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it feels like the fear i once knew it wasnt real now it is, it feels like i dont like him anymore and that i have changed. i am numb.

I need advice for intrusive thoughts. I used to feel like I could handle them. They weren’t nearly as bad as the things that related to my actual life. But now, I’m suffering. I haven’t had a sexual experience in over a year that didn’t involve constant intrusive thoughts. Most are somehow related to kids and I keep chasing off the thoughts but it’s so bad. I know you’re supposed to ignore them but I don’t know how I can just ignore that and continue what I’m doing. But they’re coming on stronger. I had one earlier I could not get rid of just as things finished so the thought came on strongly just before my orgasm hit and now I feel absolutely disgusting. I hated the thought and I know it’s not me and it was not enjoyable but it still feels like I was getting off to it. I feel sick. I’m so fucking tired of these thoughts. They’re in my every day life too and it’s all the time. I just want it to stop but ignoring it feels so wrong. What should I do?

Hello! I am trying out and looking to partake in therapy, but I literally don’t know what is good. So could use some personal perspectives. Thanks

I have to visit a place tomorrow which triggers my contamination ocdand false memory ocd really bad, can anyone help me in this panic situation. Tips needed!

Tw* abuse / coercion I recently broke up with an ex we were on and off five years. I woke up this morning with disturbing memories of things that he did. Previous of my ex I dated a guy in 9th grade who took advantage of me he asked me to perform an ( oral act) I didn’t know how to do. I agreed and he was rough with me eventually I told him to stop multiple times and eventually I was able to break myself free from him. Now my ex of 5 years we made out a lot but we hadn’t made it to a certain part. In public he would always groupe me and when we would go back to his car to make out ( I was 14 he was 17). As teenagers I didn’t have a problem about the making out we were both horny teens but my issue was this one night. I remember the exact date we made out but he was more aggressive then he usually was and he wanted to take things further I told him no I’m not ready for that. Every time I said no he would make out with me more aggressively to change my mind and at some point we both ended up in our underwear. He then kept begging me to basically ( continue with the rest of it ) I told him no multiple times until I eventually gave in and said yes because he wouldn’t budge to me saying no and every time I did he would make out with me more aggressively. Once I said yes the rest was history. I remember that night I layed in bed crying and my skin felt disgusting like I wanted to rip it off. I slept there with no blanket without changing my clothes because I felt shame. Now that I left him finally I still get disturbing memories of that night and the other times after that he would beg me to do acts and if I kept saying no he would grab me aggressively or groupe me aggressively. I have never told anyone in my life this story because idk how they would react to this. I feel like I was sexually coerced and abused and he will do it with another girl. And I blame myself for thinking he would ever change. Prior to me breaking up with him we would make out but even when I told him no he would start kissing me aggressively until I gave in and when I denied it all together he would act like a baby. I hold myself accountable for us making out but sometimes I didn’t want to and he would ignore that. Other times he would groupe me in public and make out with me then beg for head. Sometimes I wish I had someone to guide me and teach me about people like this because I am an older sister of sisters. I have a father that I am not close with and he’s narcissistic like my ex. I just hate the memories because they literally come at any part of the day. I feel like some of the things he did to me I forgot some of them and that’s why they come back.

Does anyone else find that their compulsions actually make their OCD/obsession worse? I don’t mean in the obvious way, like that it strengthens the OCD cycle, I mean in the way that when I perform my compulsions, they make my anxiety so much worse in the moment. My main compulsions are ruminating, arguing with my thoughts, and memory reviewing, but they all just end up giving me more intrusive thoughts/questions, making my anxiety more intense, and making me think my intrusive thoughts are real. I’ve always read that you perform compulsions because they bring you relief, and I suppose for me, they more make me feel like I’m working towards “solving the issue” or “answering my question”, so then is that my version of “relief”? In reality, it just makes my anxiety worse because the more I ruminate/memory review, the more jumbled together and foggy my thoughts/memories become, which in turn makes me think that if I ruminate/memory review just a little more, I’ll be able to “push through that fog” and find my answer, which then also causes me anxiety because my brain feels foggy and hence makes completing my compulsions/figuring out my obsession impossible (which I guess is good because I’m not supposed to complete my compulsions). All of this is making me believe that I don’t have OCD and that my intrusive thoughts are true and that’s why I can’t shake them and that’s why I feel the need to figure them out and why I feel so foggy… Or is this just meta OCD playing it’s devious tricks on me? Has anyone else experienced this or is this not OCD and I should be concerned that my obsession is true?

hello everybody! 🔞 last saturday i did something i shouldn't have done, and i even posted about it here, but no one responded to my post (it's okay, i completely understand). to inform you, since i deleted the post: i consumed erotic literature where two 14 year old children had a relationship (☠️), on wattpad. and i consumed this theme to see if i was really attracted to it..i think. i'm unsure about it, but i know i didn't feel anything consuming it. i was feeling extremely anxious and felt extremely bad the next day, and i only got better when i talked to my girlfriend and an online friend. i'm still feeling bad, i know i shouldn't have done it and whenever i'm feeling genuinely good, it comes back to haunt me.. i'm worried because i'm not feeling enough guilt or remorse, idk.. i feel bad and i regret it, and i can't stand going through this problem anymore.. i was in therapy a few months ago, but i stopped for financial reasons and my psychologist doesn't see me virtually anymore. it's been difficult.. just a vent.

