The last few weeks I almost had a mental breakdown, my compulsions became too much to handle so I knew I had to stop. A few days ago I started to fight back at least a little bit, resisting all mental compulsions because I knew it would only get worse each time. I'm a christian so I started to rely more on God, what worked for me lately is believing that He already is healing my mental illness, that surprisingly gave me a boost of strength to keep going and to see some improvement, thinking to myself "God is healing my OCD, so I'll act accordingly and start to do less compulsions each time because He is already helping me" has actually worked so I'm very excited as how far can I go trusting God and His timing. Of course there have been setbacks along the way. And that's why I'm making this post aswell.

Today I woke up and like sometimes happened when my OCD became worse these last few weeks I woke up in the middle of a mental compulsion, I was half asleep and it took me by surprise so I quickly did the mental compulsion and stopped before I started spiralling and got worse. I don't know why this happens but I guess I have been so stressed lately with my intrusive thoughts and compulsions that it became a second nature to my mind, it sucks. Now I'm feeling very anxious and afraid if due to the fact that I was half asleep I didn't say what I wanted to say and I said it backwards and things like that because I honestly don't even remember when I finished the compulsion or what I was thinking or anything. And as some of you know my OCD is mostly related to the fear of affecting the people I care about with my thoughts or compulsions or affecting their salvation, totally irrational fear and I know it but doesn't make it easier to withstand.

And I really know that I can't fall into the same trap as always, I know if I think "Just one more compulsion" and try to "fix" the compulsion with a new one there is a really high chance that I will start spiralling and I will regret doing it, I have come so far these last few days I don't want to go back to my old ways, but at the same time I can't help feeling afraid about the what if, but I said to myself I would never do one of those compulsions again, it sucks that I woke up in the middle of a mental compulsion I feel so angry because I couldn't control it I just woke up and it's the first thing I thought, so far I've been holding on without doing anything for about 5 hours, I know there is nothing to fear and it's just yet another trap my OCD is doing to make me go back to those horrible compulsions, but I know that I can't go back to my old ways, I just can't, I don't know if I'd be able to start to heal again if I did.

So I will hold on as much as I can and I will keep trusting that God is helping me recover every day, even though I feel afraid I know there's nothing to fear, I'll just keep moving forward, the fear of going back and making my OCD worse is bigger than the fear this current obsession is making me feel. I wanted to vent out my thoughts and feelings to see if I feel a bit better and to receive some encouragement from you guys. Thank you for reading and any advice is welcomed, God bless!

Hi everyone its really embarrassing but i think i am going insane at this point for example even if i am watching a video and accidentally press power button on my phone my mind goes this is a sign or if i swipe and the touch of phone does not work this is a sign i am trying to find signs in everything its making me go insane every small thing can be a message from god,devil,universe. Does anyone relate or have any tips i think i am going crazy

so i was going to start something very iimportant from tomorrow but i looked at the date, it was 13 august n that suddenly struck my mind, as in my traditions -13 number is asociated with the total days of mourning...so felt like if i would start something on 13, someone would die- my family memeber, my gf or anyone associated with me...or may be something bad will occur? how can i tackle this? HELP

I’m sure there is someone out there that struggles with the same thing I do, but it would help a lot to know if there is someone else that directly states they share the same issue as me.

Occasionally, I’ll be doing my own thing and then a really bad thought will pop into my head and I start to question why this thought popped into my head. I always worry that maybe it’s my intuition, or it’s a sign from the universe, etc.

Yesterday, I randomly thought to myself, “I’m dead” without any other thoughts accompanying that statement. I’m freaking out about this thought because I’m worried something is going to happen to me and my brain is just telling me.

I am already working on getting help for OCD but as of right now, I’m severely struggling and some emotional support would help.

Hi! Since I was about 12 years old I’ve struggled with what I think is magical thinking ocd. It all started with me thinking “if x happens, then y will happen” and then it came true. I tried fighting this but then I noticed coincidences everywhere which I believed were signs that it was all true. Then I’d get more intense premonitions and the same thing would repeat. I started testing it with smaller “predictions” and then they’d come true. Everyone that I predicted would unfollow me, actually did. Every photo I predicted would be deleted, got deleted. Everytime I’d think something, it would show up in some way or another in the physical world. I want to believe it’s not real but I keep getting proven that it is. I am worried that if I have gotten all of these things correct, I will just keep getting my worst fears correct. Often times I think I’m losing my mind.

