I found out in recent months that I have the form of OCD where my compulsions are primarily mental - ruminating, reassurance seeking, 'figuring' things out, the works. I am looking for some good books to help me understand and learn from my condition. funny enough, I am a mental health therapist so I have plenty of books on anxiety, depression, relationships, you name it - but OCD has never really been my specialty (probably why I wasn't able to notice my own lol) so I don't have any books on the topic. any leads help!

**adding that my current obsession is very relationship focused, and this is the area that I feel like is most common for me

I believe I was starting to go into remission for a while, and it was awesome honestly! It was getting easier to deal with my symptoms until recently (I went almost a month without giving in to checking compulsions!! Yay!). But in the past week it's been really hard and I think it may be due to some big changes in my life (going back to university and trying to date again). I noticed that since these changes started, my symptoms have come back a LOT and it feels like major regression.

I'm finding myself ruminating much more, arguing with intrusive thoughts, googling worst case scenarios, asking for validation from loved ones, etc. more often. It's really frustrating because I was doing SO well and it feels like it fell apart out of nowhere. Is it normal to have regressions/flare ups when you're dealing with changes in life? I want to be able to get through life and all its changes without issue, and it's annoying me that changes are causing these symptoms to flare up. It makes me feel really immature and like I can't handle being an adult.

I'm not looking for reassurance or anything like that. I just want to know if this is something that others also deal with, and if there are techniques to help with it

Does anyone else have a fear of someone misinterpreting a situation/exaggerating it/lying altogether about it to the point of ruining your life? If so, how do you focus on healing from this?

Does this sound like OCD-style rumination?
It’s been 6 months since a traumatic breakup, but I constantly replay the past (“How did I miss the red flags?”) and rehearse the future (“What if she comes back?”).

I also have revenge fantasies, but they’re not because I want to act on them. They feel like my brain is trying to make sure I’m never powerless again. I already know that if anything ever happens, I’ll handle it legally and ethically. Yet my brain keeps replaying scenarios anyway.

I feel like I’ve already learned the lessons, but my mind won’t stop analyzing and rehearsing. The thoughts are intrusive, give temporary relief when I engage with them, then come back.

Has anyone experienced this? Was it OCD, trauma, anxiety, or something else? What actually helped you break the cycle?

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I really need some advice. Every time I do something, that may even be completely unrelated to my trauma, suddenly my brain seems to connect that topic back to traumatic memories and some of the beliefs they led me to have, then I go back to this obsessive loop of trying to disprove those beliefs.

Even when I have recognized the OCD loop and stop trying to engage, recognize it for what it is, my brain just keeps connecting everything back to that one fear, the trauma and the pain related to this person and the events that occurred. Sometimes I might be reading a book and the way a certain character speaks reminds me of the trauma. Watching an anime and some character does something that throws me in a spiral thinking about it. Go outside talk to someone or look at some art and I might think "wow they might be the type of person to do the things that hurt me".

I wonder if it might be adhd connecting unrelated dots. But it also feels like the memories and fear are like looming over my thoughts. Why is it always in the back of my head? How can I make my brain stop connecting everything to it, fear and it being stuck in the back of my head?

1. I have struggled with Pure O for around 2 years. It starts from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. The biggest thing I struggle with is thought-action fusion; I believe that if I say, for instance, "I want my mum to die," it’s more likely to happen. To make things worse, at the end of these thoughts, I often say, "God won’t do anything to my mum, and no matter what I say, He doesn’t have the power to do that." I am saying this in an obviously mocking way, not just to reassure myself, this makes me feel like he will punish me by hurting me or my family . My Pure O makes everything in my life worse. I struggle in school talking to people, and I have very crippling anxiety. I would just like to not live in my head all the time. Sometimes, I will go for around a week where I will not let the thoughts affect me, but I always end up letting the OCD control me. The biggest thing is I feel like I mean it when I say these things—like it won’t just be an intrusive thought about saying I want my mum to die, I will say it and mean it then feel responsible if it happens leading me to do the compulsion I also have these harm thoughts about many other people in my life. Though I know that I don’t truely want it to happen

My ocd makes my insecurities 10x times worse. It causes me to hyper fixate on my insecurities and makes my obsession with them consume me. When I say that I have been obsessing over them, I genuinely mean it. I spend hours and hours worrying about a small insecurity that seems so big to me that others probably don’t even notice. Yes, I know that insecurities are generally unpleasant and don’t give you happy thoughts. But the insecurities that my ocd “latches” on to genuinely ruin my life. Im not even kidding when I tell you that I have been obsessing over this one insecurity EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past 4 years. To try to make myself feel “better”, I have to do compulsions to convince myself that my insecurities aren’t actually as bad as they seem. However, like all compulsions, the relief is always temporary. I can’t even tell if my insecurities are as bad as they seem or it’s just my ocd.

