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Hello!
Has anyone here tried to make a joke or funny commentary and failed, due to not really knowing what makes jokes funny?
I seem to be an expert of accomplishing this, it is really embarassing and people don't understand that i have difficulties whilst trying to be social! Sometimes i come as mean spirited or annoying, but i don't mean to be...
Has anyone had these difficulties? If so, could you please advise on how to be less oblivious regarding this?
Thank you for reading this!! | aspergers |
I have a chronic depression cos I did something wrong in the past. Idk what it is, i don't remember, but maybe I did hurt someone a long ago (??) Who knows?
I was in an emotional abusive relationship with a man who's 20 years older and I am still suffering from it until now, and I think that's because my dad has cheated on my mom for quite a long time. So now I'm being punished for my dad's infidelity because I'm his daughter. OR Maybe I'm such a bad person and actually I'm deserved to be punished.
Have you thought about it? Am i the only one? | depression |
Hitting OCD "rock bottom" was actually pivotal in my OCD recovery. After a 2-month-long severe pure o episode, I had a \*\*\*\*\*\*mega\*\*\*\*\*\*, ultra panic attack. Im talking I had to leave work early, hyperventilated in the car on the way home, threw up PROFUSELY, popped blood vessels in my eyes, almost passed out, and needed a weighted blanket to simply exist as I screamed and wailed on my bed. All of my previous obessessions decided to come on me all at once. I actually left work because I was terrified I was going to lose control and hurl my body off the balcony behind my desk. On this day I was relentlessly TORMENTED by (and not limited to): turning psychotic, schizophrenic, being a murderer, molester, questioning my love for myself and others, questioning reality, my existence, doubting my own memories, doubting my insanity, doubting my motives, becoming delusional).
After about an hour I was able to wind myself down. What also helped during this episode was that I shared my obsessions in desperation with my parents and boyfriend. NOT FOR REASSURANCE, but as an explanation for my breakdown. Its probably a mixture of both of these aspects, but being hugged by them and coming down from the panic attack changed my life. I realized absolutely nothing changed. Nothing. My world didn't end, none of the things became reality. I didn't magically gain more knowledge by panicking. The panic attack didn't make anything MORE or LESS true. Life just went on, and they went on with life as well.
After that day, every time those thoughts crept up (which they did) I felt scared, yet asked myself "okay, you can spend time solving this if you want. Actually feel FREE if it will make you feel better! But call me when your panic attack is over because it will give you absolutely no insight and will bring you no where closer to certainty."
When I framed it that way overtime, I almost got too bored or inconvenienced going through the motions and panic of the intrusive thoughts until the thoughts completely just stopped. I now see and realize/laugh at their absurdity.
\#AMA | OCD |
Nobody genuinely loves me. Seriously. I think my parents like me at best since they yelled at me and shit when I tried to killed myself before. Im only worried about my dog but he'll get over it. Its not worth living if he'll get over it. So yea | depression |
I’d never want to offend or upset anyone intentionally but I always seem to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Today I offended the guy I like for the 3rd time in a few weeks and I can’t stop thinking about it. I sent him a text explaining why I speak before thinking and he responded saying it’s ok but he was quite visibly upset when I made the joke. I’m quite a sarcastic person so I can accidentally offend people through jokes and in reality I mean no harm by what I say. People have been shocked when I say I have ASD so it’s very difficult for them to realise speaking without thinking is as a result of my disorder and they think I’m just blatantly rude. I’m so sick of coming away from social situations upset as a result of what I’ve said to others. | aspergers |
Not going to get into my past experiences, but my mother doesn't believe my doctors and mental health team when they diagnosed me with PTSD. My mother says that since I was never in war I cannot have PTSD. What should I do or tell my mother? | ptsd |
I have struggled with this through a couple past relationships as well no matter how much I trust them and how certain I am they would never do anything to hurt me it’s impossible to get it out of mind. I’m constantly looking for reassurance over and over and when I talk with her it’s stopped giving me relief or it will but only for a minute and I’ll continue the loop. I’m looking for a way to get past this without the need for reassurance and I’ve asked her to not answer her phone when I’m feeling this way so I can deal with it but it’s led to days when I’m almost non functional for work. Wondering if anyone else has struggled with this and if they have any advice | OCD |
I feel myself losing focus. I can’t concentrate in class or even in conversations with my friends. Grades are slipping. Job performance deteriorating. Friendships evaporating. How deep does it go? At what point does it stop being a ‘disorder’ and just start being ‘me’? I don’t even know for sure if I have PTSD or if I’m just being dramatic but my God I just want to have my brain back. I miss the clarity and the coherent thoughts. I miss focus. I miss sleep. I miss peace. | ptsd |
I am taking my senior capstone research seminar this semester, in an economics topic I enjoy a lot. In the summer, I was so excited and actually built up confidence and trust in myself that I could do it.
Moreover, I have known this professor for a couple years and taken multiple of his classes. A few times I would turn stuff in late, but for the most part I did well in his classes.
After the first seminar meeting, I had to talk to him about finishing registering, and he makes some offhand comments about me not falling behind everyone else and that I would have to put in extra work to make it through.
I don't think he meant it with ill-intent, but these comments have absolutely destroyed any shred of confidence I had for this seminar that I had left. I've been in the worst shame spiral I've ever been in since then, and I cannot even resolve it like I usually would, which is to go talk to the professor and get support. This is since the few times I've gone to talk for help I can see disappointment written all over his face. Everytime I try to do work for this seminar, all I can think about is how little my prof actually believes in me. I can't even believe in myself anymore.
I have no idea what to do. I have to finish this course to graduate, but everytime I try to do considerable work I end up crying because of how I am reminded of the way my prof sees me and how little I can believe in myself anymore. I don't have a support network here either since my friends graduated last fall and my partner lives an ocean away. I live alone in a student apartment, which contributes to all of this a lot, since body doubling is a really reliable way for me to get on top of stuff again.
Although it is not apparent in this story, I do have crippling ADHD. Especially with RSD which is relevant here.
If anyone could give even a bit of support it would mean the world to me. | ADHD |
I'm genuinely curious to see how well we would click with each other here. So feel free to talk down below in the comments/replies. Or DM me. | aspergers |
Anyone else get this thing where numbers matching your family members ages are cursed? For example: "because the timer is at 53, your mother will have an accident"? | OCD |
I’ve been able to sleep better since being on anti depressants but last night i had a very bad nightmare. i woke up at 4:30 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. i think i’m becoming more paranoid, i might need to talk to my psychiatrist about this. | ptsd |
After 6 years obsessing over my marriage and being told I have anxiety/depression and still not having relief.. I finally got a diagnosis today. I’m not crazy.. I have OCD and I can feel relief knowing that it’s something that I was not causing. For 6 years I felt so defeated and hopeless.. and today I can feel happy knowing that I can move forward towards therapy that will help me control these irrational thoughts. I can hopefully begin to enjoy my marriage more.. 💓 | OCD |
hello! this is my first reddit post and i dont know what to put this under and i think i just really need help sorry in advance if im posting this in the wrong place or anything. so sorry if i sound like im ranting or anything but i need to know if i have ocd or what i should do and i ran out of options so i came here for some sort of advice or help..
i (18M) think i have had intrusive thoughts since i was 16. i started having weird and disturbing sexual thoughts towards people i see almost 24/7. at first it was just towards my friends then it started becoming random passerbys of all ages and at one point it even became family. the thoughts and images were really disturbing and i started questioning myself but i just dismissed it as me going through puberty and my hormones were probably just raging.
after a while the sexual thoughts started to get more extreme and it went to thoughts about rape and subsequently more and more violent thoughts like strangling people including friends and family and chopping off my limbs and it scared me and made me feel anxious a lot but i kept telling myself these are just normal teenage thoughts and it's probably just a phase.
1 year later (2020) and i graduated from secondary school and am now studying in junior college. some of my friends from secondary sch which i tried to keep up with started talking less and less with me because our lives were getting busy with studies and responsibilities but after a while i started getting anxious when they don't reply my text within a day or a period of time. i became anxious and upset and sometimes i accidentally lashed out at my friends because of it and they brushed it off by telling me im just being irrational. because of this i started avoiding some of my friends entirely for months at a time, or i would constantly get on my phone to check to see if they were online on social media, or other social apps or if i had any unopened notifications, or i would constantly apologise to them for every other trivial manner in fear that i did something wrong or "irrational". i know that im worrying about probably nothing and that my friends are busy but i kept doubting myself everyday and my thoughts kept making me feel unwanted and a waste of time and coupled with the constant thoughts about sex and murder, my brain was constantly noisy everyday and i was getting so tired of it.
then began the skin picking this year. i dont know how it started but i started picking the skin on my hands, arms, face, neck, chin and fingers up to the point where i even started to bleed. it was a way to distract myself from my thoughts but it started to make my friends and family worry and i know i had to stop this even though i was struggling to control myself. i tried all sorts of alternatives to distract myself and i even became dependent on alcohol for a while after i turned 18. my studies were getting badly affected and my family began to worry about me.
eventually some of my friends and my mother read up articles about what was going wrong with me and told me i could be suffering from ocd (or pure ocd? im not so sure myself). at first i was in denial because i didnt want to be diagnosed with a disorder from my own friends and family and furthermore im not a tidy or neat person which was what i stereotypically thought was what ocd is. but after i began reading the articles and stories from other people online, i started to question myself. do i really have ocd? do i actually have a disorder? so i kept reading articles on ocd over and over again and the thought of being potentially diagnosed with it stuck in my mind.
in the end, my mum brought me to a GP to get checked. i told the doctor my symptoms and she said i was just being stressed from school work and my skin picking is just eczema and offered me antibiotic cream. nonetheless, she still referred me to a psychiatrist but the appointment is a month away (because i cant afford private healthcare lol) and i have been keeping all of this inside of me for so long i dont even know if i have ocd or not or what i should even do or who i can even tell all of this to or if i can even post this here but i hate feeling like this and i just want all these thoughts to just shut up but i dont know what to do and im just so sick of it all | OCD |
Do any of you ever feel scared like just scared of and for everything and you just want to curl up in a ball waiting for the sweet release of death amd that one moment of peace where your mind is normal or whatever the hell normal is...does anything help? | ptsd |
I don’t know what love is supposed to feel like because I’m not allowed to feel it. ROCD, POCD, HOCD, and other fucked up sexual obsessions have stripped me of my ability to view my feelings as real. They’re not. I have no idea when what I feel is real.
Junior year of high school I date my first boyfriend. Kevin, I’ll call him. That is when I got my first hit of ROCD. I felt no love for him. He made me want to hurt myself. I wanted to love him so badly but my ROCD distorted his face so I thought he was unattractive. It was a never ending obsession. Please love him please love him.
