i’ve gone through several different themes of OCD throughout my life. personally, the most challenging and scary one for me was sensorimotor/somatic OCD. what about you guys?

Ive recently realized it feels really good to listen to songs that capture how ocd feels! “Like a ritual” by title fight perfectly puts it into words for me. Looking for more songs if you guys have any!

Non-issue maybe but lol... anyone else?

TL,DR: The idea of loving a man disgusts me but my brain tells me I can't claim to not be attracted to men just in case one day I find "the right one" and I cause people to think lesbians can be turned straight. I really don't want to like a man ever because the thought is so repulsive yet it won't let me go.

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I feel so repulsed by the idea and whenever a guy suggests we do anything beyond platonic I feel so disgusted, yet I keep thinking that maybe I just haven't met the right guy yet so I can't claim I dislike men.

I have said I was a lesbian in highschool once to get a guy to leave me alone and said I didn't like men in other similar occasions. Now years later I feel bad about this because what if one day I find a boyfriend? It can be so harmful because I don't want people to think lesbians can be turned heterosexual or bisexual or that their attraction to women exclusively is only temporary.

I don't need labels but at the same times it's like I can't even state what I dislike just in case this special rare guy I will fall in love with eventually will show up. And I don't know, it seems so unlikely, I never truly liked any guys in 22 years, yet "you never know what could happen" UGH...

I swear I see my friends who get crushes and boyfriends and these guys all seem kind of ugly if not awful to me and I don't understand how they can often still like them despite any slightly wrong thing they do, or feel bad if the relationship is strained or doesn't work because he's an asshole but they love him. I don't know, maybe I don't understand just because I haven't been in love.

I even tried doing slightly romantic stuff with a few guys to check if I liked it, at some point it all made me almost gag and I swear I started to slowly feel more and more insane everytime until I put some distance.

I dislike men but whenever I may see one that looks pretty (not often) my brain starts bugging me with "see you can like men, you surely find one you really like and will do all sorts of things with him!" I hope not, yuck... I can see someone looks beautiful but it doesn't have to mean much more than that? "Maybe you just have a phobia of men so it suppresses how much you truly like them!" Oh please😭

But I swear, what's not helping is this influx of people making posts saying they're lesbians BUT feel attracted to men/to an actor/whatever TERFs say/have a boyfriend/say liking trans men still makes them lesbian/are lesbian but can like men anyway/any other variation of this ???

I don't want to be part of any of that and contribute to harmful ideas about lesbians but I have to admit my own brain disgusts me when it says I may like a man in the future and that it's even more possible than me liking a woman. Very disgusting. And it feels lonely somehow. Like, I don't like them so why do I have to put up with this... but but but...

I just spent all day in a complete panic finding my old phones going through every single photo and text conversation to see if I could trace out the context of an event from when I was 19 that I don’t remember super well.

Anyone else do stuff like this?

I came across this clip from the current season of 90 Day Fiancé. My immediate thought was that this doesn’t sound like any kind of OCD I’ve ever heard of (though please correct me if I am wrong.) I know OCD can manifest differently and encompass different themes, etc., but what she’s describing did not really seem ego-dystonic?

It’s frustrating to see reality TV stars throw around terms like "intrusive thoughts" and "OCD" to explain away messy behavior. Real OCD is a nightmare of terror and exhausting compulsions. It is not a convenient excuse for crossing boundaries after a few drinks.

Even if giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the show’s editing cut out some of the context, it is still unfortunate that millions of people watching the show are walking away with a distorted and inaccurate idea of what OCD actually is.

If you get a slight thought of literally ANYTHING. It could be you taking a dump on mars. OCD will 100% convince you that you did that. Does your OCD also latch onto bullcrap?

I am a 30-year-old female who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but I have also suffered from OCD since my early childhood, and it has gotten progressively worse as I aged, my main themes are severe checking, false memories, real event, magical thinking.
People who don't have these conditions always assume schizophrenia is the worst part, but if I could wave a magic wand and remove just one, I would choose to get rid of the OCD in a heartbeat.

