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Today is a bad ocd day. I have intrusive thoughts about possibly being autistic- and it all started when my mom said “when you were younger i thought you were on the spectrum” and like a month after that i asked her about it again and she said she was joking and that I was just sensitive to clothing- like as a kid I wouldn’t wear certain socks bc they were itchy or whatever and she said its really “not that serious” and “you are not autistic.” And i felt okay for a while- pretty reassured. But its been really bad lately 😭 i was seeing autism symptoms and i was convincing myself I relate to them or that I “acted” very autistic as a child. And i keep checking for childhood memories and picking out the “most autistic memories” 😭😭😭 like how I didnt like certain clothes or was sensitive or how I was very blunt sometimes and I got so anxious I just had to stop googling and cry for a bit bc I felt so scared. I don’t even know why the thought of being autistic scares me- well i guess km not even scared its just the uncertainty of not having the answer to that question is causing my fear. Before my mom triggered these thoughts- it NEVER even crossed my mind. And i really just want reassurance right now and I feel like asking all my friends and family members if they think I act autistic but I wont do that this time bc I just go in loops 😭😭😭 I have asked my friends before and they say not at all but then im scared I am secretly autistic and just really good at “masking”. Plus everytime I meet someone my first thought is “do I seem autistic to them?? Should I ask them?? No no thats odd to ask- that will make me seem weird- and I will have a bad first impression… but what if they think im actually autistic? Do i come off as autistic??” Then i analyse every interaction again to see “how autistic I seem” and i am just soooo tired 😭 sorry this was a lot of writing- but truly, thank you from the bottom of my heart if you read it all 💕💕💕

I am a parent of child and I struggle with pocd. After two years of difficult struggles and now in ERP focuses therapy I know so much. I know I am not the content of my intrusive thoughts and that thoughts do not equal actions. I've learned that if you get triggered and do a compulsion you can retrigger yourself intentionally to respond differently. Last night I went to pick up my baby and I noticed when I did my hand unintentionally touched his pens area when I was holding him. It wasn't in any sexual way or even something I intented to do. It's just the way I was holding him which I have that way millions of times before. For some reason my ocd made the sweet moment of holding my son into it being weird by shouting to me in My head how my hand was over his private area. I knew this was irrational but the anxiety swept over and I compulsively sat his down bcus I felt icky. After a few minutes I retriggered myself to the cause or my anxiety and picked him up the same which is a normal way to hold babies might I add and sat with the discomfort and it began to pass. Why does this still give me the ick? Am I ruminating too much

I was just talking with my therapist (she’s not an OCD specialist) and she said that my OCD thoughts can come true! 😭

Anyone else so used to making / hiding their OCD, that it’s hard to take it off and actually talk to your therapist about it?

scared i believe the thoughts make sense and that im in denial. i dont want to think they. make sense. I’m scared

I have been dealing with intrusive thoughts for a long time, and while most of them don’t affect me anymore, there are ones that really concern me and make me feel panic. They make me feel like I could actually act on the intrusive thought and I’m just holding myself back from it. It’s really scary and I don’t know who I am anymore.

I had this problem recently because I went to stroke my cat and I touched her neck and it triggered me because before I’ve had a problem with intrusive thoguhts about strangling, also I have a problem with testing myself by imagining thoguhts on purpose to see if I’m bad or good but it’s got worse. I literally since it touched her neck that time it felt like an urge at the time and I was worried but now it’s happened a few times where I go to stroke her and I think I’m testing myself and I grab her neck like I’m testing myself but it seems really bad like why am I doing that almost testing squeezing her neck for a second and I’m worried, I got anxiety flush feeling come over me I have been numb to a lot of ocd feelings and I got anxiety flush like almost hot and cold feeling but it felt real and almost like an urge to keep giving into that compulsion/action but now I’m thinking am I acting on the thoguht?? It felt almost like it could have happened or an urge to and Im worried, am I a bad person? Then I imagined actually doing that in my head and it felt more real and I’m scared but at the same time not scared enough to feel safe why did I do that??

