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I was spiraling these months a lot. I’m actually in waiting list for a psychotherapist so I used so much ChatGPT asking about if I did something bad in the past etc. Obviously replies are often incorrect or ambiguous. Now I had a new obsessions “what if because what I ask to AI a police offer will show up in my house?” Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Hi all! :(˘•̥⧿•̥˘ ): I wanted to ask a question about backdoor spikes, since I don't believe I've ever experienced one knowingly so I'm not entirely sure how to go about handling things. I recently went through a life change (Saturday was very traumatic for me, for context), so I wasn't devoting as much time to my intrusive thoughts as I normally would wind up doing (I still had them, but I had a lot going on and just moved along). Today on Instagram I got a reel that would've caused a normal OCD loop of trigger → intrusive thought → anxiety → compulsion. Instead of having an immediate spike of anxiety like normal, I just kind of felt nothing and kept scrolling. I got anxious about the lack of an emotional response to the trigger, which then caused bodily anxiety responses that I latched onto. I started ruminating on it and I think I was trying to purposely trigger myself to respond how I normally would, which I know is a compulsion. Would this be a backdoor spike, since I initially handled it like the we aim to (with the intrusive thoughts just existing, not really responding, and moving on) and I'm fixating on my non-response? How are you supposed to handle backdoor spikes...? It's hard to not get anxious when you get so used to responding with distress and anxiety, even when I know the goal is to respond less. 😞

Hello, I am 19 years old. I’ve never been diagnosed with OCD (pure O to be exact) but I’m pretty sure I have it. When I was younger I would constantly cry with guilt and shame for having thoughts about my religion. I’d think to myself “Is God gay” or “Maybe I hate God” I’d ALWAYS have to confess these thoughts to my family members. I also had more weird quirks like having to repeat a line from a cartoon I was watching. Or I couldn’t stop obsessing over my eyes getting stuck for making a silly expression! I also remember being TERRIFIED of catching Brain-eating amoeba or getting a tumor! But now, I developed POCD with a dash of false memory. You see, about 2/3 years ago, me and my Mom went to Walmart. She had to go use the bathroom and as I was waiting for her outside I thought to myself “what if I harm a child while she was in the bathroom?” That day I tried to look for something to “check” to make sure that I DIDN’T do that. Like, if there was someone in the aisle, I could look back and think “Oh! There was someone there. I couldn’t have done that” or if I called my brother, I can look back and think “I had him on the phone! How could I have possibly done that” But I don’t remember him picking up the phone. So I sent him a text instead. I was looking for anything in that moment for reassurance. I do remember coming back home and later on brushing off the thought. I can’t remember EXACTLY what I thought to brush off the thought. Maybe I thought “They have cameras, so if I did anything they’d come for me right?” I brushed this off! But now, the memory came back to me, and I made this WHOLE child up. I’m not sure if this sounds racist, but I have an image of me sniffing behind a black child! I made up an outfit and even gave him a name! The images in my head don’t make sense. But they still frighten and scare me! I’m frustrated that I can’t recall the exact memories that day. As I said it was 2/3 years ago.. But why did this hit me now, and not then? I can be talking to my mom or whoever, and I have this voice in my head “if only they knew the terrible thing you’ve done” and I feel SICK like I don’t deserve happiness! I even gave my Etsy shop a break because I felt like I didn’t deserve to be making money. Also, by the way, all my celebrity crushes are 40+ year old men! WHY THE FCK IS MY BRAIN MAKING THIS UP AND IM SO SCARED IF THIS IS REAL 😩 I CANT afford therapy, and I DON’T want to share with my family because they’re not very educated on this. I know giving reassurance is not recommended, but someone please save me and give me advice. I was happy and fine. This came out of nowhere. My family is also going through something traumatic right now, and I need to be at my best so I can be there for them!

TW: Animals When I was younger , two situations make me feel so guilty and disgusted. I had harmed a gecko and two rats. This was 6+ years ago and for both of them, I cried and felt so guilty after situations. I hadn’t thought of events until just recently and it caused my OCD to spiral. I haven’t harmed an animal since and I love my pets but my mind races and gives me anxiety of “What if you do this to your cat?” “What if you did this to your dog?” And it’s been bothering me due to the online things of like “if you harm animals you turn into a killer” and it scares me, giving me anxiety when I see them walk into the room. What do I do??