He broke up with me and my OCD brain made me feel like I was in desperate, desperate, desperate love with him for the next 4 years. We were forced to become friends after a year of no contact and he got a new GF. I felt sick and horrible seeing them together. I suffered all through college watching him torture me.
Torture. Me. We were so close. And so far. Best friends but he would ghost me often. And then? At the last semester of our college his GF broke up with him. I was there to comfort him. I was dating my gf at that point, Kitty (who understands my problems). All 3 of us became best friends. I got all of his attention. He treated me like his gf. Like we both were his gf.
And I feel nothing anymore. | OCD |
The semester just started with a lecture on deviant behavior and delinquency. My professor, who will also teach a seminar on stigma, stressed that he'd rather people who are late didn't disturb the class and stayed outside. So I send him an email afterwards, asking him to excuse and make an exception for my deviant behavior of always being late because I have a medical explanation for it. I explained what time blindness is and promised that I would try extra hard to be on time but will still probably fail to do so regularly but that I would hate to miss classes because of this. I finished by saying that me being late was in no way meant to be disrespecting him, my classmates or the social norms of his classes. Let's hope he finds it funny and makes an exception for me. | ADHD |
When I(21m) get tired, I turn into some sort of dopamine hungry monster who will hunt relentlessly until I drop of exhaustion.
For perspective, from early morning to about noon, I feel like myself, hopefull for my future and with a general desire to get things done.
However, as soon as I get the slightest drop in energy this good state of mind disappears, leaving only me and a hunger for anything that I'll find enjoyable (games, drinks, etc.).
Of course, none of those things feel good for long and I'm left chasing the next thing in an practically mindless way.
How do you guys avoid turning into the dopamine fiend? | ADHD |
My trauma involves rape, assault, child abuse and domestic abuse as an adult. It feels like everyday on reddit I read about a new pedophile ring exposed, a new public figure abusing kids etc. And then in my own life it feels like every woman I meet has been abused in some way or another (whether as an adult or as a child).
I know in my logical brain that men are abused as well, that women CAN be abusers (my mom was one), and that not all men are inherently abusive. The following is my thoughts that I’m having a hard time reality checking and they’re really upsetting me:
I’m beginning to feel more and more that sexually abusing children is “normal” and “happens to everyone” and that maybe all men are inherently/secretly abusive? I fear that secretly all men are attracted to young women/teens/pre teens and that the only thing stopping most men is that they know it’s illegal? In so many cultures around the world, child marriage used to be the norm, and very young women and girls were sought for marriage etc.
I feel like my worldview is very small because I only have one friend and she was abused as a child too. My worldview is DEFINITELY being influenced by my trauma and I’m looking for places online that I can read about normal and healthy childhoods. Do they exist?? Did anyone really grow up without ANY abuse or unhealthy behaviors? It’s hard for me to believe, I don’t really “buy it”.
There are so many subreddits for people to talk about their experiences being raised by abusers etc and I really wish I could find a subreddit about normal healthy experiences so I can reassure myself that healthy normal men ACTUALLY exist. I KNOW in my smart brain that not all men are abusive! But my trauma is always whispering “maybe they are abusers”
Again, I know in my logical brain that non-abusive men exist, and this is my trauma speaking. I would love to hear from men and woman about this, if anyone has had similar experiences as me in how their trauma shapes their perception. | ptsd |
It's such a weird thing to say and explain but every day I look at a stranger. It really hurts. I don't want to disassociate so much all the time. The grounding techniques have not worked over the last 2 years of trying. I need something new.
-lake | ptsd |
My medical network has this (I think) very stupid thing where I have access to my psychiatrist's notes after every appointment. I don't need that temptation and she doesn't need my anxious ass creeping on her writing. I am pretty sure "am I losing my mind?" and "do I really have OCD?" are some of my more common obsessions. I just hadn't labeled them as such because I thought it was normal to constantly try to figure out your anxiety AND I work with a lot of anxious people so I kind of just fit in.
So there I am with a note written by a professional who doesn't live inside my brain and I just sit there reading "obsessional" and "circumstantial" (at least 6 times) and think "nuh uh!" trying to feel reassured that I have more control and insight than my psychiatrist thinks.
And you know what? I probably don't. | OCD |
I AM FREAKING OUT.
I (26m) was just recently diagnosed ADHD-C (last week) and I have a job interview this afternoon. The position is mostly administrative office work, organizing the logistics and inventory for the programs at a food bank (I know, it's worst possible type of work for an ADHDer but I'm desperate to escape my current toxic workplace).
Are there any ADHD specific job tips you could give me?
Also, what are your thoughts/experience with disclosing ADHD and getting work accomodations? What kind of accomodations help? Now that I'm officially diagnosed, I'm wondering if I *should* disclose.
Thank you all in advance and wish me luck please!
Edit: typo | ADHD |
Hi there, so I was under the impression that uppers turn into downers if you have ADHD, and if that doesn’t happen then you were misdiagnosed. Wasn’t sure if that was true or not so I was always unsure of my diagnosis, so I asked my therapist and she said it’s unlikely that I have ADHD since Adderall gave me awful panic attacks (all psych meds seem to do that).
So, simple question, is it possible that the diagnosis is accurate even if stimulants like coffee and adderall are a complete no for me or they give me awful panic attacks?
I fit a lot of symptoms of ADHD (hence the diagnosis) but I also have a lot of other mental illnesses that could cause the same symptoms, so I’m just not sure.
Anyway, not asking for a diagnosis, just want to know if it’s possible that I still have it even if stimulants make me anxious.
Thanks! | ADHD |
I’m 25 and I havent had friends or a relationships in the past 2 years and the only people I talk to are my parents | aspergers |
I recently went to a Psychiatrist to get diagnosed on whether or not I have ADHD. I informed him of my OCD since I've heard ADHD meds can worsen OCD. According to him, Most people with OCD have ADHD and we need to treat the OCD first before addressing anything related to ADHD. So I've been prescribed Paroxetine, the beneficial effects will kick in around 12 weeks, and apparently this is lifelong.
My main issue is the negative side effects, he stated it has sexual side effects, maybe causing delayed or no orgasm, but what had me worried is that is when I took a look myself into the side-effects, I found out that in some patients it can cause permanent sexual dysfunction that persists after discontinued use (PSSD) and now I don't know if I should take this medication at all, so I'm here for advice. | OCD |
I lost all my friends [1 person] and no one, even the ones I reached out to for help dont talk to me
And I cant sleep at night anymore and I spent several hours a night just sobbing about anything
I have my boyfriend and that's it. But I dont wanna lay it all on him so I'm trying so hard to keep doing this by myself
I'm just so lonely | depression |
Best friend and srg died died from a IED I almost lost my right arm and I’m extremely paranoid all the time I just can’t do do I still cope after spending 3 years in infantry as being half Iraqi Chaldean my mothers side and I still hate these people cause the killed my friends or tried to and I spoke the language been speaking it since I could talk it was spoken in the House but unless you’re family I don’t trust you and I can’t let people get close cause nobody would understand and think I’m crazy my therapist and and dr have said I PTSD I just think it’s normal to sleep with a gun it was SOP for military not on huge bases or like me stuck on a firebase or sleeping in houses where usually I was awake with my weapon in hand safety off cause I’d have to stay with family to watch to interpret it sucked i still have nightmares and night terrors and forth of July I blacked out on Xanax and my sister told me I was hiding cursing these fucking savages cause I thought it was a rocket or mortar attack the fucked up cause I need benzodiazepines to sleep and not dream but I can’t be bugging out around my sister and her babies I live with them | ptsd |
So earlier this year I was stalked, having threats yelled at me through my house window and having the door tried to be broken open.
I’ve moved houses twice in the space of 8 months since it happened and I’ve approached 3 doctors saying I don’t know what to do because if I’m home alone - day and especially night, any unexpected sounds I will freak to and either freeze and lose my breath for a moment or few or a mild-severe panic attack will occur and I’ll break down crying, even at 3am.
And my doctors will just tell me to just learn to overcome it.
It’s becoming a bad thing and I just want to cry because I feel so weak because I’m so scared over what is probably nothing anymore.
But I can look somewhere and randomly picture their face and it’s like they’re here again.
I just want to overcome it and enjoy being home alone doing what I want to do without the fear of someone watching me or trying to break in.
I even have terribly irrational thoughts of them sending someone else to my house which they shouldn’t even have any ideas on where I now live as I moved far. | ptsd |
I think that in order to heal, you have to accept the doors that your pain has both closed and opened for you. Pain can let us feel true, raw empathy for others.
When I see art or read a poem that discusses something related to my trauma, I have the gift of truly understanding it. People can try to understand, but they don’t, and that’s good too. I don’t want anymore people to be able to empathize with my pain, but when someone does, it’s almost a primal experience.
Our pain can let us make connections with others who have been hurt, and that’s the one good thing about trauma— the ability to hold someone’s hand and tell them that surviving is possible, and knowing you’re the only proof they need to keep going. | ptsd |
So, I'm 16 and have POCD. Over the past few weeks, the groinal responses have gotten to the point where I usually end up with the need to go to the bathroom and relieve myself. The thoughts and urges all go away for a short time before I get hit with them again and start ruminating for more than a minute. I found myself doing it again and again, focusing on the feeling of peeing in the toilet and ignoring the thoughts. With all this mind, could peeing actually be something I'm doing to make the situation better? | OCD |
How does Adderall XR compare to Vyvanse? Do they feel the same? Are they both therapeutic for ADHD? If somebody has been on Vyvanse for a long period of time and it is losing effectiveness, does it make sense for him to switch to Adderall XR?
Or should he stay on the Vyvanse and take an IR booster? | ADHD |
I’ve been working on getting into a mindfulness practice, both in therapy and through my own research. I found a couple great podcasts— the Happiness Lab, and Ten Percent Happier—that have lots of helpful information. However, I’ve noticed that these podcasts rarely, if ever, address the specific struggles of or specific applications for neurodiverse people, and some of the approaches don’t seem to work for my brain. Does anybody have mindfulness approaches or tips or exercises that work for your adhd brain? | ADHD |
i have not been able to hold a job for longer than a maximum of three years.
i tyically get so burned out i quit so i can recover. the longest ive needed to recover has been a year of no working with minimal interactions (i went six months not speaking and it would have been longer but the landlord needed to do seasonal inspections) keeping myself sequestered at home.
people view gaps in employment and multiple job changes as suspect and i never know how to explain them because the majority of the time im not comfortable with disclosing even though the compulson to be factful is always there and im always rife with anxiety because im not able to be forthright.
how have others explained gaps in employment? | aspergers |
Hi I’m 16 and I’ve been having horrible sexual thoughts or just plain thoughts of children or family which I don’t like either at all and it really sucks because I get super guilty and feel to tell my friend cuz if I have thoughts of his brother which is a child I get hella guilty about it or if like my penis moves like it doesent get hard but it like moves or gets a lil bigger or veins get bigger and i freak out cuz those sexual thoughts gross me out and ik I don’t like them | OCD |
I have a very odd OCD obsession, to do with my eye sight.
