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Can ocd make me think i want to act on them when i dont pls respond

I have always had a naturally high hair line that wasnt straight and leaned towards a slight M shape but the last few months i think its gotten worse. I am 19 and desperately do not want to lose hair. I constantly am looking in the mirror, feeling my temples, researching and obsessing over my hair and i dont know what to do. It may seem vain but hair is very important to me, and i dont think id care as much when i am older to lose it but i am so young and am worried about finding a wife and being in a small minority for having hairloss this young. My grandfather on my mothers side is almost 80 and still has decent amount of hair, my hairline is also similar to his and photos from when he was my age show a high hairline, however my father is bald and started to recede in late 20s. This may seem trivial to most but it is taking over my life and is all i can think about, and the kicker is is that if i am balding, stress will make it worse, so i then stress about that too. There are two medications that do well against hairloss, minoxidal (topical) and finasteride (oral). Minoxidal supports regrowth and finasteride supports the halting of futher balding. Finasteride is notorious for sexual and mental health side effects since it stops the conversion of testosterone to DHT, another androgen that deals with these side effects and hair loss. I am constantly debating taking it or not taking it but i have read horror stories about the medication and dont want to (literally) ruin my life (you can read up on it if youd like). Help or advice would be much appreciated.

I saw my mother asleep in a triggering position and noticed her triggering bottom area and I'm afraid I was attracted, and having seen her that way. The lightning hit that area in a weird way, and highlighted it and they looked weirdly lucid like the tights that Taylor Swift wears during her live concerts. And like the tighs area was unusually big but maybe that was because of the side sleeping position. I saw something unexpected that I didn't want to see and it was triggering was bothered, but what if I was bothered because I saw something "attractive" on someone I care about and do not feel that way? If that wasn't my mother and someone else would have I liked what I saw? Like how friends joke about other friends' mothers but they don't feel discomfort because they are not theirs. So I didn't want to see that, but was I only bothered because she is my mother? And what if I thought what I saw was attractive? Even though I wasn't the fact that I felt shocked and distressed implies I saw something that would be attractive in normal situations. I don't like that at all. I didn't want to notice what I saw. I could have gone all my life without this. I'm afraid that this is going to develop in a new ocd theme and that I'm never going to see my num in the same way I feel so sad about this My mother is pure and now my mind has degenerated her too. I feel hopeless. There has been times that I saw her in like similar situations but I didn't "notice" like I did this time. I'm afraid that I found it attractive this time. I can't live with this. I was shocked at what I saw. I'm trying to recollect what I thought and what I felt at that moment. I couldn't believe my eyes. I noticed too much. When I go past her I feel weird. I feel like things can't be normal again and when I see her I'm reminded of that trigger experience, it feels like I can't act normal anymore as if nothing happened, I get reminded of what I saw. I'm afraid that I can't see her normally anymore after this. And I'm afraid that this will stick and become a new theme. I didn't need this. I don't know what to do. What do I do.

I have been struggling for years with overwhelming and disturbing thoughts ever since I was as young as 5/6 (after one of many traumatic events). After said incident, it had left me with severe separation anxiety which had eventually made me develop a major skin picking issue that still affects me today. I have very violent and sexual thoughts out of nowhere but with some distraction I can get them out of my head. I think about doing things I have no desire to do AT ALL because it’s morally incorrect and downright disgusting. (Mentions of suicide)…but sometimes when I become embarrassed I picture myself committing suicide but I have no interest in dying nor do i have the desire to die. I hate to admit it but I become obsessed with individuals as well, (friends, potential partners and celebrities). I tend to become very obsessed and attached to individuals or ideas that I have interest in and I become extremely invested in and that’s all that’s on my mind for weeks and even months. (I know it sounds silly but I was obsessed with Batman for 3 years straight) it was all my mind was set on. I very often think about the afterlife and what I need to do to rest peacefully, it sometimes consumes me for hours or I wondering if I’m upsetting god. There’s much more I have to say but it’s already long enough, I’m just looking for advice to deal with this because I don’t know what’s going on with me and I hope I can have some helpful suggestions or insight, thank you! :)

