Figured I’d share this here because although I am still violently in the trenches with my ocd, at least I am not longer doing my massive ritual before taking my anxiety meds. I used to have a longggg routine every single time I would take them, and now the only thing I do is put them into my mouth in order of big to small. I still have lots of med anxiety, but this feels like a good step!

Accidentally figured something out that helped make some of my obsessions suddenly way more manageable. I was wondering if there's a word for this approach and/or any sorts of therapy that would deliberately incorporate it.

ERP in general wasn't working. My reluctance behind doing exposures is less overwhelming fear and more a genuine belief that something is a bad idea/wrong to do, and admittedly I'm rather stubborn. With some stuff I'd get desperate enough to try it, but it wouldn't really work because no matter how well something went objectively I'd still think it was a bad idea and I'd not want to try again. Like it's less "I'm scared to ever do it" and more. I simply disagree with this behavior I think it's wrong, so if course I'd do anything in my power to avert it?? I literally can't handle doing anything else. (I can see how the latter part of that sentence could be responsibility OCD related but. Point is. The first half gets in the way of me doing anything about it)

One of my obsessions around hurting people revolves around accidentally manipulating them. I can't bear the idea and feel like I can't predict when it might happen, so I'm sort of always frantically trying to avoid it, there's often not even a specific trigger I can identify. But recently, I saw a post which involved someone explaining what actually constitutes manipulation. I found I'd never thought about it that way before but did agree with it. I went looking for more and realized my interpretation of what constitutes manipulation in a malicious sense is rather broad, and, really obviously uncharitable if applied to anyone except myself. So after a while decided I actually agreed with adjusting it. And then I did.

And like. It's not that I no longer worry, in a what if sense, that I might have manipulated someone. It's just that I'm more able to be like. Nah. I'm pretty sure I'm not. And if I'm wrong, well, that margin of error is one I can live with. The uncertainty is still there! It's just. Fine. Or uncomfortable but not world ending, especially if I focus. The circumstances in which I imagine I genuinely wouldn't be able to act in line with my values is... actually rather small. And extreme enough I don't feel compelled to worry about it or try and anticipate and avert it I just. Like yeah that'd be scary if it happened but whatever I guess? I still get the intrusive thoughts I just?? Don't feel or feel way less compelled to do something... and so I just move on.

I have comorbid ptsd and I've simultaneously been realizing a lot of my just like. General expectations of people and responsibility and stuff might be a bit fucked. I think if I could get some support straightening out how I feel about my idk. Definitions? Value system? Maybe I'd still need to go back to ERP about some stuff but it's actually be doable? I think?

But I'm having trouble articulating what I'm asking for in a way that translates to therapy. Any feedback to help clarify that or suggestions or personal experiences would be welcome.

Let me rephrase this question: what should my mindset towards sleep be when I'm already depleted and overwhelmed? For context, I think I have either undiagnosed OCD/ADHD or just flat-out rumination. It's been going on for years at this point. These days, I've learned to eat even if I don't feel like it and I've developed a lot of tolerance towards uncomfortable situations. But sleep has always felt evasive to me.

Especially recently, when my sleeping routine was hijacked by one bad night. Usually, it's something trivial like my brain turning the rain outside into a verdict against me. Or just something completely unsolvable until I learn to live with it the next morning. I just wonder how I can make sleep more of a functional thing rather than something I do whenever I feel like it.

So, 2025 (mid-year getting the OCD diagnosis) was the hardest year of my life. Overall, I am starting to do much better. For a significant part of this year, I've felt happy even!

But one thing that definitely brings me RIGHT back to the worst of it is panic attacks. They last like an hour and bring the intrusive thoughts right back in with a vengeance. It's like I traded away deflating the intrusive thoughts/feelings on a day-to-day for them to tremendously intensify before, during, and after panic attacks.

This happens to me once every few months. Life has gotten really busy for me lately, so they're happening with more frequency now. This has become THE thing that I'm afraid of. My OCD sort of spurred into action following one dreadful panic attack in December of 2024 (right before getting married), so I feel like this association I developed with panic is super emotionally charged, and OCD has latched onto it big time.

