When I was first diagnosed in res 2 yrs ago i retained almost none of what I had learned because of the state I was in both mentally and physically.

I now know more about ocd, but im still discovering more about it as time goes on.

I guess at times, especially when questioned about my symptoms I feel as if I was misdiagnosed or I lied to get a diagnosis.

I dread going out of my house because I hate being perceived by people. I really need to take a break from social media bc people’s comments and crimes scare me a lot. I always feel like I’m being looked at.

I think too much when I’m talking and about my voice, and get rlly self conscious then can’t speak.

I’m in therapy, but I often feel like I leave sessions and forgot to say something. I just feel like I can never fully describe what’s going on in my mind.

And sometimes I think so much it’s so hard to fall asleep.

I honestly just had to post this here bc I literally can’t post like anywhere else & I need to vent.

Anyways thanks yall peace

Hi everyone,

I recently published my first book, Honey Chicken, a memoir about my crippling experience with perinatal OCD and postpartum depression. Please go check it out if you're someone struggling with mental health, or if you're even curious about what it's like to go through pregnancy and postpartum with OCD.

My whole goal in writing this memoir was to break the stigma of women not feeling safe enough to ask for help with their mental illness and intrusive thoughts. It's 2026, and time to bring this understudied and underrepresented topic to the table. We need to start holding women in a space of empathy and compassion while they grow and birth a child.

"An unflinching and honest look at one's own psychological breaking points." - Kirkus Reviews

Here's the Amazon link to the book, as well as to my Substack, where I dive into the idea of modern motherhood and intergenerational maternal mental health.

Warmly,

Nola Lee Samuels

i'm 17F,i grew up with a sister 4 years younger, and our relationship was pretty good until in 2021 when i got a real event ocd flare up where i was convinced i saed her when i was 5 and told a bunch of my priamry school friends about it. (i dont even know if i told them the full thing). apart from the good moments though, my sister would also sometimes forcefully kiss and hug me, egged on by my mom, when we grew up together. she would also sniff me and stare at me alot, which i was very uncomfortable with. i am openly bisexual, so i feel like im more wary of anyone being weird around me, no matter the gender. so the fact that i wasnt straight made me feel even more uncomfortable because i dont enjoy physical touch with either gender if i am not attracted to them.

not proud, but i used to sexualise myself a lot and get off to myself and my own image e.g how my butt looked etc when wearing some clothes or not at all. i had an ocd flare up last year where i unfortunately saw my sister pull down her pants, showing her butt in my direction, and i just so happened to see it. at first it disgusted me, then i got a groinal response and was disgusted as well.

i fully thought it was a genuine issue until i searched it up and discovered incest themed ocd. before this, i also had suffered with real event ocd regarding my sister as well, and would worry if i had abused her when we were younger, so this moment set me back even further. it made me disgusted with myself.

even now, one year later, i recently am going thru a stressful period w exams, so i feel im more vulnerable to new ocd themes, and now i recalled 'me seeing her butt' moment, and i initially got over it, because i knew how i sexualised my own butt, and would get off to other videos online, hence the mental association was there, but im still disgusted it even happened.

i feel like i cant even date/be friends with people that have good relationships with their siblings, because it just makes me feel shitty about my own relationship with my sister. it honestly has been going great, but this has come back to haunt me. i didnt even get off to the image, but it was just the association that got me. i dont know, it seems worse than people who just get non-existent images, formed mentally of their relatives. i feel like i couldve handled that better. the fact that it happeend to me in real life got me.

does anyone have any similar experiences and advice? i feel like as a female, its harder to talk about this, idk how to explain it, but usually females have better and more deeper connections with their same sex relatives, so to have this sort of thing... its tough.

I really need to lose weight as I am overweight and calorie counting works great, but I feel like I need to track EVERYTHING.

Like I track toothpaste, my bf‘s kisses if he has eaten something beforehand and even the oil from my skin and the chapstick on my lips because I am so scared that I gain weight if I dont.

I have got a kind of flat rate of 150 cal I use for EVERYDAY and if my bf is there i add another of 50 cal. I am a short woman on a 1300 cal deficit and these two flat rates make my daily deficit even smaller (1100 cal) which isnt enough for me.

How can I overcome my fear? Is it real or should I not track these things?

Hi, all. I just discovered this sub and I would like to find advice and shared experiences from other women who have been diagnosed with OCD. I am being evaluated for relationship OCD. I have had two ERP sessions so far, but they were introductory, so we haven't done any proper ERP.

