Not sure if this will make sense to anyone lol

There’s hobbies and subjects that I used to really enjoy that I stepped away from due to bad experiences with people… The memories make me sometimes feel physically ill.

Recently I’ve been trying to reengage or reclaim/reshape them in some form, but it’s been kind of hard. Feel everything from disgust to cringe to trauma.

I’m curious as to what I might be able to do to make this easier.

Hi! So my neck has been stiff for about a month. Today, as I was turning my head, I felt something crack and a shooting pain took over my neck and left shoulder. The pain was horrible and I barely could move. Over the counter medication did nothing and I kept getting worse. Eventually, I realised I had to go to the doctor as soon as possible so I could manage the pain. I went into the emergency room and I was told I'd have to get an injection of anti inflammatory medicine. Well, first of all, I hate needles and I often feel on the verge of passing out when I have to take shots. Secondly and most importantly, I have contamination fears that make it really hard for me to take medication, especially medication I've never taken before. I'm afraid it may be contaminated, poisoned, or that I'll have a deadly allergic reaction. For a moment I felt my life was about to end as the nurse approached with an injectable, unknown medicine that was going to be administered to me outside of my safe spaces for taking medication. But hey, I had to do it. I just tried to laugh it off, I told her I was nervous and she got it done with. Nothing bad happened, obviously, and my pain improved a bit. Overall, I felt happy. In the past I would've cried and asked for so many accomodations, I probably would've passed out. But I just did it! I felt discomfort, I explained to the nurse I had OCD and it was hard for me but I got it done without drama. I have to thank medication and therapy for this improvement. I feel extremely happy and not even the horrible neck and shoulder pain can make me overlook this win.

Ever since my first ocd trigger 6 months ago, I've spun into a downward spiral...not working out anymore stopped going outside and started getting addicted to porn and masturbating

My life before this was way better I used to have an unbreakable will and be so passionate about creative writing and stories and tv shows now I'm nothing more than a fucking loser degenerate at 20 years old it is the saddest thing ever

Hey everyone. So OCD is one of the worst things I have experienced in this life, so I wanted to write some insights I have obtained about it in case it helps someone. I think my pov is interesting: I went through severe OCD (crying because I could not get one minute of peace. One actual minute) to completely forget about it to the point where I thought I never had it in the first place, to relapsing bad, to overcome it again, relapsing again even worse, trying an ssri, getting PSSD (post ssri sexual disfunction) and completely obliterating OCD from my mind in a way that I could try to trigger it as hard as I could and it woudnt to recovering from the PSSD and having the OCD come back. I have also tried several drugs and hormones, including solo estrogen, or even pramipexole.

I also read some academic papers and went through two different modalities of therapy (icbt and erp).

I will try to not generalise too much, I truly believe some of these insights are universal, but some might only apply to a subset of OCD sufferers or a subtype of OCD.

• Once you are in the OCD bubble, you think the bubble is all there is. You are like a fish in a fishbowl. You think OCD will be the rest of your life. You can not even imagine a life without it.

• Once you are out of the bubble you cant even understand why you cared about the theme in the first place. You cant understand why you had OCD. This phenomenon is bizarre: that which was all your life suddenly ceases to matter so much.

• There is one paper in philosophy pf psychology exploring OCD and classifying it back into the anxiety category that I seriously recommend everyone to read it. Gives a lot of insight into this disorder and imo completely nails it. Is anxiety all the way through: we thinking we are being rational is like a benzos user having delusions of sobriety. They are drunk, whether they feel it or not, and we are being irrational, whether we can see it or not. The irrationality comes from many angles, from the time we dedicate to the theme, to the overall importance of the theme, to the way we approach the theme, to the conclusions we arrive, to the feelings we have about it

• OCD has its own "taste". After you overcome it once or twice you start to recognise the ocd anxiety as it's own category of anxiety. You can notice you are in a bubble or about to trigger it when you catch yourself thinking/ruminating about the theme or a similar theme with that feeling in the chest. With PSSD I could think about the theme and dive into it and the feeling woudnt be there, and the ocd did not follow. The rule for me now is simple: if that feeling is on my chest, whatever i am thinking about doesnt matter. Completely irrelevant despite what my body/mind might tell me. No negotiation here, no buts, no possible exception. Whatever conclusion I could arrive would be tainted by the anxiety anyway (the paper I mentioned before shows very clearly how anxiety distorts rationality) so rumination is futile.

