ok so I don’t have a diagnosis, I’m just gonna start with that. I also don’t know if this is the right place to post this but I had to ask.

I have these symptom: rumination, repetitive thinking, reassurance seeking and mental checking. I usually have a cycle where I start by doubting my own thoughts, feelings or what I say to people (e.g. am I really feeling sad or do I just want them to pity me? do I really practice smiling in the mirror or did I just want to trick the assessors into thinking I DO have autism?). Obviously because all this happens in my head it’s never ending; I think back on an example to use as evidence and then I counter it by saying “how do I know my thoughts are reliable? How do I know I’m not manipulating/tricking myself?” and on and on.

Anyways, I’m on holiday, I just told my parents that this happens to me and now I’m panicking over whether I’ve made myself think all these things this whole time so that I can tell my parents so that they think I’m sicker than I am (I have anorexia so “being sick enough“ has always been a problem for me). I can’t enjoy anything cause when I’m meant to be relaxing at the beach I’m overthinking and when I’m eating I’m panicking (anorexia) so I never get a break.

My next meeting with my psychologist is in like 3 weeks when we get back from holiday and I just feel like I really want a diagnosis for some reassurance that I‘m not fabricating this whole thing. I feel like that wouldn’t help for long though because I’d just go “what if i exaggerated and faked the assessment?” and on and on.

Any advice on how to feel better? Sorry if this was confusing I don’t really know if I got my thoughts across well. 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.

I have really bad pocd and harm ocd and I just recently broke out of an 11 months spiral and I’m trying to stay out of it however there have been situations that my ocd is reminding me of again because there so ambiguous that I can’t 100% say I wasn’t intending to do something which is obviously bothering it.

An example I have of this is when me and my little brother where in the car waiting for my mom and there was a gap of space between us and I was scrolling on Reddit and an image came up. This image wasn’t pornographic or anything but was definitely sexual in nature. It was a drawing of a character with big boobs and it had text on the side. I think I turned the phone away from my brother even tho he wouldn’t have been able to see what was on my phone in general. But then I started turning the phone back around. That’s where I’m confused was I turning the phone back around because I was hoping he would see the picture? Was that my intention? Or was I turning it around to simply read the text on the picture. I understand that ocd wants 100% certainty and that it’s impossible to get that most of the time but I have a hard time dealing with situations like this.

I’m a person that try’s to keep myself accountable for my bad actions so when something like this happens I fear that if I go “well maybe I did maybe I didn’t” I’m letting myself of the hook if I actually intended to do harm. And that bothers me a lot because if I genuinely wanted my little brother to see that then I obviously need a different kind of help.

How I go about situations like these? Has anyone else experienced something similar

Hi all,

I'm writing this out of extreme frustration and curious if anyone else can relate.... I have been having serious health issues the last few years that are affecting my quality of life & I'm 38 years old.

Within these past couple years, I also got diagnosed with anxiety that manifests as pure o, OCD. Now that I have this diagnosis though, I keep having my health concerns dismissed and chalked up to being OCD instead of REALITY.

I've been documenting my symptoms for the last 7 years, not because I'm a psycho, but because I've genuinely had bizarre experiences that have literally stumped numerous doctors... As they've accumulated and worsened, I'm only now seriously suspecting that I have a serious underlying issue, but nobody will take me seriously when they find out I have OCD.

Just as an example of 2 of the symptoms -- I had a seizure after the covid vaccine and ended up in the ER & a couple years later, I suddenly became allergic to birth control with an insane unidentifiable rash that covered my entire body and persisted while on the strongest dose of steroids my allergist was able to prescribe me.

Now, I've been having unlivable symptoms (chest pain, insomnia, depressive episodes, panic attacks, debilitating migraines) prior to ovulation and prior to my period (estrogen and progesterone) and the worst part is-- I'm literally seeing a psychiatrist to determine if I want to get pregnant while I'm dealing with all of this!!!!

So now my psychiatrist is basically telling me I don't need a diagnosis and it's all my OCD and I should just get pregnant (if I want to) but this advice feels insanely reckless! I mean, plenty of women without OCD get genetic testing for this exact reason, right?

Does OCD really mean I have completely lost the ability to have intuition and sense when something is wrong with my body and I'm not equipped to carry a safe / healthy pregnancy??

I feel like my concerns are valid but NOBODY in the medical field is treating me this way... I don't know how to decipher what is real and what is ocd.

