r/OCD

I CANT DO IT ANYMORE!!! IM DONE IM LITERALLY DONE THIS OCD SHIT HAS GOTTEN TO HE WAY TOO MUCH IM DONE WAITINF FOR A THERAPIST TO GET BACK TO ME AS FAR AS GETTING A THERAPIST IN MY NEW AREA IM DONE WAITING FOR MEDS TO WORK I WANT TO NOT EXIST ANYMORE THERE I SAID IT I WANT TO FUCKING NOT EXIST IN THIS UNFAIR PLAYING FEILD FOR ME. WHERE EVRRY DAY OF MY LIFE I HAVE TO SUFFER, SUFFER FROM THIS GOD DAMN CURSE PUT UPON ME CALLED OCD. I CANT DO IT ANYMORE…..

I’m curious to hear what your everyone’s current obsessive thoughts are right now. If you’re comfortable sharing I’d love to hear. What have you spent hours ruminating on this past week?

hi, I'm doing ocd therapy and one of my main fears is putting myself out in the open. for instance I have an insane fear of doing a story on instagram bc I have the fear that it changes the perception of me to a degree that is inaccurate. I want to create certainty and accuracy to the highest degree for the people in my life but that also means that I SHOULD post. So I have this weird contradiction in my brain and the uncertainty of the progression of my posts. Reddit is included in that but is less scary because the post is shown to random people, so less stressful. Another compulsion I have is looking at this post every 3 minutes to see the timeline of how many likes and comments this post gets, so I will not look at this post for a day. Ty :), love you all.

My OCD makes me think I’m a terrible person, so when I’m in a spiral, I feel as if I can’t enjoy the things I usually do—browsing Reddit, watching my favorite things, listening to music etc. I’ll just sit and ruminate and restrict myself from doing anything that gives me joy until I can figure out if I truly have anything to be worried about. My reasoning is if I’m a bad person, then I don’t deserve the joys of life that other people do; I think “bad people don’t deserve to relax and enjoy things. They are defined by the bad things they’ve done”

For many years I avoided therapy out of fear, but the problem has gotten to a point where I just can't ignore it anymore because it's just taking too much time every day.

Just now I came to realize that, on top of there being very scant options in my city (just in case I clarify I'm not from the US) of therapists who specialize in cognitive behavioural therapy at all, I've simply not found a single one that does ERP or that knows of it.

Based on your experience, do you think I could see some results despite them not having the specific tools to do ERP therapy? Or will I most likely be wasting money?

I suppose I can try medication as an alternative, but tbh I'm even more afraid of all the drawbacks that come with medication, specially the possibility of building a tolerance to the dose over time, so I really had high hopes of getting through it only with therapy :(

It will just keep responding and affirming me and it's so hard to not fall into that trap.

I even put into the settings that I have OCD and to NOT reassure me but it still kind of does it.

Claude is the best, it will actively tell me ERP strategies but it still forgets I have OCD and so I can "conveniently" forget to tell it.

UGH

I know OCD and addiction are common companions so I’m sure some of you can relate to this. I wasn’t quite there yet but I was damned close to alcoholism and tomorrow I celebrate one year without a drink!

Do I miss it? Not in a way that makes me want to start drinking again..what I do miss is the dulling of my senses. But I’m learning new ways to do that, so I consider that a win as well.

I wish anyone else who has struggled or is currently struggling with addiction the very best. 🩷

Hi all, I need advice for dealing with my boyfriend. We went through a very specific situation which we both hurt each other, but he keeps going back to it and doesnt let me move on and forget about it, and as that still hurts me very much and as a chronically anxious person, it’s been extremely harmful to me, he just does not listen that I can’t talk about it anymore. Should I break up with him? I love him as a person, but it’s hurting me pretty bad.
He takes care of himself and takes his meds very seriously, but somehow he doesnt seem to care or listen to how much this hurts me. Any advice?

Hello all! I was diagnosed with OCD just a few months ago. It has by far been the most useful diagnosis I’ve ever received. I feel a lot better now having a name for a majority of my problems. With that being said, I’m still new to it and have questions. I have a therapist and I will ask these questions whenever my next appointment comes around, but I also like input from other people with similar experiences. Are OCD meltdowns a thing? I know that term is used heavily in the autistic community and I don’t want to use it improperly, but at the same time it feels like the most fitting way to describe my episodes. I’ve been told that with this diagnosis I am on the spectrum, but I don’t want to offend or overstep. I’m still working on finding more of my triggers, but are there other explanations for these episodes?