I feel like I can’t have a single day of peace. When I get a thought, I automatically think that I thought that thought on purpose and it must mean something. Or I will think something and I will panic and think “what if because I was thinking about that thought it must be real and I want it?”. I have a bad compulsion of confessing to my partner and I feel like not only do I confess my thoughts, but I also admit to things that I don’t even believe or have thought about. For example, I will have a distressing thought about my ex. I will then confess to partner “i thought about them, I know I had that thought but I don’t want them”. Sometimes I confess that I thought about them on purpose, but its my OCD that puts meaning behind it. My brain can’t seem to comprehend that just because i have a thought that means it means I want that thought. And I always have to confess that I thought about my thoughts on purpose. I’m not sure why I think this way. I feel like such a terrible partner and I feel undeserving of them. They are very understanding but I know it hurts them. I know i love them so much but I feel like I need to confess and admit to being guilty or it will eat me up inside. I know that when I have these thoughts I dont want them, but I always feel like I need to confess or I’m “hiding/lying”.

Today I’ve been feeling like crap, I feel like I am losing my mind and I’m about to lose control. I feel so desperate at my own home. Do you know if this is OCD related??

I feel like I just can’t do it anymore. Every new day brings new triggers and I’m starting to believe that I’m a monster that needs to be tucked away from the rest of the world. Not only for other people but for myself. I just want to sleep. I am so tired. And I can’t even begin to tell my family because they just don’t understand. They think OCD is simply cleaning and tidying up things and I can’t seem to get it through their heads that I’m living with this disorder, day in and day out. I just want some relief, even for a little bit.

Since some months ago, I've been dealing with intrusive thoughts, rumination and stress to the extreme, not letting me enjoy my life. It is not the first time that something like this happens. I had HOCD 5 years ago, and somehow after a year it stopped, but some months ago it came back, not only that HOCD, but new ones have appeared. It was always like this, there was an intrusive thought about losing control and doing or thinking things that I don't like triggered by random and inofensive events and then I would start ruminating and checking 24/7 for weeks. The worst part is that because of college I don't have time to talk loudly about my thoughts alone as I would like, so they keep persisting while other appears While my HOCD is less invasive now. Other OCDs have taken the spotlight, like fearing about becaming a conspiracionist who denies science. This one derived to another about losing my interest in dinosaurs which are my passion, I know maybe it sound stupid, but it was so real, it was seeing a Dino and don't be able to enjoy it, becaming stressed or not feeling joy like before...And well I should have things clear before it is too late if I wanna pursue my dream of becoming a paleontologist. Also, I had recently one OCD about "society influence in the world", like, I felt that since culture molds our values I wasn't being myself and that I had a "bad inner nature" althought I like helping people and I have always tried to be kind with all people. This derived in being scared about being bad for the sake of "being my trueself" and losing my empathy just because thinking about this Could anyone give me advice???