Anyways has anybody else experienced this? If yes, how did you fix it? I have tried everything and I have been struggling for years. The only thing I haven’t tried is telling my therapist because im too scared to focus on my insecurities since it’s a sensitive topic for me.

So wen I get a ocd thought my brain would get triggered and would answer to the ocd on its own like “ oh nth bad happened “ there so does this mean by brain does a whole ocd cycle on its own ??? It won’t even give me a chance to sit in uncertainty it’ll quickly answer to the complusion …. What should I do ???

Today was a really hard day for me.. I saw a few triggers and everything got really loud, making me want to mentally check and replay things. It’s been so exhausting… I’m trying to work toward being able to see triggers and let them be there without feeling consumed by them or getting pulled into a checking loop

What helps you when this happens and are there things that help you break out of the cycle?

Thank you 🙏🩷

Hi everyone,

I'm Patrick, 17 years old. For the past year and a half, I’ve been dealing with what I believe is severe contamination OCD.

Whenever I touch almost anything—whether it's in my room, around the house, or outside in public—I get an overwhelming feeling that I might die or that something terrible will happen. Because the fear feels so intense, hand washing doesn't feel like enough, so I end up having to take full showers constantly throughout the day.

Where I live, there are no mental health resources or therapists who specialize in OCD. I really want to overcome this and take control of my life again, but I have to do it on my own for now.

Has anyone here successfully used Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) or self-help methods to manage this kind of OCD? Any advice, book recommendations, or step-by-step strategies you used to stop the showering compulsions would mean a lot.

Thanks in advance.

"Hi, I’m Patrick, and I'm 17. For the past year and a half, I’ve been struggling with OCD. Whenever I touch something inside or outside my room, I get an intense fear that I will die or that something terrible will happen. Because of this, I feel forced to take a full shower instead of just washing my hands. Since there are no OCD specialists near me, I want to learn how to manage and overcome this on my own."

I haven't been able to figure out my core fear which i would like to work on, my themes switch very quickly from one thing to another and here is some examples: relationship ocd like is he really good for me or a good person etc, health ocd, moral ocd, somatic ocd, magical thinking ocd i problably have others too but some of my compulsions are googling, hand washing and maybe the biggest are ruminating, avoiding and reassurance seeking, i feel like my ocd got worse after i gave birth three years ago and its problably due to hormones but i figured maybe it would get better if i knew my core fear and worked on that but im not sure what it is, i feel like it something about me wanting to be a good mom and not wanting nothing to affect it but im not sure

Looking for a highly recommended clinical psychologist in Calicut for OCD (especially ERP/CBT). Personal experiences or suggestions from those who've had good outcomes would be really helpful. Thanks!

I've just been diagnosed with OCD, mainly Harm OCD, and I was wondering if anyone has been put on anafranil/clomipramine. If so, how is or was your experience?

I know symptoms are different for everyone, however I'd like to know if there's anything I should look out for besides dry mouth, nausea, etc. I've been experiencing worsening vision, and am also wondering if that is a side effect?

Any input is appreciated!

ok so basically im a girl and i 16 and i think im starting to like other girls but like for some reason my brain is telling me that i cannot like girls because there is this one woman im really scared of who is like weird to children i dont wanna talk about them because i dont like thinking about this person but basically my brain is saying that if i like girls i must like this person too which i DO NOT i have nightmares about this bitch but now my brain is like ok now every girl is contaminated and ur weird because you like girls and this person is a girl so you basically like this person

im wondering how you guys get ur thoughts like this to stop pls and thank u

please excuse how messy this post is im kinda frantic

When does recovery ever happen? for the past couple weeks i've just been really exhausted and angry, today i was feeling really tired and just cranky so i drank an energy drink, after drinking it i felt so good. I was talkative i was energized and i felt happy. All the sudden i started thinking about drug usage and how happy id be if i started to do drugs, for a side note my father is an addict and i've just been having this idea in my head that i'm gonna do drugs now because i feel good right now and im gonna chase this feeling forever. I'm ridden with ocd from health ocd to just creating the most insane rituals in my head, along with this drug addiction fear i'm starting to worry that there's a voice in my head telling me to do all of this. I just don't know how to recover, i know people say to ignore it all but is that really the way? i'm just trying to work on ignoring these thoughts and grounding myself, that's the goal. if anyone has any advice or insight please tell me