To start with, here's a quick recap of what triggered my current OCD episode.

My summer break was coming to an end, and during that time I was playing Final Fantasy XVI. I got incredibly attached to the game, its world and its characters, to the point where I developed a kind of parasocial attachment to Clive and Jill, the main characters, and their relationship in general. Their relationship has honestly become my go-to example of what romantic love should look like to me.

The ending was particularly emotional and left a lot open to personal interpretation. I'm a highly emotional person (I might not cry very often, but my heart and soul are pretty easy to shatter, and when something hits me emotionally, it hits HARD. I'm just easily moved by all kinds of things). I spent several days thinking about the ending and everything it made me feel. Alongside all the positive emotions, especially love and hope, I also experienced a sense of loss, grief and emptiness, something commonly referred to as post-game depression.

Unfortunately, the timing couldn't have been worse. I was going through this intense emotional experience without having much to ground myself in or keep me occupied. Then, one night, while lying in bed and thinking about everything, it suddenly hit me that I had to return to the real world because I had university classes the next morning. I think I was also afraid that I would somehow lose those feelings, that connection to the world and the experiences I'd had. That realization triggered a panic attack, and shortly afterwards my OCD came back in full force.

Now, to explain what my current symptoms actually look like.

My main themes at the moment seem to revolve around meta-OCD, existential OCD, and OCD targeting my emotions, happiness and hope. Whenever I think about the game's ending and the feelings of hope and love it inspired in me, that familiar voice at the back of my mind immediately starts questioning everything.

What's particularly frustrating is that, during the first four or five days after finishing the game, my OCD symptoms almost completely disappeared. This had practically never happened to me before. I felt almost like someone who had just fallen in love. Of course, I know it wasn't literally that, but that's probably the best way to describe the feeling. It was like nothing could ruin my mood, and nothing really seemed capable of bothering me.

I wonder whether the intensity of the emotions I was experiencing had something to do with it, especially the love, hope and happiness, but also the grief and sense of loss.

Unfortunately, the OCD eventually came back. And one thing I keep feeling guilty about is that maybe, if I'd returned to reality sooner instead of trying to prolong that emotional high by listening to the soundtrack, watching edits and interviews, and revisiting everything connected to the game, this wouldn't have happened. I know I can't really know that, but the thought keeps coming back.

Objectively, I understand that these doubts, feelings of anxiety and constant questioning are connected to my OCD. I also know that OCD can't physically change my memories or erase the positive experiences and emotions I had during the summer, including everything connected to the game and its characters. I genuinely experienced those moments, and the fact that I'm struggling with OCD now doesn't change what happened back then.

But emotionally, it feels completely different. My feelings seem to tell me the exact opposite of what I understand logically.

I've also started noticing a pattern that seems to have been present during previous episodes, including a particularly bad one around two years ago. It feels as though my OCD specifically targets hope, happiness, love and the possibility of things getting better.

For example, whenever I try to reassure myself that things will eventually be okay, that I'll learn to accept my OCD and live a normal life despite the intrusive thoughts, or that I'll eventually find meaning in life and experience genuine love, the same kind of doubt immediately appears. I think part of it is that I want to experience the kind of love that Clive and Jill have, and even that hope seems to become a target for my OCD.

But what if you don't? What if things never get better? What if you're wrong?

And it just keeps going in circles.

Sometimes it all happens so quickly that I'm not even able to register the actual thoughts. I mostly notice the feelings that suddenly appear, like doubt, anxiety or a sense that something is wrong. I think those feelings are probably the best way to describe what I'm experiencing, even when I can't identify the exact thought that triggered them.

It doesn't seem to matter what the subject is. Whether I'm thinking about recovering from OCD, accepting it, finding happiness, discovering my purpose in life, finding someone I genuinely love and trust, or even trusting in and living for God (I'm a religious person, or at least I think I am), that same feeling of doubt and uncertainty eventually shows up.

It's especially frustrating when I'm trying to enjoy some form of media, whether it's a video game, a movie, a book, a podcast, or even just a conversation with someone, and something inspires feelings of hope, love or happiness in me. Instead of simply enjoying those emotions, my OCD immediately jumps in with another "Yeah, but what if not?"

It's as if I'm no longer allowed to experience those positive feelings without having them questioned or undermined by my own mind.