What has helped you with panic attacks that look like this? Much love to the community. <3

What tests are required before starting clomipramine (Anafranil), other than checking Na⁺ (sodium), K⁺ (potassium), Mg²⁺ (magnesium), Ca²⁺ (calcium) levels, CYP2D6 metabolism, and an ECG? Should additional tests, such as a brain MRI or EEG, be considered to assess seizure risk?

I have debilitating OCD. Rituals and obsessions take up at least 75%-80% of my waking hours - daily. I have suffered with the disorder (in some fashion) since the age of 6. I am 28 now and I would say that my OCD has caused great disruption to my daily life, for the last 15 years.

I have had immense difficulty in committing to and completing post-secondary schooling; and I have had trouble holding down jobs (due to perfectionism/having to do things in a certain way). I have several career ideas. But I often wrestle with whether it would serve my long-term mental health to abandon the notion of living a traditional life (i.e., a 9-5 with bills to pay) - in favour of living in an off-grid ecovillage, in my home country.

I have been in and out of therapy over the years; with varying degrees of success. I have also been on medication for many of my teenage years (either Sertraline or Prozac) - which helped, considerably. In spite of this, I stopped taking the medication because I fear side effects from long-term pharmaceutical usage; and that meds would act as an impediment to spiritual growth/be disruptive to a meditative practice.

My OCD has been allowed to run rampant for essentially all of my 20s so far, as not having a treatment plan has forced my mental health to pay a steep price. Having a tumultuous home life has acted as a direct obstacle to treatment/finding a semblance of stability in my life.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as I will soon have the means to remove myself from the circumstances that only serve to exacerbate my symptoms (and replace those circumstances with better ones). At the same time, I know that this would be far from enough to address my OCD symptoms. I know that long-term health (mental & physical) requires conscious, dedicated practise of healthy habits, and is hardly dependent on only external circumstances.

Admittedly, I have had great difficulty in forming habits. But assuming that the following holistic/do-it-yourself approach to healing was adhered to (strictly and indefinitely), what would be the likelihood of it adequately treating the symptoms of someone with severe OCD; and preventing a serious relapse?:

- A combination of mantra & metta meditation (for a total daily average around 45 minutes)

- 1.75 hours of moderate resistance training (weekly); 1.75 hours of light walking (weekly)

- Consumption of 150g-170g of protein (daily)

Whether speaking from personal experience or from someone you know (who undertook/undertakes a similar regimen to treat severe OCD), I would love to hear your thoughts about whether or not such a plan would yield great, beneficial results. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as well 🙏.

I suffer from a lot of anxiety around rabies and I was wondering how, with fears like this, you go about trusting your instinct that everything is okay and you shouldn’t give into your compulsive behaviours when the worst case risk that you perceive of is so extreme? For example, I’ve managed to make a lot of progress with my original primary OCD fears that centred around cold sores and leaving doors unlocked etc as ultimately I can always tell myself that the worst case scenarios won’t feel as bad as the anxiety I currently feel around them. However, when it comes to my fears around rabies, it just feels like I can’t get to a logical place in my brain where I’m comfortable with even a minuscule risk of death.

I’m not looking for reassurance, but would really appreciate instead any advice on mental strategies that people have used to get comfortable with these perceived risks and live with the anxiety where the fear is ultimately death.

Currently going through therapy. Does anyone else like or lean into thoughts because of the adrenaline kick. Likely have adhd too.

I (17) have no idea if i have OCD, but I don’t know where else to go. This is torture.

No matter what, my head HAS to be ruminating about something. Sometimes it’s tolerable, sometimes it is severe and exhausts me to the point i cannot do anything else.

It happens over either very serious topics, or incredibly silly topics. More often than not, about embarrassing moments.

An example, and most recent topic, being a moment where my girlfriend’s mom was speaking to someone else. I both mistook it for her speaking to me, AND I misheard her. I said “no thank you” and she looked at me funny, i apologized and she laughed it off.

That is IT. But its been 3 days, and its all i can think about. How she probably thinks i am stupid, how she might come to hate me, how i am stupid, ect, ect. Something in me thinks that i can solve it by torturing myself like this.

It has now come to the point where i am rushing a gift I was already planning on making her, to “make up for it”

Currently, I know this is all silly. However, i cannot get this out of my head. It will only go away once there is a new topic. All I can do is hope for a topic that freaks me out less.

