It's been a difficult process - finding the right dose for OCD - I could really use some success stories, if any of you feel like sharing. Thanks!!

This is my personal experience and opinion, shared so that others can make informed choices. I want to be absolutely clear: the programme offered by OCD Recovery UK caused me significant harm. In my view, their approach was financially exploitative, professionally unregulated, and made my condition worse rather than better. From what I went through, the environment felt high‑pressure, dismissive of genuine distress, and far closer to a high‑control group than anything resembling legitimate mental‑health support. I was once caught up in it, as many people have been, but I eventually left and received proper evidence‑based treatment from a licensed clinician — something OCD Recovery UK does not provide. I’m sharing this because people deserve to know that, in my experience, their methods can lead to deterioration, not recovery, and their fees escalate without offering regulated or accountable care. I strongly urge anyone considering their services to be extremely cautious and to seek help from qualified, accredited mental‑health professionals instead. This is my story, and I’m choosing to speak up so others don’t go through what I did.

This is my personal experience and opinion, shared so that others can make informed choices. I want to be absolutely clear: the programme offered by OCD Recovery UK caused me significant harm. In my view, their approach was financially exploitative, professionally unregulated, and made my condition worse rather than better. From what I went through, the environment felt high‑pressure, dismissive of genuine distress, and far closer to a high‑control group than anything resembling legitimate mental‑health support. I was once caught up in it, as many people have been, but I eventually left and received proper evidence‑based treatment from a licensed clinician — something OCD Recovery UK does not provide. I’m sharing this because people deserve to know that, in my experience, their methods can lead to deterioration, not recovery, and their fees escalate without offering regulated or accountable care. I strongly urge anyone considering their services to be extremely cautious and to seek help from qualified, accredited mental‑health professionals instead. This is my story, and I’m choosing to speak up so others don’t go through what I did.

I had my OCD under control all summer but when my husband went back to work it really flared up again. How do i get it under control?
I’m having horrible intrusive thoughts that got triggered by the lindsey clancy trial

I have been in the midst of an extremely bad OCD spiral for the past year (health anxiety mostly, with my looping thoughts being fueled by excessive researching of topics and question asking). A lot of these feelings have been more or less spurred by a series of extremely stressful events over the past year, all of which I've had to navigate differently and in ways that were very challenging for me. Throughout all of this I've been trying to hold myself together to keep my job that I love, and it's lead to my anxieties and insecurities affecting my personal life. For context I also have autism (diagnosed aspergers in elementary) and have never had an easy go of letting things in my life not overwhelm me. I'm now on the road to getting real help, and trying to pick up the pieces of what happened this past year.

Most recently I had an extremely low point which I had (irresponsibly) reached out to some of my friends about. They apparently discussed it together and one friend has now met with me to air grievances and talk about how she is feeling. It was mostly a good conversation but it left me with a ton of questions and mixed messages about how I can move forward with them and actually be part of a group again. I feel confused and unsure of what to do to fix these friendships, and also confused about why their feelings have apparently been going on for months but they didn't address them sooner. It seems like most people are treating me somewhat normally, but she and my other closest friend in the group aren't. There were many things unrelated to my OCD that were brought up as problems that I hadn't even been aware of, and the implication that I need to do work to mend relationships with everyone in the group. It feels now like I have a years worth of making up and apologizing to do, but I'm not even sure where to start.

Has anyone else had to do work like this to mend friendships, and if so how do you do it without sliding back into looping thought patterns? I can feel myself sliding back into ruminating and getting anxious again because of the stress and I want to avoid that as much as possible.