• You gotta let go of the ego. Yes I might be wrong about a subject, oh no. Yeah I might be a bad person, so what, there is a shitload of bad people, why the fuck do I think I am so special. This one might be less universal: for me ocd has a certain agression/ego built into it. Like i just cant let it go because i have to be right, because i have to be a good person.

• Try to interrupt the cycle with thoughts is utterly useless. Arguing against yourself wont take you anywhere. Using stop words etc is still engaging with the thought, still rumination, still giving it attention. I think this one everyone knows, however I think there might be some exception: I think I can conjure an image of something that calms me down, without engaging. An image doesnt seem to be a thought, and automatically seems to calm that feeling on the chest, and it doesnt seem to turn compulsive! Be careful with this one, any signs of compulsion and discard this idea, but I have been using it and it seems to cease the rumination, calm me down, and not turn compulsive. It ceases the rumination because to me an image doesnt feel like an "argument" that can be argued agaisnt by the OCD, is more like a memory or a reminder that sums up that indeed i am a good person (what my ocd theme attacks), that I have ocd and that this rumination cycle ends here. With the image, there comes a feeling of confidence that I try to feed, not by arguments or words! But by expanding it. Is hard to explain, it feels like a physical exercise solely, you can even open your arms and expand your chest. In the beggining when I did this and I refused to engage and I let the anxiety sit I would get waves of a cold feeling around my arms. This has always been a good sign.

• Whenever true panic creeps in, only a daring/fighting attitude resolves it. Trying to hide from it never, ever, has worked for me. I would bring it to the front of my mind and think very aggressively: so what? So fucking what? Anything else would result in a spiral. That daring attitude would trigger an even colder sensation, and I think adrenaline would accompany it and give me some confidence and strength. It feels like the mental equivalent of running straight into the thief that broke in in your house before you even have time to think or panick or be afraid, you fight before you paralyse.

• Having hobbies or concerns that were strong and real or just having necessities helped. Ofc is not everything bc we find a way to ruminate even when working lol, but is a small help. You def dont want to be going through ocd and also not be doing anything else with your life. If you are the subtype that gets ocd out of low dopamine like me, your brain will latch into the ocd as a desperate way of at least doing something.

• In this subject: check for adhd. If you have it, there is a high chance treating it will treat the OCD. Stimulants end my ocd, completely. For some, it makes it worse. Which is why I believe there are subtypes of OCD. Nonetheless, adhd diagnosis and trying stims. If you have this subtype, find your next hyper focus asap that is not ocd, adhd folks are more vulnerable to ocd when we are between hyper focus.

• Hormones modulate OCD. Not a bit, a lot. The problem is that is not easy to say exactly how. There is a lot kf evidence for this, but I will go with my personal experience. For example right now because of reasons, I am taking estrogen pills, even though I am a cis men. When estrogen goes up (hours after the pill), very little to none OCD. When estrogen goes down (10-16 hours after) OCD comes back very strong. When I did a solo nandrolone cycle (exogenous hormone that supresses your natural testosterone and estrogen production and produces very little estrogen by itself) I had the worst ocd of my life and was borderline suicidal. All this said, if mt estrogen gets way too high, ocd can also show its head. DHT and its derivates are good, they give me confidence and confidence and doubt disorder dont go together. However, dhts antagonise estrogen, so I would have to be careful. Tldr: mid to highish estrogen + a decent amount of strong androgens has been very effective at keeping ocd under control. Low estrogen is ocd city. Highish estrogen is not good not bad.

Will add more stuff as I remember it. Feel free to ask me any questions and lmk if you agree or disagree with anythinf here.

Has anyone dealt with false memory ocd where you're the victim in the "situation"? Like, for me I'm currently in a false memory loop with this. The other night, it was completely dark and not many people were around. I was walking on a sidewalk and a random man was walking the opposite direction. He didn't see me at first due to how dark it was and sorta like bumped into me and said sorry a few times. Then later on my mind started to wonder what if he raped me and I just didn't realize it or see anything because it was so dark outside? I'm 26/F by the way. But I've had this specific false memory ocd for years now because I am terrified of pregnancy (I'm a virgin because of that). Just wanted some advice if anyone has experienced a similar false memory ocd and how they deal with it.

