I've seen so many people say things like "why was she allowed to be alone with her kids if she had intrusive thoughts" and it pisses me off so bad.

I really can't believe people are trying to promote her to raise awareness about mental health... I feel that her supporters have really done nothing but increase the stigma around mental health by making it seem like anyone with intrusive thoughts (or psychosis! most people with psychosis are nonviolent too) could snap at any moment. Having intrusive thoughts doesn't make you some kind of dangerous animal with no self control.

I'm not a mother but I'd like to have kids someday. I feel that this case is going to affect how people treat me. Like I'm going to be treated like an unfit mother by default or like others won't trust me to be alone with my baby. I truly hope she gets found guilty so that we can shift the blame back to her and away from "mental illness" because this narrative is throwing so many innocent people under the bus with her.

Anyone else relate?

11:11 just hit and I accidentally made a horrible wish. This wish was something amongst the lines of failing college. And I am convinced that it's more likely to come true because it's the first of the month. I'm absolutely horrified. I can't undo it because 11:11 already passed. I'm so terrified.

I have really wanted to get some tattoos for a few years, but I’m paralyzed by the decision and need to get it “ just right”. I have two tattoos from before OCD was a big deal for me, and I’m totally fine with them. But the idea of getting any more completely shuts me down, even though I want some so badly.
I feel like I have a few anxiety about this.

- the permanence and the potential for regret later in life
- the risks of feeling contaminated
-the difficulty with finding placement that feels right
- the idea that maybe I’m just getting tattoos so I look cool and people think of me a certain way, aka getting tattoos for the wrong reasons to pretend I’m someone I’m not.
Maybe I’m not a cool earthy girl, but I want people to think I am, so I’m getting tattoos because I’m fake.

Why is OCD so exhausting? ): just wondering if anyone else has struggled with this

Has anyone found a helpful phrase, metaphor, poem, etc that can generally summarize what it’s like living with OCD? I was recently diagnosed and I’m trying to help my partner understand what it’s like!

Lamotrigine + Vyvanse + Luvox?

I’ve been on lamotrigine for almost a year and Vyvanse for about 6 months. I deal with Pure O (and mdd, gad, social anxiety, panic attacks) and recently the OCD has really been flaring up.

A few months ago I completed a 6-session therapeutic IV ketamine treatment and it really helped me, but I’m not able to do any of the recommended maintenance sessions because of the cost, and I feel myself significantly regressing. My psych recently recommended Luvox to help manage my OCD while I work on my shit in therapy.

I have a terrible and extensive history of a lot of psych meds not working for me and making me a lot worse, especially SSRIs. I’m very apprehensive to go down this road again, especially already being on other psych meds. My depression has been a lot better recently and I’m really worried that adding this new med in will destabilize me.

Has anyone else tried this combination for their various mental health issues and found it successful?

These HOCD worries are killing me. I always liked girls and I mean always. I always knew I was straight, I lived being straight. In school there was this dude always teasing me for little things. He was always saying something about it. It was so annoying and hurtful, and there was a moment he called me gay, but in a way that was so convincing, which made me question myself.
Around that time I started taking a supplement for exams to focus better, but I noticed I had no libido and zero interest in having sex, and no interest in porn. I thought it was good until I tried to watch porn again after like 4 days of taking the supplement. I was watching porn and I got no erection because I think it messed up my libido. Then I did research like, can a supplement make you gay? Because I was convinced it can make you gay, and there were some people who became gay after taking a supplement.
Then I was stressing about it, and that is how it began. It was like, is he right? Am I gay? This can’t be. The first 2 days were awful, and then I started to live with these thoughts. When I see an attractive dude, I start doing weird things, my body starts shaking and all that.
I remember having a fear of swallowing and drinking because I thought I would choke, and I went to therapy for that. And I had a little fear about being a killer. I thought I wanted to kill somebody, but that wasn’t as stressful because back then I never knew what OCD was.
And I am talking with this girl, and what if I’m gay and I don’t like her? I don’t know, man. These thoughts all happened because of a bully, and it feels like I am such a loser. I have always been a typical straight guy. I always hung out with straight guys and talked about girls, and it felt good looking at girls too.
I don’t want to be gay, and sometimes I get like a random 2 minutes of relief because I convinced myself I’m straight and it is all just OCD, and sometimes it feels so real that I want it. I don’t know. I always looked at girls since I was younger, so yeah.
I don’t know. I miss my old worries. I want my old problems. I want to be a kid again. :(

I have been suffering from this as long as I could remember, imm only 18 but I feel as if I am too old and my life is abt to over, I feel all of this is quite absurd and doesn't make sense. Idk...

