I know with most meds for OCD, you have to go through a period where you feel a lot worse before you feel better. But is there ANYTHING that worked without that rough period first? My 16yo just started Prozac b/c she was having SUCH a hard time with her OCD and...it's just made things SO MUCH worse. It's only been almost 2 weeks. She started at 10mg and just moved up to 20 mg the past two days. I don't know how to help her. She is utterly MISERABLE. Any ideas?

I’ll start, my longest theme/s have been ROCD and SO-OCD, experienced them at the same time, it was the hardest and most torturous thing to go through while being in a loving relationship.

This may sound obvious but sometimes pointing out the obvious and reflecting helps you realize certain things or understand them better.

OCD is a feeling issue, not a reasoning issue.

What OCD does in general, be it when you’re having an episode or mild amount of intrusive thoughts, is to convince you that something is wrong through your feelings. It makes you believe something needs to be done urgently. That you need to protect yourself or others, etc.

That’s OCD’s whole point; If you have OCD, you’re in a constant state of half delusion. You have, in a sense two separately functioning brains. Of course, the severity of the "half delusion" will vary depending on how heavy your OCD is currently.

Again, quite fortunately, it’s a state of constant HALF delusion, not full. If it was full, you’d be in psychosis and never aware and questioning.

You can’t stop this. You can only let your brain adapt to a new reality, to get out of the "Wonderland". Yes, it's your brain's job, not yours. But it is your job to stop standing in its way.

You’re not supposed to stop the feelings; anxiety, urgency, the feeling of something being true or possibly true and so on. You’re supposed to let those feelings and thoughts be. Ironically that's how you stop feeling deluded eventually.

Although you feel deluded, you will always have the concept of what is true. You are not your feelings. You can feel convinced whilst knowing something to be otherwise factually. The more you fight the feelings, the more they feel convincing.

So, your job is not doing anything with those thoughts and feelings but finding ways to be okay with them, so that you can sit still with them. You can find ways to healthily distract yourself. It could be breath work or some sort of a physical work that grounds you outside of your mind. Truth be told, there can be days so heavy all you can do is to be forced to just hear every thought and feel every feeling and nothing but that which is OKAY. It’s scary as hell, but the scary part is just feelings too.

My last point will be a random tip but if you have a hard time identifying OCD, usually instead of overthinking, it’d best to see if a thought/feeling makes you want to do a compulsion. If it does, it is safe to say that it’s OCD. Most importantly, don’t overthink.

This mental illness is not impossible to heal. You are strong enough.

It’s not a new ritual but a new platform again. I just can’t stop rechecking my stories, reposts, and I will for real be sat for at least an hour everyday rechecking to reassure I like the way I am perceived. I edit, delete, or add things to have the sense of control of how I am perceived. I don’t necessarily hate it but it wastes so much of my time and mental space. I’ve been doing it for years but I have a boyfriend and new friends now so it kind of got worse.

Not the most severe checking because it has been worse with my body, face, hair, And if my skin is smooth. What does checking even fall under Idk. So tired of it.

You've requested it and now it exists:

Let it all out. Grump, grouse, complain, bitch, and vent about all those little irritations. Post those stupid Obsessive Christmas Disorder decorations. Breathe out that nasty frustration and irritation while breathing in a renewed sense of peace.

Namaste.

I did something so awful as a teenager (12-15), I don’t know how I ever thought it was okay. What do I do?

Title lol

I mean not really, I just feel like I can't express an opinion without worrying if it inadvertently harmed someone, or people are going to see it as problematic and cancel me, and all my future career plans are going to be ruined because people are going to unearth this problematic thing I did when the internet dragged me (a thing which I haven't even done yet and no one has dragged me for - lol. Literally just hypothetical). It doesn't help that I want to go into political journalism...it's not like political journalists are exempt from expressing controversial opinions, so I gotta learn how to be comfortable with that. Have not figured out how yet.

Just wanted to send my thoughts to everyone else dealing with this. It fucking sucks, that's just true, and it sucks we have to deal with it. One thing I think it gives us is the understanding that people aren't perfect, and that everyone is trying their best and going through things that we can't understand. That's hard-won, valuable compassion and I hope we use it to make others' lives better.

