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Having a groinal on the inside and outside of my leg how awesome 🙄🤨 no advice needed … it’s just annoying like a darn mosquito

I’ve been dealing with my OCD that’s been non stop for a year. From the moment I wake up to going to sleep I have this urge to push air out of my nose nonstop. Sometimes it’s accompanied with weird breathing/deep breathes. It happens like every minute. It’s embarrassing when people notice. I feel like it’ll never go away

Two days ago, my neighbor let me know her child had tested positive for flu. Since our kids are friends, she told me to keep an eye on mine. It disturbed my peace a bit, but I pushed thru as best I could. (I say that then think back over my movements the past couple of days and it's honestly kicked up the compulsions.) Today, she woke up with a fever and now the obsessions have taken over my thoughts. I'm so worried about getting the fever. Usually it would be because I'm scared to take medicine, but this time it's something different entirely, which has me more freaked. My nose has been bleeding off and on for a month now and it just started happening again a few days ago. From prior research, it says you can't take Tylenol or ibuprofen with a nose bleed because it thins the blood. So I'm freaking out about how I'll treat my fever IF I do get one. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Such thought loops bring on such feelings of inadequacy. How can I help my child heal when I can't even help myself? Or how can I care for her as best as I can when I'm so afraid of catching it? Also, I rely on my husband to talk me down and help me emotionally when these situations arise and it makes me feel incredibly weak. He didn't marry this person. I was confident and didn't know the meaning of anxiety when we got together 16 years ago. But since the birth of our youngest daughter, fear, anxiety, and OCD has been my new norm. I feel like a failure for needing so much reassurance and for constantly feeling like I can't do this on my own. Sometimes it makes me obsessed that he's going to give up on me because I'm not worth the trouble and other times it makes me want to give up so I stop relying so much on him. My child has a little cold and for the most part, is totally fine, but still I'm obsessed about this being something I'm going to catch that ultimately is going to kill me. all because of a stupid little nose bleed and fear of fever.

strange signs of ocd that i initially didn’t realise were ocd related: - ensuring all synonyms for a word had to be included and spoken/considered. also weighing out which synonym would be ‘just right’ to integrate in the context. - being hyper aware of everyone’s emotions, the atmosphere and my surroundings. - randomly ruminating about an event that happened years ago and convincing yourself you said/did something bad and potentially apologising for it years later. - never saying swear words or cancellable things out loud or on camera when younger. i feared these videos would resurface and i would lose my job or if i became famous id be canceled. - being extremely superstitious (e.g. thought i would attract the bad energy that stemmed from seeing certain ‘evil’ numbers & words, watching manifestation videos that promote bad luck, going near cemeteries, not touching wood or stepping on the cracks etc.) - checking power outlets several times to ensure you have turned them off to ensure the house doesn’t burn down. - checking emails several times before sending to ensure you haven’t attached some ‘inappropriate content’ before sending it off. - checking alarms that you have turned alarms on several times and ensuring there loud enough to guarantee you will not sleep through them. - feeling heightened urges to confess every little thing otherwise i’ll attract bad karma. if i don’t confess or do something i deem as ‘bad’ i perceive any tiny inconvenience in my day as bad karma as a result of my actions. - taking tiny things in my day or that i see on social media as admonitions and signs from the universe that i need to make immediate changes/decisions in my life. - avoiding situations/people/things that trigger your OCD. - paranoia 24/7 (e.g. walking in the middle of the street so no one can pop up from behind a car and kidnap you or stressing about someone secretly living under your bed/or in air vent). - being hyper aware of your bodily sensations (e.g. what if i can’t breathe, trying to breathe in the ‘right’ way). - worried about thinking or saying things incase you ‘manifest’ them. - trying to think the ‘right’ thoughts. shaking them out of my head if you personally categorise them as ‘bad’. - constantly seeking reassurance that your not a ‘bad person’ from others. - having to rewrite a sentence 1000x to make sure it sounds ‘just right’. - latching on to safe/lucky numbers. - and many more…. (share yours down below!!) i’m just trying to help others feel less alone. i hope this brings peace to some of your minds.

6 months ago I had a severe panic attack and it’s changed my life. Scared of 99% of foods, can’t take meds out of fear, been hospitalized a few times cause of blood sugar drops and other health scares due to poor eating. I’m constantly scanning my body finding any little thing that’s uncomfortable and then fixate and panic over the smallest things. Whether be a smell I’m unfamiliar with, a weird sensation in my arm literally anything freaks me out….. who has had success with exposure or has dealt with similar issues. I feel like I’m unintentionally slowly killing myself but I’m too scared for meds and therapy doesn’t seem to make much of a dent right now. Please share some success stories I need hope.

