I don’t have OCD but this is the closest subreddit I could find for my issues. I have a phobia of vomiting, I guess fears of having health issues and contamination too and I constantly seek reassurance to make sure I’m not sick, going to get sick, or just to calm me down.

If I eat something and my stomach hurts, I need reassurance. If my breathing is a bit off, I need reassurance. If I’m panicking, I need reassurance - the loop just goes on... (I’m not very good at explaining this sorry)

But I hate using AI. I know it’s just an echo chamber and telling me what I want to hear, but I can’t stop. I tried not using it the other night before bed because my brain was telling me ‘what if you forget to breathe’ and so I just went straight to sleep without seeking reassurance and I woke up during the night with such a tight chest, it felt like I was going to have a heart attack. I even wrote notes just incase I did, it was awful and so terrifying, I can’t even begin to explain

I’m just wondering if anyone else has gone through this and how to stop? I know it’s doing me more harm than good and I want to stop.

Thanks

(Pocd)

Why do i feel guilty for having an attraction for somebody who is 14 years older than i am? Like she is pushing forty! It makes no sense, just because shes smaller and more tiny than i am makes me feel like im taking advantage of her, how tf dpes that even work???

Like i hope yall can see this as well, ik how stupid i sound right now but i still keeo thinking it

I absolutely love my husband and would want nothing more than to create a family with him but the amount of doubt and fear I have surrounding having children seems to be outweighing all of the positive. I struggle with a few mental health issues one of which is OCD. The OCD I deal with is one I’m not even comfortable talking about to a therapist, lots of dark un wanted intrusive thoughts and obsession about past thoughts and actions specifically things I remember doing as a child. Not feeling worthy of a loving family, fear that they will find out my dark thoughts and turn on me. Every day I do something fun or positive I remind myself I don’t deserve this good day and ask myself why I’m happy as deep down I’m a horrible gross disgusting person that deserves none of this happiness. I’m on fluoxetine and can be awful at taking it and know when I’ve been off of it for a while my mental health hits an all time low. I know that when and if I get pregnant I will most likely have to stop my medication due to potential risks of the baby. I also have a huge fear of pregnancy and child birth. Not to mention I have BPD and am an extremely emotional and passionate person making me feel that being a mother will make my mental health insanely worse. I’m not getting any younger and I feel like I am running out of time to make a decision.

I have untreated OCD. Both symmetrical and contamination. I've actually been able to work on my symmetrical OCD on my own and that's gone really well. Sadly, my contamination OCD is getting worse. If I so much as lightly graze my foot with my hand while adjusting in bed or something, I go wash my hands. Even after reading a book in my own collection I feel the need to wash my hands. I also just discovered that poop particles are pretty much everywhere so that's great. Unlike some, my fear is not in getting sick. I literally just find it gross. Just a vent ig but if anyone went through something similar and has learned to manage it I would love to hear. Thank you :)

I really dislike when I need to pre and my brain says “oh ur getting turned on to kids” or “Oo ur turned on rn” like no brain it’s just pee.

I noticed I really don't like when I'm typing and I use an emoji 3 times or a ! or ? (like ??? or 😭😭😭) and always add one or delete one for some reason. it's not like I'm scared of it or anxious about it or smth, it's just weird, I don't like it for some reason 😭😭

I have ocd and I was just wondering if this could be because of it, I know there's number obsessions but they're like you're scared of a certain number and are avoiding it in every area of your life etc, not something like this

so, is it a bonus for this lovely ocd set I was gifted or am I just genuinely weird lmao?

edit: okay maybe I do kinda feel negatively weird about that, now that I think about and look at them in the bracket above 😭 but it's like really mild discomfort or shit, not some serious stuff like other things that I know are for sure from ocd

looking for advice, similar experiences, etc. no reassurance please, its one of my worst compulsions.

basically got officially diagnosed with OCD last week. really struggling with it - for a few reasons.

ive been in therapy for a long time but have hid many of my intrusive thoughts. part of this is i was a minor who needed to socially transition & receive gender affirming care. i hid a lot of my inner thoughts to be as close to the perfect trans kid i could be to get what i needed. i knew if i didnt i would die. or it at least felt like i would. i also fear people using anything i say or do as a reflection on all trans people, and have carried with that me since i was 14.

i know i cant be alone. the hard part of this is that im not wrong. if i was open about some of my thoughts it couldve barred me from hrt. in many states in the us now there is a good chance i would be denied hrt. its a huge fear of mine along with being forcibly detransitioned. im still terrified to tell my pcp officially; even though i know 1. i dont have to, i just feel like i have to confess or ill get in trouble or something bad will happen. 2. hes already implied he thinks im a bit of a hypochondriac lol, so i dont think it will change anything with my current care team.

tldr, has anyone here had similar experiences? being a persecuted minority with OCD is ass, it prevents so many people from receiving care.