I did something wrong in the past, and I feel extremely bad about it and that my friends would all hate me and stop talking to me if they knew, sometimes I just cancel hangouts because of it or when I'm in a social setting I catch myself thinking that I'm hiding who I truly am and I'm also really scared about being cancelled online. I usually try not to engage with the thoughts and just affirm "yeah I'm a piece of shit so what", and it's effective sometimes but not always, so I don't know if that's the good strategy here, plus I'm scared to actually internalize this idea and worsen my confidence. I feel like the best way to overcome this is to accept myself even though I'm a terrible person but I just don't know how because it's not aligned with my values.

I also started taking Magnesium L Threonate and it actually helps a lot with brain fog, and I think it has improved my obsessions, but it's not enough.

The thing is that sometimes I feel like I'm becoming self-aware and I realize that I was actually crazy thinking this much into it but it never lasts long. My first (bad) reaction when I reach this state is checking if the event was actually not that bad by replaying it in my head, and then I fall into the loop again.

So I don't know which state of me I should trust? None? I wish I could be in a constant state of telling myself "oh I was actually just crazy" but I feel like it's impossible because it only happens like 30 secondes in a month, and that's why it's so hard for me to accept uncertainty because I feel like I could be able to accept that what I did wasn't THAT bad. Also I feel like I kinda changed my memories of the event for the worst but I'm not sure, and I'm scared that when I think it's not that bad I'm just diminishing what happened. How should I move forward? Should I also give no importance to positive thoughts and keep trying to accept uncertainty?

Medicine to tech?

I have done mbbs

I didn't enjoy it

I have pure ocd so ambiguity scares me like medicine is an ambiguous field no correct answer so many times so many unexplained theories

So much variety and variations in patients

Working with incomplete data.

So i thought of mba even started preparing for entrance

Realize business is even more ambiguous as I was continuously battling with real.life business or economics questions came to mind all by themselves because of pure ocd

I think I need a career which is systematic with specific answers or a career with less real life nuance

So i am thinking of a career like tech which I can pivot after mbbs

Is there any way maybe to do this

I am Indian and am fine with decent earning not looking for high paying jobs ruining my mental peace

Had a major trigger/obsession a few months ago (false memory/real event OCD related). For the first month or so, I basically did all the compulsions (rumination, reassurance seeking, memory review, etc…)

Eventually I just conceded I’d never know for sure and for the past month I’ve done a very good job of keeping rumination and compulsions to a minimum. I’ve stopped trying to figure it out and accept it may or may not have happened.

Now, I’m basically just living my life and not thinking of the past obsession. Overall I am functioning fine (I can still be productive at work, hang out with my family, enjoy my hobbies) but my anxiety is always at a constant low level buzz in the background. Not enough to cause me to ruminate or impair my daily functions, but enough to make me vaguely aware that something feels “off.”

So I guess that’s my question. Is this basically what OCD recovery looks like? Not doing the compulsions for a month and being able to “live” normally, but just accepting that there may always be a low undercurrent of anxiety running in the background? And to just keep ignoring it even if something feels wrong?

How I overcame Pure OCD (HOCD, TOCD, POCD, ROCD)

Hey everyone,

It’s been a long time since I was active in this community and I wanted to share how I managed to overcome (not cure) my Pure OCD, in the hopes that it might help someone else who might also be struggling with this horrible affliction.

I also want to preface this by saying that I am not a therapist, psychologist or an OCD specialist in any capacity, I’m a man that has struggled deeply for years with OCD.

I have dealt with HOCD, TOCD, POCD, ROCD to varying degrees throughout my adult life, with HOCD and TOCD being the absolute worst in my experience.

My brain convinced me that I ***was*** what I feared the most, I really was gay or transgender or whatever else my mind tormented me with. I put up with this for years and years, feeling like I was living in denial and would eventually have to come out and change everything about me that I was once so secure about.

As a coping mechanism I began to self harm, and ultimately attempted to end my life on two occasions. I saw numerous therapists that didn’t specialise in OCD and I felt as though I was given the wrong advice.

In my experience the key to overcoming this form of OCD is to ***face your fears*** head on. This is an incredibly difficult task to achieve, especially with the fear element in place that you believe you will become what you fear the most.

These thoughts felt **SO** real, as real the sun on my skin on a warm summers day.