One day a couple of years back, I was having obsessions related to philosophy. I thought about my fear of death, and thought about how the fact I could see and feel reminded me that I would die. Additionally I had thoughts on the philosophy of solipsism, the belief that the world is an illusion. I had thoughts about the vision around me plunging into oblivion. My sight started to scare me.
The next day I went to a pub. This was after spending possibly a week inside the house in the dark playing video games and drinking caffeinated drinks. When I went to the pub I was consumed with anxiety about the vision thing, and had to walk home. I have never felt so mentally ill on that walk, felt like my head would explode with the pain inside it.
Since then I have this fear with my eyesight and going outside. When I am outside I fear being plunged into oblivion of some form. I also fear having a mental break down and being humiliated ([like this guy](https://youtu.be/IzKIYcc_8bU), who suffered psychosis and was mocked for it).
As a result it’s very hard. I have to constantly maintain going outside, to stop the obsession becoming too powerful.
Today I had to go inside because it was too much. But I am going to have some food and go back. | OCD |
ok so I know that a lot of the time my thoughts and everything has nothing to do with reality, but today has been a day so full of anxiety over one thing that I fell asleep when mom was driving me back home form granmas place, (kind of related to what gave me this anxiety) everyone else seemed calm about it and was not worried at all but I could not sleep last night because I knew this because of course if something happens in my aparetment I get notified of that, and basically there has been some reparation going on today and they had to turn off the water which got turned off pretty much right after I woke up, and so we went to grandmas because I refused to stay here without water for a whole day, and since I got home the sink has been checked twice in like an hour once by my sister just because she was wondering if she could use the bathroom before she left for her train, and then it was barely on now it is since I just got back from checking it in the kitchen myself so while everything is fine now I just feel silly about how I was panicking and was bothred all day by something that didn't seem to make anyone else worry, but then again my most common compulsion is hand washing so I use the sink quite a lot which you can tell by my hands in the winter cause they feel like dry wood and look pretty damaged to be honest, and even then it's better than a few years ago but yeah I feel silly because like with a lot of other things people around me make it seem like they think that, even though they probably don't mean that but due to things that has happened I have become scared that everything they think in a day where my OCD is bad is VERY negative. | OCD |
How many else have heard this phrase uttered again and again? Like it's up to us? | aspergers |
It's hard to explain, but it feels like some form of Perfectionist OCD(?) I've had crippling pure-O OCD for a long time, until I was diagnosed and medicated for it. Now it's mostly managed, thank goodness, but what remains feels like this weird off-shoot of Perfection OCD.
If there's a movie, show, book, whatever that I want to enjoy and be into, my brain seems to always want to do one of two things: Constantly badger myself with notions that I haven't paid enough attention, or haven't appreciated it enough thus far...the compulsion being: WATCH/READ AGAIN. Or, my brain will stick onto something to give it some reason to "ruin" something, or ruin my immersion in it.
For example, I'm a big MCU fan. And I'm loving Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Someone on reddit posted a simple picture of Sebastian Stan with the Winter Soldier arm in the makeup room. And my head goes "those guys don't wear makeup, they're not supposed to in the show". OBVIOUSLY, I know it's show makeup so their skin tone isn't drowned out. And such a stupid, small, simple thing makes my brain jump to : "Boom, ruined now."
I fight feelings like these because I want to enjoy what I want to enjoy. It just feels exhausting. Does anyone else struggle with these exhaustive feelings when trying to enjoy a show, book, movie, etc.? | OCD |
I can’t seem to find any information on this online however in the past when my ocd was less under control, I obsessed over causing unintentional harm to others. However, not only did I obsess over the thoughts, but my mind when triggered, would obsess over not saying an extremely inappropriate jokes. So much so, that one night a year ago, it slipped out, the person was absolutely horrified and I ran away crying + panicking.
occasionally, when my mind gets triggered by those thoughts of not saying something that I know to be wrong and don’t want to say, I still feel this ‘energy’ where if I don’t go away, it feels as if it will slip out again like last time if I don’t take care.
is this a symptom of ocd or something else entirely?
tl;dr: brain obsesses over not saying extremely inappropriate jokes, has slipped out once and feel like it could happen again despite me hating the nature of the joke and it being against who i am. Is this ocd or something else? | OCD |
**Posting this review because there isn't much feedback on this drug online! I tried looking for it myself before starting Adzenys and did not find much.**
I've been medicated for ADHD for 8 years. Over the years I've been on Vyvanse, Adderall (instant & XR), Ritalin, & Evekeo.
My psychiatrist recently wanted me to try Adzenys. I'm always game to try a new drug for my ADHD, especially when my doctor boasted about the fact that his other patients on it were claiming it lasted 10+ hours with no crash.
If you're not familiar with Adzenys, it's the bioequivalent of Adderall XR, but without the salts. It's a dissolvable tablet. I had a feeling I wasn't going to like it because Adderall XR made me extra moody and the crash was brutal.
Before starting, I was on 50mg Vyvanse and 20mg Adderall. The Vyvanse only lasts about 5-6 hours for me, so I take the Adderall in the afternoon. I'm on the highest does of Adzeys btw (18.8mg).
To start with, the design of the drug is counterintuitive when dealing with ADHD folks. It's a very fragile pill since it's dissolvable, so it comes in a large box with blister packs. Within this box, it comes with a slim plastic case that holds 6 pills/blister packs to take on the go. I always have my pills with me because my mornings are such a fucking disaster that 99.9% of the time I forget to take my pill until I'm in the car on the way to work or at work. The people who designed this drug thought someone with ADHD would remember to refill this thing with the drug that would have helped them remember to refill this thing?????? I've forgotten EVERY TIME it's empty.
I'm sure some of you can relate to this: At least once a week, I will take my bottle out of bag (when I was on Vyvanse), zone out, and then I come back to reality with the bottle still in my hand and I don't know if I took the pill or not. The one good thing about Adzenys is the evidence of the blister pack the pill was in lmao.
To me, the actual drug itself feels very much like Adderall XR. I can't decide if it has more of a subtle start than Adderall XR or if it's just that the dose isn't enough for me. Adzenys isn't working nearly as well as Vyvanse does for me. The best way I can describe it is spotty. It's like the release of the medication throughout the "day" (4-5 hours tops) is all over the place. I've had 30-45 min spurts where I'm able to focus pretty well and then feel an obvious dip. Then 15 min later, I can feel it starting to work a little again but it's foggy. Foggy in that I don't have 9 million things on my mind and I'm not restless, but I feel like a shell of myself? That lasts for about 20 min before I can get something done without zoning out 18 times. It's a cycle of that. Vyvanse for me is relatively smooth and steady most days comparably.
I also don't know if I'm even taking it correctly. Of course with ADHD my mind is wildly overthinking it. Since it feels a little different than Adderall XR, in my opinion, it could very well be the delivery of it. Am I leaving in my mouth long enough? Did I leave it in my mouth too long? Should I swish it around? Would that fuck it up? Btw it tastes like an extra sugary orange sweet tart and the texture once dissolved is gritty and gross. The instructions say to put it on top of your tongue, but every other dissolvable pill goes under so that your mucous membranes can absorb it (but it is extended release so idk!!). I can't find much info online about dissolvable tablets that are extended release. If anyone has any tips on taking these, pls advise.
I've been on Adzenys for almost 2 months. My doc prescribes my prescriptions in 3 month increments, so I forgot to make an appointment to change back to Vyvanse/Adderall. Go figure. But I will be switching back. Hope my doc enjoys his kickback because I think he was full of shit.
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TLDR; If Adderall XR wasn't a good fit for you, Adzenys probably isn't either. Also, it's a dumbass design for a drug for people with ADHD since you have to remember to refill your plastic pack since they can't be stored in a bottle. | ADHD |
It’s been 3 decades but I finally found a drug that works for me! If I can’t talk about it here, where can I go to talk about it? I want to know if anyone else is going through the same thing I am. I am on a sensory dissociative and it has really improved my executive functioning skills (especially cognitive inhibition) and I want to know what other’s have experienced. The struggle is real and I want some feedback. Can someone direct me to a place that is more open to talking about medication and autism? Disclaimer: Always talk to your doctor about medication or drugs. This is not an endorsement for any medication…Just honestly looking for feedback or a place to talk about it. | aspergers |
And if so, what's your personal way of self soothing?
I've noticed recently that the deeper I delve in a session the more likely I am to act out the rest of the week. My brain literally feels like it's a bullet train of emotions or as if fireworks are going off in it. My perception of abandonment, fears, clinginess, and anxiety heightens..which sucks.
My sessions and current therapist do me well with unraveling and tracing behaviours, memories, etc but they leave me in pieces sometimes. This, coupled with being very sober (due to health reasons) really exhausts me.
I'd like to find better ways to cope (that don't involve sleeping or food reward), and also would like to know if anyone else feels this from time to time... | ptsd |
I got myself another job after being off sick from my previous contract for half a year. I have a feeling I can't just do this anymore. I can't carry on living anymore. There's nothing holding me here and I feel like a waste of space. I'm considering quitting my job. Idk why everything is great here,and everyone is so nice. Why can't I just be grateful for everything thats happened. Why do i feel like this? | depression |
sigh.. so i havent been able to sleep all night and i feel awful. people that have dealt with swallowing and tongue awareness, how can i stop? i try to sit through it with uncomfortableness and its hard and idk if im doing it right. i tend to swallow alot and get a really bad urge if i dont for a long time, and i have to do it. and i fixate on my tongue so much idk why :/ its so irrational and i try to ignore it so much all the time and its hard abd its ruining me i feel so hopeless
i know im not gonna die from this and its not s concern anymore. but its so bothersome and i just want to sleep and here i am crying at 3:21 am alone in my room and i just want a hug. | OCD |
Rant! So - I had my first psychiatrist appointment today and I’m upset. Basically the doc was dismissing my past experiences of child abuse and assault; writing it off as depression and anxiety disorder; was even questioning what I said happened because I “was only 3 years old”; and that I should let go of the past and concentrate on the present. Man, seriously I went there to get help and now I feel worse. | ptsd |
Painting my nails with my attention span, need to fidget, and impatience is the worst.
I try to be careful but as soon as I remember that it takes a long time for nails to dry fully it turns into a disaster. I hate not being able to do things with my hands, I fidget all the time and I don't have the general patience.
I'll wait for what feels like forever and they're not even slightly dry yet. I'll constantly touch them to see if they're dry, which messes them up if they aren't at least a little set. Then I'll just get impatient and think "they're probably done, time for the next coat so I can get this over with" then I'm just making it thicker which makes it take longer to dry if the layer below is still wet, or the brush can move the polish causing bumps and wrinkles.