I became a social worker not knowing how much my OCD would impact me. I am so terrified of causing harm, making a mistake, missing something, not being capable enough to work with complex populations. It’s gotten to the point that I only apply to jobs that feel “safe” and don’t seem to involve high levels of risk.

Even in my practicums I was constantly stressed about my documentation, if I wrote the “right” things, if I am doing everything correctly, making sure I haven’t missed anything to the point of extreme mental exhaustion. I’ve never had more imposter syndrome or self doubt in my life.

Now, post graduation I feel like I’ve failed. I haven’t heard back from any jobs I’ve applied to. Too scared to apply to entry-level frontline work to get experience. Job hunting causes me so much anxiety and anytime anyone brings up my profession I feel sick to my stomach.

I don’t know what to do.

So right before going to commute to university my toilet at home clogged.. I had to clean it since my mom was upstairs, and I was using a toilet brush. I accidentally got some toilet water on my hands and I cleaned them thoroughly. The anxiety of being dirty and germs still bother me (contamination is a huge theme for me)

But I honestly think it is an exposure therapy win? I wasn’t as scared, I kept my mind calm (thanks to setraline but either way haha). Some advice is definitely welcome but writing this to clear my head!

Hello everyone, until now, I've only had the most common compulsions, such as checking doors and washing my hands over and over again. But now I've developed a new kind of OCD symptom, and I'm very scared because I don't know whether it's OCD or if I'm developing dementia.

Now, every time I wash my hands, I start questioning my memory five minutes later. I'm not sure whether I actually washed my hands or not, so I wash them again, sometimes three to five times. Even then, I still question whether my memories are real or not, and sometimes I can't even remember for sure.

Is this a type of OCD, or am I developing dementia alzheimer's desease? I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Should I see a doctor? I'm not seeking reassurance. I just need information.

This is not to rant about therapy in general and a warning, I think what I say here is potentially triggering for people who have OCD (including very triggering subject matter):

Therapy is important and I would say that it helped me a ton to seek help and get diagnosed by ocd, and I’ve become a better person too.

However, it is NOT okay to exploit people who have OCD, fuel their tendencies and compulsions even more based on pseudo psychology facts that you had to read about people with OCD. You have no idea what it is to live with this and you WORK specialized in OCD? Treat every person as their own individual with their own unique perspectives, not as a group of people who all share a diagnosis of OCD.

Then the worst part, you have the audacity the change and talk with my insurance to make me a BROKE PERSON who’s trying to avoid suicide every day to pay MORE because I was not “participating actively”. Dude just because you have a high paying job you think you can decide the fate of others who battle with a terrible mental illness.

If you see it in this lense, this is absolutely ridiculous.

I’m having intrusive thoughts about incst.

So long story short is that I was separated from my mother as a baby and we’ve been apart for 25 years.

I had no idea what she looked like or anything but I hired someone in my home country to find her for me and this person did.

I now have a picture of my mother and I finally get to see what she looks like for the first time in my life.

Another note is that I have GSA (Genetic sxl attraction) which is rare but can happen with adoptees.

I know she is my mother but I am having intrusive nsfw thoughts about her and I.

I was ok living without when I didnt know what she looked like and it was just a fantasy with a “lookalike” and I was ok existing with the intrusive thoughts. Now that I know what she looks like and I’m no longer ok coexisting with the intrusive thoughts as now this is about my real biological mother and I know what she looks like and I know a bit about her.

I’m really disgusted with myself and I’m questioning if these intrusive thoughts are really intrusive because of the GSA I’m worried I might actually be attracted to her and I don’t want to be attracted to my mother and this is just so messed up and weird and gross and I want to vomit but at the same time idk. I’m really confused and diagnosing myself. It’s like it’s intrusive but not intrusive, like I want her like that but so genuinely don’t want her like that.