And the worst part is that understanding the problem doesn't seem to help much. I can recognize the pattern, understand how OCD works, and intellectually acknowledge that these doubts might be part of my OCD rather than meaningful conclusions. But the emotional response is still there.

It's like my OCD couldn't care less about logic, facts or arguments. No matter how many times I try to explain things to myself, the doubts and that uncomfortable feeling just keep coming back.

I honestly don't know how to deal with this anymore. It's exhausting to feel like even the things that bring me hope, comfort and happiness can become another source of anxiety.

So I wanted to ask: does anyone else experience something similar?

Does your OCD seem to target positive emotions, especially hope, happiness, love or the possibility of a better future? Do you ever find that it interferes with your ability to enjoy fictional worlds, characters or stories that mean a lot to you?

And if you've experienced this kind of pattern, how do you deal with it? Because being aware of the mechanisms behind my OCD clearly hasn't been enough to stop it from affecting how I experience these things.

Seriously, having OCD about sexual topics sucks. It would be the worst subtype I've ever experienced, if I hadn't also experienced the existential subtype (this one truly caused me the most suffering). I have a confirmed diagnosis with an ICD code. I have never told the professionals who treat me the WHOLE truth. There are things that I'm simply afraid of getting spread. I'm afraid to tell someone about these things and have them spread, and everyone find out about it. Fear of being misunderstood, fear of being exposed, fear of being excluded from society, of being rejected... And knowing that my subtype of OCD would actually make me be seen as a freak who deserves to die by people who don't understand OCD is something that makes me obsessed. Because of this, I developed a deep fear of cameras. Yes, cameras, It was as if I were being persecuted or watched. In my mind, they would use photos of me to convict me.

I ended up venting about this to a few people, and now I'm afraid this shit will spread and become a big thing about me. I'm scared. I think I made a mistake. I was just suffering.

I don't have the courage to tell my therapist. Imagine having to tell her this face to face. I'd probably have to hide my face from her to be able to do that.

Now I'm scared. Really scared. No one will understand me.

It's been a long journey. Ever since I moved to the suburbs and got a house it plagues me 24/7. Fear of people yelling at me/my spouse in public, at restaurants, in movie theaters, etc. My biggest issue is feeling my neighbor will yell at me/us for making noise, running power tools, not mowing our lawn, you name it. Granted this neighbor is IRL a piece of work who does antagonize people which doesn't help. But every day from sun up to sun down this is what is continuously on my mind.

My compulsions involve being so polite as to eliminate any reason someone would yell at me/us. No holding up the line at the store, no making loud noise in the yard, etc, etc. It's exhausting and it obviously has a big impact on my spouse. I did ~6 months of ERP with a really good (expensive) therapist and it was a big help. But after I stabilized my situation, I stopped because it was exhausting and it was so expensive. We've started trying for kids and the thought of what a kid would add to this mix terrifies me.

I've been worrying that it's been creeping back and that I'm in danger of relapsing back to where I was a year ago which was a really dark place. I've had to start doing lean ins again and other techniques. But it's exhausting to keep up with ERP ...

Can anyone relate? Has anyone conquered this kind of issue in their journey yet?

So, recently I had a realization that helped me practice cognitive behavioral therapy better and it’s led to more improvement over the last few weeks than I have experienced in the past few years. I’m sharing it here because someone might benefit from it.
So, for context, I have struggled with scrupulously and magical thinking since I was a child, which led me to obsessively research topics surrounding my fixations, sometimes for hours each day. When I was a teenager I learned cognitive behavioral therapy from an online course to treat it. It really helped, but I still experienced significant symptoms.

Since my safety behavior was research, I thought that the best plan was to avoid researching topics related to my obsessions as much as possible. For example if I saw a social media post that I was tempted to read because it related to my OCD thoughts, I would quickly scroll past it lest I be tempted. If my professor brought up a topic that I was obsessed with, I would leave class for a “bathroom break” until he moved on to a different topic. However, what I’ve realized is that compulsions themselves can be a double edged sword,- sometimes AVOIDING compulsions can also be a sneaky compulsion!