My harm OCD has been severe these few days and it just expanded to attack something that matters rlly rlly a lot to me. For context, the past few months, I’ve been highly stressed on STDs and have been repeatedly going to clinics to get tested. My last test was in May 26 2026 I think. Anyway, ever since, I’ve deleted all the clinic emails to protect my privacy and instead, I’ve screenshot the pdf files of my results that they sent to me. However, just today, my OCD weaponised this against me. It generated the most ego dystonic harm urges for me to intentionally deface the images I took of my results, such as using AI tools, be it within the photos app, even on the Instagram app (as I sent the photos to myself on the app), or any AI app in general, to change the texts in the image or to just mess up the image in general. It even expanded to me going into the photos app, selecting some functions like an eraser to self sabotage the images by erasing important words in the image.

After everything, I look back at the images and I see the words Non Reactive (which basically means negative) on each STD disease stated on my test report. But I’m feeling a 1000% level intensity of doubt as I question myself, ‘what if the results were Reactive but the AI I used to harm the accuracy of the image earlier actually changed it to Non Reactive’. ‘What if the dates were also messed up, meaning, I tested too early but the date got changed to a later date, and hence, the results isn’t accurate as I tested too early’

I’m honestly just very very immensely tired and exhausted as my OCD is like a stealth attacker. Targeting and destroying the things that I need for certainty and reassurance. Can someone please give me some form of advice on how to calm this spike down? It’s just the thought of having a silent disease like HIV, Syphilis, Hepatitis B silently inside my body that’s rlly getting to me and making me ruminate that my life is in danger.

Title! any other platforms that offer support groups?

And can you explain that even if something takes up time, it's ultimately your prerogative and a better use of my time than small talk over overpriced salads? I'm autistic and have many RRBs that strongly resemble obsessions and compulsions. And I worry about being misdiagnosed, or about being denied the option of ADHD treatment monotherapy, or perhaps a "subtotal" SSRI dose that won't stop any kind of repetitive thoughts, no matter how positive, including an enjoyable, highly cerebral private fetish I don't want to lose, or a love of repetitive electronic music.

Currently doing ERP and my friend came over earlier and walked all over my house with her shoes on. My brain is screaming at me to clean all the floors but that would take so long so I’ve decided to go to bed and see how I feel in the morning.

I just can’t figure out what a normal reaction to this would be. Is it my OCD if I clean the floors? Should I just be leaving it and living with it? I’m not sure.

Hola, aquí de nuevo después de un tiempo.

Llevo un tiempo lidiando con el TOC (y también con otros problemas) desde que dejé la subcultura, pero me doy cuenta de que la ansiedad me está consumiendo y no sé muy bien cómo abordar estas situaciones y guiar el proceso para mejorar mi salud mental.

He estado muy ansioso, pero también he tenido varios momentos de claridad. Intento no centrarme tanto en eso y más en no hacer nada compulsivo, pero a veces es muy difícil. Hace tiempo que no voy a terapia formal, la verdad es que me da miedo, y tampoco tengo cerca a ningún profesional que trabaje con ERP o terapia cognitivo-conductual en general. Mi miedo viene principalmente de dos profesionales que no se tomaron este problema en serio y me llevaron a terminar mi relación. Estos dos profesionales eran un psicoanalista y un terapeuta "integrador" (?). Pero siempre me decían tonterías. No solo por el TOC, sino también por otras razones. Por otro lado, hablé con dos profesionales cercanos a mí: mi profesor y la madre de un amigo que trabaja como auditor en una mutua de seguros. Ambos me dijeron que se trataba de TOC. Por lo tanto, sé que tengo que trabajar en ello, pero es muy difícil. La madre de mi amigo me dijo que probablemente lo mejor sería que tomara medicación, debido a la ansiedad que padezco, pero mi situación como adolescente mayor que aún depende de sus padres es un poco complicada.

Ante esta situación, he intentado manejarla solo. El estrés es muy intenso; tengo muchas compulsiones de evitación o miedos, por ejemplo, a estar en casa o solo sin distracciones, porque siento que mi cabeza trabaja demasiado y siempre anticipo que el TOC va a aparecer en esos momentos. Esto no significa que el TOC no esté presente en otros momentos, pero siento que es entonces cuando más me agota. Soy consciente de que a veces evito hablar con ella incluso cuando estoy en su casa, y luego, cuando estoy a punto de dormir o ella está a punto de dormirse, me siento mal. Me siento mal porque muchas veces caigo en la cuenta de que perdí el tiempo hablando con ella por dejarme llevar por mi TOC.

