I’ve had OCD since I was a child, from washing my hands 1000 times a day, to obsessive thoughts in health areas and intrusive thoughts about anything.

Now I’m obsessed with the possibility of having autism. I do show some of its symptoms (like stimming, special interests) and I do struggle socially (or so I think).

The thing is as I am scared of an autism diagnosis, I am also relieved by the possibility of having it. Which is weird because usually I am terrified of the possibility of whatever obsession I’m having being true.

I can’t even go for a diagnosis because it’s expensive and I shouldn’t spend this much money on an obsession.

Has anyone dealt with autism OCD? Did anyone actually had autism?
Help:(

Can you imagine having OCD so bad that you don’t even feel mentally “available” enough to properly argue, debate, or have a disagreement with your boyfriend?

For me, it’s like I’m trying to focus on the actual conversation - thinking of solid arguments, explaining my point, responding to what he’s saying - while another part of my brain is screaming:

“WAIT. HOLD ON. YOU NEED TO KEEP CONTROL OF… SOMETHING.”

And then I’m stuck trying to have a normal argument while simultaneously monitoring myself, my surroundings, my thoughts, what I’m doing, whether I’m standing somewhere for too long…

“Don’t stand in one place for too long, you know why…”

AAAAAA!!!

It’s so fucking frustrating. I want to focus on the person in front of me and actually engage in the conversation, but my OCD keeps pulling my attention away and making me feel like I need to maintain control over some completely arbitrary thing.

And the worst part is that sometimes I genuinely feel like I’m not even mentally equipped to have a disagreement because so much of my brain is already occupied with OCD bullshit.

Why did I do this to myself?

When did I even start living like this?

I just want my brain to shut the fuck up for five minutes so I can have a normal argument like a normal person. 😭

I personally thought this was normal how I sometimes think but recently was told it is not. But still definitely does not mean i have traces of OCD like i am not obsessive about being clean i am very chill about most things and I don’t care if other do things differently and im not a perfectonist. But i’m at the gym now and one step has a different sensation to the rest of the steps and I’m battling allowing each foot to get equal sensation of the disabled step. And I have been like this since a kid like if i touched a weird sensation especially on my leg i feel like i need to do it to the other foot until the sensation feels equal or if one foot steps on a weird color i feel the need to go back so my other foot can also step on the colour. BUT this does not hinder my life in anyway and i perfectly can decide to ignore this. This tends to flare up if i am having a stressful time. But like when i was a kid i did this alot then my mom told me I should fight against this and i did. And largely it went away since i stopped feeding it. So most of the time it’s just uncomfortable noise i am feeling but and not something that is out of my control. Like i can force my self to not give in to those feelings and it doesn’t ruin my day if i if ignore it and i don’t think about all day but in the moment if these thoughts come i feel uncomfortable not giving in

Mi psicóloga me ha mandado como tarea que tengo que intentar dejar de buscar en internet, pero se me hace imposible. Quiero contaros mi caso brevemente para que alguien me de su opinión. Voy a hacer 6 años con mi pareja. Él es genial, me enamoré de él desde el minuto uno, jamás me había sentido así con nadie, no me creía lo que estaba viviendo. Él me ha ayudado en todo y ha sido mi refugio, literalmente, siempre. Lo he pasado muy mal desde pequeña y siempre he dado gracias porque él apareciera en mi vida. Nos compramos un piso y a las 2 semanas, de repente quedándome dormida me vino el pensamiento de “y si no lo quiero”? Todo me vino porque llevábamos unos meses atrás discutiendo y yo muy triste, no me hacía ilusión nada. Esa misma noche antes de tener el pensamiento estaba viendo un vídeo de una influencer que había tenido su tercer hijo y me puse a pensar que yo no sería capaz de ser madre porque soy débil mentalmente, que no iba a querer a mis hijos etc. En cuanto tuve el pensamiento sobre mi pareja salte de la cama y me dio un ataque de pánico, lo empecé a ver como un extraño, como si estuviera viviendo una pesadilla. A la mañana siguiente seguía igual y a partir de ahí, sin comer, sin dormir, con medicación, no podía trabajar, me tuve que ir a casa de mi madre unos días, no quería verlo, atrase el momento de mudarnos al piso nuevo, evitaba estar con su familia, fui a echarme las cartas, hablaba con todo el mundo, buscaba en internet, etc. Con la medicación me bajó algo la ansiedad y mi psicóloga me habló de los pensamientos obsesivos y me dijo que buscara a alguien experto en TOC. Llevo como 5 sesiones y en la siguiente me ha dicho que empezamos la EPR. Pero estoy aquí porque he llegado a un punto en el que pienso que no tengo TOC, que me he desenamorado, lo siento muy real y no me reconozco. No quiero estar así con el, tengo mucha culpa, pero no paro de leer testimonios de gente que saben en el fondo que aman a su pareja y yo ya no sé si lo amo, que es real o que es TOC. Hay momentos en los que me molesta todo de él, siento la necesidad de escapar. Y el pensamiento estrella que estoy teniendo es que mi ansiedad es por pensar en las consecuencias de la ruptura y todo lo que conlleva, no por el TOC. Necesito que me deis opinión por favor, gracias!

