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A lot of people say to delay the compulsion. How do I delay it?? I ruminate a lot and I have no clue how to delay it. It’s like I have no control over my own thoughts and it bothers me every single day.

i’m sorry i’m posting so much but i’m really struggling tonight. i have to do the hardest compulsion which just doesn’t seem to be working. every time i finish it there’s doubts, anxiety, etc. it’s horrendously hard to get perfect. everytime i finish theres always something which was wrong which i need to fix. i’m really really upset and i could easily spend the whole night doing this. pls advise.

I feel like OCD is ruining all of my relationships and I hate it. My symptoms have been significantly better since I started on medication but recently I’ve been struggling with just constant thoughts that my friends don’t actually like me. I also reassurance seek a lot and so much so that I had a friend say we needed to take a break from being friends because she couldn’t deal with my excessive reassurance seeking. I just have this anxiety surrounding every single one of my friendships and this fear that they don’t care about me and I hate it. I’m scared of loosing more people because of OCD. I’m still young and I’m worried that I won’t ever be in a meaningful relationship because everyone I try to get close to will push me away because of my anxiety. I just hate OCD and I wish it wasn’t affecting my relationships to the point where I don’t feel like I can even reach out and talk to them.

Four months ago, I began taking 25mg of Zoloft, and my dosage has since been increased to 100mg. This increase has significantly alleviated the anxiety and heart palpitations caused by my OCD. However, it hasn't been as effective in treating my depression. Alongside medication, I'm currently undergoing ERP therapy. Given the mixed results, I'm considering either switching medications or augmenting my current regimen. I have a consultation with my doctor tomorrow to explore my options. I've heard from others that finding the right combination of medications can make a huge difference. Does anyone have experience with a multi-medication approach that has been beneficial for them?

How can I respond to some of these intrusive thoughts without feeling like I need to fight, resist, and etc?? They’re extremely distressing and make me question myself, my reality and my health/brain. I’ve tried just distracting myself, ignoring it, and letting it scream at me. But then it comes back with scarier ones and I’m just struggling . I’d been doing good with them lately but suddenly they’re awfully intense and hard to ignore Help😞

I have a little scratch on my finger. Someone shook my hand after work meeting, I wanted to resist and tell that person I have a scratch on my finger but didn’t not. Instead I shook their hand. Now I’m obsessing that I may pass some disease to that person. I don’t have any disease I can pass to them that I’m aware off. Feel terrible guilt for not resisting that shake and telling person I have a cut. Please help. How do I deal with it? Maybe, maybe not statements don’t work for me.

Hello, Since coming to terms with OCD in my life, I've thought a lot about parenting. My kids are 10 and 6; two wild boys with too much energy. One has an ADHD diagnosis and his little brother probably has ADHD too. To give you the details of my situation, I've been an at-home dad for ten years and spent nearly every day with my kids, including parenting through the pandemic. OCD has made parenting harder and influenced my behavior on a daily basis. In hindsight, I see how much I've needed to control my kid's schedules, activities, and plans. To some degree, I did this to survive the natural chaos of little kids, but my need to control has become really intense. It bothers my wife and she has to remind me to chill, particularly on days when she's home and I don't need to develop a plan for the day. Ten years as an at-home dad is a long time and this has led my need to control to become ingrained in my daily functioning. I feel stuck in this role now and don't know how to move on. I don't know how to let go because I'm obsessed with supervising their daily life and fear what will happen if I'm not around to maintain control. My mind leaps to worst case scenarios of my kids getting hit by a car in our neighborhood or getting into fights with unruly kids or experimenting with alcohol or drugs because of older kids in our neighborhood who don't have parents supervising them ever. My mind really goes off the deep end. OCD and parenting seems to have made my world smaller and I don't know how to detangle myself from this situation. When it involves the care of your children it's very hard to walk away and put your needs first. I often joke that my kids are like a tractor beam sucking my back into their wants and needs. If you are in similar situation or have experience parenting with OCD, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please keep it constructive and kind. I already feel like shit about this because my inability to move on from this situation has caused my family to struggle financially and probably in others way too. I know it has taken a toll on my mental health, which has negatively impacted my family.

I know it most likely I will never be in the position to take one but I have this irrational fear that I’d be strapped to a chair and be forced to take a lie detector test in court or something and they ask me scary questions relating to my ocd types. And I feel like I’ll say no with everything in me and the test will say yes anyway regardless. That scares me so much, I don’t know much about how those things work but I hear it’s based off your heart rate and I feel like I’d be scared to answer that question because my heart will be beating so fast like-this will make or break my innocence as a person. I hear that’s why they’re inaccurate and that freaks me out so much-it throws me in for an anxiety loop. Am I crazy or am I not the only one?

I was wondering if anybody had any tips for how they personally deal with rumination? Certain things (usually relational if that matters) can keep me up through the night. There will be some times when I can sleep for a few hours but the anxiety wakes me up on and off through the night and sometimes it takes me a while to fall back asleep. I try to do the method of recognizing when I’m ruminating and telling myself that it isn’t helpful and redirecting my thoughts but some days/nights it’s relentless no matter what I do

Is it wrong to be here if I don't have an OCD diagnosis? I know for a fact I have really horrible intrusive thoughts I can't deal with and I don't feel comfortable talking about it with a regular therapist because they may not be equipped to deal with it and I already feel like a bad person. So I thought using an app where the diagnosis directly works with that would be a lot more comfortable for me.

I am very scared . My mind is sick. Someone told me that a bad thing happened to them and I keep thinking about it. I think: what if I wanted that to happen? Is this ocd? I am so scared and disgusted. How can I think like this??