Each time I felt the urge to research when I was at my worst, I also felt a tinge of fear that I would stumble across information in the process that would send me spiraling. I still researched for the euphoria I would get if I found information I DID want (and because I thought I was “closed minded” if I didn’t 🤡), but it didn’t result in that short term relief you usually expect from safety behaviors 100% of the time. Avoiding my OCD compulsions was a safety behavior dressed up as CBT because I was relieving the twinge of fear, despite the fact that I was also experiencing the discomfort of not knowing.

Recently, I’ve started thinking about avoiding compulsions more in terms of “What would I do in this situation if I didn’t have OCD?” and less in terms of “How can I purge every whiff of safety behaviors from my life?”. If I see a social media post that interests me, but it’s about my OCD obsession, I read it. If it doesn’t interest me, I scroll. If the people around me bring up a topic I would usually avoid, I participate in the conversation as though it‘s nothing to me. But if I was already getting ready to leave, I walk out of the room.

I know that this change in mindset has led to significant improvements because recently one of my professors spent most of class talking about something that would have sent me spiraling several months ago, but I just sat through class like all the other students and went about the rest of my day with minimal ruminating 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 I’ve also had some other experiences that would have totally ruined my week, but they didn’t this time.

Sorry if this is something everyone else has already figured out, it was just such a big improvement for me that I thought I’d share in case anyone else might be helped 😊

Today is one of those days, the bad days. I felt ugly all day, and I absolutely hate myself right now. The thoughts of suicide and self harm are loud, and I feel so extremely lonely. I once again softly felt the blades on my skin, drew some stuff and played the piano to cope, and I feel better.

What an incredible experience is it to be human no? To feel all the negative and positive emotions alike. To feel so crippled to the point where I feel suicide and self harm is the only escape is such a beautiful thing to me. I’m not saying death is an escape and I’m not glorifying it whatsoever. So why do I say that? It means I’m alive, I’m human. These negative emotions we feel, are parts of every single one of us. If I didn’t feel so negatively, then I wouldn’t feel so positively on the good moments. Tomorrow will be a new day, and I will once again do my very best to turn all this pain into something beautiful. And if I fail, then I will try the next day. And I hope if you’re reading this, you try to keep this in mind yourself.

Now obviously, life is more intricate than these simple words I am writing. If anyone needs anyone to talk to, I am here. Just some things about myself: I have heart issues, recovering from OCD, and have tried suicide multiple times. My goal in life is to do my best to leave a positive impact for everyone I can. My time on this planet is limited, so I want to do my best to achieve that dream. So many posts all around different subs go unnoticed, and I try my best to respond to these exact posts. So, if today was a hard day/night, and you need someone to vent to, talk to, or anything, I am here :). I could also use the conversation as well.

i’ve genuinely never met anyone who experiences some of the compulsions i deal with, and i’ve struggled to explain them for as long as i can remember. i constantly readjust my clothes, rub my fingers and toes against each other (????), rub my gums together, and blink repeatedly because something about the sensations just feels wrong. it’s not necessarily painful, or even uncomfortable in the conventional sense. my skin just doesn’t feel right against itself, my gums don’t feel right against each other, or my clothes don’t feel right against my body. it’s incredibly difficult to describe. i just feel this overwhelming need to keep adjusting or repeating certain movements until the sensation feels right, which sometimes seems impossible
i’ve dealt with the finger and toe rubbing thing since i was a little kid. i distinctly remember going to my parents about it one night because it bothered me so much, but they either didn’t take me seriously or genuinely couldn’t help because i couldn’t articulate what was wrong. i didn’t even understand what i was trying to explain, and i STILL don’t, even to this day as an adult
the only thing that could temporarily relieve the sensations in my hands or feet was applying lotion, but even that was never a permanent solution.
i experience a whole menagerie of compulsions, but these particular ones have always stood out to me because of how oddly specific and difficult to explain they are. i’ve never encountered anyone who describes rubbing their fingers, toes, or gums together because the sensation of them touching simply doesn’t feel right
i feel profoundly incomplete and uncomfortable in my own body, almost like i can’t properly exist in it until i correct whatever sensation feels wrong. like genuinely sometimes it becomes so overwhelming that i literally feel like i’ll die or do something jarring to myself or others if i don’t perform whatever movement my body is demanding. it’s not necessarily about fearing that something bad will happen. the sensation itself can become so intolerable that i feel desperate to make it stop.
does anyone else experience anything remotely similar???? especially the finger/toe rubbing or gum related compulsions? i’ve felt so alone in these experiences because i can barely even describe them, let alone find someone who understands what i’m talking about lol

