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I have compulsions I did 10 years ago because of my pocd that still haunt me today. How do I forgive myself and move on?

Hello, does anyone have any advice on trying to stop doing rituals? My top ones have a lot to do with counting and anxiety over certain things. •the main one that bothers me SOO much is my bedtime alarm routine. I set all my alarms and then turn my ringer on and off 6 times. Then proceed to make sure my charger is plugged in twice. Then open and close my phone 3-5 times checking that my alarm is set. Once I put my phone down I checking the outlet one more time and the alarm one more time. •when I close at work I have to check the air is off at least twice. Then check the candle is out even though we never light it. After I look the door I pull on it 5 times These are just some examples. can someone please help on how to stop or at least lessen these!!??

Hi everyone! I was recently diagnosed with OCD after realizing my anxiety wasn’t generalized and learning that compulsions aren’t always visual/physical. I’m curious what compulsions you have/had that you didn’t realize were compulsions until you were diagnosed? For example, learning about rumination, reassurance seeking, and picking at skin as compulsions has been really eye-opening to me!

Listen I know everyone is going to tell me that reassurance isn’t the key to OCD recovery and while I agree with that for my future recovery the current theme I’m going through (which I will not disclose due to personal embarrassment) is so debilitating that honestly it’s affecting my ability to function normally day to day. I can’t do anything without worrying or feeling like an awful person. Tomorrow I’m supposed to reach out to my uncle who let’s just say should be someone who could give me some advice and reassurance. Like I said before I know I’m not supposed to seek this out but I can’t live with the uncertainty anymore it’s eating me alive and I need to be able to get back to being normal again. The thing is my uncle is probably going to think I’m insane when I speak to him and I’m so embarrassed. I’m so angry at myself and god for having this disorder. How do I deal with the embarrassment of having to open up to my uncle who might think I’m a weirdo after telling him about my OCD?

I don't want to be a pedophile. I don't want to hurt minors in any way. I only tried to help this person with their OCD and nothing more. I looked through the messages and I've been nothing but helpful to this person but I let them know what made me uncomfortable and things I wouldn't do. I knew better. I knew what to do and not to do, but I still feel wrong about this. At the same time, I don't think it would be wrong if a therapist helped an underaged person with intrusive thoughts that were sexual in nature. I don't know. I just don't want to be a bad person. I haven't had a spike in anxiety like this in a long time. It hurts. It sucks. I don't know what to do right now.

Last year, I lost my dad. I completely lost it and had to be put on antipsychotics and depression meds. I’m currently on Vraylar which is supposed to help with most of my diagnoses including OCD (according to my doc). She’s been trying to get me into CBT and read a 70 dollar book (my adhd makes it hard to focus so I struggle with reading); it’s not a favorite past time of mine because of that and my dyslexia. I’ve lost my ability to drive unless my wife is with me (she’s my safe person) and same goes for leaving the house. I can’t make myself drive or leave the house without a support human. My doc says CBT therapy will help but I’m so nervous that I’m going to be stuck like this forever. I rarely drove before my dad died but I did drive and since his passing, I can’t bring myself to do it. I get so many intrusive thoughts that I’m going to kill myself or others by driving. I’ve been in 3 accidents alone in my suv and so it’s not like I shouldn’t be worried (only one accident was my fault due to not checking my blind spot for reference). I’m an extremely careful driver but I think of all the worst ways it could go bad. Has anyone else dealt with this and has CBT helped? Are you driving or doing the things you used to be able to do again? If so, how did you do it? I’m at a loss here and my wife keeps pushing me to drive but I can’t force myself to do it. I get to the front door and I can’t leave the house even with keys in hand. Sorry for the novel but this is what I’ve been dealing with for the last almost year or so.

I looked up “why does it feel like I feel good from intrusive thoughts?” And the AI thing said if I’m feeling good from these thoughts that means it’s not actually intrusive. Isn’t that my answer right there? I also made myself think the thoughts that have been “bothering” me to see if I’d feel anything down there or if I’d feel excitement and nothing happened. Can someone just help me understand??