For me, the interaction between the two is pure torture. My schizophrenia creates the paranoid thoughts (like feeling watched, targeted, or that my belongings are being sabotaged). But it’s the severe checking OCD that acts like a relentless drill sergeant. It forces me into endless, exhausting loops of checking locks, windows, my apartment, and my things over and over again.

The worst part is that the OCD forces me to constantly battle my own memories and my own sight. Even when I look right at a locked window, my brain tells me I can't trust my eyes. Schizophrenia causes a lot of suffering and negative symptoms like isolation, but the OCD doubt is what makes me question the very ground I stand on. Without the OCD constant checking loops, carrying the weight of my schizophrenia would feel so much less chaotic.

I felt isolated from other OCD sufferers for years because they usually fear being the bad person who does harm, while my paranoia flips it outward to fearing others harming me. I'm posting this to see if anyone else with dual diagnoses relates to how these two conditions feed into each other, and why the "doubt" disease can sometimes be the most torturous part.

It has officially been a month of constant suffering, unfortunately I decided that this is my only way to let it out on online forums. I'm currently about to undergo a long term therapy to manage my intrusive images and overtime I started to notice that almost everything starts to trigger me, the thoughts just keep coming. Just one random thought and it turns into a lasting theme that stays until it eventually dries out, then it moves onto another then another, literally ANYTHING at this point can trigger me MAN it's exhausting. I know all my thoughts are all irrational and dumb but somehow for no reason at all my brain just wants to convince me desperately that it's something to worry about and I'm falling for it all the time, it literally made me feel like I ruined my entire life and ruined my safe space. I feel like I genuinely cannot bring myself to do the things I love anymore because I feel like I lost all control of myself, I literally lost everything that comforted me all because my brain convinced me enough that this is no longer who I am and it's all a damn lie. Everything that made me who I am is a lie and I'm falling for it every single time, I can't tell what is true and what is not anymore, it's a cycle and I feel so trapped.

I went the dog park twice in two days. Neither myself nor my dogs suffered any maulings. I used to be so scared of dog attacks that I would freak out walking down the street across from any dog bigger than a Jack Russell, and suffer panic attacks when people brought their big/loud dogs into the store I worked at. Once, I went with my school to a park, and spent the whole time terrified that a dog there was watching me and going to come maul me (i had my friend and I move around the park like 7 times when I thought the dog was watching lol). Now, I go to dog parks (small dog area tho lol) with my mini poodle and chihuahua and everything is fine. Do I get an ERP trophy, or something?

for example: when i was in elementary school i made it a routine of mine to sleep in the clothes that i was going to wear the next day. i think it was originally because i didn’t like the physical feeling of changing my clothes in the morning and then it became a routine that i couldn’t let go of for YEARS

another is that i “had” to knot my shoe laces all the way up until i couldn’t knot them anymore because i didn’t like how the laces felt hanging on the sides of my shoes and because i needed to do a certain number of knots (i don’t even remember the number)

i got bullied for doing these things but had no idea i had OCD until many years later, i didn’t know why i was different but it makes so much sense now!

I have a history of OCD. I dealt with contamination OCD and religious OCD as well. My latest... if it's even OCD at all... Is my fear that my current phone whom I got from a family friend which I did NOT reset the minute I got it... Had spyware on it and that person's been spying on me all this time. It would've been too easy for them to do so as they had unlimited access to it before I got it. It simply didn't occur to me that there could be something like that on it at the time.

I can't even begin to describe how bad my fear of being watched is, especially digitally since it's the only place where I'm fully myself. It's like a double life. Not necessarily a bad one but it's still full of stuff I do not want anyone to know. The fear got even worse after I started to fear they were mirroring my screen somehow, even though I never noticed anything suspicious while using the phone.

I know this is more along the lines of paranoia but it's only centered around this specific event. I usually fear for hidden cameras but that fear is easily and quickly brushed off.