Hi! I’m new to the NOCD community, but I’ve been dealing with OCD since I was 12. I’m almost 29 now, and my biggest issue is health anxiety. It’s gotten to the point where getting work done is nearly impossible because i can’t stop spiraling. I’m lucky that i work remotely, but also makes it easier to be in my own head… Asking for advice - how do you all deal with the intense anxiety and are able to make it through a 9-5 work day? Any suggestions on how I can actually be productive? Thank you!

So, this may or may not be OCD, but I have been overthinking about this for a while. Also, it does not help that my friends and family say I should try and date my friend. I’m a 24 year old guy and my birthday was yesterday, and for my birthday, my good female friend brought me a PS5. She works at a hospital, and she and her friends always give each big gifts, plus she makes a good amount of money (like she pays twice as much as she should on her car note just so she can pay it off faster) so I’m sure she didn’t have to try and save up for it. I was hesitant to tell my friends about it because they were going to assume that she might like me, and I have been overthinking about that before a few times myself. However, she told me about two situationships she was in and asked for advice about one of the guys, so I didn’t think she liked me and she calls me her twin. I eventually did tell my friends in some family members and of course they asked if I thought she liked me. When I respond that I don’t think she does, they tell me that a PS5 is a really big gift like I don’t know that a PS5 is a big gift. They also say that friends normally don’t buy each other big gifts unless they like each other or someone likes the other one. This of course sparked anxiety, and I am now currently overthinking about it right now. Thinking about past interactions such as one time she invited me to go bowling and I thought our coworkers were coming as well because we all went out to go bowling one time but she was just inviting me alone, and I turned it down because I I was afraid it was gonna be a date (she straight up, said she was asking me out). There was one time we’re hanging out in my car past midnight and I kept thinking that I should probably cut this short. Also, this is making me question if I should like her. Maybe, there’s some false attraction there. I’ve been getting the thought that I should like her and I should take her out however it’s never me actually wanting to do it. I don’t know. I don’t want this to get too long but what are you guys think? I’m gonna go talk to my therapist about it on Friday.

Ever since POCD hit, I've come to a point where I've gotten desensitized on what's right and wrong. I think fiction and porn hasn't helped either. The only thing I worry about now is if I'm attracted to someone below 18 or view sexual content of someone below 18. And I think perhaps this has made me numb to situations that are wrong, even in cases for myself. In the past week, I've seen two posts about people just turning 18 and relationships/sexualization of them. The first post was someone on Twitter talking about this person being a predator. It was a screenshot of a Tiktok where a woman who is 23 said the kid she used to babysit at 13 just turned 18 and if she should ask her out. And to be honest, I felt nothing. I didn't regard it as wrong. My thought was "well, they're both adults now so whatever." The next post I saw today, and I feel like this was life trying to tell me something. I'm 18 and just turned 18 a few months ago. At 17 I realized I was become desensitized and justifying morally wrong things as a teen from porn and stuff, and POCD hit so I decided I wasn't going to be attracted to minors or sexualize them even if we're the same age. But I was thinking about the morality of stuff, like people turning 18 and being an adult and everything. And I was just kind of like, well as long as someone is 18 it doesn't matter and it's okay right? Well, today a KPOP Idol, Han Yujin, literally just turned 18. I was checking the Enhypen group out and the members ages now. Specifically Sunoo and Sunghoon because I had crushes on them but I did the rest of the members too. I did know Han Yujin was 17 before, but I checked his age and it said he was 18. And my first thought was, "oh, it's okay to like him now!" And then I saw he literally just turned 18 today. It made me feel weird, but I was thinking, well he's 18. He's an adult. So it's fine, right? Well, I opened Twitter and a Twitter post called for someone to report an account. I saw that the account in question had posted on Han Yujin's birthday. The post was "Han Yujin is 18 now. It's okay to sexualize him!" Or something along those lines. Something I myself had JUST thought about. The post had 24k likes and a few comments, with people saying it was gross, disgusting, predatory, etc. Apparently the person who made the post about Yujin was 18 though, maybe even only a few months older than Han Yujin. But no one cared and said it was disgusting and predatory/pedo either way. And now I'm sitting here, thinking about myself and my own morality. My morals seem to stop at someone being 18 and that's that. But that doesn't seem very moral, does it? Especially with the posts I saw and what just happened. I have this mindset and I'll still have it when I'm older and basically be a groomer and a pedophile. Everyone else seems to see and understand that dating someone or sexualizing them the moment they turn 18 is grooming, pedophilic, weird, gross, etc. but I don't have the same view and see it as okay. There are many more situations similar to this too. Where I've justified real relationships and fictional ones where someone knew someone as a minor, kid, and even in cases where they raised them. My argument every time is "nothing happened before 18, and they're an adult now." For fiction, I justify it so I can enjoy the fictional content, relationship, and sexual content of them. It just seems like I have a predatory and pedophilic mindset, and I don't think it will change with age.

