I developed OCD about a year ago not sure why, I used to love shopping now I get anxiety from it, I pay attention to the things I buy if it looks wrong or around something dirty I avoid it. Not to mention when it comes to paying, I want to use self checkout because I don’t want the cashier touching it because they handled money and have been touching other peoples things.

For those that got help, did you see a difference? What do I need to do and who do I see?

I have contamination OCD and I’m just finding that my sessions with my therapist are repetitive and he’s just not interested in getting to know me.

It’s video appointments and my home is my safe haven so we literally just sign on for an hour and he goes “Hey ready for some ERP? Let’s go touch a trash can and eat with our hands.” There’s no talk about anything, just jumping straight into it and he seems annoyed if I want to talk about having a rough day.

I recently lost my father coincidentally right as I started therapy with this particular therapist, and we haven’t talked about it at all. I tried tot hold my tears back when telling him and he seemed annoyed that we couldn’t jump straight into ERP.

Is this what therapy is supposed to look like?

I finally was allowed to see my medical files for insurance purposes, and found my official diagnosis, the date it was given (April 26, 2016) and who diagnosed it. So I can no longer live in denial lol. It turns out, it was diagnosed at the same time my autism was, and must have flew under the radar and wasn't really mentioned because the autism was treated as a class 3 emergency for some reason. So, I had no idea I had it until I saw it on a doctor's letter earlier this year and was hella confused.

Anyway, now that it's confirmed official, how do I go about identifying obsessions and compulsions that I have? My primary care doctor says I have mental compulsions but could not identify examples. I can't think of any problematic fixations I have that are ego-dystonic or any rituals I do to prevent thoughts/outcomes.

People have mentioned to me that ocd can mimic the appearence of adhd. My pysch said i likely had both but waited to give me adhd meds to see if the ocd meds fixed what he thought were adhd symptoms. They didnt, but im curious. What does it look like when ocd mimics adhd?

To explain it, I have to dive deep into how my brain works…
I’ve had obsessive tendencies since childhood, and they go beyond simply wanting things to be neat or organized. I experience something that seems related to Not-Just-Right Experiences (NJREs), feelings of incompleteness, symmetry/ordering-related OCD phenomena, and sensory-perceptual phenomena. It’s as if my brain has an internal, often inexplicable standard for what feels “right.” Sometimes I can identify an actual flaw, like a crooked line, an uneven edge, or a dent in an object, but other times there’s nothing objectively wrong that I can explain. I might reject hundreds of wallpapers without knowing exactly why, feel uncomfortable with certain letter shapes or numbers, or become fixated on the alignment, spacing, proportions, and visual patterns of things. It feels like my brain automatically processes all these details and gives me an intuitive “accept” or “reject” response before I can consciously explain the reason.
The most difficult part is the feeling that something is out of place, incomplete, or just not right, even when I can’t explain what needs to change. Correcting, rearranging, or rejecting whatever triggers this feeling helps me feel calm again, and sometimes finding the right arrangement gives me a distinct sense of satisfaction or completion. Interestingly, it isn’t simply about order or minimalism; I can prefer something messy or visually complex if it feels right to me, while something perfectly organized can still feel wrong. I’m trying to understand whether these experiences are related to OCD, particularly the “just-right” and incompleteness dimensions, or whether other sensory, perceptual, or perfectionistic traits might also be involved. I’m not claiming a definitive diagnosis, but these concepts seem to describe my experience quite closely.

I find it so hard to start things because of the anxiety I feel knowing it’ll take so much effort to get it perfect. Anyone have tips to help start things?

Hello, a couple days ago I ended up in the ER. Turns out, in addition to a few other things I’m treating, I have severe OCD. Having learned this, I have never felt so seen. Never have I felt like I had actual hope for the future. I don’t know how this was missed cause I am in my 40s ☹️

Hopping on this subreddit, I definitely feel I belong here. And as some of you, I have lived my whole life with OCD and it is just how I live; I knowing nothing else. Right now, I am questioning every thought I have and just reeling at the wasted time. I’m sure I don’t even have to explain any of this, because most if not all of you know exactly what I’m going through 😭

All that being said, would someone be able to offer advice on the following questions, having been through or going through a new diagnosis. I know I will have to do erp and yada yada.