I am currently in therapy but the therapy lowk stopped working? I was trying cbt and it has definitely helped me but my thoughts aren't eliminated, I understand that the goal is manage them which it has helped me in but I want them gone tbh...

Should I consult with a psychiatrist and take meds?

I’m 25 and I’ve always had a fear of driving, I have multiple reasons for it like fear of hitting someone, or encountering a road rage person but my biggest fear is getting pulled over by a cop that thinks I’m under the influence of something, trying to make me do the field sobriety test then arresting me. I know for a fact I won’t be able to do the FST. It seems like it has become a little more common. I’m hoping that maybe it could be social media trying to make it seem worse than it is but idk.

I have a healthcare job so an arrest would ruin my life even if it’s a false one

I am on my last leg with this. I have a mixture of contamination ocd with religious ocd. I'm a muslim and in Islam cleanliness is a big part of faith and we do specific washing actions before the daily prayers (5 times a day). Because of the focus on cleanliness and washing , and the fact that not doing them kind of renders the prayer I feel like I am just a sinful person. No matter how hard I try there is always something to doubt, something to clean and if I dont then my prayers are invalidated.

I'm at work right now and it's been hell. My mind keeps spiralling, i feel like I have to wash my clothes all the time and the fear of missing prayers make me question my existance, ocd makes it too hard to pray, what should take 5 mins takes me 30 minutes to an hour. Sometimes I feel so 'unclean' that I feel like I cant pray at all. I feel like i am constantly sinning because I feel unhygienic. Because we have to pray 5 times a day (in specific times) my mind is constantly consumed by the thought of it in the worst way. I hate it. I dont want to feel so trapped but that is all I am feeling. Im so tired and hopeless.

I know that practising Islam isnt supposed to be this hard, and a lot of leeway is given with God being all Merciful but I cant make myself think in this way. No matter what I do or how hard I try and make myself be better, there is always an event which pulls me away.

At home it was bad enough, but during work? Shared bathrooms, no place to wash, and yet I feel the urge to. I feel like crying so hard. I dont know what to do.

I have become addicted to using AI for reassurance, and I need advice for quitting. I am aware of the environmental impacts, and I already feel super guilty about it. So please no comments about that. But I would like to quit cold turkey. I have set a screen limit for ChatGPT and Gemini. But the problem is that the AI overview is what I end up using for reassurance. And I can’t exactly set a screen limit for Google because I use it for school. I also don’t want to disable it completely bc the straightforward answers it gives is honestly super helpful. Does anyone have any advice to physically limit my access and not rely on willpower? Like somehow being able to keep the Google AI function without letting me overuse it? I’m not sure a function like exists.

I would also love to hear alternatives to AI. I have already started journalling. And I also find that Reddit has been a helpful substitute. Are there any other suggestions?

I just had my first ERP appointment through a very well-known online OCD psychiatry app, and I honestly don’t know what to think. I feel extremely upset and disappointed, and I wanted to share what happened because I genuinely need to know whether this experience was as inappropriate as it felt to me.

I have been struggling with debilitating OCD and my mental health for a long time, and things have been especially difficult lately. I had been waiting for this appointment and was genuinely excited and hopeful that I was finally going to get help. I put a lot of hope into starting treatment, so what happened was extremely upsetting.

I understood that we might not actually begin ERP exercises during the first appointment. I was completely prepared for the session to be an intake. I expected us to discuss my symptoms, my history, my OCD, the information I had already provided, and what treatment would look like moving forward.

Instead, approximately the first 45 minutes of the one-hour appointment focused almost entirely on my hometown and the area where I live. We talked about living near the beach, vacation destinations she had visited, places I like to vacation, waterfalls, and other things in the area. She was googling different locations in the area and telling me about them?

