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Hello- so my intrusive thoughts came back and i upped my lexapro from 5mg to 20mg. Now for 2 weeks. Still don’t feel great. Anyone know if it takes longer to get back in your system? Or what? Frustrated . Txs

I was talking with my family. I got groinal and usually try to avoid it. My therapist said for erp dont avoid it. Even lean into or aomething. I felt my hips thrust or me lean forward as i was sitting and ocd makes me feel guilty. I than did mental compulsions like self talk repearing “no” and ruminating on it after. But i know i wasnt trying ti do anything inappropriate

It's funny but my soocd subtype seems to pop up during fall and winter, and leaves during spring and summer. Currently it has me overanalyzing my friendship with my friend who happens to be gay. It's really frustrating. What makes this even worse is this friend and I are fairly close, (I see them as a parental type figure) and it makes it really awkward especially when they use words like honey or sweetie. They're biologically female, but identify as he/they, which again doesn't help my OCD. They're like 6 years older than me. Idk I'm just freaking out a bit lol.

Hi everybody! I started with a therapist who’s super pricey outside of NOCD, when I had mentioned that I’m struggling with OCD she didn’t seem too well versed she said oh so you’re struggling with intrusive thoughts? Lady you don’t know the half of it!! But I’m afraid of continuing because I don’t want to waste $180 a week for what is sold as someone who can treat and help with OCD then turns out to just be talking about stuff I’ve already talked about with past therapists! Anyway onto the question at hand! If I join NOCD and they don’t cover my insurance but I pay out of pocket fora real OCD/ERP specialist because I really need the help! Is NOCD going to help me? Or am I going to waste my time and should I keep trying my hardest to find ERP specialists on Google. I’m exhausted I just want to know I’m going to get help and relief from this before I put more money into therapy Any advice or honesty would help greatly! ❤️👈🏼

I’m so tired of my OCD changing “themes.” And no matter what it changes to, it’s always directed towards a specific person - my mom. My mom and I are very close. I consider her my best friend and we live together. I can share anything with her and she’s very supportive. I’m 32 now, but harm ocd started when I was 15 and she was the main target back then as well. I had a bad flare up this year and the harm thoughts came back, but about a week ago they turned into sexual thoughts. Graphic thoughts and images about incest. These thoughts typically make me feel panic and dread, and just an overall depressed feeling. It has made me uncomfortable to be around my mom, since I can’t even look at her without a sexual thought or image popping up. Even watching a romantic scene in a show, listening a romantic song, etc. My brain wants to put an image of her in my head. Even me fantasizing about a man that I’m attracted to will replace the man with my mom. They just keep popping up. So this of course makes me think I actually want these things, and are actually fantasies. I have started to wonder if I’m in actual denial or that these are my true feelings. I have never been a relationship before due to not having much interest in it plus my mental health issues started as a teen, but someday I would like to get married. But now I’m thinking maybe I’ve never pursued a relationship with someone else because I’m actually in love with my mom and want to be with her, but I can’t so I’m just suppressing my feelings. And I do love my mom, but I question myself is this just platonic or familial love? Also questioning our relationship in general now - is it unhealthy or too dependent? It makes me feel doubt, since I have never really been in love before with someone else so I have nothing to compare it to. Always just crushes or finding a man attractive, and I identify as straight. But I also have not thought of my mom in a sexual way before, so I’m hoping this is just my OCD acting up. Even thinking about a future relationship with a man is making me feel nervous, since I think if I have feelings for my mom, will I ever be able to be in a serious relationship someday? If I’m with someone will I actually just picture her? It makes me feel hopeless, like I can’t help how I feel and what if these things are true? Would I act on them? My brain even made me think, “you want to ask your mom to be in a sexual relationship with you and/or want her to ask you.” I feel like such a pervert for writing that, like a truly disgusting person. I know I don’t want these things to be true, but what if they are and I can’t help how I feel? Again just feel doubt and uncertainty, that I’m in denial, and not to mention just feeling like a very sick individual.

People are always talking about their contamination ocd and all that stuff and i know its selfish but like I wish that was all I had. I have never had a worse subtype than what I have now and its hell.

I love Terrifier and I love horror movies but I have these intrusive thoughts or fear ever since Terrifier 3 came out and I feel extremely bad about cause it’s not about me. Every time I hear someone talk negatively about the director and creator my brain goes “what if you support that?” Or “What if they’re actually sick in the head for making that movie?” Or “what if you’re a bad person for liking movies with so much blood and gore” or something like “the director is a bad person for making a movie like that you should not be watching that” or “you shouldn’t like that character” and etc. I feel so bad😭 and my ocd brain is asking “is he a bad person” “should I not enjoy this?” Etc. like I can’t enjoy shit with negitave Nancy’s and Joe’s on the internet and shit😞😭

I have come so far in my therapy and days like today feel like I’m just still buried in OCD. Sometimes it is so insidious and I don’t realize I’m in a loop. Once I do realize it, it’s hard to get out. I thought sharing here may help, as I never have, but I know you guys will understand. It’s so hard to decipher between regular anxiety and obsessions and compulsions. It has all just become one big ball of panic. Anyway, I’m just struggling today - so thanks for listening.