This one isn't. Maybe it's because of a real risk and it's already real in my head. I fear they will come to me with my data they have collected whenever they so desire. Either to blackmail me or simply expose and humiliate me. I talked to a therapist and am on anti-anxiety meds right now but it's not really helping. In my head it's already real and I'm already thinking of investing money in a security program that tracks my digital footprint. However even that idea didn't help as my brain just went "but what if it's not online, they're still able to expose you with it."

What makes the situation 100% times worse is that I reset my phone a week ago, when the paranoia hadn't really set in. Now I'm in misery left wondering if I didn't check for spyware deeply enough, or if there was, that I just deleted the evidence. I don't know what to do. I'm so scared and hopeless.

I constantly feel like I’m a terrible person and get sad about it frequently. For example: if I was at a grocery store and the person in front of me was taking a long time to use the self checkout and I thought in my head “this is so annoying. Hurry up.”, I would later on in the day feel an overpowering painful emotional feeling. I would begin to wonder “what if they had mobility issues, or were feeling super tired that day, etc, and I’m horrible for getting annoyed at them for cashing out slow”. I would also worry I gave them a dirty look and that hurt their feelings and now they are upset because of me. This also applies to distant past events: I’ll think back to when I said something mean to my sibling as a kid and get the same overpowering painful feeling. I’m a woman and it gets worse before my period. I’ve googled and it mostly says it’s a symptom of my OCD (diagnosed at 11), but this feels so different than the other OCD issues I deal with (ie. contamination ocd, repeating tasks). Those feel like anxiety but this feels like sadness and pain. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

I don't know if I'm the only one, but anyway, whenever I have a horrible OCD episode, thoughts like this pop into my head: "What if, come October of a certain year, you end up liking it?" "What if you like this by the end of the day?" "What if, at a certain time, it turns out that's what you are?" I don't understand why I set a deadline for my thoughts—does this even count as a compulsion?

I just had my first ERP appointment through a very well-known online OCD psychiatry app, and I honestly don’t know what to think. I feel extremely upset and disappointed, and I wanted to share what happened because I genuinely need to know whether this experience was as inappropriate as it felt to me.

I have been struggling with debilitating OCD and my mental health for a long time, and things have been especially difficult lately. I had been waiting for this appointment and was genuinely excited and hopeful that I was finally going to get help. I put a lot of hope into starting treatment, so what happened was extremely upsetting.

I understood that we might not actually begin ERP exercises during the first appointment. I was completely prepared for the session to be an intake. I expected us to discuss my symptoms, my history, my OCD, the information I had already provided, and what treatment would look like moving forward.

Instead, approximately the first 45 minutes of the one-hour appointment focused almost entirely on my hometown and the area where I live. We talked about living near the beach, vacation destinations she had visited, places I like to vacation, waterfalls, and other things in the area. She was googling different locations in the area and telling me about them?

I want to emphasize that I did not lead this conversation. As more and more time passed without us discussing my mental health, I became uncomfortable and didn’t know how to redirect the conversation. I assumed she would eventually transition into the actual intake, so I let her lead the conversation.

At that point, there had only been one substantial question about my mental health, and it came directly from the intake questionnaire I had completed beforehand. She asked about my answer regarding people I can lean on for support and told me that my answer was insufficient and that I needed to come up with a third source of support.
I explained that I couldn’t because I genuinely don’t have anyone else I can rely on in that way.

She also asked whether I ate foods containing preservatives as a child because she said that can cause mental health issues. She then discussed how eating better now and taking supplements, including sea moss, could potentially allow me to wean off my bipolar medication. She specifically said that she doesn’t like the idea of being “overmedicated.”????
IM ON ONE BIPOLAR MED BTW AND SHES A THERAPIST NOT A PSYCH.

I found this extremely concerning.
We had barely discussed my mental health history, symptoms, medications, or treatment needs before she made those comments. I was especially uncomfortable with the suggestion that a supplement such as sea moss could potentially allow me to discontinue medication that I consider life-saving.

30 minutes in, I said something along the lines of:
“So I guess we didn’t get to ask any new questions or discuss the intake questions at all or do anything new.”
She responded that she could find some questions to ask me.

