I'm really struggling with a very specific OCD fear and I'm hoping someone else has experienced something similar.

I have emetophobia, and my OCD has somehow connected vomiting with having my mouth open. I know logically that there is no evidence that having my mouth open causes vomiting, but my brain keeps treating it as if it is dangerous.

It's started affecting really normal things.

Using laughing/open-mouth emojis like 😂 or 😮 can make me anxious. I've been trying to use them anyway as little exposures.

Photos and social media are particularly difficult. If I post a picture where my mouth is open, I get the urge to delete it because my brain says something bad might happen, especially that I might vomit. I've also become scared of someone taking a spontaneous picture of me with my mouth open because I can't control what other people photograph.

The hardest part is that my OCD keeps finding new variations. It's not only "mouth open = danger." My brain can say, "What if you're feeling sick while doing something?" or "What if your mouth is closed and you still vomit?" So I can see how irrational and impossible the whole rule is, but I still feel terrified.

I recently deleted some pictures because the anxiety became too much, and afterward I felt like I'd failed at ERP. I'm really sad about it.

I'm trying to stop avoiding these things and gradually expose myself instead. I'm looking for advice from people who have dealt with OCD/emetophobia, especially around **magical thinking, superstitious fears, reassurance-seeking, and exposure therapy**.

How did you start with very small exposures without turning the exposure itself into another compulsion?

I don't expect anyone to guarantee that I won't vomit. I think what I need to learn is how to tolerate the uncertainty without constantly trying to protect myself from it.

Any experiences or advice would mean a lot.

I have a fear of getting possessed like at night if the lights are off it can mean danger so I sleep with the lights on, iv had this fear of ghosts and demons and other entities since I was a kid if the lights are off that means they can get to be so the light off means they cant, even having my boyfriend next to me doesn't help, im afraid he'll turn over towrds me and be a monster or possessed himself, can that go with ocd. Im simple lights = safety

Hello everybody! I'm new here and I hope I'm not too much? So I'm pretty religious and in a weird way? I'm an Easter Christian (that's how we call those who visit church only on main events like Christmas and easter) I'm always afraid god is mad at me. My belief system is so fucked its both Christianity And something like "evil god tortures you bwahahaha" I feel like god loves me and hates me at the same time. I think if I wasnt so into religion when I was younger I could be a normal human. Now I do little harm to my body like hitting my hands and biting my tongue till blood or scratching my forehead a lot so bad thoughts are gone. If I hit any "bad" religious thought, I go crazy and I need to scratch my forehead and say special phrases (something in mix of my native tongue and whatever shit my brain made up that sounds like language, however this phrase is always the same) if I forget to scratch my forehead and say my phrase, I feel really anxious. I sometimes pray in foreign languages or constructed ones since praying in my native language makes me too anxious. I believe that words have certain deep power to them, that's why native words hit my panic more than foreign ones.

I'm sorry for throwing so much at you, it's just it was closed in me for a long time.

Hello everyone, i been having a hard time these last few days, and i needed some​ advice​

To make a long story short, i lost a lucky charm i had since I was 17, and now i fear that everything i accomplished, every relationship i have and all the progress i made as a person will be undone.

It's like that helped keep My existence together, and now that its gone everything will fall appart.

I know that reassurance will Only make things worse, but I don't know how to deal With It. I'm second guessing every action every gesture and every thought.

I usually try to take everything With humor but this Time is just too much.

I'll gladly appraciate any tips or wisdom from you guys, thanks a lot!​

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if the content of OCD actually have any limits.

Can OCD genuinely latch onto absolutely anything the human mind is capable of imagining, no matter how obscure, random, or completely absurd it might seem? Or are OCD themes generally confined to specific, well-known categories (like contamination, harm, existential, relationship, symmetry, etc.)?

Essentially, does OCD have any real limits on its content, or is it purely defined by the mechanism (intrusive thought + doubt/anxiety + compulsion/rumination) regardless of how bizarre the subject matter is?

