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I have obsessive thoughts 24 /7 . The anxiety is high all the time and I get knew thoughts and false memories to obsess about and I’m tired because it don’t stop . I feel like it’s never gonna end .

Guys, it's been 6 months into my journey with recovery from OCD. As a self-identified Christian, straight male, with strong desires to want the world to have absolute meaning, to get married to a woman, to have a family, I've had very very distressing thoughts throughout the last few years of my life, especially learning about how uncertain our world, and truly life is. However, I am doing a lot better. I don't need to feel the need to compulsively prove to myself that I am or I am not those things. I understand as human we can change and sometimes we won't change. However, the underlying suffering of the anxiety, and the reinforcing behavior has lessened so so much. Even if my life doesn't turn out how I want it to, I don't have to suffer with extreme anxiety and compulsive behavior over a simple thought. Keep doing your ERP, even when you don't feel like it. You'll have bad days, you'll have good days. In my experience, it's always a cycle. And you can move forward, stay present and keep going, fellow OCD warriors!

I am still spiralling more than a week later about a situation with my cousin’s son. He is nearly two and I had my foot off the couch when he walked by. Im scared his private part touched my foot but he was clothed. No I feel like I traumatized him and ruined his life and mine. I feel like I can’t live not knowing whether I hurt him or not. How do you deal with the terrible guilty and anxiety? It definitely comes in waves for me but today I have felt horrible.

Can testing for groinal responses cause them to happen? For example i will think of an intrusive thought in the past or create a fake scenario in my head and i will start to feel something down there every time. It’s it a learned response for the trama of this thoughts? Or i’m an actually a P. Dose anyone else experience this with POCD or should i look into get more help?

Im so depressed... and I feel alone... theres no hope... 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, (she wasnt verified, but I assumed she was 18+ because we were on an 18+ place) 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...)

I know I've posted a lot and it's not for reassurance, just venting a lot I guess, I'm just so scared that i'll keep giving into these thoughts now, they calmed down a few hours ago but a new thought came, surprise surprise, the few days before now I've been dealing okay, and today I've been okay too, it's just when I got home from being out my brain started questioning if I had done the mental rituals right and it causes me so much anxiety, it makes me feel like I've been caught doing something I shouldn't, my ears go hot and I start feeling dizzy like scared and shock from the amount of anxiety my OCD gives me, ESPECIALLY when I'm done done with my thoughts like i don't want to look back at all, it's like "give me more attention 😈" like it's my master or something, it feels that way anyways, my head hurts a lot right now as well, since I got up fairly early this morning and I just want to go to bed, I'm so annoyed I don't even know how or why new thoughts came back, probably because I thought about them once and then started something going again, I'm so annoyed to say the least, I mean who wouldn't be. It's like these numbers and thoughts mean something when they really don't, I want to feel that feeling of carelessness again like I have other nights, but for now I need sleep, I just fear waking up with the thoughts as my conscious brain needs to actually calm down from the thoughts first so that I don't start worrying in the morning about blah blah blah adding or if I did stuff wrong, I need tips, it's pure ocd it's all in my head I don't do anything physical, just my brain being absolutely crazy, I told myself I was literally done like 8 hours ago, and I could've ignored my thoughts if I really tried but I gave in when I thought that I'd do really good today aswell, it's a little past midnight for me, but yeah the day that I have had. I could rant forever but yeah someone just help if you can lol, I don't know what to do anymore, one moment I'm like "this is so dumb why are you even doing this" then the next is "I need to finish this or I'll feel anxious forever" 🥱 it is tiring! it's like when a thought comes back like and ocd thought it's like I think of something I've already remembered or "done" then I add more to the thought, it's so confusing to explain honestly, I hope that it will calm down and that I can start fresh tomorrow without worrying, I've been good for the past few nights and now it comes again at the wrong time, when I'm especially tired and want to go to sleep, but with anxiety of being sure or unsure I can't do that so I'm just venting here because I feel it may help me and maybe others that they'll relate, maybe I shouldn't be too prideful when I realise my OCD is stupid and that I can actually control it, because in your head especially, it is far from easy to control. Anyways I will be going to bed soon hopefully, usually around this time my brain does give up but I'm just worried that might take longer because I've been doing compulsions more recent than other times, so I may have a slower OCD cooldown before I sleep, regardless I think me being this tired will just let me sleep, hopefully, goodnight everyone regardless, I will still probably be active but this will be my last post for tonight, also if anybody has read all of this thank you and I appreciate you for taking your time to read it all, stay strong guys, and goodnight 🤍

Do any of you mix up dates and sometimes find that you stress if you did something whilst in a relationship which would result in you being a cheater I remember something from 6 years ago but my brain is saying it was 5 years ago or potentially overlapping when i met my now boyfriend but its not true, im sure of it - but the ocd wont let me be sure…. Hate this!! Anyone relate?