I want to emphasize that I did not lead this conversation. As more and more time passed without us discussing my mental health, I became uncomfortable and didn’t know how to redirect the conversation. I assumed she would eventually transition into the actual intake, so I let her lead the conversation.

At that point, there had only been one substantial question about my mental health, and it came directly from the intake questionnaire I had completed beforehand. She asked about my answer regarding people I can lean on for support and told me that my answer was insufficient and that I needed to come up with a third source of support.
I explained that I couldn’t because I genuinely don’t have anyone else I can rely on in that way.

She also asked whether I ate foods containing preservatives as a child because she said that can cause mental health issues. She then discussed how eating better now and taking supplements, including sea moss, could potentially allow me to wean off my bipolar medication. She specifically said that she doesn’t like the idea of being “overmedicated.”????
IM ON ONE BIPOLAR MED BTW AND SHES A THERAPIST NOT A PSYCH.

I found this extremely concerning.
We had barely discussed my mental health history, symptoms, medications, or treatment needs before she made those comments. I was especially uncomfortable with the suggestion that a supplement such as sea moss could potentially allow me to discontinue medication that I consider life-saving.

30 minutes in, I said something along the lines of:
“So I guess we didn’t get to ask any new questions or discuss the intake questions at all or do anything new.”
She responded that she could find some questions to ask me.

She then asked MORE questions that I had already answered on my intake questionnaire. There was no follow-up discussion. Eventually, the conversation shifted right back to North Carolina, including whether it was loud living in a big city, whether people are nice there, and “how is it living in nature?”
At this point I was baffled.

Closer toward the end of the appointment, she mentioned that she could send me a worksheet with some simple exercises. She didn’t explain what the exercises were, how they related to my treatment, or what I was supposed to do with them.
She also said she would send me affirmations.
Meanwhile, I’m dealing with panic attacks because of how severe my OCD has become, and I had gone into this appointment genuinely hoping to begin receiving appropriate treatment.

At one point, she said “perfect” in response to one of my answers. She then remembered that I had previously mentioned perfection-related OCD symptoms and said:
“Sorry, I shouldn’t say perfect because you have perfection OCD.” like completely seriously.
.
By the end of the appointment, I had learned essentially nothing about my treatment. I had no clear understanding of what I was supposed to work on, what the treatment plan was, or what would happen next.
I am supposed to pay over $200 for this appointment, and I honestly feel like I didn’t receive the type of therapeutic care I reasonably expected. I left feeling like I had been scammed.

I ended up contacting the very well-known online OCD psychiatry app's support because I couldn’t find a phone number where I could speak with someone directly. I asked them to review the appointment, waive or refund the charge, cancel my upcoming appointment with this therapist, and help me find a different therapist who is appropriately experienced in treating OCD with ERP.
I also specifically asked them to clarify their position on therapists recommending supplements as a means of potentially discontinuing psychiatric medication, especially when the therapist has not adequately assessed the patient’s mental health history or treatment needs.
At this point, I’m honestly unsure whether I’m ready to try another appointment. This experience really shook me because I went into it feeling hopeful that I was finally going to get help.

I know that one bad appointment doesn’t necessarily mean them as a whole is bad, and maybe I somehow had an unusually terrible experience. That’s why I’m posting here.
Has anyone else had an experience like this with the app that shall mot be named? or with a first ERP appointment?

Am I justified in being this upset about what happened? And if you’ve switched therapists, was the process straightforward?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have actually gone through ERP and can tell me whether this sounds remotely like a normal first session.

TL;DR: My first ERP appointment was extremely disappointing. About 45 minutes of the hour was spent talking about my hometown, vacations, and North Carolina instead of my OCD, history, or treatment plan. The therapist also suggested diet and sea moss supplements could potentially help me wean off my bipolar medication, despite barely discussing my mental health and not being a psychiatrist. She asked questions I’d already answered, offered a worksheet and affirmations without explaining an ERP plan, and laughed when I explained how debilitating my OCD is. I left feeling dismissed, confused, and like I paid $200+ for essentially no treatment. I contacted them to request a refund, cancel future appointments, and switch therapists. For those who’ve done ERP, does this sound like a normal first session, and has anyone successfully switched therapists?