Hi everyone. 😊

As the title suggests, I’m hoping to hear from some others who have had to take sick leave during their OCD recovery.

For some context, I am currently feeling so guilty. This journey has been a long one and since December 2024 I have been signed off work 3 times by my GP. The first 2 times were for stress, anxiety and depression. The 3rd time was for adjusting to a new medication for those things. All this time, I have known deep down it was OCD symptoms that I was experiencing but I was just so embarrassed to admit it to the doctor, therapist and work. As many of you will understand, it is ruining my life and I knew I had to just take the step to recovering. I opened up honestly about how I was feeling and my manager has been so supportive. I took some short notice annual leave a few weeks ago because I was really struggling and didn’t want to worry about the process of calling in sick each day. Fast forward, yesterday at work I was back to feeling low. I contacted my GP to request a sick note to sign me off work and I am calling in sick today until I hear back from them. I feel so guilty about this which is why I’ve come here to hear some advice. This is the first time I have requested sick leave for the time to focus on my OCD recovery. I am currently on a waiting list for therapy and I am going to discuss medication adjustments with my doctor as my current medication is not helping. I just worry about what my team will think about all this time off I have taken and am still taking. It is so hard to not feel guilty when this illness is not visible and it is my mind.

I hope each of you are doing well today and I’m sending so much love to you all during this recovery. ❤️

I spend most of my day monitoring and analyzing my internal emotional state. I’m constantly checking whether I’m anxious, depressed, numb, motivated, energetic, or feeling good. When something feels wrong, I feel compelled to understand it and find a solution, and I can spend hours researching or mentally analyzing it. Finding an explanation gives me temporary relief, but then I start checking again. I don’t know whether this is OCD-related, rumination, anxiety, or something else, but I want to understand what process is keeping me stuck. Is this normal? I honestly feel like it stops me from living the present and it feels really lonely because I feel like I’m the only one that does this :/ it’d be helpful to have some sort of explanation or answer

I want to start by saying I haven’t been formally diagnosed with ocd yet but I’ve spoken to my therapist about it and we will dive further into it next session.
Anyway when I was younger I had extremely bad social anxiety. So much that for all of kindergarten I remember refusing to say a word to anyone. Then as I moved on to first grade I wouldn’t shut up. However I still think I experienced some social anxiety and would often find solace when I got to go to the bathroom and be hidden in one of the stalls. Then around second or third grade I remember I started having obsessive thoughts. I thought these were social anxiety for the longest time because the thoughts would be basically only thinking about myself. Whenever I would do anything I would be thinking about how I was reacting to it and when I would be doing a school assignment I would be thinking about how smart I was while doing it instead of fully focusing on the task. Then I started trying to figure out random things instead of paying attention in school as well as daydreaming because I thought it made me smart. Then when I would actually try to do my schoolwork again I would question everything about it until I no longer understood but was too scared to ask for help so I basically bullshitted my way through it.
All of this has led me to having an underdeveloped brain. Since I was scared of socializing I never had tot think about how to respond because I simply wouldn’t do it so now when people talk to me I can never think of what to say. Also when I try to think about things in depth I will get stuck thinking about myself, thinking about thinking, or picking it apart but having no answers to actually understand. Concepts are also hard for me because I can’t put it into simple black and white sentences. I will also find myself hyper focusing on what certain words mean. However, I can never come to any type of conclusions because I’ve spent my whole life not figuring anything out. So as much as I believe I have ocd I think me just being stupid in general and refusing to actually think anything through contributes heavily to my anxiety.
Im 18 now and just graduated high school. I have no idea what I want to do with my life because my ocd has also made me change everything about myself and now I don’t know who I am. And on top of that I’m very stupid. I’ve been trying to read(mainly fiction books that I actually like reading) but when I try to internalize plots I feel like my brain is blank and I’m thinking about thinking. But also I know I’m not trying hard enough either because sometimes if I try really hard for 10 minutes I can get myself to understand one sentence. But doing that is exhausting.
Sorry if this is a lot of rambling. I also never taught myself how to be precise with words but on the other hand I don’t really know my full brain either because I’ve also convinced myself I’ve had other things wrong with me so now I don’t know what is entirely true or not.