I just read a horror story about someone with POCD revealing their thoughts to people and getting shunned and now im getting anxious😭. I had wanted to tell a few of my loved ones about it in a very careful way, but now am not sure if it is a good idea (one works in mental health and another does have severe mental illness). I genuinely wonder if me doing this would be exposure or be compulsive or if it’s a bad idea overall

so i wanted to come on here and tell you all about a break through i’ve had. i’ve been in therapy for ocd for 8 months now and i can say and confirm and it has truly changed my life. im still growing and healing, i still get thoughts, i still get my obsessions. but i can resist and ignore compulsions now. as i heal ive noticed the thoughts more, gotten nervous they might mean something. it makes you feel crazy and like your whole journey was a lie and that these have been thoughts all along that are true. i’ve been in an 8 month long relationship since january and with my ocd it has not been easy. many times i felt like i should give up because even though i love my partner, i can’t be with anyone unless im completely healed. but something in me always made me stay. i come back now in august with those same thoughts and i worried that this might that it’s the end or that he truth has come. however something stuck out to me after i read up on the matter more and gained insight. something i learned and will now always instill is that love should be freedom, and feel freeing. freeing to be you, freeing to grow. i realized quickly that ive been free to grow and explore. but ive been holding myself back. not out just of fear but of not realizing that i am my own liferaft. i hadnt begun to step into my true unblocked energy, one that knows and trusts what i need and knows that the universe, god, whatever is above will always align me in places at the right time. this of course, is a balance and not one that needs to be taken immensely serious. in fact we should be taking life less seriously. i say all this to let you all know and instill that as we step into our confidence and trust and instill the outward energy inward. rather than worrying on if they’re right for you, or if you are in the right relationship, or if you feel disconnected or lacking of connection. connect back with yourself first, you be able to understand and see that the only thing holding you back from achieving your goals and dreams with career, self, relationships and more truly lies within you. it’s uncomfortable, it’s hard and it makes us scared to loose the situations that don’t serve us. but once you connect back with the energy and trust you have for yourself, you truly begin to realize you can let people in, everyone including partners are people YOU let in your life and are simply people with other lives that you need not connect to yours in the sense of making personal decisions or dictating your mood. people don’t speak enough on what it means to heal after ocd symptoms go down. you realize it’s about getting through the thoughts to get to the root and do that inward work. it’s still something im working towards. do something you love, go for a walk, read a book, it’s uncomfortable because we’re so used to be preoccupied that when we step back into ourselves we feel like we don’t know ourselves and it’s ocd that tries to take over once again. trust in yourself, your own decision and what you want, feed your mind, and understand we’re all doing this for the first time, but you can handle because you are your liferaft, your safety and you security and peace. i promise it’s life changing. reach out if you need someone to talk to you will get through it💌💗

I'm going off to college tomorrow and I'm dreading it, I'm dreading everything. Though I didn't fully realize it, what I'm now almost certain is real event/pure-o OCD has been making my life feel completely miserable. From when I wake up to when I fall asleep, especially as of recent, I'm just constantly scared, anxious, guilty, and sad. I genuinely have not felt relaxed or happy in months, and it feels like there's no escape. When I'm taking a walk, hanging with family/friends, my mind is just racing and I can't live in the moment. Physically speaking it affects me too, my heart rate is high, short breath, sweaty, all how you would feel when you're nervous, but just all the time. This exact theme happened to me before in the past and latched on for a bit before fading, so I assumed that I grew out of it, and it hadn't hit me again for over a year until March. But now that it's on again and I actually recognized that I'm dealing likely with a mental disorder it just makes it feel so hopeless and unending, like this will forever be my life. The worst part is the nature of my OCDs, even if I know what I did isn't a big deal, is that it makes me guilty around anyone. Like I'm hiding something from everyone I talk to, and it makes me feel like I've lost all my innocence and I've lost the bright, happy, ambitious person I was before this all came back. All of this makes college so scary because all I can think about is how if I keep feeling like this I'll never be happy there, It's so hard to think optimistically or positively and this is just killing me day by day. I don't want reassurance because I know that just makes it worse, but is there anyone out there who's been in this sort of situation? If so, what did you do to manage, how did recovery look, what's your life like now? Any help would be appreciated so much.