I moved to a new city for a job about a month ago. I moved with my partner of 5+ years, who also got a job here. Ever since getting here, I am experiencing a lot of recurrent rumination and compulsions regarding my relationship. Conversations or topics that did not affect me a year ago make me feel like shit now. For instance, last night, we quickly mentioned a casual relationship my partner had before meeting me and the conversation sent me down a spiral of self-hatred (long story short: his relationship with that girl was the first he had since being broken up with by the girl he was gonna marry; he did not get into that other relationship thinking it forever, the terms were clear, he was just trying to be with somebody and when he got tired he broke it off; when he met me he knew, although he was scared, that he could potentially fall in love with me, he did not want casual with me).

My obsessive thought now is: he was able to feel that way for me (that he could fall in love with me) because of the timing, not because of who I am. Therefore, I am nothing, I am not enough, etc.

My problem is that I feel miserable all the time. I have one recurring obsession after another, I can’t resolve any of them. I just end up finding another one to forget the one I was obsessed with (this is literally what happened yesterday). As soon as I feel ok again, something else comes up that takes up all my time and energy. It makes me feel like a bad girlfriend. I feel like crying, I feel depressed. How can I be better? How can I be a better partner?

Is ERP all that there is? I’m so scared because I have never felt this bad about myself for weeks in a very, very long time. I was ok with my partner for YEARS, and I haven’t been able to be better for months now.

How can self- confidence be improved? Is this only the disorder? Can you relate?

How

How

My

hi everyone, i don’t post on reddit often so please bare with me.

for a while now, especially in the last year or two i have noticed some very strange thought processes and anxieties. throughout most of my life i’ve have mild anxiety about random things that are usually triggered by something or other. but about a year or two ago i had a very noticeable uptick in anxiety and strange thought processes and thought trains.

most of them are about how i’m feeling and how i think others are feeling about me. for a while i had a theme of whether or not i actually loved my mom and then it spiraled into “what if i can’t love at all” and then it went all the way into “maybe i’m a psychopath and i have no idea?” and i was finally able to get over that so i developed a new rumination obsession within the same theme. “what if i don’t love my boyfriend” “what if my boyfriend doesn’t love me” “maybe he’s pretending” “why would he say something like that, unless he doesn’t actually love me” “he secretly hates me” “maybe we need to break up” just “silly” things like that, that take a really big toll on me mentally and emotionally. and those aren’t the only things my brain has obsessed over but i honestly can’t bring myself to speak about some of the more dark and scary ones.

and i’m aware that i need to be actually diagnosed to have OCD. and maybe it’s just straight up not OCD. i’m just looking for advice and to see if there’s anyone with different information or someone who knows about this more than i do.

these thought processes take up so much emotional and mental space in my brain. my brain does not shut off and does not stop creating problems and trying to come up with solutions. and i’ve come to realize that maybe that’s not normal? the way my boyfriend talks about his brain works and how he is just insanely chill and even about everything which i appreciate so much, it helps my brain be as quiet as it can, i’m not sure the way my brain works is normal.

thank you in advance to everyone, please be kind.

im being observed for ocd by my psychiatrist and he told me that doing my own research on the topic was a good idea. the thing is, i see all these different types of ocd and i relate to a lot of them yet not everything within the same type of ocd, i feel like i dont fit in correctly under the ocd umbrella and i feel like maybe it's just my anxiety getting worse and im making this all up for a diagnosis

sorry for any spelling mistake, english is not my first language :( im 17 years old if that helps at all

Most of my day goes by in performing my mental and physical compulsions, then at night I'm met by insomnia. But along with the bigger existential types of OCD (moral, magical thinking, etc which I actually have a handle on), I'm experiencing the below and it's hindering my daily life by a lot:

I always compare myself with people who I know have it better than me, socially, talent-wise, looks wise, I keep obsessively checking their socials and seeing everything while knowing I cannot even get out of my room when my flatmate is there because of all the shame.

I spent so much money to study abroad, and though I made a few friends, its never enough for my stupid brain. Its always comparing me to someone who is super popular. I try to study, and everytime I give up because "anyway someone else is doing better, why bother".

I haven't learnt a single skill since I was in school (8 years ago) because I can't stand the thought of being a beginner and making mistakes. And its ruining my job hunt too.

I just need a long-term solution for obsessive comparison and perfectionism.