I was recently diagnosed with OCD, and just wanted to see if anyone else can identify? As I learn more about myself and this state of being, I wonder if others share this in common. I want to preface with my discovery recognized that I have been ignorant of my understanding of OCD really til now. The question of whether I was tested was presented to me by my neuro therapist. I have been doing neuro feedback for over two years, and it has been helpful. I started due to what I thought was severe depression and anxiety alone (attributes tied to OCD). In spring of 2024 I hit an extremely dark point, ultimately getting checked into a psych unit for 48 hours. That was a terrifying moment for me but I have had the mindset since to turn every proverbial stone to get better. O have a great therapist and have been doing neuro feedback. That is just a little about me.

The following have been some of my manifestations:

1: Ruminating thoughts - I am constantly processing and calculating in my brain…all the time. Falling asleep every night takes so much time. I am stuck in a thought loop with overarching themes. I ruminate over presumed failures and weakness constantly. Half my energy on any given day is coaxing myself out of the thought loop of rumination. Some days it is just the ever present droning on in the background. And some days it is literally crippling, where I am essentially unable to function. I experience profound shame and a wicked sense of inferiority. I deal consistently with momentary bouts of paranoia, that I am going to die soon, or something devastating is about to happen.
I am epically messy. If you saw my apartment, its really bad. I hate it but I ruminate so heavily and repeated repeatedly, that nothing gets done to change it.

1. Hypersexuality - my fascination and preoccupation with sex has been lifelong . I struggle heavily with compulsive masturbation and viewing porn. It is so pervasive. I constantly have to fight off intrusive thoughts of objectification and deviance. And I ruminate over it. I am a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, and I love to build people up, so it is a special kind of hell to take this important and wonderful part of life and have it be so base and cloud everything. It sucks to feel some level of sexual drive and rumination of varying degrees literally every day. It has made real intimacy feel like a pipe dream. There are some days where I have wished to be a eunuch.

2. Hyperfixate - This can be a superpower at times, but I will stubbornly hold onto ideas and beliefs

I am a little new to all of this, and I am insatiably curious now that this part of me has a name and a face. I have recently ramped up Zoloft, where I am presently taking 200 mg a day and it has given me and my mind a break. It has been really nice

I have numerous types of OCD and have been through many rounds of ERP. I feel like it has been effective for me and I do continue to force myself into uncomfortable situations to overcome my OCD, but the mental anguish is really getting to me. For example, eating is an exposure for me every day and I’m so tired of feeling scared of it and spiraling hours after eating. I make myself eat through the discomfort, and I’m proud of myself for it, but the thoughts don’t get better. Can I work on this? Or is this just life with OCD?

it’s been almost a decade of constantly imagining people watching and judging me through my eyes (usually people i really wouldn’t want to). i don’t think anyone even with ocd could understand, everyone has an internal audience right? but my life is completely dictated by the compulsions(very strict rules) that arise from this obsession. like i’ve fallen down the stairs bc i would close my eyes walking around my house. and it’s not something i could ever hope to explain to anyone around me bc its a very atypical obsession. i constantly feel embarrassed and like im being made fun of. i tell myself its not real, that i dont care what people thinks but nothing has any effect

Just say “I was jorkin it.” Works every time

I read earlier that Tyson chicken makes lab grown meat and freaking out because I had some Tyson nuggets a couple of days ago. I know to some people, it may not be a big deal, but to me it is. I would appreciate any advice on how to stop stressing out about this .

Hi I’m in my late thirties(M), I’ve been suffering from ocd from age 17. For three years I only had normal ocd(washing hands, checking doors) but for like 6 months I was cured completely. Doctors stopped medicine and I was back to normal. But when I was in my university I got to know one of my closest friend is gay. From that day onwards I got scared and I got hocd. Now for more than a decade I’m still recovering( I’m on sertaline 100mg).
I’m trying Accepting the thoughts but it’s disgusting. I’m only attracted to girls, I get sexual thoughts for every male person I see. Some times when I’m taking a wash or using toilet I get visual thoughts of men doing sexual stuff with me. and it’s like real life then I do ruminations to confirm nothing happened, this has ruined my life.