Does anyone experience a high level of anxiety when they wake up. It’s almost like I’m anticipating some thought triggering me. I woke up today sweating and I just sat there in the uncomfortableness of it all and it was miserable. I’ve been doing therapy work so maybe my stress level is high and that’s causing it

i've always loved kids and they bring me so much joy and light and laughter into my life, i was an infant teacher at a daycare for years before going to college. i've always wanted a family , a husband, kids, a cat (already have my baby boy kitty witty), a nice dog or two in a nice house with a job i love or to stay at home with the kids blah blah blah . now that i've been struggling with HOCD i'm terrified. i'm scared that if i have children one day i'm gonna go into psychosis and act on intrusive thoughts which i would never ever ever ever do but it's a scary feeling . it has made my whole view on my future change so drastically. im scared of having kids now even tho it was my dream for so long. when i was a kid if anybody asked what i wanted to be when i grew up i would say "a mommy" . it's just kind of annoying. anyone else struggling with this ?

Pleaseeeee Lord make this stop

Went to a smoothie shop for my ERP today. I expected it to go well. But the noise was too much 😞it took me like 30 minutes to reach a calm-ish state. But even being back at home now my intrusive thoughts are so loud and I feel discouraged and very panicky and fearful. I’m so disappointed in myself and I’m afraid I’m going backwards . This is so hard

My ocd is really bad right now. Two days ago out of nowhere I thought what if I have dyslexia and that really made me anxious... I read fine except in front of other people because I get anxious. And then yesterday I woke up and it seems like I read slower in my mind than usual. I don't know how to explain it but doesn't feel right. I'm very scared. I know you can't get dyslexia overnight hahahaha but I'm scared something else is wrong:(

I want to beat my OCD because it’s starting to affect my way of life and messing with me hanging out with friends and loved ones. Does anyone have any good recommendations with helping get rid of intrusive thoughts?

I want to find the off switch, my brain is so determined to convince me of things that are just not true. But I just don't understand, I know deep down they're not true.. so why am I so desperate to prove it? I'm literally at my wits end

Hi everyone. I (30F) have been struggling with “fear of schizophrenia” OCD for a very long time now. This theme certainly comes in waves for me, but even when I'm not experiencing it acutely, it is always in the back of my mind. I feel like I can never truly plan for anything because soon I will be psychotic, so it won't matter anyway. I live my life in constant, abject terror that I am indeed becoming schizophrenic. At this point, I truly think that I am. Before I go further, I will mention that I have extreme health OCD, as well as some harm OCD and contamination OCD. Prior to this year, I used to think I had every deadly illness in the book. I used to go to the ER for every ache and pain, for every sensation that felt unusual to me. I worked through a lot of that but I cannot seem to apply those same skills to this theme. This started in 2020 when I had a strange thought like "what if there are cameras?" and while I KNEW that there weren't, the fact that I had such a thought at all made me fear that I was becoming psychotic. I later started paying more attention to my mind pops and hypnagogic hallucinations and it has been downhill from there. Still, I had kept this fear to myself and under wraps for years until December of 2023. I woke in the middle of the night and as I was scrolling on reddit, I noticed a post to the tune of "What is the scariest fact you know about the human mind?" and the top one was about dementia. Someone had linked a free cognitive test called MindCrowd to test for dementia or mild cognitive impairment. I decided to take it and, being half asleep, scored miserably on it. I decided I was too young for dementia so this was definitely the onset of schizophrenia. Since then, I have taken dozens of cognitive tests and scored very very well on them, including up to about 3 days ago. I do not have cognitive impairment. I am still intellectually and cognitively intact. I have no family history of schizophrenia or any psychotic disorder (although OCD runs in my family). I have OCD and Borderline Personality Disorder. I have a lot of symptoms that make me believe that I am entering psychosis. I'll list them below: **Pareidolia -** This one is the one that is the most distressing to me right now. See r/pareidolia for examples of what I am talking about. At some point in the past, I read that pareidolia is a symptom of schizophrenia. For a few years now, whenever I think of this fact, I become vigilant of facial patterns in things. I am at such a point of hypervigilance about pareidolia right now that no matter what I look at, I can guarantee that I will be able to find a face pattern in it. I am usually actively thinking about pareidolia prior to it happening. If I were heavily distracted, I would most likely not notice it at all. I notice it in everything now. This is one of the most distressing symptoms ever. **Mind pops and brain chatter -** it feels like I have a mental radio. Particularly when it's quiet or I'm anxious, I "hear" a lot of chatter in my head. This can range from the sound of a crowded area in my head (I don't ACTUALLY hear it; I know it's in my head) to random words and phrases like "Tina Tuna" or "dinnertime", etc. I also have songs playing in my head almost constantly. I don't like to sit in silence because of these phenomena. I usually have music or a podcast playing. **Hypnagogic/hypnopompic Hallucinations -** these are heard right as I'm falling asleep. Could be bits of conversation. They disappear when I wake up. **Closed Eye Visuals -** Occur when I'm falling asleep, especially if I'm extremely tired. Can pretty much be anything. **Weird thoughts -** I think this one I do to myself. I'll have a super fucked up thought like "I wonder what kind of music my cat would listen to if he could like music?" and then be like "what the fuck, why did I think that?" **Constant hypervigilance -** Making sure I didn't see or hear something that wasn't there. Asking for reassurance from loved ones that they also saw or heard what I saw or heard. **Brain Fog -** I think this might be stress related but there are times when I become so stressed from my anxiety that I feel like I have no thoughts left in my head. **Afterimages -** Sometimes if I look at brightly-coloured things like lights, I'll see an afterimage of it for a few seconds. *I went to the hospital at the beginning of this week for all of this and an ER doctor, a mental health nurse, and a psychiatrist all told me that I categorically and completely do not have schizophrenia or any prodrome of it.This should have been reassurance enough but it is not. I don't think anything is. I am terrified that I will lose my mind and hurt the people I love. That is my biggest fear in the world. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want to live a simple, quiet life with my wife and my cats. I love them so much and I never want anything bad to happen to them. I hate that this is happening to me. I have seen so many stories on this sub about people whose symptoms essentially mirrored mine. Based on post history, a lot of people recovered from this theme. I just can't seem to. This is the worst my OCD has ever been. I can't take medication because I have had horrific experiences in the past on medication. I spend probably 8-10 waking hours a day thinking about schizophrenia, googling, testing myself (such as with the Mask Illusion, which I do still fall for btw), doomscrolling on Reddit, seeking reassurance from basically everyone, asking my family and friends if I seem psychotic, asking if they heard noises or saw things that I had, etc. I have nightmares about it when I sleep. I feel like I’m going to die from the anxiety this is causing me. Last night, I barely slept because I kept dreaming of pareidolia. I’m at the point of feeling like if I stepped outside and got hit by a truck, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing cause I could finally stop worrying about schizophrenia. So, am I schizophrenic? Or is this illness anxiety and OCD? Can OCD trick you into thinking you’re psychotic?