Or I'll leave and do stuff before it's done, and even if I'm careful it'll smudge and smear everywhere because I'm so scatterbrained and by then I've gone way too far to start over, and even if I could I wouldn't want to do it all over again. Then after that I just have a bunch of physical reminders on my fingers of how inept I can really be, even after what can sometimes be up to 3 hours of working and waiting. Sometimes I'll just give up, go to bed, and have to finish up the next day! It sucks that with ADHD even simple tasks can seem monstrous if they take too long or involve a lot of waiting. At least for me.
I'm trying to paint my nails more regularly because I really want to get better at it, and I love having painted nails. The outcome is definitely worth the process most of the time, but that doesn't mean the process is any easier. Does anyone have any advice on being able to sit and wait for long periods of time? Like 15-20 minutes at a time? Or even how to dry nails faster? Anything? | ADHD |
I’m trying so hard to be aware of my ruminations right now and to shift it as it takes up hours of my day, but ruminating seriously feels like cocaine in my brain. If I think about it just a little bit longer, I’ll get it all figured out but the story just gets bigger and messier and more for me to figure out.
Can anyone relate to this? Any tips for quitting the behavior? | OCD |
I’ve always struggled with obsessive thoughts and not being able to get rid of them. Examples would be feeling like I was going to hurt my family, getting pregnant accidentally etc. These would stick into my mind for days until I was able to overcome them, or if they were solved. But what I’m feeling right now is different. A while back I had a super bad panic attack, and I’ve been nervous about getting them ever since. I had one at work a few weeks ago and after that I was so scared of embarrassing myself and having another panic attack at a party or in front of my friends that the thought would not leave my brain. Because it wouldn’t leave my brain I started to search online to see if other people could relate and I saw something that said someone could not get the same thought out of their head for months/years. I am now terrified and can not get myself to relax and this thought will not leave my brain. I’ve convinced myself that I’m going crazy and that I’m going to need electroshock therapy. I literally can’t stop thinking about this, it’s like background noise in my brain and I’m terrified. I’ve never been on meds or been to therapy but I have an appointment for tomorrow and I just need this to go away it’s physically making me sick and I literally feel helpless. | OCD |
In less than an hour I will be having my feedback session for my autism testing.... 27 y. o. Female self diagnosed up till this point.
Receiving a diagnosis has been a year up to this moment. I couldn’t be any more nervous than I already am at this moment.... send good thoughts please 😬 | aspergers |
I'm not sure if this is OCD but this has been going on for years now. When I touch something and it feels 'wrong' I touch it again and go back and fourth until it feels 'right' for me. It's honestly feels so exhausting. I wonder if anyone of you here is experiencing this and how you guys try to stop yourselves. | OCD |
Short back story. First diagnosed at age 6, received treatment with medication on and off until age 10 when my parents told me I had to grow out of my ADHD. Wasn’t until age 20 that I realized growing out of ADHD isn’t possible and I’ve spent all these years struggling, began seeking treatment again.
I was prescribed concerta 6 weeks ago and it hasn’t hardly done anything for me, I’ve noticed the occasional burst of energy but it’s not productive energy, I feel slightly more motivated to start tasks but still have a hard time finishing them, if anything I feel *more* distracted that usual. Upon seeing my psychiatrist today and telling him this he said he doesn’t feel comfortable moving forward with ADHD as my primary diagnosis, because if I truly had ADHD the med would’ve done *something* for me. I was under the impression that not every med would work for everyone, is this not true? | ADHD |
Hello!
For as long as I can remember I've always had this feeling that something really bad happened to me when I was a child. It's just a feeling I've had that... but here is the problem,I don't remeber what it could be. I sometimes reflect on my childhood and I don't remember much other then being an extremely anxious child who would pee herself. And whenever I think about it I start to hyperventilate and my head hurts.
It it possible that your brain will erase these memories and is there a way to "remeber" them again without creating false memories?
I feel like it's a missing piece of a puzzle that I want to remember and understand.. but my brain and body refuses.
my English is not he best so hope you guys understand. | ptsd |
TW: Stillbirth.
It is the anniversary of my son's death. We believe he died on the 27th, I was in labour through out the 28th and he was born at 1am on the 29th. My husband isn't doing too well either (we both have PTSD) and at the time he was told that my life was also in danger.
We dont have a therapists right now as we are in a new area and have to register again. There is a six month waiting list. So tired of feeling broken and yet society expecting us to just get back to funtioning normally.
Also sick of people not understanding how PTSD works (even medical professionals). | ptsd |
Hey there! I have a 6-year-old aspie girl who is also gifted and is operating at roughly the mental level of a 10.5-year-old (not emotionally). She really struggles to play with peers, and constantly wants to control the game with intense rules and regulations. She much prefers the company of older kids and adults, but still struggles unless the social interactions are within her parameters.
In your opinion, would more socialization have helped you or was this just your personality trait (if you had it)?
She is homeschooled and doesn’t have a ton of daily interaction with kids, but we do play dates and co-ops and camps, so she isn’t totally isolated either. Plus she has a younger sister.
I never can tell if something is Aspergers or somewhere I’m failing as a parent and it’s awful. | aspergers |
I'm not thankful for anything. Life is shit right now. Never had a gf in my entire life nor have I ever had a girl show interest in me at all. My family is struggling to pay the bills and all our time goes to school or work. We aren't living we're just surviving right now. There's nothing indicating that things will change. Life is just an endless abyss where our lives get sucked into it with no way out. All this effort to just survive with no reason to keep going on. | depression |
I've started an online part time Masters and miserable. It's totally isolating and feels like all theory. I can barely write a word and have zero enthusiasm for it. Feels like all I'm doing is wasting time failing to complete assignments. I don't want 2 years of this! It also feels fairly irrelevant to the course subject. | depression |
Being around other humans makes my life so much easier to manage.
The more and more I’m left to fend for myself the less I’m able able to manage my symptoms and get things done. Back when I was living in my hometown around my strong social circle my adhd was so well managed. I kept up with exercise, my emotional regulation, my hobbies, career and studies because I had friends to do things with & systems to keep me accountable.
Since moving away to pursue further study/work, I’ve lost all my fitness progress (thanks pandemic) and my lack of routine has killed so many of the things that made my life full. Cue breaking up with my boyfriend of 5 years, I now have no body doubles, and whilst age and persistence has brought me to a point where I can manage school and work, my personal life is so…lacking compared to what it used to be and everything is so much harder.
I’ve been told by neurotypicals that it’s likely caused by issues with my identity & self worth and where I place value on things and I “need to get motivated to do things for myself”. I’m the last person on earth to try make my diagnosis my identity but it’s a given fact that I need social support to function and I’m sick of being told that this is a problem that needs to be fixed by “self love”. People discourage me from seeking the social structure I require to function because “it’s a sign I need to work on myself” and I need to “learn to love myself and my own company” and “do things for yourself not others”.
I hate this advice. Not only is it the vaguest platitude ever, I feel like they’re dismissing the fact that I HAVE BEEN DOING THINGS FOR MYSELF WHOLE LIFE and the fact that I need social structure to help me follow through doesn’t change that it’s a very conscious decision I made for me and me alone. I actually have quite a strong sense of direction and identity. It’s not like I don’t care about these things and don’t want to do them. I care a LOT and it’s really distressing to not be able to do what I want and need to do.
Needing social support is inconvenient and I’m deeply ashamed and feel inferior because of it, and of course I’m trying to develop better self-sufficient strategies bc constant social support is hard to find in the real world. BUT - nobody shits on people with broken legs for using crutches because their legs should work. Why am I being discouraged from utilising social structure as my totally valid form of support? Why is the only advice anyone has for me is essentially just “suck it up dude”. I would just like some validation that no, I’m not having a fucking identity crisis, my executive functioning is just shit and I need more external reminders than most to keep on track with the things in life that are good for me and give my life meaning.
I’m currently working on healing from my last relationship with my psych and of course these issues are going to come up bc I relied on my partners support to keep my life on track. Not that he did life for me, but just being there was enough accountability & reminder to keep me going. I’m a bit anxious and I really want her to be able to understand me next session, because last session when this topic came up I knew what I wanted to say, but this has been such a lifelong, abstract wound I really couldn’t explain it well.
I just want to know that I’m not alone, and if anyone has any advice or experiences to share it’s very much welcome 🥺 | ADHD |
My best friend and I have liked each other for a bit but never made a move. This morning she started talking to her ex. And my other friend told me they've been dating for a long time and still were. So I told him. I'm not mad at you. But why did she have to lie to me about this and have me live a lie. And he showed her. Turns out they weren't dating. And now she hated me. And she is the best person I knew. I'm so stressed dude. What do I do | depression |
Hey everyone,
I'm currently exploring options for stimulant medications, and am trying out Adderall. It seems like uppers generally are at risk of aggrovating pyschoctic symptoms. I'm concerned about that as I have a dispostion to that.
I'm wondering, do people know about medications that are less likely to trigger that?
If you're here to tell me to talk to a doctor save your energy, I'm on it.
I'd love to hear from you on your personal experiences! | ADHD |
Im sure we have all had it. Weather you feel like a burden to others. A sick twisted experiment by a mad scientist. Like you dont belong anywhere or no one gets you. So on and so forth. It isnt easy being different and the world isnt an easy place. Human emotions make it difficult. Trying to be a responsible adult can suck all the joy outta your life quickly if ill prepared. With every passing day its only getting worse. Most days I dont wanna be here in this world. I have reactive depression along with several other rare conditions that make life hell. I just sleep a lot after work or drink. It sucks but I know Im not the only one. Does anyone have any advice? Any that isnt patronizing or overly happy? | aspergers |
This past week has been hell for me, between finals, trying to establish healthy habits, and just general existence.
For context, my diagnosis was pretty recent (October), and my psych recommended that I get into therapy along side seeing her, which I have started this month. Suddenly I’m painfully aware of how much time I waste day-to-day, how much I don’t get done, how much I disappoint myself and others. Almost every night this past week I’ve been in tears, because of procrastinating a paper until 3 hours till it’s due, or my partner becoming annoyed because I forgot something (we’ve spoken extensively about adhd and he’s very supportive of me, his reaction to that particular situation was fine, I’ve just become so much more sensitive because of stress.), or continuously delaying Christmas plans with my family because I’m too busy procrastinating school work. I feel like shit constantly.
Both my therapist and my family have said that I need to be proud of my accomplishments, but I just can’t. I feel like a fraud. When I finally DO manage to do something, it’s not a feeling of relief, but rather a negative reminder that I could have done this weeks, or even months ago, yet it took me so long to even start it. That the task I had to preform was expected of me, so why congratulate that? Logically I know this is a very unhealthy outlook, but my brain is full of worms apparently, and any advice on how to reframe the guilt caused by adhd would be appreciated.