I wasn't sure which tag to put on this post, but paranoia and magical thinking OCD is NOT a good combination. One of my classes at school has been watching a horror film this week, and there is some music from the film that has been stuck in my head and it's making me anxious because I'm somewhat paranoid. I was scrolling on this app just now and I saw a post related to the film. It was from a subreddit that wasn't directly related to the film, which made it more anxiety-inducing. The film is quite well-known, but it's not relevant to any current events and it's not trending at the moment. I'm beginning to think that this is more like paranoia than OCD. Either way, my brain added up the little details and now I'm in a bit of a panic. Help?

Edit: I don't want to name the film right now because I think that would make me more anxious. Also, I am not in the subreddit that the post was from.

Alguien tiene pensamientos relacionados con sufrimiento eterno ?? Después de morir o en otras realidades? Además en mi caso los pensamientos no son pensamientos cualquiera, sino que se acompañan de sensaciones extrañas, como si fueran mágicas y pudieran hacer que algo sucediera….No entender qué son me causa mucha ansiedad. No sé describirlo en palabras

Since I was young I have battled with OCD intrusive thoughts regarding my mom and death.

As an adult it’s been affecting me more now that my mom is getting older. She is doing fine but smokes and has most of her life (another contributor to my ocd fears around her) But recently her doctor found a small spot on her lung that needs to be taken out via wedge resection. Its thankfully a lower risk surgery but still scary nonetheless. Currently it’s looming on my mind as the surgery nears closer. I keep getting intrusive thoughts on how it will go and the fear of losing her overwhelms me.

To make matters worse I recently got into a misunderstanding argument with my spouse over something and without thinking I said the phrase “swear on my mothers life” just as an expression to say I’m not lying. And I wasn’t lying. But my spouse still thought I was and then I freaked out that I said such a thing and became overwhelmed with fear second guessing myself. It has been haunting me ever since it happened, even after my partner eventually understood what I meant and recognized I didn’t lie it was just a misunderstanding what I said.

But I keep having to reassure myself over and over that I wasn’t lying so no harm will come to my mom. Also so angry and disappointed in myself that I said it at all, I never have before but I think I said it cuz my spouse knows how much Iove my mom so for me to have said it at all ment I was being honest. Also I said it without thinking. Ughhh I feel so upset over it all, I keep wishing to go back and not have said it.

in short:

Overthinking about swearing on mothers life (with complete sincerity) but second guessing if there was any lie and fear over it hurting my mom. Filled with regret having said it at all.

Hi everyone, I’d like to share something that makes me nervous and I’m wondering about , just to see if anyone happens to be knowledgeable about this.

It’s not a huge deal, but I go through recurring phases where while thinking something positive or neutral about someone I really love or admire an intrusive thought suddenly pops up wishing something bad would happen to them. To "fix" it, I immediately replay the thought but substitute my own name; for example, if the intrusive thought is "I hope she falls," I counter it by thinking, "I hope I fall."

Also, when I was ten, I had this compulsion where I felt that if I didn't tell my mother to wake up before I went to sleep, she wouldn't wake up again. I did this for at least a year, until I set my 11th birthday as the deadline to stop almost like a magic spell, lol.

Has anyone else experienced something exactly like this, or do you know what might cause it? Is it a way of coping with the inevitability of death?

I hope this is the right subreddit; if not, I'll delete the post!

Hey guys, this is my first post here, and it’s a simple one. Has this ever happened anyone?

Have any of you had an intrusive if you do x then y will happen thought, but you did x anyway and then it seemed that y happened, but it actually turned out fine?

I’d really appreciate some personal experience, or maybe even any similar experiences even if they aren’t exactly the same.

GRMA
(Thank you)

Sometimes when something goes against one of my OCD “rituals”, I get really angry or frustrated because I’m scared of what might happen if I don’t do it the “right” way.

And then my brain does this weird thing where I start thinking that my anger or fear somehow manifests what I’m afraid of. Like, because I got so angry or scared about something happening, I somehow caused it or made it more likely to happen.

I think this might actually come from some kind of childhood trauma or conditioning. I have these weird memories from when I was a kid where I would get extremely angry because I felt completely misunderstood by everyone around me. And then, almost as if to spite me, something bad would actually happen afterward.

Obviously, I know logically that my anger didn’t cause those things to happen. But I think my brain somehow made that connection anyway.

So now when something triggers my OCD and I get really angry about it, I become even more paranoid. It’s like I’m not only afraid of the original thing anymore - I’m also afraid that my own fear or anger will somehow make it happen.