Typically it starts with heavy breathing, increased heart rate, typically panic-y stuff. Then it evolves to hyperventilating, bawling, unavoidable looping thoughts, thoughts of self harm (clean for many years), I literally can’t think straight and typical coping mechanisms don’t work. Usually happens after bouts of high stress or changes in plans (one of my main struggle areas). Shorter ones I would just call panic attacks, but I had one this weekend that lasted 12 hours. I was inconsolable, I couldn’t remotely think straight, and I felt incredibly disoriented and disconnected. It’s exhausting and it can take me up to a day to recover. I was diagnosed with panic disorder at an early age but to me it truly feels different from just a simple panic attack. I just don’t want to be using incorrect terms to explain my experiences, I’m just trying to navigate a newer diagnosis and accept my not so fun mental quirks. Any advice is also appreciated. Thank you in advance :)

Anyone here a parent? I'm sure I'm not the only 20-something with OCD that feels very intimidated by parenting and afraid of my mental health taking a nosedive with that much on the line.

Nobody's pregnant yet...but my fiancé and I would love to start a family at some point in our 30s.

Any insights or experiences shared are welcome!

My (27f) husband (25m) has OCD. He apparently has been struggling with this for years until last September he finally came to me, emotional and crying, and said he didn’t know what was wrong with him only that he felt like a “crazy person”. Of course I supported, loved and cared and we got him to the a doctor where he was diagnosed. He talked to two therapist and they basically said “not much I can do. You need a specialist” but the referral never came. So he stopped wanting the help and never tried to get more. 3 months ago he was put on Zoloft… I ask him how it is going and how he is feeling but there has been no progress. His rituals seem to be having more and more things added to them, he has been sleeping on the couch because if he doesn’t sleep in our room he doesn’t “have to do” his long nightly ritual (putting on a shirt and jewelry, straightening shoes, locking all doors 10 times, look out all the windows). I just don’t know what I can do for him.. it’s hard watching the one I love more than anything hating/feeling tortured like this. Any and all advice is appreciated! Thank you guys.

I get super obsessive with my thoughts but sometimes there are moments where I genuinely just don't care and let it sit with me because like I don't get paid enough for this. And it works out in my favor and the thought just disappear. It's the best feeling ever bc you know you just saved yourself a week's worth of worry about some moral failing in exchange of sacrificing the need to poke around the thought.

I just crashed. I’ve been dealing with racing suicidal images thoughts (all intrusive) since the end of January. I have failed over 5+ meds and I am beginning to feel hopeless , I am hopeless. Working out every day, going to work - I have crashed.
I’m laying in bed missing another day of work and my brain just keeps going “I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared”, “I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I don’t want to die”. I LOVE MY FAMILY, I HAVE TWO BEAUTIFUL BABIES I AM THINKING OF AND I AM HEARTBROKEN that I have fell apart. I feel like a scared animal stuck , frozen in fight or flight. I don’t want to leave this earth, I want to get better. I feel like I can never forgive myself for the horrific thoughts I’ve had (fear or hurting my family, myself , fear of not wanting to be here, fear of going crazy). I feel as if i have lost my mind. I feel like I have a traumatic brain injury that won’t heal. I want my life back. I fear i am too far gone. Is there any way of coming back? I am in tears as I write this, shaking.

Hi. This is my first time posting on this sub. For the past couple days i have had SEVERE rabies intrusive thoughts. A few days ago, I brushed past a bush and convinced myself a bat bit me when there was no bite mark and clearly no bat. Then, I went out for July 4th. We had to walk through the forest (with a marked path) to get through a clearing to watch the fireworks. There was hundreds of people around, I saw no bat and heard no bat. I woke up to a few spots on my calf, two of which looked like a potential bat bite. There’s a few rows of two bites. I KNOW I didn’t see or hear a bat. No one mentioned a bat.

