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How do you ocd sufferers deal with thoughts during sex Have you done erp for this? Do you stop or continue?

Im scared that if I start to think it too much, I will start to believe it, and it becomes my reality. I always have thoughts like, “Do I love him, what if I lose feelings, how longs is this going to last, when will these thoughts finally go away, is he the one for me, is this how love feels like or am I just convincing myself?” I start to search things up to make myself feel better but the longest that works for is a few hours and then that gut wrenching feeling comes back. I love him I’m sure of it, but then why do I feel like this? I know if I didn’t love someone I would let them go and would t even fight for it or try to get better, but for him I’m trying ever second of everyday and sometimes I just feel so hopeless. I can’t afford a therapist and I’m too busy to talk to one. I don’t know what to do or how to feel, sometimes I just feel numb and I hate it, sometimes I feel like crying but can’t, and most the time I don’t feel jealous anymore and that scares me because I’m a jealous person. Then I get thoughts and reminders of my ex. Not in a way that I like them but the hatred and the trauma and pain they left me with. The mental, verbal and physical abuse. Sometimes my current relationship reminds me of him and why I shouldn’t be in one because I always fall into this deep hole that feels impossible to get out of. I just get so scared.

I have false memory real event ocd, I’ve been married 13 years and I used to constantly bring up past mistakes from when we were dating and it RUINED our marriage, but I got medication and therapy and things got better untill a few weeks ago where everything crumbled. I have a memory that is 13 years ago of me being intimate with my husband (than boyfriend) while being intimate I have a memory of sending a text to a male who obviously liked me but I didi not while my husband was under the covers . And I keep thinking over and over how disgusting and inappropriate it was to do that especially doing it in the middle of being intimate 😞. I have confessed this to my husband last year and he didint believe me saying it’s probably a made up memory and would are not a slut and wouldn’t do that. Now i have guilt all over again for weeks and it’s taking such a toll on me it’s all I think about and try to remember every detail I’ve thought about it so much I don’t even know if it’s 100 percent true. But I can vividly see it when I close my eyes. How do I get over this guilt without confessing? Confessing would absolutely destroy my husband.

Helloooo everyone on this app on my phone, I wanted to write down things i was thinking to get started with dealing with my harm ocd, and fear of talking about it. I have always had ocd as long as i can remember since i was a small lad, I would obsess over various unimportant things, scratches on toys and such, and if they were “like new” constantly. my compulsion would be getting my mother to check my toys to check id they were good or not I wouldn’t trust how I felt about it. In middle school was the period it was worst for me, I remember the onset moment of harm OCD like it was yesterday. i was in robotics with one of my friends when i heard about a major school shooting in 2017. i was broken, i always assumed schools were safe and never eveb considered they werent. this was the first year i had access to a phone so i spent time online reading stuff. This event set in motion severe anxiety and ocd over the event, anxiety that something like this would happen at my school, and harm ocd that what if i perpetrated such an event. the thoughts disgusted me so much i was in the lowest point of my life for sure. I would never do something like this but to even picture the idea of me in those shoes was so disgusting. i was battling two things here. constantly doing compulsions to get it out of my head. pushing the ideas with clean pure thoughts and honestly i cant remember the whole situation perfectly i just remember it was rough. I remember the shootings ocd moved on to worrying i was going to commit harm in general, especially with loved ones involved. i got so worked up i hid all of my pocket knives, knife block was put away and i would just sit in bed and cry, watching travel blogs to distract myself. I had no idea what was wrong with me, I didnt know what ocd was, i just thought i was actually just a bad person and was disgusted with myself. my mom however, (love her so much) spent hours researching and found something on youtube she felt seemed like me. Natasha Daniels on youtube talking about something called moral ocd. It fit perfectly. moral ocd i eventually just moved to calling harm ocd. same thing i assume. we started watching the videos together and it felt more and more like what i was going through. i started feeling better when i could recognize thoughts and ignore them by calling them out in my head. this helped and eventually moving into covid i found distractions what i was worrying about slowly subsided. My harm ocd was suppressed for a long time and after switching healthcare providers and moving into high school i never went back to therapy and kinda was alright. i still experienced ocd, especially relating to my health, and then in senior year my first ever relationship i experienced relationship ocd really bad. health ocd however being the worse of the two. my harm OCD would occasionally pop up but nothing like it had before. just the occasional disturbing image in my head usually when hanging out with loved ones and i learned to while being disgusted move on and forget about it. up until these last few months it wasn’t that bad. until i went to monterey two weeks ago, and while i was outside on my own exploring the down town, i experienced very disturbing intrustive thoughts, (most of my intrusive thoughts center around rhat i carry a box cutter for work, i work stocking in retail). however i wasnt super disgusted like i had been before because i’ve experienced these thoughts before, i just assumed id move on. however ocd had a different target this time. my morals. it attacked the idea “hey you arent acting disgusted to these thoughts, that must mean you want to do them and are a bad person” and i was so hurt, but still not disgusted because ive just been so tired and stressed out from work and college and life overall. once i got back into the group with my family in the hotel it wasnt as bad and i moved on for the most of the night and the next weeks forgetting about it due to distractions. however. yesterday at my families easter brunch it showed up again, however this time i kept obsessing and trying to push the thoughts out and looking up stuff online to try and make me feel better, even talking to a coworker i trust about it. im just so sick and tired of my brain giving me harm ocd thoughts. i thought health ocd and relationship ocd was bad. this is the worst. the mere idea or thought of doing these things is so out of character and disturbing to me, maybe im more desensitized to violence due to videogames and media, and what happens in the world, and simply being an american. i dont know whats wrong with me. i hope to work through this though and what i do have is the confidence of that due to my ability to work past this before. i want to thank my friends and family for being so supportive even when it was hard for them and im so grateful to still be here today to work through this. anyway i just wanted to share my story to see if anyone relates or just hear from yall. hope everyone is doing well 🫶🏻🫶🏻

