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does anyone else struggle with both ocd and bipolar?

With the adding list of horrible real POCD events, plus the fear of my worst POCD fears ever coming true growing more and more possible by the day, I cant find hope right now... I wont ever harm or delete myself, but honestly, living right now is the worst hell I can ever have. A never ending purgatory of not knowing if my worst pocd fears will ever be realized, or just having to be forever uncertain... I genuinely cant find a reason to hope... nor a reason to live...

I haven’t been able to stop spiraling since yesterday. I was next to my boyfriend, and his arm looked a little chubbier than usual. It reminded me of a guy I had a crush/hyper-fixation idk my brain just simply doesn’t let him go bc it feels ‘fun’ to think about the dude, but he’s also become the theme of some intrusions w/my ROCD. While I was noticing the arm similarity, I kissed my bf’s arm. I’ve been replaying it nonstop because it feels like it mean something. Why did I do that? It felt like I was genuinely looking at this other guy’s arm, not my bf’s. It doesn’t feel like the affection in that moment was directed at my bf at all. I feel worried. In the moment I only felt a little concerned which makes this seem worse. I’m scared that the affection I showed my boyfriend in that moment was actually meant for someone else, subconsciously or similarly. I feel so disrespectful and disloyal Idk I need input please

After having a great few months and the most confidence in my life, an embarrassing situation and an ended situationship I got too attached to in August have led to a grueling 2 month journey of self-reflection. All of my defense and coping mechanisms stopped working. The feeling that I’ve never developed a true identity or enjoyed life the way others do was painful. I’ve learned that my intrusive thoughts and compulsive behavior I’ve exhibited over the years align with OCD (specifically with relationships and perfectionism). It was liberating to finally put a name to my situation, but rumination and excessive venting in my journaling have led to me constantly analyzing every conversation and all of my body mannerisms. I haven’t been able to get my mind off this situation for more than a minute in these two months. I’ve never felt more different from my peers, and I’ve gone from extremely social to fidgety and shy. How did you cope with the embarrassment and avoid comparing yourself to others? I am unable to form any routines or enjoy the things I used to enjoy because of these constant thoughts.

*VENT INCOMING* This is just not really related to OCD (or maybe it is idk?anyways). It's kinda personal so if you don't wanna read this, that's okay too. My parents are recently divorced and it wasn't amicable. My dad is an ass and a manipulative bully. and i hate him and love him at the same time. he tries to reach out from time to time but i usually ignore because even just thinking about him makes me angry and fills me with this nasty, hopeless type of feeling like im trapped. anyways, he reached out again through a message asking me how I was doing. and i actually brave enough to respond with a voice note. told him basically everything in as short a time as possible. that I have OCD & depression and im on meds. and that i have a job now. and all he said was thank you for the reply and he feels better now and that he hopes that im well too. and it annoyed me because even though i actually really brave in expressing myself, he just sort of made it about him. he didnt even say anything ; like he was shocked and sad to hear that i've been struggling. and im just like????? what more could i possibly do to make this man actually really give a damn about me at all???? like that's all he has to say to me???? Ugh.

For the last week, I have gotten little sleep. The first 3 or 4 days, I would lay on the couch shaking, having like full body jerks, exhausted but laying there with my eyes closed all night. Tossing and turning for hours and maybe slept a total of 30-60 minutes very broken up through the night. The last few days, I'll feel a bit better and try to go to sleep and wake up 45-60 minutes later or an hour and a half later it I'm lucky, before everything floods back. I get jerky and shaky, my stomach has a pit, I feel that dread, anger, anxiety, and I'll be tossing and turning again with bits where I fall asleep for 20-40 minutes maybe 2-4 times through the entire night and morning. It's driving me insane. It's scary that I can't sleep much and when I do, it feels like torture and I'll have nightmares for the little bits I do get.

I know you aren’t supposed to look into reassurance but does that mean you can’t offer advice to peoples struggling ? Therapy isn’t an option for some of us and I would love to hear some natural ways y’all use to help better yourself but nobody eve responds to my posts

Can someone, anyone please look at my post and help me. I don’t want to ask my parents for an ocd therapist because 1.i don’t even know if I have ocd 2. They are not going to believe me. Please click on my profile, go to posts and read my story all the way through, reply, at least like it so I don’t feel so desperately alone. I feel isolated in my suffering. I know it’s long. I’m sorry.

