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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 .

Honestly this is triggered by the fact I remember I had this little fascination with someone who was I think in one grade below me in highschool. (Mind you if I was born one month later I would’ve been in the same class as them) and now that I did have a seemingly little fancy for them now all of a sudden I am a predator who was searching for freshman…. 💀 They weren’t a freshman (my logical side says) but my brain has taken the what if and made it sick and gross… I think I do remember even saying that it’ll be sad that they’ll have to wait another school semester till we’d ever see each other again in college…. So why is my brain insisting they are a freshmen??? I specifically remember being a junior before, having a freshmen come onto me and the moment I found out i immediately cut them off (I have my own worries about that real event too…) So why does my brain tell me I was seeking that out???

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...)

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.

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

I don’t know where to start and don’t want to write a really long msg. I am really in a dip. I struggle to accept I have ocd and that there’s not some real issues or something else the matter with me. Even though I relate to ocd and can see its has clearly been part of the picture in the past and despite a psychologist saying it sounded like ocd I find it hard to believe or accept. What i’m experiencing feels so real. I have persistent fears about my child being abducted and have horrible graphic images related to that. I also have a lot of anxiety in my relationship (which is challenging) plus I have other life stressors going on. I have worried my boyfriend is a paeodophile and set up cameras in my daughter’s room. I also fear he will harm or kill me. That he’s cheating on me or has done and I said this one day. My boyfriend had been out late getting drunk and I couldn’t get hold of him. I said I feared he was shagging someone out the back of the pub. At the time he was kind and loving and said not to think those things and that he wouldn’t do that and loved me. However those words obviously stayed with him and he’s since been very angry that I thought that and finds it insulting and says I obviously don’t trust him and that maybe it’s me that’s doing what I fear he’s doing. I got angry and said I’ve an anxiety disorder and he said not to raise my voice to him and he stormed off and left. That was the night before my birthday. He called the next day to say happy birthday and made no mention of him storming off and made no apology when I saw him later. He gave me flowers and presents and took me out for dinner then made comments about the age I had turned (I’m 3 years older) he says it’s just a joke and banter but I feel it’s disrespectful. Anyway my child who is with her dad wanted to say goodnight to me (she’s been not wanting to stay there which has added to my anxiety that something will happen to her - that her not wanting to stay there is a sign and she isn’t safe and that something will happen) Anyway she rang whilst my boyfriend and I were having sex (which felt a bit aggressive/violent but I didn’t speak up. He eventually said what do u want as it’s your birthday and I said to go slow which he did) Anyway we stopped having sex and I answered the call from my child. She was ok and we spoke briefly. My boyfriend was really angry and said all sorts of things about my ex having had a ex with me on my birthday in the past and what did he think we were doing and he should have told my child not to call. He said he felt like I made him look like an idiot and that he doesn’t know how long he can carry on never having time alone with me without being interrupted. He left and went to his house but not til after I’d fallen asleep. I woke up and panicked to see his car gone and thought he’d gone to harm my ex or daughter or both or that he’d gone somewhere else to have sex with someone else as we didn’t finish. It feels like I’m living in some sort of nightmare with this amount of fear and distrust going on.

I don't feel like my real event ocd is actually normal. people don't just make mistakes or do stuff like that as a child. and I feel guilty and shameful because it's awful. how is that ocd and not just terrible and criminal. and the fact that I can't remember if I actually did something just as bad or something similar when I got older is insane. like why would I have done it again if I'm not a bad person? it feels like i might actually remember it and there's no way of knowing. it's gross and disgusting and criminal!!! how would I ever tell a therapist about those actions and expect them to not be weired out, concerned, and inclined to tell me same things that I'm thinking which is that I shouldn't be alive or I belong locked up for what I did. having ocd doesn't excuse my past mistakes, child or not. especially when I'm unsure if something happened again when I was an older teen and would have known better. and how do I live on and the people in my life don't know these mistakes. they wouldn't want to know me if they knew what I did so am I lying to them by omitting the awful things about myself??