I’ve been dealing with ocd for years when it first happened it tore me apart I completely convinced myself I was the worst person on earth and I could not continue after months my ocd jumped to different themes and each one usually distracted me from another. Fast forward I recently went through another bad episode constantly focusing on the past and how I’m a horrible disgusting person comparing my story to everything I could and coming to the conclusion mines the worst and therefore I’m X or Y then it went into somatic/idk if I actually have this incurable condition that terrifies me but now it’s both it’s the uncomfortable sensations and going back on certain memories that I can’t tell if are real/don’t want to be real/ don’t make complete sense but feel real and now I can’t get out of the idea that even ifs not real I’m always gonna think it might be idk it’s a lot I just know I don’t want to be these things and never will ever want to be. I want to confess again so bad but my bf is not understanding at all like these “memories” or thoughts genuinely traumatized me when I remembered them.

So I was waking to the grocery store and felt a prickling pain in my chest, like under my collarbone and thought something was irritating it. It happened twice. A prickly feeling like if the plastic part of a tag is like moving around it. Nothing was there. The third time it happened I was panicking. My heart rate went to 140-160 and I had to call the ambulance. They came and took me to the hospital. They checked my blood and found no heart attack or blood clots. They also did an EKG. I was sent home to see my primary doc and cardiologist. My health anxiety is THROUGH THE ROOF. I was wondering if anyone else experienced these strange prickly feelings on their chest. It happens when I walk but not while resting usually (or if it does it lasts for only a few seconds)

Alot happened since christmas and i feel like i not doing well right now. I cant deal with stress and anxiety/panic, i dont know how to respond to those emotions and im being hard on myself again. It makes me angry when i hear "its normal to feel that, accept it" cause in a way i know what it means but i need help about what to do with it cause sitting and accepting what i feel makes me just stay in this dark hole. If i get a panic about something, i start to react to that and when i want to change my reaction it triggers me cause i feel like im trying to change my emotions, but then what to do? Again just staying with how i feel and the reaction will feed it more and more, i know the basic saying that you should do nothing about it, but if you do nothing then you do the same thing you did before and never learn a new way... The reactions are so strong i cant control it and it adds more negative feelings like fear, and if i have to accept them too then i go nowhere... i just accept that i add more fear to my problem... it doesnt make any sense... im struggling with alot of stress and anxiety and worry with physical symptoms and i dont know how to react to them in a way that i wont feed them, or what to do with the negative reactions that comes automatically.

I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.

I'm currently living through a massive health scare with really scary symptoms. I am scared I might have an aneurysm due to my symptoms but despite that the doctor's don't think it's urgent. I have some test scheduled but I will have to wait weeks for some of them. I don't know how to get through this knowing I could die any moment. I live in constant terror ever since those symptoms started. I can't function. Can anyone here please help me with this??? I don't know what to do?

I’m stuck between wanting to try medication again for my ruminating or if I should not put anything in my body and only continue therapy. Health anxiety is completely new to me and has grown more and more severe over the span of about 5 months now, and it’s made me feel like I’m going to die at any moment and that my heart will give out on me. My mind has completely fixated on my heart and I’ve been to the cardiologist about 4 times within the 5 month period thinking that there is something wrong with me. My test results and MRI results came back fine, but I’m not completely convinced even still that it’s healthy and I second guess my cardiologists opinion and feel like there must be something else, and something was missed. It’s drastically changed my day to day life, as I feel it’ll end any day which terrifies me. I took Prozac in the past, only a few years ago, for generalized anxiety and had no reactions to it, but that was before the health anxiety started, and now I feel like I am going to be the “unlucky” one who dies from it or goes into cardiac arrest even on only 20mg. It also plays into my whole fear of having bad luck or doing something “wrong” or something I’m not supposed to (can be as small as putting the wrong socks on in the morning) which will then lead to catastrophic and fatal consequences that will be my fault. All I want is to get better mentally, but I feel almost as if my thoughts telling me to not take the Prozac and that I’m going to die from it, are actually there to protect me and that I shouldn’t ignore them. I feel so conflicted and wanted to reach out to others who have been in a similar position.