I saw a post from this app with the caption explaining what POCD is, and in it it said "people with ocd have no attraction towards children" but how am I supposed to know when false attraction is so prevelant for me?? It makes me feel like I'm really a p3do and I need to die

I have no idea what I want to do in my life. I never leave the house unless it’s therapy or something. I can’t drive and doubt I would ever be able to because I’m just that dumb. I’m 18, graduated this year, and have no goals at all. Nothing feels like it matters that much, I was numb during graduation, I didn’t laugh or smile, I just walked on stage and turned my tassel. Every day is blurring together, now that high school is over I have really no routine where I can connect with people. I sit at home and do dumb crafts and art, take care of my dog, play games. Sometimes I really feel like I’m dreaming while I’m still awake, absentminded and forgetting things that just happened. Some days I’m alright but then I really confront the fact that I am indeed no longer a child despite still feeling like one, I need to grow up and do things adults do. I want to do things other people my age do but I’m not like other people my age it seems. God all this useless self pity. Boo hoo. I’m just so so tired man. I don’t know what to do with my life at all. I’m not cut out for this and I’m so clueless.

Idk why but while I was doing erp my brain told me to look at her chest and I tried covering that part but I still looked… why did I do that? Anyone else have this happen? This has happened multiple times… (edited)

I see a lot of posts about this subtype and first want to say, it SUCKS. I've circled through a few subtypes and nothing deterred my life and ruined every day as much as R-OCD, so my heart goes out to anyone working through theirs. I hope you fight through ERP for your chance to heal <3 It's hard, but you're worth it! Beyond that, I want to share something that I feel often goes unstated but made a huge difference in my own recovery. Real quick, my story is: I was at 10 years in my relationship, 1.5 years engaged, 1 year away from a wedding, waking up feeling nauseous and disgusted every morning at the sight of my partner. I felt convinced that I faked the past 10 years of love and affection and that I wasted over a decade of my life and would never be happy whether I stayed or left, at this point. ^ That was before NOCD. This year, I’m 3 years past my last therapy session, 3 years married, and enjoy my husband and 1 year old son each and every day. The thing that really flipped a switch for me was when I expressed to my therapist that I felt one of my “intrusive thoughts” was valid enough to have a discussion with my partner about, and he responded, "It’s up to you if you think it’s worth discussing with your partner, but the important thing is that it's YOUR choice to discuss it, not OCD's." This changed how I viewed every criticizing thought about my partner. It actually helped me let more thoughts go because I realized I didn’t really care about his morning hair, his t-shirt collection, or his breathing pattern. And on the flip side, it helped me acknowledge when a thought was something I did care about and wanted to address in my relationship—of course, this involved taming my anxiety surrounding such matters, being open to my partner’s response, willing to trust his answer, and not bringing something up a million times. At that point, being together for 10 years had scarred us from rough patches aside from OCD, baggage we’d built up together, and lots of intertwined parts of our lives and selves that weren’t always intertwined in the best ways (i.e. losing yourself to your partner’s hobbies and things like that). What I’m saying is we had things to actually work on in our relationship. But OCD had been blurring the lines for so long between what actually mattered and what was just a fear. It was like OCD tried to distract me with miniscule annoyances (“why does his cheek twitch like that?”) and potential problems (“what if we get a divorce in another 10 years and then I wasted 20 years?”) as a way to protect me from facing the real, often more manageable problems in front of me. For example, I couldn’t control the way my partner breathed, but I COULD discuss how I wanted to start setting aside time to get back into my own hobbies. I couldn’t force my partner to be more outgoing, but I COULD express that it was important to me that we see friends more and ask if he was willing to help us work toward that goal. In giving myself the power to identify what truly mattered to me in the relationship and in my life, I was able to address such things (in a healthy, non-reassurance seeking way) and work toward a life free of OCD, plus full of things that mattered to me. So, for all those still working on R-OCD, remember that OCD thrives on unrealistic relationship ideals and over-the-top expectations. Despite what it wants you to believe, NO RELATIONSHIP IS PERFECT, so don’t fight for that. But also don’t forget that you can care about your relationship. You can want to improve it and build a better one, just make sure the improvements you’re seeking are 1) realistic and 2) things that really matter to YOU. Sure, a big part of this work is learning to not act on intrusive thoughts, but another aspect (at least for me) was gaining back self-awareness. Who am I apart from OCD? I, myself, am a human being with often big feelings who cares immensely about the people I love. I like to be thoughtful and intentional with my words and actions. I like to create and converse and dance and sew. And none of that is OCD, it’s just me. I am a whole person, and yes, with that comes fears and worries, and yes, sometimes, because I have OCD, those fears and worries get the better of me. But that does not define me. I am NOT my OCD, and neither are you.