Does anyone know how can you determine ROCD compulsive thoughts vs actual relationship issues necessary to bring up? I’ve been in multiple abusive relationships in the past and I don’t want to go through that again. I’ve been with my partner for 3 years, we’re both mentally ill and we’ve hurt each other a lot over the years. I have some trauma due to their alcoholism, but I want to still be there for her. However my head is constantly telling me that whenever they’re gone I’m worried they’re drinking and cheating, trying to harm themself, planning on harming me or they’re gonna die if im not basically with them 24/7. Even when I want time to myself I force myself to be with them sometimes out of fear. I see them do/say something that might suggest these things (following a new girl, ignoring my texts while they’re out, raising their voice at me etc.) and I’m even more convinced and I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know what is a suspicion I SHOULD bring up to them, and what is just a compulsive thought. :( How do I determine that?

Around 10 years ago when I started getting violent OCD intrusive thoughts, I also started fearing that I was a sociopath. I began overanalyzing everything — especially my emotions. It's like if I could prove I had emotions it proved I wasn't a sociopath. I care deeply about my family — I worry about them, I want them to be safe and happy, I want them to get theit deepest desires — but I don’t know what love "feels" like, if its supposed to feel like anything. People describe love as this warm, obvious, fuzzy emotion, but I don’t experience it the way I think I’m supposed to. Is it supposed to be intense? Constant? Loud? Because I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that. My family isn’t very emotionally expressive either. I cherish hugs from them when I get them, I initiate most hugs with my parents (but I don't like hugs from other people, like co workers) but overall my family doesnt show affection much, and that’s made me question if I’m even capable of love. I overanalyze my feelings constantly — especially after realizing I don’t feel connected to God in the way my old church said I should. I don’t love God. I don’t feel anything toward Him — we’ve never met obviously so I just never got a connection with Him. But growing up, that felt like a sin in itself. As a teen, I felt ashamed knowing I cared more for my parents than for God, especially when church messages said God had to come first. There’s a song by Mary Mary that says, “I love you more than my mother, my father…” and it used to make me feel broken. My feelings were in direct contradiction with what I was taught, and that shame never fully left me. OCD latched onto that hard. It’s only after a coworker passed away — and I found myself crying multiple times over it — that I realized I do care deeply for people. But even that realization felt pathetic. Why did I need such an extreme moment to feel something “real”? & why didn't I care for another creepy bigoted co worker when his son was sick? I felt nothing. I’m scared my OCD is convincing me that I’m heartless, even though I want connection. I crave love. I like hugs. It’s exhausting and terrifying to doubt my own humanity like this. I hate this fear. I hate that I don’t trust myself. I hate that OCD makes me question my morality, my emotions — everything that makes me me. Has anyone else experienced anything like this? How do I even explain this to a therapist

Can anyone who is diagnosed with both OCD and BPD tell me a bit more about their experiences, especially when it comes to friendship and relationships?