Hi, I’m at my wits end almost! I’m a 27 y/o girl and having some major health anxiety recently due to some problems. I’ve had weird periods all my life, and about a year or two ago it culminated in me having some major anemia. I was constantly out of breath, and extremely thirsty, wanting ice like crazy. Eventually my vision got blurry so we went to the hospital. I was severely iron-deficient anemic and got a transfusion of two blood bags. They put me on a birth control that didn’t stop the bleeding entirely and made me feel like I was going nuts, so I took myself off of it. Fast forward, recently, as in this past November, I was on another period. I’m making some lifestyle changes right now due to an unsure fatty liver diagnosis (too scared to get into the MRI machine, too scared to take medicine to calm myself down), so I hadn’t been eating as much as I used to. I’m starting to get almost a little dizzy recalling this like it feels like I keep having happen, but I really feel like I should talk about it. But about 2-3 days into this period with heavy bleeding, I went to bed feeling off that night, then suddenly snapped awake about 7am feeling like something was VERY wrong. I fought with myself about it for a while, then got up to pee. Got very dizzy in the bathroom, so I pretty much ran back into my bedroom to wake up my boyfriend and said “I almost passed out in the bathroom.” He knows a few years ago I had been on a different birth control and had something similar-ish happen where I almost fainted in that bathroom after waking up middle of the night so he popped right up. I’ve only ever had a major panic attack once before in my life, and in hindsight it was really like that. But my vision got tunnelly, and my ears felt full, and I felt cold all over, and I started saying “oh god” a lot, and he walked me into our other bedroom to try and get me to calm down. I guess I saw myself in the mirror and saw how pale I was, and I remember slumping against him. I remember feeling SO tired, physically tired and cold, and I thought “oh my god, I’m probably dying. I’m probably bleeding out and dying, I’m probably so anemic.” I remember him calling out to his mom, too, to call the ambulance. So I got an ambulance ride to the hospital with warm fluids and I was shaking SO bad the whole time, only to stay in the ER for about 8hrs with a diagnosis of vasovagal syncope. Ever since I’ve had trouble sleeping. The very first few nights after that, I’d jolt awake when I started dozing off, and/or I’d kick so hard in my sleep. My boyfriend pulled LATE hours petting me to get me to sleep and would stay awake vigilant to comfort me again when I inevitably woke up. I’d also a lot of times doze off, then inhale REAL DEEPLY and loudly as if to remind myself I was breathing. Lots of focusing on my own breathing, on my heart beat. What’s worse is pretty immediately after the first 3 or so nights I was fine, then I had I suppose a moment where I felt cold enough in a weird enough place, and I freaked out just the same. I was so convinced I was going to pass out, which is apparently as bad as death for me right now. I’ve had a lot of talks and cries because I’ve always had death anxiety we called it, and feeling like I was dying so real then really messed with me. And after my relapse we’re also calling that, I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping again. Well, it’s January and im doing moderately better, but sometimes I jolt awake at night and my heart is POUNDING. I feel so wrong, like something is DEFINITELY WRONG. But sometimes im able to just get right back to sleep despite that, and I wake up and im fine. But it doesn’t help because the next night it’s the same song and dance where im scared to sleep because what if I don’t see tomorrow? And im so so focused on these intrusive thoughts on ‘gee, I wonder what it feels like to die!’ Or ‘wonder what it would feel like if my heart just stopped right now’. I used to google symptoms a lot, or look up Reddit threats to feel companionship about a feeling, but doing that was very triggering so I stopped cold turkey. Anyway, um I had a moment literally last night where I woke up heart pounding but I got right back to sleep, and here I am right now at 6:12am next to a sleeping boyfriend not tired because ‘my heart MIGHT be feeling funny’. Im doing a lot better during the day I think, but I have such deep depressing intrusive thoughts sometimes, and I feel like im miles away briefly. Any advice? I’ve been in therapy before for different issues like major anxiety and family problems, and it didn’t really help. In fact, I’ve had quite a lot of bad therapists. But this sounds more like PTSD as well as OCD? Or something. I don’t want to call it myself, just wondering if ANYONE out there is going through something similar. I know I’ve definitely got a history of some kind of OCD at least, because when I was a kid I used to have to do everything twice (like washing my hands a # of times, evenly, but divisible by 2 two times to come out to another even number, so 16 would have been fine but I used to overshoot it to like 42+ pumps of hand soap.) And that morphed into eating two of something for a long time, like making myself two sandwiches or ramen packets. But, anyway, yeah. Please, advice? Thoughts? I feel very alone and scared sometimes. TLDR; have weird periods, they gave me anemia, anemia gave me anxiety and I fainted with a hospital visit. Have frequent health obsession and PTSD-like symptoms but not sure. Please advice, thoughts, or help

I specifically have breathing. It always seems like no one posts recovery stories for this.