what i think as someone who USED to be very easily triggered:

i have mental health problems and ptsd and it used to be WAAAAAY worse than it is right now. sure, not everything on the internet has to be palatable for everyone, and honestly for me, NOT having trigger warnings made it easier overtime to be able to let really horrible things i read about or watch not bother me as much. but, i personally will continue to use TWs when i talk about really bad stuff because i dont want anyone to feel how i felt back then.

View Poll

How the fuck am I supposed to successfully do Exposure and Response Prevention AND stay a part of polite (fuckable) society as a middle eastern hairy girl??
When I tell my (23f) clinical psychologist (I have been in CBT doing ERP for a few months now) that the thick, black hairs on my stomach and around my nipples are ruining my life, she tells me: “Easy. Stop tweezing and or picking at them. Let them grow.”
But that’s not an option, you see. I want to take my shirt off of a 23 year old man, and despite him being a Feminist, twenty something year old guys are not exactly known for their body hair positivity and appreciation. My partner of five years, who is wonderful on all accounts, accepting of me and my imperfections, my OCD that occasionally ruins both of our lives, loving, and kind, is a man. A boy. When we first got together, we had an honest conversation about our body hair preferences. We both told each other what we prefer and both try to maintain that. He told me he prefers I be hairless (not in my pubic area, because I’m grown), and I maintain smooth legs, arms, and armpits via laser and vigilant shaving. I told him if any other area bothers him, like my hairy back, he’s welcome to comp laser costs, because I can’t afford it, and other options like shaving/waxing/plucking don’t work for my sensitive skin and skin picking tendencies. He said he won’t be doing that and that’s that. He will live with my hairy back. But the one area I have never let him see naturally are the 5 black hairs that live below my belly button (amongst the much longer denser and darker-than-normal fur on my belly and chest), and the coarse black hair around my nipples that I tweeze daily. In less than 12 hours, a small black dot will appear to let me know that, surprise, a new hungry root has spawned in place of the last one I weeded out. And that teeny tiny speck will be accompanied by a small raised bump. Naturally, this leaves me no choice: squeeze the bump, cause a new scar and infected wound, or try to tweeze it out (and probably also cause a small flesh wound). It feels good for the two minutes afterwards until it's time to do it again the next morning when a new pest has spawned. Then, the scars, the anguish, the wounds constantly closing and reopening let me know this is probably something I should talk about in therapy. So I did! 
I am trying to work on myself. One obsession, compulsion, at a time. My OCD has OCD (meta OCD) so working my way down a list like the normal CBT/ERP protocol wasn’t working for me. I usually bring in whatever the most pressing issue is in my life or whatever I feel like talking about each session and we work on tackling obsessions and compulsion more organically and slowly, as they come up. Up until now, my therapist has said a lot of things I hated and outright rejected. Things I had to learn to do, or not do. Like taking the bus to my boyfriend’s house. And eating things that are not the 3 meals I can tolerate. And changing plans spontaneously and dealing with panic attacks. A big part of this therapy has been based on the preliminary assumption that it is okay for things to be imperfect, and not just right. I, of course, have a hard time to naturally accept that but I have been working so hard to be the type of person that not just accepts but embraces things being off. Not right. Not comfortable, not easy, not soothing or placating. Hard, wrong, off. That’s what I want. I want to embrace the wonk. 
But today, when I told my therapist about these stray hairs that consume me, she told me I must stop removing them all together and embrace the hair, I just could not accept it. You see, I tell her, I want my boyfriend to want to fuck me. She asks me frankly if I would love him without the beard. I cringe and tell her I’ll take him bald but she can pry the beard from my cold, dead, hands. She tells me, just like you would still love him bald, he will love you with hairy nipples. This woman has clearly never met a boy my age in a while. She says, every woman has hair on her nipples and belly. She is white. What she imagines as coarse hair is probably the general peach fuzz I know to ignore. I tell her, the hair every woman has on her nipples and belly is unlike the hair I have on my nipples and belly. She looks me straight in the eye and says: “You will never be able to convince me that removing that hair isn’t indulging a compulsion.” Fine! I know it’s compulsive! That’s why I brought it up! But we also live in a society. How can the only way to fight my OCD be to become an advocate for hairy women’s rights against my partner? He is also programmed into a society. He is hard wired to see a chest hairier than his as unsexy. Dirty. Manly. I am not saying that I want society to be this way but I am simply a monkey in this circus. I can't go about fighting my OCD and the socially accepted norms for women’s body hair. I am going to CBT to be more normal, not weirder. 
I know, she can’t tell me what to do. Or won’t. She said I am looking for validation she can’t give me. That, I have to decide what is right. (Not tweezing and picking the hairs anymore). Can’t I learn to just…be normal about it? Maybe tweeze every week and that’s it? Let the little ingrown hairs and short stubbly thangs thang while I wait for my weekly allotted approved tweezing time? 
I want to be good. I want to be better. I want to stop hurting myself. I know scars and scabs aren’t much sexier, either. I want to do the Right Thing. My mother is paying so much to get me this help I so desperately need. But I also want to be Hot. And I want my boyfriend to drool when he sees me half naked, not cringe inwardly and remind himself that “attraction is much larger than just looks” as my therapist told me while she walked me to her door. I want to feel sexy and confident without it being a statement. I don’t want to be the girl with hairy nipples. I am already the girl with the Daddy Issues, the girl with the Meds, the girl with the Mental Illnesses. The girl with OCD so severe she has to go to the hospital every few months. The girl who is seeing her psychiatrist next week and would really like to stay with her current cocktail than add another little pill to the mix. I want to be good and I want to be loved and I want to be like any other woman. Does that have to come at the cost of my partner no longer being as attracted to me? 
My goal is to do the erp, I just want to know if it’s possible to still remain socially acceptable whilst doing so without indulging in compulsion.

