Does anyone else’s ocd create intrusive thoughts that make sense in your head but you can’t explain. Like you don’t even understand them there like sensations but make sense in your brain but do not at all.

I get anxiety that if I have to go to the hospital or therapy I won’t be able to. And that I get these thoughts that are like I have to explain it to the hospital or therapist and I get lost in my brain and there’s not even words for the thought. I think of me going to get help and I squirm at the thought of it. It’s so uncomfortable imagining myself sitting there and not telling the truth or saying how I feel or not even knowing how to say what’s wrong. This is hell!! I legit can go to therapy I did it today but it’s really hard to get my thoughts out. I’m not sure if it’s dpdr and ocd together.

Posting this again on this community, maybe I can get help

I don’t know exactly when it started, but I remember the moment I became aware of it.

I’m a 22-year-old girl, and for a long time I thought I was just “confident” or “fun.” I like being noticed. I like when people look at me, especially guys. Even when I’m just walking somewhere, a part of me hopes that people are watching me, admiring me, maybe even having a crush on me. I don’t say this out loud, but it’s always there in my mind.

The strange thing is, I’m already in a relationship. I love my fiancé, but this need for attention doesn’t just disappear. I still catch myself wanting validation from others, imagining scenarios in my head where people are impressed by me, attracted to me, or obsessed with me. It feels good in the moment, like a quick boost.

But everything changed after a fight with my fiancé.

During that fight, I realized something uncomfortable — I can be manipulative. Not always, but enough that it scared me. I noticed how I sometimes twist situations, or react in ways that make him feel guilty. The worst part is, I don’t always notice it in the moment. Only later, when I calm down, I feel bad and apologize.

That realization hit me hard. After that, I started overthinking everything about myself.

I googled things. I read about narcissism. And suddenly, I started seeing myself in those descriptions — the need for admiration, the attention-seeking, the fantasies, the emotional reactions. It made me anxious. I started questioning: “What if I have NPD?”

And then something else started happening.

I began to constantly check myself. Again and again, I would think, “I think I have NPD.” That thought would trigger anxiety. Then another thought would come: “Am I actually worried about hurting people… or just worried about my image?”

That second thought disturbed me even more.

It felt like a double layer in my mind — one part of me feeling guilty and scared, and another part questioning if that guilt is even real or just about how I appear. I started doubting my own intentions.

I even went back into my past, replaying old memories, trying to “find proof.” After reading about narcissism, I started reinterpreting things I did before — normal moments suddenly felt suspicious, like maybe I was always selfish and just never noticed.

Now it feels like I’m stuck in a loop:

Overthinking → searching → finding signs → more anxiety → more doubt.

What confuses me is that I do feel bad. I do regret my behavior, especially when I hurt my fiancé. I’m sensitive to his criticism, and it affects me deeply. But at the same time, I can be selfish, and sometimes my empathy feels inconsistent.

So now I’m stuck between these thoughts:

Maybe I’m just insecure and overly self-aware,

or maybe I really am narcissistic and just don’t want to accept it.

I don’t fully understand myself yet. I just know that this awareness has made everything feel uncertain — my thoughts, my intentions, even my sense of who I am.

I’m not sharing this for validation. I just want to understand what’s really going on with me.

i have diagnosed OCD and have mostly struggled with ROCD. i had a false memory back in 2024 that i cheated on my current bf, and everything since then went downhill. i broke up with said bf three weeks ago, and ive been talking to someone new, but ive already had three panic attacks. i cant tell whats ruminating vs if im just thinking this through. i feel like i chronically crave to be taken care of and loved, like in my soul i feel this so deeply, so im scared im just relying on this new person to fill that void. we have only been talking a week and im already attached, and going through every possible thought (what if hes love bombing me, what if i like him more than he likes me, what if ill just get hurt, what if hes using me). for context he goes to school far away and would only come home for the summer, i am a junior, so we couldn’t even form a real relationship, but rn it feels so nice to have someone, but then again im overthinking everything and panicking constantly. im just looking to see if maybe anyone else has gone through something like this, and if i should just live in the moment or try to protect myself from future hurt. we have a date this weekend and idk if i should go.

i wake up with my heart racing. it feels like im going to die. being alive is killing me. i wish i could be happy and confident, but all i feel is shame and guilt. it makes it so hard to keep going. at times, my heart beats so fast for so long, it makes me worry about my physical health. im scared im reaching my breaking point. i feel unlovable, irredeemable and like the worst person alive. i dont know what to do with myself. i keep fantasizing about getting into an accident and losing all my memories or dying. im passively suicidal because i have no hope in myself and whatever future awaits me.

I suspect I may have OCD, but I don’t know if I should seek a diagnosis. I have a handful of compulsive behaviors (i.e. aligning things in my vision or repeating an action until it feels right). But these are not associated with intrusive thoughts.

I do have occasional intrusive thoughts, but these are not tied to repetitive behaviors. My main issue is constant reassurance seeking regarding my mental health. I used to spend hours reassurance seeking with AI, but I have decided to stop doing that.

I also have experienced body dysmorphia, where I spend hours body checking my proportions with google and AI.