1. How do you move forward in everyday life until treatment begins? (This has been so hard for me. I know it’s only been a couple days but I am mentally suffering and feel so alone. Side note, I like how I can say I’m mentally suffering in this sub, and everyone just gets it. but I am questioning everything and my questions have turned into obsessions, increased compulsions, and I am just mentally suffering. I am paralyzed with fear but at the same time freaking out.)

2. Did you tell anyone about your new diagnosis? (As you all know, this has affected everyone in my life in certain ways. But at the same time, I resist telling them cause ocd tells me not to and I have trauma from it. I am also AuDHD and that was so vehemently denied by certain folks that I just don’t see myself asking for support or help, when I feel I have never received any in my life from them. I know it’s not their fault, but uh… ya know, ocd tells me not to and “protects” me. [I think that’s how it works I’m still learning] I also have ptsd and they feed into each other in the worst ways I’m currently learning ).

3. Anything you wish you knew or did when you were newly diagnosed? (I’m so scared, anything on this subject would be greatly appreciated. I am currently struggling taking new medication cause I’m worried they missed a different diagnosis that could be affected by said medication, yada yada. I don’t need to over explain, you all know already. And I’m just struggling so bad.)

Thank you for reading this. I’m so relieved to find out about this diagnosis and find people I relate to: no more over explaining, feeling unheard and unseen, or wondering why everything is so hard, etc). Thank you!!!

the autumnal warmth had brought me some comfort this afternoon and put me in better spirits, but i'm realizing that i'm losing the fight against ocd. i can't make friends. i can't create and put out my work in public. i can't speak. i can't occupy space. moral ocd. real event. false memory. paranoia. these things lead to pain and torture that can only perhaps be compared to a state of psychosis, except you are aware it's there. like waking up in the middle of an emergency surgery and your face is hidden behind the curtain as you try to tolerate the pain because you can't make a sound and you can't move and nobody sees that you have woken up. i can't tolerate the pain any longer. ocd wants my absolute submission and for me to exist as a shell of myself. i'm better off dead than existing as a void of what i once was and what i could've been.

I wish I could voice this but honestly, 8 going thru a season in my life where I feel like I have OSDD/DID thing, I experienced my body and brain trying to suppress different versions of myself trying to have control cause of my OCD, and my brain wants control so bad that it suppresses any thought or feeling that comes up. I want to find myself and fix all this mess but it’s too hard. I also want to heal my inner child but the controlling brain is acting up and now I have ruined healthy patterns. Can googling your symptops makes you feel like you have the mental disorder? I feel like I’m malfunctioning in life already.

My fear is not from intrusive thoughts, while it appears as an intrusive thoughts but it’s mainly my brain seeking control. I tried ERP but I can’t seem to let it pass by me. What should I do? I dont know how to get certainly other than research how I’m feeling. Would time heal naturally?

i feel conflicted cause like i have “parts of myself” that are me but separated though, i feel in control of my body and not in control because parts of myself are “running the show”. i feel like i relate with the OSDD thing but i feel like i don’t have it

but once i get another obsession, all my symptoms go away ngl cause i think ERP works but it just complicated cause what the fish do you mean that i feel like inner conflict on what to press and how to type, my body feels fatigued and not at the same time cause i feel like there are parts of me in one body and i cant feel like being myself

i wish i didnt have OCD not gonna lie lol cause everytime i feel towards one obsession everything just feels relatable like “i have bipolar” stuff like that dude once an obsession or another thing occurs, my ocd literally turns off lol, it feels relatable yet its not me at the same time

i don’t even feel like myself and feel like myself at the same time, i wish this obsession would just be over. id give a crap whether this reinforces ocd or not

cause like it comes suddenly and i need to do alot of things, if i put it aside suppression comes and it goes

I started taking NAC yesterday, took 1200mg in the morning and the same on the evening, took the same dose this morning too.

And the voices seem quieter... suspiciously quieter...

Like ERP is working a lot easier and I seem to be able to get the thoughts away without too much effort.

