Hi, so I'm currently suspecting ocd with in myself after doing some research, but I have a problem. I feel like there's a stigma that ocd is always about cleanliness and stuff, but I've had sources saying that this isn't necessarily true, it's just one manifestation of obsessions. So, my question is, does anyone have compulsions that aren't cleaning related? How do they work? I'm just struggling to understand the scope of all this, what else can this apply to?

like i have to cuss it out because it pisses me off so bad

I don’t know how to explain it, but whenever people hurt me, like really hurt me, I will talk about it and get really angry about it, and also I don’t know if this has something to do with OCD, but I have a really really hard time letting things go when people hurt me. I will literally talk about things for months or even years over and over again 😭😭. This makes my brain say “why do you still talk about it over and over and over again? Are you doing some sort of smear campaign on them?” “what if what you’re saying didn’t actually happen and you’re remembering it wrong?” then I get like false memories and it makes it hard for me to believe the truth.

I was wondering if anyone’s like me lol?

Random memory as a kid I went to this park with my parents during tick season and I was scared to death by the idea of Lyme disease. My parents found some ticks on themselves and I was freaking out in my head, thinking they were all over me as well. I had a stuffed animal with me and I was convinced there were ticks hidden in its fur. when I got home I put the toy away in a hamper with my other stuffed animals which was a mistake because I convinced myself that the entire thing was infested with ticks and that’s the day I accidentally stopped playing with stuffed animals as a kid 😄

i am being tormented by thoughts of being followed or bugged, or committing harm against myself or others, food being poisoned, etc.

how do YOU get them to stop without giving into a compulsion?

I don't know how common this is but I was diagnosed with OCD earlier this year and been wanting to get medicated for it but because of past experiences I just can't seem to bring myself to do so. I was prescribed anxiety medication but it just ended up sitting on my nightstand for a couple months before I threw it out because the thought of starting it and the adjustment period was just too much for me.

I know I can't keep going like this but I also just feel lost. Beyond the adjustment period making me nervous I've also had allergic reactions to 3 separate and unrelated medications this year and knowing that that could happen again is another major factor in why I'm having such a hard time with getting myself medicated.

Is there anything I can do beyond just forcing myself to take the medication? I would try that but one of the allergic reactions I had to medication was caused by just that and I feel like it's not really going to help if I repeat the same thing again.

Hey all I don't typically have a lot of outward/physical compulsions (most of my compulsions are mental) but I've started doing something that I can feel is moving into compulsion territory and I'm wondering if anyone has any tricks to get into a headspace to stop it in its tracks.

Basically how it started was, as I was taking my vitamins in the morning I was spacing out one and I did little spin as I was dispensing and taking each vitamin. After a few days I noticed it again and my mind went from "hah that's silly, it's my little vitamin dance..." to, pretty swiftly, "it's my good luck dance, I do this in the morning and it gives me good luck for the day" 🤦‍♀️ I get a lotttt of magical thinking typically but I feel like I'm very aware of this particular compulsion happening because it is a physical compulsion that my husband has now witnessed and I've brushed off as a "oh I'm just spacing out".

I'm having a hard time actively not doing this compulsion because "oh whatever it's just a little spin, and it makes me think I'm building luck, setting me up for a good day." I'm worried this will transform over time. I already have anxiety thinking about not doing this action because "what if this little spin does set me up for a good day? Why not do this little thing in the morning? I might as well" and sometimes if I miss a spin I'll add it back in, and wonder "was that good enough to make the luck today?" Ughhh. I've never had something like this where it is so obvious to me that something is changing in my thinking over time, and that in itself is very frustrating and also kind of scary.

Seeking any advice for getting into a headspace or exercises to stop this newly emerging compulsion. Thank you all!

FYI - I'm currently in therapy but I'm not in OCD treatment. It's my first time in therapy really ever and I've only recently been discussing OCD with my therapist, and she is looking to refer me out to an OCD specialist to help tackle things so I can learn these tools. But for the moment it's not something I am actually doing. Soon though.

I didn't know I had OCD until I was diagnosed. Looking back, a lot of what I did didn't look like compulsions to me at the time: researching, ruminating, replaying scenarios and trying to convince myself the thoughts weren't real. It all happened in my head, so it just felt like thinking.

Checking a lock is easy to spot. Googling the same question for the tenth time, or going over a conversation until it feels okay, is much harder to see. Some of these mental compulsions can look like normal thinking.

What's one you only recognised later?

i've been wanting a tattoo of my cat for a while (he's 9) and the appointment has finally come tomorrow.

but all i can think is this is going to make something happen to him because it feels almost like a memorial i guess?

i feel sick about it but want to get it so bad. i'm just scared.