A little bit of a personal rant but I still want to share this in case there is even one person out there who is hesitant to accept help and receive therapy because they think they “have it under control”.

During OCD awareness week last month, I acknowledged my struggles with OCD after being reduced, to what felt like a shell of myself. Only upon learning what OCD actually was did I realize how long I had actually been dealing with it. While I had suspected that my mom had it when I initially started therapy and learned more of it, my suspicions were confirmed when she reached out to me and let me know that she too has it.

I’m not even sure if my Dad knows that my Mom lives with this (he doesn’t really understand mental health at all) and while I am even more appreciative of the one woman show my Mom was growing up now knowing the things that were going on in her head in addition to parenting individually at times as my Dad was an alcoholic, something she said in my messages to her really did strike a nerve.

“I Manage It”

It’s hard not to feel bitter at those words while trying to be understanding of what she experiences and has accomplished, but manage it she did not.

Everyone is an imperfect being and we are imperfect ones who will engage in compulsions even when we feel we have a handle on this disorder, but it is not “managing” it when you call the cops because your son didn’t come back at 6 from playing soccer and he could’ve been murdered

It’s not “managing” it when you scream in hysterics at your children who wanted to help clean your cluttered mess of papers around the house because they were “in order”

And it’s definitely not “managing” it having your son sign a letter that he won’t play with his toys until his sister is done with work or that he’s still in trouble even though you know his sister is lying about him hitting her because you want her to feel like she’s being believed.

Instead in can create an environment where someone make develop an inflated sense of responsibility, a warped concept of good and bad, or even an environment where they feel like they don’t have control…

I don’t blame my mom at all for me having to live with this. I highly suspect I would’ve developed this at some point whether those things happened or not, but couple experiences like those with being told “you’ll get over it” at other extremely distressful moments, like when you’re in a mental hospital because of this overwhelming feeling of numbness when you suddenly have an intrusive same sex sexual thought that makes you question if you’ve been living a lie, or your wife having to call your mom because you’re in this incredibly delusional state after having a small bit of CBD that’s making you question everything from you possibly being a pedophile to the world not being real…

As much as I hate to admit it, at least one of my kids will probably develop this disorder no matter what I do, but they will not go through it alone. My Mom had a lot on her plate and was doing a lot for my sister and I growing up, however it is not strength to refuse to admit that you might need.

So please to any parents or aspiring parents out there who may have read this and think they are managing it. You may be and I really hope you are, but accepting help and learning the tools to help you live with this illness in a healthier manner not only helps you but those who may struggle with this in the future who may be looking to you most

How did your Harm ocd develop or come about? Did it come out of nowhere? Did something trigger it? What happened when you had your first harm thought episode?

Context: I’m diagnosed autistic and have begun to suspect I have OCD

So I spend A Lot of time thinking about ways I’ve communicated things and ways I would communicate other things. Previously I thought that was part of my autism because I tend to take things very literally and directly and have genuine struggles with communication. However I’m realizing relatively recently that I do this for hours every day. So basically I’m wondering if this is just related to the autism, or if it’s likely that it’s both

Every night when I go to bed I have a routine for shutting down the kitchen. I check that the washing machine knob is is in 'off' position. I check that the oven knobs (grill and oven) are both off, even though I've never used the grill, and you can hear the oven a mile away if it's on. I check that all the knobs on the hob are set to zero.

All these are things I have to double-check, but the one that really bothers me is the kitchen tap. I've tried vocalising it to myself ("I have turned off the kitchen tap"), and also while checking while holding my hand under it ("The tap is off, and there is no water coming out of the tap.")

But for some reason I cannot get my intelligent mind, and what I actually see, to match up. My brain knows this is sheer nonsense. I can register the fact that I've turned off the tap. I can hold my hand under it, to register that there is no water coming out of this tap. I then move to the doorway, and look at the tap (with no water coming out). I say to myself, over and over again: "No water coming out. You closed the tap."

It takes me between six and ten times to actually shut the kitchen door. I'm a reasonably intelligent person but I can stand at a kitchen door for several minutes before I'm satisfied with something that I already know is the case.

This is so frustrating.

