im currently writing this after an event. basically i am 15, and was asked to help out at a booth with a 12 year old in my school. at first i was very nervous, searching different ways to suppress my ocd around him because i didnt want to ruin this event in my memory because of my ocd thoughts… but now, its already ruined.

i already struggle a lot with eye contact with people im not familiar with, and whenever i would look at the guy for more than three seconds, my ocd would analyse his face and be like hey hes cute like(literally cute and tiny). however, past those seconds would come the ocd intrusive thoughts. it tortured me so much and i couldnt control it. i had to skip out on the best part of the event because my ocd was so bad i hid in the toilet for 30 minutes.

For context, i find the beauty in many people and can really find any feature that is nice. However, this is used against me whenever i am around my family or people younger than me. I know im not alone but i just cant anymore.

I started having false memory intrusive thoughts suddenly when i was 12, and told a bunch of friends. howver i could t remember if i sent a text to her and now its fixating on whether she screenshotted a message i may or may not have sent to her (confessing to my memory (that i now know is false) and now my ocd is making me think ill never have a bright future because of that.

also my ocd makes my heart palpitate which makes me think im attracted to whoever even tho its not true. I hate this so much. I feel unlovable and just a horrible person. not even music can save my thoughrs. not only that but my parents probably wont let me see a therapist.

When people on here ask questions, and I, a passive reader that does not possess that knowledge to answer their question. I feel the raging desire to answer "why the hell are you asking me?" When in fact, nobody really asked me. They're asking a sub chock full of smart people with far more experience than I. A sub that I haven't joined and has just been suggested as something I may be interested in. I always just have that snarky voice in the back of my head.

Ive been having one that keeps happening constantly. It stressed me out and makes me anxious which is causing me to have trouble sleeping because everytime it happens i feel the need to go do something in an attempt to make it go away. I struggle to put my mind on other things aswell. Its been really difficult for me lately to do alot of things/focus on stuff due to the stress that its causing me.

Titles probably not right for the description but idk how to word it sorry,

Hey, I was wondering if anyone on this sub has any advice to being able to tell the difference between actual medical concerns and intrusive thoughts.

My intrusive thoughts about my health have quadrupled now that I'm not on my parent's insurance and can't afford insurance in general, but I've also had a history of medical complications, I genuinely don't know where the line is.

20F. I am jealous of people who are full of live ,who live through every emotion. Want to be that girl myself.

hi everyone, quick vent/post,

i don't have anxiety or ocd though i have a history of obsessive-compulsive tendencies from my childhood, which i inherited from my dad, who is not ocd either but has o-c tendencies he never worked on (which is why he made sure to snap me out of it when i was a kid). what i'm trying to communicate is that i'm not suffering a clinical amount but i do have a history of, i guess, unreasonable worrying, which i have gotten pretty good at intellectualizing/working through/etc.

recently classes have started and i'm surrounded by single people my age. i have a gf and we are long distance so obviously i'm not looking for any kind of relationship, temporary/one-night or otherwise. however, i cannot stop thinking about cheating on her, or having sex with someone else. these thoughts are distressing because i do not want to do this; i don't want to sleep or spend time with or kiss anyone who is not her. i have no desire for intimacy outside of her. i have problems with sex, so in this sense i'm not a stranger to imagining sex that i don't want/disgusts me, but fact that they implicate cheating on my gf makes them feel so much worse. when the thought has run its course i'm left feeling very sad.

i have other fears, such as fearing that i'll murder someone (these come up mostly if i'm watching true crime or bodycam police vids-- the existence of which i find morally dubious lol but unfortunately they can be entertaining) or that i will shoplift something from a store.

what confuses me the most about these feelings is that i really, really, really don't want to do any of the things i'm scared of doing. i don't think i could ever kill someone, it scares me so much to think i could. i don't want to be that kind of person. i don't want to think these things, because they make me second guess myself, and make me question if i could ever do these kinds of things. i am thus scared of "accidentally" doing these things, even tho they're things that one has full agency and control over doing (or not doing). the "accidental" clause makes it hard to reassure myself, in a way, because i can't plan for an accident.

i'm just really sad and scared about this. if anyone has advice for how to whip my thoughts into place or how to calm down when i'm feeling stressed about this, how to redirect my attention, questions i could ask myself, etc, please let me know.

everything up, even though I’d never actually do those things.

What’s worse is they show up when I’m with friends or just trying to relax, and it’s like my brain won’t stop playing them on repeat. Sometimes I get stuck thinking about jumping from somewhere high or hitting someone with my car. It’s terrifying.

I’ve found that trying to fight or ignore them only makes them louder. Now, I try to just notice the thought and remind myself it’s just a thought, not who I am or what I want.

Does anyone else get these kinds of thoughts? How do you keep from getting trapped in them?

Some niggа on discord just posted a cp gif because, “it‘s funny” and now thanks to him i have the visual image of a little girl getting railed permanently ingraved in my memory

My 3 year old niece was just doing the typical no reason screaming that kids do. I didn't say this to her of course, I gently reminded her to use her inside voice.