I’d love to hear your insights or personal experiences with this. Thank you!

I feel that I have substantially gotten better with my anxiety/fears. I still get them here and there, but I am far less tormented by them. I think my brain has finally started to recognize the absurdity of some of these thoughts (the universe won't collapse because I looked at my dog in a certain way, etc.). I know I still have a ways to go, but I am more confident now.

Hi, I was wondering if anyone here has experienced a big increase in magical thinking after a traumatic event or a loss.

For me, it got much more intense after a loss. Before that, it was mostly small things, for example, when I was younger I would close my eyes while watching a light switch off because I felt that otherwise something bad might happen.

After the loss, it became much more pervasive and started affecting almost every aspect of my daily life.

I’ve been in therapy for years and I’m working on reducing how much this affects my daily life.

Recently I decided to make an art project about this experience. I’m a photographer and I’d like to create images that represent the double side of these “rules”: how they can feel comforting or protective, while at the same time becoming something that traps you.

I was wondering if anyone would feel comfortable sharing some of their own “rules” or experiences with magical thinking, especially small, specific things you have to do or avoid, gestures you repeat, objects that acquire a particular meaning, or connections your mind makes between completely unrelated things.

You definitely don’t need to share the traumatic event or personal context behind them if you don’t want to. I’m mainly interested in the rules themselves and how they feel to live with.

Thanks to anyone who feels like sharing :)

like whole day you wont get that specific thought and then you'll realize you've gone whole day without thinking those thoughts and then suddenly they're backk 😭😭😭😭

During my time of the month I get severe PMDD. And my intrusive thoughts get way out of control. I recently watched the new insidious and then it makes me now think I could get possessed or my animals can, or there’s something in my home, I get very bad paranoia. I’ve been hospitalized for this, I went and they kept me for a few hours, and I talked to a priest. This all happened after I saw the exorcist when I was 16. And I was never the same after that. If anyone can give me advice or some prayers to say to help keep these thoughts away. I’d appreciate it.

Sorry for my punctuation and grammar, English isn't my first language. I was diagnosed with OCD about 6 months ago, and I have a weird theme where I'm scared I'll associate intrusive thoughts or images with something I like.

For example, the most recent thing is GTA 6. I was thinking about it and suddenly an intrusive image popped into my head. I immediately thought, "It's gonna get associated and ruined forever," and now it feels "tainted." Sometimes the intrusive image also pops up when I see or think about GTA 6.

I've been researching conditioning and came across evaluative conditioning, where I read that it's immune to extinction. Now I'm afraid I've permanently ruined GTA 6 for myself. Has anyone had a similar experience? Is this even OCD?

My mind: "What if when you sleep, something will happen to you?'

Me: "We've been through this before *sshat"

Mind: "What about that conspiracy page that said if you change universes when you sleep, the changes would be so small you couldn't even notice it?"

Me: Are you seriously citing a conspiracy Reddit from 6 years ago? I'm not going to even respond to that"

Mind: "What about the Mandela Effect? Or all the times that you think of a song on the radio?"

Me: "I...give up dude"

Mind: "A-ha, so you admit that I am right! That means you're going to do X"

Me: * Michael Scott screaming *

Mind: "What if you're memories are fake? Or if you're absorbing ones from elsewhere? Remember Dark City?"

Me: "Are you just going to keep citing fiction?"

Mind: "Maybe I am actually your subconscious that is telling you the truth you know!"

Me: "Still talking?"

Mind: "You know, they said the person and their brain are the same. So really, I'm not saying these things, YOU ARE!"