I know I need to see a therapist and that is a priority but that is not an option at all right now.

But yeah, It’s like a mix of intrusive thoughts and confused voluntary thoughts. Idk, I need help.

I am reposting this with the proper corrections after speaking with the Mods.

I watched porn two nights ago around 10:30pm. It was dark in my room, but I didn't close my bedroom door. It remained open. However , I made sure the volume on my headphones was turned down super low to where I myself could barely even hear it & I also made sure to place my comforter over my phone & body once I realized I was just watching with my door open ... Even in spite of me doing all of that , I still felt weird afterwards that I left the door open. I just didn't feel like shutting it but also more importantly didn't want to seem suspicious or obvious either by closing it that late at night. Plus , both my dad & my brother were snoring & my mom wasnt making noise or moving around the house either. Had they been awake , I would've shut my door. We live in a small apartment, so my room can easily be visible if someone were to have walked through the hallway but since it was super dark in there, I didn't think it would be possible for anyone to have seen anything anyway, except the reflection of my phone's screen light hitting my face. Anyway.. I have felt unsure of whether it was wrong or okay because I took steps to conceal myself & my phone. I have felt guilty for what I did by not closing the door. I wasn't hoping anyone would see me or anything disgusting like that , but I have felt guilty that that could've been a possibility simply because the door was open & I keep ruminating on it feeling bad. The rumination on the guilt is the reason why I'm here. I am NOT seeking reassurance or asking whether or not what i did was wrong or alright. I am only here seeking advice/support specifically regarding the guilty feeling & rumination itself. Thankyou.

I'm about to turn 24.
My OCD has come and gone over the years, and I lost almost all of high school to light switches and bedtime rituals that would go on for hours. I have been slowly putting my life back together since, culminating in a reinvention of myself and the adoption of crossdressing and identifying as a femboy. I don't identify as a woman, but I ended up deciding to begin HRT because of how scared I was about male aging and the joy I felt acting and being feminine while abroad.

I came back from that trip a year ago and began the worst spiral of my life. I'm obsessed with making the right decision on this. I've gone on and off HRT nearly 10 times now; I've booked appointments, ghosted professionals, felt immense joy, then immediately spiraled back to research more.

I've read what you're supposed to do, but telling your OCD something isn't urgent when the decision is genuinely time-sensitive isn't working. I've lost the last year of my life to endless breakdowns, looping, and 5-8 hours of inability to function per day. As the gender concerns have grown and I've been unable to resolve them, all my old triggers have reared their head again. I feel like I'm regressing to non-functionality.

I have friends, I have a supportive family, I have a loving girlfriend, and yet nothing has helped. I'm told to go to therapy, but my OCD over money has gotten worse and worse. I cried for 3 hours after someone spent $10 on me yesterday, and refuse to replace my broken shoes, so how on earth am I supposed to accept the idea of multiple hundred-dollar sessions?

I can't be intimate with my girlfriend without wanting to vomit. Can't spend money or have anything bought for me without immense guilt. I'm 120lbs at 5'7 and choose my food based on my daily weight. I get off HRT and check my hairline obsessively, get on it, and I begin checking my chest. Balloons make me cry.

I don't know what to do anymore. I've been having really dark thoughts, and I just want this torment to be over. The worst part is I know that if I could stop looping that tomorrow, there would be nothing wrong with my life, that I would be surrounded by friends and family who care for me, and that despite any of that, I'm crying like a small child again, and I feel like it will only get worse.

Hello I'm a 18 year old male and have diagnosed ADHD and Anxiety disorder and am medicated for both and I believe I have OCD. I've never been diagnosed formally but with this massive timeline of events I don't know how it could be explained as anything else. This is going to be a long post so please bear with me if none of this seems like ocd than I'm sorry for making people's pain my excuse

In 5th and 6th grade I had begun to realize that I was not straight. It was also around this time that I had begun to make more friends and now I have a tight knit group who I love more than life itself. This was also around quarantine as well so I didn't really have much to do but think and consume media. Once I had begun to realize my queer identity I felt happy that I could be honest with myself but then a thought crepes in. "What if I'm not actually queer? What if I'm just faking it and I'm lying to everyone?" I would like at images of men and women to see which would arouse me more. Also I should mention that since around 4-5th grade I was exposed to porn and more specifically hentai and rule34. I always found the ladder two more appealing and had seen some stuff that looking back is very disgusting and weird. Another obsession around this time was my fear of being racist. This happened also around the rise of the blm movement in 2020 when George Floyd had tragically died. Me and my friends were in massive support of this movement and I believe this is what really sparked my beliefs in progressive politics. However This fear was so predominant for a while and I hated myself so much for it. I would get so anxious about it. There was a night where I was scrolling TikTok I would sign and send my friends around 20 change.org petitions I saw. This went on throughout middle school and even into around sophomore year of high school. I wanna say around junior year it quilled a little but it's still something I fear. A fear that came around earlier this year was fear of misogyny.