Hey guys. I'm currently in therapy for my OCD and we've began the process of having a more manageable life. The theme I struggle with the most right now is POCD, and its been this way for a good while now. The problem is I have one session every Wednesday, and this event I want to talk about, has happened today (Saturday) meaning I can't talk about with my therapist for another 4 days, which for me right now is going to feel forever. We're currently working on trying to stop myself from confessing and seeking reassurance, which I know is exactly what I'm doing with this post, and I know I shouldn’t but I'm really struggling right now and need something to tide me over until Wednesday. Essentially, right now I have a lot of fears around Pornography and watching inappropriate pornography, whether that be featuring people who are underaged, or other types of Pornography such as animated/cartoon. As a result of these fears, I had stopped watching Pornography as there was no way for me to enjoy consuming regular, normal and safe pornography anymore without me worrying about something inappropriate coming up, OR me having really intense intrusive thoughts to purposely search for inappropriate content and consume it, and with those thoughts I could really see myself in my mind searching for inappropriate, disgusting and weird pornography and so my mindset was if I don't watch pornography AT ALL, I can't possibly have thoughts to search for something inappropriate can I? Anyway, as a result of that, when it comes to indulging in self pleasure and things like that, it has become really difficult, in order to feel pleasure and climax I need to have some sort of additional stimulation (probably because I have ADHD), I wish I could sit there and fantasise with my mind but I can't come up with anything or focus on something for too long without being distracted, so I use audio or visual stimulation, like erotic audio or porn. Obviously I can't do that anymore so it's very hard to enjoy self pleasure etc. So, I thought if I bought a toy instead it would allow me to feel that additional stimulation and pleasure something like audio or visual pornography adds, and while it feels nice, I just find myself not aroused enough because there's nothing "sexual" going on, there's no sounds I can hear, no Visuals, I'm just using a toy on myself and it doesn't feel nice. Anyway, this is where the event comes in from today. I was at home and I was interested to try and use the toy again to see if I could actually feel aroused and enjoy self pleasure, because if I can it means I can just do this for pleasure and I don't have to worry about Pornography ever again. I was walking up the stairs and heading to my room when I heard both of my parents mention they were going out (meaning I would be home alone). I then had what to me is a really sinister thought of "Now my parents are gone I can watch Pornography WHILE using this toy and it'll feel great'. I then counteracted that thought with "I can use the toy but I can't watch or search Pornography" because of the reasons I listed earlier. Then, I was plagued with various intrusive thoughts to search for inappropriate pornography, as well as animated pornography featuring characters from video games that would be deemed attractive. This last part is based on a previous fear I had once. One time, I went to search for animated pornography of an adult character from a video game I found attractive and when I did, 9/10 of the search results I found were what I wanted, the other 1/10 was pornography featuring a character from the same franchise that SHOULD not be depicted in that manner because they're not an adult. Ever since then, I've steered away from searching for animated pornography because even if I intended to search for an adult, the fact it could come up with something different scares me, and I would be enabling that content if I allowed it to even appear on my screen. Anyway, there's thus character in a game that recently released that everyone online is head over heels for, particularly on social media spaces like twitter. As a result of that, my brain has now latched onto that and I am plagued with intrusive thoughts to search for that character in a pornographic manner. Now, if I was to do that, it would be okay because the character is over the age of 18, but to me I don't want to, because I know what else CAN pop up. I also am troubled by the thought that if I did search for content of that character, it would come up, which makes it even more difficult. Anyway, once my parents left the house I had thoughts to not only use the toy, but to search for that character, followed by intense urges and thoughts to do that, that felt like I really wanted to do that. I then felt sweaty and a wave of anxiety hit me and at that point I felt like I was doing something secretive, the act of a closested creep and pedophile. As a result of that, I just tried to use the toy and to no avail I wasn't pleasured, and at that point I wasn't even aroused or particularly in the mood (probably because of prior thoughts). This is where the event worsens for me because I then searched on Google for ways to use that toy properly because maybe there was something I was doing wrong which is why it didn't feel great. I then found a post on Quroa that was basically titled the same as what I wanted to know, e.g. "How to you this toy properly because it doesn't feel great" I then saw a reply to the post from a guy who's profile picture was an old man in lingerie, which I guess is fine, but then I noticed his reply to the original poster which was "since you're 14 years old, I wouldn’t use toys but I'd maybe try using a finger until you're a bit older and you never know what you might discover" I felt gross and disgusted reading this reply because I know its okay to sexually educate younger people, I get it, but it just doesn't sit right with me telling a 14 year old to use their finger, especially coming from an old man, but maybe that's just me. The problem with this, I then had thoughts I was turned on and aroused by this comment I read, where groinal responses soon followed and I felt even more perverted and gross. I then closed the page down and tried to look for other alternatives. I wondered if there was some sort of way to view and listen to strictly audio pornography, that's from a site that's DEFINITELY not going to come up with anything weird, or even video sites that wouldn't either. I basically typed in better alternatives to Porn, but it just came up with like "weight lifting" etc. My intention wasn't for better alternatives to pornography, it was for better alternatives to regular porn so that was my poor wording in the search. I then changed my search to ethical types of Pornography, hoping someone would mention a site where everything is checked, monitored and there were a few listed. After I found the names of some, I did an additional Google search to basically check they're legitimate and it came up with "similar results" and one of them was an article stating "IF YOU SEE WARNING DO NOT CLICK ! do not engage as engaging with any type of child pornography is illegal" and that threw me off and scared me so I closed all of my tabs. I then went onto one of those ethical sites, it was called Bellesa. The video I found on there was very normal and passionate and I was able to focus on that video and I felt genuinely pleasured, but then also guilty because I felt like I had done something wrong and sinister and pedophilic, hence the confession on here. I am worried that I have done something wrong. That I am a closeted pedophile. I'm looking at my family and my friends and all I can think is how ashamed and disgusted they would be of me if they knew I was a pedophile. That's not me saying I'm a pedophile by the way I'm just phrasing what my mind says to me. I look at everyone around me and I feel like why I can't I be normal like them. It doesn't help either I just saw an article that a pornography star was found to be in possession of CP and arrested for it. I also saw that Dr Disrespect a youtuber was outed for being a pedophile too. I guess when I see stuff like that it reiterates to me that pedophiles are real and I could be one. I am also going to show this to my therapist on Wednesday and go from there. Any words or advice would be appreciated. I'm feeling down today.