I’m struggling so much lately with feeling so different in comparison to others with ocd. I feel indenial , like I don’t really have ocd and like others probably think I’m guilty. I hate feeling this way constantly. I feel like such an outcast like I don’t belong in this community because I’m a big ‘fraud’. I suppose it’s the ocd doing this to me.

I was in this game with this person and I noticed his voice was deep, and his avatar looked attractive to me?? and my brain was like “his voice is so??? And his avatar kinda fine too” like omg, shut up, I’m not taken yet but I still want to be in this relationship with this other guy, I feel like there’s nothing I can do and I’ll always be a cheater, I don’t even know how I feel, like do I actually want to cheat??? And it freaks me out because I don’t even know how I feel? Because sometimes I’ll get a feeling that agrees with it, like I’ll have that feeling that wants me to date them and then I’ll hear something like “yeah I would” / “yeah I agree with that” ,, now I feel like I’ll be a cheater and I’m really scared, I would NEVER cheat, nor would I trade this boy for anything, but I can’t do it. I just need to know what to do.

I did a few sexual compulsions (only with myself of course) in the past (2 months ago , did it couple of times) and I regret it BADLY I want to die every time because of that because of the guilt that I can’t handle it I feel like a monster I can’t move on from this. I feel like I deserve nothing in life. I prefer to kill myself then do it again. Like what went on my mind. I wanted to check and get rid of the thought but I can’t live with the shame. I posted this a few times but cant move on. What I did was BAD sexual compulsion. My therapist said to me that people with ocd can have a sever compulsions. And I think I told her about this compulsion but I think she forgot so I’m planning to said it to her again so she will tell me if it’s actually ocd or not. And the fact that I did have another themes before Pocd but I don’t know if I have Pocd anymore cause I feel like a monster and like I crossed the line. I’m terrified that I went to far. I regret I badly. There is not a single day I’m not thinking about it and want to kill my self. That compulsion is against my morals like I become the person I was afraid of all the time. The shame will it me until the day that I die

My OCD wants to keep switching “themes” on me, but once again it always concerns my mom or family. This time it’s sexual-related. The one I experience the most is the harm-related thoughts towards her, thinking I want to hurt her or thinking she abused me in the past (she did not) so that’s why I have these thoughts. My mind is always trying to see if there are deeper meanings to these thoughts and how I really feel. Yesterday my thoughts started going towards - “what if I’m attracted to my mom?” I was reading a book and it was a romantic scene and an image of my mom popped into my head. I tried to just dismiss it since I know we can’t control what comes into our heads, but I of course ruminated about it more and it has become a full-blown obsession. I have started wondering if I really am attracted to her or not, do I want to be in a relationship with her, am I just denying my feelings, etc. It sounds so disgusting and disturbing to share these things, but it’s difficult to disengage with this kind of thinking. Like it’s too disturbing to just let it go. Which leads to other worries like what if I can never be in a real relationship because I will just keep having these thoughts, what if this is true and how will I live with myself, what if my mom sexually abused me as a kid and that’s why I’m having these thoughts, etc. I know I’m going down the rabbit hole, but I just keep coming up with more and more “reasons.” Trying to go about my day and not pay them any attention, but it has been difficult to focus on anything else. Which then makes me wonder if I’m actually just fantasizing now and not actually obsessing.

Ocd is clever. It’s clever at making you feel like if you worked this one thing out everything will be fine and great and as it was… what a lie. Just when you think you’ve solved one thing it’s straight onto the next , just when you think you’ve reached certainty it suddenly doesn’t matter anymore as something more urgent and important has come up… Ill always be a terrible person in my ocd mind. I thought I was over this issue but no…my mind has created another one, a more urgent and serious one. When will this end.

I have constantly been feeling like if I hit one arm, I have to hit the other and if I set something down and it just didn’t look right or feel right I had to do it again or I had to move it to a different spot in my room I’ve had never been a clean freak, which is mainly what I get told is OCD And I don’t know if I should even have this app. I don’t know if I actually have it. I’m constantly worried that I did something in my past that harmed others and that’s why people don’t like me or I’m constantly worried People are constantly watching me and I don’t know if that’s OCD or if I have it so please tell me I will delete this app and never think of it again if I don’t I just really wanna know

i spent 10 hours yesterday just googling and researching possible therapists and various ocd facts. a day off with my kid absolutely wasted. my head is spinning. I can't do stuff like this. it's always something. something to ruminate on. something to obsesse over. scrolling for hours. Just to put my phone down at night, lay there and think "what if I don't even have ocd?" or "what if I missed something?" 😵‍💫😔

Hey guys- I don’t know if any of you with religion/spirituality ocd struggle with the “unacceptable thoughts” about like evil and stuff but I’m struggling.. it feels like I believe that I want the evil stuff because I had demon-like voices in my head as ahead where I went to talk to God when I was experiencing great distress and then these evil thoughts came in and I let them in and like “ok-ed” evil stuff. Especially because I felt so forced into my faith journey as a kid so it’s like that “feeling rejected -> rebellion thing) but I also know that but I also have such fond memories of feeling so close to God to leaning on Him for so many things. It’s so hard because 90% of my memories as a kid, I struggled with severe ocd and no one knew what it was or how debilitating it could be I’m trying the ERP with these thoughts but😭 have any of you gone through the same things? It’s so strong In my mind because I know there’s actual spiritual warfare so I feel like - pray for me guys

does anyone else use the fact that they dont like their thoughts as a confirmation/compulsion, and or when you go through something stressful with little to no compulsions take it as a sign they actually like it? is this apart of usual rumination or am I expirencing something different? and how do you deal with it?