I am 15 years old and my POCD feels like its not POCD, i feel like i like my intrusive thoughts, but i have more intrusive thoughts about having intrusive thoughts, and i feel like i cant enjoy the things i normally enjoy anymore, like calling with my girlfriend and joking with her because this is still in the back of my mind, its making me question morals and if i ever even viewed P as completely wrong and i hate this so much, i love my nieces and nephews and when they're over i know id never do anything with my intrusive thoughts but when they arent present i feel like i like my thoughts. Before this i was dealing with HOCD and ROCD and i wish i could go back to that

Hi everyone. I’ve been struggling for a long time with what I believe is ROCD. I constantly have doubts about my feelings toward my boyfriend. I feel numb, disconnected, unsure if I ever truly loved him, and sometimes I fear that I’m just pretending or lying to myself. I don’t feel happy when I think of him, I don’t miss him, and when I imagine doing things together, I feel nothing. And that terrifies me. But what hurts me even more right now is that my psychologist told me she doesn’t think I have OCD. She said I just believe it’s wrong not to like my boyfriend, and that’s why I’m stuck — because I can’t accept that I don’t like him. This only made my fears worse. Now I keep thinking: “What if I’m just in denial?” “What if I’m writing all this because I want it to be ROCD so I can feel better about not loving him?” But deep down, I’m suffering. I feel trapped in a fog of anxiety and detachment. I’ve had obsessive thoughts since I was little — especially intrusive ones, like inappropriate words or thoughts that made me feel really guilty. I would even tell my mom about them. So now I’m wondering… was this OCD all along? Why does it feel like my pain is invisible? And the worst part is… he loves me so much. He shows it in so many ways. He truly cares. But I don’t feel connected to him. I look at him and I feel nothing. Sometimes I feel like I’m acting — like I’m just going through the motions. And that makes me feel like the worst person in the world. I feel like no one else has ROCD like mine. That maybe I’m the exception. That maybe I’m not really struggling with OCD — maybe I’m just lying to myself. But I don’t want to lie. I want peace. I want to feel love again. I want to feel like myself again. If anyone has gone through this, or has felt the same after being dismissed by a therapist, please let me know. I feel so scared and alone. Thank you for reading.

Can anyone relate to this type of ROCD? It’s like i obsess of my partners past, I’ve spent probably 100 hours over the last 3 years asking him about girls he was with before me questioning him about every little detail and seeking reassurance. I don’t want to think about these girls at all. And I’ve been in ERP since August and was doing really good and not sure if it’s just getting bad again the last few days because of the holiday (Easter) and i had to go to his hometown where I know he had a past in and he recently brought a ring which I’m so excited about but it just seems like it’s getting harder for me and i don’t wanna be talking about girls he dated for a few months before me when we are about to get engaged. Am i ruining my future? What can I do to help and to not bring up stuff about the girls before me? How can I be in the moment and not relate everything to an irrelevant girl before me? Help

Why why WHY do I feel the need to constantly overshare?! It’s making me feel guilty af! If my boyfriend tells me something in confidence but my ocd twists what’s said into some crazy big problem I feel the need to run to my mom for reassurance, it’s getting to the point where he doesn’t trust me not to talk about stuff and I don’t want him to feel like that obviously!! But it’s like I can’t stop! Does anyone else have that? How do you stop it?

I haven’t posted on here in a few days because I was feeling better but the past two days I’ve climbed my way back down the rabbit hole it seems. There’s this guy that I’m interested in and he seems to be interested in me. He keeps calling me pretty and how he’d like to meet me (he’s friends with my friends but I haven’t met him properly yet lmao) But I keep getting thoughts like “you’re not interested, you like women” and so on. I was feeling giddy about the whole thing up until two days ago where everything just seemed to shut off like my attraction, excitement and so on. I can’t believe I’m going through this again and I’m really trying to accept the thoughts but it’s so debilitating as I really want a bf but my brain keeps passing through thoughts that I do not want at all. Does anyone relate? Or have any coping strategies to help?