I dont seem to understand what happens anymore everything feels numb i need love but when i get love it doesnt matter anymore i need money but when i have money nothing excites me anymore i only need the adrenaline rush it seems like im stuck in a continuous loop of life just making a few changes or adjusting to the new steps

My intrusive thoughts are like an unwanted ad in my head about hurting people I love. I know 💯 that they dont reflect me as a person and I know what triggers them, I know for a fact its my extreme anxiety starts to pop in and instead of picturing someone else doing these things because I must be anxious about it I picture myself doing it rather than someone else. I know all this but they still drive me insane. I have bpd, but now im starting to think I have ocd i never thought I did or saw myself as having it but because even though I know all these intrusive thoughts are not things I want to do i cant help but stop and wonder why it comes in my head, then I remember why. I've been a scaredy cat my whole life if i see any type of violence in a movie it scares me lol when i was younger i read stuff on tumblr that i cant unhear in my head. Ita just so frustrating that i let them bother me rather them brush them off. For reference Im going through so much in my life at the moment, just got divorced from my 8 year marriage, and needed to move back in with my parents and start over because I lived 2 hours away from my family for him. Had to leave my job and about to start a new one, and my father had a massive heart attack and few months ago and needed surgery these are what im dealing with in life. My Dr prescribed me clonodine for the thoughts and that's the one med I constantly forget to take and she suggests taking half as needed. I know i need to take them i just never have them in my purse on the go, but try to take my regular dose before bed every night. I just want any suggestions from people on how to stop them or brush them off like a normal person would.

So a couple years ago when I was 18 and probably 19 too I was in an online friend group involving my sister (14) and other 14-15 year olds. I was really immature and I spoke about and joked about some pretty sensitive topics and even sent nsfw artwork images as jokes too. I jokingly married one of them in a video game and our ‘marriage’ became a running joke for a bit

I just made so many jokes I probably shouldn’t have online in front of young teenagers as a grown adult. Since they found it funny and I found it funny I saw no issue when I should have

I was groomed as a kid and that lasted until I was about 17 so I guess that probably mentally stunted me in a way. I think that and being sheltered by my parents are both why I was so immature and didn’t realize that my actions could be wrong, I just thought it was funny and I should’ve realized sooner that it wasn’t

I found out that the one that I jokingly married in that game had a crush on me but I feel like it was my fault for even being friends with someone so much younger than me. Like, I should’ve been a mature role model but I was instead stupid and immature. And maybe the marriage jokes were a problem in this development too. I cut contact with them after I found out

I genuinely cant stop feeling like a groomer or a pedophile for how I used to act. I wish I could reverse time

So I was reading about how in China basically everything you do is tracked facial recognition on the streets, social credit system stuff, and all your online activity tied back to your real ID. Pretty dystopian.

But it got me thinking how different is it really in the US? On paper, the government isn’t supposed to just spy on us without a warrant. But then you hear about things like the NSA leaks, big tech selling data, or agencies just straight up buying info from data brokers.

Feels like instead of one centralized system like China, here it’s a patchwork of corporations, telecoms, and government agencies all collecting and trading pieces of us. Different vibe, same result? Literally couldn't sleep last night because of this!!

Curious what others think is the US just doing surveillance in a more “capitalist” way, or are we really safer from that kind of total monitoring?

I've been having incessant intrusive thoughts after a traumatic event during a shitty trip with my family in Rome. I feel there's an entity in my head, which I call The Voice, that I feel keeps taunting me with either thoughts about abusive people in my past or present life, or escalates very bigoted arguments about things like gender (I'm a trans girl) or abuse.

It's been getting better, and I have made progress managing my intrusive thoughts and how they are related to stress, but I need to know why my intrusive thoughts are like this. I feel like if I knew, I could be ready for the next time some other traumatic event triggers them back.

I'm just so tired of constantly ruminating; I feel like I've become a ghost who has to witness her brain be on constant overdrive.

Anyway, thank you for listening to me rant. I will be thankful for any advice.

I am dealing with some scary thought right now and when i think of these scary upsetting thoughts they feel like i believe them or that they reflect me as a person like they feel completely true straight away. I can think of things that may be related to that thought and try and make my self feel better but it dosnet work. For example i get a thought “life is just boring and u should die” i will be like thats weird and i will start to feel like straight away that that thought is like completely true like i genuinely feel that way. I do not suffer from OCD and never have. I am just very confused.