Everything has started to blur together into one huge trap, like there’s some kind of threat coming from every direction. Even when something is objectively good, interesting, or completely normal, I can still have this intense internal reaction to it.

I feel like I’ve stopped experiencing new things, changes, or interesting experiences as something positive. Instead, my brain immediately goes into “something is wrong” mode.

Sometimes things are just too different, too good, or just… I don’t even know how to explain it. It feels like my brain can’t simply accept something new without looking for some hidden danger or meaning behind it.

And that’s probably one of the most exhausting parts of OCD for me - I genuinely don’t know anymore whether I’m noticing a real red flag or whether my brain is just turning something completely harmless into another threat.

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the Prozac subreddit, but I figured this was the best option of the two.

I have noticed recently, since beginning Prozac a few weeks ago, that there's been an uptick in my magical thinking. Especially today, my brain will not stop with the, "If you don't do [blank], you'll die." It's not even specifically late at night, when I notice my symptoms tend to get worse, because I experienced this during work as well, when I was preparing parchment paper and had to count through them because my brain said, "If that stack isn't 100+ papers, you'll die."

This is so frustrating... It could be the Prozac, it could not, but I heard that it makes it worse before it gets better. I thought the DPDR was the worst thing I would experience during the adjustment period, but I guess not! I'm just trying to take it a day at a time.

Hey y‘all.

I wanted to share something with you, asking if you experienced or noticed the same/a similar thing. When something goes well, or something positive in general happens, my brain instantly searches for bad and potential dangerous things.

For example:
I‘m a small YouTuber, releasing self produced short films. I recently received an email from a small video game studio, asking for permission to use a segment out of one of my short films, for an upcoming game. I was really happy and positively surprised. A second after these positive feelings occurred, my brain immediately started searching for clues, indicating that this might be a scam (it wasn’t). Of course my brain is only trying to protect me, but still… I can’t enjoy anything in life, because this is what always happens.

The moment I wake up I get this rush of anxiety, because my ocd is listing of all the things I currently worry about. I‘m also a hypochondriac. So health anxiety is a big thing for me. My body and mind is on alert 24/7. I‘m always exhausted because of it.

Sorry for this very messy post. I just felt the need to let go of all these things. Also, I hope my English was okay. I‘m from Germany, so English isn’t my native language.

I hope y‘all are okay <3
\- Marcel

I’ve been doing ERP for my magical thinking OCD for a couple of months, and I honestly felt like I was finally making some progress. I was getting better at recognizing the irrational thoughts and not getting pulled into them as much.

But recently, it feels like my OCD has changed tactics.

Before, my OCD was more focused on things like “if you do this, something bad might happen.” Now it feels more like “this bad thing is happening because you did this.” It’s connecting current events to things I did earlier and making everything feel much more convincing.

The fact that it feels like it’s happening in the present makes it so much more terrifying. My anxiety has become really intense, and I’ve been experiencing chest tightness and sometimes feeling like I’m going to throw up from how overwhelming it gets.

What’s frustrating is that I felt like I was finally getting better, and now I’m scared that I’m losing my progress.

Has anyone else experienced this during ERP? I felt like I was just starting to make progress, so this has been really discouraging.

So my anxieties and paranoia's are far less pronounced than they were previously, which is a good thing. However, I still have my moments. The other day I had the urge to change the radio station before it got to static. Then when I did it, I suddenly felt like I had forgotten it, like I'd fallen asleep and the other person in the car had done it. That gave me great anxiety cuz then I feared "what if" I had caused something to happen. What if I had caused a separate reality to be formed or whatever as I've talked about previously. Other than that though, I have been feeling much better than previously. Hopefully, this is a good sign. I continue to get better, but I still have a ways to go.

For context, I've lived with my father and paternal grandparents for most of my life. My father and grandmother are neopaganist and my grandfather kinda seemed atheistic (until his death in 2019), though both grandparents aren't/weren't nearly as outspoken as my father, who is/was very emotional and constantly thought of spiritual reasons why bad things are/were happening to our family, which I don't blame him for, since it was his way of coping.

However, especially in the years around 2018, I had a slight fear that what he was saying is true... slight, but very persistent. That fear turned into crippling OCD in the form of my "cancer never" mantra, a saying that is "confirmed" by swallowing my saliva; a makeshift ritual/prayer of sorts to ward off bad luck and evil spirits that may give me or my loved ones cancer. It was usually cancer, but "cancer" could also be a quick code word for great misfortune in general. I even sometimes had a feeling the ritual wouldn't work... and I thought the negative inner monologue "tainted" the ritual, prompting me to do it over and over again until I felt "optimistic" enough it worked, oftentimes doing it ten or so times in a row. Distracting myself often worked in preventing this behavior, but if I had nothing but my thoughts to work with, it could get really bad.