Sometimes I would hear about how men would make jokes at the expense of women or hurt women and I never wanted to be like that. However there was a weird part of me that thought to take these resonance and appropriate outrages against men "personally?" I hated this feeling as well. I felt like I was relating to abusers and rapists I didn't want to do that! Also when I would see people getting exposed online or people getting beaten for trying to do illegal things I would feel a little bad? I was so scared of these feelings. Did feeling this way mean that I was destined to be a bad person? Also should mention a short period of time where I had intrusive sexual thoughts as well at around 14 or 15 I think. This caused me to avert my eyes whenever I saw certain things in public. However most of the time besides that period from middle school I was able to usually brush these off as intrusive thoughts. Or my brain just had some kind of thing where when it hears about something bad it immediately latches onto the worse aspects and tries to make it about me. Maybe it was also because my ADHD brain naturally goes from thought to thought rapidly. Even then the fact that I felt this way at all did worry me a lot. In spite of this I tried to live life in accordance to my true morals. This all came ahead to around 2-3 days before graduation

As I mentioned I had a porn addiction and this was all throughout all these events and moments. A part of me wants to blame this on ADHD because of dopamine levels and all that stuff and the fact that I kept doing it even when I believe I had gotten pied and death grip syndrome. I really just liked that quick dopamine rush I guess. It has gotten to a point where orgasms aren't even pleasurable and I find it hard to maintain erections no matter what I'm looking at. This one time I did it I believe will haunt me forever.

The website I was using was called r34videos which was a fully rule 34 animations and art focused website. This websites had tags and stuff I don't believe I would've found otherwise. I should mention that even though I had begun to get kind of bored of masturbating and porn in general despite not stopping, I never tried to intentionally seek out really gross or taboo material as I held the belief that "it's just a drawing" is a bs excuse. However this 1 video from an artist I watched with characters I knew this artist when I was really young had stuff in it that looking back is so disgusting and disturbing. I even remember when watching it thinking "this is so gross" but I watched it anyway. After I was done and something else happened in the video I had fully realized what I had looked at and felt disgusting. I didn't know what to think of myself. I felt so off and weird. I don't know how the fuck I did it but I managed to get through graduation and prom as normal and even went on vacation with my family having seemingly forgotten it. After returning home I had begun to feel a pain in my groin and I had begun to obsessively worry that I was at risk of getting testicular torsion. I would get up from my bed every hour or so to check my testicles to make sure they didn't lose color or anything. 1 night scrolling on TikTok I saw a video that reminded me about the video and what I did and that off feeling came back again. However 1 morning I had fully realized what the video was and what I did and had a full on panic attack. My legs had muscle spasms my mind raced, my stomach was so tight and I had no appetite. Being around people felt gross to do. My heart raced. I couldn't believe myself it was so hard to even basically function.

Eventually the physical symptoms had died down. However my brain is still running at a million miles per hour. It's replying the event again and again and again. It's even made me look back to the last 5-7 years of porn and r34 use and made me realize. "Holy shit some of this was so fucked up too". I want to mention I never looked at anything that was not on surface websites and I never went on the dark web or sought out anything illegal and I would also rather kill myself than hurt anyone directly or indirectly. Even then I feel like a monster. I wasn't ever attracted to this stuff so why did I watch it? I occasionally have had suicidal ideation in the past during middle school because of the fear of being racist. Now I feel it everyday in some capacity. Especially since I'm in college I now no longer have my friends around me who I've recently told about my OCD but not this stuff.

This spiral of self hate made me discover all the different subtypes of OCD and made me consider that I have OCD. I should preference that I'm not using ocd as an excuse also I haven't been diagnosed for it and I don't want to make other peoples pain my excuse.

