral me out of control. So I'm proud of that. But unfortunately I just feel like some of the symptoms are returning. I find myself doing very small ticks to try to suppress some of these thoughts. I guess you can call them compulsions. There not anything bad but I know I'm doing them. I know I probably should stop because I fear that could lead to worse compulsions. So basically after I stopped taking my pills I've noticed a difference. It's no where near as bad as it was!! I'm able to live with this. Thanks to everything I know from therapy etc... but to be honest I kinda feel a little depressed because I know there are symptoms returning. I can feel them. So it kind of sucks. I'm trying my best to not do any compulsions. But it's been like every day where I'm dealing with these symptoms. And it's got me down. I'm seeing my physiatrist in a week. And I'm going to ask her if she thinks I should get back on some medicine. The best I ever felt was when I was on my pills. There were some side effects but nothing to bad. They weren't an issue. I felt amazing when I was on them. I just don't feel the best right now. It's it OK to be on medicine (at least a small dosage) for long periods of time? Potentially life? I really appreciate anyone who reads this! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm 31 years old. Thank you

Hi everyone. This isn't as much a cry for help as it is a confession. I was out to brunch, and had a drink, felt a little tipsy and then went grocery shopping. All was fine and well until I started having intrusive thoughts about POCD. At first I was mentally saying no and disagreeing, but then I kind of started to ignore it. Well I went to the bathroom, and when I was washing my hands, I had more intrusive thoughts (or I was acknowledging the OCD I was having, I don't know for sure) but then I had a groinal response. It felt like pleasure but I knew I was also having OCD AND I convinced myself I had pleasure to the intrusive thoughts about POCD. I was numb and drunk and honestly I didn't even have a reaction besides I just let it happen like I didn't say no mentally I kind of just stood there with dead eyes at the floor. I feel absolutely disgusting and I feel the need to confess to my boyfriend everything. I feel disgusting. It feels like I was having pleasure to those intrusive thoughts and I'm disgusted with myself that my brain and body would do that. The problem is- I can't remember if I was just numb and not reacting, or if I keep doing it? It happened like 2-3 times that my body had that groinal response. I don't really remember thinking about a particular intrusive thought or I know I didn't like imagine anything TO have pleasure to, but I can't ignore the what-ifs. Someone please help

Im turning 21 this year and part of me wants to drink alcohol and enjoy myself (in moderation obviously), but I cant help being afraid of accidentally getting too inebriated and losing control of myself or possibly talking about my ocd. Im not ashamed of having ocd itself, but some of my ocd themes can be classified as disturbing if not explained correctly. Not to mention my experiences are relatively personal and I want to keep between my therapist and I. Im afraid of an instance like this where I start to talk too much and people around me get the wrong idea of my values, which, in turn, might push people away from me. I know the answer is to just drink responsibly, but can anyone share any experiences they have with having a drink while being diagnosed with ocd? How have you coped? Has everything been okay?

ERP has been tremendously helpful for me, but I find it difficult to plan exposures to my obsessions, given that most of my intrusive thoughts are mostly about moral or conceptual issues, so it's hard to put them into smth "actionable". Do you guys have any advice?

Ive been having such a bad episode i keep ruminating abt my relationship and how when we were abt to break up i thought my whole world was ending like i actually wanted to just stop everythjng which i know is bad so once i felt thst ive been working on spending more time w friends and becoming more independent and me and my bf r working together to fulfill our personal goals so we can have a healthier relationshipnand make things work and stopnbeing toxic. but my ocd keeps telling me if im this attached and dependent then its not real love and its all toxic snd it wont work out which i dont want at all and then i had this thought that i have to break up with him bcs its valid to if im this attached but i don't want to at all and i don't want to think that either cuz we r actually doing well. but it got in my head and now i'm so stressed out and i have this other fear that once i become independent its just an obsession with him that will turn to disgust but i don'g want that rither. can someone pls pls give me advice that will help this is stressing me out so bad