Our relationships were quite a difficult dance. She listened of me a lot then she was frustrated that she listened. I was pleasing then i felt frustratwd that i was pleasing. Now we just can't connect. Most of the time i was quite down and i think i was quite dificult partner i admit it. I feel that i had a good partner but i was a burden to her, but i also have a bit of resentment as well because of some stuff. To be honest my OCD is going out of the window right now. I don't understand anything. Was all of my worries truth all this time ? Or was my worries that killed all the joy in the relationship. Or maybe i just wasn't myself as narcissists do and i destroyed it because i am horrible human being unable to love. I just feel that everything is ending. I am afraid to lose her, but also feel that it might be easier to live in isolation, but also extremely afraid of it. My mind goes to guilt and fear, then to resentment, then guilt, obsessing over everything and trying to understand how this happened. I think i am going crazy.

Three years ago I got a GeneSight (genetic testing) test done by one of the worst mental health providers I've ever worked with.

This provider attempted to rush me off my meds (two different times, dropping from 20mg of paroxetine to 10 one week and then 10 to zero the next) in order to try a medication that the test results indicated would work better for me.

Obviously we never got that far but this provider also recommended I take an L-Methylfolate supplement, since the test apparently indicated that I may have trouble absorbing that naturally.

I haven't heard much of anything about this before or since, but I just gave up on ketamine infusion after 11 treatments, so I'm trying this L-Methylfolate supplement next. Spoke to my doc and he recommended 7.5mg or 15mg, so I found a bottle of 15mg via amazon and it should be here tomorrow.

Has anyone had any experience with this kind of stuff? Really, any information at all will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

how tf do i wipe quicker?!

i’m 23f and i’ve had OCD for most of my life. i recently started with a new therapist that i really get on with and i’ve been making progress. my main problem is around the toilet, and before it could take me an hour and a half just to poop (as in wiping) and then often an hour to shower. i’ve managed to get wiping down to 15 minutes sometimes but usually between 20 and 30 mins i’d say, and the shower as quick as like 8 minutes but usually around 15 to 20 minutes. this means overall i probably have a couple of extra hours a day at least that aren’t taken up by my OCD, which is amazing.

my problem is i just can’t see how i can get any better than this and it’s upsetting me. i’ve caused myself to develop a skin tag on my butt from the years of overwiping and straining, and i also have ibs and quite a few intolerances so i’m often anxious of needing to poop in a public place due to the time it takes and the fact i need wet wipes and vaseline to wipe (i use the vaseline to get in there and wipe behind the skin tag). i could get the skin tag removed which hypothetically would help a lot, but i’ve heard it can cause more issues and can end up just growing back.

i’m not really sure what to do. i hate not being able to poop in public and needing my wipes, vaseline and around a whole roll of toilet paper if not more. obviously things have got a lot better and i’m so happy about that but i just don’t know where to go from here and it sucks :( it gives me so much anxiety the thought of needing to go in public and the girl i’m seeing said she can just go in like a minute (as fast as peeing) and it’s no problem and i’m just so jealous :( i don’t want to struggle with this for all of my life. how tf do i wipe properly without taking this long??

i keep doing all the needed things people say to sleep but they’re not helping. and it’s so bad cause i feel like i feel and touch and hear my dreams and it’s soo bad. soo bad and it obviously worsen my ocd symptoms to the point i genuinely am starting to have hard time differentiating my dreams to reality. plus feeling sooo paranoid it’s so bad

my body aches, i feel my bones and i keep asking my roommates the same questions in hopes of obtaining reassurance.

i just wanna sleep and not feel tired but most importantly. i want my body to stop aching and feel like something is physically pushing it down in the floor. instead all i have is checking and rechecking my symptoms on google

I’ve done this since I was a kid because I grew up with my dad being sick, but however I’ve found that during this ocd episode I’ve been going through that I check my cats breathing every single time he is laying next to me sleeping. Do anyone else constantly check and stare at their pets, worried that something could go wrong that you might miss? I always have to do it before I fall asleep as well or else I will toss and turn with guilt. For me I have to “watch him breathe in an out three times in a row” and if it doesn’t feel right I’ll start over. So ridiculous

Just coming to the realization that my “stuck feeling” four years after my last relationship ending could be because of OCD. I feel like I’ve just been spinning my wheels over how shitty my ex was to me/how hard it is to date instead of actually moving on. And I think a large part of it is OCD.