I’m a college student, as I mentioned, and I work at a coffee shop so my access to caffeine is pretty much unlimited. Between pulling all nighters because of procrastination, and then getting up at 4 am to open, I probably consume an average of 3-6 cups of coffee a day. Already I’m anxious about dumb things, and piling this much caffeine on top of it clearly isn’t helping. What is a good way to wean myself off caffeine? | ADHD |
Literally like, a fucking car crash could happen behind me or in front of me and I wouldn't even flinch. Shit falling, stuff getting dropped, etc, and absolutely no response from me. Sometimes people act surprised about it if I'm interacting with them as it happens.
Noises like whispering, crunching, etc, though? Agitates me to no fucking end. Although I think this is more misophonia than it is ASD. | aspergers |
So this year has been a difficult one.
1. My father attempted suicide after my mom asked for a divorce.
2. I’m on night shift alienated and getting no sleep (luckily they will be switching me to days soon)
3. Break up with a decade old friend.
Any encouragement would be appreciated. | OCD |
Just checking to see if others could offer empathy / input / advice.
I've been on adderall off and on for about 3yrs. I used to take 20mg XR, then last summer I stopped and didn't get back on medication until January of this year. Spoke to my doctor and decided to switch to IR so that I could be more deliberate with my usage and utilize it as needed. He gave me permission to break the pills into smaller doses and take as many days off as I desired - my intention was not to take it daily.
Well, initially I would break it up into two doses maybe an hour alert of 10mg each, so I'd do 10mg first thing upon waking and another 10mg later... but over time I felt like it was too much (probably because it hits you all at once unlike xr), so I scaled down to 5 to 10mg most days, still split into two doses. This prevented high anxiety and energy crashes.
But the downside is I guess since I wasn't experiencing side effects or crashes, I pretty much took it every day since January and have taken very few tolerance holidays. Usually a day or two at most here and there.
But recently I felt like I just had too much of a dependency built up and *was* starting to feel more moody and anxious, so I decided to try to take another break this week, and was aiming for at least a full week off to reset my tolerance and dependency somewhat. I was even considering staying off it for a longer period again like I did last summer, as I have a love/hate relationship with the medication.
Suffice to say, since tapering off 5mg/day this past Sunday (4 days ago), my anxiety has been through the roof and comes seemingly at random. I'll be fine one moment and the next I suddenly feel the flight or fight mode activating for no reason whatsoever. I'll feel myself panicking over something silly or having paranoid thoughts.
If it persists into next week i am going to talk to my doctor but I don't really want to Take another medication like Xanax to counter this one. I feel like what I'm experiencing is probably my brain responding to not having floods of artificially boosted dopamine and so it's trying to recalibrate or something, causing spikes in dopamine, noradrenaline and anxiety ...but I was also on such a low dose that I'm surprised it's this bad.
I had lethargy and fatigue when I came off 20mg XR but I don't remember the anxiety being like this.
So I guess I just wanted to ask others for their advice / insight / support and see if there's anything I can do to help mitigate the anxiety. I am taking l theanine every morning and evening (an amino acid with a calming effect found in tea) as well as taurine and magnesium, but beyond that I'm open to advice!
Thanks. | ADHD |
Without going into it, I'm generally kinda anti-doctor and so on. Cultural reasons and the way I was raised etc. So even though it's clear to everyone and has been for a long time, I never went to any sort of person who would give me a mental health label/formal diagnosis. I have been in therapy for most of my life. Again without going into specifics, I had a very shitty childhood, the type that people look at and immediately tell you "you need to be in therapy."
I got a psych eval done a while ago in the hopes of accessing some medication and I tried a few things but I had low hopes and nothing really was worth it so all I got out of that stunt was some really fun papers about myself.
The psychologist told me straight to my face that if it wasn't for my personality and my personal ways of handling things/way I carry myself, I probably would have diagnosable OCD, but because of the way I handle myself he didn't think it was disorderly level. My therapist of many years has echoed this opinion.
I still experience some very strong and clear compulsions and obsessions, but I manage them mostly to not be distressful. I feel lonely sometimes that they are still pretty bizarre and no one really gets it. People who have never had a compulsion are terrified. People with OCD or other mental illnesses say I have it lucky or get mad at me sometimes.
He's probably been mentioned here before but I started watching the youtuber/streamer Charlie aka MoistCritikal aka penguinz0 and I really clicked with him. I didn't know until a lot later that he's like me, too. He wasn't diagnosed or anything I don't think, but he very clearly has had compulsions and OCD behaviors that were sub-clinical or otherwise he managed via his own personality and stuff like that.
These are some of the things I experience.
1. Quests
Most of my compulsions are very bizarre but mundane. They feel like receiving secret knowledge sometimes and sometimes I wonder if God is telling me things. They often involve getting good luck or something mundane and extremely common being a sign that God is looking out for me and I'm being taken care of.
Have you ever heard of "reality checks" or "grounding?" Like where you're supposed to feel things or look for objects of a certain color to lower anxiety and feel more connected? It's like my compulsions are like that.
I woke up in the morning and it was like God talked directly into my entire body and said "Drink a glass of orange juice." I drank a glass of orange juice (which I often do for breakfast anyways) and I was just really happy. If I didn't happen to have orange juice, I would remember the compulsion and buy orange juice next time I could, but it wouldn't stress me out that I hadn't done it yet. Because the goodness of God is eternal and God doesn't get mad about petty things like not drinking orange juice. It wasn't directly God though, if that wasn't clear. It's my own thoughts, that come into my head like that.
When I was young I had to touch everything with both hands. If I touched the back of a chair with my left hand, I had to touch it with my right. I thought if I didn't, my entire body would be unbalanced and the neglected side would become ill. I also had to make a noise every few seconds or I thought my throat would close up and I would chock to death. Then one day I asked God to please make it stop and God told me it had, and it did. I made a pact with both my hands that they would share experiences and that they were not neglected.
There is often a sort of anthropomorphism or magical thinking. You can leverage that if you're able. If your hands are at war, you can make peace. I use religion (and I was not raised religious at all) but I don't think you have to, this could all be secular.
2. Remembering and Loud Thoughts
Sometimes a thought becomes a loud thought. Loud thoughts are all-encompassing and it really does feel like they are ringing around in my head. They are also typically mundane. When I was younger they were often sexual or graphic or anxious but I also just asked God to make that stop and it did. I still get them but it's typically stuff literally like "I love being alive" or "I love my friends" or "I love Jesus" or "Today is Saturday" or "My dog is nice to me" or "Spring is coming soon, and then I will buy a new coat." Loud thoughts also used to last hours but now they typically only last ten or fifteen minutes. I find it peaceful and they never happen when it would be bad for them to happen, like when I'm driving and need to pay attention. In the past they tortured me and I had also convinced myself that if I told anyone about them, I would instantly be sent to the hospital. Nowadays, I often do tell people the loud thought, because it is typically mundane, and telling people it often helps it go away.
3. Magic Touch Barriers
Sometimes I used to be compulsed to touch things with both hands to make them equal, but I also sometimes was compulsed that I could not touch something at all. Now it is my magic trick and I treat it like a joke or something very silly in my head. When I have the compulsion that I cannot touch something, but I do have to or want to touch it, I again treat it like something very, very silly, and put my hand through the "magic touch barrier." I act in my head like I've just seen a magic trick and it is very surprising and funny that the touch barrier is invisible and my hands can go through it.
4. It Turns Out I Am Powerful
The "threat" behind all of my bad thoughts and compulsions and all that OCD-type stuff is that if I don't do it, I will immediately be struck with so much mental upset and I will freak out so badly that I will either die or be hospitalized and ruin my life. I did not do this on purpose but I made a friend who was hospitalized for many months due to a mental breakdown in his youth. He is absolutely fine now and completely recovered and it did not impact his long-term prospects. I think about him sometimes and I think about how even if I was really hospitalized that he would be my friend still and my family would still be there. Maybe this is not true and it would be horrible or whatever, but I again take on a silly, joking, flippant mood and go "Mental hospital? You mean a vacation with free food, free socks, and I get to get high off pills all day and watch TV? Oh, I'd love to do that. Oh, please, let me go to a mental hospital!"
It is sort of like bluffing and it makes the scariness go away.
With the talk of suicide, I again turn to religion. I very loudly replace suicidal compulsive thoughts with religious thoughts and think about important events in my religious history like my baptism and singing in choirs and being prayed for. I have never had it done but I think I am one of the few people that really would benefit from the big fancy "laying hands" where the pastor or whoever says a lot of mumbo jumbo and they make a big production out of healing you. It would just be such a striking memory it would probably help knock away all the bad thoughts if I thought about it. I sometimes say short prayers like "Oh Jesus Christ, with all your power, please protect me from my bad thoughts" or "Oh Jesus, I am your faithful follower and I am not going to kill myself, it is my bad thoughts." It is very rare that they bother me that much anymore.
Recap:
- Flippant, joking, silly mood to react to dark and threatening compulsive thoughts
- Approach anthropomorphic/magical thinking on its own terms and be a powerful god and create magic that serves YOU
- Find striking, positive and wholesome memories/thoughts that neutralize bad ones- but don't use the wholesome memories preemptively. The entire exchange should be anxiety-less and not loop over and over.
I am a torture victim who is lucky to have made the damage to my mind work for me. I am successful in my career and social relations and most people have no clue about my past or these experiences that I have. I do not use social media websites very often so I apologize if I am not formatting something correctly. Thank you very much.
Jackson | OCD |
I feel like my meds have stopped working.
I’m a single mom and I’m moving out of my apartment by the 31st. I’m so spacey this morning that I can’t focus on anything. Like, my number one goal this week is to go to work and make money. Then I have a group of friends coming over this weekend to help pack my house up.
Here my brain is wanting to throw everything together though and make it all look unmanageable. So what do I do?
I sit. My brain shuts down and all I can do is cry?
I’m 33 years old! I got this! Why does my brain have to take a dump now?!?! | ADHD |
My grandma and I have been fighting every single day because she cannot stand my struggles with ADHD. She thinks I can just "put an effort" but I don't want to because I'm selfish, rude, a jerk... so she won't get me professional help. She thinks ADHD needs no support or help, because it's about "willpower" and "trying hard enough".
I struggle a lot with keeping my room organized and that's driving her mad, she yells at me that she will get rid of me and kick me out. I swear I'm trying my best but executive dysfunction is not something I have control over, yet I feel so useless. I've lived with my Grandma since I was a toddler, and I really don't want to mess everything up and get kicked out just due to something it's not my fault and I cannot control. I won't say my age but I am under 18. My dad left and my mother doesn't know that I have ADHD, the only years I spent with her I was forced to masking 24/7 as it was an abusive environment, so she won't even believe anything.