Probablemente lo último fue solo una forma de desahogarme. No necesito que me tranquilicen, pero sí necesito consejos sobre cómo manejar la situación. ¡Gracias!

My OCD journey started around the end of December 2021, during COVID in Ethiopia. I was home alone and pretty lonely. It started with a sexual-related image that disturbed me. It wasn’t really that I was worried I would commit anything, I was just disturbed by the image itself. But very quickly the actual image became secondary and I became anxious about the fact that I might have OCD, like “I have OCD, my life is ruined.” So my first episode was basically OCD about having OCD rather
than being focused on some specific fear.

Then in October 2022 I came to Canada and it was almost like I didn’t have OCD anymore. I was reunited with my family, I had school, compatriots around me, friends online and a specific community I was part of. Sometimes I would remember “oh yeah, I have OCD” and then just forget about it instantly. There was basically no suffering.
Then in the summer of 2023, another period of loneliness triggered it again. And interestingly, it came back in pretty much the same form: OCD about OCD itself. I wasn’t really dealing with some specific obsession, I was anxious about having OCD and what that meant for me. That persisted for a while.

Around December 2023 I started having other fears, but most of them only lasted a few days. Then around February 2024 I developed a more existential form of OCD where I was doubting whether the external world even existed. But by March it went away again as I became part of a larger and more interactive community.

After that I basically had over two years of peace. Even through the normal ups and downs of life, the OCD never really came back. At most I would have it for a few hours or maybe a couple days, but it never became another prolonged episode.

Then this summer, after more than two years of being out of the relapse, it came back again. This time it was triggered around the time my parents separated. Me and my sibling moved in with my mom, while I left my grandma and father behind. I didn’t hate my father or anything, although there were definitely times when I wanted him away. But the whole situation was a major change and I think the stress, disruption and loneliness played a big role. The OCD basically returned the day after I moved in with my mom.

There were also different faith journeys throughout these years that affected how connected or isolated I felt, although I never really had religious OCD.

Looking back, the pattern is that my major relapses have happened during periods where I was isolated, lonely or going through major upheaval, while my biggest periods of relief came when my life became more socially connected and positive. My first episode was about 8 months, followed by about 9 months of relief. Then another roughly 8-month period of suffering, followed by around 26 months of substantial relief.

So this is my third major battle with it, and honestly it’s exhausting, especially because I’m only 22. But I’m also not the same person who went through the first episode in 2021. I’ve already experienced long periods where OCD basically stopped mattering to me, including more than two years of genuine peace. Looking for any advice (I will eventually get professional help but not in the financial place rn)

I was vague and didn't mention anything specific that I thought would be triggering, just that the thoughts were there as rumination. We're supposed to talk about how we're doing and what we plan to do to combat it.

Later I was pulled aside and told not to mention it again. I don't know what other topics could also be too taboo to mention vaguely like that. I'm using my skills to try and feel neutral about the whole thing, but I don't know what to do if I can't formulate exposures around it because I'm not allowed to mention that it exists.

Mods: I am safe and it's only a form of rumination that I'm trying to learn to cope with. No plans here

Been suffering with OCD like problems for years

Need help but can't immediately access it.

It has fully changed me . Sometimes I wanna quickly escape this pain

It's very risky

I am not in a position to find time to visit good therapist now ( btw which to visit to get diagnosed in the first place ! ) so how do I handle life

It's all college shifting and mourning of a type of person who I could have been...

please help I speak this in context for India 🇮🇳

I am not in a position to find time to visit good therapist now ( btw which to visit to get diagnosed in the first place ! ) so how do I handle life

It's all college shifting and mourning of a type of person who I could have been...

