r/OCDRecovery

Is it normal for any progress you’ve made to just be gone the next morning? I’ll feel like I’ve done a lot in terms of resisting rumination etc, but every so often I’m thrown right back into it and whatever I learned before doesn’t work.

The best way I can describe it is that my mind quickly learns what calms me down and how I’m going about dealing with it and adapts to it. A couple of months ago breathing exercises helped me a lot for about a week and then became useless one day. I’ve also found some ways to “talk back” (things like “it may or may not.” “Who knows?”) to my thoughts but I can tell my anxiety symptoms get stronger the more I try. There are a lot of examples.

My “obsessions” also change at a scary fast pace so it is incredibly difficult to keep up. They are all real event based which makes it even worse.

I feel like I’m pushing a boulder up a hill and at every sunrise, the boulder rolls back down the hill and flattens me. How do I persevere through it all?

These sudden thoughts are so terrible that I can't even imagine describing them to anyone irl or even online. But It's been years now and I am spending almost all my time doing mental rituals. I am gonna get help. I just don't know how I'm going to explain all this

I hope that it's okay to post here. if it's not, please let me know where I can get help.

My partner has OCD. We've been together for 7 years and OCD has always been a part of her life. I knew going into the relationship that she struggled with it and while it's been hard, I love her very much and I wouldn't trade her for the world.

That said, living with her OCD is starting to get a little difficult for me to manage. Contamination OCD seems the closest fit to her type of OCD and it requires a lot of vigilance from me that is getting hard for me to sustain. Most of the stuff is minor, things like showering whenever my body touches something outside, wiping my phone with alcohol every day, washing my hands before I touch anything clean, wearing slippers in the house, etc. the hard part is her reaction when I mess up. she gets more and more upset at me when I'm not careful. last night she had an outburst when I poured water into the water filter and some of the water splashed out onto the bed. since it could have splashed off an unclean surface, she had to disinfect the area with alcohol and wash her hands. she reminded me right before to be careful and I wasn't, which is my fault. I admit I didn't handle it well and tried to downplay my mistake.

she's started treatment at my behest (she's currently taking SSRIs to manage her anxiety). It's helped with her anxiety immensely, but not so much with her OCD (at least, from what I can tell; i'm sure internally for her it's become more manageable) I don't know if she's considered ERP but she's said that flooding doesn't work for her. I can tell that she's trying her best, but I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

her OCD isn't so limiting that she can't live her life, and her lifestyle is largely sustainable for her. it's just not for me. I want to make this work though, so what can I do?

Is it rumination? Why do we obsess over the people that reject/hurt us? Whats the science behind it? 80mg fluoxetine cant stop these thoughts..

My ocd has flared up super bad over this past year and whilst I have the basics of how to deal with ocd there's still some things I really struggle with and I wanted advice on how to help them.

First of all one of the big themes I'm struggling with currently is moral ocd. I have no idea how to approach morals in a healthy way; I have the tendency to become very obsessive with it; not sure what I'm supposed to think or how to feel (I know there is no supposed to but we know some things are objectively wrong such as bigotry), wanting to do the right thing all the time. This stuff is very important to me but I struggle to develop a moral code without becoming incredibly obsessive about it, what's normal good person shit and what's my ocd going haywire? When is something actually a problem and when is my ocd making an issue where there doesn't need to be one? I really struggle to tell the difference and trust myself, I want to know how I can.

I also hold myself on a bit of a lead in regards to the fact I struggle to validate myself and my own issues, I worry if I think of myself too much I'll become selfish and stop considering other people (again fears of becoming a bad person). I'm very black and white with all of this, either I think of myself too much or don't think of myself at all and both extremes are unhealthy, I really struggle with the grey area and nuance. So I'm wondering how I care for myself, validate myself and all the emotions I feel in situations (especially situations where I've done wrong) whilst also considering others and acknowledging where my emotions might not be the most beneficial in this situation (they may be overexaggerated and responding to an issue that isn't actually happening or I may direct anger where it really doesn't need to be).

I'm also dealing with real event ocd especially wondering if I'm a bad person because I really don't want to confess the things I've done but wondering if I have to; worrying how people see me and worrying if I'm a bad person for thinking about how people see me if they knew; worrying I'm not showing my true self if people don't know, how do you deal with real event?