TW: mention of my internal thoughts related to racism I am constantly stressed (no matter where I go, or who I'm talking to) about systemic oppression and problems in the world (namely racism, poverty, sexism, transphobia, climate change & environmental degredation) and how I can contribute to fix it. Its like a mental bug in my mind that won't stop saying "this is a problem you should be aware of and doing something about RIGHT NOW or else something terrible is going to happen and it will be all your fault." I dont like socializing very much anymore because this is always running through my mind, so when I engage in any sort of conflict or confrontation or anything outside of me doing something to help someone, I feel overwhelmed and sometimes break down emotionally. I feel like I can't do normal or fun things without getting distracted by and focusing on intrusive thoughts. This has been a significant problem since I was a teenager. It started with being worried about recycling properly or driving my car too much, or leaving the lights on. Now its gotten to "if i look at this Black person awkwardly, are they going to think I'm racist?" and then latching onto that thought and doing mental compulsions to figure out how I can avoid being racist. I am in fact White, if that was not obvious already lol. I feel like helping and engaging is more of a compulsion than something I actually love doing or want to do, instead it feels like something I HAVE to do. Im burned out constantly because in most of my relationships, Im just trying to figure out ways I can make peoples' libes better, I'm not actually being present or enjoying my time with them/engaging fully with an activity. I dont want to live in a state of constant burn out and obsessive thoughts. I want to tolerate being uncomfortable and allowing shit that's out of my control to just be, but there's lots of intrusive thoughts running through my mind telling me "you have to do something about this or else someone, somewhere will be harmed by you"

I’m 18, turning 19 in April on the 23rd. I’m so scared not to be a teenager anymore, 18 was already hard enough. Graduated May last year, I still live at home, but I am looking into college classes around here as well as public transportation specifically for people with disabilities like my OCD and autism. During high school I was honestly too depressed to even think about anything but the past and present. I couldn’t fathom the future. But now I am here. I cried during graduation, not happy tears. Becoming an adult feels like a safety blanket being taken away, I know 19 is still a teenager but what’s after that? I’m gonna be 20. Then 21, 22, 23, it goes on and soon I’ll be 40. Not a child. I still feel like a child, I act like one. I’m hardly independent despite how much I want to be. During the summer I am hopefully going to be attending a 1 week program at my current dream college, I want nothing more to live in a dorm and experience the university lifestyle but the steps there now that I’m out of school are difficult. I feel like I’m wasting my life. I don’t want to be 20 and living in a dorm because I feel like I’ll be too old and not get to experience the teenage college lifestyle. Does any of this make sense, I don’t know. I’m just dumping this all out.

Anyone have an intense fear of going to jail? I haven’t actually done anything wrong but my OCD is just telling me I have. The impending doom and anticipatory grief of losing everything is crazy, each day feels like a relief that the police haven’t come to my door. My brain also goes: “Hear those sirens? That’s for you!” *phone rings* “They’re calling you into the station to answer questions!” *someone knocks on the door* “OH THIS IS IT THE TIME HAS COME!” Like it’s so frustrating.

Has this happened to yall? I had a severely emotionally distressing day yesterday. Was fully convinced I was going to break up with my boyfriend but mourning it and freaking out all day long because of how I can't do it. i just can't. I love him too much and am in denial of how bad my life feels because of it. Crying uncontrollably too. Today I woke up with extreme stomach pain, went to the bathroom and started blacking out, ears ringing, body shaking, goosebumps etc. I thought i was dying. This has happened to me one time before. But i forgot about it and now im more concerned.

18 + only (Mentions of p*rn) I use porn compulsively, I don't feel attraction it's just a crutch to prove I'm not my thoughts and I have people I consider safe and fit my guidelines like not doing the disgusting step thing or having the word teen in the title, stuff like that but I hate all the degrading language used in even the things I consider safe, it's objectifying and weird and I hate that this is my main compulsion, it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong when I'm specifically looking for more safe things and I hate it so much. Then today/last night, I had a really dumb dream that I was forced to break my morals and do the compulsion to something I find immoral and I actually believed it had happened for a bit even though it made no sense.