The thoughts I’m getting are;
All homosexual things which I’m not arroused but scared. The thing is it’s better to die than doing those stuff with men. Thats the belief my doctor said is not heling to cure this illness.

My anxiety has got from like 10 points to 2, but the constant intrusive sexual thoughts are there.
Some of the thoughts I get:
I get all these thoughts even for my dad and my 4 brothers, for every male person I see, even when I’m driving. If I park my vehicle and some guy walk past my vehicle I get thoughts I have opened the window and did oral to him. Then I will spend like 20-30 minds ruminating if it really happened. My life is like hell with this hocd. When I had normal ocd I was functioning but now it’s unbearable. My anxiety level is very low now but thoughts are attacking me.
When I brush my teeth I get thoughts that it’s not a brush and it’s some guys penis. Like every time I’m awake I’m in flight or fight mode, hyper vigilant, rumination. I have no other type of ocd.

Like few Months back I got pocd, I work at a child care facility and I couldn’t even work properly I was always ruminating. But I saw a Reddit comment to accept the worst scenes that my intrusive thoughts throwing at me, and one day when I’m home I imagined worst about the pocd thoughts I’m getting and accepted everything. After doing that I never got a single thought of pocd that I had ruminated even I got I didn’t care.

Can someone please explain is accepting the worst cases the only cure for this? But accepting the hocd thoughts are very hard for me. Please advise me. Thanks.

Hey guys I really don’t know what to do. I know I’m not supposed to seek reassurance but I don’t even know if I deserve to live after what I may have done.

when I was like 12 or 13 (potentially even 14? my memory is so hazy) I remember seeing a really awful inappropriate video on social media. I remembered it distinctly because it was so immoral, it shouldn’t have been allowed on the app to begin with and was illegal. I am so worried because I do not know If at the time I enjoyed it? I have an additional memory that I may have even tried to find the video afterwards? (I do not remember actually finding the video however, so maybe I was just looking it up out of curiosity / to understand what happened??)

My mind tells me that I am in denial and that I really did like what I saw. It’s been like 5 years. I just don’t know what to do. If I did like it I just have to commit there’s no other option. I have a plan but idk if I’m willing to do it over something I’m uncertain of. From the moment i wake up to the moment I sleep I’m ruminating on this. I feel like there is proof in my mind I did like it, and I did search for it for an horrible reason, and I just don’t know what to do. The video from what I remember had an Individual around my age or younger. I don’t know how to ask for help with this or if there even is help.

I was going through existential ocd about fear of forced reincarnation, this started when I was sad about media being lost forever and impermanence, then it evolved to fear of oblivion after death, but I got over it and evolved to the reincarnation one

my ocd has taken on a whole life of its own. for years i’ve felt completely beside myself. when i get over one obsession that was months long, my brain immediately has to latch onto something else for me to self-flagellate and be depressed over. it’s a cycle and i just can’t seem to stop it. my brain’s constantly making me out to be some immoral freak who’s lying to everybody around them. it truly is the pits. there have been times where i’ve felt more able to cope and other days where i can barely find it in me mentally to even cook myself a meal and get up to do stuff/wanting to not be around anymore, like heavily. god knows how anyone expects me to work a full time job. people just don’t have a clue. they just see people like me as a nuisance that takes their tax payers money. that’s all i feel reduced to. i drink daily, and the people around me are getting fed up now. wondering when i’ll ever get ‘better’ or if i’ll ever, GET better. i feel awful for that, on top of the heaviness of the obsessions. but i just can’t seem to snap out of it. i want to stop fucking drinking and get onto antidepressants again but i just can’t white knuckle that period where i have nothing. i wanna get out of this hole of obsessing and doomscrolling all day and being afraid to go out long distances, but idk where to start. i did dbt therapy but felt hella uncomfortable opening up about my obsessions so i have some distress tolerance skills for my bpd symptoms but not my ocd ones really, or at least not really from my pov. idk just feeling really lost and tired of everything.