Also I'm doing so poorly at school, I'm often late and haven't done homework like in months, I have no idea how to stop procrastionation. The "strategy" I had was delaying everything to the very last minute, so with all that dopamine I could do my really best on homeworks. Though, that's messing up my sleep schedule and I'm constantly exhausted and drained. I don't know what I can do, I'm stressed out all the time. My Grandma asked my why did I seem to be so drained and I told her my school struggles, I thought she trully wanted to support me but she ended up saying things like that I was not trying enough and I had no right to feel sad because it was my fault and I should be able to manage my time.
Anyway I genuinely don't know what I could to do cope or get better with these struggles, nothing seems to work anymore and my Grandma makes me feel there is no point in trying. | ADHD |
I got someone sent to jail at the age of 12 and am almost 14 now. I'm still suffering and am hoping to meet some others like me. If you have gone through something similar to threats and been forced into stuff (such as sending lude pictures). I've a survivor and am sad to say I wasn't the first victim. I'm also a survivor of self harm and am now just starting get over the issue after two years now. | ptsd |
So I had within 4 or so years gotten a handle on my ptsd and the coinciding depression and anxiety that joined the party. I was already pretty sensitive about people being near me and touching me, like there was a little buzz under my skin. I decided I’d tolerate it because I didn’t want to be that guy with friends and my family gets upset with me when I refuse physical affection.
Last year in September or October it’s hard to distinguish the time, I was groped and touched in a sexual manner by someone I knew personally that made me extremely uncomfortable. They were heavily intoxicated which is also a trigger for me before this happened. I broke down that night and for a few months quite badly. It’s come to me having pretty severe anxiety attacks in public places when there are too many people around. I guess I figured if I’d handled my trauma I’d already had I could just keep going and functioning like I was. I was very wrong. I went through a lot of problems that I suppose were normal after being sexually assaulted, I really struggled with reaching out and this is probably the first time I’m really talking about it. But I’ve also found a lot of my old trauma resurfacing, such as having dreams of my grandfather that suddenly passed who had practically been my father. Then there was the worsening of my already present symptoms. My depression, anxiety, and basic emotional control went out the window.
What has probably been the hardest thing is my touch sensitivity worsening. The dull bearable buzz has turned into painful tingling/buzzing/burning sensations sometimes they’re bad enough I want to cry. It’s like someone has set my nerves on fire. If anyone gets near me it can happen, if anyone touches me it can and most likely will happen. I’m so tired of it because I crave touch and physical comfort but it can be next to impossible to do when it feels like almost anything can make me physically hurt when nothing is actually hurting. It’s especially stressful because I don’t know how to explain this to a close friend of mine that I used to comfortably cuddle and hug most of the time without them getting weird, guilty, and refusing to touch me at all because I only recently connected my extreme sensitivity to what happened last year. | ptsd |
is this related to ocd? from a young age I've had intrusive thoughts about my loved ones dying and I've always felt like i HAD to check on them. My little sister has asthma and since she was 3 and I was 7 I've felt compelled to check if she was breathing in the middle of the night, for fear of her suffocating to death. Now her asthma is much more under control but the fear still goes on. Today my bf didn't respond to me for 3 hours and I had a panick attack and spammed his phone in fear that he had died or something terrible had happened to him. | OCD |
Hey y’all. I am hoping To get some clarity on my current Adderall situation. I am 36 years old and was diagnosed with adult ADHD about 3 years ago. I started on Adderall XR but it gave me some pretty gnarly migraines and only worked for about 3 hours. I started taking Adderall IR and it worked well for me because I could take 2 a day and sometimes just 1. Within the last few months I have noticed a change with the IR. All of a sudden the medication is not working at all anymore. I found myself taking 3 in a day to just feel normal again. I take days off from the medication but still doesn’t help. Did anyone here start with adderall and move onto something else? Should I up my dose? I’m currently on 15mg IR. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks guys and gals! | ADHD |
So I'm an animation student, and animation requires you to be really reckless and disposable with your work. Every animation professional I've spoken to has said 'if I were a perfectionist, I wouldn't be an animator'. Yet here I am being a perfectionist nonce who can't seem to bring myself to draw anything at all. I struggle with a sort of combination of perfectionism and hoarding intrusive thoughts that lead to thought processes such as 'if I continue working on this animation, I'll ruin what I've already done so far therefore I can't work on it'. Another one is 'if I use my graphics tablet, it might get dirty or cracked and then it'll be unusable, so I can't use my tablet'. I'm basically Gollem with my art works and supplies, they're too precious so my wormbrain logic decides I can't even touch them. This often leads to fun and games such as me washing my hands over and over before using my tablet in fear of 'breaking' it somehow. In the end, I just don't do anything at all. It's like I'm completely paralysed.
Are there any artists here who struggle with similar thoughts? | OCD |
22 yrs of age and still feel like a toddler,
I want to die | depression |
I'm so depressed and suicidal. Yesterday, someone accused me of stealing someone's sound effects. And I pointed out that those sound effects were not theirs, and were stock. A former friend of mine betrayed me, and sent the private conversations we had to that person, and made a video how much I was a "liar" and "didn't deserve anybody". My heart is in a million pieces. I tried to apologize for what I did, but nobody would listen. Everyone on the video started saying mean things about me and ignoring me. He eventually told me that this was the consequences.
Because of him, I'm absolutely broken, with my heart shattered into a million pieces. My youtube channel with lots of subs, my accounts, gone forever. I am having a hard time trusting people. And this happened yesterday.
What makes it worse is that I truly am sorry for what I did, and I was wrong to do that. I really don't know how to move on from this. | depression |
I am ultra depressed nowadays. If I had enough experience about life, probably I would commit suicide. by the way I am 20. I cant enjoy. I am sorry for myself. I am dissapointing myself everyday. I wish I had more and suitable attention from my environment. I wish I would feel real support . | depression |
If you’re younger for instance I’m 15, would it be easier to treat ocd using ERP? | OCD |
When I was young I had a really hard time with bright lights. I had to have photogray lenses in my glasses to deal with it. Eventually I sort of got used to just dealing with bright lights.
Nowadays, I'll occasionally hear people complain about driving at night. I almost prefer driving at night versus the day. Everything's highlighted more. Except for when it rains. When it's raining hard enough that the road surface is reflecting light I start having a really hard time determining where everything is. I'm starting to wonder now if that's common in everyone or if it might be related to my light issues. | aspergers |
I am constantly worried that everything I eat is/will be spoiled. I try to yell counselor this, but sounds so stupid when I talk about it that I just laugh it off. But it's not a joke, it's a giant Wright in my life. | OCD |
Hello everybody,
I was wondering how you all deal with executive disfunction and how you explain it to people who don't experience this.
My therapist said I just have to do the thing. Like nothing is keeping me from getting up and doing the dishes. I still have legs and all. So just get up and do it. Command yourself to do it.
I tried to explain that I am already screaming at myself in my head to get up and do the thing but that my body just doesn't do the thing. I don't know how to explain it. I tried to explain it as follows:
Imagine you have a very heavy blanket on you. Like 15 kg or something that prevents you from getting up, on top you have headphones that play 15 different songs in 4 languages, 3 audio books and then you have yourself standing there and screaming at you to do the thing.
After that explanation she repeatedly said I should just get up because nothing is physically holding me down. If there were a fire I would jump up and run right? I thought about it and yes I would get up. So why don't I do that when I am already screaming at myself to get up?
Any tips or tricks how you deal with that and how to maybe explain it better? | ADHD |
A fellow ocd sufferer told me today “we have a Karen for a brain” and I could not agree more.
I hope it will make u all laugh the way it made me laugh. | OCD |
Hi all. I just need to preface this by making it clear that I'm in dire need of some support right now as it feels like my mind's racing at a million miles an hour 24/7 and I'm feeling rather lost so to speak. OK, so when the major 6-month Covid-related locK-down was in place where I live (UK), out of boredom and stress I started to become obsessed with perfection at a much grander scale than usual. My mind was nearly constantly preoccupied with various online IQ tests and with the study of human cognition in general. This caused me to develop a sense of meta-cognition that was intrusively present every waking moment of my life, destroying my productivity and tarnishing my already fragile state of executive function.
Long story short, while the obsession with perfection and orderliness has all but gone by this point, this mindset (of meta-cognition and obsessive introspection) has yet to disappear and if anything it's gotten worse. This has led me to believe that I never had Asperger's syndrome in the first place and has brought me to question my very sense of being and identity. According to experts in the psychiatry, those with Asperger's and other forms of ASD lack the ability to introspect and that, combined with several other traits I've been watching myself for (my use of sarcasm, sensitivity to outward stimuli etc.), have lead me to believe that one of the most personal elements of my self and being is a big lie.
No matter how many times I remind myself of the fact that I was diagnosed at an early age and that I was routinely tested in social (school FYI) and formal test environments for 4-5 years, I still question who I am... Is it all a mask? Am I dissociating? Is there a face that lies beyond the aforementioned mask in the first place? I really don't know what to say beyond this other than thank you for reading the block of text and that I'm seriously at the end of my tether here. I've always felt a sense of being closely connected to this wonderful community and all the amazing people within it, and the thought of all of my friendships being built on a big lie is just too much to cope with. Can anyone else relate to this or give any advice? I really appreciate any feedback, I truly do | aspergers |
Hi there, recently I’ve been looking into whether I have OCD or some other condition, I was wondering if this is a symptom?
Every day, if I touch something a certain way say to pick the object up for example I HAVE to touch it again but differently (anyone who does this will know what I meant) for anyone who doesn’t this is the best way I can describe it. I pick up my vape with my finger a certain way, I put it down and almost instinctively do the same but holding it differently.
If I try to fight the urge i find myself completely out of focus on anything until I do it, it’s so weird. I’ve been doing this for a while now and just thought I was being weird but it seems to me like a symptom of something, researching this points me towards OCD especially since I experience other symptoms. (Unable to drink out of cups unless they are 100% clean, having strange intrusive thoughts and repeatedly checking locks etc). I don’t know for sure if this is OCD so I would love if anyone else has experienced this. | OCD |
I honestly thought things would get better after getting a diagnosis and being in therapy. I figured I had ADD from a few months prior to my diagnosis. I was in the dumps then cause I couldn't figure out what was going on at all.
I started my treatment a couple of months back.