Vent My real event ocd is flaring up badly again, I just started school and keep having the intrusive thoughts that I don’t belong here because I’m a horrible person, that I should just give up because I’m a monster, and that I shouldn’t even try and pursue a career in the field I’m interested in because my real event will come back to haunt me and I will end up in jail. My real event happened when I was a child around 10 or 11 and at the time I had no bad intentions and didn’t realize what I was doing could be perceived as inappropriate or sexual since we were both girls, I just thought it was me and my friend who was younger than me being stupid. I have really struggled moving on from this real event, I’m 22 now and started really struggling with obsessive intrusive thoughts over this real event when I was 19. The intrusive thoughts have come and gone over the years but it’s currently flaring up really bad as I am starting at a new college, my ocd actually impacted my college life so much that I’m about two years behind everyone else. I should’ve graduated last year but because my ocd consumed my life, i basically dropped out and now I’m starting fresh but I feel like I don’t deserve it and that I’m a monster and I’m horrible and that I’ve ruined someone’s life. I also have the constant fear that I’m going to get into trouble, go to jail, lose everyone and everything, and that everyone will hate me. I also have so many false memories involving this event that feel so real and terrify me because it felt so real and I felt like a monster. I’ve told my mom about this event and she said I did nothing wrong and that it’s normal and that I was a child, but it’s impacting my life to this day. I’m getting back into the routine of taking my meds but god I just feel like I’m horrible, I keep feeling the need to confess and then my fears are temporarily gone but they always come back and it’s a constant cycle.

has anyone actually done some bad things as a child, and now your ocd fixated on it? am I terrible for what I've done as a child? I know now how wrong and weird and gross it was, and I would never want to do something of that nature Ever again and it's also illegal. what should I do. I don't want to live as someone who has done that.

Currently obsessing over me being the only “real” or conscious person in the world, and that everyone I love isn’t actually real. I know deep down that this is ocd, but I feel like by not ruminating I’m just ignoring the fear (which feels so real and scary). Has anyone experienced anything similar and how did you get out of this worry? Trying not to seek reassurance as it’s one of my compulsions, but I’m very distressed.

a little bit about me, i have dealt with mental health issues for my whole life. i went undiagnosed for many years, being because my family (at the time) didn’t believe in mental illness, it was believed that everything could be fixed with a little “talk with Jesus” that being said, for as long as i can remember i have had the intrusive thoughts, the obsessive thoughts. i can remember being a little kid trying to pray to god and my mind would be telling me over and over again that i hated god, that i loved the devil, that i wanted to go to hell. i also believed that if i didn’t pray for every single family member that they would die. i still to this day have trouble sleeping because im convinced that the rapture will happen, and i will be left behind. well as the years have progressed, these intrusive thoughts and obsessions have become worse, resulting in me thinking about harming myself and others when i have no intentions to do so. i also have been struggling with and obsessing over people dying, and mourning people that are still alive and well.

at first i started to obsess over if something i did was sa, i came to the conclusion that it isn't for different reasons ( I even talked to a sexual assault hotline who told me that it was a grey area ) but that it was still something inappropriate that could have potentially hurt someone if they saw. and now im starting to obsess on wether that person actually saw or not and if i have hurt her because of it. it's kind of unlikely if she saw, cus she had her back facing me but idk. I saw she liked my posts on Instagram till 2022 ( this thing happened a long time ago ), but even then it's no consolation since now she doesn't follow me anymore ( even if it could have been me that removed her from my followers since we haven't been friends for years and i like privacy ) and since ppl can also realise later on that something that happened to them is assault/harrasment. tho i guess that if she still feels comfortable around my brother and family then it's probably okay? i personally haven't talked to her in a while but she always seemed normal around me after that thing happened. idk, im so ashamed