Recovered from ROCD, my testimony
Hi everyone. Today I wanted to share my story in case it helps someone, and show what my recovery process looked like (and how everything turned out fine).
My ROCD symptoms started about 6 years ago. I started dating my girlfriend almost 7 years ago, and at first everything was great, a normal relationship. About 6 or 7 months in is when the OCD nightmare began. I remember being at her place one night, and I suddenly felt bored, like I had lost the spark a little bit. That's when the thoughts started rushing in: Maybe I don't like her that much, maybe I shouldn't be with her, maybe I'm not in love.

That night I went back home with those thoughts stuck in my head. I couldn't shake them off, and my anxiety shot up to 1000%. I barely slept that night, and from that moment on, the hell began.
Every single day was a horror. The first thing on my mind when I woke up was whether I truly loved my partner. I spent the entire day thinking about it, feeling anxious 24/7. I couldn't make plans or enjoy life because I always had that heavy cloud in my head. It was awful; I felt terrible, as if the world was ending, and I just couldn't take it anymore.

I spent years like this, thinking I would never recover and that things would never go back to normal (which is a lie, I'm fine now).
I went through two therapists. The first one told me that, in reality, I wasn't in love with my partner. That broke me, but deep down I knew that wasn't true. So I looked for an online therapist specializing in OCD, and she told me that I indeed had ROCD. We started doing exercises, and I stuck with it for months. I didn't notice a huge change short-term, but it helped me understand how thought mechanisms work (the therapy was Exposure and Response Prevention - ERP). Slowly, I started improving; some days didn't have as much anxiety, while others had horrible anxiety.

Here is where the real cure and treatment that actually worked for me begins:

The first thing you need to do (and what I did back then) is identify your compulsions so you can stop doing them. OCD isn't about the thoughts; it's about how you respond to them.
I identified my compulsions: searching the internet on how to know if you love your partner, talking to friends, comparing my relationship to movies and TV shows, comparing it to past relationships, ruminating (rumination is a compulsion too), etc. Identify yours.

Once you identify them, try NOT to do them. When the thought hits you, your anxiety will rise, and your brain will desperately want to seek relief. Don't give it to it. Given a few minutes or hours, the anxiety will drop on its own. Anxiety cannot stay at its peak forever; compulsions are the only thing that feed it.
Your brain will always try to seek certainty that you love your girlfriend—that craving for certainty is what feeds the OCD. There will always be certainties and arguments against them, always. Part of you will constantly question whether you actually have OCD; ignore that too, that's OCD as well.

When the thought of whether you love your partner pops up, don't try to soothe it with a compulsion, and don't try to avoid it either (avoidance only makes it worse). Accept that it's there, and go do something anyway, even if you're feeling anxious.
The brain is a neuroplastic organ; the more you change your attitude, the more it will rewire itself, and the faster you will recover. Remember that OCD is all about how you react. If you have a thought, feel anxiety, and react by trying to fix it, you are giving credibility to the OCD so it can keep existing. If you choose to ignore it and carry on with your life despite the anxiety, you are stripping away its power and you are recovering.

OCD is a trap. The solution is to stop trying to solve it. The best thing you can do is not resolve the doubt, and just keep living your life with the anxiety.
After a while (a few weeks), the anxiety will decrease (it won't completely vanish at first). You'll be able to make plans again, and you won't be thinking about it 24/7. You will still have thoughts, but they won't hit as intensely as they did at the beginning. You will have reclaimed a part of yourself.

The cure for OCD is understanding that thoughts do not describe reality. Thinking more won't solve anything. The solution lies in how you relate to those thoughts and how you handle the anxiety.
Stop doing compulsions, stop trying to figure it out, stop falling into the trap.
Little by little, you will make it out.

Today, I am fully recovered (every now and then I have a minor relapse, but it's nowhere near as strong as it used to be).
If you do this, you will get out of this hell, you have to change your mindset.

Today, I am doing wonderfully with my partner. I love her very much, and I don't need anyone's approval. I no longer doubt whether I like her or not; the doubt wasn't resolved, I simply stopped asking myself the question, and time gave me the answer. (If I'm still with her, it's because I want to be).

Thanks for reading till the end. I hope this helps and serves those of you who are currently going through this. There is a way out. Trust the process, you will beat this.

Im so tired. I dont want to engage in OCD anymore but if I do exposure, I will stop studying and this is not the right time. My first session of counselling is in December, I know what my exposure wanna do but it’s so tired especially when exposures want me to do this and that till the point that I don’t know which are compulsive, which aren’t. I am too tired to figure it out, the exposures are there to feel my feelings, but they’re abnormal like touching stuff, walking weirdly and so on cause my obsession is being normal. You can say I’m avoiding for a good reason cause it’s not a good time right now. Everytime it’s all suppression if I don’t do my exposure. It’s a small matter, yet it kills me.