hey everyone recently i’ve been struggling alot with my eyes and where they look. i get very nervous about my eyes looking down at peoples privates. even when they are fully clothed. it started with kids mostly and how i had this fear i was looking down where there private area is. i would never purposely look at a child inappropriately but i try very hard to avoid looking down and the harder i try to avoid it the more it happens. this has all sent me into a panic because i feel like today when the child i was babysitting was wearing a dress and she opened he legs and i looked down and panicked. sometimes i can get over it and understand it was an accident. but i freaked because i feel like i know when im trying to avoid looking i’m like don’t look don’t look and then my eyes go down. this wasn’t the case this time however i think i was avoiding looking without even realizing. there’s also been a time where i looked down at someone’s priv area and was looking and being like see you’re not doing anything to be innapropriate. it is hard and i just saw a tiktok of a child and i was looking at his swim trunks and i felt like i was starring the whole tiktok and was sent into a panic and mental breakdown just because i thought i was starring and idek why or what happened. i constantly am thinking about this and looking down and trying to avoid without even realizing. this is happening so often with everybody now not just kids. i hope nobody thinks im a pedo when reading this i’m trying to stop but i feel like im going mad. if anyone has any advice or help please share. i feel like such a bad person like i am doing it intentionally. especially the times i feel like i am starring since most the time when i look i look away immediately.

Sometimes I'll have the general feeling Something Bad is going to happen. Is this common with OCD?

What would a good start/hook be for a college essay about OCD. I mean I can’t just be like “when I was 10 I thought I was sexually attracted to my sister….” although that would definitely get their attention 😭

I don't know what this is but I don't think I can take another thing wrong with me. Everything in my life is going down hill and I'm so afraid of more things that would impact the quality of my life. So I was really worried about my eyes for a bit and then out of nowhere I started focusing and seeing sort of like static or pixels or noise when looking at a plain wall. I'm okay when I'm distracted though. Then today I was out on a walk and I noticed when I'm looking at the trees when it's a bit dark I can see that noise, static mostly when I don't focus on something. I'm so scared it's visual snow. I've also been really focusing on eye floaters. I can't take another thing wrong with me. I want to cry:(