I've discovered recently that around a few hours after waking up my OCD and anxiety flares up and even when I'm "done" with a compulsion, it just keeps going regardless, because my brain is active and goes back to the thought and keeps adding. The different thoughts are spread out through different hours of the day, but in the morning I can resist, then more in the afternoon it's like I don't have the ability to resist anymore and the anxiety takes over, even if I'm out doing things. It always calms down when it's the next day in the early hours of the morning, the time I also feel the happiest or calmest too. If I "finish" a compulsion or ritual, which is a compulsion, or tell myself this is the time to stop, and wait around 1-3 hours the feeling wears off, but i still get scared I'll do it again which most times i don't do because the anxiety leaves, only at night tho when my brain gets tired. I don't go out a lot so that's the reason I think my brain is becoming more active, and maybe a bit too active. It's become manageable and predictable but obviously still irritating.

Has anyone lost interest in something they loved before intrusive thoughts? I like romance books so much, escaping my world and thinking of someone's else's,reading romance stories... After my intrusive thoughts,my books became a trigger to them and I have stopped reading two months now,I tried to pick it up again but I'm not in the mood,I really miss it

I exited from my house to meet some friends, but I saw something very triggering and I want to give up everything. Right outside the entrance of my house two t**n girls passed right in front of me, and because I've been obsessing for a while if I'm attracted by exposed legs I looked at theirs to see if I was. I wasn't, I just saw legs. But when I looked at one of the legs I noticed that one of them was wearing short thights, that took the shape of the b*tt. After noticing and feeling like it was, it I felt the urge to look at it again to be sure, and I don't know if it was a compulsion, it felt different. I'm afraid that I was attracted but I didn't look at it with lusr, and if I wasn't, I wondered if what I saw could be attractive on its own and that's why I was bothered, to have found a normally adult chatacteristics/clothing on a trigger, and if that isn't normal, then I'm sick that I perceived it as se&ual. It was just a sportwear, it's my fault for looking. I didn't enjoy it. I feel only distress. But was the b*tt that I saw nice and I'm simply distressed because it belonged to a t**n and I'm in denial? Did I find the b*tt attractive? I can't tolerate that. If it was an adult woman that passed with a similar b*tt I think I'd probably felt attracted. So was that b*tt that I saw inherently nice? Was she se&ualizing herself and I simply noticed it? That can't be. Even if she was I shouldn't have looked that way. It's just a I'm bothered that I saw that thing. I'm filled with disgust by what I've done. I need a comforting explanation. I know I'm not attracted by ****, I know I'm not a ****, I don't feel comfortable around them and I don't seek to be in their company. But when these things happen it makes me doubt everything. I can't tolerate that I might have se&ualized, or that I have might have unconsciously found those inappropriate areas attractive. I don't want to be, and I don't want to notice those things. I can't live like this. I want to give up everything and punish myself.

Ive been with my boyfriend for almost 2 years now. Whenever im with him, my thoughts seem to calm down a little and I can redirect my thoughts and we laugh and play and like in normal relationships fight for really funny reasons. But during our vacations, we live in two different places , my thoughts get worse . Do i love him, am i forcing it . How do ik if im forcing myself to love him? Because i want to be with him. Hes an amazing person. Every where ive checked they asked me to answer a question, “how do u feel when you’re in a clear state of mind” So now im think about the time before i had any of these intrusive thoughts. And i feel happy. Its beautiful with him. But all this questioning and doubts is making me feel otherwise . What do i do? Someone please just let know how do i know the difference . ?