I'll try to make this quick because its my personal thing that makes me tick. So my mattress has a few dings in it and its not my any means perfect but i feel like when I push it up against the wall it "looks crooked." Now the thought of it looking crooked kills me so i try to adjust it, then I realize that it looks "straighter" but is actually-Physically crooked for real. I'll sit here adjusting it, staring at it and it eats at me...any advice to fix this...I feel like the best option would be to "let it go, who cares if its crooked, straight, or even off the bed. Ive been to therapy many time, i get it, thats not what I need. I need someone with OCD to tell me what they would do in means of a recovery method. The OCD is not as bad as when I was little, but its still there. I've been able to work through alot of things and have channeled the outlets properly. Thank you.

Idk if this is an ocd thing lol, I used to have rly bad ocd - no not just the cleaning one, but there was a time I was v v extreme with the tiniest messes.. Like a single crumb... It got better thankfully, but my worst ocd moments were when I started to experience one type of ocd after the other.... Made me realise too that ocd is REAL because I experienced all different themes/types right after the other.. I have overcome it all mostly now thankfully.

I noticed I like to do this every so often and idk If it's very normal 💀 wonder if it's linked to my ocd.

I noticed I also like my.. Everything to be very organised, yet somehow I make mess almost very often at times. Like I love organisation but I have started to have this habit of clothes being left in a pile and then it just gets messy.

Not only on reddit, but YouTube and even Tiktok I notice I like to either leave comments etc for sentimental reasons... Lol? Memories?

And I just like to clear things out every so often. I actually have a very full list of "watch later" but I barely even got around to watching any of them, and that's bothering me 💀

On reddit I often delete posts and comments a lot too. It's not that I'm hiding anything I just do it to tidy my account or if I don't like the feelings I get from certain comments / moments?

Lol!

I'm having a moment where I realise it really isn't that deep. Tommorow, I will definitely be terrified again but for now, the anxiety is losing the battle.

After a while of having my account still up, I finally went back onto Twitter and deleted my account. I feel so relieved, in a way. Though I saw some horrific things on there and made some questionable choices on that app, I am so glad I lived to see the deletion of my own account.

Stay safe yall, stay off of twitter and tiktok if you can 🫶

I believe I have OCD and struggle daily with hobbies. It is currently devolving to me being afraid to pick up anything for fun because it gets stuck in my head.

I will try and be concise:

• I will obsess over a hobby (usually a video game) and start playing it.
• I will feel it is not correct and have to restart.
• The process of restarting a lot can lead me to not picking anything up with fear of me abandoning it.
• I have spent two months off work with mental health issues and I have not managed to do anything enjoyable and productive (except I read one book) because of how these complex and upsetting feelings interfere.

What I want:

• to pick up a hobby and continue with it without restarting.
• to not feel like I am chained to anything I start and can pick it up as I please.

I would really like advice on what I can read, do etc to help myself as this brings me sadness every day now.

I am awaiting therapy through the NHS crisis team that I hope will help so I am mostly looking for self driven support whilst I wait for something more structured.

Any help would be valued and I am happy to answer any questions.

Hello, i am about to go to Latin America from the USA. Currently i am taking Zoloft and Lamictal. I will be abroad for 2 months so i will bring plenty of imeds since i take 200mg and 100 mg daily.

Do i need something from thew doctor? Anything i might need or do though TSA?

Basically title line. My fear that started my OCD is herpes, especially genital. Sex is pretty difficult for me and I’ve only been with one person, we used to do oral but my OCD got really bad and we had to stop. Nowadays my ocd is getting better and there’s someone I’m interested in having sex with, but idk how to go about doing that as oral sex is apart of foreplay and sex as a whole. Even the thought of someone licking their fingers to touch me worries me. I want to do it but I’m scared. People with OCD, how do you go about hooking up with people and doing oral sex?

Is there a risk of a smashed/damaged iphone releasing respirable glass. I know its amorphous but can there be fine particles released from it?