First off - I’m sorry, I post here a lot. My thoughts are going to be scattered because I have the adhd/ocd/executive dysfunction wombo combo. Im so embarrassed I am THIS neurodivergent. I swear my brain couldn’t pick one struggle and settle with it. I’m not making these diagnoses quirky personality traits by any means, in fact, in this post im venting about how exhausting and embarassed I am living with a brain like this on the daily. I need to hear someone’s advice please. I love hearing everyone’s advice on posts because it’s so useful, and brings me back down to reality. Everyone on here gives advice so tastefully in a way where it doesn’t feed into the self reassurance compulsion, but it’s also been thorough and constructive enough where it’s reminded me to ground myself in a healthy way. I love seeing others helping others, it soothes me. This community has been so kind, and I’m so happy I found it. I wish I could ask more, but I have so many questions I think it’d drive everyone here crazy lol. I am doing erp therapy now, and it’s been teaching me so many amazing techniques. I’ve been making progress. However, I sometimes have my moments of vunerablity. I’ve been experiencing this especially now more than ever because I am going through a breakup. He did it through text after nearly 9 months together. I’d do anything for him and love him through anything, and he broke my heart when I least expected it. I’d make his bed for him multiple times, but I haven’t done that for myself in years. I’d sit with him for hours to watch and do anything he likes, but he’d never do the same and I’d never do the same for me. I’m also at fault because I was too scared to speak up so I let a lot of disrespect slide. Why did my ocd do that? Why does ocd make me people please even when I don’t want to? Why does OCD make me care so much about things that will never effect me (like wanting validation from a random person on the street and hoping they’ll think I’m pretty enough to look at), but then when it comes to my future or positive wellbeing (like focusing on college/doing well in classes/personal hygiene/health), forces me to not care/neglect myself and those needs? I don’t understand it. Ocd makes me think everything’s a setup or a trap. I can never believe that I am fine right where I want to be. Why am I so hard on myself? Why do I even think this much? I care and feel so deeply but it becomes unhealthy so fast because ocd makes me fixate and I stay there for a while. For some reason I let this breakup define my self worth. I let it topple into the ocd fear that I will never make it in life - that I won’t be successful, I’ll never get the career I want, the love I want, or the life I want. My OCD’s version of “logic” isn’t even logical. Yes, I understand how the breakup means feelings of low self worth which will then topple into feeling bad about other things. But why has my brain been wired to think this way? Why does it seem so easy for everyone else to function normally with life but not me? Honestly this is the first time in my life where I’m dedicated to focusing on myself and learning more about myself instead of others in my life and it’s a very odd and bizarre feeling. I’m excited of course, but I’m also scared. My ocd makes me ruminate like “what if I will never make the most of this life I’ve been given”, “what if I truly have no worth and the most I will ever be in other people’s lives is a background character”, “why do I care if I’m a background character or not? I should feel guilty and ignorant for assuming everyone will automatically like me”, “are people lying to me when they call me pretty, smart or kind?”, “I need to look and sound perfect in both pictures, videos and in real life. I will never be satisfied for accepting who I am now”, and a bunch of other annoying questions. But sometimes it’s like I just can’t take the reality for what it is but at the same time, but I also acknowledge that I know this is ocd talking. This is so, so difficult. Do I make any sense with what I’m saying? Can anyone help?

Ok I need any and all advice 😭 please help. I’ve been with my boyfriend for over 2 years and feel deeply connected and happy and in love with him. My ex and I were first loves and on and off basically for 5 or so years until I met my current bf. During that time we both were toxic and back and forth and he did some things that were really hurtful. We never really had an “ending” or any actual closure to anything? I just kind of started talking to and liking my current boyfriend. I saw my ex a month ish ago at the bar and wasn’t very nice to him. I was like hyper aware of how I was behaving around him to make sure he didn’t get the wrong idea. I know he has had a really hard time moving on from me. Since then I feel like I have not been able to stop thinking about the past and am questioning a ton about my feelings. I do have ROCD, and I don’t know if this is solely because of that or a mix of that and the emotional loose ends? I don’t know. But I’m feeling such an urge to text him this whole paragraph I’ve drafted about closure, how I don’t even need him to respond, but I just need to get some things off my chest. I feel SO conflicted about sending it. I do not want to rekindle anything with him, but it’s just the principle of texting your ex that makes me feel like I am betraying my boyfriend now. Yet it feels like it’s weighing on me so much - and I’m like is ocd involved? I just don’t know if I should send the text or not. If anyone has been in similar situations or has any helpful advice I would really love and appreciate some because I feel so stuck.