Whenever I try to do exposures on this obsession, I freak out and end up doing a gazillion compulsions because I just don't know how to sit with the distress it causes me. It's like no matter what I do, my mind won't stop lying to me about this thing. If I don't engage with it, I get extremely anxious and don't know how to feel okay with the possibility of this. I'm scared and I don't know what to do. My OCD has grabbed onto my parents in the past, but never this badly. It's trying to convince me I don't love them or if I did love them, I don't anymore. And when I feel clarity, it doesn't last long. I know I can't ask for reassurance, but I'm just wondering if anyone else deals with something similar. My OCD has always been strange and given me obsessions that just didn't make any sense. I hope to be able to ground myself soon.

i just went on a week long vacation with my boyfriend and i almost broke up with him mid trip. it breaks my heart because i know who i can be and who i want to be in this relationship but it's like i just can't. i can't escape my head. i can't even reminisce on our memories without wanting to cry because of this feeling that it's still not right and im just continuing to get in too deep with him and his family. i feel like a fraud. im always wanting him to respond or treat me or make me feel a certain way, and expecting him not to which confirms my suspicions of him being wrong for me, and then remaining unhappy but being incapable of leaving him. i blame him but ultimately myself. my thoughts tell me everything i've done is wrong and that i chose him because i was lonely and just because he's a good person, but not because he's who i actually want. i feel like i didn't give myself a choice. so many things make me questions if he's right for me, half of which are my own fault. i envy my sister who is picky when it comes to relationships and i compare myself to her in everything. i've been in a lot of relationships back to back, and they've never worked out. i always leave, but have never regretted it. this time i fear regretting the choice to leave so much. ive always had this obsessive fear that my boyfriend (no matter who i am dating) will find my sister attractive and fantasize about her, which is where the root of my comparison to her stems from im sure. one of the reasons i want to leave him is because being in this relationship causes my sister to be a trigger for me no matter what, which drives me away from her and ruins our relationship. she is my best friend and it feels like i have to ignore her in order to not feel dissatisfied with my life and with who i am. i finally told him about this fear and he gave me the best reassurance i could imagine, yet i don't feel better. i feel irresponsible and like i haven't given myself the time i need on my own in order to be in a healthy relationship. but how can that be a real reason to leave the person who shows up for me every day, doesn't back down about my OCD, who wants a future with me, and who will never stop choosing me? the first guy who i've wanted those things with too and who i can't just throw away. i seriously don't know what to do anymore. i make him so happy and im not even being my full self because of OCD. it breaks my heart because he feels like he can't make me happy, and honestly i wonder if he can, because i am so unhappy with myself. it's so hard to know what to do when the only thing that gives me relief from all of my shame is imagining being on my own, but that very same thought is devastating imagining us not being together. and it feels like it's all my fault for not knowing who i was before entering this relationship. i can't tell if he's truly not right for me or if all of this causes me to view him as such. i feel lost, don't know who i am, furthest from God I ever have been, and like no matter what i do is wrong. which ultimately makes me blame it on him being wrong for me and like he's the one taking me away from God (even though he is a Godly man)

sorry, im aware im posting a lot (i JUST made a post about feeling a little more stable, i know), but i just remembered something ive been experiencing and i wanna know if anyone else gets it. recently ive been having trouble sleeping, which i expect is due to anxiety. however, sleeping has now become an obsession- i worry that im not sleeping "fully" or "properly" because my dreams are vivid and im exhausted in the morning (expectedly since im rarely getting over five hours). has anyone else had an obsession like this? paradoxically, it makes me scared to sleep

does anyone have any advice on finding purpose when im just...not comvinced anything is real? if im not real, and nobody else is real, and the world isnt real...what's the point? what am i supposed to do, to strive for? all my mind wants is answers. answers about if this is real, and answers about what my meaning is. im only 19, but i already fear my life is over, because i don't know what i should look to the future for if life is an illusion.

18+ Please help me I was playing character ai and like I was talking to a character I like who has a teen daughter, who i was playing as since I was bored. In the story, I said she has a bf. And idk I was bored and wanted to add conflict and I wanted to say a trope that he caught them being frisky when he is overprotective of his daughter and wanted them to get in trouble. I wasnt going to add any details to the teens, if anything I was only focused on the dad and I was laughing imagining how his reaction would be. But I decided not to write it bc then i felt weirded out and also I got worried like what if I suddenly feel a genuine groinal??? And basically for 2 days now I have been spiraling like what if I had went along with the story and said that they were caught and felt a groinal? Or im asking "would i have had one???" "Am i attracted?" I know i was just focusing on the dad's reaction (i wasnt even thinking of the teens) but what if i would've felt a groinal because it referenced them being caught doing something? Is that attraction?! And ocd keeps asking me how the story would've even went when I hadn't given it much thought bc i decided not to in the end, and it keeps making me feel like I need to check to make sure im not aroused or attracted. Ive been stuck for hours and its making me feel like a p which is making me cry. Is this still ocd?