someone please reach out im really not doing okay and this is the closest i think ive come to making the decision that ny relationship needs to end but i cant do it. it's gotten so bad that even being around my boyfriend doesn't calm me down or make me feel better out these feelings, it just makes me feel like they're more real. im not confident that I'm just dealing with ocd at all. I'm so worried that my relationship is beyond repair and that I've fallen out of love because of resentment from problems we have. I don't know what love feels like how do I even know and yeah I know lo e isn't a feeling it's a choice but it's so hard to make choices let alone the correct ones when I'm doubting every aspect of our lives and relationship. I don't want to prolong the inevitable and make us both more miserable until we decide to finally end it but I don't want to end it if things can get better and I will feel normal again and in love. not guilty every time I say I love you because then I have the thought that I shouldn't say it because I don't know anymore. How do I talk to him about this. I bring it up but then I gloss it over with a reason that is more understandable and true but less painfu then "I don't know if im falling out of love or even what love feels like and I don't even know myself anymore so I don't know how I feel" and then we kinda comfort eachother until we get too sleepy to stay awake. I know OCD messes with your brain and can make feelings feel so real when they aren't and thoughts that aren't logical make the most sense. I know how it works but having OCD doesn't mean you can't experience the same things other people experience in relationships. So how do you know the difference.

i have always kept my struggles with ocd from friends and family, except for my parents, but they don’t know everything about it either. i guess what im looking for is advice, reassurance, someone who can relate, or someone to explain what is going on with me. recently i have had a terrible problem with grinding my teeth a certain way on the left side and then the right side to make it “even” and it has become a habit. i can never put my right sock on before my left sock and i can never put my right leg in first when putting pants on… if i don’t always put my left before my right i can’t help but feel like it is a part of some sort of butterfly effect where everything will spiral if i don’t follow my normal steps. i constantly pick at my skin and my eyebrows because i can’t stand feeling unkept. i take 2 showers a day whenever i feel “dirty” and i have a very specific routine. whenever i look at windows, doors, doorframes, picture frames, tvs, or anything with an outline i count it. i count how many sides there are, how many corners there are, how many panes are in a glass window, etc. in school i have trouble focusing because i count ceiling and floor tiles. i struggle taking tests occasionally because if i read the directions or question in the “wrong tone” in my head, then i will most definitely get the question wrong and fail. this causes me to re-read over and over again until it feels right, and i end up running out of time and having to make up tests that i didn’t finish. i believe my ocd and perfectionism ultimately lead me to bad places in my mind. i struggle with standards and expectations mentally due to my ocd. i fear that i will never be understood, even by my own self. sometimes i scare myself because i get random images of people inflicting harm on others or on me. years ago when i first acknowledged my ocd, i became very depressed. i felt different in a bad way, like people could read my mind and know what was going on and think i’m a bad person. i am generally popular with people now, i am an excellent student, and i am beautiful, but i have always struggled. i have no idea how to take care of myself and i have no one with similar experiences. i just downloaded this app and i am really glad i get to rant so i hope someone listens to me and my struggles with ocd. thank you.

Did you have any intrusive thought that was such absurd that you can laught now about it even maybe it was really terrified for you in that moment?

I’m worried I’m an actual horrible person and using these as excuses…. I know nobody will understand this and will get confused but I can’t keep pretending everything is okay anymore:( Basically, for a long time, I would think “oh this is wrong, I shouldn’t do it” then a few months later I would be doing that thing? Like this was forever ago but I think about it, how did I not know things were bad when I thought that way? I mean I knew in reality I never actually knew what was okay and what wasn’t okay, and I only went off of what people told me, or the kind of people I was around 11-16 .. I regret these actions and I always end up crying, how did I not know??… I know I didn’t know but … I don’t know…

I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore. I keep getting weird coincidences and I will sit through the uncertainty of them but it will just be one after another. Like I work at a summer camp and we were on the bus and I was listening to a song and thought like what if this song accidentally played out loud and people heard it and literally right after my coworker started singing it. It’s not a super popular song either. I have a theme like what if people are reading my mind or messing with me or whatever and it just felt like blatant. I also had a dream about a knife in csgo and the next day both of my friends get csgo knives, which is rare asf. Like it feels like I can’t trust people anymore. Idk what to do. Stuff also keeps happening right at 12:12. Like my friend texted me at 12:12 and literally the next day I text him on accident at 12:12. Then 3 days in a row my brother comes and talks to me out of nowhere at 12:12. Then at 12:12 I see “real life Truman show” on YouTube . Like wtf. I also have a fear of schizophrenia so it’s not a great mix. Thought I was making progress but this one is just absurd. wtf .

Is anyone’s anxiety and OCD worse while on their period? I was doing good this week but today I called out of work and am laying in bed feeling like shit with Pure/Harm/Suicidal OCD thoughts. Not to mention body aches, headache, and nausea.

