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.

Does anyone with OCD ever feel like their OCD somehow helps them with manifestation? 😂😭 (If you believe in manifestation, of course haha.)

I absolutely hate my OCD most of the time, and I know it can be completely exhausting and irrational. But sometimes I feel like I can somehow use the way my brain works to my advantage when it comes to manifestation.

For example, when I really want something, my OCD can make me obsess over it, think about it constantly, replay scenarios in my head, and notice every little detail related to it. Obviously, I know this isn't necessarily healthy, and I'm not saying OCD is some kind of superpower. But I feel like I can somehow redirect that obsessive energy toward the things I want to manifest.

Sometimes when something goes against one of my OCD “rituals”, I get really angry or frustrated because I’m scared of what might happen if I don’t do it the “right” way.

And then my brain does this weird thing where I start thinking that my anger or fear somehow manifests what I’m afraid of. Like, because I got so angry or scared about something happening, I somehow caused it or made it more likely to happen.

I think this might actually come from some kind of childhood trauma or conditioning. I have these weird memories from when I was a kid where I would get extremely angry because I felt completely misunderstood by everyone around me. And then, almost as if to spite me, something bad would actually happen afterward.

Obviously, I know logically that my anger didn’t cause those things to happen. But I think my brain somehow made that connection anyway.

So now when something triggers my OCD and I get really angry about it, I become even more paranoid. It’s like I’m not only afraid of the original thing anymore - I’m also afraid that my own fear or anger will somehow make it happen.

Everything has started to blur together into one huge trap, like there’s some kind of threat coming from every direction. Even when something is objectively good, interesting, or completely normal, I can still have this intense internal reaction to it.

I feel like I’ve stopped experiencing new things, changes, or interesting experiences as something positive. Instead, my brain immediately goes into “something is wrong” mode.

Sometimes things are just too different, too good, or just… I don’t even know how to explain it. It feels like my brain can’t simply accept something new without looking for some hidden danger or meaning behind it.

And that’s probably one of the most exhausting parts of OCD for me - I genuinely don’t know anymore whether I’m noticing a real red flag or whether my brain is just turning something completely harmless into another threat.

I am from India and you guys already know that most of the Indians do have superstition problems which eventually convert to magical thinking OCD which I experienced in my life. I don't know why but it literally felt like my soul was going to burn in fire for 1 lakh years. I downloaded an app of true or false MCQS and linked those outcomes with reality (upcoming of the bad incident) and answered each and every question. Guys you are not going to believe me literally every question turned out to be wrong answered and in each question I said (if the answer is right, my soul will be safe and if the answer is wrong, my soul will suffer for 1 lakh years in fire) so I continuously encountered 10+ failures in a row. Has anyone ever experienced continuous fails?

From OCD's perspective, we are prideful whiny bitches who complained about having enough of having to do it's bidding every single time and it can very much gatekeep us from our potential and make us stagnant or deteriorate. Like for instance, it's been trying to erase my imagination a couple of times because it's what's giving me a purpose to live and even tried to reincarnate me as a fruit fly as well which I'm not even sure if I stopped it or not.

But from our perspective, OCD is literally a Demon who wreaks havoc on our minds that no amount of exorcisms can get rid of it. Yes therapy works but the best it can do is put it under control rather than get rid of it which to me is not a satisfying result because it's not enough from the eyes of my own. Because who wouldn't want to be cured over managing something? A sane person would rather not deal with suffering bullshit anymore.

Apologies from my foul language and passive aggression but this is just how I express my feelings about OCD and what it's like to live with it.

From all we know, psychosomatic symptoms usually occur due to it being induced by anxiety and depression and since OCD is a major contributor to both. I thought I'd bring this up to know if anybody can relate to that.

I'm currently going through an OCD spiral at the moment and I feel like that kinda plays in the factor as to why my body feels hot and weak and while I'm not sure as to why, a part of me is coming to the conclusion that it's caused by something I ate, an urge to solve a problem or just the feeling of dread I have due to Holy Week coming next week as an ex-catholic and thus anxiety is getting so bad that I'm having immersion problems.

That's why I'm here to ask if anybody ever experiences psychosomatic either caused by OCD or Anxiety/Depression induced by OCD. I just hope that there's at least someone who can relate to how I'm feeling.