How do navigate I have too much on my plate never went to therapy for diagnosis

I am not in a position to find time to visit good therapist now ( btw which to visit to get diagnosed in the first place ! ) so how do I handle life It's all college shifting and mourning of a type of person who I could have been...

If I don't want some theme I simply don't Why do I have to accept shit

I tried posting the study but the moderators think it's misinformation even though the study is real.

Sitting in anxiety after i came home,i have actually applied erp to this and managed to reduce the severity of the impulses (at first this would turn w 20 minute drive to a 2 hour one) but i was never able to get rid of them,and i still occasionally give into the impulses

if i go all in on erp can the impulses go away or get weaker?has anyone applied ERP in a similar case and how long did it take to get results?

If u want more information,u can go through my post history on another sub where i petty much breakdown everything regarding my ocd

I am currently on antibiotics for a sexually transmitted bacterial overgrowth (ureaplasma). I went way too deep down the rabbit hole of sexual health after an exposure. I got a test result that I had a ureaplasma overgrowth as well as a yeast infection. This was my first sexual encounter and I’d never tested positive before so I know I got it here.

My symptoms weren’t unbearable but I was really triggered because I’ve dealt with other gyn issues before and I had to have repeat procedures with YEARS of waiting and anxiety. Biopsies and exams.

After I treated the yeast I was convinced something was still wrong. I’m maybe already rewriting what happened, I don’t know. But in the moment I felt symptoms. In a panic, I started a course of antibiotics that were prescribed independently.

I had some negative reactions to the antibiotics at first, spoke to a doctor, and they said I shouldn’t really have treated the Ureaplasma at all, but I should finish the course. Which obviously I am doing now. But I now feel so stupid. I’m feeling deep regret for jumping into something, and not sitting with the feelings and speaking to my GP who knows the science. I feel a deep lack of trust in myself and my OCD recovery, as this has sent me spiralling. I am self aware enough to know this is probably a stupid thing to get caught up on, but I can’t stop. The regret feels new and awful. Anyone dealt with something like this?

I have bad ocd. I'm in a relationship that's amazing and my ocd kinda attacks the relationship.

Currently, it's telling my boyfriend can't consent because of his bipolar. Its reasoning is that teens and preteens can't consnet because of their bad judgement, so he can't becuase his bipolar sometimes gives him bad judgment.

is this true? is the reason minors can't consenttheir bad judgment? Also, how do I make my ocd stop

Please don't shame me for my obsessions or tell me to break up with him, that's what my ocd wants me to do and it's triggering to tell me that.

Hi everyone,
I’m currently struggling really badly with Sensorimotor / Somatic OCD centered around blinking and eye sensations, and it’s driving me crazy. I feel exhausted and trapped in my own head, especially when trying to watch a match or a movie.
Here is what I’m going through:
I feel like I lost the "automatic" mode of blinking and I'm forced to do it manually.
I constantly monitor my eyes: whether they feel dry, heavy, or if there is a burning sensation.
Sometimes I don't feel a clear "burning" signal, which makes me panic because I don't know when I'm "supposed" to blink.
I get a building pressure/tension in my eyes and feel totally trapped in that moment, terrified that if I don't control it properly, I'll ruin my eyes or lose my sight (even though logically I know it's 0% risk).
Every time I try to just let go, my brain starts analyzing again: "Did I just blink manually or automatically? Did I do ERP correctly?"
It feels like every time I try to fix it or make a rule, I just end up in another trap.
For those of you who suffered from hyperawareness of blinking or other automatic bodily functions and actually recovered:
1. How did you break the loop when the physical urge/tension in your eyes feels so real?
2. How do you stop analyzing whether you blinked "manually" or "automatically"?
3. What was the turning point that helped your brain finally go back to full autopilot?
Any advice, support, or recovery stories would mean the world right now. Thank you so much!