I think in general I struggle to trust myself and live with a mind that can make anything into an obsession and very quickly become fixated on it in an unhealthy way, so I wonder how I live life in these conditions? What ways I'm able to do so.

I'm unsure when I'll be able to get ocd treatment so I want to have steps I can take in the meantime as I wait for it, any advice would be really appreciated, thank you so much :).

So i came up with a very good non-engagement response, and for a while it worked great. Problem is now its repeating itself, and im wondering if it has actually become a thought loop or if something else is happening.

I recently began trying to farm quail for eggs. I had 3 roos (boys) and one of them was very very aggressive with the females. So much so, 5 of the hens became very injured and are currently being treated for their wounds. The only solution, then, was to unfortunately humanely cull that roo. I dont even step on ants, so to be brought to that really left a mark on me.

As you may be able to tell I am an animal lover, and this act of nessecity that is a daily part of life for anyone raising poulty has to deal with really has sent me into a downwards spiral in fear I may somehow accidentally or unconsciously hurt one of the animals. Its very very scary and I find myself checking the dryer repeatedly for the cats and feeling guilty when I finally build up the courage to stop checking for the 5th+ time. I am afraid to hold my fragile little lizards or to even sleep with the cats near me in case I somehow sleep walk and hurt them.

Does anyone have any good tips to break the cycle of animal harm ocd? Or other ways I can occupy my brain while doing animal care to get out of this loop? I try music but it stopped helping and I want to be able to care for my pets and other animals without the fear I may hurt them.

For years I struggled with severe OCD and anxiety. I know what it feels like when a spike hits and your whole inner world is on fire. I know the desperate search for an answer that will make it stop. I know how it feels to post in forums at 2am hoping someone will say something that makes the doubt go away and how it never really does.

The advice was always the same. “These are just thoughts. Sit with the anxiety. Do ERP.” And they were right. But I couldn’t believe it in the moment. No matter how much I wanted to.

What I needed wasn’t information. I needed something that could meet me in the chaos, help me understand what was happening, and point me toward the right action without lying to me by making it feel better.

So I built it.

It’s called Withold. It’s a companion for OCD and anxiety spikes. It won’t give you reassurance. It won’t tell you everything is going to be okay. It will sit with you, help you understand what OCD is doing to your brain right now, and orient you toward the only thing that actually works sitting with the uncertainty without performing the compulsion.

The free plan gives you one conversation per day which is honestly enough. You shouldn’t be in there more than once a day anyway. That’s by design.

If you need more, Pro is €7/month.

I built this because I needed it, not to make money. If you’re struggling right now the link is:

withold.vercel.app

Happy to answer any questions.

I always had a light at the end of the tunnel I always had some hope in previous themes but this one it’s blocked completely I don’t think there’s any hope for me

So, I've been dealing with Real Event OCD since an event from February this year, which reminded me of some other events from years prior. By now, I realised my mistakes, apologised to whom I could, learned my lessons, vowed to do better and act in alignment with my values; I even realised that the events weren't as severe as my brain saw them, and I thought I'd never get to this point.

Up until a month ago or so, I used to think that if someone like my best friend or partner had done the same thing as me, I'd judge them and not show compassion. But now I would. I'm not being as harsh with myself as I have been.

But still... how do I stop my brain from always getting me to think about what I've done, finding new aspects of my event to obsess and make me feel horrible about?

Even in the days where I've been mostly calm, the thought of my event has crossed my mind, and I can't take this anymore.

Thank you so much if anyone has advice to offer.

P.S. I'm in therapy but I'm going much less frequently, and it's talk therapy not really specialised in OCD. And I even told my therapist that chapter was closed, only later I realised it wasn't.

I'm not currently in a situation where I could get another kind of therapy.

Sometimes I can’t believe that I am forced to live the rest of my life with this terrible illness. Like my one life that I get I have to have OCD. It’s just so depressing to think about sometimes. It gets hard to see better days ahead.

Is Is Recovery possible ? … DPDR,Existential,Solipsism, Consciousness OCD.