I (15M) want to get help but I’m scared of punishment. I live in Arizona and I think I have ocd and it’s making me go insane. First off I hurt so many people in my freshman year of highschool I was overly sexual and went too far over texts being way too open with myself and the reason I was probably overly sexual was maybe because when I was 8 or 9 I was shown explicit content by my older brother and I think that gave me compulsive sexual behavior disorder cause I got addicted to it but idk if I deserve sympathy cause my little brother was also shown it at the same time I was and is not a bad person from what I can tell. But yea when I got into highschool idk why I thought I could be so sexual and not see an issue with it and I hurt 3 people because of it 2 of them said they don’t care about it anymore and just found it annoying (I still feel guilty what if they are lying to me to make me feel better) and the third one doesn’t want to talk to me ever again and I deserve it I scarred him for life. And before highschool I begged a 16 yr old for pictures and this is when I was like 13 or 14 and I was so persistent with it and honestly kinda Manipulative (my friend says not to feel bad cause he was grooming her kind of but I still feel bad) and then in highschool I begged a 17 yr old for pictures this was when I was 14 and I gave him my friends ass pics because I wanted pics from him and he agreed ( my friend was 15/14) and I lied saying it was my friends little sisters and my friend told me she could get his pictures for me and I agreed and we later stopped cause she felt uncomfy and we both thought it was honestly gross I think and then he got upset and said he was gonna send her sisters pics to her to make her upset or blackmail her and I got scared and told her what I did and she felt sick and I told the guy what I did and told him I was gonna cut myself and he told my friend what I said and she told me not too and that she forgives me and I feel so bad cause that’s so wrong she felt she had to forgive me. After that the guy said he was manipulating me the whole time so I would feel guilty about what I did later. And now I feel so much guilt from everything and how I hurt so many people I hurt my little brother I was so rude and mean to him and yet he still loves me and I’m having thoughts on what if I’m a child predator or what if I sa’d my baby cousins or sa’d my little brother (besides the time I did cocsa when I was 9 or 8 and he was 6/7) or what if I sa’d someone at my school and these thoughts keep repeating over and over and it feels so real cause I think I’m honestly a monster and it’s not fair how I can keep walking the earth with innocent people

I know reassurance is bad but can someone please walk me through and help me with this specific situation because it's so bad and im so scared something bad did actually happen to me but I don't know. is this real event ocd?? is this denial about being sa'd??? I can't tell what is happening.

I need help I feel so bad I'm thinking about situations with my boyfriend and I don't know what to do and if they were really bad situations or not.

I am super scared that this might not an ocd I was so confident that this was just T-ocd but after remembering some real events, i no longer know who i am 💔 i am super scared I do not want to change my life , i loved my life as a girl ( even if i am a true trans )

Hello everyone. My name is Cathy and I have severe intrusive thoughts that seem to come out of no where. However only one thought at a time. I fixate on that scary thought for days and days and my anxiety builds up and up. I try to then attack the suggested catastrophic thought such I may have this disease or going to die from that disease or rot in hell etc. scary thoughts always. I try and do a ton of research on line to counter attack the thought trying to prove it wrong and this helps me but if I can’t find something that proves I won’t get the disease or have it already or prove other things too depending on what the thought is, it doesn’t help at all and can make it worse. Is anyone out there experiencing what I have. I don’t have ocd cleaning or washing or checking but have intrusive scary thoughts.

I have 3 questions: 1. How do I stop ruminating over a workplace incident? 2. How do I remember all that what was said during the incident, to ensure I won't be painted as an angry emotional woman, without having to ask another co worker what happened? 3. How do I think before I act? I was thinking of writing a note on my desk saying "5 4 3 2 1 before reacting". So I can fully be present anytime I speak. I wish our lives were recorded so we could play it back to therapists... Anyway all I remember is I was working & the co workers in the next cubicles were chatting away about the women they were attracted to in the office (they're married men). Anyway, someone came to ask our section for assistance I asked that they help him out cause I'm really busy. The one co worker started complaining, so in order to prevent problems & a dispute, I just helped the guy. But I don't know if I said anything more? Possibly & most likely ...but I can't recall. But now I'm ruminating cause the complaining co worker has started gossiping about the incident around work. It's being brought back to me & I'm confused cause I don't remember anything else.

