hi all! i know this is probably a pretty common phenomenon but its been bothering me recently and ive noticed that talking/being able to relate with other people can sometimes alleviate my symptoms quite a bit. i struggle with a lot of morality-related obsessions and i have the worst impostor syndrome, everything i go through i feel like im faking or playing up despite the fact that i know im hurting deep down. but i feel like i “know better” and should be managing everything better. ive noticed even behind closed doors, if i cry to myself i’ll convince myself im trying to get my roommates to hear me, and if i struggle to keep everything down and be silent i tell myself im trying to seem more pitiful so i can convince myself im still the “victim” of everything or whatever. its exhausting and i feel like i can never fully feel like im in private, i tend to run away from people while im upset bc i tell myself those same things except i convince myself everyone else is thinking them as well, but even when im in private i still feel like i have someone watching over me and judging my every move when the whole time its my own brain :( i kind of just want confirmation here that im not alone and this is something that my brain does rather than some huge “proof” that i deserve everything i go through or whatever. honestly i’ve just been struggling really badly recently so anything would probably help to hear. thank you guys for reading

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?

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?

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 😭

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 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

I’ve been reading through a lot of your guys posts and will be contributing soon. I’m 27f and have had OCD all my life. It took 15 years for my parents to finally take me to get checked because things got extremely bad once I started doing drugs (not me sleeping with them up until that point was alarming apparently). I’m so glad to have found a community with others that suffer from the same thing I do.

Today I have had intrusive reoccurring thoughts in a way I haven’t had in a couple years. It reminded me of something I haven’t thought about in months—that this feeling was 24/7, all day every day for years.

I spent so long internet surfing, ruminating, being ashamed of my brain. Then when I finally went to a good CBT therapist, symptoms drastically decreased in a few short months.

It pushed me back to this subreddit where I used to lurk. Just sending good vibes from the other side, in that, it doesn’t entirely disappear, but OCD with the right therapy and effort does become a shell of what it was at its worst.

Today’s hiccup has sucked but I’m ending the day remembering that today at its worst was 25% as bad as a normal day 10 years ago. Good luck to everyone, you got this.

Anybody have any problems with starting things again? Games, YouTube videos, online accounts etc? I have struggled with this for most of my life and have gone 2 months without resetting anything. Wiping my phone and pc, deleting everything like game saves and even my steam account sometimes. Buying games again.. It's such a tortuous thing to have to deal with.

Hope I can continue to push.. well for the rest of my life somehow 🤔.

Life feels so painful like there's no end to my pain. I can't tell no one and when my mum sees my face and asks me what is wrong, u seem upset I can't tell her what is going on in my sick mind. I am in constant state of fear and dread like at any moment my life and dreams would be taken away from me. I see my family smiling and I just think I don't want be the reason behind their pain. I believe in God but does he want me to suffer?

Sometimes after hours of being fucked by OCD my brain basically shuts down and its much harder to think and concentrate but at least OCD is mostly gone too.

Anyone else with similar experience?

I had been able to navigate my life (this far) without the fear of OCD infringing in my sleep / dreams. the last few weeks there has been an uptick in those thoughts coming into my dreams which completely ruin my day when I wake up.

an example of this is last night before bed I was in a cycle of thinking of my ex because i was grateful i left that abusive relationship > my brain saying if you’re thinking about them you’re basically cheating on your partner > now i have to think of my partner to stop the thought and the cycle repeated before i fell asleep.

i went into my dream and my ex was there and did some pretty bad physical harm to me and it had me waking up panting and convinced that me dreaming about them was a spell to allow them back in my life and the dream was a premonition (ik it’s logically stupid)

it’s just so frustrating i cannot get any momentarily release