But part of me thinks that, biologically, NAC couldn't have had any sort of noticeable effect so quickly?

Anyone else had a similar experience?

Not sure how common this is but I've seen a few people talk about it.

When I accidentally read a spoiler I can't stop thinking about it until the story gets to the point where it happens. And reading one spoiler drives me to look up other spoilers in order to clear the uncertainty around stuff like context and it just gets worse and worse. I often can't even tell if it's a real or fake spoiler since I'm at an early part of the story and so need to check, which inevitably leads to an actual spoiler nonetheless.

And even when the spoiler passes, I keep getting thoughts that I "ruined" the whole story by reading the spoiler in the first place.

It's nowhere near my most troubling theme and a first world problem for sure, but it's still annoying and intrusive when I'm trying to enjoy something in peace. I don't want OCD to tarnish the things I do for fun any further when it already makes other parts of my life so miserable.

The last few weeks I have been going crazy. I learned that I could extract all of my DNA code on a file and put them on a website that could tell me if I have health risks, I have been compulsively looking at this for hours and feelings groves on my body that could possibly mean congenital defects, I know I dont have any but the fear of having some sort of major health issue is scaring me, and I wont stop until I know for sure.

Every body reaction and impulse I look up because I feel like there is something wrong with me.

I am also having very taboo thoughts about my own sexuality and I am screaming for my brain to stop, I wake up and 5 seconds later the anxiety and panic sets in and I am wiping the sweat off my forehead and recently I started counting everything I do up to the number 5 for some reason.

I need this to go away I can't get away from my own mind. The anxiety is too much right now and I dont know if its real and im just excusing it with OCD, what if I am a monster what if there is something wrong with me and im just using this to excuse it.

I want to be able to just wash my hands once and be done like I used to, but I now wash multiple times every session. I scrub every inch too, even my fingertips, but because the soap slides down and it ends up looking like the soap never even touched my fingertips, I end up washing again until I feel like I properly washed my hands. This is really drying out my hands and wasting my soap. Any advice?

Hi everyone,
I’m posting because I’m really struggling at the moment, and I’m wondering whether what I’ve been experiencing could be OCD. I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced something similar.

For months, I’ve been dealing with severe anxiety and persistent dizziness. Initially, I became completely fixated on the dizziness and the fear that I might pass out. I started monitoring how I felt constantly, worrying about what the sensations meant and struggling to do everyday things because I was frightened something would happen.

Over time, it feels like my attention has moved from one fear to another. I became worried about whether my eyes looked different sizes, then became fixated on my heart and palpitations, which led me to seek medical reassurance. Now I’m experiencing frightening intrusive thoughts about potentially losing control and hurting myself.
These thoughts genuinely scare me. It’s a constant *“what if I lose control?”* fear rather than something I want to happen.

I’ve also realised how much reassurance seeking has become part of my life. I repeatedly search Reddit, ask questions online, check my symptoms and analyse how I’m feeling. Sometimes I feel better for a few minutes or hours, but then another doubt appears, or I start questioning the reassurance I’ve just received.

I find it incredibly difficult to stay off Reddit because I’m constantly looking for stories from people who have experienced the same things and recovered.

Something else I’ve noticed is that my mornings are particularly difficult. I wake up feeling extremely anxious, overwhelmed and sometimes close to tears, with the intrusive thoughts appearing almost immediately. As the day goes on, I can usually enjoy things a little, play Xbox and feel more like myself by the evening.

I’ve recently started escitalopram (Lexapro), which seems to have significantly worsened my anxiety and dark thoughts. I’ve spoken to my GP, who has advised me to reduce the dose to 5 mg for a week and then taper off as instructed.

Looking back at everything, I’m starting to wonder whether I’ve been caught in one massive OCD or health anxiety cycle for months. I know health anxiety and OCD aren’t necessarily the same thing, and I’m not trying to self-diagnose, but the constant checking, intrusive thoughts, reassurance seeking and temporary relief seem to fit a pattern.

