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Is it normal in OCD to test yourself to see if you like something (POCD specifically) Sometimes I imagine scenarios or things to see if I have a reaction to them but then feel guilty about imagining it afterwards…

I was on a walk with my mom today and she said something that stood out to me. While on the subject of addicts, she mentioned how addicts will delay their recovery by refusing to admit that they have a problem with substance abuse. Addicts will sometimes lie to themselves about their health status and compare themselves to other recovering addicts, then say “at least, I’m not like those guys” Btw, my mom has been in health care for over 20 years. So anyways, this made me think of my own OCD journey. Although, I am mentally in a better position than I was months ago. . I still try to remember to continue working on myself and my habits. I catch myself thinking, “well, at least my thoughts aren’t as extreme as this person” as I read some posts. Then, I try to use it as an excuse to not continue engaging with this app or therapy habits. To me, this is a behavior that I need to address. I must not forget that I downloaded this app like everyone else did. I downloaded this app to overcome OCD. How does this have to do with what my mother said? I don’t abuse substances, but I do observe that I am addicted to stress or reassurance. . As an addict to my OCD tendencies, I chase the feeling of relief. I chase the comfort of rumination. Like those in denial of their addiction, I lie to myself about my status. Even though I am doing better, that doesn’t mean I must quit what was helping me. My symptoms might go away and hibernate for a while. It’s up to me to maintain my good habits so that I don’t reawaken the bad ones.

It’s so sad to see how many people are affected by this, I as a person am too. I feel like it’s a never ending cycle, my family is living with a monster for the mistake of my teenage years, guilt. I consider to get off this earth, others deserve forgiveness and empathy but I don’t. I’m so sorry to those I hurt, affected, or even could’ve. This guilt from my teen years eats me up alive and I feel like I can’t do it anymore, if only anyone knew how sorry I am, how horrible I feel everyday I wish they can see I truly have no bad intentions but if I deserve punishment for never getting better I deserve it, to live the life I feel as if the universe or god is punishing me, I won’t question it because that’s a higher power only they know. I don’t deserve food or birthday cake or my family, and I wish I never made that mistake, even if people tell me it’s not anything bad I was a teen or that I feel guilt that it’s a good sign I don’t believe it, I don’t deserve anything and I wish my family so much love they live with a monster, me and I leave my friends and I am alone now because I am a monster. Even if I didn’t affect the person, I still feel guilt. What if I did? What if they don’t see it yet. I don’t belong on this place, you all deserve love and forgiveness and grace I am sorry. I am so scared of people.

Trigger warning Has anyone else dealt with disordered eating to cope with OCD? I’ve found that I often lose weight during a flare because I feel like I don’t deserve to eat. I’m wondering if this is common, it feels very isolating and lonely dealing with this.

My whole life I’ve found reasons to not like myself. Whether I thought I was weird or ugly or overweight. Because of this, I’ve always sought the acceptance of others which sometimes made me do things, that looking back, wasn't who I really wanted to be (drinking, being intimate with someone, saying I like things that I don't, not standing up for myself, etc.). OCD hasn’t made liking myself any easier. The awful thoughts and false memories have made me dislike myself more because they’ve made me feel like a disgusting monster. They’ve made me feel like I don’t even know who I am, which is extra scary because even without OCD, I’ve struggled with that as mentioned above. OCD has tried filling in the gaps and has preyed upon my insecurities and it's terrifying. Now that I’m taking the steps to learn to love myself, OCD is gripping on even harder. It tells me I don’t deserve love because maybe my false memories are true or I don’t deserve love because of the horrible thoughts I have. It's really hard honestly, but I know I need to keep trying. I also wonder had I loved myself before, would I have even had an OCD problem? Because maybe if I loved myself and knew what a good person I was, the thoughts would have never gripped on? I don't know. Be kind to yourselves. It certainly is a journey.

I don’t even know where to begin but I’m just desperate for answers or at least some support. It’s gotten so debilitating that I’m literally scared of myself. I live in this constant state of overthinking things to the point where I feel like I’m going to literally scream and I lose complete sight of reality. I rethink things that happened and tell myself that what I did wasn’t normal and that I’m actually insane and I start feeling insane and start spiraling into this thing where I feel like I’m this insane person and I need to isolate myself because I’m insane…and I know that rationally it’s not true because I come across normal but sometimes I feel like I’ve completely lost all social skills and forgot how to be normal and my overthinking is literally what causes this? Idk how to explain…

How much longer do I have to endure this? I've been seeing a talk therapist for over 2 years, and my specialist for nearly 6 months, and I've only made a small amount of progress. What is the magic to getting better? I feel like I'm just treading water. And just saying I need to do things that are uncomfortable isn't cutting it, or else I wouldn't be in the situation I am. Who knows the answer and can help me? Who has dealt with these feelings and can offer me guidance on what works? My life is passing me by and year after year I'm merely existing. I was excited when I took the first step and reached out to a therapist 2 years ago, and hoped that I would get better soon. I've continued to have hope and get excited with each new step, but I'm still waiting; >for these feelings to go away, >to gain my time back, >to have the ability to live in a clean home, >to see my family, >to live my life, and enjoy each day again. Why am I still imprisoned by this?

even though my therapist told me i have ocd i still feel like i’m not like “ocd” enough… especially cause some days it is better and some days it is worse 😔 and even though my therapist told me i have it i’m not diagnosed so i just stress about it ❌❌ i just want my brain to turn off i realized i have had a lot of ocd symptoms since i was a child so it just sucks and what if i don’t have ocd and there is nothing wrong and i’m just like this 🤔🤔🤔

I have a lot stress factors weighing in me, and I've already been in the midst of an OCD flare up so I'm struggling pretty hard right now. My brain is digging so deep to think of anything bad or gross I did when I was younger and I don't know how to handle it. I want to tell it all to my gf but I don't want her to look at me different over weird thoughts when I was younger, but my brain is telling me I'm hiding it and I'm a horrible person. I don't know what to do, I haven't spiraled like this in a long time and I can't get out of my own head going deeper into past thoughts and memories and actions I'm deeply ashamed of.