Hi all, As of Monday, I received the diagnosis for Pure OCD during an ADHD evaluation. It came as a bit of a shock, despite knowing my grandpa had OCD (according to my parents and extended family, he passed away before I was born). I'm just a little lost on where to go from here. I'm trying to find a therapist who does both OCD and ADHD, but it's surprisingly hard. Do people typically have different therapists for their different needs? I've mentioned it to close friends and family, and when I've tried to discuss what I'm feeling, they said they do it too to a certain extent which is a little invalidating. Anyway, sorry for the ramble. Would anyone be able to give some advice/supportive words for a newly diagnosed college student? Thanks :)

Any therapists able to help with my situation?

I wouldn't call myself an OCD conqueror, because do you ever truly conquer it? I think I've become more of having a PH.D. in OCD! Just like a PH.D student, I've gone through years of turmoil and successes, each granting me more and more understanding of what OCD looks like to me. The future is always unknown just like a student leaving school, but I'm going to try and take the tools with me when those scary moments happen again. Nothing is permanent, everything flows, and here's to whatever is coming in my future. Cheers to trying to live a happy life!

Hi again :c I’ve been having terrible thoughts of hurting my loved ones I’ve stopped watching horror movies which is my favorite genre and can’t even watch or read anything related to violence even if it’s just a video or movie talking about it, I get triggered so fast I really miss feeling that relief with my mom I miss my mom so much and I just don’t know what to do anymore I almost committed last weekend from how scared I was and Ik your thinking will you try again? idk I’m not sure, one day I might say “no” next I’ll plan it out, but truth be told I don’t want to die I want to live a normal life, I want to stay with my mom and my family, I love my family and my grandma and my older brother..I’m so sick of feeling this feeling, I’m tired of arguing with my brain, I want to be with my mom and spend time with her like I used to, but I can’t stand that thought of hurting them it makes me shake and I feel this pain in my chest, my OCD has been trying to convince me all those crime docs and stuff I’m into turned me this way but that’s impossible since I’ve never thought like this before I’m just tired that’s all Idek know what I’m looking for saying this..prolly just to vent or to know if this will ever go away..

I have this old friend I became friends with online at like 15-16 years old and they are a bit younger than me. I’m 18 and having a younger friend just triggers the pocd I have and I kind of don’t want to be friends with him anymore unless he’s 17. I don’t know if I should talk to him about this because I don’t want to ghost him as a friend cause I been through that shit. I don’t know what to do. We been friends for a long time.

I had this thought of “what if” I touched my son inappropriately last night while I was sleeping and I don’t remember . I’ve been dealing with Pocd and I never thought something like this before. A little back ground my son is 5, nonverbal and sleeps next to me every night. For me, I am not much of a deep sleeper. I am somewhat of a light sleeper. So I’m up at every little movement he makes or unusual sound. Plus thinking about it if I was too say touch him I wouldn’t know how. I hate that now I have to think about him sleeping separately from me because I would love to cuddle with him and he’s the sweetest boy ever and me thinking I did that is soul crushing. Does this fall within intrusive thought or false memory? Has someone been though this if so I could use some help.

I look back at various past events in my life where I said or did things that I feel really guilty, disgusted, and ashamed about. I replay them in my head for hours. I feel anxious about crossing paths with people that I've hurt or upset in the past or who perceive me badly, to the point that I will avoid going out in public as much as possible. I go out for work, errands, appointments, and occasionally to eat (even though those all give me a lot of anxiety), but I avoid community events where people might recognize me and I tend to isolate myself. The only people I see regularly are my boyfriend, my parents, and my coworkers. I live in a small community and I'm worried about people confronting me publicly and proving what a bad person I must be.