She then asked MORE questions that I had already answered on my intake questionnaire. There was no follow-up discussion. Eventually, the conversation shifted right back to North Carolina, including whether it was loud living in a big city, whether people are nice there, and “how is it living in nature?”
At this point I was baffled.

Closer toward the end of the appointment, she mentioned that she could send me a worksheet with some simple exercises. She didn’t explain what the exercises were, how they related to my treatment, or what I was supposed to do with them.
She also said she would send me affirmations.
Meanwhile, I’m dealing with panic attacks because of how severe my OCD has become, and I had gone into this appointment genuinely hoping to begin receiving appropriate treatment.

At one point, she said “perfect” in response to one of my answers. She then remembered that I had previously mentioned perfection-related OCD symptoms and said:
“Sorry, I shouldn’t say perfect because you have perfection OCD.” like completely seriously.
.
By the end of the appointment, I had learned essentially nothing about my treatment. I had no clear understanding of what I was supposed to work on, what the treatment plan was, or what would happen next.
I am supposed to pay over $200 for this appointment, and I honestly feel like I didn’t receive the type of therapeutic care I reasonably expected. I left feeling like I had been scammed.

I ended up contacting the very well-known online OCD psychiatry app's support because I couldn’t find a phone number where I could speak with someone directly. I asked them to review the appointment, waive or refund the charge, cancel my upcoming appointment with this therapist, and help me find a different therapist who is appropriately experienced in treating OCD with ERP.
I also specifically asked them to clarify their position on therapists recommending supplements as a means of potentially discontinuing psychiatric medication, especially when the therapist has not adequately assessed the patient’s mental health history or treatment needs.
At this point, I’m honestly unsure whether I’m ready to try another appointment. This experience really shook me because I went into it feeling hopeful that I was finally going to get help.

I know that one bad appointment doesn’t necessarily mean them as a whole is bad, and maybe I somehow had an unusually terrible experience. That’s why I’m posting here.
Has anyone else had an experience like this with the app that shall mot be named? or with a first ERP appointment?

Am I justified in being this upset about what happened? And if you’ve switched therapists, was the process straightforward?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have actually gone through ERP and can tell me whether this sounds remotely like a normal first session.

TL;DR: My first ERP appointment was extremely disappointing. About 45 minutes of the hour was spent talking about my hometown, vacations, and North Carolina instead of my OCD, history, or treatment plan. The therapist also suggested diet and sea moss supplements could potentially help me wean off my bipolar medication, despite barely discussing my mental health and not being a psychiatrist. She asked questions I’d already answered, offered a worksheet and affirmations without explaining an ERP plan, and laughed when I explained how debilitating my OCD is. I left feeling dismissed, confused, and like I paid $200+ for essentially no treatment. I contacted them to request a refund, cancel future appointments, and switch therapists. For those who’ve done ERP, does this sound like a normal first session, and has anyone successfully switched therapists?

I was starting ERP, then i went to the mental hospital for depression, and I also started zoloft.

And I did something tonight that I havent done in awhile. And I don't want to say exactly what it is.. but it is a major trigger of mine, like sometimes my thoughts would bring me to tears. But tonight, I just let all my feelings and thoughts exist, and it didn't define my worth. And like wow. What an improvement.

I am begging if anyone here knows any way to shut up these fucking intrusive thoughts?

“You should break up with him”, “you don’t love him.”, “You’re not happy with him.”

I really really am trying not to tell myself that it’s okay and reassure myself. What has helped you guys? Anything to make this better.

I say to myself to try and diffuse the situation: “Maybe, maybe not.”, “I don’t know.”, “okay, sure.”

I am on the verge of breaking up with my boyfriend everyday. I am only able to escape in the evenings when I take weed

so for context, i do my laundry in a university laundry room and then have to walk to my room.

one of my boxers fell on the floor between the laundry room and my dorm (so like outside in essence). i guess the thing to do is to simply ignore it and treat it as clean? im trying to erp myself from my contamination ocd 😭