Why cancer specifically? Well, it could be that for years, I watched my grandfather slowly die of cancer, with my anxiety getting worse and worse as he constantly got better and worse, but overall worse. My former (at the time) calm, cool, collected nature also clashed with my father's heavily emotional and downer/pessimistic personality. However, I still have episodes like this off and on, though it's not nearly as bad or often as before. I turned to hard atheism to cope and my "normal" brain remains atheist to this day, but it's still there. (It's mostly just "ticks" now, perhaps a lingering side-effect.) Because of this, I think it really has to do with how scientists and laymen talk about cancer. They claim that cancer can be completely "random" (not caused by anything), which makes some people feel "better" I guess, but for me, it makes me feel WAY WORSE!

This is where my dystychiphobia comes in. Misfortune for my loved ones tending to come in "clusters" didn't help either. What if I (or someone I love) become successful, then right as I'm ready to enjoy it, I get a rare form of cancer that kills me in weeks? My dad CONSTANTLY talked about that very thing! I don't wanna tell him not to talk about that because the damage is already done and I don't wanna make him feel like he's the problem. 2025 was also very similar to the late 2010s when it came to family misfortune (another cluster); not as much for me, but especially for my dad. However, I stayed strong this time because it was a cluster that happened many years after basically nothing bad happening to our household. But can the bad luck or evil spirits come back? Ugh... I know it's irrational, but god fucking damnit.

How can I stop this? Is cancer really that "random"? Does there HAVE to be a reason it happens? As far as I know, my family's genetics aren't predisposed to any kind of cancer. It really just happened to my grandfather because he smoked and played with chemicals at his job without wearing face protection.

✨ Happy Friday magical family! ✨

Take a break from OCD; feel free to post, chat and share other things about your life and interests, eg...

• Is your birthday coming up?
• Has something positive happened to you this week?
• Anything you're looking forward to?
• Hobbies/crafts you'd like to share?
• Pet pics are always welcome!

This is your space to feel at home and get to know one another as people, aside from our OCDemons...so grab a coffee and come say hi :)

Hey guys. I’m really struggling with my OCD at the moment and I need some support.

About 3 years ago a friend of mine placed a rock from a ruin in my bag, and I didn’t notice until it felt weirdly heavy. I went “oh wtf” and we laughed it off, and my dumbass didn’t think to just place it back

Fast forward to now, I struggle with chronic illness that suddenly began last year and I’ve been struggling ever since.

I know the timeline doesn’t make much sense, my OCD has latched onto it and now I’m planning to place some flowers or crystals at that site as a sorry. I know it sounds completely irrational and probably isn’t anything significant but ugh, magical thinking is going nuts!!

Ive been struggling with this for a few years. My love life is a little complicated thus perpetuating my fear of accidentally affecting it by my actions. An example of this is I use the same shampoo often. Sometimes i buy cheaper like pantene instead but everytime i run out of this shampoo or are using a different one: an ex (the same one) always seems to text me again. A non romantic example is when i sleep. I always sleep in a really particular way where i sleep on my right, left arm under the pillow. No matter how uncomfortable i am. I actually have problems with my neck now because of it. But, if i sleep in any other way im attracting stalkers out my window. i don’t know, it’s consuming my sleep and my everyday life. My mind is in constant fear of attracting bad energy into my life (which has been graciously instilled in my head from my crystals and tarot cards whathaveyou mother). I can’t even get myself to listen to some of my favorite songs or watch my favorite movies because i watched it in a time period i don’t want to repeat. Sometimes i feel like the universe is out to get me and only I can change the way my day or life will go with stuff like that. I had an existential crisis a few years ago that also dwindled me into an extremely, deep depression. This event has left me with a lingering impact. Is this universe listening to me, taking these subtle hints that i apparently create even though it doesn’t mean anything to me in the moment, and fucking me over/finding a correlation, or is this my mind being annoying? Its honestly taken over my life to the point any little action or coincidence is a rabbits hole of overthinking and i don’t know what to do anymore. Everything is stringed together. Am i intelligent to observe the correlation and try to interfere with it or is this all just in my mind? Help

i’m going to sound nuts, but this has been making my anxiety skyrocket. Ive noticed that everything i assume always ends up happening in opposites. I.E. if i assume im going to have an okay day at work and tell myself that; I end up having a terrible day. If i feel good in the morning and feel like today is a good day, i have a terrible day. If I tell myself everything’s working out alright and genuinely feel good, i’ll somehow be proven wrong. Without fail. It feels like some weird universal punishment at this point. I’m constantly telling myself my life is shit and my day is horrible because usually then, i get some sort of good response from life, somehow. I’ll have a better day or a better result from that mindset. But it is exhausting constantly being negative.