I don't know why I did this but I decided to help a minor with OCD. I don't like talking to children and I made that clear to myself at the time and to this person. But, I still did it. I just wish I knew why. I hate that I still did it because it's given me a ton of guilt now. They suffered from POCD and I do as well (which is ironic since this is giving me bad POCD triggers) and all I wanted to do was help them with OCD. I just don't understand why I would take it to DMs. It makes no sense. There's people I have replied to on here and I don't know their age and they could be minors, which gives me less worry but still worry. The biggest problem I have with this event is the topics we discussed within OCD. Since it's about POCD and I think SOOCD we spoke about pretty sensitive topics that aligned with our OCD. But I just feel like I shouldn't have. I sometimes think to myself that if I were a therapist talking to a minor about POCD, that wouldn't be wrong. It's their job to do so. It isn't my job to do that though. I guess I just wanted to do good? But why with this person in particular? They knew there were things I was uncomfortable with and didn't want to go forward with. Eventually I stopped talking with this person because I felt like I was no longer helping with the constant reassurance I was giving and I was just too uncomfortable with talking with a minor. I just wasn't okay with it and I'm still not okay with it now. I want to tell myself that I was just trying to help this person, I knew I didn't want to do anything wrong, but I felt like I did something wrong inadvertently by just doing this. There were pretty adult key words that I can recall in the conversations we had and that disturbs me greatly. From the receiving end and sending. This never gave me intense anxiety at the time so why now? I just can't let go of this. I feel like I've committed a crime and I feel like my life is over everytime I think about this. I feel like I'm just failing my life. It's hard to do anything and be happy without thinking about this. I get worried that I'll be called some kind of groomer because of this even though my intent wasn't to take advantage of this person. Only to help them. Again, I don't know what made me go with it but I went with it.

I got diagnozed with OCD two years ago. Since my teenage years, I suffered from recurrent depressive episodes and also OCD related themes. I am currently doing ERP with NOCD but I feel I need to address my depressive moods as well. Is anyone doing ERP and CBT or talk therapy or anything else in parallel or has experience in treating both in parallel?

As a high schooler, I hung out with the wrong crowd... while I wasnt the type of student to vape or drink or get myself arrested, I would listen to my friends and laughed when they talked about making fun of people who didn't deserve it... or listening in on, or looking at dirty secrets about people we interacted with... as an adult, as someone who has grown and matured, I feel bad for participating in this type of behavior, and while i didn't initiate or partake in these behaviors that my friends personally did, i feel like me listening in or laughing makes me feel like a bad human being... im about to be 23 now, and these events occured when i was 16-17... i feel like a bad human being and my intrusive thoughts love to tell me how horrible of a person i am now... i genuinely regret it... i want to be a good person who does good things...

I strangely woke up early, from an unexpectedly nice dream. I felt good. This wasn't what usually happens, so I was a bit worried. I was waiting for intrusive images to appear but they didn't. So then I willingly remembered about bad things, about previous traumatic triggers and I was reminded of the horrible impression they left on me and I got in a bad mood. It seems like that to all the happiness in the world I'm going to have to confront myself with all the traumatic triggers I have encountered throughout my life. You can't forget about triggers, they will always be stored in your memory and I'm sad about that. I remembered that time where I had a horrible intrusive image, it was a n*ked image, and I was afraid of my mind associating it to something real, so my brain obviously did that. It gave the intrusive image the face of a girl I used to babysit when I was younger. And it was different from usual intusive images, because it was associated to reality. It was the first time something like that happened to me. I can't shake off the innocent face of her and the fact that my brain did something like that. And after that I was thinking why intrusive images about real individuals that I knew in my life would leave me such an unusual stronger effect than other intrusive images, of vaguer triggers, so I remembered this triggering ad that kept appearing on youtube and I did something horrible: I used her as an example to see if it would leave me the same traumatic impression as the other one, I pictured her n*ked. So it wasn't an intrusive image but something that I willingly did and that makes me feel guilty and not innocent like a victim of OCD, I'm not "justified". For some reason it didn't trigger me, maybe because the image was vague, not vivid, it was more of a vague idea with a random not visible triggering element in it, so it wasn't like graphic like past intrusive images. But the fact that it didn't trigger me and that I got worried about what I did a bit too late for my liking bothers me a lot. I didn't realise it at first, but maybe because I was being rational. It doesn't trigger me still, the image that know has become a memory that persists currently unwanted in my mind is vague, but it bothers me a lot that it wasn't an intrusive image and that I thought about it. I didn't have ill intentions obviously, I didn't think about that because I liked it, I was trying to have an explanation. But still why would I do that? I didn't have the permission to do something like that at all, not that I would need it in the first place because it shouldn't happen in the first place. I feel horrible. The follow up questions are not me asking for reassurance but questions that I want to know to not feel like the exception, to see if it a relatable experience, because it doesn't feel like it. Has something like this happened to you? If so how do you deal with these type of intrusive images that take things from real life and make them feel more triggering? What about the ethics and morals of the last part? It wasn't an intrusive image, I did that thing, and it's clear that I didn't like it, but how does that change what I did? I don't think this is normal at all, or did this happen you as well?