I recently had a bunch of life changes in the past 4 months: selling my home after a flood scare, moving to a new state, ending a year long romantic situationship with a coworker, finding a new job because I couldn’t stand interacting with them anymore (I start Monday), and then one of my best friends has pulled away immensely and I feel like our friendship is over. I also had a support system with two older women at work but I feel like I lost that now too because I left. I think because of all this I am having one of the worst OCD flare up’s of my life. I’m typically very social and outgoing. But I’m in my new apartment and feel like I can’t leave my room, I don’t want to explore my new neighborhood, or do anything. I just feel paralyzed inside my brain. Either I’m ruminating about one of the above situations and convincing myself I’m a bad person who doesn’t deserve stability in life, and that my life is bound to be a cycle of always starting over and pain. Or I have horrible intrusive thoughts (I imagined trimming my cat’s whiskers and then accidentally cutting his head off with scissors). I feel really hopeless because I had taken leave from my previous job for 8 weeks and now start a new job Monday but I’m panicking I’m never going to be functioning well again and I’m bound to fail at this new job. I can’t stop crying because I just want my old life back, or at least my old self back where I felt like this was a small part of my life. Right now I’m consumed by my OCD. I tried ERP when I first moved and had a complete meltdown (crying non-stop, feeling hopeless) which resulted in me taking leave from work. At this point I was working remote because I moved to a new state vs working in office everyday but still struggled even digitally interacting with my coworker I had been involved with. Leave helped a lot and I was able to have some better days, interview and find a new job, but the impending start of the new job has snapped something in me. I also just am paranoid I’ve messed up my whole life by moving, or by finding a new job, or by ever being involved with a coworker that I just keep analyzing everything but feeling scared that my life is ruined. I keep imagining everyone at work talking about me being crazy or weak for not being able to work with my coworker but every time i had interacted with him it caused horrible OCD spirals of rumination and awful instructive thoughts. I’ve found when romantic things end for me I need complete separation in order to move on but I think my bosses are disappointed in me for not being able to push through. I also am so hurt because my best friend of 7 years had lived in the house I owned and was supportive originally about me selling it after a flood scare. But as time went on she got distant and cold. And I think she was resentful I was leaving and she needed to find a new place. She also tried to have her new boyfriend’s family buy the house but unfortunately their offer wasn’t the highest one but I think she was mad I didn’t just take their offer. We had been friends for so long and i had always been there for her when things in her life fell apart. For me, I feel like this was the first major time I needed support past just a heart to heart but consistent support and I feel like she abandoned me. My other friends really stepped up and check in on me frequently and talk me through things but we’ve barely spoken since I’ve moved and I’m so hurt. In the end I had to pack up all of our shared stuff and sort it without her because she refused to help. It was so hurtful because I was just already heartbroken, and feeling alone, and scared about my future for work. Idk I think I just need hope that things will get better because I feel really alone and scared rn

I went on a vacation for two weeks and it was great and I barely had any intrusive thoughts and now I think I might be faking my ocd cause it’s like I was able to resist it so I must be faking it… and it’s making me sad and anxious.

I am 23 now but when I was 22 I was in therapy for over 6 months to help with agoraphobia issues before I was referred to a psychiatrist to try medication. This was the first time I have ever been told that I might have OCD. I was then referred to a specialist for OCD specifically and they also believed I was showing signs of OCD. The therapy I was in was not working for me and that’s when I was told people with OCD don’t benefit from the type I had been doing. I was put on Pristiq and have seen a dramatic (good) change in my thoughts. I will say I just have thoughts that I don’t have it and that they misdiagnosed me. As if now that I’m aware of the condition I make up thoughts in my head to go along with it. It’s just frustrating.

Please someone help me... I need advice... and Im spiraling and im triggered... My pocd keeps saying that my worst fear of unknowingly cybering with a minor has actually happened and it's really triggering the hell out of me... I feel so horrible...My pocd keeps saying I "unknowingly erotically role played with a minor" when idek if this actually happened or not... this was nearly three years ago... (september of 2021) for context we were erotically role playing on an 18+ discord server, and then she suddenly stopped responding, before leaving the server shortly after an unknown time... im so freaking anxious and scared... her grammar was fine at first, but then as we were going on, she kept making errors like "boxer" or "then" instead of "than"... my pocd keeps saying that I "UNKNOWINGLY EROTICALLY ROLEPLAYED WITH A MINOR" when idek if this happened or not... three people told me she sounded like/is a young adult... chatGPT tells me she sounded like a teenager... I genuinely dont know what to believe anymore... (these two photos are from her account, and the beginning of our conversation... I hope she wasnt a teenager... I really hope she wasnt...)