It just.. it's still so exhausting honestly. Even though I can say that I'm more focused during my work.. but the emotional hypersensitivity makes it so hard for me to just be happy and content throughout the day. My mood is so unpredictable and it makes me and the people near me walk on eggshells all the time. The relationship I'm in is starting to feel like a burden on me. My inability to just be peaceful and okay with myself has put a severe strain on my partner. I feel helpless | ADHD |
so to make a long story very short:
the past couple years i was in a very toxic friend group camouflaged as love for each other (horrible dynamic, every with different mental illnesses and codependency on each other) and we were all huge in the music scene. i eventually had enough of them excluding me and treating me horribly so i told them im getting new friends and they just up and stopped talking to me. no trying to reconcile. they did not care about me. i became super depressed after losing them as friends and stopped doing music which was the only thing keeping me alive at the time. now they have gained some popularity by spending daddy’s money on advertising and now they are doing shows and i feel so behind. i wish i still did music. i wish i was still friends with them i would take it all back and be toxic with them still just to have friends again im so lonely and miss doing music with them. idk if this is rambly and im def missing clarifying details but still idk what to do. they hate me. im heartbroken. i miss music. i miss enjoying music. | depression |
I’ve had OCD throughout my teenage years for at least 5 years. I’m 20 years old now. I always doubted my decisions, and my thoughts and always question myself over and over again to make sure that’s what I really wanted.
Each time I repeated those words, I felt better. In fact, I even bought Mel Robbins’ book called “The 5-Second Rule” thinking it would help me in some way. It did not. She claimed doing “5-4-3-2-1”, and you just switch gears and just move on! For those with mild anxiety and OCD, it is not as easy as that, I can guarantee that! I felt like relying on this “TOOL” that someone created made me feel dependant on someone. And… without that rule, I would feel like shit again. Personally, I really did not like her idea of an “anchor thought”. That simply made my anxiety worse because I was still focusing and spending my energy on a thought, defeating a purpose. Of course, her book is about motivation, it was about not letting yourself the time to think over something. However, sometimes you really need to take time for yourself to self-reflect.
Back to my ritual, 30 seconds after my intrusive doubt thoughts, the trigger was back, and I had to do it all over again. It was a struggle for me. It spiralled out of control and it led me to stay the majority of my time in my bed, not in the mood to move or to do anything productive.
I do realize that the pandemic and quarantine did take a toll on me. So, to stop stressing out, I would go out and go for a stroll, or sometimes just take the bus and grab a coffee. For some reason, I just stopped having anxiety and ritualizing while I was on the bus. I believe it was because I was distracted. Distracting myself from reality.
When I hang out with my friends, I also do not feel stress, but 20 minutes after they leave me, stress came back once again. I think loneliness definitely also plays a role in this. But hear me out, this can be fixed!
It’s been over two months since I stopped doing a compulsion, such a repetition, and ritualizing my thoughts. Justifying your actions is not intrinsically a bad thing, but when it hinders your every day life, then it is a problem, and needs to be resolved ASAP!
I feel like most of time when I ritualize something is when I feel stressed or feel pressure within myself. Whether it be pressure from school, work, family, or even relationship issues. Ever since I started to calm down, relax, and find inner peace with myself, my anxiety and OCD automatically left with it. This is the reason that many people suggest practicing mindfulness. That is because they really want you to connect with yourself, and to be in the present and that everything is okay. I found that this truly helped me.
I am not saying that you cannot feel stressed, that is normal, it may take a few hours or even days or months, but if you practice to stay calm, the heart rate with go down and you will not be anxious or as anxious. Staying calm really slows down your mind, and gives you a clear vision. Of course you are going to have those days, you will feel like absolutely garbage, but that is only human, and you are normal. Everyone goes through that at some point in their life.
It is easy to say to stop overthinking, but for someone who has OCD and anxiety, it is like impossible. I feel like they go hand in hand. So, just practice what I said above, and see if that helps. It really helped me, no “anchor thoughts”, or “rule”, you have to follow, just relax. Like literally! You will feel amazing!
Science says OCD is chronic and a bad thing, I call it fuel for personal growth. I have learned a lot during this pandemic.
Stress can be managed, to the point that it will not interfere with your daily life. OCD can also be managed, do not let the word “chronic” get to your head.
I hope all the best to you. Not you guys. Just you. I know what it feels like. I have cried, I have had my share of mental breakdowns, but I am still here… alive… and breathing. I am with you. Stay strong! | OCD |
I’m going through a PTSD break literally right now. My fiance puts up with so much from me. I’m so scared.
I was playing Overwatch competitive and someone screamed at me for healing. I held it together and told him to shut up. I muted him. But then at the end someone else screamed and now I can’t stop shaking.
Two Novembers ago I was sexually assaulted by a stranger and I still can’t look at the energy drink can he used. I’m so scared every single day to touch people, look at people. When it happened I couldn’t even look at my fiance. Waking up screaming from nightmares, not recognising my fiance as the man I love. Thinking he’s going to hurt me because I’m back in that alley and he’s going to hurt me again. He doesn’t even touch me because I’m so scared. And when I come back I see thr pain in his eyes. I see how much pain he’s in and how much he wants to help. I’ve hurt him so much. So I pushed it away. I pushed my pain away and I forgot about if because I hurt him so much. It hurts me too much to think about it. So I become this autopilot person, I try to take care of everyone in more and more backhanded ways i start lying more i start retreating more i start making my fiance unhappy and i can’t stop. I don’t even realise I’m doing it i don’t even eealise I’m doing it and now ive pushed him so far away im going to lose him why did i not take care of this when he had tried to help when he had asked me to. I make everyone adound me miserable because i jist dont take care of my issues i just want to not feel like this anymore. i want to talk about and get over everything so i can make my fiance happy again and everyone can trust me again. i have 3 therapists right now and why did i gt them so late i dont know why i didnt just deal with it before i dont want to feel like i dont want to feel like this i jsut want to stop hurting it was easier when i kept it inside and didnt let it come out but now i have to because i cant be like this anymore i dint want to feel like this anymore i dont want to throw up because im so scared anymore i just want to be able to play a game watch a movie watch videos whth my fiance and not be terrified that someone screamed or soemone said the r word or someone is getting assaulted i just want to not feel like this anymore i just want to be me again i just want to be me again i just want to make my fiance and everyone around me happy again i justbwant to be me again
edit: its the next day now. i still feel the remnants of it. but im getting better. i will get better. | ptsd |
I want a drink so bad right now. I shouldn't/don't drink. My anxiety is creeping up and I feel like I can't breathe. Idm what to do. I know it's a combo of adhd and anxiety. I'm having horrible food. I can dish out advice on how other people should cope and breathe and whatever all day long but I literally feel like I can't breathe. I want to cry but I can't. My service dog is trying desperately to snap me out of it. Just. Idfk what to do. | ADHD |
# First example:
An old acquaintance I'd not spoken with or thought of in over a decade badmouthed me, saying I'd once randomly said terrible, cruel things to him. This was alarming and shameful to me, as I assumed his recollection was accurate being that he had no reason to lie, but I was confused. That didn't sound like something I would do.
So I apologized, and we reconciled. Only later, still dwelling on the matter, did I think to check my posting history for similar incidents. What I found was that the only time I'm intentionally, severely rude or cruel to someone is when they're rude/cruel to me. I do this to show them how it feels to be treated that way. My experience with habitually belligerent people is that the only pushback they respond to is belligerence. Hence my mantra: "Always retaliate, always escalate".
Often these types are shocked by having their own cruelty reflected at them. Their perception of events is that they said some unimportant joke that wasn't a big deal and then I randomly went nuclear on them. That's if they remember their own act of provocation at all.
I learned from this that many people don't feel the weight of their attacks on others and forget their own wrongdoing easily as a result. But if you wrong them back, even steven, they remember it forever and likely will recall a version of events wherein your aggression was unprovoked.
# Second example:
I was a child of perhaps 9 or 10 using the internet unsupervised, so an experience like this was probably inevitable. I posted on a forum I frequented about rudimentary philosophical contemplations of mine. I was savagely ridiculed by grown adults. Think of Jaden Smith's "how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real" and the resulting internet mockery bandwagon.
I was a kid, which my profile made clear. Of course I was stupid. Of course everybody else already had more advanced versions of those thoughts, they were adults. What I saw in my mind at that time was a crude form of determinism but I didn't know that word yet and more generally didn't have the vocabulary I needed to articulate those kinds of thoughts.
But a forum full of adults saw nothing unseemly about viciously tearing down the already fragile self esteem of an autistic child who already knew from being bullied at school that he didn't mean shit to anybody. I copped to being relatively ignorant of the topic but that's no crime unless one is unwilling to learn.
They were willing to teach, after a fashion, but not without making it deliberately, painfully humiliating. It was an absolutely brutal way to correct a child, which somehow none of them saw anything wrong with. I have studied the topic, improved my vocabulary and corrected my own misapprehensions since that time, but they cannot ever change the contents of their hearts. They let their masks down that day, and how I saw them in that moment is all they will ever be to me.
# Third example:
In my early adolescence I attended a fundamentalist Christian private middle school for the simple reason that it was the only affordable private education option in the area. My father had a frankly justified distaste for public education and probably assumed literally any private school would be superior to any public school.
This turned out to be a nightmare for me. When I was asked to sign a statement of belief in young earth creationism, the resurrection, etc. I initially wouldn't do it because I did not believe in those things and did not want to lie. My mother broke down crying on the spot until I gave into pressure and signed it to make her happy.
The following three years were some of the worst in my life. I was bullied by fellow students and ridiculed (more gently, but persistently) by teachers for defending evolution. All the authority figures in the school affirmed young earth creation so I seemed like a stupid, slow idiot to the other students for being the only one who defended evolution, which they had been intentionally taught a false, absurd, impossible version of so they would reject it.
I wound up eventually apologizing and pretending to accept young Earth creationism to make it stop. I received a "most improved" certificate which burned me up inside, reading it. It went in the trash later. I still regret caving in to this day. They broke me, but it wasn't hard. I was a sensitive, vulnerable kid who wanted social acceptance. They wouldn't be able to break who I am now.
Instead, I will live to see them broken. They were the same type of people who stormed the capitol recently. Re-taking America for Christ was always a central focus of our lessons. We fundraised for anti-evolution lawsuits and flew the "Christian flag" above the US flag in the courtyard, as well as on the indoor flagpole in classrooms. It's not unlikely that some of my former classmates were among the rioters. The punishment on the books for sedition & insurrection is execution. It would do my heart a great deal of good if that's what they get.
# Fourth example:
As a consequence of the events detailed above and a long string of other experiences wherein Christians ostracized me for dissent (such as being kicked out of cub scouts and sent home because I declined to pray during a wilderness camping retreat, and being forced to stop dating my first girlfriend because her parents blamed me for her apostasy and threatened to cut off her college tuition) I grew hateful towards Christians.
This was probably unfair of me because they didn't know about my background, prior experiences at that school or the other incidents involving their religion which shaped my view of them. But whenever I did tell them about these experiences, their reaction only deepened my negative feelings; Their first concern was not for my suffering but for the image of their religion.
The usual response was to blame everything on the specific denomination, then launch into a sales pitch for how much better, more welcoming, more science accepting their own denomination was. As if I gave a shit? As if that erased what happened to me? It only told me that I wasn't a suffering human to them, but a potential recruit, and that the problem was a brand perception issue.