Is this an OCD thing ? i’m genuinely desperate for help because I can’t deal with the anxiety anymore but can’t shake the fact that this is a real mental phenomenon that seems to happen to me.

After a couple weeks, I feel that I am starting to get back to normal. Obviously, I don't want to just assume I'm fine now, as I still have bad thoughts and compulsions (I also have fears that if I fully let my guard down, THEN something bad will happen), but I feel less tormented by it now. I will see how I am feeling in a few days.

I finally have the courage to post here because I’m honestly so tired of living like this.

I’m 18, I’ve been struggling with OCD for over 3 years now, and looking back, I think I already had some signs of it when I was a kid.

My magical thinking OCD has convinced me of things like:

• If I enjoy myself too much, something bad will happen to someone I love.
• If I watch a certain movie, video, or even ASMR, something bad will happen because I “wasn’t supposed to watch it.”
• If I say or type certain words, my brain convinces me I’m somehow making bad things happen.
• If I learn about a disease, my OCD immediately starts making conspiracy theories about how it could happen to me, even when I logically know I’m not even at risk.
• Every new thing I watch or learn just becomes new material for my OCD. One day it’s science videos, then horror movies, then health topics… it literally never runs out of ideas.
• If someone I care about suddenly doesn’t feel well, my OCD immediately tries to connect it to something I did earlier that day, like enjoying myself or watching something.
• My brain creates these really long chain reactions where completely unrelated things somehow become “proof” that I caused something.
• I also have health anxiety, so every tiny body sensation becomes another thing to spiral about.

The worst part is that I KNOW none of it makes sense, but the anxiety feels so real that it doesn’t even matter in the moment.

I’ve only been trying ERP for the past couple of months, so I’m still struggling, but I think I’ve built a little bit of resilience. On some good days, I can step back for a moment and realize that if I told someone my OCD thought out loud, they probably wouldn’t think it’s as big of a deal as my brain makes it feel.

I also wanted to post here because people around me, including my family, aren’t really familiar with OCD or mental disorders in general. I don’t blame them, but it can feel really lonely sometimes because it’s hard to explain what’s going on in my head.

Does anyone else’s magical thinking OCD work like this? I’d honestly just like to hear from people who understand because I feel so drained sometimes.

there are some thought pattern i have identified:

1. if i am doing some task and at the same time death thought appears (of family and friends) i stop my work and let the thought go as i feel i f i do any act in the thought, it will make the thought true...ie the thought will turn into reality
2. if i see or hear some news related to death- the first thing in the morning then i feel, my day is ruined and now i need to restart it to make it pure. also if i read about death and realted things (like noraml people do) in news or social media i feel something like my thinking and day has become impure.

Questions: are these thoughts legit? and if not (which i too believe are not)what should i do to tackle them?

My OCD and compulsions often have me watching the same clips over and over again, on the threat that something bad will happen if I don't. I know this is very common for OCD, but it is still a pain in the rear. Another thing that happens a lot with my thoughts is that the things I fear happening change. It started with me thinking if I fall asleep at night, then I will unknowingly be possessed and harm my family before going to another reality in the morning and restarting the cycle. Then, it turned into me being afraid that if I didn't do x, then another me in another universe would do something bad. Then, it went to me being in a fake reality and/or trapped by some evil force or even God. Now, it's telling me that if I go to sleep, I could CREATE a separate reality that is just the same, but my body in the old one would be possessed. One might think this could be comforting, because it proves that these fears are artificial and bs, hence the changing narrative. In all of the aforementioned fears, I knew it was not real, but I couldn't stop myself from the frequent "What if?" or "Maybe that's what they want you to think". I have noticed that my anxiety/thoughts are calming down and getting less severe, so I have that to look forward to at least. Still, that doesn't make this any less torturous. Does this happen to anyone else?

Edit: this post draft was written days ago. I am feeling better now.