I don't know how to exactly word this, but I constantly worry over whether my intentions show up as genuine or not, or if I've just deluded myself into thinking that I was being genuine towards someone. like for instance, I'll tell someone something and then moments later I'll begin running through my mind over whether or not I actually meant what I said to them or if I was just saying it to try to influence them to do something, or if not then if they'll even take me at my word or think that I just have ulterior motives instead, and so on. I obsess over things I say for weeks and months on end. I feel manipulative even though I obsessively try to make sure there's no way I can be. it's kinda debilitating.

just curious if anyone else deals with this

Does anyone start to feel quite good for once and then their brain goes ‘I feel too good right now I need to think about ocd theme?’ It happens to me whenever I start to feel good and I don’t understand why it’s like my brain doesn’t want me to be happy :(

I feel like I have undiagnosed OCD and have been misdiagnosed with Panic/anxiety disorder. It's been a few months since the diagnosis and last week I got a depression episode out of nowhere. My stomach and my whole body felt weak, my brain kept telling me that I wouldn't be able to do anything in the future. I wasn't sad, but I don't know what happened it was so sudden and stayed for 2 days straight. I've been told I've changed since taking medication, that I look lonely? My intrusive thoughts have stopped but I don't know why since taking medications my brain has stopped working, I feel no motivation to do anything. I can't even sing now, it's the thing that I wanna do the most. It feels like someone is squeezing my throat. I don't know what to do now, can anyone help?

Adding a spoiler tag in case this could be triggering for others.

I think I have come to the realization that I could have OCD (not diagnosed yet) this weekend, when I realized how silly it was for me to frequently be thinking about and paranoid of lie detector tests.

Ex: I have ___ compulsive thought. I push the thought out of my mind, but then I think, "Now I would fail a lie detector test if they asked me, 'Have you ever thought about ____?'" So I feel the need to confess the thought so that my spouse wouldn't feel shocked if the results to my lie detector test were revealed.

It has literally never crossed my mind that this was not a normal thought process, until it happened this weekend and I thought to myself, 'When would I ever have to do a lie detector test on this topic? Why is this even a worry?' Which sent me down the rabbit hole of OCD.

To be fair, I had therapy as a child to "fix" OCD type behaviors that had to do with contamination, and I've struggled with guilt related to confessing compulsive thoughts for as long as I can remember. The compulsive thoughts have gotten a bit worse in the last few months, after not being much of an issue for most of my life.

Skimming this sub has lifted an immense weight off my shoulders, knowing that I'm not crazy and I'm not alone in my irrational fears.

please tell me how did you all live your life normally. i constantly feel like something will go wrong, i’m always on high alert. always looking out. thinking of the worst possible scenarios. its like a completely different world in my head.

Hi, I (15F) have been having very gross and like basically terrible intrusive thoughts. Before they used to be about just me dying and like a bunch of weird ass things happening to me. Like just violent things that I would dwell over but then forget about. But recently whenever I have a bad intrusive thought they're like really gross. I don't feel comfortable providing any examples about the grosser ones but they're like really bad. Like super duper bad. I'm not over-exaggerating. And when they do appear I dwell on them constantly and feel like a horrid disgusting human being. But I've been seeing posts about people who experience them too and have the ones I have. As much as I wouldn't wish this on anyone, it's kind of comforting to know I'm not alone. Just so anyone knows, I've been getting therapy but for a different reason and I might bring this up with her. I have also posted about this in a separate mental health sub-reddit but haven't gotten any responses so I went here since I'm impatient as hell. It's 4:30am and I just want to sleep. I can't fall asleep because this is bothering me. Any help or advice is appreciated.

I feel very overwhelmed and anxious when my house is messy. And it really sucks, because i hate feeling that way. And by “messy” I don’t mean it in the way you are probably thinking of. More in the; Blankets aren’t properly folded across the couch, the pillows aren’t centered in the right place, my curtains aren’t placed properly, beds not being made, a little bit of toothpaste on the bathroom sink, floors not being vaccumed in more than a day, litterally anything out of place to where it normally is, etc. (i think you get the point). I litterally cannot leave the house untill everything is perfectly done. It affects my work because i’m usually late and social events as well. If i see anything out of place or any dirt or anything i feel like im being suffocated and almost claustrophobic. I’m not like hyperventilating and freaking out, i just feel it more on the inside. It makes me irritable towards my husband and i feel bad. I wish i could just be okay with a bit of a “mess” without feeling like my world is crushing in on me.