Im a straight man and sometimes I make the mistake of compulsively getting on here. It’s gotten better but I slip sometimes. I feel like I’m alone in this and I even read on some OCD page that Women are more likely to suffer from this theme than Men. That just makes me feel like I’m in denial of some sort. I feel alone and feel like my intrusive thoughts are different. I know that’s what everyone who has ocd thinks, but I can’t help shake the feeling like what if I’m lying to myself or what if I have some underlying secret. I don’t want to be gay. I find I argue with myself in my head over and over and sometimes by repeating “I don’t want to be gay, I want to be straight” I’ll end up saying the opposite and that would scare me even though I know that It happened because I’m constantly fighting with OCD. Just feeling a bit down today. I had a sexual dream about an ex girlfriend and it felt great and I’m not scared by it. I find and want to be with Women romantically til forever.

I feel so bad asking for help about this but I’m becoming a very bad partner with how I’m currently responding to this. My bf and I are both very passionate artists, but he takes the cake for most passionate I’d say. He will talk about his projects nonstop for hours and days on end. His current piece he’s talked about for maybe two weeks, everyday, it’s all he talks about and the first thing he brings up in conversation. He rarely talks about anything else now. I don’t mind a passionate rant, but this is constant, and a lack of variety in conversation…I just struggle enjoying it. I have begun to struggling with listening and my brain tunes him out. I’ve always had this problem w long conversations, but now it’s very VERY difficult to fight and I feel very bad. He will often have to repeat himself. I feel like an awful person for feeling this way, and reading forums online I have discovered this is a sign I don’t love my partner, bc loving partners can listen to their SO talk for hours on end, right? I keep fixating on this and I feel like this is the start of the end…I don’t think I can grow to enjoy this.

Ok guys this is so embarassing. I absolutely hate this. But pretty much I’ve been going through a breakup and now I’m getting intrusive thoughts/memories about us being physically intimate and cringing about it. I’m not sure why I’m cringing because it’s a normal part of a relationship, and he’s the first person I’ve ever been intimate like that with. I guess I’m embarrassed. I don’t know what I looked like and I’m embarassed I didn’t look perfect and that’s apart of why he broke up with me. I don’t know why my brain is doing this. I hate this

So this past week I’ve needed to do something’s with group for my school. I have been hanging around more people who are not my boyfriend and now I’m scared I’m losing feelings for him and I am attracted to someone else. Is this normal I have researched and researched and it says it is but what if these thoughts are true? What if there is someone better for me than my boyfriend? Help me please has anyone else gone through this?

I've opened up recently to my boyfriend about my ocd itself: he knew I had it, just didnt rlly understanded it. Today, I was feeling really awful because of my incest ocd, and the toughts were awful, so I decided to open up. BAD IDEA! he said it was ok and stuff but he also said he did not understand: he is, fairly, disgusted. Plus, he knowns my relatives, which probably made him even more sick. Im so sad, he is now more disgusted by me, and I am too.

Now i have been a little upset, and i just came across a post that asked people, "What's one of those things that people refuse to accept out of morality, but you believe to be true?" One of the most liked answers was: "Killing criminals should be legal", another answer said: "Imagine a carnage of p... To be in a better world where children don't suffer" I mean, i'm not advocating for those criminals, and in some ways i agree that the world would be better off without them, but my mind keeps assuming i'm already one of them and they're talking about me. It's torture. I don't know what to do or think, It's just that there's no point in "accepting that it could or could not be the fear in my mind", because if it's true, it would mean the most horrible thing in the world. That is, for ROCD, for SOOCD, yeah, it's that irrational and fault logic by definition. There is no shame in being gay, heterosexual or not, loving your partner or not is not a matter of live and death, but POCD doubt IS, i mean... Not only does it feel important, IT IS important for me and i would believe that for everybody, because that's a matter of hurting other people or not, it's a matter of ruining someone's live or not. I can't practice ignoring my mind, saying "ok, maybe", BECAUSE IT'S AN EXTRAODINARILY HORRIBLE TOPIC.