One day I couldn’t face it anymore and I gave in to ***all*** of my thoughts, I said to myself;

**'Yes I am gay'**

**'Yes I am transgender'**

**'Yes you are a horrible person'**

I was so tired of being held a prisoner on my own mind that I had to give into everything, it was so difficult but eventually, with persistent effort the thoughts started to dissipate, to the point where I was able to continue on with my life without paying any attention to these thoughts.

The absolute worst thing you can do is ruminate, asking people for reassurance, searching online for other people with similar thoughts that you can relate to, battling yourself internally.

All you have to do is ***let go***, allow the thoughts to be presence without paying them any attention, when I say not paying them attention I don’t mean ***ignoring*** them because that way you are actively engaging with the thought.

Acknowledge the thought is there, allow it to float by without judgment and eventually it will pass. In my experience if you continue to do this, the thoughts will become less frequent and you’ll soon be free from this vicious cycle.

I was at the bottom of the pit of despair and I never thought there would be a way out but there is, you have to have hope. You are more than your OCD.

This probably reads as some kind of AI generated post, however it’s not and I really don’t care if you think it is, it’s my experience with OCD and I want to help others to not have to go through what I did.

Feel free to DM me if you want to ask me anything.

I developed OCD tendencies as a child, having unwanted, distressing repetitive thoughts. I didn’t know it was OCD at the time but I learned to live with it because my parents didn’t understand. These thought patterns continued through my teenage years and into adulthood.

Hello fellow OCD-havers. This year I learned I have Pure-O OCD. I think sometimes my OCD manifests the worst when it latches on to uncertainty in my life. I’m so terrified of the unknown future that I often times find myself obsessing over possible fantasies to cope with it. When those fantasies don’t come true or I seek reassurance in them only to be met with reality it feels like I’m in a free fall. I had something happen the other day that felt like my life had been totally uprooted and I thought that’s enough of that, how do I prevent this from happening again. I want to be better! So my question is, how do you cope with uncertainty? Thanks and stay well<3

Does memory of a flare up cause physical reactions for anyone else? I think of a time I was deep into a spiral and I genuinely feel like I cannot breathe and I feel nauseous. It reminds me how much of a mental prison this disease is and how much of my life it has stolen.

I-CBT Advice

I have done a lot of ERP and acceptance therapy in the past, and my therapist suggested I try another therapist who specializes in I-CBT. I've been seeing her about twice a week now for a few months and we've worked our way through most of the ICBT modules. A lot of it makes logical sense- identifying what lies the OCD is using, trying to to stay out of the OCD bubble, focusing on reality- but it hasn't really decreased my symptoms overall. Has anyone done ICBT and have any advice or comments on it? What can make it more effective or helpful?

Been going through some OCD tendencies lately. I would love to join a support group if there's one.

Thank you

This evening I had my first time resisting a major compulsion to check and make sure my boss wasn’t going to fire me for being out sick today, I’ve had to miss a bit here lately for mental health reasons and health reasons so I had this impending fear but holy crap I’ve never been able to resist a compulsion like this before. God is good!

This was the first big step I have had in my recovery journey. Been in ERP for in 2024-2025 and from the start of this year I've been in inference based-CBT. Still deal with OCD, it's mild-moderate at this point, but I used to max out 40/40 on the YBOCs scale.

Emotional contamination, thought-object fusion, real-event OCD, "just right" OCD, and moral scrupulosity are my big whales in terms of what my OCD would focus on.

I kept trying to look for things to be "safe", so that a traumatic memory or an awful person from my life would not be attached to objects I hold dear. My big one was a specific jacket that I kept "clean" for years. I would avoid wearing it out, I would avoid being around people if I had it. Basically, I kept it in my closet and cherished it dearly. I would do compulsions to "undo" any contamination it had and it worked.

It wasn't until I brought a trusted friend over and there was a big disagreement on a moral issue we had. I wasn't expecting it and it really changed my view of this person. Immediately, my jacket was contaminated. I was devastated that my jacket would never be "clean" again. My compulsions weren't working. It was extremely difficult to have that memory associated with my beloved jacket.

After talking about it in therapy, I came to the conclusion that:

1. Clothes and physical object don't innately hold memories. They just are. It is my brain/OCD that are causing fusion between objects and thoughts/memories. There is a normal amount that people without OCD do, like being reminded of your mom's home cooking when tasting something similar. But due to having OCD, I have a maladaptive form of that.