Hi all,
I’ve posted a few times before , so I’m familiar on these threads.
For those who have suffered with these themes what was it like.
I feel derealised and so within my own head, that even the fact I’m concious kinda freaks me out. The thought that there is such a vast universe out there, and I’m so small in it, yet my conciousness is 24/7 everyday and feels so huge (not sure how to word it). And the odds of being alive in this planet along with all these other people feels impossible yet I am here, which is so scary to me although most people would find it cool. I struggle to comprehend how others are concious because it’s so hard to imagine, therefore I get intrusive thoughts that they are just figments of my imagination as if the whole world and people around me is part of a simulation. It’s so scary because I know there isn’t any answers , I feel like I’ve discovered a perspective I can’t get out of. How can what I think is OCD go away when the trigger is conciousness itself or perhaps DPDR. It seems impossible to get rid of like Im genuinely so lost and confused. I’ve had a history of OCD the,es and tendencies before this by the way.

Please I need hope, support and recovery stories, feel free to comment under here or send a DM Recovery possible ? … DPDR,Existential,Solipsism, Consciousness OCD.

no reassurance wanted, just advice.

i've got relatively bad OCD, it focuses on mainly the concept of having a panic attack and being stuck somewhere. it makes me unable to go on buses, or go to a store with no ride home, etc.

my friends and i have had a camping trip planned for after graduation for months now, long before i started to worry about it. if i can't even go on a bus, how am i supposed to make sure i can stay in a remote area for days? how do i make myself do this?

i know i would have fun. i know i would enjoy it and be proud of myself and i know my friends will be sad if i can't go. i used to love to travel and go on long car rides and camp at beaches. i don't want OCD to steal yet another joy of my life. we're supposed to leave on the 12th of June. be frank with me; is it possible for me to feel well enough to go by then? i only have a CBT therapist at the moment.

I finally went to see a psychiatrist after I’ve been struggling for about a year and a half. I went off of medications about 3 years ago after trying SO many and having a terrible time. I was so numb on SSRI’s. I had no sex drive and gained a lot of weight (which was also due to other lifestyle factors). I am very apprehensive about getting on this new medication, Fluvoxamine. I have been very anti-SSRI for a couple of years now and was actually microdosing for a while and experimenting with psychedelic therapy to process trauma and try to get to the root of it all. I definitely did see major improvements but recently, especially since being in a newish relationship, the OCD has gotten really really bad. I don’t feel like I’m based in reality most of the time. I have felt very paranoid in all of my relationships which is causing me to feel even more isolated with a mental illness that is already isolating. The thoughts feel debilitating and I’ve become extremely avoidant and drained and constantly feel tense and on edge. I have nightmares almost every night. I can never relax. I am considering ketamine therapy as an alternate solution to being on an SSRI. I feel like through all of this I have become very depressed. I am hoping someone could offer me some advice or encouragement even. I am young and want to be able to live my life and feel happy and safe.

I need to ask someone to see. I feel so lost about it. Is it a compulsion if I write it out here so that other people can relate? I feel like what I did was bad and that I will never be the same. My mind is telling me that I cannot come back from this even though I think I deserve to be forgiven eventually. The person that was involved I cannot contact to get reassurance from so it makes things so much worse. How have others approached making amends when someone tells you not to?

Hi everyone last days about two weeks ago were really hard for me. my daily routine is absolutely shit my eating habits is so bad the same with study and fitness I was scrolling all day and feeling stress 24/7 (cuz my OCD) but now I’m better I’m still in recovery but I’m getting better for now.

I fear If I don’t change my habits and start doing something in my life. I will came back to the harsh time. but my problem is I don’t feel joy anymore it is hard to explain. but like I was like watching TV show but now it is heavy very heavy the same thing with every thing else.

More informations: I’m 18 years old and I have final exams in less than a month and I have to study (I was nerd before past days)
So now I’m in home in most of the time

much love to ya all out there.

I just moved in to a new neigborhood, it started as rumination wether I am being judged, liked or what, Now I'm back to compulsions , just researching reddit constantly, It's kinda stressful

What do you guys do if there are major changes in your life? How do you get out of the loop?

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!