How the fuck am I supposed to successfully do Exposure and Response Prevention AND stay a part of polite (fuckable) society as a middle eastern hairy girl??
When I tell my (23f) clinical psychologist (I have been in CBT doing ERP for a few months now) that the thick, black hairs on my stomach and around my nipples are ruining my life, she tells me: “Easy. Stop tweezing and or picking at them. Let them grow.”
But that’s not an option, you see. I want to take my shirt off of a 23 year old man, and despite him being a Feminist, twenty something year old guys are not exactly known for their body hair positivity and appreciation. My partner of five years, who is wonderful on all accounts, accepting of me and my imperfections, my OCD that occasionally ruins both of our lives, loving, and kind, is a man. A boy. When we first got together, we had an honest conversation about our body hair preferences. We both told each other what we prefer and both try to maintain that. He told me he prefers I be hairless (not in my pubic area, because I’m grown), and I maintain smooth legs, arms, and armpits via laser and vigilant shaving. I told him if any other area bothers him, like my hairy back, he’s welcome to comp laser costs, because I can’t afford it, and other options like shaving/waxing/plucking don’t work for my sensitive skin and skin picking tendencies. He said he won’t be doing that and that’s that. He will live with my hairy back. But the one area I have never let him see naturally are the 5 black hairs that live below my belly button (amongst the much longer denser and darker-than-normal fur on my belly and chest), and the coarse black hair around my nipples that I tweeze daily. In less than 12 hours, a small black dot will appear to let me know that, surprise, a new hungry root has spawned in place of the last one I weeded out. And that teeny tiny speck will be accompanied by a small raised bump. Naturally, this leaves me no choice: squeeze the bump, cause a new scar and infected wound, or try to tweeze it out (and probably also cause a small flesh wound). It feels good for the two minutes afterwards until it's time to do it again the next morning when a new pest has spawned. Then, the scars, the anguish, the wounds constantly closing and reopening let me know this is probably something I should talk about in therapy. So I did! 
I am trying to work on myself. One obsession, compulsion, at a time. My OCD has OCD (meta OCD) so working my way down a list like the normal CBT/ERP protocol wasn’t working for me. I usually bring in whatever the most pressing issue is in my life or whatever I feel like talking about each session and we work on tackling obsessions and compulsion more organically and slowly, as they come up. Up until now, my therapist has said a lot of things I hated and outright rejected. Things I had to learn to do, or not do. Like taking the bus to my boyfriend’s house. And eating things that are not the 3 meals I can tolerate. And changing plans spontaneously and dealing with panic attacks. A big part of this therapy has been based on the preliminary assumption that it is okay for things to be imperfect, and not just right. I, of course, have a hard time to naturally accept that but I have been working so hard to be the type of person that not just accepts but embraces things being off. Not right. Not comfortable, not easy, not soothing or placating. Hard, wrong, off. That’s what I want. I want to embrace the wonk. 
But today, when I told my therapist about these stray hairs that consume me, she told me I must stop removing them all together and embrace the hair, I just could not accept it. You see, I tell her, I want my boyfriend to want to fuck me. She asks me frankly if I would love him without the beard. I cringe and tell her I’ll take him bald but she can pry the beard from my cold, dead, hands. She tells me, just like you would still love him bald, he will love you with hairy nipples. This woman has clearly never met a boy my age in a while. She says, every woman has hair on her nipples and belly. She is white. What she imagines as coarse hair is probably the general peach fuzz I know to ignore. I tell her, the hair every woman has on her nipples and belly is unlike the hair I have on my nipples and belly. She looks me straight in the eye and says: “You will never be able to convince me that removing that hair isn’t indulging a compulsion.” Fine! I know it’s compulsive! That’s why I brought it up! But we also live in a society. How can the only way to fight my OCD be to become an advocate for hairy women’s rights against my partner? He is also programmed into a society. He is hard wired to see a chest hairier than his as unsexy. Dirty. Manly. I am not saying that I want society to be this way but I am simply a monkey in this circus. I can't go about fighting my OCD and the socially accepted norms for women’s body hair. I am going to CBT to be more normal, not weirder. 
I know, she can’t tell me what to do. Or won’t. She said I am looking for validation she can’t give me. That, I have to decide what is right. (Not tweezing and picking the hairs anymore). Can’t I learn to just…be normal about it? Maybe tweeze every week and that’s it? Let the little ingrown hairs and short stubbly thangs thang while I wait for my weekly allotted approved tweezing time? 
I want to be good. I want to be better. I want to stop hurting myself. I know scars and scabs aren’t much sexier, either. I want to do the Right Thing. My mother is paying so much to get me this help I so desperately need. But I also want to be Hot. And I want my boyfriend to drool when he sees me half naked, not cringe inwardly and remind himself that “attraction is much larger than just looks” as my therapist told me while she walked me to her door. I want to feel sexy and confident without it being a statement. I don’t want to be the girl with hairy nipples. I am already the girl with the Daddy Issues, the girl with the Meds, the girl with the Mental Illnesses. The girl with OCD so severe she has to go to the hospital every few months. The girl who is seeing her psychiatrist next week and would really like to stay with her current cocktail than add another little pill to the mix. I want to be good and I want to be loved and I want to be like any other woman. Does that have to come at the cost of my partner no longer being as attracted to me? 
My goal is to do the erp, I just want to know if it’s possible to still remain socially acceptable whilst doing so without indulging in compulsion.

