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I live my day-to-day life based off of other peoples opinions. Every action is driven by what other people say. Somebody doesn’t like something? I won’t do it and will stand by their opinion. If they do agree with something, I agree with them and follow along. This has been been detrimental to me, as I just live by what people say on the internet. In the comments, on reddit. It’s difficult to be my authentic self without having to worry what others think, because I live in this rational fear. I am scared of people getting mad at me if my opinion differs even a little from theirs. This triggered my Real-Event OCD and causes me to spiral. Does anybody have any tips? I really need help. Sincerely asking, as ironic as it is.

Hey Everyone. I'm new to this and I figured I would reach out to groups of people in similar situations. I have had OCD and intrusive thoughts in my life since a young age. When I was a Kid, I constantly checked my blood sugar out of fear I had diabetes. I did it so often you could see where the skin was lanced at, a bunch of little dots on every single finger tip. I have always had that fear of "what if, what if, what if" and I'm tired of it. I want to rise above it and work on making my life somewhat normal. I'm currently going through therapy and where it does help, our sessions are far and few in between. I have so much anxiety about certain weird aspects of my life. I have to sing my abcs to feel like my hands are clean. I constantly have intrusive thoughts bringing up things about my past and my trauma. Do I have a disease? Am I going to contaminate something I touch? Do I love my partner? Do I find my partner attractive? I was molested as a kid, would I do that to a kid? Even though I know how I really feel it creeps up and takes over my mind. It gets loud. So loud, but silent at the same time. It becomes pressure. The back of my neck tenses and I feel something looming over me. Like it's the puppet master pulling the strings. I read a few posts on here and it feels reassuring that I'm not going through this type of stuff alone. I'm constantly feeling alone and broken because of it, despite my therapist telling me I'm not. For instance, last night my gf of five years and I had intimate time and when I wanted to enjoy myself, my brain triggered by the smell of her breath and it shot me back to a memory of my first partner. My first partner and I, we had a good relationship in the beginning but it became writhing with toxicity and hurt towards the middle and the end. I don't want to think of that. It's unwanted. The more I don't want to think it, the more it's forced on me. I'm tired. Not suicidal tired but I'm wearing thin. It feels like the thoughts I don't want to think about, win. If anybody has a similar experience to me and you found something that tried and it works. Please link the tools! I am open to everything. I want to be normal.

Everytime I get a new ocd event it feels so much worse than the others and I look at the others rationally and think idk why I was worrying about those, THIS is the bad one. And I feel like that right now like it just feels like I actually did something horrible and it’s not ocd idk what to do. I want to get reassurance but it might make it worse cuz sometimes I get anxious after confessing to someone.

I was doing really well but today I woke up and I looked in the mirror and thought “oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m real, I can’t believe I’m me.” Like an existential crisis and the whole day I have been really struggling. I don’t want this to develop into a new theme, I have just barely recovered from a horrible contamination ocd episode and I don’t want to go backwards. It feels like everything is just impacting me today and I don’t know why. Any advice?

my living situation is interesting (to say the least) but i cant do anything about it and it’s making my life so much worse and more difficult than it needs to be. im on the verge of relapsing after ~7 years and im finding it really difficult not to go through with my “plans” (if you’re picking up what im saying) on top of this, i’ve been having a spike in my obsessive thoughts lately and i keep being reminded of past memories and some childhood trauma and i feel so sick. my mind is convincing me that trauma is the reason i “must like little kids” or the reason why God is after me like i thought He was all these years or the reason why i keep getting intrusive thoughts about my teacher everything seems to trigger everything and i am so sick of it. i want it to all go away and i have no private place to rest because of my situation and i have no one to talk to about this. if anyone has any advice or suggestions or comfort please let me know

So I have many of the debilitating symptoms of so-ocd and have done for a few years now. Prior to this theme, in my childhood I presented OCD behaviours like having to touch something so someone I loved didn’t die, feeling like I had to do something (an urge) even if I really didn’t want to, if I went away on holiday I would have this mental bucket list and say for example if I hadn’t been in the sea because it was too cold I would force myself to because I just had to before we went home or I would regret it, I was a bit obsessed with figuring out how to ‘live in the moment’ and often stressed that I wasn’t and would regret it when I died, I had urges to scrunch my nose up that I couldn’t shake. However, something i am really struggling to get past though is the past events that may prove this theme to be right. For example - I have a past memory of when i was around 8/9 of me looking up a music video which involved a sexually explicit video of a woman and i remember watching it and thinking ooh i know i shouldn’t be watching this because it is inappropriate and almost feeling sneaky and excited because of this, and i don’t know if this is just childhood curiosity and because i knew i wasn’t really allowed on youtube as a child or if its attraction and arousal and im worried that this proves my fears even though until this theme hit i didn’t think once about it and when i did i just brushed it off because i didn’t think it made me gay but now i feel like it does. Does anyone have any thoughts/advice/similar experiences on this?