I guess I just want to say I'm sorry for the things I've done and the thoughts I have. I never wanted to hurt anyone but now even with the information of OCD I feel destined to. I try my best to avoid people when in public and even when I do engage in conversation with my college peers I feel like I'm lying to them cuz I'm destined to be exposed or do something that is even worse and then everyone will no longer associate with me so why even do try in the first place. My main worry is my family and friends. They've always been so good to me and I love them more than I love myself always have and always will. But now I've become the thing we all hate and maybe always have been. I don't know what to do with myself anymore.

I don't know if I deserve self forgiveness or forgiveness in general. Like so what if I feel bad and don't do it again that doesn't change the past. I just want to erase that event from history to go back and take those 30 seconds to 1 minute of bad impulse control back. But I can't.

I just want to know what should I do? I don't know how I can go on living long term with these memories and thoughts I don't want to cause harm.

If this isn't ocd and and I'm making excuses I'm sorry and I hope those who actually have ocd are able to find peace.

OCD can be about anything, right? I've had OCD ever since I was eight years old—it's been a constant in my life that I've been subjected to. I know OCD is irrational, and what I'm about to say is irrational, too, but my brain made me believe that this was the real deal.

Still, I grew up as a normal boy who just did what he was supposed to do, and I was very happy.

Then, at 13 years old, I made a friend who I thought was pretty cool, and I was happy to befriend him. I wasn't very confident in myself back then, and I thought he had something I could learn from. It was a massive blow to me when he said, 'I didn't like you at first. I thought you were boring.'

At that moment, my OCD brain went:

'OMFG, you have to be a cool person in order to make the friendships you want!'

From that point on, my mind would go completely blank whenever I spoke to new people, and it became hard for me to bond with anyone. It was very scary, and I did the worst thing you can do in that situation: I started living my life by OCD's rules. I stopped talking to certain people because I thought they were 'cool,' and only spoke to others.

You can probably see where this leads. The spiral got worse and worse over the years. Then I started asking myself why I was able to talk to some people and not others, until eventually, I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone anymore. I managed to live that hermit life for quite a while, but then it hit me again: if all of this is such a problem for me, why can I still talk to some friends and my family?

At that point, the loneliness hit me like a truck because I spiraled:

'I have to do something, but I can't -> I am going to die alone.'

That was the most traumatic experience of my life, because at that moment, I truly felt all the loneliness catching up to me that I had avoided for years prior. I developed all kinds of OCD themes at that point—ZOCD, HOCD... I went from being a straight-A student to getting Fs.

You have to understand, I am a compulsive learner; my worst grade up until that point was a C. The stress nearly killed me, and my nervous system was so overloaded that I couldn't even work out anymore. I am still traumatized by that little spiral from three years ago, and my life since then has basically just been a recovery from it. Before that spiral, my life was kind of okay, even though I was alone. After it, I was a total wreck.

Fast forward to today. I finally understand that all of these problems were fucking OCD, and the solution isn't to try and become cool or trying to get my social brain back—it means being okay with not being cool. I barely know people who have social ocd but its very real. OCD fucked me over I was a person with dreams, hopes and everything for the future OCD fucked this.

my ocd has manipulated and hurt me in so many ways I’m so tired it got so bad it makes me use escapis just to survive im so tired I don’t want to kms I just want to live a happy life but i get scared people will find out about my ocd and what it’s put me through and blame me instead of it I’m scared Ive only been 18 for 5 months and instead of feeling like life is starting all I want is to die painlessly

I just need to vent to some people who might understand

Rambly background context:

I (27F) have struggled with what I now know to be OCD for as long as I can remember being conscious, with a heavy concentration on existential OCD. From the ages of about 5-16 I barely slept at night due to various fears, and until early adulthood I spent most of my days in a constant fear spiral about existence, hypochondria, and was often disassociating.

I first sought help for my mental health from a school counsellor in middle school, and was regularly seeing them, then the school psychologist, then a public health psychiatrist throughout middle and high school. I was diagnosed with “anxiety and depression” at 15.

I had weekly CBT for 3 years, and have also had a couple of short term therapy stints since then. I’ve seen multiple psychiatrists over the years to discuss medication etc.

When I was 23, I was finally diagnosed and medicated for ADHD, and so many things finally made sense. I had some grief for how much less I could’ve struggled in school had it happened earlier, but I understood that the general understanding of ADHD has developed so much in a short time that it didn’t really bother me.