I also get massively obsessed with whatever I find that I enjoy, such as RuneScape, Xbox in general, even now to the point where I won’t eat unhealthy food because I’m convinced it’ll give me a heart attack or something, I seem to delve too deep into everything and work myself into shit situations

Would love to hear from anyone else who experiences these sorts of things because I really want to be able to relate to a condition! Rather than just believing I’m fucked for life! Thank you

Hi everyone. I'm struggling a lot right now and could really use some understanding from people who experience OCD.
I had OCD about five years ago, and lately I feel like it has come back, particularly around my relationship and morality.
I've been with my girlfriend for 9 months, and we're temporarily long-distance. I love her deeply, and our relationship has been amazing. Before this, I struggled with porn addiction, which also affected my ability to get erections with her. Three weeks ago, I decided to quit porn for good because I wanted to improve myself and our relationship.
About two weeks ago, I had a really strong urge to watch porn but stopped myself. In that moment, I searched for old sexts from a former FWB and started masturbating while reading them. I wasn't imagining being with her or wanting her back; I was using the texts for sexual stimulation. After around 20 seconds, I suddenly felt that what I was doing was morally wrong, and I finished while thinking about my girlfriend. I deleted the old messages soon afterward.
Since then, I've been experiencing intense guilt and anxiety. I keep wondering whether I cheated on my girlfriend. We never explicitly discussed whether something like this would count as cheating, which makes the uncertainty even harder to deal with.
I'm terrified that if she knew, she'd be deeply hurt and might leave me. When she tells me she loves me and adores me, I sometimes feel awful because I start thinking that I'm deceiving her and that she wouldn't feel the same way if she knew. I love her so much, and the thought of hurting her is devastating.
I've been seeking reassurance from AI, friends, and Reddit, researching whether what I did was cheating and trying to figure out what it means about me as a person. But nothing seems to help for long. I feel better briefly, then the doubts return even stronger. I also keep replaying what happened and wishing I could go back in time and stop myself.
I'm aware that even posting here might be another attempt to get reassurance, and that scares me too. I feel trapped because I want certainty, but I can't seem to get it. All the possibilities feel unbearable: that I cheated, that I'm deceiving her by not telling her, that she might leave me, or that I'll never stop feeling guilty.
I can't currently afford therapy, and I don't know what to do. I'm not asking anyone to tell me definitively whether I cheated or whether I'm a good person. I would really appreciate advice from people who have experienced relationship OCD, moral OCD, or obsessive guilt.

How do you deal with uncertainty when your brain makes you feel like you need to resolve something immediately? How do you stop reassurance-seeking and rumination when the guilt feels unbearable?
Thank you for reading. I'm really struggling and would appreciate any compassionate advice.

Hello, thanks for welcoming me in this wonderful community. This is actually my first post/discussion. :)

I wanted to ask if there is someone here who is also OCD and is some other condition (such as Depressed/ADHD[or ADD]/Bipolar/Anxious/Autistic/etc..)

If you are medicated, and whether you're on Sertraline/Zoloft or Fluoxetine/Prozac and most importantly if you've tried mixed medications (for example the former mentioned with Wellbutrin/Buproprion, or just the latter) or other meds altogether [and in that case, what helped you and what were the expected undesired effects].

I am OCD and just started (one week and half as of 18/10/2026) Sertraline/Zoloft. Hoping to have a nice conversation/discussion with you folks, and to hear your experiences as well. :)

My roommate and I brought home two cats in July. She adopted one and I adopted the other. Ever since it’s been straining our relationship as roommates and friends. Her cat had fleas, and they were so difficult to get rid of, now my cat has fleas, the apartment has fleas, and her cat has worms. We got vet treatment for all of it and we’re vacuuming and washing consistently so they’re okay.

Her cat had noticeable scabbing and hair loss in places and it was concerning enough for me I encouraged to take her to the vet. Roomie disagreed, said scabs and hair loss would heal on its own, I said ok. That should have been that. Truthfully the cat was eating normally, playing normally, going to the bathroom normally, she was just itching and had that skin stuff. We guessed it was flea allergy.

But for some reason I couldn’t let it go and kept asking and asking my roommate to do something more about it and even went so far as to buy hydrocortisone for her cat’s scabby places when she told me no when I asked if I should get it. My obsession was made worse when I called the vet for some prescription flea meds and asked them about it and they recommended to take her in.