does anyone else suffer from obsessive thinking or rumination about past life events, particularly traumatic ones? I can’t seem to stop thinking about it all the time and questioning what happened and how to feel about it. it’s driving me a little crazy

Does anybody have time to talk

TW: mentions of S3xu@l @buse Like the title said I had a really horrible dream of my abuser performing oral sex on me. And Inside the dream I kept having the same feelings I had the day he abused me. I had also the same feelings I have when my OCD attacks. The thing is my brain kept trying to switch his imagury of that of a woman (which is way more pleasing) still I remember his face and I woke up with a lot of anxiety and disgust. I honestly hated it I know OCD can affect dreams I just hope this doesn't become recurring... I really don't know what to say anymore. I didn't enjoy it but my OCD keeps trying to say I did. I think this is the worse part of it really.

I, like so many others, have had ocd for most of my life. I have had many themes throughout my life. I am a mom and have had harm and pocd as well. For me those have been the most difficult and most painful themes. I have seen many people post on this app and they have had some pretty horrible and disturbing intrusive thoughts or false memories and real events ect. much worse than mine and I have never judged anyone because I know how bad ocd and intrusive thoughts can get. I had someone comment on a post I made recently asking me if I even have ocd insinuating it’s not ocd and i’m a actually just a pedo. That upset me so much because anyone who has experienced pocd knows how horrific and disturbing the intrusive thoughts can get and how opposite of who we really are ocd is. Our ocd already makes us doubt ourselves so to have a fellow sufferer of ocd say something like that can be so damaging. So many people are afraid to seek help or post on apps like this out of fear of being judged so we have to be mindful of what we comment. This person, after reading their bio has never experienced that theme and so they have no idea what it’s like or how bad it can get. I am writing this post because I think we need to be more understanding of those who suffer with themes we haven’t and not be judgmental especially if we don’t know them or their ocd story and what they have been through. I beat my ocd and for years I was ocd free until a recent stressful situation in my life and it came back and has been relentless and worse than ever before. I have had so many kind people give me great support on this app and I give support as much as I can when I see posts of others going through similar things as me. Be kind and think before you comment.

I'm so scared that by thinking about things I can make them happen. I know that's a central thing in OCD but I googled it and a lot of people actually say that if you think about stuff you can make it happen. I've been processing a lot of trauma and having intrusive thoughts about it and I'm so scared that if I think about people who hurt me it will make them contact me and it's making me feel really paranoid and scared and panic and I'm just so scared that I'm somehow conjuring bad people to come into my life and that I'm going to somehow get sucked back into my past or that I am somehow calling people close to me who could hurt me or that something bad is going to happen to me because my thoughts have been so scary and triggering. I'm also feeling really dissociated and I'm worried that these thoughts are actually me starting to have some sort of a psychotic break or something. Please help I'm so scared.

I have this phobia of sleepwalking and doing something bad without me realising. Las night something happened that made me think I could've sleep walked and do something horrible. I woke up at like 4 am wanting to go to pee so I got up normally and before I reached the bathroom I had a bad intrusive thought of doing harm but I just tried to ignore it. After I left the bathroom I went straight to my room and fell asleep almost immediately. However this morning when I woke up my dad asked me why I left the kitchen cabinets open and took out a pack of napkins. I froze and felt my blood turn cold when I heard that because there are knives in those drawers. I told him that maybe he took them out and don't remember but he said he didn't do that and never got up during the night. I asked everyone else that was here last night and they said they didn't do that either. Now i'm here literally shaking, feeling like losing my mind and crying histerically because first thing I thought was that I slept walked after having that intrusive thought and opened the kitchen cabinets to take out a kn*ife to do something horrible. I am absolutely terrified if that happened, I clearly don't remember doing that, I only remember going to the bathroom, peeing and going back to the bedroom right away. This couldn't have hapened right?! I would remember if I had slept walked and did that, right?! I don't have a history of sleep walking in the past, as far as I know. I have no explanation to this incident and I feel like i'm about to have a nervous breakdown and feel like I need to find out what really happened yes or yes or I will not be able to cope. Someone please help?!!