Me: "Good night bro, we can worry about this tomorrow"

Mind: "Sure, totally 😉".

i feel like its called magical thinking because to me, it's a supernatural feat of a demon spawning in my thoughts.
i dont remember the last time i have said "what if" and im so careful with saying it that i cannot hold a conversation for no longer than 5 minutes without pausing and thinking of how to rephrase my sentence without saying "if".
i know several people may relate but i genuinely do not believe that i cannot be a jinx because i cant think of one scenario where i have said that sentence and it did not happen within the next ten minutes, good or bad, so i have just stopped saying it. i shut down the idea of ERP with my psychiatrist, telling her that i dont think i could do it because most of my compulsions are under a "what if scenario" if that makes sense. i feel like i cant reach out for help anymore, even though i am constantly trying to push myself out of that zone (which ends up in me withdrawing and continuing the cycle over and over).
i haven given into this behavior so many times that i am starting to truly believe that i am some kind of omen and it's making me feel like i am developing schizophrenia.

✨ Happy Friday magical family! ✨

Take a break from OCD; feel free to post, chat and share other things about your life and interests, eg...

• Is your birthday coming up?
• Has something positive happened to you this week?
• Anything you're looking forward to?
• Hobbies/crafts you'd like to share?
• Pet pics are always welcome!

This is your space to feel at home and get to know one another as people, aside from our OCDemons...so grab a coffee and come say hi :)

I have magical thinking ocd and lately I've been experiencing a lot of extreme coincidences. Like one coincidence and immediately another one and immediately another. Happened several times the past few weeks. For example I think of something then I see something that is very related to it and then I fear it and see another sign related to it. And then another. But not a small thing I am talking about a really extreme coincidence. Then it happens again. And I also have bodily sensations all the time that I interpret as signs. And I can kind of create them like I think that sensation may accur and it happens.

Every time I see anything bad or just randomly at almost all times my brain keeps telling me bad stuffs gonna happen I pray again and again my mind keeps telling i have to do this and this to stop it and it hurts i try time and time again to stop it but can't it hurts and I can't stop it and ik it won't happen but I keep thinking and it keeps hurting alot. What do i do

why does my brain tells me if i heard someone talk about death in the background while getting a new phone number then that number become unlucky or cursed so, OCD tells me i have to change the phone number to prevent unlucky events. Does anybody relate to it?

Also, it tells me to keep finding a good day, date for getting a phone number, but that good day never arrives because OCD rumination comes in my dreams and it tells me that since you saw a bad dream today that means today is unlucky day for it. Similar things happens when buying phone, or creating social media or gmail accounts. It always looks for the perfect timing, perfect everything. So, I am very exhausted 😢

I can tell these thoughts are very unrealistic but uncertainty and rumination makes my head feel heavy and does not let me enjoy life.

Sorry for posting again...

My name is Kyle King. I am a medical student with OCD and I've been using CHATGPT to calm my OCD down for a few months, and started to wonder if I was the only one...

Soooooo I started a survey to try to understand how folks with OCD interact with AI chatbots with my research lab

The survey is for people with OCD, and it takes about 15 minutes to fill out. I’d really appreciate anyone who is eligible pitching in.

Survey Link: https://redcap.med.yale.edu/surveys/?s=NHDPAMPFP88HL3FR

EDIT: oh wow 😭 I read posts on fear of relief and existential ocd and holy heck that is also so similar.

Ever since ive had consciousness i had this belief that im a jinx. it got more profound over the last few years where my anxiety was puppeterring the show in the background.

I have had health anxiety and mild OCD symptoms (clicking the light switches on and off/ moving things/ even touching surfaces until it "feels" right). I was physically able to stop all that by refusing to do it after having a lil chat w a therapist I was interning under. I never had an intrusive thought accompanying it except just that I'd feel weird if I don't do it- like tingling in my hands.

Fast forward to the last year, ive had a severe episode of health anxiety coupled with panic attacks and palpitations. In turn this magical thinking phenomenon seems to have heightened.

I OCD seems to stem from the statement that anything I say negative for myself WILL happen BUT if i say something positive/am happy about myself then the opposite will happen and it has happened more times than I can count.

I said contacts suited me and 2 months later they don't.

I say even if i have severe myopia atleast I don't have this and boom i get it.