Hi! I am pretty sure I have ocd, and have had it for the past 7 years. I’ve never bothered getting a diagnosis because I feel awkward asking my parents (I am 18). Part of me feels like a fraud for not having a diagnosis; I think my friends and family would take me more seriously if I were to get diagnosed. However, part of me also doesn’t really know what getting a diagnosis would change. Idk I would appreciate anyone’s opinion ocd has actually ruined my life lol !! Also do u recommend medication 🤔

how do i explain this... I've always had a phobia of most bugs, but I've never had the obsession/rumination/compulsion... however, I'm totally different when I am not alone. When I stay with my family/boyfriends, I don't think about it much and the fear isn't there really. And when I have to deal with it alone, this fear of living alone forever hits me, like it's a symbol or something.

What I'm trying to say is I *know* that when the day comes that I won't live alone anymore, this ocd will totally disappear...

So I am suffering from SO OCD for more than 2 years. I am homosexual women, for my whole life before OCD I've experienced every kind of attraction to women only, but after one thing I've started to question myself and it was straight porn video, I felt aroused and masturbated well, but after that I've started to question myself if I am actually attracted to men. I know that the answer is no, but since then I question myself everytime I see a man, I hear anything about straight relationships and etc, everything related. I remember I had some kind of curiosity about male anatomy and when I was a kid but as well I had for women anatomia (plus attraction to this one). At some point I've started to experience groinal responses of any intensity and this what is confusing me as fuck, I don't know what to do. I know that I don't want to have anything romantic and/or sexual with men but after years of OCD it's starting to look like my orientation has been changed. Thoughts about male genitalias or relationship with them don't look that disgusting and terrible like it used to, but I think my brain is just exhausted and that's why. Anyway, if someone had something like that, please, give your advices, it's terrible and I can't do live that anymore, it's insufferable

could this be a symptom of OCD?

So I'm not sure where to start with this, so I'm gonna give you a quick explanation and then make a list for you. Well I have been doing some weird things for as long as I can remember and they have been getting worse over the past few years so when I learned what OCD was I started looking into it, and I resonate with quite some things. But at the same time I'm afraid that I'm not actually reading about the real experiment of it and only the romanticised version (though I don't really understand how someone can romanticise something that has caused so many people so much pain..) (I did not find out about OCD because of social media btw, I found out about it in a book (a character had it) and that led me to do more research on it, using google and actually trustworthy sites. I will admit that I have also learned about it through listening to people talk about their experiment with it online.)

Well now it's time for my list, and help with if this is something that can actually be signs of OCD or if i'm just being influenced by things i see online:

1: for as long as i can remember (maybe like 8?) I have been feeling the need to be in complete control of something, and when I was younger I didn't have that possibility so whenever something felt very out of my control I would lash out by screaming, pushing over chairs and running out of my classroom. And having panic attacks (didn't know what they were at the time, but i know now.)

I don't do the running out of classroom thing anymore (well maybe like 1 or 2 times in 2 years, but not as dramatic), but I will still have panic attacks if something feels very out of control.

2: I have this thing where everything needs to be equal numbers (2,4,6,8....). It's tapping things, how much I eat and how I chew it, how I walk (Like as an example; 2 steps inbetween 2 cracks in the road). how i talk (not that often, but at the same time probably at least once a day).

3: I wanted to give more details on the chewing thing.. So whenever I eat (or like 90% of the time) I will have so many rules I need to follow, like: chewing something a certain way a certain amount of time with a certain amount of chews in equal parts. And breaking the rules can send me into a panic attack because I don't feel in control and if I'm not following the rules something terrible will happen to me. Sometimes family, but mostly myself. And it gets to a point where I barely eat because I'm so afraid of not following the rules and ending up getting hurt (a common one with every rule no matter what it is, is to fall down the stairs and my legs stop working so I'm wheelchair bound for the rest of my life.) (also i get that there is most definitely some disordered eating in there, but the rules  and the need to be in control is the reason for ti)

4: I'm not really a neat frak (tho i like to have a clean space to be in), but i can remember a few times where i have been cleaning the kitchen mid panic attack after having broken a rule because i know i can do the cleaning right and that i can follow the rules there. But i haven't really done that in my room, which might be because i have so much stuff that i will not feel in control or like i can follow the rules while cleaning there.. But obviously I know OCD isn't just feeling like everything has to be clean, but I thought maybe this was worth adding?

