u/PaulOCDRecovery

Hi all - just felt like sharing something today.

Having learned to manage / recover from a lot of my most troubling OCD themes, I'm now starting to recognise how I'm affected by the need to feel 'just right' in my moment-to-moment choices.

When I'm doing something so structured or focussed that there's no room for over-thinking, I can get in the zone. But most of the time, if there is some choice to be made about where to deploy my effort or attention, there's a constant low-level feeling of tornness - like if something isn't completely immersing or meaningful or enjoyable, then it feels 'wrong'.

This discomfort gets more intense when I have genuine spare time - like in the evenings, when the kids are in bed and I can decide how to spend a couple of hours to myself. I can find myself getting really intellectually stuck between options, none of which feel completely 'satisfying' in my mind's eye.

In talking with my therapist today, I recognised properly this need to constantly feel 'just right'. And now I'm going to reframe my unstructured time as a more of an experiment. Just pick something to do, pay attention to it as fully as possible, accept that it might not feel just right, and know that I'm building more tolerance of imperfect life moments!

Hi there all,

I'm venturing onto this sub-reddit just to share something and perhaps receive some supportive words.

I just wanted to express something I find difficult to say. My life has plenty of responsibilities (e.g. being a parent, partner, colleague) and I do a range of voluntary service activities. So I'm no stranger to offering emotional support to others. And, perhaps as a stereotypical male, I find it hard to recognise when I'm in need of some support / comfort, and to share that with other people.

Today I'm feeling a little isolated, and really just want the feeling of being 'held' - either physically or psychologically. I can't even articulate why. There's no major 'problem' or emotion going on; I just want to feel supportive contact from other guys. Even a plutonic man-hug, I dare say.

My Dad died 16 years ago, and was not an emotionally available man in any case. So I feel like I'm slightly aching for some male benevolence and wisdom today. Particularly as I work from home doing spreadsheets and stuff, and can lack any meaningful connection during the working day.

Apologies if this all sounds quite vague. I just wanted to challenge myself to express a need to other men, rather than judge myself as 'soft' or embarrassed for wanting to be looked after a little!

Best wishes to all.

[A blog post adapted from my new site: www.realeventocd.co.uk]

____________________________

One of the cruellest aspects of Real Event OCD is that we wonder if we are uniquely bad people.  Sometimes we may think – or even become convinced – that we are the single most terrible and irredeemable person on Earth. 

Have you ever felt that way?  I certainly did, during my worst times with REOCD.  It didn’t even occur to me to find out if other people felt the way I did.  That’s the power of shame, I suppose – it keeps us small, disconnected, and alone.

Allow me to gently challenge this belief, without wanting to get into reassurance-giving.  Consider these insights for a moment:

• In 2025, researchers gathered data from 10 countries and found that 3% of the people in those countries had experienced OCD during the last 12 months.
• Those countries are populated by around 1.7 billion people in total.  So that means potentially 51 million people, in those countries alone, have been struggling with OCD in recent times.
• And how many people might have the REOCD sub-type?  Well, health specialists NOCD surveyed their members who live with OCD in 2023 and found that 37% of them experienced Real Event OCD.

These figures suggest to me that there are, conservatively, tens of millions of people around the globe currently struggling with REOCD.  Tens of millions of people who feel bad, dishonest, and undeserving – and find themselves stuck in the obsessive-compulsive cycle, as you might do.  And tens of millions of people who have had the thought “nobody is as bad as me”. 

How unimaginably sad that there are so many of us who have felt this way.

If you’ve experienced REOCD, I don’t need to tell you why it might be difficult to open up and share your struggles with other people (outside of panicked confessions). Understandably, it’s also difficult to sustain a safe and contained online space for people to come together and share their REOCD experiences.  There is still a lot of misunderstanding, stigma, and fear out there.

But I hope it helps, in some way, to know that you are truly not alone – no matter how convincing the Inner Critic inside you is.  The specifics of your past actions don’t matter, and REOCD can latch onto a wide spectrum of perceived ‘wrongdoing’; just know that there are so many other people out there experiencing similar levels of crippling guilt, shame, and anxiety.

If you do decide to reach out to someone – and that’s entirely your decision - protecting your own safety is the absolute priority.  Only share information you’re comfortable to share, be mindful of compulsive over-sharing or confession, and build a sense of trust with the other person before going too deep into any details. 

Sending best wishes to all.