This pattern repeated itself when I made a public apology on /r/christianity. A few posts were genuinely comforting. The rest were all attempts to convert me at what must've seemed to them like a low point during which I was emotionally vulnerable and thus susceptible to their recruitment pitch. This happens without fail, because of their predatory nature. Above all else, to them I was a potential convert.
They cannot, will not care that other Christians mistreated you because they have a dehumanized perspective of non-Christians. If not that we are wicked, then that we are annoying, stupid and deceived. This is a barrier to empathy imo and explains why, when they hear about people having bad experienced with Christians, their brain goes straight to PR/damage control mode.
First they want to know which denomination. If it was theirs, you were likely at fault. If it wasn't, then that's the problem: You had a bad time because those weren't real Christians. Their own denomination is the true perfect Christianity with no bad people in it, who should be considered the gold standard by which you judge Christianity on the whole.
This flurry of predatory conversion attempts destroyed my diplomatic impulse and desire to reconcile, reinforcing for me that I'd not misunderstood them at all. That their brains really do work the way I knew them to, that even if I showed them kindness it would never alleviate their desire as zombies to bite you in order to make more zombies.
For them it's an all-consuming impulse that's never not present, at best waiting in the back of their mind until they sense an opportunity to witness to somebody in an emotional low point who won't be thinking critically as a result. For this reason I can never be vulnerable around them. I cannot have any sort of real human connection with them because they regard such connections as witnessing vectors. I thought I misunderstood them but I didn't, and now I hate them more than I ever did before. | aspergers |
Social media reminded me today of a post I shared years ago. I'm wondering if in retrospect, I was self-identifying ADHD traits (I'm only very recently diagnosed).
The post is called 'reasons I'm probably a cat' by user bennyphantom.
The reasons are: passive aggressive, needs attention but pretends I don't, likes to be pet, whiny, doesn't know when to stop eating, needs to sleep 10+hours, lays on the floor where people are trying to walk, etc.
ADHD or eccentricity? | ADHD |
I was prescribed valium for my panic attacks caused by triggers, but now I'm starting to get into slightly harder things (codeine and oxy) because it just makes me forget everything.
I have discussed this with my psychologist as he's aware that it's just one of my many coping mechanisms. But I'm interested to know if anyone else medicates (besides antidepressants/antianxiety etc) to cope with trauma or triggers. | ptsd |
Where do I even begin?
After years of doubt, both from myself and my parents, who called me lazy, irresponsible, and immature, I finally managed to get diagnosed with ADHD. I finally felt seen and recognized. Yay, right?
Maybe not.
First off, getting to the point of being diagnosed was extremely difficult and I nearly gave up multiple times. I had to go through multiple psychologists and psychiatrists and was either only diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or [straight-up told I was just immature, and that ADHD might not even be real](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/obihuj/my_psychiatrist_told_me_my_main_problem_was_not/).
But anyway, in spite of all that, in spite of my parents telling me to "just do it", in spite of the shame of repeating the same year of college for the second time, I [posted on my country's subreddit asking for advice](https://www.reddit.com/r/serbia/comments/oc70wk/zna_li_neko_za_dobrog_psihijatra_u_beogradu_za/) and, even though I was met with a lot of ignorance, a few kind souls pointed me in the right direction and I was finally able to find an ADHD specialist, the only one in my country.
Not only was he the only one in my country, he was also in the next town over, so I had to take a trip for nearly two hours each way in order to go to him, which was pretty pricey in and of itself, on top of the already expensive actual appointment. I also had to pay a lot to get additionally tested for ADHD by a psychologist that the specialist referred me to, so all of this stuff was very expensive for an unemployed student and my mom was not happy about having to pay for it in the slightest.
At first, I was prescribed Wellbutrin, an antidepressant that *can* have an effect on motivation, but it did nothing for me other than make my tics worse, to the point where I'd get headaches from them and still not be able to stop. After about a month on Wellbutrin, I was told to stop taking it cause it just wasn't helping me at all.
Finally, I was prescribed Concerta, a stimulant, the only one available in my country. I was elated to finally have a chance to try something that might truly help me and felt optimistic having read about numerous good experiences with stimulants on here, I felt like it might also turn *my* life around. Now, the bad part is that stimulants are still treated as hard drugs here and are heavily regulated as a result, which makes them extremely hard to get and extremely hard to get a prescription for. I essentially have to go to the next town over monthly to get a new prescription for them because my psychiatrist has to write it once a month, both for my doctor to see and for the police to see so I don't get mistaken for a goddamn criminal substance abuser.
On top of that, my mom insisted that I get checked out by a cardiologist first since she read about Concerta's side effects and got spooked by the fact that it can make arrhythmia worse, and I very occasionally have a sped-up pulse, so actually getting an appointment for that also took a while and, by the time I was finally told that it's okay for me to start with the stimulant and I went out to go and buy it, my prescription had run out. I was told that it only lasts for 7 days and that I have to get a new one afterwards, which was something my psychiatrist had *never disclosed to me.*
I ended up messaging him about it, and he told me that he thought I'd immediately buy the medicine "considering how badly I'd wanted to see my ADHD"??? But in the end, he agreed to mail me a new prescription as long as I cover the mailing expenses. I also can't get the stimulant for free like I could with a normal medicine because I don't have a valid diagnosis for it as ADHD is only officially recognized as a diagnosis if you're under 18 here and, from what I've heard, that's subject to change in 2023 at the earliest.
And this is where I'm at right now. I was so happy when I was finally diagnosed, but now I feel miserable. I feel like I'm being treated as if it's my own fault for having ADHD, when I never asked to be born with this, I never wanted this. I feel failed by the system, by my psychiatrist, by my parents, and by my country. I want to leave, but everything that leaving requires (graduating, getting a job, getting my own place, being more independent, etc.) is made harder by ADHD, and getting help for my ADHD is made harder by my country's rules. I feel like I'm stuck in a vicious cycle, like I'm drowning, and I'll keep pushing through but holy fuck does it hurt. It's so tempting to just give up.
I just wish I was normal.
Thank you for if you managed to read this whole wall of text. | ADHD |
I have my phone wallpapers at pictures of me and my 2 cats (one being lockscreen and one as the home screen.) I legit have full breakdowns trying to change it to anything else because my brain tells me if I change it then they'll die and it'll be my fault. I don't want to be like this and I've tried many times but I get so panicked that I just give up. | OCD |
WHATS THE *WORST OCD THEME???
I feel like I been through the worst of them and I want a new one because I hate this one.. | OCD |
So recently I've been having this OCD about making sure my butt is 100% clean and theres no trace of crap in it. So I've been wiping way too much an way too hard, and rubbing my butt way too much in the shower too. Oh, I also tend to bend and check in the mirror to see if there's anything, and I keep on doing it. My legs hurt a lot now.
But the real pain is in my butt. I think all of the wiping wand washing has made a wound in the butt, especially in that line below it going to the balls. It stings whenever I wipe or wash now, and I want it to stop!
I will do my best to stop this OCD, but I don't know what to do when. actually need to poop. How am I going to wipe it without the stinging pain? Should I just care less about how much poop there still is, and just focus on not irritating my butt instead? Please, I need help, and I don't know what to do!
Help about this OCD itself will be awesome too. Thanks! | OCD |
So doing my exposure therapy by myself I've noticed that I believe I'm more afraid of my intrusive thoughts that actually when I have the triggering Object in my hand? Anyone else experience this to? I have Pure O/Harm OCD by the way | OCD |
I always shoot down the idea of telling other people that I feel depressed.
I know I’m depressed until I pick up my phone to tell someone, but then I feel like I’m just fishing for attention, (which I probably am) and that leads to me ignoring my feeling/not reaching out.
I hate the idea of opening up to someone, because it feels silly. I shouldn’t be depressed, I’m a white male going to college with a good paying job who has nothing but opportunity in front of me.
What do I really have to complain about?
But then I wake up tired, I open the fridge and nothing looks appetizing so I just force some food down, and all I look forward to is sleeping.
Everything feels like a chore until I’m doing nothing, and then I feel like I’m wasting my time.
And the worst part is that even if I did decide to force myself to tell people about how I feel, there’s no one in my life for me to tell. I have no close friends, no SO, and my family have their own problems. Even if I just picked an arbitrary person to tell, who am I to interrupt their lives with my problems? Who really cares about how I’m doing except for me?
So I should find new people who care about me to help motivate me right?
But how am I going to bring new supportive
People into my life when I barely have the energy to get out of bed in the morning, let alone accurately represent the cool person I know I am deep down. How are the new supportive people supposed to care about the me that’s covered up by all the lethargy and self doubt?
I just feel stuck. I don’t see an easy out. Maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe ill harness the experience and become one of those super self reliant people.
Anyways, thanks for coming to my depression(Ted) talk, and sorry about the ranting, this is the first time I’ve ever brought up my depression so yeah
Cheers | depression |
hey guys, i’ve (17f) been diagnosed with OCD for a while now, but since then i haven’t had many bad obsessive periods. i’m just wondering if this is normal?
when it’s bad it’s really really bad, but recently it’s been fine and my compulsions have been way less. sometimes i’ll get triggered by something but other than that i feel almost(!) normal. does anyone else get this?? | OCD |
(note: I’m not specifying gender because I want to remain anonymous)
Hello,
Firstly I’m not sure if this is the correct sub-reddit, if it isn’t please let me know where I can ask someone for help.
My partner and I have been dating for 2 years know and I’ve known about their PTSD since a little after we started dating.
My partner has been seeing their psychiatrist since about a year now and has been taking medications. They’ve had a bad history with medications but these ones seem to make them feel better.
The medications are: Olanzapine & Fluoxetine.
I’m not sure what they do but all I know is that my partner gets very sleepy and tired throughout the day. They feel extremely anxious and obsess over small things. Feel socially anxious and sweat a lot in their sleep and have night sweats + tremors. I looked up the symptoms and these are the side effects from the drugs. But my partner has been complaining that they hate their psychiatrist and are feeling very anxious. They mentioned this to their psychiatrist but all the doctor did was up their dose which has increased the side effects.
I am so worried. I really want to make sure my partner finds the right psychiatrist and combination of medication and feels better.
All I want to do is help.
Can someone please suggest something I can do to help my partner out? Thank you!
(also posting this in CPTSD) | ptsd |
Nobody tells me these things. I had to find out by reading the label on my medication.
I don't know much about this disorder. I know what it does to me, I just don't know what it's like for everyone else, or how much of my life is ruled by OCD and I don't realize it because it's just normal for me. Anyway... I want to hear people's experience with this disorder and what medication you take (if any) to help with it, and if it actually helps.
I don't know how medication can help stop the compulsive part of OCD. | OCD |
Anybody on Paxil, lexapro, celexa, Zoloft or Prozac ever have one poop out and find another one after that was effective? | OCD |
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