I have been smoking on and off the last 4-5 years. Always at night after work and stuff is done. When I quit last time I had a really rough time with rumination. I quit for 45 days and then decided to have small amounts mixed with CBD and I’m trying to not have it every day. However I ended up having some 4 days in a row mostly because I was off work. So now, I have this fear of addiction. I’m smoking probably about .2g total in my dynavap so it’s not much.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell if something is just OCD or a real problem. For example a couple months ago I was worried that my marriage was falling apart but it was more me worrying about what if than anything. We are fine still going strong after 34 years.

Anyway, I know weed can be tricky for those with anxiety disorders but I’m curious have any of you ever had issues with worrying about being addicted? I was a smoker (cigarettes) for years and back in my 20’s I did a lot of other stuff I shouldn’t have. Although once I risked messing up my job I quit.

My husband smokes every day and he’s fine. He says I just tend to look for something to blame when I have a flare up.

Wondering if anyone can relate.

To combat some obsessions and random intrusive thoughts I think certain thoughts compulsively to ease myself and move past them. If i dont see or feel these certain thoughts the right way im deeply bothered by it the entire day unless I do it right. I dont know how to stop this pattern from getting any worse, It feels like im trapped in my own mind. The anxiety and wasted time I get from these stupid ideas and thoughts are excruicating. Has anybody gone through something similar? I appreciate any advice

(this is my first time posting something like this, sorry if the format might not be perfect)

Everytime I put my phone down I have to make sure theres no dust on it or if its in the perfect angle and position and if its not I spend like an hour trying to adjust it and it happens everyday and im sick of it i cant help it any advice on how can i just place the phone?

For some time now, my obsessive thoughts have been focused on whether I will suddenly go from being an homoromantic asexual to being straight or I am straight in denial. I have never been sexually attracted to any woman, in fact I have never been attracted to anyone, the only thing is that I only fall in love with men. Now, after some time of these obsessive thoughts, I feel like I'm a secret heterosexual, even though Im not attracted to any women and when I think about or see a female body, I react with fear and either I want to avoid looking at it or I force myself to see how i will react to it. I'm afraid that I'll suddenly become straight and I won't be able to have a husband.

NSFW content please be warned

Throwaway account and I didn't want to go on here again cause it looks like im asking for reassurance, but I feeel digusted because of things happening around 2 years ago. I'm pretty much a teenager and I have been exposed to nsfw content at a young age, and there are two incidents I just remembered suddenly and started to feel icky about

It was just one where I happened to have an NSFW tab opened when i was lending my phone for someone to look up, atp where I had to search for the og image to try and remember how much they have seen. Another was when I ended up showing some artwork I saved to a friend when we were just finishing an after school practice (same age as me) cause he happened to be curious about how much of that type of art I had saved, and I just cant help but feel guilty now.

I'm not sure how to handle these emotions or feelings now atp, sure they may have forgot and my friend (since he doesnt seem to care as much) and maybe it could just be teenager feelings, but i just dont know. I dont want to ask for reassurance cause ik it would make it worst but it feels like I need some help with this.

Does anyone, with any particular forms of OCD, just feel completely emotionally numb? Like a robot. Mine will involve constantly checking and assessing my body and emotions for making decisions, and every single emotion is assessed and judged in this stupid way and I never just feel it. Often I find that with many negative emotions or memories too I just grab my phone straight away or try and think about or doing something else so I don't feel it at all.

I just feel like a robot. My life has been ruined by this and there's nothing emotionally.

I have diagnosed OCD with quite a few different themes, especially “just right OCD”. I also have ADHD and others so I’m not sure if this is OCD related or something else. I have obsessions with ALWAYS doing everything “the right way”. I can’t half ass it even if I’m on urgent deadlines. It drives everyone around me crazy.

I do struggle with perfectionism and always have, but it’s not just that, it’s also has to be “complete” and “done properly”. For me I either just don’t do it or I do it 110%. There’s no in between so basically things are either trashed or perfect. This is exhausting and it contributes to my comorbid (and very much OCD related) Hoarding Disorder because I end up avoiding things a lot. Also when I’m sorting, I can’t just have like a box of craft supplies, I’ll spend hours sorting threads and different types of pins. I know how ridiculous this sounds and I know it’s a waste of time and life but I can’t seem to stop myself. I know the sorting issues and the million different categorises I make is a symptom of HD but I feel like it’s OCD related too.

Does anyone else struggle with this, and do you have any tips to manage it?