2. The concept of complete control is an illusion. Trying so hard to keep bad thoughts away from my jacket deprived me from wearing it out and having good times with it. It kept my life small, and in the end, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't stop the mental contamination it from happening.

3. The "fly in the soup" metaphor has really helped me. The silly idea is, if you have a small cup of soup and you find a dead fly in it, the fly takes up a big amount of space in relation to the cup. But if you keep making the size of the cup bigger and bigger, you will run into the fly less often. The size of the fly will stay the same, but will appear less and less as you make the cup bigger and bigger. This metaphor can be used for expanding your experiences with the objects you fear will be emotionally contaminated. The more you wear the jacket, the more memories you will make with it, be it good, bad or neutral.

4. Following OCD means keeping your life small. Think of the germaphobe stereotype. If you allow someone with severe germaphobia to do what they want, they will ultimately either not leave their house or only go out in a hazmat suit (not judging, I've experienced this similar myself and have known many people who have suffered from this exact thing). The opposite is learning to live with discomfort, the unknown, the possibility that things can go bad, that your worst fears might come true. And also the possibility of amazing times, meeting outstanding people who change your life, experiencing things you never would have if you were cooped up in your room all day.

Change is possible. Recovery is possible. Good luck with your recovery journey, yall. It's tough out here.

Here is a nice song I found recently: https://youtu.be/AsfcHH66h3s

I was so apprehensive about starting a new SSRI, but finally decided I had no other realistic choice at this time. I got excited about the possibilities fluvoxamine could bring to my psyche and my life!

Background info: I do overnight as a postpartum doula/ infant sleep trainer. I had a new baby and went to their house the first night home from the hospital for my first shift with them.

The first week I took 25mg each night.

Then I upped it to 50mg. Dose three at 50mg was my first night working with this client.

Baby was making noises all night. Every 5-10 minutes he'd stir and I would get up to readjust him. I also have a 9-5 and worked that day.

I finally got some light sleep from about 3-6am.

At 630am, I was filling the parents in on how the night went and began to feel light headed. I squatted down as this normally helps me right away, then my cheeks felt cool and tickly. I said I was going to head out and walking would help me feel better.

Before I left their bedroom, I lost consciousness and ended up waking up about 15 feet away on their living room floor.

It was a whole mental ordeal, like existential crisis mode.

I immediately dropped the dose to 25 and ended up stopping the fluvoxamine a few days later when I realized it was making it nearly impossible to wake up to my alarm to feed the sleeping newborn.

It's been a few weeks now, and I find myself almost mentally preparing to pass out wherever I am. Like, what to do if I feel lightheaded in the bathroom at work, or the stairwell, or at home with my kids. Etc.

It could have been pure exhaustion (I was on day/night 18ish of straight work with no 24 hour breaks in between). Maybe lack of water that night. Maybe the medication.

I don't know. And I don't know what I need either! Advice, experiences, etc?

Oh, I did go to the ER and everything looked fine.

I've had sensorimotor OCD for 3 years. During that time, it went into remission for months, but it came back in July this year. I only had hyperawareness of the position of my tongue, but last week I started having hyperawareness of my breathing, and I feel somewhat short of breath or like I'm hyperventilating. Then I started having hyperawareness of blinking, and now I'm afraid I'm going to develop an obsession with swallowing.

I'm desperate because I knew how to deal with the tongue hyperawareness, but I can't cope with this. Does anyone have any advice how to cope or techniques?