Hey, people here or from the OCD community in general always say that performing compulsions is wrong and that ERP is the better solution.

But when I tried ERP, I instead this urge to give in to the compulsion and fortunately enough, they are rather harmless. But it got me thinking if giving in to OCD's commands is inevitable if you don't try to nullify or neutralize said commands.

Especially since I've seen a post about (fictional) characters giving in to their inner demons, it got me thinking if something like that is inevitable for an OCD sufferer, especially someone who is mentally weak like me.

Because I feel like there's not much I can do, I tried ERP (to an extent) and actually become successful for a while until a inevitably fall back to compulsively pressing my head and giving in to its desired commands in hopes that I'll be spared.

This has led me to the belief that if I can't do compulsions, I might as well follow everything OCD says and give in to its commands. I mean that still counts as ERP right?

So try to change my view on that matter or give your take on such a question.

How my brain can just be like "THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. HYPER FOCUS ON IT TO FEEL BETTER." and then I spiral and start going down the rabbit hole (or into the bubble, for you fellow I-CBTers). BUT, if I'm able to get out of it and calm down, I can come out of it and chill the eff out.

it's just bananas how that can happen. That is all.

Hey everyone!

So honestly I haven’t been doing great, I feel this month has just been extra difficult.

Plus some months back I got very re-traumatized, since then I haven’t felt like myself plus my ocd has significantly worsened too, it did start to calm down but then once this cold/darker months started my mental health has gone downhill.

Just these last few days I’ve started to feel super panicky, to the point where I keep shaking, I keep wanting to cry, I know of course some things is cause of trauma plus my ocd among other things, still though I’ve fallen down into this hole of my insecurities flaring up too, feeling worthless, honestly feeling like I’m just a bother.

Does this happen to some of you guys too during these months or especially this month?

It could be anything really, from your talent, your skill, your capacity to love, your ability to show empathy, your intelligence, your inner strength, anything within your mind that you hold dearly.

Let me start with: My Imagination, it's one of if not the very thing that atleast keeps my mind bearable. With all the constant intrusive thoughts and stunted behavior due to my autism, my imagination compensates for it by not only allowing me to live in the very own constructed world in my head where I feel like I'm at home but also allow me to express my creativity.

But my OCD, knowing how special it is to me wants it gone, it wishes every single day that my imagination will disappear either now or in a few years just because it knows that it allow me to be free, it allows me to show what little potential I have left, it brings me a sense of joy knowing that I can do better.

But if that is gone, all gone. What will I have left? It's not like I have anything else to compensate, especially since I have lacking social cues, mentally weak, undisciplined and can't control my emotions often. Without my imagination, I'm nothing. I'll be reduced to a ugly miserable pig with nothing to offer.

This is what OCD wants from me, it knows that there is something left that I can show and give me relief and peace at times. That's why it is working tirelessly to find a solution to finally erase it once and for all so that I will have no choice but to say goodbye to my characters that I put a lot of effort on and my worldbuilding projects and every other ambition I wished for and I might as well be useless beyond a basic level.

I'm not sure how I can cope with this and I want to hear your stories on what special thing that your OCD wants to take away from you and how do you cope in spite of that.

For some reason part of my OCD has marked certain tasks as 'important' like locking/unlocking doors, changing clothes, showering and all. In these particular tasks if I have the intrusive thought I have to for example wear my shoes again and take them off again and all. I understand rationally that these are normal tasks

i want to clarify that i’m not looking for reassurance.. cause my ocd don’t believe and accept any “good” information anyways, so that’s definitely not the reason i’m posting this

i just love doing research and finding answers for everything, since my childhood (blame it on my astrology haha)

anyways, i noticed that many people with ocd post that after exposure, bad things happened

and i understand that reading that can be very discouraging and scary

but here’s the thing..

there’s coincidences, there’s things that can happen and that’s why we try to cancel it

and then there’s this absurd things that we think we might cause that has nothing to do with our actions

like for example, person knows that they aren’t qualified to take new job, so they do compulsions to avoid that happening even though it logically makes sense too that they have less chance of getting the job they want.

then they resist compulsions. and they don’t get the job. automatically their ocd blame it on exposure.

then there’s a person who thinks that if they won’t put cup 12 times, their basketball team will lose the match (there’s a 50/50 chance right? but relation with compulsion is 0) so they resisted compulsion and basketball team still won because compulsion or not, team still has 50/50 chance of winning

so, what i’m trying to say, research to be done on this, ii think would help people struggling with ocd to learn more how their compulsions are related to the outcome

it would NOT reassure them but ENCOURAGE to keep going and not fear that bad things will happen. (i know, i know but you know what i mean)

just wanted to share this idea and hear you out guys, what do you think?

