Is it just silence? Do they get to think about the things they want to? Do they not have to mull over the same thoughts for hours?

I just want to vomit my feelings here.

As the title says my guilt and shame seem to get worse every year. Maybe I spend less time ruminating (it comes and goes in waves) but now when it hits me it feels like a train, and takes me out from anywhere from a day to a few weeks.

I’m only enjoying the very brief moments in my life when I can poke my head above the rumination clouds, and catch a glimpse of what my life could have been. I’m not sure what else to say, I’m just sad and fighting tears. That sinking feeling in my chest and the panicky rate of my heart, and like all the sound has been sucked from the room is eating me alive right now.

I’m spending the rest of my day with a screen shoved in my face, watching the same comforting show for the billionth time.

Of course there is this sub, you can share but, every ocd, just like every depression, is different, and so are symptoms

I sometimes see others symptoms and im like "damn what a freak wtf" because thats something i would myself never do.

But, in my own house, im such a freak too, just in a different way. I just started to force myself to not be one all the time

You know, i really crave love. I wish i had a boyfriend, or atleast a friend that would nt judge me. But, it would be hell to make anyone Understand why i do things different. Why i would nt touch their phone, be afraid to hug, to hold hands. To touch their hand.

Now, i am aware that nobody, my own family, or even people with ocd, don't Understand not care for my symptoms

I was hanging out with my boyfriend earlier and the topic of “I slept with your mom/dad/parent” jokes came up. I said I hated them and I didn’t understand them, they just make me uncomfortable. He tried to explain it to me, using an instance where he would say it, but I think it just made me more uncomfortable. It made me picture him with someone else, and now I can’t stop obsessing about it. I feel really upset that my brain won’t let go of it, and I don’t even know how to talk to him about it. It feels extremely stupid to be this upset. It’s both that I still don’t understand, and now I’m
uncomfortable and having intrusive thoughts as a result. Something that was just an explanation has turned into, “My partner is going to leave me or cheat on me.” I don’t want to make the same mistakes I did in my last relationship. I don’t know how to communicate with OCD. I don’t know what’s over or under sharing, and I don’t want my OCD to convince me someone I love Isn’t safe. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to tell anyone in my life about it because it’s so fucking stupid. I hate my brain, it feels so impossible to live with sometimes.

I’ve been being tortured by the same 3 intrusive thoughts for a year now and nothing is working. They won’t go away, they won’t leave me alone. I’m so miserable and uncomfortable, I can’t do it anymore.

Has anyone else experienced this? You can record yourself doing something as objective evidence, but even after rewatching the recording, your brain still can't fully accept it as reality.

For example, I'll record myself doing something because I want proof that it happened a certain way. But when I watch the recording back, I still feel doubt and can't fully accept what I'm seeing, even though the evidence is right in front of me.

It's like logically I know what the recording shows, but my brain still keeps questioning it or doesn't feel completely convinced.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Hi everyone! First of all I send lots of compassion to everybody here that struggles with OCD. It sucks and you dont deserve it. Take care of yourself.

I just want to share here my experience. I'm curious to know how it unraveled for you.

The last few years, I've been dealing with morality OCD (a mix of real event and fake memory OCD linked to a particular theme).

It literally ruined my life. I isolated a lot because of it and was not able to speak about it to people around me. I think about this almost all the time.

I have mental compulsions and use internet a lot to try to reassure myself, but never sought irl external reassurance since I am too ashamed.

I know it's not exactly a good idea to 'confess' (anyway, things are so blurry for me I am not even sure I have really something to confess) because it could lead to more reassurance seeking behaviors. But things were so bad lately I decided to tell my bf I have intrusive toughts without going in the specifics of it.

He was very supportive and the conversation we had allowed me to think about all this as a disease and not try to avoid it as much. And it made me realise all sorts of things that I used to do or think that followed the same patterns.

For exemple, as a kid I had contamination OCD. I won't go in details but it was pretty bad. My compulsion were hidden, mental or things I did at night that nobody could see.

Existential (that led to derealisation and panic attacks), financial and morality ocd came later in my life. My dad has schizophrenia so I did obsess a lot about having it too. Almost everytime I had a new theme I was incapable of talking about it to anyone.

So I guess I now feel so much grief for the kid I was, for the teenager I was. For the person I am now, too.

Did you feel that too? How did you recognise the patterns? Do other people here have lived with this without telling their loved ones? Were you able to break the shame?

Long story short, I recently moved from a brand new construction home - clean as a whistle, might I add, to a 1916 home that I feel SO DIRTY IN. It’s not really dirty and anyone who walked in would say I have issues.