Hi, I have been having extreme stress for years and after my brother's diagnosis of his MS i started to develop physical symptoms like tingling in legs. I became restless and scared that I have the same. I ended up doing MRI which were all clean but I wasn't able to stop the body checking. Then I was put on Zoloft 50mg and nobody told me about the side effects and I had all of them including first time panic attack and visit to psychiatric hospital. Been told I have to ride out the worsening before it gets better. I struggled but I managed to continue until I started to get better. I saw light end of tunnel and out of blue first time i started having obsessive thoughts in graphical form of hurting my family and people on the street. Everything I see appeared in my mind destroyed. ( See a window it will break, see peoples neck graphic images of it getting cut) this keeps repeating constantly. I thought it will stop due med adjustments but it didn't. It started cause me so huge distress that I developed tinnitus that is constantly there. I got scared of any meds and with talking to my doctor i tapered off the med but the obsessions and the tinnitus sadly remained. I am being tortured by the fear of having OCD and those thoughts that don't let me in peace for the rest of my life and that I will never be myself again. When they leave me in peace for short time I ask myself "where are they" and ofc they reappear. If I will visit my parents the first thing I think of are this thoughts and not something beautiful or positive and that really keeps me from losing joy of visiting people I like.I accepted it that this are thoughts and that they pose no harm to anyone but since it's constantly there i can't focus on my life and i feel like sitting in the cinema and watching images or videos that I don't like and the actual fear isn't from the content but the fear that my life got ruined. The most distressing feeling is actually how my brain is repeating everything that is against me at that moment. If i try to meditate and try to imagine a nice and beautiful place with a tree that is green my mind turns it to burning. Same is with a house or if i imagine a person it endsup being killed. Can it be OCD or this sounds more like severe GAD? Has anyone with similar experiences an advice for me?

my mom shared a post with me about someone we knew being arrested for cp things. i’ve been obsessing over it for like 30 min now. i feel like i want to watch those things and i would like it. would i actually do it? no. do i feel like i would like it? yes. what if this isn’t ocd and i’m actually like that. i’ve done things in my past as a kid that could make me believe i’m a pdo and i just think what if i’m still like that or what if i am that. i feel like i don’t deserve to live. i’ve been imagining these types of things to test if i really like it and i feel like i do, i feel gross.

Whenever things get really bad for me mentally I retreat to watching porn and then I fall back into my bad habits and it usually lasts for a while. But then I see things I won't want to see and I get disgusted and click off. Then there's things that surprise me in a video and it makes me uncomfortable and then I click off. I know it's not what I want but it still bothers me because it's simply OCD. I just can't wait to get out of this place in my life. I hope meds will help me and put me back on the right track. Worst of all is when I click a channel that I'm hoping has what I'm expecting but it has very nasty things on the front page and questionable characters in material and I just click off completely. It's all part of the surfing. This has been happening for years now and I just want it all to stop. Both the porn addiction and OCD. It's a bad combination but I just don't know how to cope without going back to it when things get really bad.