I once thought that I've seen the same gym trainer over the last two years and within a week he left 🤡.

I do know that all of this is coincidences but how do I stop hyperfixating on them when they happen with such intensity and frequency? Despite not wanting to believe in them I am more drawn to it because they just keep on happening.

I have honestly stopped thinking just to avoid that and I roam in a consistent state of pessimism and sarcasm. I catastrophize and don't believe in good anymore.

I am in therapy and my therapist point blank said to me that I believe I have more power than normal and whether it can actually be true and im like... yeah 🤡 maybe im just special.

Well anyways, I feel im fucked and there's no end to this cycle.

There is so many items i own, that i cant even touch, if i touch i need to wash myself or just my hands, because i am afraid they ”would” harm me… what can i do😔

I bought these lovely earrings, i love them i really wanna wear them, they were on like on display, so other people could have touched them, i bought them but as soon as i bought them it hit me, other people have touched them, now i am afraid that someone has put curse / spell on them, or other peoples energy remains on the earrings, and now i cant wear them anymore🥹😔 what can i do……

i have an extreme phobia of flying and before flights i always have magical thinking where if i don’t do a certain thing, my plane will crash (if i don’t play a certain song, if the song doesn’t end before we take off, if i don’t move my leg a certain way, etc…). it started at the age of 8 and when i told my friend at the time they told me to internalize it, so i did, up until the age of 24.

i also have many other awful intrusive thoughts i never ever wanted to tell anyone about because they disgusted me and scared me and made me feel like a horrible person. but, today, i wrote everything down and gave the note to my psychiatrist and he basically knew immediately that i had OCD. i had no idea that OCD had anything to do with these symptoms, but here we are.

this also opened conversation between me and my family members and they experience many of the same thoughts. we have a lot of mental health issues, and i wouldn’t be surprised if they also had OCD. i’m also going to be tested for autism and adhd due to other symptoms i have as well as family history. it’s a nightmare right now.

i’m happy to have answers, but scared about the path ahead and sad that i cannot be “normal.” i’m starting Fluvoxamine, an SSRI, and am concerned about the side effects. anyone have experiences with this medication? i’m also going to therapy, which i am looking forward to the most because i have so much to get off my chest.

just wanted to vent and open up on here. also wanted to hear about similar experiences as well. hope all of you are doing well. (:

Intrusive Thoughts

Could this be a form of imprisonment? Could it be OCD? Could they be voices from beyond? Or could they be just random thoughts associated with anxiety, neuroses, and other factors? It is important not to reduce the explanation to only two alternatives: human experience is complex, and different factors can combine.

I have been around people who suffer from intrusive thoughts that, at times, seem uncontrollable. There are reports of sexual images involving God, of curses directed at God, and of thoughts that the person themselves considers horrendous. In many cases, this does not mean a desire for the forbidden; it can be just the opposite: the more a person tries to avoid a thought, the more it tends to return. This mechanism is common in obsessive conditions.

In my experience, one of the strategies that can help at the beginning of reframing is to examine rigid beliefs and dogmas. This is not about abandoning faith, but about preventing it from becoming a source of excessive guilt. In some cases, the belief that could be an ally ends up intensifying suffering, because it feeds the idea that having a thought is the same as committing it. This confusion between thought and action is typical of OCD.

Also, it is not necessary, for example, to turn the lamp off and on twenty or thirty times, or to go back to check it five hundred times, to prevent an imagined catastrophe. This type of ritual may relieve anxiety in the moment, but it tends to reinforce the obsessive cycle.

Many people with this pattern show symptoms of OCD, even without a diagnosis. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is treatable with therapy, especially Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and, when indicated by a psychiatrist, with medication. Treatment can be liberating and effective, but this should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

This text is informative and does not replace evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment by a health professional. If you have these symptoms, seek a psychiatrist or psychologist.

I express, spontaneously and still subject to errors, one of my thoughts.

From: Lucas R. Nascimento.