This entire situation has been so immensely triggering for my OCD. I’ve been vacuuming nonstop, brushing them to the point they get irritated and I’m late for work, and being obsessed with their health to a point where it’s fracturing my relationships with my family friends and roommate. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I can’t take another day of it. I’m on 150mg Zoloft and in therapy but it seems like none of it is working.

This might be triggering for some, so I'm warning you. I originally wanted to write about this in some relationship thread, but I realized that people who read it there wouldn't understand the situation and would suggest something that would make things worse. My neurotypical friend, to whom I tried to speak out, advised us to break up, but I understand that's not a solution. So... I've only been dating my boyfriend for six months; our "anniversary" was October 16th. We started dating under very strange circumstances. Initially, he flirted with me all of February and until about the end of March. Then I said I wasn't interested in him and said I was interested in someone else. I was stupid, and besides, I'm not neurotypical myself. I have ADHD and generalized anxiety disorder + depression, possibly dysmorophobia, but I'm not sure about the dysmorophobia. The thing is, it wasn't until April, after a couple of weeks of constant anxiety and tears, that I realized he was truly important to me. We started dating, but from the very first day, his OCD worsened. When I rejected him, it only pushed him deeper into depression, because he'd never had luck in relationships. But as soon as we started dating, he developed OCD, which he hadn't experienced in a long time. Not without reason. He's a romantic, he's never had luck in love (I'm his first girlfriend), and he's also hyper-responsible and heavily romanticizes relationships, to the point where he thought we'd be happy without even arguing. I began to slowly break these rose-colored glasses, showing him that there are problems everywhere, even between lovers. His initial OCD theme is about rightness. Am I right? That's why the theme that emerged in our relationship was: "Do I love her?" Sometimes he didn't want to reply to messages right away, and his OCD took this as proof that he didn't love me. Sometimes he thought he wasn't trying hard enough. Basically, I was winding myself up over my fears. At one point, his OCD shifted to me more seriously, or rather, when he and his OCD noticed that I didn't care about the topic of love, because I was sure of his feelings. It shifted to my complexes. I often said that I considered myself fat and ugly. His OCD latched onto this. He started asking himself, "Am I really sure I love her? But I can see that she's not skinny. But I see other good looking girls. What if I don't like her?" (I'm not like 100% ugly, when I'm fine I understand that a lot of men and women had crushes on me and etc, but I often think that it's not enough). And then, slowly, I started to feel uneasy. By June/July, we decided that he wouldn't tell me the details of his OCD themes. I realized that it was harmful for me. I already have complexes, but I started to get very jealous, looking at other girls and evaluating them in comparison to me, crying more from social media and how beautiful everyone around me was. Basically, as soon as he stopped sharing the details of his themes, both he and I felt better, and it continued like this for a long time, according to him, the OCD moved to the stage where these emotions are already a little exhausting for him and he thinks that he will soon move on to another topic. On October 16th, well, we decided to go to the movies, since we had been dating for six months already. He gave me roses, a plush toy, and we were sitting in a shopping center. He walked away, I looked at his notes on one social network, he said that he wrote down something there that he wanted to arrange for me, but he didn’t have the money. Basically, I fucked up. I think I'm stupid, I shouldn't have meddled in what he didn't want. But he described his OCD thoughts there about how it seemed to him that he was getting aroused about another girl. He described her as "slender, beautiful, red-haired," he didn't say that I was ugly, but it still stung. There was so much pain in his note, I felt sad, but also really bad about it. I don't know why, but for my anxiety, it was already strange. I immediately felt cold, I felt sick, I wanted to throw up. Nothing interesting in his thoughts, really. But I felt unpleasant. When he came, after a while, I admitted that I looked at his phone. We talked for a long time, and he and I cried a lot, but we kinda finished that conversation. I feel a little disgusted by intimacy with him now, I think with time I can cope with this. But is there any way to make all this easier? I know that these are not his thoughts. He would die for me, I know this, he said that he doesn’t even remember what she looks like. How can I help him, or is there any advice I can give him? How can I ease my feelings? I woke up at night after this and cried for a long time, a very long time. But eventually I calmed down. I still feel hostility from time to time. I also started looking more at redheads, and I feel so bad. They're so beautiful, but now I feel so disgusted with myself, with beautiful girls, and a little bit with being intimate with my boyfriend. When I shared that I felt really bad at home, we talked for a long time again, and he threw up a couple of times from anxiety during the conversation, because we discussed breaking up, but we agreed that we didn't want to. He probably even got aroused out of anxiety, and not really because he liked her. He said that this had happened before with another of his obsessive thoughts, he could only get aroused because of similar factors. I really want to work on this relationship, but I’m not a robot, I also feel pain and discomfort. He writed that in his phone because he has a new ritual: he talks through all these "panic attacks" with ai. He worked with a psychologist, but she didn't focus on treating OCD and was delusional about him, confirming his impulsive thoughts rather than helping him come to a solution. He's looking for a new specialist. Can you share any similar experiences from your side or from your partners? How did they cope and help you? Ask any questions; I can give you details, but nothing too personal.