UPDATE: with my harm ocd hitting full swing... i find myself triggered by my pocd again... and i feel like a horrible person... i tried not to post... i tried to do what people told me... but right now i feel absolutely horrible... I genuinely feel so guilty... I cant handle the anxiety... Im doing horribly right now because I feel so so guilty about this... I have my lovely girlfriend & I wanna be with her for the rest of my life... (shes 22 and I'm 24) I've been dating her for almost 3 months now... and I wanna marry her one day... but right now, I feel like I don't deserve her... especially because of this situation... and its all my fault... Youtubers are constantly getting accused of doing p3dophilic activity and inappropriately abusing and inappropriately messaging women and minors and abusing others and its making me think my real events are as bad or as worse as them... Ive vented a lot to a lot of people in the PM's about my OCD... some of them younger (minors)... because I wanted reassurance from everyone and anyone... but this situation triggers me the most because I was venting about my 18+ HOCD situations... (the 18+ HOCD situations were about 18+ s*xual HOCD situations that triggered me immensely...) When I was 19, in an HOCD support group I was in, I vented to 2 minors in the PM's about my 18+ HOCD situations... The leader of the support group (that i vented to) was 17... I was 19 at the time... the other minor i vented to was younger (14-15)... the younger one told me she was uncomfortable when i vented to her in the PM's twice... The 14-15 year old said she was uncomfortable the first time and i tried to stop venting to her... after she said i was a bad person because of politics... I vented to her a second time because her saying i was a bad person triggered me... she said she was uncomfortable for the second time and then i blocked her... i kept asking the leader of the support group for reassurance for my 18+ HOCD situations for months because she kept giving me reassurance... i thought she was cute but didnt pursue her because of my age... i dont ever want to ever be a P or a MAP or a groomer in any way... I'm so genuinely triggered... I don't want to be a P or a MAP or a groomer or a bad person... I wanna be a good person who does good things for other people... I dont want to be arrested for any crimes... I just want to be a good person who helps people in the medical field... I only want to help others... the last thing I want is to commit any form of harm towards minors in any way... 😭😭😭

So sometimes when I’m on Instagram I’ll randomly save things to show people later or I’ll save videos where women feel confident in their bodies because I tend to get really insecure in my own etc. I was going through my saved Instagram posts because I was having such a bad flare up and I came across this one post I saved in 2024 of this girl who was wearing like a purple top that was slightly revealing and she had on a low rise skirt and was belly dancing. She obviously was an only fans creator and the caption on the video said something like “if we were the only two left at the tavern would you stay” i dont know it was so weird and just i was weirded out when i saw it 😭 but I think I saved the video to show my fiancé or my friend and be like look what the heck popped up on my page or either I saved it because even though she is an only fans creator, she was very confident in her body and she felt confident in her body and like a lot of times I’ve saved posts where curvy women will wear outfits and be confident and you can feel the confidence radiating off the screen even if it’s like a video like that and it just makes me feel good and feel better about myself because as a very insecure woman, confidence feels great, but with this certain post it didn’t. I was convinced that I had saved it for the wrong reasons and I was being so disrespectful to my fiancé even though I was weirded out when I saw it in my saved. As a compulsion I had to screen record the comments to make sure I didn’t like any of them and then since there were so many comments my Instagram like shut down and I freaked because I still had to make sure I didn’t like every single comment. Unfortunately, I had to go look up the Instagram page because I was like “I have to find the post. I have to make sure I did not like all 10,000 comments, I have to screen record them to be sure, I have to make sure.” And it was just making me so uncomfortable to scroll through her page because all of her page was just filled with only fans stuff and just so much weird and disgusting things and even that made me feel like I was being disrespectful to my fiancé and I just was like I have to find that certain video because I have to make sure I did not like any of the comments. To some this may seem like not a big deal but to me it is. My fiancé is my world and any post I see dealing with that stuff or even anything it’s like my brain tells me “You have to screen record the comments and make sure you didn’t like them.” Etc. I just know as a woman, I get really insecure in my body, so seeing women who are either my size or who are even bigger than me, be confident in a bikini a crop top or even an outfit that shows a lot of of their body, it’s inspirational to me because it’s like they’re curvier than me and they’re more confident than I am and it’s like you can feel the confidence radiating off the screen, but this certain time really messed with my OCD bad and like it’s just messing with my head making me think I wanted to see this even though I didn’t because I only have eyes for my fiancé. It’s just my OCD convinces me of all this stuff and it’s like it’s so stressful. I know this post is long but I’ve been dealing with this struggle for awhile and I wanted to share and see if anyone else has too, i definitely will be getting a therapist but this theme I have is one of the worst :(