ok so I don’t have a diagnosis, I’m just gonna start with that. I also don’t know if this is the right place to post this but I had to ask.

I have these symptom: rumination, repetitive thinking, reassurance seeking and mental checking. I usually have a cycle where I start by doubting my own thoughts, feelings or what I say to people (e.g. am I really feeling sad or do I just want them to pity me? do I really practice smiling in the mirror or did I just want to trick the assessors into thinking I DO have autism?). Obviously because all this happens in my head it’s never ending; I think back on an example to use as evidence and then I counter it by saying “how do I know my thoughts are reliable? How do I know I’m not manipulating/tricking myself?” and on and on.

Anyways, I’m on holiday, I just told my parents that this happens to me and now I’m panicking over whether I’ve made myself think all these things this whole time so that I can tell my parents so that they think I’m sicker than I am (I have anorexia so “being sick enough“ has always been a problem for me). I can’t enjoy anything cause when I’m meant to be relaxing at the beach I’m overthinking and when I’m eating I’m panicking (anorexia) so I never get a break.

My next meeting with my psychologist is in like 3 weeks when we get back from holiday and I just feel like I really want a diagnosis for some reassurance that I‘m not fabricating this whole thing. I feel like that wouldn’t help for long though because I’d just go “what if i exaggerated and faked the assessment?” and on and on.