TW: SA

I think abt it a lot.And since then I started to have chest pain( not too bad) and I started to have pain in left arm..and the other arm..and in the neck ..And I feel like I got something when I breathe.I got realy scared because I thought I am having a heart attack.But everytime it got better when I was near someone or talked with someone.And when I am going to college ( I study in another city,but is not too far) I feel really anxious and like something will happen to me or my parents when I am away.And I changed the place where I stay.Can you tell if you felt something similar? I am really scared and it gets worse when I panic.I will see a doctor to make sure everything is ok and I pray is anxiety.My psychologist told me these are symptoms of severe anxiety.A grandparent died some months ago and I realised I went through SA and it was very difficult for me.I am scared of being sick.I feel like I never truly lived( bad parents, experiencing bullying, multiple abuse)

I am listing the flair tag as discussion, as I’d like to to share my experience with everyone and to discuss if anyone can relate to me as I have never in my life met anyone with ocd this severe like me.

I F21 have had severe ocd since I was 9 which is when I was diagnosed. It’s never gone away and everytime I overcome a ritual, it’s only bc it gets replaced by another and usually its something that feels like 1000 times worse than the initial ritual/s that I had.

My ocd rituals started with germs and not being able to touch things that “contaminated” people would touch and I’d need to wear my “safe clothes” around certain people to avoid feeling contaminated.

I couldn’t walk under arched trees, feeling that it was a hidden portal to a dimension where if I crouched whilst going under it then I’d fear that id stuck crouching for the rest of my life. Or fears that I’d be stuck in a hidden dimension unknowingly til I walked back under that same arched tree when leaving.

Til every number suddenly had its own individual meaning, like 3 is safe, 4 is unsafe, and 8 is safe.
I started to get severe intrusive thoughts, and then it came to doorways. Every time I’d go to school as a kid, I had to go up and down the stairs like 47-48 times before leaving my house bc there was a point
where that was the only safe number that I had.

Doorways is a huge trigger for my ocd, having to go in and out of a doorway in silence again and again, and if it wasn’t silent then I’d need to go through again til it felt okay and “safe” to. With my ocd i get rlly bad intrusive thoughts of the faces of people that I do not like, including past bullies/absers. It’s very distressing for me and so everytime I go thru a door i can’t have an intrusive thought or my ocd says my room will have negative energy or I will or other people might see me the way that I see them.

I have trigger words like my absrs name, or the word rpe, those words trigger me so much. I get triggered by my absers name bc I get intrusive thoughts of his voice, face and my traumas and the word rpe triggers me bc hearing just the word makes me feel like I’m reliving my traumas or convinces me that I did that even tho I didn’t and when they say the word I have no involvement in the story like doing it often after hearing someone who idk say the word on my TikTok fyp and so I need to then type in my phones type bar that it’s “not r*pe” I type it to myself, Its not directed to dismiss anyone’s trauma, but it’s my brains way of “reversing” the idea that I am the abser in their story. Which makes no sense bc they can say to me in front of my face, this guy did this to me and my OCD will convince me that I did it to them, even if it’s just someone online speaking on there trauma who idk.

Also I get excessive anxiety when people r gossiping to me and they insult someone’s appearance in detail, I have to type “not ug*y” or else my OCD says that I will turn that way. It’s my way of reversing that.

When I date/d people if I find out who their ex is, when I find their social media out of curiosity, however times I saw their social media page that day creates a new bad number for example 5, and then that makes me avoid the number 5 or if my partner did something 5 times bc otherwise I’d feel that it meant my partner found her prettier or loved her more, even if I’m not insecure or comparing myself it’s to do with the number, not actually feeling that way.

It’s just a distressing feeling and I often struggle to leave the house.

Once I got my nose pierced a few years ago and I ripped out the nose ring as she was mid piercing it bc my OCD told me that if it wasn’t a certain way then it would change my appearance forever negatively.

I tried to get a job when I was 18, and I had intrusive thoughts of putting my hands/fingers in the oven, and I had to act on it and burnt myself. It got worse when I was cooking fries and accidentally spilt oil on my skin then I had to purposely spill more oil onto my body, not bc I wanted to harm myself but bc of the number.
I burnt myself a lot during that job; no one noticed tho