Does anyone else’s ocd really not fit into subtypes the thoughts are all random ?

It’s unbelievable how isolating OCD can be. Lately I’ve just been really bumming out and feeling like nobody on this earth knows who I really am. It gets very tiring feeling like you have to act. I’ve put on a happy face for a very long time and it’s just exhausting. I’m thankful that this app exists and is a place where we can all share our thoughts and feelings and be heard. To anyone else out there suffering in silence, my heart goes out to you.

I feel like OCD is slowly trying to take away everything I love and scare me. I had a thought when I went to eat that my ocd would latch onto my food and scare me so I wouldn’t eat again and it scares me. My anxiety is pretty bad right now I’m just exhausted from this it’s a struggle daily

I’m a woman in my 20’s. I always thought I didn’t want kids but as I get older I’m starting to feel like it is something I’d actually want to consider in the future maybe. There are 4 reasons though that make me feel like I can’t have children. 1. Feeling like there is something wrong with me, like what if I’ve done unforgivable things, what if I’m a freak. My husband and family would tell you this is OCD, but I couldn’t tell you that right now as I’m in the midst of feeling like everything is real. If I truly am an irredeemable freak then I can’t be a mother. 2. I am afraid to pass on my OCD and autism to children. I do believe people with OCD and autism can live full lives and I know because of my own experience I’d hopefully be able to spot it early and know how to get them help but what if they suffer the way I have 3. My safety anxiety and fear is bad enough when it comes to my family, I worry myself to death that they might get seriously ill or in an accident etc, how will I manage coping with those fears with my own children, especially when there is such an added responsibility to these anxieties because I’m the one looking after them. 4. What if pregnancy and postpartum messed with my hormones and brain so much that my OCD was triggered into an unliveable state. What if I’m susceptible to postpartum psychosis because I’m already mentally ill I hate what this illness has taken from me, I’ve spent most of my life feeling guilt and shame and unease, not knowing if I’m good or bad, doubting if I even have OCD. It breaks my heart that my future is going to be ruined too

Today I have been having an okay day. Nothing too bad has happened till I started to get into a deep thought. I started to think about when I was younger. Everything was fine till I started to think about something that happened when I was little( I was about 10). I did something really bad and I haven’t thought about it for awhile. During this moment In my life I did something really disgusting. Now I feel disgusted and uncomfortable, but idk why I did it. It definitely has triggered my OCD. Now I’m scared. I hope I was just a kid who didn’t understand what they were doing. My anxiety is so bad right now.