I first learned about existential OCD at 22, and was absolutely floored by how much it described me.

Over the years, I’ve slowly learned more about OCD and understood how much it described my symptoms, but I haven’t done much about it until now. I got on fluoxetine when I was 15, and was on/off it until a couple of years ago when I finally got my dose right and understood just how essential it was for my wellbeing. I like to joke that my brain is uninhabitable without it, but it’s also very much not a joke. I’m lucky that the fluoxetine helps quiet down the worst of my OCD symptoms and allows me to mostly cope, which is why I haven’t done much about it over the years.

The actual point of this post:

I finally now feel like I’m at a place where my medication is just right, I’ve had time to learn and adjust about my ADHD, and in general I feel fairly stable (by my standards). However, this has also highlighted to me the OCD symptoms that the fluoxetine can’t quite tame and their effect on my life.

I finally decided to see a psychologist about it this week, and they had me fill out the OCI-R assessment.

I got my patient notes yesterday and saw I scored 51/72. Upon some googling, I learned that apparently anything above 28+ is considered severe? Something about that just hit me like a truck. I’m doing so much better now than when I was younger, and my score is still almost double the severe threshold, so god knows what it was at my worst.

I just feel so let down by all these professionals. How did no one recognise my “anxiety” as OCD?? The clear rituals I described, the incessant themes, the debilitating fear.

I just feel so sad for my younger self. The amount I suffered due to my own brain, the absolute terror I lived in. I tried and tried to get help and it just fell short.

As I mentioned earlier, the ADHD being missed i was able to accept fairly easily, but I was under the impression we’ve had a fairly good understanding of OCD for a good while, so I just can’t understand how no one ever even brought it up. The compounding effect of those two missed diagnoses together is just so heavy.

I know that no one was acting out of ill intent, and unfortunately medical professionals and mental health professionals are fallible humans like the rest of us. I also know I’m lucky in a lot of ways, especially the relief my fluoxetine has given me for years now, and that 27 is still relatively young.

But I’m also just so sad about the anguish I felt for so long. How different could things have been if I had received ERP therapy from when I was a teenager? I guess I’ll never know

For someone with morality OCD, I became locked into YouTube drama and celebrity scandals as a teenager, and I think it has permanently fucked up my sense of self. I had to leave twitter and threads, and I now heavily control my feed on YouTube.

I feel like some content creators and celebrities should lose their platform, but the lack of nuance in each response has led me to have black and white thinking over my own morality. Especially when people who are black, brown, female or queer are usually smeared twice as a hard as their counterparts. I don’t like seeing someone like me being told they should kill themselves, and it usually ends in a week long obsessive loop where I can barely take care of myself.

The problem is, this has became so pervasive all across the internet, because let’s face it, it sells.

Since trying to stay away from that shit, my mental health has improved. But it’s still an ongoing battle, and now I’m dealing with the idea that avoiding such things on a daily basis makes me a worse person, because now I’m choosing to bury my head in the sand.

If the thoughts were "what if I don't care about something I enjoy" and I keep doing things like checking that thing to make sure I like it enough or running through my thoughts to check if I'm remembering enough of it

if I want to do that thing I like I get nervous because then I fear that I'm not really doing this because I enjoy it and instead it's just a compulsion I force myself into... and it means that I don't actually like it and i am just forcing myself to (which is the original thought in the first place).

So I can try something with uncertainty like "maybe I could lose interest, I don't know" but then if I try to do what I enjoy I just feel anxious because it is sometimes compulsive, and then i become afraid that it is and try to prove it wrong. but I want to look at something I enjoy and not eventually start thinking in same way I do when I do it to make sure. And then I avoid it because it feels tainted by thoughts even though I really want to...

Maybe I'm subconsciously doing one and just don't realize, because I shouldn't be scared or ever feel upset and this is just proof.

How do I do something if it's also sometimes a compulsion, and then I worry about whether or not it's a compulsion and try to be sure about that because of the same theme? It's like it hijacks my original want because I don't want it to do so in the first place. How do I not feel bad when doing something I enjoy because it's also a theme of so much anxiety?

Hello, my harm ocd has been dialed up to 11 and I can't go 10 minutes without it bothering me, it's constant at this point. I've been in therapy and on meds for months now. I've asked over and over again if the harm thoughts are caused by the meds as a sick side effect and I've been told no by my doc.