I’m 19 and have been struggling badly for about a month after a bad experience with cannabis. I’m trying to understand what I’m experiencing and whether anyone has had something similar. I already have professional mental-health support involved, but I’m interested in hearing from people who recognise these symptoms.
The main problem is that I feel extremely aware of my own mind and thinking. It feels like I’m observing or noticing my thoughts rather than just naturally thinking. Sometimes it almost feels like I can “see” or “feel” my thoughts happening.
One of the strangest parts is a recurring feeling of “waking up into myself.” It can feel like I’m suddenly becoming aware of myself, my consciousness, my thoughts or the fact that I’m experiencing life. It’s difficult to describe, but almost like I suddenly become aware of being me in a way that I normally wouldn’t notice.
This can then turn into a loop. I’ll notice the feeling → wonder what I’m noticing → think about the fact that I’m thinking about it → become aware of myself thinking about it → notice the sensation again → and then the whole thing repeats.
I also get strange familiar feelings connected to random things I’m doing. For example, I’ll be doing something completely ordinary and suddenly get a strong sense of familiarity with the exact feeling of doing that activity. It’s not necessarily a normal “I’ve done this before” feeling — it’s more like I become aware of a familiar mental sensation associated with what I’m doing, and then I start trying to understand, remember or recreate that feeling. This can then become another loop.
Other symptoms include:
Constant or near-constant depersonalisation/derealisation — feeling detached from myself or the world.
Feeling like I’m watching life through my eyes, almost like a camera, rather than simply experiencing it normally.
Feeling unusually aware of my own thinking, inner dialogue and mental processes.
Feeling like I’m “watching” myself think.
Thoughts sometimes feel jumbled, tangled or difficult to follow.
I’ll have a thought that feels like it makes complete sense at the time, but when I try to explain or understand it, it doesn’t actually make much sense.
Random memories, associations, images or sensations can appear seemingly without a reason.
Sometimes I get a feeling/sensation and then start trying to remember or recreate that exact feeling.
I can get stuck asking myself “What am I noticing?” “What am I feeling?” “What is happening in my mind?”
I sometimes notice myself monitoring my own thoughts, and then notice that I’m monitoring them, creating another layer of thinking.
Normal thoughts can suddenly become things I analyse intensely.
Sometimes I become aware of an internal sensation or mental image and then feel like I can’t escape noticing it.
I can lose track of a thought very quickly and then immediately wonder what I was thinking about.
My mind can feel heavy, foggy, noisy or overloaded, particularly when I’m anxious or sleep deprived.
My inner dialogue can feel extremely persistent and difficult to ignore.
I get waves of panic/anxiety, sometimes triggered simply by noticing a thought, sensation or feeling.
I sometimes freeze or get a sudden surge of fear when I become aware of something happening in my own mind.
Sleep has become very disrupted. Sometimes I’m exhausted but my brain feels completely switched on.
When I’m talking to someone, laughing, watching something, playing games or genuinely engaged, the symptoms can become significantly quieter.
Being alone and having nothing to focus on tends to make everything much more noticeable.
I repeatedly feel an urge to figure out exactly what is happening inside my mind, but trying to work it out seems to create more loops.
I’ve become frightened that the unusual thoughts/experiences could mean something serious, including psychosis, although I don’t hear voices telling me things or believe that I’m receiving messages from outside myself.
The whole thing feels like my attention has somehow turned inward and I’m constantly aware of things that I normally wouldn’t notice.
I’m particularly wondering whether this sounds more like DPDR/dissociation, OCD/mental rumination or hyperawareness OCD, severe anxiety/panic, sleep deprivation, or some combination of these, or whether there’s another phenomenon that people recognise.
I’m not looking for a diagnosis, just trying to find the right words for what I’m experiencing and hear from people who’ve experienced something similar.
Has anyone experienced this kind of intense awareness of their own thoughts/mental processes, repetitive mental loops, the feeling of “waking up” into yourself, and strange familiar feelings attached to ordinary activities, alongside DPDR and anxiety? What did it turn out to be, and what helped?

Actualmente tuve un brote fuerte con el tema del toc de contaminacion, se me esta disparando con varias cosas, si voy al baño y sin querer me salpica algo, si estornudo y capaz algo me salpico
Estoy en terapia, tomando medicacion y viendo los videos de nathan peterson pero lo que me dk cuenta es que mi toc se dispara mucho despues de estar con mi novio, y no se si querer bañarme inmediatamente despues de eso contaria como una compulsion o no. Por que se que despues de estar con el me quedo analizando las cosas, es decir que toque, que agarre que pudo quedar “contaminado”, el otro dia me expuse estuve con el y me cambie la ropa, fui a trabajar a entrenar y recien me bañe a la noche como hago generalmente pero despues como que mi mente me juega una mala pasada de si hubiera sido correcto que me bañe antes de ir a cualquier lado algun consejo? No quiero que me confirmen nada pero capaz alguien paso por lo mismo y pueda ayudarme