I don’t have an official OCD diagnosis, but I will be asking my doctor tomorrow if I can get referred to a psychiatrist to get an official diagnosis. The way I came to the conclusion that what I’m dealing with is OCD is because a month ago I just started having the most horrible disturbing intrusive thoughts that go against all my values and beliefs and attacking the stuff/people I care about the most. Mind you, I have never had anything like this happen in my life. I feel that I have always been someone with a peaceful mind and one of the worst intrusive thoughts I can ever remember having before this happened, was “what happens if I cut my finger right now” while I was cutting fruit. That’s pretty much it. After this whole horrible intrusive thought spiral started happening I was so scared because I have never had such awful intrusive thoughts like this that were the complete opposite of me, it just quite literally started out of NOWHERE, and that’s what was so scary and terrifying. It was like my whole life got turned upside down because of this and I’ve been mainly isolating in my room, feeling so much anxiety and dread and guilt/shame. I get four of the same thoughts and one intrusive image repeating over and over again even if I would not try to think about them, and it caused me so much distress and anxiety that I would be so anxious and cry everyday just thinking how I could ever possibly think such horrible intrusive thoughts like that. It’s caused me insomnia which I’ve never dealt with before and I went three days in a row without being able to sleep no matter how hard I tried (even while taking melatonin). Other days I struggle so much to fall asleep due to the intrusive thoughts being much more present at nighttime, and even when taking melatonin that doesn’t do anything because of my mind being so active and having so much anxiety. Is this what they call an OCD flare up? After constantly looking up all the symptoms of ocd (the more and lesser known ones alike), I noticed there were some symptoms of it that I displayed in childhood when the ocd could’ve been more dormant or mild you could say (skin picking), because once again I have never had such horrible intrusive thoughts like this out of nowhere and constantly repeating in my mind that felt like they were out of my control. I noticed that these intrusive thoughts started on the second day of my menstruation when I was in a lot of pain and was feeling very emotional/stressed. One of the things I’ve heard a lot is that during the menstruation cycle is when ocd flares can happen more often due to the increase in hormones during that time, and I wonder if that’s what happened to me? I’m also overall such a big over thinker and have been for as long as I can remember. I also have had anxiety and depression since middle school as well. Any insight would be very much appreciated 😭

any help is really welcomed and appreciated. I tend to hyper fixate on men outside of my relationship, they feel like crushes but I’m like 60% sure they’re meaningless dopamine rushes that happen with people I find interesting, friendship worthy, or physically appealing in some way. My hyperfixation recently shifted to a supervisor, not even an hour after meeting him :/ that’s fine, whatever, I can’t do much about it. I daydream and create like this drama romance in my head. Like good content for a movie or a book. Comparing it to that makes me feel less disloyal, and more understanding of why this might happen (I am a hopeless romantic, I adore stories). I’m home now and I was thinking of wearing a cuter shirt for work tomorrow because I went in an oversized hoodie today. This is a thought I had this morning before even meeting this man btw. But then my brain went to oh yeah I want to look attractive for this hyper fixation. It felt exciting to think that. I felt excited. Then the huge wave of dread hit me. I wanted to look good for another man? For a specific person? I can’t stop panicking I don’t know if this is normal, disloyal, a distortion, or what it is. I’m so confused. I felt happy when I got that thought. Maybe it was a dopamine hit or something I’m Colombian and we’re really big on looking our best 99.9% of the time. Even if it’s just to go to the gas station. I just feel so scared that I felt excitement over this one person. It’s extremely different for my boyfriend’s culture. Almost the opposite. I feel so disloyal and unworthy of my boyfriend. I doubt this was intrusive, it genuinely felt like me and I’ve had thoughts like that in the past. I just feel like a huge monster right now Please help :(

TMI!! Hey everyone, I was coming on here to ask if anyone has experienced this before! Im in an amazing relationship with my boyfriend so in this post I wanted to ask this question because this is how it felt to me! I remembered earlier today I was watching this movie, etc. and there was this spicy scene in it (iykyk) and it got me feeling some sort of way. This has happened before especially if I’ve played a game or watched a show with some content like this. I felt really in the mood and started to imagine my boyfriend and I doing those things together and I sort of decided to (yanno, the m word) hopefully everyone understands because I just don’t like saying the word😭, but I found that every time I do that, that’s when my ocd is at its worst/peak. Every time my mind has tried to convince me I’ve cheated, when I self pleasure. I get in the mood if I think of my boyfriend and I doing those things I see in movies, shows etc, and that’s when I’ll do it, But literally I realized after I’ve done that at times my ocd is at its worst because my mind will attack me constantly asking “Is this cheating? Does this make me a horrible girlfriend?” If I self pleasure, I also want to add that I mentioned it to my boyfriend at one time and he told me it wasn’t at all and that everything is okay, but constantly I feel guilty for it and extremely horrible. Just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this?