i wish that perfectionism didn’t affect me the way it did. i try to explain it to other people, but they don’t really understand.

i got in my head way too much about how i do everything wrong and how my life looks nothing like it should, so i decided i was going to try and kill myself again.

last night i went and got alcohol for the first time in years because i don’t drink. i was going to drink as much as possible and take as many old pills as i could find, but i couldn’t even get past the drinking part. i immediately started spitting it back up so i just cried and went to sleep. so now instead of being dead im awake at 7AM AND im a failure.

i don’t understand how i can be a perfectionist and STILL do everything wrong and subpar, it drives me crazy.

I had a debilitating spiral and I'm slowly crawling out of it. I got better at recognizing that what i'm doing is a ritual or that my focus is shifting towards seeking certainty. Once I know that, I can kinda force myself to not give in. I got better at distracting myself and ignoring thoughts, but I still feel a lingering sense of anxiety that ''there are still questions i must answer or bad things will happen''. I still feel very vulnerable and get anxious when I see things that are related to the theme of my episode.

What can i do to get closer to recovery? I want therapy but can't get it now (money/family).

I have a need to confess what I did to everyone in my life (mainly friends), and from what was described to me is that I want to confess to I can be punished from their anger or something like that, because I wasn't punished for what I did. I am not going to say what I did, you can read past posts to if you want to know, but long story short, its really bad, its not a small or otherwise innocent event, it's actually that makes me sick, which is why the compulsion to confess gets to strong.

So my question is, how does someone counter their cumpulsion to confess, like when someone has a compulsion to look something up, they are advised to do something the opposite of that, like get away from the phone/book or whatever the research tool is. And what if what is needed to be confessed is something greatly weighing on one's conscious, and after recent events in the news its hard to just not give in.

In March 2025 i suffered a huge relapse that transformed me completely. From happy and autonome I went to being very dependent on my parents. From that moment on I couldn’t take decisions on my own, nor follow my burocratic stuff etcetera. Im 28 now. I lost my job.

Now comes my question: I looked desperately for a therapist and I found one. We didn’t get well along. There wasn’t trust. I was too shy or ashamed to speak up and tell her what I didn’t like about our therapy or what I wished we would do. We continued like that for 1 year without any progress.

Now I regret it heavily: not having spoken up. I’m in an endless spiral of guilt. It just doesen’t stop. My therapist knows about it but would do nothing about it.

Now I feel like I wasted the last 1.5 years and that I will never make progress cause therapists in my city are all overbooked.

Any adivice?

I have been in significant distress. There's a specific bad though that comes and whenever I deny it I feel a weigh in my conscience and my body goes stiff. This reminds me of the gut feeling one gets when lying. It makes me feel like I'm just trying to lie to myself about it. I try to reason my way out of it but everytime I'll do it the feeling will pop up. I know I'm not supposed to be answering to it compulsively but I do because I'm terrified this is the truth, and the gut feeling seems to validate it.

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this (Notice: that sensation is following the response, not the obsession). After a few months of peace this thought came back and this feeling hasn't gone away. I don't know what to do with this.

Especially when it comes to ROCD and being in relationships?