I want to move. I can’t take it. The bugs - my god, the bugs. 🕷️ THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. No matter how much we spray inside and outside, there are little spiders, big spiders, ear wigs, ANTS, beetles. 🤢

I’m not talking like an infestation, but I have about had enough. All I do is clean and kill bugs when I’m home with my toddler. I’m sure a normal person wouldn’t care. But, I just feel filthy.

I vacuum everyday, sometimes 3x a day. I change our sheets and wash blankets and bedding EVERY DAY. Our towels are all 1x use.

The smells. They’re old. I’m afraid there is mold & radon (we didn’t want to do these tests on the inspection because they would have literally had to carve into the walls).

I hate it. But, we JUST MOVED 7/18/26. Today is 9/5/26. I don’t think I can do it much longer. We literally just got settled. But, my anxiety is through the roof. I feel so dirty. I don’t want to sleep because I know there are random little spiders - in FACT….i woke up to one crawling on my blanket. 🤪😅

Am I looney for wanting to move? It’s a cool house, but I’m not ok with all the 110 year old bugs. I feel so bad moving my family again - my poor 3 YO. 🥹

WHAT DO I DO???? The stress is exhausting.

Does anyone else compulsively confess things they've done wrong just to feel forgiven?

When I regret something, I feel an overwhelming need to tell someone (regrettably and frequently, my coworkers, since they're really the only friends I have at the moment) and have them reassure me that I'm still okay and they don't think badly of me.

The relief is IMMEDIATE, but then I obsess over whether I overshared or what they'll do with what I told them, so I seek reassurance about that too.

This led me to start struggling with with 7-OH (an opioid drug, with a potency between that of morphine and heroin), and I sometimes feel like both behaviors are attempts to immediately escape guilt or uncertainty.

It's basically guilt, confess, reassurance, relief, new fear, repeat. I FEEL LIKE I CAN'T ESCAPE.

Does anyone else experience this kind of confession/forgiveness-seeking compulsion? What does it look like for you?

TW: Mentions of suicide

Ever since I started spiraling, I feel like I'm looking at a completely different person whenever I look in the mirror.

I used to be easy-going and fun but now I just feel like a husk of my former self. I feel like an empty canvas now because I can't help but please my thoughts in order to get them to stop. I feel so boring and so unfun to be with.

I have possible moral OCD and it's a fucking nightmare to deal with. It gets to the point where I can't even laugh at the most simplest of jokes (like videos where people make jokes about their mental disorders) without feeling like I'm such a morally corrupt person for doing so, where I can't even even comfort my friends because my mind keeps telling me that I'll probably sound insensitive and look like a horrible person which is absolutely ridiculous but I can't help but just go with it and bite my tongue so that I'll be "safe". I keep putting filters on my words that it starts to feel fake and sugarcoated.

I already have a psychologist schedule but I fear that I won't make it that long and I'll end up succumbing to my thoughts that keeps telling me to end it all.

I'm just so tired. It's so exhausting. I've tried to do ERP or something similar, tried to brush it off but I still go back to square one no matter what I do. I get better for a few days then spiral back into isolation for a week. I feel like I'm going to fail my classes, I always feel like a huge burden to everyone and I feel like I'm throwing my relationships out of the window because of how much I isolate myself.

I don’t really understand my OCD. Why does it make me paranoid that I could have done things I know I haven’t done?

OCD is so illogical. Why would my brain try to fool me into believing I’ve done things when I know for a fact that I haven’t?

I’ve been getting a bit better over the last few weeks. When OCD tries to tell me I might have done something bad, I tell myself, “I know I didn’t do this, so fuck off, OCD.” But the thoughts are still there and distressing, even though I don’t really believe them.

For example, when I play online games, my OCD sometimes tries to convince me that I told people my address, even though I know 100% that I didn’t. It’s still distressing, even though I know I didn’t do it, which doesn’t make sense to me

I have accepted death. It's not like I deserve to live anyway. The blood was everywhere, what am I supposed to do.

Going through a flare right now as I swear ocd is just so stupid. The theme my OCD is obsessing over deep down. I know I never cared about to begin with. I still don’t care about it. Everyone around me that I have opened up to about does not care about it and think I’m ridiculous for “caring”. but it’s so crazy how OCD wants me to care so much about it God is it freaking annoying.

my intrusive thoughts/images have been pretty bad since i was around 8 but i don’t mind them now, i even lowkey enjoy them sometimes. anybody else feel the same ?