I’m wondering if this has happened to anyone else… I’m 28 years old. I was diagnosed with OCD when I was very young and it took a while, but I overcame it. I haven’t had any compulsions in 20 years. I’ve had some horrible things happen in the past, but nothing brought back my OCD. The only thing I struggle with is overthinking and making decisions. Im about to take a sabbatical from my work for a year to travel because the last year of my life has been by far the happiest and most confident iv ever been. I went to see a therapist a couple weeks ago who was an OCD specialist, I just wanted some tips and tricks for decision-making while I’m on my trip. She warned me that my OCD might get worse before it gets better, but I thought that she just meant with decision-making and overthinking. They have this program set out that I didn’t really wanna do but she told me it works really well so I decided to try it. It’s two sessions a week and the first two sessions were sort of just talking about my old OCD and doing questionnaires. I really related to some of the questionnaire questions, and the therapist was actively telling me that I definitely had OCD the whole time which made me feel bad. After our second session, my OCD came back full swing like when I was a child. I cant stop thinking about doing compulsions every waking second. It’s been two weeks. I’ve been to her several times and nothing is helping, I’m resisting the urge to do compulsions as much as I can and I feel like I’m fighting for my life. Nothing is helping and I’m burning out. I wake up and cry everyday because of how uncomfortable and out of control I feel. I never thought this would happen and im so mad at myself for ruining my trip. I feel like I’ve ruined my life tbh and even if I do get better, I’m always gonna be bothered by the constant fear that even at the highest and most happy points in my life it could just come back at any second with no warning signs.. I thought I knew how to deal with it and had the tools, but nothing is working this time and its ruining my life. Today I asked about cancelling my trip altogether, and I might be going on medical leave. Has this happened to anybody and do you have any tips for me?

I’m not saying any of this to be rude or hateful in any way!! Basically, I like this guy and I really love him, but, everytime I look at this one photo of him, I keep noticing he looks unflattering and it makes me worry, because I’m scared what if he’s ugly? And why does that even matter? Why can’t I just love him in peace without having to check his photo to make sure he’s not ugly? Like that sounds really rude and disrespectful and it hurts even more to know that he’s self conscious and I would NEVER want to hurt him so I don’t tell him I check his photo to make sure he’s not ugly, I get anxious when I notice/feel that he is unattractive/unflattering, so I check till I feel certain that I don’t think he’s ugly, why do I even do this? Why does it matter? Why does my brain make it difficult to even look at a photo without worrying, can I be normal? I say “I think he’s cute/I love him” to his photo and my brain is like “nope cuz he’s unattractive” then I get worried and for what??? I ask myself why do I care and I genuinely don’t know

POCD has been the worst thing I've ever been through. I feel like I have always sort of experienced it but not to the degree I do now. I used to plan being a mother to a beautiful family. Now I don't know if I'll ever have children at the risk of having a girl. I used to have intrusive thoughts that would make me feel weird but I could just move on from them. That was until I had to babysit my niece and change her diaper. I want to throw up thinking about it. I got a horribly strong groinal response and I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand why it was happening. It bothered me all day that day and later on I did the disgusting deed of testing myself. I regret it everyday. It's a horrible compulsion and it haunts me. I tested if I was getting off to the thought of her. And of course there was stimulation because of the groinal response. But I hated doing it. I just felt like I had to be sure. After that and since then I haven't wanted to be around her. I stopped planning being a mother, I stopped watching cute baby videos like I used to enjoy because they trigger disgusting intrusive thoughts. After a while I stopped being intimate with my boyfriend and haven't done anything with for months because the thoughts take over and make me feel like I may enjoy the deed more if I was thinking of children. I worry that maybe I do enjoy these thoughts and I'm just denying it. I wish I could be sure. I feel so disgusting and ugly, I've never hated myself this much. It takes over most of my days. I wish I had never changed her diaper. Some times in moments of clarity I am so sure that I'm not a predator, but when I am vulnerable OCD sneaks back in and tells me I enjoy my thoughts and that I should think them. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming that I have to test. I wish I could stop. It ruins my entire week. I feel like a monster. I want to love my life again. I miss life before this. I feel so hopeless most of the time and I can't imagine a way out. I'm scared to start therapy because what if I found out I am a monster? I can't live like that. I won't. I want to cry and scream. Am I alone in this?