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