I had a really hard week and I was taking to my mom to try and feel better. And one of the worst feelings is having my parents think i’m actual gay when it’s just these horrible thoughts i have instead. I was trying to explain it in a way that doesn’t make me sound crazy and I know my mom was trying to help but she said something about maybe I was just digging in my heels and it could be true and it just sent me into an orbit and I know I am straight but these thoughts just make me second guess myself all the time and then my mom said that tonight and I hung up the phone feeling so overwhelmed and guilty and now I think my parents think I am gay. I just don’t know how to navigate this part of it.

4.5 years ago my boyfriend and I finally became official- it was a time where my SO-OCD was bad but i was determined to get over it so I kept fighting for our relationship. A month after this, i went to a party where I found someone attractive which was shocking at the time as I rarely found men attractive during my SO OCD, I don’t think i was outwardly flirtatious but I did speak to him during the evening and he asked for my instagram at one point and I gave it. I remember the morning after I thought he would message and I would have to make sure to say I had a boyfriend incase he got the wrong idea but he never did so it was fine. I admitted this to my boyfriend as I have had these thought for years but they come with different intensities- now 4.5 years later the memory is hazy ‘what if we slept together’ I was a virgin at the time so i doubt i would forget that as I wasn’t that drunk. ‘What if we kissed’ - again I really don’t think i would do that BUT WHAT IF?! We’re looking to take that next step soon in our relationship but how can I move on without knowing for sure? Anyone else going through/gone through something similar?

So since I was kid, I haven't really thought about being atracted to someone else then boys. I was soo into them. I used to dream about them(when I grew older, I had even intimate dreams), was nenrvous around them, had butterflies in my stomach etc. I have never ever thought about being with girl, it felt weird for me. The first maybe OCD I remember, was at 7-8, because I was scared of dead. I coulnd't sleep and had panic attacks, but sibce that all of it was okay. At maybe 10-12 I had HOCD(or I think it is) for the first time, because my mom kept asking me if I like boys and that made me nervous. The first time I had like real HOCD(i hope it is) was, when I was 16. I remember I watched some fireshow and there was a girl. And I watched her closely and suddenly I got this thought "Am I lesbian". I got out of it maybe after half of the year, because I didn't know anything about HOCD at that time. This year it started again out of nowhere. I even remember that the day it started I was dreaming about boys. This time it was horrible. I didn't sleep well, always getting up, couldn't eat, think properly, do anything. I found out it could be HOCD and I was happy again for maybe 4 days. Then it came back with thoughts like I am not straight and I dont have HOCD etc. Right now I don't know who I am. The things thaht really triggers me are past memories. I found out how to "pleasure" myself early and it didn't really matter what video was I watching. So of course I watched not porn, but just something that was avaible on youtube and instagram. I also remember I used to watch like gacha things about it(I was weird) and it scares me. I once or twice thought about kissing girl during it, but didn't really want to do it irl at that time. I am so sorry that it's too long, but I just want to get it out of me. I would appreciate some comments or advices..

Hi all, I’ve been on the tail end of an extremely difficult bout of rocd for several months now, and though I’ve been improving in my response to ocd thoughts, and generally feeling better than I did at the beginning, I think the ocd continues to fueled by the fear that I have that I can’t go back to how I used to be, and I’ll never feel truly happy again. These ideas then seem to lead to depressive episodes. It’s hard to tell if it’s another obsession or not, but I find myself constantly thinking about/analyzing the way I’m feeling and I can’t really figure it out (I know, sounds familiar). Has anyone had something similar and what has helped you?

Quick explanation: I get stuck in mental checking and ruminatiom for hours, and it's to the point where I feel nonconcordant arousal to intrusive thoughts. It feels ridiculously real and I'm horrified. My brain has learned that normal, desirable thoughts get replaced with intrusive ones (causing anticipatory anxiety), and once those appear, it forces checking, which leads to arousal, which leads to rumination and feeling like "oh my god, I may want these taboo thoughts, what the hell" even if I know I've never been attracted to such things. It really feels like there's a real issue, it feels so disturbing, and I feel like I'm not the same person anymore. I feel like there's no way this is only OCD even though I rationally know it is. I also kinda feel like I may be reassurance-seeking, but how am I supposed to not do that if it feels as real as it does I don't expect reassurance, in fact don't give me any, I just want to know what's going on or why. I just want some sort of help, support, anything