Do you guys also have unwanted thoughts as affirmations/statements/invitations about horrible things? I had a voice saying "cmon we know you like that stuff" "cmon you can like it" "it's okay to like it" "why is that so wrong?" a combination of those things (but I don't remember the specific intrusive statement that bothered me and made me need to write this so I'm currently trying to recollect my memories to find it, but I think I should stop); and I don't know if it was ocd using implicitly my voice to automatically self sabotage and mess me up. Anyway it bothers me. But did it before? They appeared almost automatically that I couldn't even react or anticipate them coming to block them. I didn't see my will to block them so to know that they were unwanted, they just happened so quickly and they went away quickly. I was high on weed yesterday with my friends and they started saying very triggering stuff and I had horrible intrusive images to which my mind responded with uncomfortable intrusive thoughts that felt like invitations, but I was high so they felt a lot harder to distinguish from my own thoughts, it was all hazy and I didn't give it much attention. I was more concerned about my groin area. I don't remember that much. I'm bothered now but was I that bothered before? I don't remember being "no, stop, don't go there", only with intrusive images and triggering associations as my friend were describing triggering stuff not ill-intentioned. Since I woke up with others intrusive images that I tried to solve, I also have one triggering intrusive image stuck in my mind that I'm costantly trying to suppress.

So I’m in a relationship with an amazing guy, like he’s literally so great, and yet there have been a lot of moments of doubt and worry over many different things, some of them I know are small and insignificant, and yet they feel so big. But right now, I’ve been experiencing thoughts and feelings that don’t necessarily worry me, but I still try to understand them and analyze them to no end. For example, I’ve realized that I become a little irritated and weirded out by my bf’s overly hyper and cringy behaviour around his friends. I sometimes think he’s just a little socially awkward and he doesn’t realize it. I can’t quite explain it or put my finger on it, but it’s irritating, and a lot of it has to do with his voice. I don’t want to be irritated by this stuff tho, I don’t want to feel irritated by his voice or his hyper and cringy behaviour, but it can be a bit much sometimes, and I worry that it’s bad for me to feel that way. I just wish I could make that feeling go away. But even with this, I’m not feeling worried as much because I know I really like him and I want to make this relationship work, and yet I still feel the need to analyze his behaviours, trying to make sense of why he acts and sounds the way he does when he’s with friends, trying to understand how I feel about it, and how I would feel if it was done/said differently or by a different person. It’s all just a mess, it’s so confusing, and it’s even more confusing when I’m not feeling anxious or worried, but I’m still finding these quirks bothersome. I really just want this to work out, you have no idea how badly. It’s all just so confusing and I don’t want to let those flaws become dealbreakers. I’ve always been worried, even since the very beginning, that his minor flaws would become dealbreakers, it was like I was fighting a part of myself that felt it should be a dealbreaker, but I don’t want it to be. I just want to stop feeling this way about every little inconvenience, annoyance, or flaw. I feel like I’m constantly fighting myself.

im not on this app such a long time because i was doing really well. i felt like my ocd has gone and i thought maybe if i go to therapy once a month is okay like im doing really well. but then the day after i felt incredible anxiety just beacuse i put on a parfum like on the bad days too. and i got so scared like what if its gonna be like old times again. what am i gonna do. i cant resist for a second time something like that am i gonna live like this forever? i cant live like this. please if you triggered like similarity with your ocd flared up times please write to me.

I have a lot I need to do for work and feel like I’m slacking but I’m just so overcome with my obsessions. I can hardly focus either due to the obsessions or lack of mental energy leftover after the episodes subside. I’m frustrated because I know what I need to do a lot and I have to get focused asap. Please encourage me to get a lot done at work this week. I need to tell myself I can do it and stick to it.

Have you ever been blackout drunk or on any substance that causes you to blackout and your ocd tells you that you did something horrible or something happened to someone and you were there and you were under the influence so your ocd gets triggered and makes you think you did it even though you weren’t having intrusive thoughts at that time in your life?