Any advice on how to feel better? Sorry if this was confusing I don’t really know if I got my thoughts across well. Thanks

Hi! I am pretty sure I have ocd, and have had it for the past 7 years. I’ve never bothered getting a diagnosis because I feel awkward asking my parents (I am 18). Part of me feels like a fraud for not having a diagnosis; I think my friends and family would take me more seriously if I were to get diagnosed. However, part of me also doesn’t really know what getting a diagnosis would change. Idk I would appreciate anyone’s opinion ocd has actually ruined my life lol !! Also do u recommend medication 🤔

Hi, I’m new to this platform but don’t know where else to vent. I’ve been married to my sweet husband for 20 years. We have three kids together, and things have been great. Fast forward to Covid in 2020, having too much time on my hands, and after social media research, I found his high school gf’s FB page. I was never curious about her before. When I found her page, I was instantly triggered, and here’s why:

When we were dating, he said to me: “I’m so glad I met you. You took my mind off of someone from back home.” I asked who, and what she looked like. He replied, “She was cute, with blonde hair and green eyes.” That stuck with me. I was a little jealous, or maybe just shocked he said that, but I brushed it off.

He was open with me about her and told me he got this girl pregnant, and she chose to terminate the pregnancy. Again, this never bothered me during our dating phase, I just felt bad for him and that whole situation.

It wasn’t until my 2020 deep dive that it started to upset me. I began wondering if she was better in bed (because she was his first), and seeing her pics on FB noticing she’s fit and tall/blonde, opposite of me. I don’t know how to move past this. I think what hurts most is I reflect back to things he said when we were dating and now that I think about it, he was probably referring to her. For example, he used to bite my lower lip and tell me he loved my “bottom lip”, but my lips are not really full or anything special. When I saw her pics, guess what? Full, beautiful lips. Especially the bottom one. Am I going crazy? Lol.

So I am suffering from SO OCD for more than 2 years. I am homosexual women, for my whole life before OCD I've experienced every kind of attraction to women only, but after one thing I've started to question myself and it was straight porn video, I felt aroused and masturbated well, but after that I've started to question myself if I am actually attracted to men. I know that the answer is no, but since then I question myself everytime I see a man, I hear anything about straight relationships and etc, everything related. I remember I had some kind of curiosity about male anatomy and when I was a kid but as well I had for women anatomia (plus attraction to this one). At some point I've started to experience groinal responses of any intensity and this what is confusing me as fuck, I don't know what to do. I know that I don't want to have anything romantic and/or sexual with men but after years of OCD it's starting to look like my orientation has been changed. Thoughts about male genitalias or relationship with them don't look that disgusting and terrible like it used to, but I think my brain is just exhausted and that's why. Anyway, if someone had something like that, please, give your advices, it's terrible and I can't do live that anymore, it's insufferable

10 weeks pregnant today I’m from around eight weeks onwards every couple of days I’ve been getting a sharp twinge on my right lower abdomen and earlier I had a pain below my belly button that lasted 10 seconds and then came back again five minutes later.
It’s like a bit of an ache on my right side but it is not constant and it is not painful it doesn’t last long and this is not every day. Sometimes it can happen even when I’m laid down. I’m just wondering if anyone has experienced similar symptoms I’ve not had any bleeding this pregnancy just discharge.
I haven’t had a scan yet but I am due my 12 weeks scan on the 28th of August. I am really anxious that they are going to tell me something bad. I’ve just been speaking to my mum about it and I just can’t help but just think negative. I have really bad health anxiety as it is. I know this sounds really stupid but I kept thinking what if they tell me that I have something wrong with me in that area. I’ve been paranoid ever since I saw a news article about a woman that had ovarian cancer while pregnant.
to add to this, I do have a dermoid cyst that is 3.4 cm that was found on an ultrasound 13 weeks ago and I was unaware of this before as I had no symptoms but now I am pregnant. I’ve been having weird sensations.
I’m saying weird, but this might just be normal pregnancy pains. I rang my early pregnancy unit department the other week and explain to them how I am feeling. They had a look at my scans and the nurse said that the registrar had agreed to leave the cyst alone. They offered to bring me in for a reassurance scan and I had a panic attack and didn’t go. This is all because I have really bad health things. I am scared of them telling me that I’m going to have a terminal illness.