I had a terrible graphic intrusive image. So why didn't I feel nothing? I should have been disgusted immediately. I was just passive, it didn't effect me as much. I'm currently obsessing about the fact that I didn't react. I don't know if I should be afraid of this. I know I didn't like that, but when things like these happen I feel like I never have enough confidence, like to simply say "no I was disgusted, I don't like this, I would never do that" end of the story, without any second guessing thoughts. I can never have that statement confidently without feeling that it might not be true. And sometimes when I try to answer to the "OCD question" my brain double downs and says "well what about this? how about that? would you like it that way? you've never thought about it that way!" My brain asks me "would you do it if it was like that? have you ever considered what would it be like? maybe you would like it?" What do I do? I think I know what should I do, but I don't know if it applies to this, if it applies to me at all, as sometimes I think that these are not OCD symptoms or it isn't OCD at all.

By going through life having no or little OCD symptoms, to having it daily now, it's my belief that OCD is fundamentally a HABIT. Yes, this is simplifying it a lot, but I think that's what it is. Which is why ERP seems to be effective (although I've never done ERP). Like any habit, you have triggers, rewards, cycles, etc. Something triggers an alcoholic to drink, they get rewarded by the high, then they get hangovers, then they get negative effects, etc. Going through this myself -- Years ago, I literally GENERATED my own OCD. I remember how and when. I basically wanted to "come clean" to my girlfriend. Me and her had both done some somewhat shady things in the relationship, and this was me "confessing." Ok so here's what happened and here's what started it all -- so what started out as "confessing," absolutely went it to HYPER CONFESSING, day by day. I would scour my brain, trying to remember EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING I'd ever done "wrong" in the relationship -- however trivial or maybe some weren't as trivial. But the point is, the habit HAD BEEN SET. What started out as good-intentioned "confessing" to "have integrity" in the relationship, grew day by day into my brain interpreting that as "oh this is something you NEED to be doing every day. You NEED to be ruminating. You NEED to be "checking." AND IF YOU DON'T, you will feel SHAME and GUILT. And guess what it? It hasn't stopped since. What happened was it just moved the target. So, what started out as "did I do anything 'wrong' in the relationship" checking, it switched to "did I do anything 'wrong' in life." So that's where I'm at today. Stuck in that loop. Fun times.

Hello everyone I was recently diagnosed with OCD. I’ve spent the last ten years battle extreme anxiety and obsessive thoughts. I recently started taking Prozac. For once in my life my mind feels calm. However, they just upped my dose and my anxiety is bad and I’m having trouble sleeping this is week 2 on the medication. Anyone else experienced this?

Ive had severe OCD for like 3 years now but today I had a moment where I was convincing myself of my thoughts really strongly and I started ro believe it- but it was really bad this time. Like I felt so anxious that I got nauseous and I felt like I was about to vomit😭😭😭 that has never happened to me… does anyone have a similar experience?

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... some people told me she sounds 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 ERP... I hope she wasnt a teenager... I really hope she wasnt...)

Hi I’m getting my period in a few days and I always notice my OCD spikes but I’ve just been feeling very very down, thoughts feel very sticky and real. Not much is making it better and I just feel super out of it. I also had a few dreams the past few weeks that relate to one of my ocd themes which is psychosis and I keep thinking I’m going to develop it. And I’ve also just been so on edge and scared even of like myself and people and reeling down and sad. Any advice? I don’t even like talking abt it rlly bc it creeps me out I feel like nothing is helping.

Was watching a YouTube video and the person talked about school shootings & how people are crazy. I immediately got distressed thinking “what if i’m crazy, what if I do something as horrible as that” and got so many scary intrusive thoughts after. I feel so ashamed and i feel like a terrible person for these thoughts and some days I want to burst out crying but no tears come out, just a lot of panic & worry. I feel so shameful. And to make matters worse, later that day I saw this funny news for a video game and I didn’t remember how to spell it correctly and when I pressed search, I saw a photo of a bullet & that made me feel so damn scared. Like what if I intentionally searched for it even though I was expecting a video game. Then I started thinking about how on the news they always claim the mass shooters would be obsessed with firearms and It just made my OCD that much worse. Then my OCD goes into my past to find “evidence” that could prove I’m a horrible person that would do something like that. I can’t get these intrusive thoughts and images out and I hate it. I hate violence. I’ve talked to my therapist over and over about how I feel like this horrible person and I give her a list of all the things that I’ve done wrong and to her, she knows that it’s OCD. I would never intentionally physically harm anyone. The only time I would get into a physical confrontation is to defend myself or loved ones. I just feel like I’m going crazy

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?