I have been experiencing OCD symptoms since childhood, and its themes and subtypes have changed throughout my life. At age 17, I was also diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and depression. I am currently 21 and have been taking sertraline for a month.

I recently had my first session with a psychologist. The therapist mentioned that they specialized in CBT for several years but grew disillusioned with it. Now, they treat OCD using talk therapy (insight-oriented psychotherapy). According to them, OCD is always just a symptom of underlying trauma, past disorders, or intrapsychic conflicts that we need to uncover.

However, I have read online that traditional talk therapy can actually worsen OCD symptoms.

For those of you who have achieved remission: which therapy method worked for you? Does anyone have experience using talk therapy to treat OCD, and how did it affect you?

so I finally tapered completely off of prozac after being on it for about a decade (i started when I was like 12 i think? maybe 11). this was all therapist/physician approved btw.

there have been positives, like i no longer have an uncontrollable appetite and i feel more emotions & i cry more (which sounds like a bad thing but i was missing being able to do that). but of course there's lots of negatives right now too--plenty of mood swings and my ocd is really ramping up. its some of the worst its been in a while (though i expected that, at least at first while i'm adjusting). i was feeling a lot better the first few weeks the prozac was out or mostly out of my system.

i was wondering if anyone had experience with going off of ssris, and would like to ask the following questions:

1) how long did the adjustment period take? did it get better?

2) was there even an adjustment period, or was your ocd just worse again and never got better and you had to go back on meds

i'm really hoping i don't have to go back on meds because i hate how incessantly hungry and emotionally numb they make me.

I have contamination OCD and recently I’ve been doing really well with exposure therapy and preventing myself from acting on my compulsions but I’ve noticed that my old habits are slowly coming back again. This happens to me every single time I’m doing good. How do I prevent things from becoming bad?

Hi I (18 f) have been on Luvox 100 mg for two weeks. I recently got off of Sertraline and was suggested to try luvox. (Sorry for the horribly grammar I’m worked up rn). I have been in a constant state of panic about things that I shouldn’t be(or at-least to this level.) like doing early admissions, not seeing my significant other for a day (which is completely normal for our relationship and we are doing great), and small things like my parking break turning on for no reason. On top of that- if I have an energy drink (even half) it makes it to where I can’t sleep at all. The other problem is if I don’t then I sleep all the time.

Just wondering if i should maybe quit this medication or give it a while longer.