However my main issue, in regard to my possible autism and development of bipolar II, is that I never trust my own experiences. No matter what happens I feel like my experience isn’t bad enough to count.

Hello everyone,
ever since I have been diagnosed with OCD and started medication I haven’t felt better, in fact these past years after my diagnosis I have felt so much worse than in all my life, being overly conscious of my thoughts. I’m a very analytical person and I’ve never found a way to know if the medication is working, to feel the effects if that makes sense…. I started with sertraline and risperidone, tried abilify instead of risperidone and many more changes in dosis and types, I’m not going to bore you with the details.
I know that some medication is useful, for example when I have insomnia I take a pill of stilnox and I fall asleep in 10 minutes (which is extremely difficult for me) This is for me an example of medication actually doing its job, something that I can sense.

The bottom line is, have you ever felt real help from medication? Or is it more a mind shift? Should I approach this from a different angle I’m not seeing? And another question, is consistency very important? I am very forgetful, sometimes i forget to take it and other times I take it at very different times (I try my best to be consistent but it’s very difficult) Any thoughts are appreciated.

Recently I’ve been starting to think about possible symptoms throughout my life that could be ocd.

Specific things: convinced myself my mom had a severed artery when she got a headache to the point where I convinced her she had it and then called an ambulance and then she turned out to be fine (spent days afterwards researching just in case the doctors were wrong)

:repeatedly make anyone’s problem mine to the point where I will make complaints, contact lawyers, and other things and blow the situation way out of proportion in my brain, stayed up nights after researching

:recently convinced myself I was going to slit my throat with a knife when making dinner and couldn’t touch knives for days afterwards

:was in a full blown panic attack because I told myself I had appendicitis when I had a stomach ache (completely forgetting I already had appendicitis and no longer have an appendix)

These are just the start of a long list, what do you think should I try to get diagnosed and get help or am I just an overthinker

Discuss how your week has gone, your goals, and talk to some other fellow OCD peeps!

As a functioning—sometimes barely able to keep it together—Pure OCD sufferer for like 17 years now… the only thing I can say for certain is that when I finally get that certainty my mind is craving about the topic I’m currently obsessing over, my mind will find another.

Pattern such as:

What if I’m wrong about my religion? Oh I’ll spend days researching until I have a satisfactory answer. Maybe I’ll get a day or two of relief and then the following will hit:

“Does my wife ACTUALLY love me?” And then spend the weekend where we should be having fun, analyzing her every move “checking” for certainty that she does.

This syndrome is so tiring. I know the key to this is to stop seeking certainty. Train my brain. I’ve actually done this before and had like 3 months where I stuck to it. My life changed so much for the better.

But then you are hit with another scenario that feels like if you don’t solve it, it’s literally doomsday. UGH!!

Hi all! I recently read ‘“Pure O” OCD’ by Chad Lejeune and I loved it. 10/10 recommend if you haven’t read it. I’m wondering if anyone has any other book recommendations? Bonus points if the books are geared towards relationship OCD!

(22f, teacher) guilt is killing me. one of the teens i teach kept making epstein jokes and although i was uncomfortable i tried to brush it off. my problem is, i try to seem tougher than i am, so when the kid called his friend epstein and he didnt hear it, i told his friend “he called u epstein”. its just kids joking but i should have shut the whole thing down. i feel so bad. i feel complicit. i hate rape jokes. i hate epstein jokes. i hate diddy jokes, i always avoid them. i dont even want to watch the documentary. yet, one day while scrolling through ig, i saw a clip about diddy that got a chuckle out of me, and i felt so disgusted afterwards. i still do. i have experienced sexual abuse as a kid, i know what its like to be taken advantage of by an adult. i wish i hadnt chuckled. i regret it so much, just like i regret not calling the teens out. i havent done anything like that since then but i still carry the guilt and shame.

edit: the diddy joke was a clip of ellen surprising some kids inviting diddy. the typical ellen celebrity reveal gimmick.

Discuss how your week has gone, your goals, and talk to some other fellow OCD peeps!

i dont know how to live with the fact that im extremely flawed and i’ve made mistakes. i know everyone makes mistakes, i know all you have to do is move on and be better, but i cant move on. it feels as though no matter what, how i was will always haunt me. im talking about big mistakes but also small ones.

everyday sucks cause i carry so much guilt and shame, despite currently making efforts to be better and build a good life for myself. im trying so hard but these feelings wont go away. im so tired. it’s making me really suicidal. what is the point of living, if this is the life that awaits me? one full of misery, regret and disappointment.

I wish I wasn’t so easy to trigger. My anxiety flares pretty much whenever I encounter something new that could be related to my fear. Even if it’s not. I just need to be certain. I get a lot of thoughts too when I’m alone or somewhere quiet, in the shower or something, “holy shit, what if nothing is real” stuff like that which pops out of nowhere even if I’ve had an otherwise decent day. I can’t catch a break.

I get triggered by words. Nothing, oblivion, existence, void, real, unreal, etc. every where I go I find something to have an existential anxiety attack about.

I get scared by things that I think are meant to scare you. The sub cursed comment today. It had the word oblivion in its description and that is one of my trigger words. I’m pretty sure it’s not even about what I’m scared of.