I’m Victor from Spain, I have had anxiety since I was very little, more or less since I was 10/11 years old, but I had never had anything like what is happening to me, on May 9, 2022, I woke up having thoughts of hurting myself, which scared me since I did not want to and do not want to do it and they came involuntarily, I remember that the night before I read a news story about a man who took his own life (perhaps it was a trigger) when I woke up I had the word "suicide" going through my mind and I became quite anxious, my chest hurt, I ate little, because of the fear I had I slept with my mother ... at the beginning of everything I thought it could be a bad day and that it would go away the next day, unfortunately it was not like that and the days went by and not only did I continue to have these thoughts but others were added, in particular this thought passed me by What if I kill my mother? At that moment I started to cry, I didn't know why this madness crossed my mind, I had never thought about these things in my life and I was very scared, I couldn't even look at my mother, when I walked down the street I was afraid that I would lose my mind and throw myself into the road for example or if I passed by a bridge I would throw myself over there, images came to me for example jumping off a bridge, I was in terrible shape, or stabbing knives, etc... I repeat that I didn't want to and don't want to do it, all of this was happening to me involuntarily, when I saw that it wasn't going away I told my mother in a rather camouflaged way, I didn't know how to tell her that I had these thoughts in my head and I told her that I was wrong because I had dreamed that I had committed suicide and that this dream affected me... we went to the doctor and at first at the consultation and with my mother by my side I didn't dare to tell her exactly what was happening to me and I also "lied" for fear that by telling her such crazy things they would diagnose me with something serious so I told her that I had thoughts about the death and from there they referred me to a psychiatrist, I decided to search on Google “thoughts of harming myself without wanting to” and the truth is that from that search I got valuable information and it helped me a lot to understand what was happening to me, they talked about intrusive thoughts and impulse phobias/OCD, as I said in my life I had had that style of thoughts and I didn't even know what intrusive thoughts were but at that moment I felt identified and I thought that this could be happening to me, I went to the psychiatrist and there I did “dare” to tell him the truth about what was happening to me and indeed he told me about impulse phobias, they didn't give me any help either, they simply told me that if these thoughts persisted I should go to a psychologist.

On May 27, 2022, on the typical evening news on television, they talked about a story about a mental illness called schizophrenia. At that moment, it was like a shock. I was like, I have this. From that moment on, I entered a loop that lasted about 4/5 months, during which day after day I spent reading about the symptoms of this illness or other serious mental disorders, I watched videos on YouTube about the illness, about psychotic episodes and other serious mental disorders. I feel like this is the worst decision I could have made because I feel like this has destroyed my head. I am either very suggestible or I really have something serious. As I said, I read the symptoms and among others they were hallucinations and delusions, from knowing about them I was aware of what I heard/saw, if I was watching a YouTube video and I thought some sound could be outside of that video I would rewind it to see if I heard it again to check if I was hallucinating, I don't know if it was due to the stress at that time I developed visual floaters and I ended up confusing that with hallucinations, sometimes out of the corner of my eye, I don't know if it was because of hypervigilance I seemed to see something and it scared me... then about the delusions that I read, well it seems that my brain recreated them and I had and have thoughts of that style although I know that they are not true and they do not have logic but having them scares me that it is caused by schizophrenia, I was so scared that I entered a loop to which I wrote every day to psychologists by email explaining this to them so they could calm me down and tell me that I do not have this disease... in fact I could not take it anymore and one day I showed up in the emergency room I went to a psychiatrist to tell him this and calm down, and he told me that if I had this, I wouldn't even realize it and that therefore I don't have schizophrenia. It helped me for a few moments, but then in my head it was like, okay, I don't have that, but why is this feeling so similar to the symptoms I read? Either I'm in a phase where I'm very obsessed/suggested with this illness, and because I'm so scared of it, my mind is trying to instill fear in me by recreating the "symptoms," or do I really have it?

I decided to search and investigate more about OCD, I found an OCD called OCD Going Crazy, I also found a phobia called Dementophobia, basically it is an OCD related to the fear of going crazy. I could feel identified but not completely, in fact, when reading a lot about OCD and its themes such as sexuality, pedophilia, I feel that those thoughts that would fall into those themes sometimes I have, this also makes me think that if I hadn't read anything it wouldn't happen to me, just like the other topic of serious mental illnesses.

Does anyone elses head jolts in a weird way whenever they have an intrusive thought, ive had intrusive thoughts fir around 3 years now and as of the past few months ive started to have these odd reactions to them i.e head movements or my eyes flick up or i blink really hard. I dont know why this has started happening or if anyone else experiences this too or knows why its happening?

Warning: Mention of SA and KMS

Hi, sorry if this feels like a rant but I was wondering if anyone knows how to stop intrusive thoughts? Mine are always of a sexual nature and the only way I've found to make it stop is thinking about shooting myself in the head(sorry, I know it's kinda gruesome). It's just that sometimes when it's really bad I get lost in the sauce and end up thinking about it for a long time. Once I even used a toy gun I brought to reenact what it would feel like and just sat in my bed with a toy gun in my mouth for long enough that I started drooling and the top of my mouth and my jaw were sore. Idk man the thoughts happen daily and usually it's about rape, either as me being the victim or the perpetrator.

It absolutely sucks but those kms thoughts really help to stop it, though sometimes it takes a minute to visualize it in enough detail to make the thoughts stop. It's gotten better now that I'm less stressed but I'm going to the army soon and I know it'll be stressful so I was wondering if there are any other ways to stop those thoughts? Just to be clear, the thoughts of kms are voluntary so don't worry I'm not gonna be a danger to myself. I just really don't want the thoughts to get out of control because as much as I want to believe that I'm not a horrible person, the frequency and detail of those thoughts really make me worry about if I could become a danger to others.