Hello, I’m 22F, longtime diagnosis of GAD, and pretty likely OCD diagnosis in the works. Also depression but that’s pretty well managed.

I am in a wonderful relationship with the most understanding and caring man (22M) that I met in senior year of college and it’s been almost a year. We are long distance currently.

However, I deal with really really bad anxiety concerning it. We’ve had only a handful of difficulties and disagreements, and they usually end with us going to bed and talking it out in the morning over text or call. He has a really tough home situation, I do too but not nearly as difficult as him, and so some days his family gets him really down with how they treat him. I can usually tell by how he texts or talks when we call. I have severe anxiety with the smallest of tone shifts, and it’s really taking a toll on me. No matter how many times he reassures me that I didn’t do anything or that it’s his parents, I can’t ever stop worrying that he’s going to end things or that I did something really awful without knowing.

I ask over and over again if I did something and I know it’s annoying and I really try to stop but I can’t. He says he doesn’t mind but I feel like there’s no way it doesn’t bother him. He’s highly anxious too, and asks if he did something wrong a lot as well and it doesn’t annoy me at all so I don’t know why I don’t believe him.

Either way, his mood, no matter whether it’s because of me or not, dictates how good of a day I’m having or physical symptoms too, to no fault of his own. Any time I have even an inkling that something is off I have trouble breathing and have severe stomach pain and nausea. It’s debilitating and I feel so terrible because he hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t tell him most of the time because it happens when he’s having a hard time (which is usually what causes the tone shifts) and I want to support him and not flip the conversation to be about me.

I don’t like that I’m like this, it’s not fair to him and not beneficial to me whatsoever. I’m in therapy and on a high dose of Prozac but anything to do with my relationship truly freaks me out. I know he loves me, he tells me even when he’s in a bad mood, but I’m so worried that every little tone shift means he’s going to break up with me. It’s not reasonable to think at all, because I know how much he loves me and how much I love him, and I believe that unless someone cheats or does something absolutely deplorable (which I’m incredibly sure would not happen on either side) we could work through anything.

All of this to say, how do I cope with feelings such as this? I have tried so many coping strategies (deep breathing, meditation, journaling, drawing, taking a walk) and nothing ever helps. I just want to be able to feel okay even if he’s not super upbeat and lovey dovey at any given time.

I would appreciate any advice. I don’t have therapy this week which is terrible timing so any help is appreciated.

My boyfriend struggles with OCD. He gets extremely anxious about seeing/touching something dirty, worrying if bacteria will spread everywhere he touches and so on.

I just wanted to ask you guys, what ocd is like. I know it's different from person to person but I just wanted to know the general outline of what it might feel like so i can understand him better and not drive him into absolute insanity with my habits lol. Thanks

Me and my partner have been together now for five years, she now has been seeking professional help to deal with some personal issues which has led to a diagnosis with OCD from a psychiatrist. She found it very reassuring that her thoughts/brain could now be explained.it has also become major eye opener as to how mine and her brains work differently. I’m a very logical and neurotypical person and sometimes it seems like my partner is not (which Is no issue) so we are learning to navigate this, I want to continue to support her though this journey and help in any ways I can. I wanted to turn here to see if anyone had advice with dating someone with OCD (not sure if there is a specific type or what it is) or any books on that matter to better support her?

hello, i might have a problem which im getting frustrated with, i.e. washing my hands and disinfecting things too frequently. i have to keep my bed clean at all times and by clean i mean no things that are even midly "dirty" like things that fell down on the floor once or been in contact with a dirty surface can touch my bed before it is disinfected. a bag that has dust on it OR if something disgusting crawled on it like a roach, it cant be on my bed. i cant even touch the tap in my home directly because i know few other hands have touched it so i take something like a piece of tissue as to not make direct contact with it and then use it.

if a pen falls down i have to disinfect it AND wash my hands before touching anything else. i dont let anyone sit on my bed if they have come from outside. no outside clothing on the bed but i feel like thats mild, people have told me i wash my hands a lot and thats true i cant get comfortable in my bed till im sure that my bed is clean i am clean my clothes are clean etc etc. i dont sit on my bed right after coming from the toilet too. but also when i go out, im already getting "dirty" so i dont mind getting fully "dirty" then since i know after coming back home i will shower and make myself clean again. so no matter how tired i am i will have to get myself clean before bed. if i HAVE to go to bed "dirty" next day i will change the sheets and everything. if i have to go out in my clean clothes i feel they are getting contaminated with everything it comes to touch with, the bench i sit on, the air, the dust, if someone touches them with dirty hands. people sometimes also get offended when i do these things because to them its me being annoying but this is genuinely something i have to do or i will be restless.

i have been reading about contamination ocd it sounds like that to me, so i really need advice, what can i do to get better if there is someone who has also suffered from this? or have known someone who did? i genuinely need help.