Does anyone else specifically with ROCD build this narrative as to why you cannot be with your bf due to a ton of factors starting from the beginning of the relationship? and now they're personal, like i now am convinced need to heal from all my past patterns before i can be in a relationship. and like honestly that could be true and that terrifies me, because why now?? why do i have to discover that when im with such an awesome guy. my ocd about this relationship genuinely never goes away. like it's 24/7. i find myself wondering if im stupid at this point for pursuing it when i'm in my head constantly, with him or not. i've completely lost myself and i can't make a decision about a job either. the pain this is causing me is unbelievable and it all feels like my fault because if i would just break up with him all of this would be over. it's like i have to do this a specific way (break up, be alone for a long time, find myself) or else i think ill have eternal doubt about who i am with.

Had another panic attack last night, and it was the one that lasted an hour. That was probably the scariest moment of my life cuz I thought I couldn't calm myself down and needed to go to the hospital. I was starting to lose faith in myself but my family (brother, nephew, and sister) was there for me; and I'm glad my brother made sure not to give in to my compulsive fear and call 911 despite me begging him to. It did happen when I least expected cuz I'm taking a supplement for anxiety, so I thought I would be able to at least avoid having this happened again despite OCD, and I was wrong. It still happened because I was basically facing my fears all day yesterday with the doctor's appointment, to stress about my living situation, to my neck. And I think that panic attack happened as a result of me trying to combat those thoughts by doing the skills I've learned, but I didn't fully believe them because I was too stubborn too, I was too SCARED to. I think this is a lesson to how you gotta learn to trust yourself and to allow yourself to accept the things you can't control; even if the face of your worst case scenario coming true. Idk if this is normal to have a panic attack after trying to do some ERP through stressing moments, but I still manage to make it through somehow. Having another panic attack at MIDNIGHT was probably my worst case scenario, but I got through it! Idk, I still lack a bit of confidence, but despite how messed up this feels, it revealed so many truths now. In a weird way, it helped me understand why I gotta learn to trust myself again. I'm still scared asl, but, weirdly enough, I feel like I got this now

I've been doing a huge amount of self therapy for my OCD. Gone through ERP, and journaling + a bit of therapy where I could afford it. Realized I also have a lot of codependency. My "findings" can be categorized into these 3 areas. Mindfullness (Being aware of your body mind and spirit, or in my case emotion thoughts and awareness), the idea that the emotion I feel to a thought is me choosing the story I believe in and finally the fact that I seem to be choosing stories which build off the fundemental premise that im worthless, not worthy, or evil in some fashion. The central theme/core fear is that I'm fundementally bad. Like I'm deserving of the worst things happening to me. It's not right logically, of course I made mistakes, my intentions are always though to be better and get better. I find myself being hypervigilant about my own behaviour. I ruminate a huge amount about my thoughts etc. Grew up basically in a fundementalist christian cult, was bullied severely and grew up in a very dysfunctional family. Needless to say, had to unlearn a huge amount of cognitive distortions and behaviour. I'm just tired. So tired. Sometimes I see the light and im like "Wait this is the story im believing! I believe im evil and bad" and then the clarity brings peace. Then the thoughts creep back in, and my awareness is on them. I'm trying to analyze/pinpoint where that belief comes from. It's like naming where the feeling comes from. I get a thought "___, you're a piece of shit, if others knew you they would hate you, what if one day they will?" then I notice it's just a thought but in my head, like skull I feel something. It's like the top of my head or behind my eyes. It's not pain, more of a "click" or awareness shift. I can't stop myself from not believing that im exactly that. I try to sit with the uncertainty but it's so annoying that I can't seem to control my belief. I believe im horrible. I don't know if it's me, or more of an impression. I'm leaning to it being an impression imparted on me through my life experiences. I just don't know how to unclick myself. I do mindfullness and small tricks to ground myself. It's only temporary though and that click shortly comes back. At this point I just try to accept it and be like "Well maybe!". That also gives me just a slight numbing effect until at one point the feeling fully comes back. I'm really tired boss. How much more healing do I have to do. Is there anything else I could maybe try?

Same above question i ask i do analyze mental rumination and whole day & night multiple thoughts come in my mind & i feel anxiety