Yesterday I made a post talking about how I suffer from what I consider spiritual OCD. To sum it up I’m an atheist but since so much of religion is just fear based control to keep money flowing into churches, sometimes as a human being the fear will get to me anyway. I talked about how I was stuck ruminating about a demon my mom showed me from the Bible as a child while I was working on my new floors. The spot I worked on while thinking about these things has started to make noise. Here’s what I failed to mention, specifically, it is a sticker made for countertops (self adhesive) and that particular spot I had simply cut around the furniture instead of moving the furniture and putting the sticker flush underneath it. The sticker itself may be pulling, settling, ect. Especially as wood furniture changes throughout the seasons and my air conditioning is actually aimed right at it. That’s the scientific explanation I keep giving myself whenever I hear it. Though the need to scientifically explain everything seems to be compulsive. For the last 4 years I’ve had my tv off. My mom was mostly interested in the tv and when she passed away I had no reason to keep it on. Today I finished the wallpaper part of redecorating my living room. I figured I would complete the look with giving my poor neglected tv a chance. I’m triggered by many things on the tv so I left it on a simple old game show channel. The thought crossed my mind that the show is old and some of those people may not be alive now and my mind for a short moment thought about ghosts but I brushed it off and reminded myself that the tv had been on that channel for many years with no problem and I don’t believe in ghosts anyway, though ocd has me running from them anyway most days. The tv had volume and game shows are game shows, they were blurting out random words. Ofcorse the darn “spooky” floor decided to make its cracking sound when someone on the tv said “counter” It sucks to feel this way it really does. I know it’s irrational to believe a crazy coincidence like this and I don’t believe the demon is bothering my floor, I don’t think it exists in the first place. My initial thought was that the “character” had actually been how someone identified as a Dissociative Identity Disorder alter back in the day before it was scientifically explained and after being traumatized and projected onto by their surrounding religious society, shamed into believing that’s what they were and looked like sadly even though the human who reported this was most likely a survivor of sexual assault. It hadn’t exactly spooked me, but I guess I can say it slightly did, being that the flooring is made for countertops and it creaked when someone on the tv said “counters”. Simply coincidence and confirmation bias but I hate it. A few other examples of this: I’ve also had my bathroom sink turn itself on when I was doing exposure response prevention one time. I had been simply coloring and listening to music at the same time (both things ocd has taken away from me) I couldn’t get my mind off of gypsy rose’s mother and had intrusive thoughts of trying to contact her spirit. I mention again I’m an atheist and these thoughts were stressing me out and annoying me to no avail. So for ERP I simply allowed the thoughts to flow as I listened to the music and colored. Then my bathroom sink started running. I may not be remembering correctly but I think I got up and turned it off, reminded myself I had most likely had it running the entire time and since I was spooked a little decided to turn on some Bluey and lay down, I gave up on my coloring. Bluey can trigger me sometimes being that they say “mom” and “dad” a lot. Both are dead, and so is gypsy’s mom who I had been thinking about. I can’t remember exactly if they’d said mom or dad but almost as if right on cue the sink had turned itself on again! I was truly spooked! It could’ve been a water pressure issue if I hadn’t closed it all the way but I was really afraid. I kept watching Bluey anyway until I eventually fell asleep. Another example, I experience the phenomenon called the idiomotor effect that is marketed as ouija boards, which is the reason I struggle from these things in the first place. My thumbs will twitch, my body moves on its own, ect. I am aware of how it works and that it is my own psychological/subconcious making these movements but it upsets me anyway being that sometimes it will respond to exactly what I don’t want it to respond to for example if there’s a villain on screen during a movie/show ect. One day I had been watching a tiktoker show around an antique shop. I wasn’t scared or anything, just casually watching. I was in a pissy mood and when she mentioned her childhood trauma I rolled my eyes. Her next sentence was “now tell me what the blank blank this is” and my thumb lunged towards the screen on its own, assumigly because I agreed that that was my response to her previous sentence. However when my eyes finally focused on the screen, she was showing what seemed to be a creepy doll, dead fairy, something among that type of thing. This scared me so bad, instant karma for being a bitch but whatever. I had been so spooked thinking about this thing and couldn’t stop thinking about it, I ruminated for hours and hours. Not sure how long later but when I was thinking about it there was a VERY loud bang coming from my kitchen. It started the living heck out of me and I was terrified and convinced that it was the curse/spirit connected to this object or the ghost of whatever creature it could have been. I was terrified and it took me a while to calm down and move on from the incident. I never figured out what the sound was, it was pretty late at night. Later that morning my neighbor slammed her door pretty loud (I live in an apartment) which made me think it could’ve been that but when I had heard it the first time I swore it came from my own apartment. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in any of these things however when these things happen to me I can’t help but feel afraid anyway. I get annoyed at my own incompetence to stand my ground about my beliefs. Simple things like this trip me up so bad and I’m so frustrated. It all seems to be confirmation bias, creepy things seem to happen when thinking about creepy things. I’m worried that as a fawn response I become Stuck being indoctrinated, compulsively being forced to pray and spiritually cleanse when I’m afraid enough because my nervous system goes wild and I can’t help it. It’s embarrassing and stressful.

This theme always feels like I am in denial and that I am somehow using OCD as an excuse. Especially, when I get intrusive thoughts and I don't feel any anxiety.