Yesterday was one of my worst days in a while. Everything went downhill fast. I woke up to realize my wife had emailed the school I work at to inform them that they are under paying me. I knew she was frustrated on my behalf (I would teach for free). Teaching is a passion of mine and I only get to do it a few times a year. It’s at a massage school. I teach chair massage. She wants my hourly rate to be the same as what I charge for my massages. Do, essentially a $30 raise. She was pretty upset at the time and I thought it would blow over. I didn’t know she actually emailed the director using my email. I So, when I woke up I had to do a lot of damage control. I still have the job, but they are willing to replace me now. My 14 year old son is being just awful to me and we argue almost daily. My mom was supposed to take my kids to the pool but she canceled due to the weather. I tried calling her several times yesterday only to be sent to voicemail. I texted her later and she claimed she didn’t know I was trying to get a hold of her. Plus, she didn’t want me to know that she was watching my little brother’s kids instead. My pure O was in overdrive yesterday. I couldn’t sleep. I just woke up at noon. I’m pissed off that I watched the news yesterday. I’m glad Trump was found guilty, I just don’t think it will matter as much as it should. End of rant. There is more to it but that’s the main issues.

I have been working on my ocd and I do not feel afraid of my ocd right now but I do feel very depressed and unmotivated is this a normal part of healing from ocd?

In 17 and not diagnose with OCD but I keep getting scared that my dad will one day develop cancer so I keep praying to God that he won't and I keep praying all day and and giving up things which are taste/ sound/ touch like music and nice food because they are ignorance jn Hinduism and I feel like God will punish me for not sacrificing it by giving my dad cancer. I couldnt even function but then I realised I could get around it by 'promising on my dad's life's to do stuff like 'promise to eat this chocolate on your dad's life' and then I had to. The problem is sometimes I promise things I don't want to do unintentionally. Likethe first thing I do in the morning is pray that my dad doesn't get cancer and then when I go downstairs there's a picture of god so i feel like I have to pray for it downstairs too I can't just walk past with ignorance but as I was praying j was thinking about how I don't want to do compulsions and I accidentally promised to god not to. But I knew I couldn't keep it up and later in the day I went to go pray again forgetting my original promise and then after I felt this awful guilty feeling like I've actually betrayed God and hurt my dad. I don't know what to do

Are they really intrusive thoughts when I find myself not knowing and questioning if they really are?

My OCD has kept me from Getting serious with a guy I really loved because I was afraid he wouldn’t want me when he realized how bad my OCD was. I married somebody who wasn’t right for me. I took a job out of college that I really didn’t want because I was afraid of getting an important job and getting fired over my OCD. my whole career path was affected . After I had my son, I had so much postpartum anxiety and OCD that I didn’t have another child and I really wanted one.

Hello, I do have lots of dilemma, I am not exactly sure what the point of this post is but I have been with my partner for about a year now and 4 months into the relationship ocd creeped in. I have had almost all the different triggers and compulsions there is to have. Luckily my partner is extremely understanding and hasn’t broken up with me yet. I was doing good for about a month prior to this and I had a massive setback because I began controlling and fixing him. I began doing ERP during that period but there was so much anxiety however I noticed I stopped doing lots of the compulsions but the anxiety totally ruined my mood and I will be unhappy most at times so I felt I most be unhappy in the relationship since I am not longer having intrusive thoughts or controlling. I also would get so mad that my partner can feel all the love and excitement in a relationship and I can’t feel it( checking for feelings) so I’ll be so angry that I would start saying deliberate hurtful things to hurt my partner to feel the hurt I am going through. I really want to stop hurting my partner but I don’t know how to. I sometimes feel frustrated that I can’t control my actions or thoughts or even delay it. Because he’d always ask how I feel when u am anxious and I will burst out with all the emotions, this has made me very rude,disrespectful and immature to him. ( our relationship was the happiest relationship before OCD, I keep his flaws but I didn’t care about them at all and saw him as perfect) now I am holding a perfectionist view of how a partner should be(idealised partner) comparing him to that. I also don’t know how to be compassionate to myself and sometimes I feel so guilty for everything he is going through. There is a lot that is going on with me but I just want to know how to start feeling like I can control the actions I take and also how to stop confessing ( I am in therapy but sometimes I just need advice from people who have gone through this)