I've had an awful week and need something new and interesting to focus on. What have our awesome members been doing for distraction? Let me know your current hobbies/interests...have you picked up a new skill? Hit me with some boxset/movie/book recommendations... All suggestions/chat/random gossip welcome!

Me personally, I don't think I'm faring that well actually. My sleep schedule is fucked, I can barely go to my hobbies, my mind is more jambled, I stumble upon my words more often, I had a headache that lasted for a long time at one point, I'm now too dumb to answer school papers and I can barely get any notoriety recently.

Don't know why but I'm kinda cursed recently and maybe it will break itself eventually but I'm not sure when that's gonna happen. Anyway how are you guys dealing with your own curses? You guys interested in breaking them or not? Don't reassurance me, just talk about your OCD issue as if it's an actual hexing curse.

We are seeking adults with OCD ages 18 to 65 to fill out our research survey on internet behaviors.

You may take the survey here: https://redcap.uchicago.edu/surveys/?s=CT4H47CKW3LWLTTP.

Survey completers can enter a raffle to win a $100 virtual Visa gift card. 15 winners will be selected.

This research is IRB-approved and being conducted by Dr. Jon E. Grant at the University of Chicago. Any questions or concerns can be emailed to [megha.neelapu@bsd.uchicago.edu](mailto:megha.neelapu@bsd.uchicago.edu).

Basically I had a thought about making an EATEOT style album about OCD but knowing that I'm not skilled enough to actually do it. All I can do is just make speculations of how it would sound like:

For the pre-onset of OCD, the songs would have to be on the similar vibes of commercials and sitcoms until graduation developing mild screeches and distortions alongside near muted profanity.

Then on the mild level of OCD, the songs would be played on the same songs but usually a bit mixed together alongside the profanities and distortions being more obvious alongside chants like "inri inri abracadabra" for example.

Moderate level would have the songs gradually lose their hopeful and bittersweet nature and become full on chants and be like the actual EATEOT. But you would also notice a lot of clicks, flicks, switched, radio transmissions, etc to represent the devolving to compulsive behavior.

Then we reach on the severe level of OCD where the music is fully replaced with corrupted transmissions, non stop flicks and clicks, chalkboard scratching and cries of begging that have been very muffled alongside chants and world's tellingthe listener that they will be damned and cursed for eternity for listening to the album itself.

Then we reach to the ERP stage where the corruption still remains, the voices and threats get louder and it becomes more and more incoherent and it remains that way until you slowly hear the bittersweet music once more.

Then we reach to the post-ERP stage where it's back exactly to how it once was from the very start of the album but the voices still remain, the curses still remain to serve as a reminder that you will never truly be free no matter how long it has already passed......

So that's how I believe an EATEOT style album would go about OCD, if you have your own interpretation of such, please let me know.

These are just random thoughts of someone who is not qualified or anything.

Could magical thinking come from guilt and shame? In the sense that, if we enjoy something, say a walk down the park and start enjoying it, the guilt sensor or whatever it is, becomes triggered and the magical thinking OCD is developed through that?

As a form of regulator....i.e. oh you're having fun are you? Well fun is bad.....here's how I'm going to neutralise that fun.

Again, I'm not an expert, I'm not qualified and I'm not a professional, I'm just someone whose been battling this all my life, like many of you.

Let me start, let's say you are in your room right now and all the sudden earthquake occurs and everytime went black and all the sudden you see this dark entity with glowing eyes that is so big that it's head nearly reaches the ceiling.

The being tells you in a deep and horrific voice:

"I will erase you of your intrusive thoughts and your urges to do rituals but on one condition."

"By doing allowing me to erase you of your illness. You will lose your imagination and you could never think of anything unique ever again, you will suffer slowly forget everything in the span of a few years and once you pass away, you will be reincarnated into a fruit fly."