So ever since I was little now that I think about it I might have had ocd I would had what some would call rocd and have intrusive thoughts like I hate god or I sold my soul obviously being a kid I didn't know what ocd was cause I always thought it was about organization and etc but everytime I would have to do mental compulsion like everytime I got a thought like that I had to ask for forgiveness I eventually stopped as I got older and now I would call myself an agnostic but at the start of this year I started having intrusive thoughts about harming myself and others after I was having bad panic attack every day due to stress I obviously could tell I was not doing okay so started researching and found out about schizophrenia(worst thing I have ever done)my brain automatically went hyperaware of everything,every sound,vision etc also scared that I would go insane and hurt someone so anytime I would hear something or see anything I would get terrified thinking I could be hallucinating I remember even getting my mom to take me to the hospital it was so bad even tried to go to the 7th floor which is the floor for mentally ill patients but they just brushed it off and said it was probably due to anxiety so fast forward I start seeing a doctor he also said he didn't think I was schizophrenic after telling him a he prescribed me medication ssri 100mg He started actually doing better got another job and started doing well I still had the thoughts and fear of schizophrenia but didn't bother me that's when I had the thought what if my brother is trying to kill me that's when it spiraled with these thoughts having paranoid thoughts about what if people are plotting against me and not what ifs but they are but I 1000000000% don't believe them and know that's crazy no one is plotting or trying to hurt me but I became obsessed with this new thought and the new theme switched,I mean technically the same theme cause it is the fear of schizophrenia but the thoughts changed I guess probably because I researched so much about schizophrenia now I'm even more scared I'm becoming schizophrenic cause these paranoid thoughts worry me because I start to think what if I believe them like I know I don't but what if I do,I always see that schizophrenic are paranoid about this and I know I don't believe them but it's like my mind is always thinking about it I mean I could literally be walking outside,shopping,doing whatever I'm doing see someone and have the thought there plotting against me or trying to kill me and I'm like what noooooo what the hell who thinks that,a schizophrenic of course and I have to constantly research everyday my symptoms of paranoid thinking and it's hard because I hear everybody else relate to being scared of developing it but mine really does like I'm having actual paranoid thoughts that again I know is insane and not true I even got a therapist she also said she doesn't believe I have it but trauma she didn't say anything about ocd though so it's like what is it then schizophrenia these thoughts just distress me so much cause what if I start believing them and they feel so real cause most people have what ifs mine are they are but I still 1000000% don't believe them

I was doing fine and right now I’m ok but I still have this mental anxiety. Basically I keep seeing images when I’m in the bathroom of me putting the paper on my mouth or face. It’s so gross. I can’t get the image out of my head. It’s based on a true event like I really did go to the bathroom but I didn’t do that I know I didn’t because I checked my face and my mouth after there was nothing there no drops of anything and I didn’t even lift my hand to do something like that. Also in the moment I didn’t have anxiety but as soon as I washed my hands and stepped out of the bathroom how come I got anxiety and images then? Well actually I didn’t have some anxiety during but the thing is I’ve been paranoid about using the bathroom for a few days now so every time I go I get scared. Actually not every time it’s only really specific times. I don’t understand any of this if anyone has any answers please help me. This even affects me when I shower and it’s ruining my life.

I just started working on my first exposure today with my therapist after screening and creating the lists for several weeks now. We did an exposure together and now I feel 100x worse than I did coming in. I won’t go too into detail but it involved looking at a VERY gory image that had to do with my fear of natural disasters. I called my mom and talked with her and she was shocked and wondered how in the hell that would help me! I agree. Did any of y’all feel this way when you first started or is this just not the right kind of therapy for me?

So I'm at a point where if I don't get through this trauma I've had as a kid, I don't think I'll make much progress for my mental health. Last night was absolutely terrible. I just got stuck in a loop with my negative thoughts and triggers all the way to the past. There's a reason why I keep thinking of the past so much: There's trauma there. Trauma that was mostly out of my control. When it was in my control, I didn't have the knowledge to navigate through it. I'm just trying to push through the week. I don't feel like doing anything and I can't stop thinking about how unfair all of this is for me. I guess that's a start: Knowing that I deserved better than this and that I still do deserve better. My low self esteem, being hard on myself, low confidence, shame, guilt, and negative thoughts. I think it all just comes back to this every single time.

i had some intense intrusive thoughts about the past while trying to sleep and it scared the hell out of me to the point that i couldn't sleep. i just woke up this morning feeling like crap after getting a nightmare afterwards.

The pain of ocd is unbearable...I know it's not me. But why do I have these thoughts? What's wrong with me?! People should stay away from me. I'd rather my arms be cut off than harm someone. I hate me...the medication isn't working. I keep remembering past mistakes adding to all the reasons I think I'm evil. Seemingly validating my ocd intrusive thoughts...I can't do this. I wish I had a therapist. I wish I could afford this app.

Is the brain really that clever that it can distort real memories? Looking back part of my false memory could actually be true but I’m so sure the other parts never happened (the bad parts) I don’t remember them. Is the brain really that clever to add false memories to real memories? It feels like because mine contains reality it must alll be real, but I don’t remember the bad parts and I think I’m confused. This is also worse for me if I’ve had alcohol. This also started from a what if and intrusive thoughts.

earlier i got a thought but it didn’t cause me anxiety and i brushed it off now i’m worried it was my true actual intention and i can’t remember if it was i don’t know why it’s not making me anxious, maybe cos i know how bizarre it is and that i wasnt actually doing that? but my memory is so blurred and i dont know anymore