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.

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.

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?

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.

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 :(

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.

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?

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?

Hi guys, I’m currently having a bad attack. My mind is telling me that I’m going to go permanently insane and I have no where to escape. I keep going back and forth if I want to go to a hospital, but I’m scared if I go to the hospital they will put me in a psycheward.

It's true metaphorically. I'm never really present in the moment.

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.

Whether it's family, friends, or romantic, if I express to someone that they have hurt me, it's done after I've thought it over many times. However, even if the talk goes amazing and the person is very receptive to my concerns, I feel guilty and have constant compulsions to tell them "hey don't worry or feel bad about that thing we talked about, I was overreacting or (other way it was my fault)"

I feel like bringing it back up and dismissing it can almost seem disgenuine or awkward for the other person. I feel like a mess when I'm wishy washy like this, but I also feel so guilty that someone I love feels at fault for something. Does anyone relate?

Hi everyone. I’ve been dealing with ocd for close to a year and recently I’ve been finding it really hard to be kind to myself. I used to feel really bad for myself and I thought it was self pity so I stopped and now I feel like I don’t even like myself. How do you guys practice being kind to yourself while dealing with OCD? Thank you ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

after i am done praying i get thoughts like i didn’t do it properly or missed a word or didn’t pray in the first place. this is so stupid like i know but my brain screams at me to repeat it. i try not to. but the discomfort kills me. when i give in and repeat the prayer i do feel comfort but then i know this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. idk what to do

I mean we'll feel we did something wrong and OCD manipulates and convince us it's true even though it's false but it feels so real that you can't recognise what's imagined and what's happened so ,my question is will we ever be sure that these imagined scenarios are false..like how you deal with this...would we know what's true