One of the rlly hard ones recently which is also affecting me and the other people in my life, it’s distressing for me but very hard to avoid, after I started doing exposure therapy I got new rituals which felt as if my OCD had found a “loophole”
and I could not avoid anymore. An example was, I had a friend who asked to borrow my lashes, I said sure.
She said that she’d return them, after she left I heard the words “not ug*y” in my head, which is what I say in my other ritual to reverse when someone says it.
Although, in this situation after she left with the lashes I started to hear those words on repeat in my brain involuntarily, saying that it wouldn’t stop til I got those lashes back. I tried to avoid these internal voices in my brain, and even just acknowledge they were there. Exposure therapy wasn’t working, it became involuntary and automatic in my brain. I felt like I couldn’t escape it, every second of the day I’d hear those words on repeat, I couldn’t listen to music, I couldn’t leave the house or do anything without those words repeatedly looping inside of my brain. I began to loose motivation and hope that it would go away, it was already distressing enough already then me and that girl stopped being friends and not seeing each other ever again. After 3 months of hearing those voices in my internal monologue repeatedly they eventually went away but I was convinced they never would and maybe I was subconsciously hyper fixating onto it but it was so distressing for me it would give me headaches and a weird tight sensation in my throat as if my body was convincing me I was saying it out loud and not internally, when I wasn’t.
But it was also automatic and out of my control.

If I walked through a door at the same time as someone made a weird noise with their mouth, then I’d tell them to repeat that noise they made to the safe number of times or else I’d have to hear that noise for the rest of my life on repeat or I’d have to make the noise myself again and again which is how I developed some rly bad tics. It was the same with someone shaking their head, then it turned into head nodding and sometimes I’d try so hard to just sit with it but then I’d start uncontrollably nodding for weeks.

I’d tell myself just sit with it the feeling will go away, which it always does go away in the end but sometimes it takes ages. I have definitely noticed the more that i acknowledge my rituals rather than ignore or avoid them it definitely has helped me somewhat.

My mum doesn’t understand and she makes me feel rlly bad abt it which actually makes it more severe, when I tell her for example can u say that noise 2 more times bc I fear it’ll turn into a trigger/tic bc it usually does. Then she’ll mock me, laugh at me or call me absive and call it “coercive control” bc I tell her can u make that throat clearing noise twice. It’s so triggering and the only reason I tell her to do it isn’t to control her but bc of how distressing it is for me and she doesn’t understand yet she has ocd herself too.
I know that people shouldn’t reassure ur rituals as it tends to make them get worse but it’s became so severe to the point where if I dont reverse that ritual then sometimes it can affect me all day, for weeks or even months if I don’t and I loose so much motivation. I know that my issues r my responsibility and I feel extremely guilty putting that weight onto others which is why I also have avoided relationships so nobody has to deal with that weight my issues put onto them.

My brain justifies telling people like my mum to help me bc it feels like survival for my own rights and freedom of my life in a sense bc if I didn’t seek help with a ritual it would affect my daily life, and one ignored ritual could affect me for days/weeks and someone helping me takes less than like a few secs.

Once a guy said to me to feel better abt my ocd by saying that i should embrace being quirky bc it makes me more interesting and not “boring” it triggered tf out of me, he was saying how he was fascinated by my ocd and wanted to pick up on my rituals and im so glad he’s not in my life anymore. Idk what type of “flirting” u call that, but we stopped being friends bc I crashed out when he used my ocd triggers to purposely trigger me then kept using it to push me to then use my reaction against, saying that I was crazy I regretted getting vulnerable to people about it and I feel embarrassed to open up, although it takes up sm of my life that I can’t just avoid telling people abt it bc of how much it takes up hours of my daily life.

It is important to mention I am NOT actually suicidal, I love living and am just going through a rough time. I won't expand on it for privacy reasons, but I am in an environment I hate every single day and tried reducing my meds with a psychiatrist, only for it to backfire and cause me severe emotional pain like my soul has been scooped out of my chest. I've never had this before. Anyway I am very hopeful for the future and believe I will become happy again, but my ocd whispers "you're depressed. Depressed people kill themselves. What if you do that?" "What if you get access to a weapon and decide you can't deal with this pain anymore?" Despite this being the total opposite of what I want, I just wanna live well. And if I were contemplating suicide I would turn to ask for help, I know myself. So why can't I stop imagining doing horrifying things to myself and living in a constant ball of anxiety and extreme distress? How do I stop this? The thoughts truly are terrifying