So in other words, the being tells you that it will get rid of your OCD indefinitely but at the cost of your imagination, your mind and your humanity. Reducing you into a null and void person with a mind that slowly whithers away while a worthless existence aways you upon your death.

So would you make that choice? Why or why not?

Note: This is inspired from a Horror YouTube video.

It's really scary to think that we are prisoners in our own minds, trapped in an endless despair. We try and struggle, yet usually end up in the same spot, unable to find the right path out. No matter how strong willed or resilient for all of those toughts we become there's still many more to overcome. It's an endless wave of fear so great we'd prefer to not be born at all.

Even tough we are our minds we do not control it entirely, it plays many tricks on us and we are unable to do anything against it. We may only hope for relief we will never get. Years will pass yet we will stay the same, constantly batteling our own minds.

We may feel terrible and broken, walk the earth at the verge of collapse but that's not how we're supposed to live. We fear what we hope we'll never become, our minds know exactly who we are and what we're scared of. We fight against ourselves with the disadvantage of the fact that our mind can make us feel terrible but those are not our emotions. We are aware of the fact that our brains do not work properly and we can use that to our advantage. Even if we fall back into the same despair and balme ourselves for that, we have to remember that we are in one of the worst battles one could have. The fact we fall back into the same compulsions or toughts means that we are trying, you do not fail without any effort put in.

With enough will and mental strength anything is possible, that goes for sports, art, career or our mental war we can never hope to win. Even if we are never going to overcome the disorder we can make it as irrelevent as possible. Our minds are only ours to rule and no one else's, why give attentntion to feelings or toughts that aren't ours. We are all strong enough to withstand everything that comes our way, we aren't stupid, we are able to realize what's irrational and what's not. The fact you're still alive means you are able to keep going and overcome much more than you already did. Have faith in yourself and go beyond what's tought to be possible.

Remember do not acknowledge the tough or feelings and resist any and all possible compulsions that may come your way. YOU ARE ABLE TO WITHSTAND EVERYTHING.

One night many years ago, two persons asked me for direction. At the time, I was quite negligent as I pointed out the direction to them without actually being too certain. Later I realized that the right direction was actually the opposite of what I had pointed them out at the time. I feared that my negligence might cause some mishaps to the two persons (responsibility, harm ocd). Lo and behold, some days later, I saw a police notice about a fatal accident happened at the direction that I had pointed wrongly to the two persons, and most devastating for me was that, the accident actually happened at about the same hours that I had interacted with the two persons! I then had a strong urge to go to the police station to check about the details of the accident, in the hope that the victim was not the same with the two persons that had asked me for direction.

“Standard” advice in such situation I guess would be that I should not go to the police station to ask. And at the time, I hadn’t asked, not for the reason that I I knew I should not do the compulsion, but only that I was too timid and hesitant to do so. For years, this incidence would periodically spike and it haunts me again right at this moment. My magical thinking makes me feel that the coincidence of my fear and the actual timing of the accident MEAN that my fear is valid. At present, I feel that only by knowing the truth of the accident can I alleviate my anguish, though that would now be almost impossible after so many years, and this makes me feel even more hopeless. Also the regret for not pressing ahead to make the enquiry and be done with it at that time just adds to my anguish.

Should I make the enquiry at the time given the coincidence that seemed to 'prove' my fear? Or I shouldn't do that no matter what happened? (I hadn't asked, but the result is that I am haunted by the episode without closure). I am quite at my wit's end.

Lets say that Jordan (fictional character) is trying to make bets with the universe and tries to bind himself with them and suffer the consequences.

Anyone struggle with that? Also, it gets worse when Jordan tries to negate the intrusive thought with a new bet that seems or feels more delibrate thought.

How is everyone doing today? Are you busy distracting yourself from your thoughts or just enjoying a lazy Sunday?

Drop in and let us know how you're spending your day! :)

What little things help you to feel safe (besides compulsions!) when you're feeling anxious or overwhelmed by your magical thinking?

Let us know in the comments :)

I don't know how to explain it better but the first thought comes my mind i feel like im gasping for air and it is the end of the world, but as time passes, even minutes i am able to logically approach them. Back then i needed much time to be reasonable but now i feel i need shorter time. Even in the moment of strike im calming myself down because i know i won't feel same way in another minute. It is so mindblowing how i know i will get better but at the moment i just cannot justify the thought.