I think im on my lowest ever i have been. I started a new OCD theme (schizo OCD) in the begining of July and it went downhill from that moment. Its all over the place every second of the day. I cant stop thinking and feeling things. For example I think that I will hallucinate any second now, and from those thoughts I imagine in my head illusions and I get sooo scared. For example I imagine that someone is standing in my room and I get scared that yep, this is schizophrenia and I get scared. I know that my thoughts and visual illusions are not real, but it drives me crazy. I also developed derealisation/depersonalisation. I cant look in the mirror, I cant do basic stuff like washing the dishes or talking to a friend without thinking some stupid things. I have constantly that burning/tingeling sensation in my chest from fear and stress, because I am so scared all the time, I would say even paranoid. I see the world so much different now, and I have the feeling like I will loose my mind any second. I have panic attacks every day, sometimes multiple times, because Im scared. I have a new job coming up and me and my boyfriend are buying an apartment, and those are so exciting news and moments ahead of us, but I am constantly scared that I will loose my mind, I wont get better and I will not have those things, because I will be in a white room locked up. Im really tired of this, I look at pictures from June when everything was fine and I burst into tears, that I will never be the same and it scares me so much. On top of all of this I am on my 4th meds, because the first three gave me bad side effects (high prolactin levels) and I am a hypocondriac and I am dealing with that fear also, that I am on new meds all the time. I know I just have to trust the process, but its so exhausting. Anyway, I do really hope that someone knows how I feel and would be kind to say some kind words, because no one around me knows what to say :(

how can you accept the uncertainty when it's about hurting someone you love? i feel like i will never get it. it makes me feel selfish and like i don't care

im so anxious and i want to cry so bad, im so afraid i might have cheated on my lover but i don't even remember if i actually did it. i remember making suggestive jokes ( for my gf it's not cheating unless it's a blatant flirty joke ) to my friend but I don't remember my intentions and there's no way for me to remember what i thought while i was saying a stupid joke YEARS ago. i love them more than anything i don't want to have hurt her but there's no way for me to know that im actually a good partner. im so tired and scared i hate this illness so much I'm miserable. I want to cry but i cant

To peoples who are struggling with ocd and wants to know if ERP will actually work or not read this: It's been a year I'm struggling with OCD, in 2023 I didn't realize that I was being a victim of OCD, I thought it was normal to worry about the thoughts I was having, actually the thoughts are not even about me, I'm having thoughts about singer's sexuality since years I know it may sound silly but I have been since a year these thoughts are real to worry about, in January my ocd became stronger, I strat having episodes of ocd every week, in may I got to know that I have ocd and from the moment I got to know that I have ocd I didn't have a single day struggling without ocd, in April I started doing ERP it's been 5 months I doing ERP but I'm not still recovered fully but yeah I don't have episodes anymore, I don't worry about the single thoughts for days but still my every thought is controlled by ocd , I still have anxiety which is out of control, I still feel like these thoughts will never go away but I choose to live the way I want without caring about these thoughts.....I know no one's free to care about my mental health but if anyone's reading this please encourage me😔🙏

I’m so frustrated. I’m an atheist through and through, I believe in science all the way but I am still traumatized by the horrible things my mom showed me from the Bible as child. I’m frustrated because my mom died and now that I live alone I’m just always scared of the creaks and crackles that my home makes as the seasons change. It aggravates me because I’ll ruminate over and over that “it’s not a demon/ghost it’s just the wood furniture expanding/contracting” this that and everything in between to explain things and I’m simply tired of it. When I was putting down my self adhesive floor stickers to make me feel happy about my apartment I was stuck thinking about the demons my mom showed me in the Bible and had no choice but to continue what I was doing. The area I was working on when thinking these things, it’s either settling peeling, something, either way there is sound coming from that spot and it’s stressing me out. I can’t enjoy anything because I’m both annoyed at the topic and slightly scared because even as an atheist I’m a human being and we fear what we don’t understand. Is there anything people with spiritual ocd do to ease their nerves from the athiest perspective?

Anybody else's OCD grow more intense at night?

I feel bad because I'll comment on other people's posts on here who struggle with the same OCD as I do and it's like why am I better at helping other people than myself???? I feel like I'm different. Anytime someone here says something related to pure OCD (or really any off) I try to remind them that they couldn't do anything that results in them being a bad person but it feels different for me because I actually do bad things. I have done bad things. I've never heard a story from other people that involves me not being annoying or weird or a bad person. I feel like there's a difference when other people make a mistake then when I make a mistake. Other people absolutely deserve help but I don't deserve help. Other people should be able to heal but I haven't gone through enough yet. I wish so badly I wasn't me because I just want to be a good person and I pray every night that I will be good and I won't mess anything up and that I will be helpful but I never am enough. I always mess something up. I want to be perfect but that's unachievable and that makes me anxious. I want to be perfect for people and I can't. Any time I think about how I need help or I need to talk about my feelings or something I remember why I shouldn't. Any time I do anything other than sit and smile I just get told to shut the fuck up or get told how annoying I am and it hurts but then I think "if I'm a bad person I deserve this" but if I was someone else and I hadn't done all the stupid and weird and even insane things I've done then I would deserve it a little more. I wish I was dead. I don't know why I'm not. I don't know why I'm writing this I just wish I was either another person or dead. I'm unredeemable it feels like. I hate myself so much. I'm so done.