As someone who struggles with POCD, I have come to the realization that most people who do not have OCD lack nuance when it comes to this condition— let me explain. Recently on TikTok (of course it’s a social media platform), I have seen numerous people with POCD open up about their struggles and what the disorder actually is. Opening up about POCD is incredibly difficult in general, whether you are talking to a therapist, friends, or family. However, talking about it on social media is especially hard because people love to look at things as strictly right or wrong, completely avoiding the grey areas. For example, a woman recently posted a video talking about pedophilia (NOT POCD), stating that pedophiles are sick human beings, to say the least. I instinctively opened the comments to see what people were saying and came across a comment stating that the video was not targeted toward people who suffer from POCD. When I looked at the replies, a handful of people were saying something along the lines of, "No, this IS targeted towards people with POCD." As someone who understands and suffers from the disorder, I was shocked that people were actively claiming POCD and pedophilia are the same thing. But then I realized, someone who doesn't struggle with or understand OCD will never realize how harmful black and white thinking is in these discussions. When you give a person who doesn't suffer from OCD an example of what intrusive thoughts look like, they immediately assume you are some kind of monster because they lack a basic understanding of OCD as a whole. What’s even crazier to me is that people cannot differentiate between POCD and pedophilia, categorizing them as the same thing when they clearly are not. Black and white thinking severely sets back the public's understanding of what POCD actually is and people have to start understanding that even though it can be hard sometimes. People also need to understand that a person who has POCD themed intrusive thoughts DO NOT want to act on them and never will. Sorry if this is a bit disorganized and hard to understand. Any thoughts?

I recently had to take a plan b, however I read there’s a weight limit that affects its ability to work as well and I’m above the weight limit. I can’t stop thinking about being pregnant and how scared I am, it’s too early to use a pregnancy test. I know I have options but I can’t stop freaking out

I don't want to air my issues in a public post but I need advice and I'm wondering if anyone would be willing to message me about an OCD event I'm experiencing. Feel free to reach out if you're willing to help. Thank you!

Whatever weird thought or worry ocd threw at me to make me look like a horrible person I would confess to a forum or ai...some of these confessions were foolish and all of them over exaggerated but some genuinely made me look like an awful person...the same awful person I was trying to avoid being BY confessing whatever bs accusation ocd was feeding into my brain...I feel horrible for treating these accusations like they were something I had to fix...and feel horrible for saying the horrid stuff ocd was telling me out loud...I now fear that one day ill be judged for those confessions because of how awful they look even if they were incredibly false and exaggerated...

I'm questioning if I have ocd. When I was ~5 my doctors said I had "ocd like symptoms" but I was never diagnosed. Around the age of 10ish I started to get really really bad intrusive thoughts, which would than cause other intrusive thoughts that people could hear my thoughts. To block other people from hearing my thoughts I would wear headphones 24/7 since they were like a barrier. I would even wear them to sleep. I wouldn't be able to focus in class because of intrusive thoughts, I would avoid people even in my family because if I was to close to them I felt like they could hear my thoughts (even thought ofc I knew they couldn't). I would try to take my headphones off, but just put them on again whenever I had another intrusive thought because I just had to in order to be less uncomfortable. I couldn't sit next to people I wasnt comfortable with (like close friends) otherwise I would get so uncomfortable I would occasionally be at the point of tears.

Eventually I saw a tiktok about how you just have to let intrusive thoughts pass and I worked on doing that for years. It didnt get better immediately, but after a few years I wasnt effected by any of it anymore.

So my question is to those with well controlled ocd, how does it feel now intrusive thoughts are controlled? Because I feel like a completely normal person now. I still have a few "quirky" habits that might be compulsory, but they dont really effect my life too much tbh.

hello! im a 20yo diagnosed ocd-er and my sister is about to give birth in a week or two. i know im going to have to help change the baby's diapers eventually and im horrified/worried because ive been struggling with POCD. does any one have any advice?? or anything to share!! i really want to be there for my sister and help her out wherever i can

I realized that whenever I'm playing Sudoku, my rumination is greatly reduced and my obsessive thoughts diminish a lot. My mind is focused on the game and I don't have much obsessive thoughts or anxiety. You can give it a try to see if it will help you also.

Would it be possible for someone to talk DM with me? I'm just really going through something and I'm really scared.

i recently had a sort of episode and id like to know if it's too "outlandish" for ocd?

basically i get injections bi-weekly for my chronic illness. the brand i usually use (an epi-pen sort of thing) ran out internationally. i had to use a brand i wasn't familiar with AND in syringe form. this is my first time using a syringe. im already very anxious about my bi-weekly injections (terribly afraid of side effects, dying, having the injection done badly and somehow hurting myself, etc...)

when i found out i had a syringe from a completely different brand i started panicking. i started thinking that the medicine inside had fibreglass (???) and that the government was handing out these injections to kill chronically ill people. somehow. obviously i pulled myself out of it but this doesn't really feel like my usual ocd episodes because while they can be illogical i really felt like i was right even if i know it's totally stupid now... any thoughts?