I've had my OCD for so long that the intrusive thoughts have begun to feel like they are who I am and anytime I try getting over them, it's so painful, and it makes me feel like I don't know who I am anymore

Been dealing with a new type of ocd thought it’s to do with stabbing and it now feels like I like the feeling of doing that or almost as if I want to do it or that I know how it feels to physically do that and that I ‘like’ the feeling but it feels really real that I like it and almost like my emotions like it? Like as if there’s an emotion that I like it and I’m scared that it’s real that I like it but at the same time feel nothing because I’m so use to having bad thoguhts because I’ve been dealing with ocd for two years now but I literally feel nothing no anxiety noThing towards the thoguhts it just feels real that I like the feeling of doing that and I’m worried but at the same time feel like I’m not worried because it almost feels like I like it and feel a positive emotion towards that thoguht and actually want it/like it but I’m not sure if that’s a fake feeling ocd has manifested but i feel scared and alone and don’t know how to deal with this I’m just hoping I’m not a sick person I wish I could feel normal again this is so hard to deal with, also I feel like I’ve morphed some things into my thinking like I don’t know how to explain it but you know when you see in movies the evil character like evil smiling when no one is looking it feels like I’m feeling that about myself like when i get that weird emotion that feels like I like those thoughts and want them and it feels so real it feels like I’m secretly evil and I don’t want it to be true but you don’t know how real it feels I don’t know what to do I’m scared and at the same time feel nothing. I tried to tell someone I know about how I’m feeling but they jsut replied ‘oh really’ and I said what’s wrong and they said ‘you only talk to me when you have a problem with ocd’ and then I jsut felt so sad after that I don’t know how to deal with this problem I don’t even know what I’m feeling anymore I don’t even know if I’m scared or if I’m lying i don’t know

Today I’ve been having that a lot lately! Recently been having Satan/demon heart thoughts and it’s scaring me! I love God & Jesus and I tell them all the time they have my heart but recently those thoughts have come and it’s giving me anxiety! I’m trying to tell myself you don’t just accidentally let S____ in your heart but I feel like it’s a fear of evil or it “happening”! I don’t want Him near or ever in my heart! But I feel like my OCD is making me doubt myself thinking I want these thoughts or maybe I want that or what IF I’ve already done it! Like some new theme coming on. These nasty thoughts keep coming back!! Also my mind keeps thinking and questioning it straight up accusing me if I did it! I’ve apologized and beg God & Jesus to please forgive me. How can I let these thoughts go! I don’t want them! Am I okay? I only want God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit in my heart NOT the enemy. Has anyone else had these thoughts?

I’m currently obsessed with digital footprint, data leaks and breaches, as well as social media anxiety. It causes me to continually google search my name and handles, delete or deactivate my social media accounts, and even risk my safety by contacting third party breach websites to wipe my data. Has anybody else experienced something like this? I get extreme anxiety when I try to log into an old account I planned on deleting but I ended up forgetting the password. It’s harder for me to navigate my OCD when it’s something more specific and there’s less of a shared community surrounding it.

Over tun last almost year I have realised I most likely have ocd, I have done so much research, which u can probably tell because I’m on here, during late night episodes and have remembered so many signs from my childhood and started noticing things in my everyday life. I have always had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right in me and I could never put a finger on it and I thought all the thoughts I got were truth and I was a serious danger, I had no idea it was ocd! Probably because of how social media portrays it. Today I have been really striving to get my mum to get me a doctors appointment to get this checked out, which I’ve found very hard to do because I’m 16 so I still mainly relay on my parents for things like getting me to the doctors. I just want to know, did the diagnosis help? And do I even have a right to say I have ocd if I don’t have a diagnosis just yet? I mean from what I know from my extensive research I most definitely do. Some examples of my symptoms are: 1. When I was little and now as well in recent months I had a serious obsession with making everything equal on my hands and it got to the point where to stop me doing this I would say “stop Alice stop” over and over to stop myself 2. I constantly have to pick up and put down things untill it feel right, this have been happening a lot recently because it’s exam season so I keep having to pick up every thing on my desk multiple times during the exam. This also first started around the age of 9 3. I’ve been getting very vivid and convincing harm thoughts since the age of about 11 and they used it scare me so much to the point when I would make my animals leave my room or I would never stop thinking about it. I was seriously convinced I was insane. I still get these thoughts but nower dayd I get alot more ROCD thoughts but I do still get harm thought during bad flare ups The list goes on and on and on I’m just wondering does it sound like I ahve ocd? Or am i just insane and trying to convince myself other wise? Please people reply I need you guys help!!!

I’ve felt like I’m in danger all day long and that something bad is about to happen to me 🙃🙃I realize this is probably just a compulsion to think about it. I ruminated and obsessed basically all day. However In therapy today I played with a food that I’m terrified that I’m allergic to! So that’s a win 😊

Hello i was not diagnosed with ocd but I've been told I'm getting intrusive thoughts . I'm at an IOP and they want to put me on seroquil. Im so upset and scared something is terribly wrong with me already . I'm scared now they think I have bipolar . Can intrusve thoughts be phrases in your own dialouge like your a loser stuff like that ?

How do you guys manage compulsive self-talk?

I have been getting better and better but I've been experiencing this one theme, i'll refrain from mentioning it so I don't trigger anyone accidentally. It is something I know is against my values, beliefs, what I know to be true, and it is something i'd never do but the moment the OCD happens the urge i'd of course never act upon that is there is so profound it is honestly so distressing and then I do not know what to do other than wanting to lock myself in my bedroom and hope for this to pass. What do you guys do when a comand-like/urge intrusive thought pops into your mind? I know it is not my thought, and I would never act upon it of course. But how can I calm myself and be rational in such a moment?