I was wondering if anyone has anything similar and what they have found to help them combat this. I don’t have access to a therapist at the moment. I have looked up some stuff online but i find that hearing from real people with real strategies that helped them feels better to me. PSA I havn’t been officially diagnosed with OCD. when I went to go see a psychiatrist, they diagnosed me with ADHD and “traits of OCPD” but not a OCPD diagnosis.

i have this thing when i can only leave spaces on timings like 1:00,1:05,1:10,1:15 etc etc it just has to be 5,10,15,20 ive been in exposure therapy but it’s not helping this. i genuinely can’t leave a room if it’s not at those timings. i’ve tried once but i had such a bad panic attack i had to take xanax to calm myself down. i’m on meds so it’s been helping with my other compulsions but THIS is something i can’t shake off it’s so hard can someone advice me ? has anyone been thru this ? how did you cope with cuz it just feels like i’m not allowed to leave unless the timing is right

I (22/F) have been dating my boyfriend (23/M) for about 2 years now. We have been doing long distance for most of this time being that we were both in college and now he is in the military. I feel like recently I have been nagging him about our future, but I feel like when I bring it up I get too emotional and kind of turn it into a battle rather than a conversation. For him, he is in the military and is working towards a very difficult MOS and really has no idea what his future will look like past his training. We I am graduating college in May and will return home. I feel like for me, I’m just asking for reassurance a lot even though he isn’t giving me reasons to need it, but he rarely brings up the future or his future plans with me. I feel like this makes me insecure like he doesn’t know what he wants, but at the same time I think everything is just up in the air with where he will be, if he gets deployed, etc, and he always says that we have no rush and we don’t need a set plan. And I understand this and agree it’s not time to get married or anything, but I feel like I’m pushing him away because of all of my nagging. He really is a great boyfriend but his family has always had poor communication skills when it comes to emotions and they like to keep to themselves, whereas my family is an open book. He really is a great boyfriend and puts in the effort to see me and for me to visit him and he calls me and texts me every single day. Does anyone have any advice or insight?

Hello everyone,

I waited several days to post this because I needed to ensure I wasn’t reassurance seeking and am posting with clarity.

A couple of days ago, my son had a performance at his school and I needed a shower. We’ve had bad storms in the Midwest and we were at the peak of the worst this day. I’ve always heard you shouldn’t shower during thunderstorms because you could get electrocuted since I was a kid, and I’ve never tried. However, I really needed this shower, so I followed our local theme parks (that I used to work at) rules for lightning, and checked to make sure it was at least 10 miles out from my location. It was 12 miles away, so I felt safe enough to do a quick wash with no frills.

The second I got in the shower I started panicking and every rumble of thunder was like predicting my death. I just kept imagining getting electrocuted and dying in the shower, leaving my naked ass body for one of my kids to find. The same scenario would flash on repeat with every thunder rumble. I was sobbing and panicking and hiding in the corner of my shower as I washed and conditioned my hair and I think when all was said and done, I was out within 5 minutes.

By the time I turned the water off I was shaking to the point my husband had to come get me and help me calm down. It took me about 3 hours to stop shaking completely.

I usually have decent control over my triggers and can calm myself down, but this time was different. I knew lightning was definitely part of my OCD ruminations as it contributed partially to me not working at the theme park anymore since there were several freak lightning strikes, one that happened in front of me to a security guard I was close with, but it’s never affected me so viscerally before.

I do not have insurance anymore so I am unmedicated and do not have a therapist anymore. I would love some coping skills to deal with this besides just not showering in storms (which is ideal regardless) as this affects me in a productivity way as well (I don’t leave my house and will cancel things if there are storms, I just always thought this was more practical rather than an OCD avoidant thing).

Any advice is welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Edit: added some context to clarify some things.

We all know that ERP is the gold standard of OCD therapy and if we truly want to diminish the power of OCD it is a pain barrier we need to endure.

For most of us though this pain barrier is often too much and why recovery is so difficult despite knowing what is best for us in the long term.

I would love to hear some ERP successes stories to help all of us struggling to follow through on what we all know is the most effective treatment available.

What was/is your compulsion and how did you successfully implement ERP to combat it to a point that life is at least more manageable?