I came across this clip from the current season of 90 Day Fiancé. My immediate thought was that this doesn’t sound like any kind of OCD I’ve ever heard of (though please correct me if I am wrong.) I know OCD can manifest differently and encompass different themes, etc., but what she’s describing did not really seem ego-dystonic?

It’s frustrating to see reality TV stars throw around terms like "intrusive thoughts" and "OCD" to explain away messy behavior. Real OCD is a nightmare of terror and exhausting compulsions. It is not a convenient excuse for crossing boundaries after a few drinks.

Even if giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the show’s editing cut out some of the context, it is still unfortunate that millions of people watching the show are walking away with a distorted and inaccurate idea of what OCD actually is.

I realized— I can just do things. Don’t need to be manic, don’t need to be lazy. I gave two weeks notice because my friends keep telling me to quit. longer ago my boss refused to pay me for over four weeks, told me I couldn’t drink water in front of clients and compulsively lies. And many more. I’m content. I feel so free.

Ok so I am diagnosed with autism, BPD, and bipolar disorder. I also struggle a lot with obsessive thoughts, take clomipramine for them, and my doctor literally said "well, you have OCD, so..." even though he doesn't put it in my chart for some reason. Anyway, my diagnoses are very important to me - especially the autism and BPD ones. That's because, I believe, since I already struggle a lot with an intrisic formulation of my identity and value because of BPD, external frames of reference like roles, interests and diagnoses can help me give some coherence and organization to the internal chaos. It also doesn't help that my main hyperfocus/special interest is Psychology and psychiatric disorders themselves. And also, I have been chronically invalidated in the past, told to suppress and never talk about features pertaining to my disorders (especially bipolar).
All of that makes it so that my most frequent obsessive thoughts by far are related to this subject - "what if I'm faking it all?" "what if I'm misdiagnosed?" and the one that has been personally bothering me most lately: "what if my therapist 'undiagnoses me' with BPD?". It's such a dumb fear to have. Like, it shouldn't matter this much. But it does. And I really wish it didn't, I really do. I feel so dumb for having such an attachment to my diagnoses but I can't really help it; at least not until I learn to construct a more solid identity on my own (which seems impossible right now). It also leads me to think I should be distressed and having symptoms 100% of the time because if I'm not having them, it means it was all made up and/or they would take the diagnoses away from me. I feel like I constantly have to "prove" I really have BPD and bipolar (autism not so much because it's the most outright obvious one) in order to not have them invalidated or taken away. And I hate it, I really do. I despise my thoughts and fears.

I suffer from health OCD, and I have PCOD. Thyroid problems also run in my family, so thyroid disease is already one of my biggest health fears. I had my thyroid checked in July and everything was normal.
Today I saw a video of a girl with PCOD and hyperthyroidism whose eyes had become really bulging/protruding because of her condition. Seeing her eyes and how much her appearance had changed completely triggered me.
Now I’m panicking and obsessing over the thought that this could happen to me someday. I keep imagining my own eyes becoming like that and checking/reassuring myself that my thyroid is okay. I know this is probably my health OCD, but the fear feels so real right now.
Has anyone with health OCD experienced something similar? I really need some reassurance because I’m freaking myself out.

How can I improve this kind of anxiety? Even when I try to ignore it, I just can’t. The thoughts keep coming back, and I end up getting more anxious.

I’ve not been diagnosed with OCD but i’m absolutely certain i have it and i wish i knew what it actually meant when i was younger and struggling more instead of simply thinking it was “obsessive cleaning”. One thing i’ve obsessed over is death and not particularly my own, but losing my loved ones. Years ago i had a few weeks where i essentially sent myself into a spiral convincing myself my mother was going to die and nothing i did would stop it. It literally took over my life. Even now, i have to check her location constantly. If she’s in the car and her location doesn’t move, i will freak out and assume she’s crashed. i do the same thing with my siblings.
However, today i can feel the anxiety/obsession about death creeping back up. I found out that a classmate of mine from childhood suddenly passed away. One second she was a healthy 23 year old abroad with her family, then she catches a temperature and dies immediately. This has really shaken me. I just can’t comprehend life ending so fast. A couple years back another classmate died in a car crash and that sent me into a bit of a spiral aswell. Im not sure if im explaining myself properly. Just wondering if anyone has any advice or has gone through the same thing?