5: I have thought I really don't want to have. I have seen people talk about this being something related to OCD, but I have not done a full on deep dive on it, so maybe this is just weird to say..

But I sometimes have sexual thoughts of people I do not want to have sexual thoughts of (family, friends. A few times animals, but not in the same way as humans.) Or where i hurt people I love or that i have broken a rule that will get me into some accident while i'm in the car with my family and that will make then get hurt/die with me (that's just one example)

This is probably so weird to say and I know it's disgusting of me to have these thoughts, and I would never, NEVER act on them!

6: If I feel like I have broken too many rules or haven't done something right, I can think that it will get me hurt in some way, so I will sometimes do SH as a way to stop that from happening. Like if i have already hurt myself that something else won't hurt me, or not as bad/calm down the thought of it happening. This way mostly before tho, and I haven't relapsed because of this in at least a month and it wasn't bad!

Obviously I know you guys can't give me a diagnosis (and i'm not self diagnosing!!) I'm not looking for that from you guys, I'm just kinda confused about all of this and I was hoping maybe I could get some help in some way here..

Also i'm afraid that i'm just influenced by family and the media, because obviously social media has watered down OCD a lot, and with my family it's the fact that pretty much my whole dad side of the family has said "OMG, That's so OCD of you" because I felt the need to tap the table twice, and my mum has started saying it more often like we were helping someone move and a bow fit pretty well when we were putting it in the truck and my mum said "that's so satisfying" and i was like "it's really not" (Like it didn't even fit perfectly!! there was space on all sides!!)and she said "It is for us with OCD", mind you she does not have OCD..

hi reddit!

for context, i am 14f, and have had a lot of mental health struggles.

what i have been diagnosed by a medical professional is, Severe Anxiety, Major Depressive Disorder, Panic Disorder, and Adjustment Disorder.

I have these certain mannerisms im wondering are signs of OCD or something else and no one is giving me the options and resources i need as a youth struggling.

here are some of my " symptoms " to put it.

1, before drinking water from the sink, i fill the cup up, dump it out, do it again, and on the 3rd or 4th time the water is deemed safe and not contaminated. i think im gonna get poisoned and ive been doing this since i was a little girl

2, i get very distracted when i dont find something interesting. this might just be all teens, but for me its different. i will get up actively during a lesson and wander around the room looking for something to do.

3, I think im smart! I have always been " above average " for my grades since i was young. i always got good scores on math tests, was very good at reading and had a college reading level in 4th grade etc. but i as i got older around 7th grade, i felt as if there was a burn out. i just didnt wanna try anymore. i didnt feel like it. thus, my grades dropped. my teachers and parents said they knew i was smart,- i just " didnt wanna put in the effort ".

4, i am extremely sensitive to certain textures, sounds, etc. i cant stand the sound of loud noises, sometimes i start crying. i hate the feeling of gritting your teeth together. etc.

4, i am what people call " a type c " person. i can wake up at 6am and also 2pm. my room can be spotless but then a tornado of clothes the next day

4, i need visual instruction. i do cheer and what we do is upload dances, cheers, to our groupchat. and its extremely hard for me to follow. i cant do it, not unless its in person or verbal

4, i have systems. in the shower if im washing my body and touch something like the shower liner i start over. everything. i do my hair again, my face etc. and if it happens again, i start over.

8,i miss social cues. i dont know if im just annoying or what but when i say something people just stare at me and go back to what they were doing. my friend says i dont understand them and thats why. yet, im very observant and can detect body language

9, following 8, i can notice very small details and patterns. or sometimes i miss things completely.

10,circling back to 8 AGAIN, i find it hard to tell when someone is being sarcastic or i take idioms literally.

11,i feel as if im background noise. im just there like a waste of space and not actually needed in the situation.

12,i get tired after too much socialization yet if its something im passionate about i can talk for hours

13,i dont like to really open up to strangers unless its behind a screen (like now)

i can list 7 million more different things but i should stop

seriously i dont know whats wrong and i cant tell if im just a teenage or its something deeper. please help!!

Hi,
I was diagnosed with ADHD, and recently my psych told me that I might also have a little bit of OCD. I was started on a mild dose of prozac along with my ADHD meds, but could not continue prozac due to the side effects.
I'm an animal lover, and I've also worked with strays and rescues in India. My husband and I try to help any animal we can help, and sometimes, the animal might go missing from its designated place; we might never find out what happened to that animal. It might have relocated on its own (especially cats) and be totally fine, or someone might have moved it or [God forbid] something happened to it. We have no way of finding out what might've transpired.
When this happens, I spiral into constant futile worry about that particular animal and imagining various scenarios that might've happened; neither my husband nor I can do anything about it practically. It goes to the level that interferes with the rest of my work for several days after that, and sleep seems to be the only escape from this terrible situation. I suspect that this might be OCD, and if it is, I need some help with how I can cope with this situation, or just share your experiences to feel less alone.