Hello! I've been trying to help out people earlier today, which I love to do. But damn, I'm feeling the flare-up super bad today. The thoughts, the sensations (mainly groinals and somatic; nausea and throat tightness, the urges, and feelings were non-stop today. And I probably reinforced that through compulsions of checking, testing, and reading forums. It really felt like I was back at square one ever since September started. I had a really bad and short episode of health OCD, which exposed me to my triggers. Now it's come back SO-OCD and ROCD have come back to bite me harder plus the pressure of taking the nursing board exams this November. It all just feels too overwhelming. I kept getting thoughts like "What if I'm lying, What if I acted a certain way, which where other people might think you're another orientation, What if I'm using OCD as an excuse, Why did I dream about this, Why did my body react like this, why did you move like this, maybe you don't love your gf" it's just all what ifs, the whys, the doubts and it became too much today that I actually broke down. Prior to these themes, I really was happy, I just wanted to live life with my gf because she brought color to my world and she made me genuinely happy. For once, I was really happy. But then these themes came and ruined a lot of things. I still want to live life with her, to be able to see her smile every day. I just love my girlfriend so much, and it hurts me just thinking about not being with her. I hate this disorder so much, and how much it took things away from me ever since I was little. The doubts, the distress, the trauma this caused, I grieve for my past self. I find myself constantly breaking down, and it still hurts that I'm robbed of my identity, my life, my love for my partner. I know these are just intrusions, manifestations that feel so strong. I know I can still do the things I want together with my girlfriend. But damn, I just wish I could catch a break and enjoy the things and people I love. Sorry, I had to let it all out.

are not random burdens; they are mirrors reflecting the meaning you attach to your thoughts. You suffer because the meanings you create are rigid and absolute, dividing your inner world into light and shadow, saint and sinner, worthy and unworthy. This split produces a double-mindedness, a divided psyche struggling to reconcile its opposites. Imagine your thoughts as figures that rise from the depths of the unconscious, much like waves emerging from the sea. They are not moral or immoral in themselves; they simply are. Yet when they reach the shore of consciousness, you label them good, evil, holy, or profane, and in that act of naming, you give them life. The moment you judge the thought, it gains substance, and what was once a passing wave becomes a tidal force crashing upon your inner shore. Consider the person with OCD who calls themselves a bad person for an intrusive thought. That judgment, born of fear and moral expectation, gives the thought weight and reality. It becomes a living symbol of guilt. But pause for a moment and ask yourself, can anyone prove their goodness? Who among us stands pure when the full contents of the unconscious are brought to light? If all humanity examined itself as the scrupulous mind does, we would all drown in despair. For the obsessive, this process happens instinctively. The psyche, in its fear of chaos, clings to moral order, even if that order imprisons it. Each thought is measured against an inner ideal that can never be met. The more one tries to be pure, the more the shadow resists, demanding recognition. This is why the thought feels so real: you have projected meaning onto it, fusing it with the moral energy of your inner archetypes. To free oneself, one must begin to deconstruct the foundation upon which such meanings rest. Morality, viewed psychologically, is not an eternal law written outside of man but a tapestry woven by the collective psyche, shaped by religion, culture, and fear of the unknown. It is a structure born of humanity’s longing for order amid chaos. To see morality as a human formation does not abolish right and wrong; it allows you to see that the moral code itself is symbolic, a language through which the soul seeks wholeness. When you loosen the grip of the meanings you assign to thoughts, you begin to see through the illusion of time and identity. The past becomes a myth retold by memory, and the future a projection of hope or fear. What remains real is the living moment and the conscious act of choice. Peace does not come by silencing the thoughts or purifying the mind, but by integrating what has been split apart, by seeing both light and shadow as belonging to one and the same Self.

(Sorry this isn’t ocd related)Does anyone else hate public speaking? It’s like one of my biggest fears. I’m like an 18-year-old with a fear of public speaking. I just get so much anxiety about it. I have the toughest time speaking in front of a big crowd. I have a major that kind of requires me to have a good speaking skills at some point cause I have to put myself out there and also market myself, but it’s so hard for me to the point where like I actually hate it. This week I have this project for my identity and it’s so hard for me to stop overthinking about it, I’m just so nervous to go up in front of 20 people and talk about what I think contributes to my identity. I just don’t know how to have a more positive outlook on it. I get told that I think very negatively about it. I just don’t know what how to think about it any other way, especially since it’s something that I really dislike doing. If you have any tips feel free to reply