Hi, I'm Sky. I'm not 100% sure if I have OCD or not. I've had multiple psychiatrist diagnose me with it but also one that said I was misdiagnosed. It does run in my family heavily on my father's side. I was wondering if anyone could talk to me about their experiences with OCD so maybe I can see if I relate. I feel like I suffer from intrusive thoughts but I also struggle with CPTSD and GAD. I find myself obsessing over made up scenarios or problems and I cant think of anything else. I have a lot of routines but I'm not sure if they are OCD related or not. I know this input wouldn't truly tell me if I have it or not and that I should reach out for another professional opinion, and I will. But I'm just trying to reassure myself that it's even worth bringing up. (Cat gif just because it's cute uwu)

I had a lot of mental stamina before my OCD got severe and I often compare my current state of being to who I was. I especially do this with the recovery I experienced 2 years into ERP. I thought I'd never have to face that terrible suffering again. A lot happened last year and my OCD blew up in my face. It's been difficult, but in a different way than I experienced when first going through OCD. Rather than being moved by desperation to recover, I became apathetic, which scared me even more. But here's what I've learned for myself about recovery apathy and I hope someone finds this helpful, too, because I haven't heard many people really talking about it. - My apathy was actually overwhelm. I had fought hard to overcome OCD and the thought of having to go through that again triggered feelings of hopelessness. Really, in retrospect, I see that it was rooted in a desire to get out of the spiral immediately because what if this ruined all of my progress? - By expecting myself to feel better quickly, I became fixated on monitoring my internal world. I was checking every feeling and sensation I had, and using them to figure out how to escape. The more I did this, however, the more I lost touch with my actual needs and desires. - I began to feel ashamed of myself for slipping and losing myself. I kept telling myself I'd do xyz to get back on top, but either wouldn't follow through, the goals would be too big, or whatever I was aiming for was a means of neutralizing the noise, as I like to call it. When you try to neutralize OCD noise, it just gets louder. - My repeated "fails" and attempts to fix myself amplified my shame and feelings of apathy. I didn't know how to break free or sit with what I was doing to myself. I didn't even know how I was doing it. I felt like all of my OCD knowledge went out the window. - A year into it, I have started to learn that it's all the same. This is also OCD. The noise tells me that I can't get better unless I do x first, I need to pay attention to how I'm feeling to learn how to take care of myself, I need to analyze my thoughts and sort through all the uncertainty. At the core of all of these fear-statements is a little girl who feels unsafe. - I started a journal on my compulsions, opened up to people I trust, and moved towards discomfort. I feel anxious and don't know why? Huh, guess I'll color for a bit and use that as inspiration. I used to love writing but now it feels like an apathetic gridlock? I'll set a timer for 10 minutes and write creatively without editing. I'm scared of being weird at work and being so uncool I'm not well liked? Unfortunate, that's their loss because I'm pretty cool. - I work on building myself up instead of analyzing thoughts about whether or not I'm worthy or loveable. I reconnect to things I loved as a kid. I invite my body to relax instead of forcing it to because I choose to honor how afraid it is after being through so much stress and turmoil. I hug myself and imagine hugging that little girl, and I remind myself that I never need permission to be loved. I go to my fiance when I feel trapped or alone, and when he isn't around, I utilize empty chair exercises where I have an open discussion between myself and those lonely parts of me. - Essentially, I realize that acceptance comes from befriending and normalizing our experiences. Just because others don't understand or don't like us doesn't mean we must feel that way about ourselves. What we experience is just as valid as what anyone else goes through and we don't always like or understand them, yet they treat themselves well. Shame tells us we can't be kind to ourselves, rather we must fix something that's wrong in us. I've learned that the true exposure is to soothe the shame with as many tears, hugs, and hobbies as it takes.