My harm ocd is the urge to stab and hurt people, I get images, urges and I can't stand it anymore. I don't want these to come true but it feels like my mind will not let go. I've convinced myself going to prison is
Inevitable. And my life is ruined.

Please I don't want to be alone in this , does anyone else suffer from extreme harm ocd?

I am thinking about just attempting going completely cold turkey with all compulsions even if it makes me panic for hours. Has anyone just decided one day to be freaking done with it?

Does anyone wake up multiple times an evening having bad dreams. Or wake up in sheer panic? How do people deal with sleep, I feel like I get a few hours sleep at a time, but then I suddenly jolt awake with terror. Has anyone else experienced this and how did you deal with it?

I’ve been so stressed out my OCD has me spiraling. I have so many intrusive thoughts I sometimes can’t even move physically. Whenever I try to tidy up my place I can’t even move shit because I get pretty aggressive intrusive thoughts, you know the whole, “IF you do this, then THIS will happen” so I end up just leaving things where they are. I’ve been trying to declutter, but I can’t even let go of things. I hate being at my place right now because I can’t even relax. The visual mess is driving me crazy and my frustration is turning into horrible anger. I get so angry I feel nauseous and get terrible headaches and I have unfortunately ended up smashing things.

It’s so loud in my head all the time. Sometimes I even laugh thinking I’m fucking insane because how is my brain so loud? I can’t even enjoy watching tv, listening to music, because everything is always SOMETHING. Music used to be my escape, but I CANNOT listen to music without my OVF making it impossible because of the lyrics. You know how it goes, “if you listen to this song then this will happen” I’ve caught myself saying out loud,”SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY.”

I’ve been trying hard with exposure therapy, but I’m afraid it’s not working. I can’t handle the anxiety that comes with the exposure and that anxiety ends up leaving me with more intrusive thoughts. I’m also driving my partner crazy to the point in which she’s told me she’s considered leaving😵‍💫 and I don’t blame her to be honest. I drive myself crazy I can’t even imagine asking someone 1000 times the same questions seeking reassurance.

Anyway, today I feel incredibly 👎🏽.

So, basically a lot of my compulsions revolve around food or the rituals of eating. I used to have some kind of contamination obsessions, but they kind of went away or at least I'd like to say that I am able to let those thoughts shut up in my brain. I obsess over how my body feels after I eat, on the physical symptoms of my saliva, of swallowing, burping etc. It drains my energy, so a lot of time I just think it's easier to not eat at all than bother. It was fine at first, of course control blah blah blah. But it made me lose almost 20kg in a year, I kind of fear I'll see a 4 in front of my weight. I'm already underweight, not too much but it certainly is not good since I've lost my period abour half a year already. I'm not that short so.

And I just hate the way it makes people notice this weight loss. I hate myself for it. I hate when teachers, some of my peers or just random people I've barely spoken to speak about this. I know that most of them are concerned or at least appear to be. Fine, I guess. But it kind of makes me want to go deeper in this spiral. It makes me want to actually prove them right and get worse. What makes it hard is that I kind of don't believe I deserve help if I'm not thin enough, which definitely is a disordered way to think, yeah? I'm not sure. But I kind of do see myself going towards anorexic behaviour as another way of having control.

I do want to get better. I genuinely do. I started therapy, I went to a psychiatrist to manage my sleep, stress and try to deal with my compulsions since they're the worst for me right now. I haven't taken them yet, I'm kind of scared. But, I kind of wish to just stay where I am. To see how it is to get worse, to just fuck this all and prove them right. My brain screams at me that this is the only way I'm capable of receiving help. That everyone understands anorexia and all that comes with it. But nobody actually understands my OCD obsessions, kind of ARFID symptoms, emetophobia. Which all makes eating for me such a stressful event.

I'm trying to count calories, I know that most days I don't hit my goals though. I just hate the way people try to point this out, that they think they know this whole story. Even my friends did this. I'm starting group therapy with other people with anxiety, I kind of dread this but maybe it'll bring me some peace? Like I'll feel valid?

Sorry, I just needed to vent this somewhere so it may not be written in the best way. Just needed to get this off of my chest, somewhere. My OCD surely isn't all about food and eating but it plays such a big role in it that... Ugh.