I was practicing therapeutic techniques and trying to forget about the whole thing, and then I woke up this morning with flu-like symptoms like diarrhea and a sore throat. My brain keeps trying to convince me that rabies has set in… I have no idea what to do. This is the first time I’ve been anxious like this.

(I have DXed anxiety, but not OCD. I suspect it). I’m just so sick of feeling like this. I know a bat didn’t bite me… But my brain is telling me what if it did? what if you just forgot? I feel miserable!!!!!!

Hello, I am wondering if I have, or ever had, OCD. As a child and teenager, little things would set me off and distract the heck out of me.

For example, when my school teachers erased the board, but left a little marker or chalk, I would obsess over this and get fidgety. One time I interrupted the class to erase it and it was embarrassing.

Another thing that bothered me was certain numbers. TV volume could only be numbers ending jn 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, or 8. Numbers on the cusp of a 0 or 5 were not permitted (1, 4, 6, 9). This would distract me and I would have to fix it or leave the room.

There are other little things too, like needing to blink at certain intervals as I am driving, but less pervasive and only appears every so often.

So back to my title: I haven't had strong responses to these things in a very long time. A big reason is that I have simply removed the stressor from my life: I don't go to school anymore, and I work from home where I have full control over the little things. Most of my devices have volume levels that are a sliding scale rather than numbers/digits.

But another reason could be that my brain has changed over time. I am extremely different in my temperament, personality, values, and mannerisms. Is it possible that something like OCD could have also changed?

So I’m not 100% sure about this but I’m 29 now but I’m having OCD about the fact that I used to have weird taboo sexual fantasies as a 14 - 15 year old that I didn’t think were problematic. But now as a 29 year old it fills be with pure dread that I used to think like this and it makes me very uncomfortable in retrospect and makes me wish i could erase these memories. Has anyone had a similar experience? Do we grow out of weird things that we once thought were normal or didn’t question?

I have an obsessive fear of getting pregnant, like, insanely obsessive. Usually It‘s not too bad, but I get irregular periods and it makes me spiral. I logically know it‘s biologically impossible but I still assume that every single symptom of being a human being that technically also affects pregnant people means I‘m definitely pregnant. One time i even convinced myself that my period was implantation bleeding, it‘s insane, i know but I‘m completely at a loss for what to do. These days I‘ve been nauseous almost daily, realistically it‘s probably the heat, i don‘t do well with heat, but it‘s been so incredibly hard to listen to that voice of reason, the only reason I‘m not taking a pregnancy test right now is because I feel so incredibly stupid and humiliated by my thoughts. I cried like 3 times yesterday because I fully believe that I just have to be pregnant. I don‘t know how to help myself without constantly taking tests and I can‘t get sterilized due to my age. Does anyone else experience this sort of thing too? This feels incredibly alienating and stupid i don‘t know how to talk to my therapist about it and say out loud that even though I‘ve never even held hands with a man, I keep convincing myself that I‘m pregnant to debilitating degrees.

I keep pushing everyone away I feel like I can only live if I’m alone.

I don't know if this is an universal experience or I am just unfortunate with the people around me but whenever I tell certain ppl my moral ocd or when they just realize I'm basically a punching bag when it comes to guilt, they sometimes always see it as a opening to say whatever belief they have and try to make me believe in it too.

I have had several past experiences like that, one time it kinda sucked ( but wasn't bad like the other ones) because it was from a fellow who had the same condition of moral ocd as me, they would often send me videos of those vegan awareness videos (few really disturbing ones) even when I asked them not to— trying to make me stop eating meat and reassure me that "once you do that, your compulsion will never come back".

Like it's always followed up with so much of reassurance. I find those situations very creepy, is this some sort of grooming? Doing that while knowing very well that person is vulnerable in their beliefs and taking advantage of that?

I saw a lady on TikTok say that human minds are like email inbox.
Most normal people receive a lot of emails, including spam which they normally ignore, delete or have a spam box.
However, people with OCD feel morally responsible to open and read each and every email they receive. They additionally might ask themselves how this email got in their inbox? Why did they subscribe to this news letter? How did the company get their email?
They may re-read the email to make sure it said something or didn’t say something.
They may fear they responded to the email or question how they responded.
And they do this with each and every one.

This analogy has allowed me to explain my OCD to others better than ever before!
Do you have a favorite OCD analogy?