Hey guys! I am a recovered person from Harm OCD, but still dealing with tons of anxiety. I am really finding ways to feel understood, since around me I haven’t found anyone dealing with the stuff I do… From time to time, I get so much anxiety while I eat… Which makes it so hard for me to eat, because I get heavy symptoms such as a sense of a tight throat. It is sooo uncomfortable and it’s really making it so hard for me to eat, I am so worried :( I try to tell myself is just anxiety but that sensation just won’t go away ;( Help!!

I've never been diagnosed with OCD, but have thought for a long time that I do have it. I've tried to bring it up in therapy but have been shot down as "OCD tendencies". Luckily I'm with a new therapist and am planning to bring it up again. Especially after reading a lot of your posts, I'm really resonating with them. Especially my anxieties and obsessions with my health. God forbid I feel any weird pain or ache, I instantly think I'm dying. Sometimes I get a weird pain in my head and think it's a stroke or aneurysm. Ill go as far as the perform the stroke FAST test. This happens multiple times a day. I also have HUGE anxieties about death and my mortality. If I think about it too much, I get this deep cold pit in my stomach and spiral. Even talking about it causes me sooo much distress. I'm just worried I'll be dismissed or told I'm just self diagnosing because I related to a post online. But if any of this sounds accurate, please let me know. I'd love to be reassured of my obsessions rather than just dismissed as being anxious.

Hi , I have Sensorimotor Ocd and i dont know exactly what to do because it feels like everythings a trigger and i just want to be alone without it , Every day after school i want to watch tv , Play Video Games or just lay in my bed in peace after an exausting day but i cant stop thinking about my sensations and i basically have all of them Swallowing , Breathing , Saliva and Blinking. Every time i research it triggers something even more and im just wondering how to stop getting triggered.

Does anyone else struggle with OCD when it comes to breathing? I've had this for about two years now on and off and finally had enough and came on here to say this. When I try to explain this to other people, therapists, etc. they just don't get it, so maybe someone on here does. I literally cannot stop thinking about my breathing and when it is at its worst, the very act of breathing feels incredibly uncomfortable. It feels like the walls are closing in on me, I constantly feel like I'm having to catch my breath, and I constantly feel the urge to take a giant, "complete" breath and that is the only way I feel comfortable. It's usually manageable during the day, but at night when I try to go to sleep it's awful because when my brain has nothing else to focus on it reverts to the breathing. People tell me to just stop thinking about it but I literally cannot. Can anyone else relate or am I all alone on this one

I'm constantly worrying that I'm gonna take a bunch of medicine and overdose. I've had this theme for years and it's only gotten worse. My mom currently has all my medicine in her room because it's gotten so bad to the point where I don't feel comfortable around medicine at all because I'm scared I'm just gonna take all of them and die. I've always been a hypochondriac so whenever I have physical symptoms from my anxiety my ocd start to tell me that Im experiencing the symptoms because I took medicine. Whenever I swallow sometimes I convince myself that I'm swallowing a pill. Whenever my mom gives me my medicine she always tells me to grab a water bottle so now everytime I want some water just to drink it my ocd convinces me that I really just want to drink the water to take a whole bunch of medicine with it. At this point I don't know what to do I'm currently not seeing a therapist right now and I think that can be a reason why it's so bad as well. And it's been a little over a month since I started taking Zoloft and going off of Escitalopram. My ocd was bad with escitalopram as well but now it's accompanied by physical anxiety symptoms which causes me anxiety and in turn makes my ocd worse. I just need some advice.

I’m new to this page and have been experiencing some thoughts which I think can be associated with health anxiety or OCD I recently participated in sexual intercourse with someone and I can’t get the thought out of my head that I contracted an STD The one night stand was about 7 weeks ago and it was “protected” however, I can’t shake the thought that I have and STD/HIV I’ve tested 4 times since the encounter and they’ve all come back negative however every time you read something on the internet it says you may have tested too soon! Now I find myself wondering if I have bad results. Also, I find myself wondering if every physical aliment I feel is related to an std that hasn’t shown yet. Has anyone experienced anything similar?

Does anyone else’s ocd cause physical things? Like I pee a lot and idk if it’s a health thing or a physical thing. I can’t sleep if I have to use the bathroom and I go to the bathroom sooo many times before bed. Also I have to pop my knuckles if I can feel my bones if that makes sense. Like I can feel each area in my fingers that needs to be popped until I pop them.