Ive been diagnosed with ocd 2 years ago (I know I had it since I was a little kid) but a traumatic event make it worse 2 years ago and I decided to see a therapist. Ive switched many themes (harm- sensorimotor - psychosis ocd etc) but I mean the only theme I struggle with extremely is pure-O . This last theme is musical obsessions or idk we call it earworms , my mind wont shut off , its like a radio all the time switching songs . From the time I woke up until I sleep , songs are playing and sometimes its the last song I hear in the day that keeps stuck.
Its been 4 months with this obsession, will I make it and overcome this theme like the other themes I overcomed?
I don’t need reassurance, no emotions , nothing , I want the ultimate truth , cz Im struggling a lot lately.
And if anyone has it or passed by this theme , I would be grateful to give me some tips to overcome.
Thanks

I'm 20F and I have known my now boyfriend (21m) for a year. We started officially dating in June and we are long distance, we live in two different states.

I've been friends with my two guy friends since highschool, known them both since freshman and sophomore year. My friendship with them is strictly platonic. One of them I barely talk to or see since we go to different colleges, but the other I see often because we go to the same college. My boyfriend and my two guy friends have texted before (briefly i think) and so he knows them.

He doesn't really have female friends and i prefer it that way honestly, though I don't think I'd mind if we lived close together and I knew his female friends. But he doesn't really have any so we have never run into that issue (?) idk if I can call it that.

Here's the problem: I feel like he doesn't like that I have guy friends. I mean, he says he doesn't mind it, but I just feel like he's lying or he's too sweet and perfect to say anything. I have ROCD and I go in circles about these things every day and it stresses me out so much. I don't want to stop being friends with my guy friends, though I would if he asked me to. In my previous relationship (which ended horribly and left me with a lot of trauma) I shut out all my male friends completely, my female friends partially, and after it was all over I felt so alone and isolated and I vowed to myself that I'd never do that again.

But my boyfriend is so perfect and sweet and he's the only person I could ever see myself with. My ROCD makes me think thoughts that I don't want to have and I feel evil and horrible and like i'm cheating even though I would never and I've done nothing wrong.

I don't know. I want to stop feeling this way. I love my boyfriend more than anything and I obviously don't want to hurt him but i'm battling with what feels like losing myself to my relationship to make him happy.

People who say "I'm so OCD"

Like its a synonym for a neat freak or a perfectionist. ITS NOT PEOPLE! ITS A REAL AND DIBILITATING MENTAL CONDITION!! STOP ASSUMING WE JUST LIKE THINGS NEAT AND TIDY!!! DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!

Sincerely Peeved,

A person with diagnosed OCD.

hi all,

been struggling with OCD for about 2 to 3 years now. nobody believes me or wants to hear about it when I talk about what’s going on. I have tried to get diagnosed/talk to professionals but the doctors i went to unusually brushed it off.

it’s gotten so bad it’s bothering me every day. I know I’m not the only one going through this but any help or advice would be appreciated. I’m just confused on why the doctors I went to brushed it off when I said I was having bad compulsive thoughts and rituals??

i’m sick of putting up with it and nobody understanding so hopefully somebody out here has got some advice for me on here. it’s funny since I feel kind of stupid for posting this kind of thing on Reddit but I feel like it could get me some help on what to do.

any help would be very much appreciated. thank you.

Almost 34 weeks. I’ve had anxiety and intrusive thoughts throughout my pregnancy, but they’ve been manageable. Now that I’m in this final stretch, I’m kind of in “WTF” mode with some of the things my mind comes up with and how accelerated my thoughts get at night.
I told my psychiatrist, and they said it can be normal because of hormonal fluctuations. I’m scared of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis.
How did you guys experience this? How did you cope with it?

so lately i’ve been playing FUTURE events in my head over and over again everyday and it drives me crazy. like i give a run down of my pending schedule in my head multiple times a day. it’s like a football team going over their playbook multiple times before the big game. “tight end goes here, then quarterback slams over there, then tailback rolls for the touchdown” (i know nothing abt football clearly but that’s not important), but for me it’s “i will wash the dishes in the morning, i’ll go to my club meeting at 4, then my hair appointment at 5” over and over and over again and it’s like I GET IT!!! I UNDERSTAND THATS RHE PLAN i don’t need to hear it over and over and over and over but it keeps creeping up…it’s like i obsess over my plan for the next day and if there’s a change of plans or something doesn’t go exactly how i planned then i feel anxious and devastated.
who else experiences this?