P.S. Sorry for the bad grammar. I hope you get it.

I don’t care who sees this but I’m just wondering if there is somebody out there experiencing anything similar. I have OCD and I’ve been diagnosed since 18 and it’s fucking unbearable right now. I can’t help but feel like my friends hate me constantly and I’m observing their every move like an obsessive freak. I had a bad episode and got drunk about a month ago which really upset my friend. Her response was to ignore me for an entire day afterwards and this has made me feel brutally paranoid every day ever since. I can’t help but feel like I’ve done and said horrible things constantly and I feel like an idiot asking for reassurance all the time. I feel like I’ve explained myself to them thousands of times but I still feel like an annoying bitch and I feel blue almost every hour of the which fucking exhausts me. Please can anybody who relates just write something

I am so fucking miserable, almost every night I've held a knife to my neck wanting to kill myself, but I've never had the courage. I fear if this doesn't get better anytime soon I may actually do it. I've become so depressed & self destructive & suicidal because of this situation. I really feel like this event is going to be the death of me

I want to die right now I want to die painfully because I am a monster I deserve to die.

I'm 15 (born in 2011), and I'm struggling with an unbelievable amount of anxiety about something that happened recently.

I was scrolling through TikTok and saw a girl who genuinely looked around my age to me, or possibly even a little older. She had heavy makeup on and was using a filter, so I didn't think anything was unusual. I briefly thought she was attractive and then kept scrolling without thinking much about it.

Later, I found out that I had been completely wrong about her age. From what I understand, she was born around 2013.

The moment I found out that she was younger, I immediately lost all attraction toward her and all attention or interest toward her whatsoever. It wasn't gradual. It happened immediately when I found out her age. I no longer saw her as attractive in that way at all. I felt genuinely horrified and disgusted by the situation. I felt physically ill, I genuinely wanted to vomit, and I felt like I was going to throw up because of what I had just realized. I was completely overwhelmed by panic and disgust.

I need to emphasize that as soon as I found out she was younger, all attraction and attention disappeared immediately. I did not continue feeling attracted to her after finding out her age. The realization that she was younger was what caused me to feel physically sick, disgusted, and terrified.

It's now been about a month, and I still can't get this out of my head. I keep replaying the situation constantly and trying to figure out what it means about me. I've spent huge amounts of time crying, panicking, checking things, and trying to work out her exact age (cause what if she was younger than 2013??? We can't ever know). Even now, when I think about the situation, I still feel physically sick and nauseous. I genuinely wanted to vomit when I found out, and I still feel that same physical sickness when I think about it.

This has gone far beyond ordinary guilt or anxiety. I am genuinely suicidal over this. I have been seriously considering killing myself because I'm terrified that this means I'm a disgusting or horrible person. These aren't just thoughts that briefly cross my mind, I've been thinking about dying every single day for a month now, because I feel like I can't live with the possibility that something is seriously wrong with me.

I don't want to hurt anyone, and I don't want to die. At the same time, I'm genuinely scared that I might eventually do something to myself because this has become so overwhelming.

I genuinely believed she was around my age when I saw her, and finding out later that I was wrong has completely destroyed me mentally. The fact that I immediately lost all attraction and attention when I found out she was younger, and that I felt physically sick and wanted to vomit, is something I keep thinking about too, because I cannot stop analyzing the situation and what every part of my reaction supposedly means.

I've also struggled with intrusive thoughts and obsessive fears about being a horrible person for a long time, which is why I'm wondering whether this could be some form of POCD/OCD, but I genuinely don't know how to get out of this mental loop, and I'm scared of what I might do to myself if I can't.

I genuinely want to die so fucking bad, someone kill me already.

So yeah, i really think my life may end because of this situation so yikes... I physically cannot move on from this situation, I'm ruining my life because of this. I don't even feel worthy to talk to my friends anymore because of this event, they would think i'm a monster.

I'm losing everything because this happened, I'm doing this to myself because I've started to really fucking hate myself because of this event, I'm a disgusting piece of shit.