Hello, I'm a forst time poster but lately I've been finding solace with those who share my condition and this is just one of those places. Lately my anxiety from my OCD has been flaring up with thoughts about death that comes and goes. I've deconstructed religion to a point where I cant believe any afterlife to be true, and I can't delude myself into thinking it either. Just the thought that one day, I will die; and I will just cease to exist. There won't be anything and I'll just, be gone. I know its super irrational because I won't be there to see it happen anyway and i wont really care, but I am SO afraid of it and i dont know how to make it stop, I can't be left alone for long periods because of this and it's driving me nuts. I've still got a long way to go, but just knowing that everyday is a step closer is horrifying to me.

hey i‘m m21 and have been a long lurker here, finally decided to share my story to see if there are ppl that can relate :)

when it comes to my ocd i feel like i got the death combo😭my theme is my sexual orientation (also known SO-OCD, formerly known as HOCD for Homosexual OCD). thing is, i am indeed bisexual (pretty sure abt that despite what my ocd wants me to think) so having a gay side isn‘t even totally unrealistic. i also experience the bi-cycle which is a term a lot of bisexual ppl use to describe their fluctuations in attraction for each gender.

there is a lot of compulsive behavior patterns as well as obsessive thinking that i‘m not gonna go too much into detail here coz i dont want this post to be nsfw but yeah

i‘d say the bi-cycle is the main thing my ocd latches onto. basically, i have periods where i‘m really attracted to girls and i‘m like ”definitely bi!“, then it switches to men and my brain‘s like ”ok this is it. you‘re gay and you‘re just in denial. you‘re lying to yourself, to your friends and family, to your future partner(s), you‘re just a horrible person. you aren‘t bi at all you‘re just using it to fit into a heteronormative society“…then it switches back again

let me know what y‘all think! :)

My ocd has gotten so much worse. I'm stuck in thought spirals all day. It prevents me from making good choices and wastes my time, and i have trouble eating and sleeping on time. I can't engage in the things that I love anymore, the things that have kept me alive, because of the rumination. It centers around the morality, and about the trauma. Is it ethical to like this? Is this like the person who abused me? Do i look like the person who abused me? My chronic illness makes it worse. The pmdd makes it worse. I don't know what to tell the psychiatrist anymore because ive tried nearly every ssri, mood stabilizers, antipshycotics, lithium, TMS, and now i'm onto Gabapentin. only 100 mg. I need this to work. Nothing else works. I just don't know what to ask for anymore. My nervous system is constantly inflamed, and I can't predict what medication will make me work. I need gabapentin to work. I need it to so bad. Because this has been a detriment to my entire livelihood, and I don't know how much longer I can keep this all up.

I recently became 21 and married my partner. Being my 21st Birthday ofc imma be doing some drinking and because I’m married adult activities. I was Diagnosed with OCD 2 years ago and have been working through it until i had to leave my old therapist (looking for new one)

With the new activities of drinking and sex, my obsessions have been much worse then they usually are, about as bad as before treatment. My first night of drinking i started counting my steps aloud rather then in my head. My partner has also remarked that my physical compulsions become worse after both. I was wondering why does my OCD get worse when I’m drunk and after my partner and I have sex? Is this just a me thing? Am i imagining it? Why does it happen and what is the reason behind it?

My long distance boyfriend has OCD, and one of his long term obsessions came true today. The issue is, he's sleeping. I don't know what to do when he wakes up. Should I tell him? Should I let him find out on his own? How should I support him? What can I say or do to help? This is the first time one of his obsessions has come true since we've been together, and it's about something very important to him. Nothing like death, but still something to do with his everyday life. I'm worried it'll cause a very bad depressive episode, and I'm not sure how to comfort him since I've never handled an OCD related issue. Any help is appreciated.

Everything has lost its color. Because of my depression and OCD, nothing makes me happy anymore. In fact, the things that used to bring me happiness now only make me miserable. I don’t want to keep suffering like this. I have everything—good friends, family, plenty of possessions, and a comfortable life—yet I can’t enjoy any of it. I’ve been this way for a year, and I don’t think it’s ever going to end. I have everything, but I have nothing. Nothing makes sense anymore. I just want to go back to being the person I once was—someone who didn’t fall apart at the slightest thing and who could actually enjoy the things he loved. I am so tired. It hurts so much.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! My OCD gets so bad before my period. I’m tired to of losing half of my life to intrusive thoughts and obsessions. I become an anxious mess and work is getting harder.