OCD Comes in
Many Forms.
One Treatment.

Intrusive thoughts about harming yourself or others -- people you love, strangers, or yourself. These thoughts are ego-dystonic: they feel completely contrary to who you are. The fear is not about wanting to harm someone. It's about the thought itself.

Fear of germs, illness, chemicals, or feeling contaminated -- sometimes not by anything physical, but by a feeling of wrongness or moral contamination. Leads to excessive washing, avoidance, and reassurance-seeking that reinforces the fear rather than reducing it.

Obsessive doubt about a relationship -- whether you love your partner enough, whether they're the right person, whether you're attracted to them, or whether you did something to damage the relationship. The doubts are constant, distressing, and don't ease with reassurance.

Intrusive thoughts of a sexual nature involving children. These thoughts are profoundly distressing and ego-dystonic -- completely contrary to the person's values and desires. POCD is one of the most stigmatized OCD subtypes, which often delays people from seeking help.

Obsessive fear of sinning, being morally defective, or offending God or one's ethical values. Can present as religious scrupulosity (fear of blasphemy, prayer compulsions) or secular moral scrupulosity (obsessive guilt over perceived wrongs, moral perfectionism).

Compulsive checking driven by doubt -- did I lock the door, turn off the stove, cause an accident, say something hurtful? Checking provides momentary relief but reinforces the doubt loop. The checking itself becomes the problem, not the original trigger.

Obsessive fear of having a serious illness, often driven by bodily sensations or perceived symptoms. Distinguished from general health anxiety by the compulsive checking, reassurance-seeking, and the fact that reassurance (from doctors, tests) provides only brief relief before the doubt returns.

'Pure O' is shorthand for OCD where compulsions are primarily mental rather than visible. The obsessions are there -- intrusive thoughts, images, urges -- but the compulsions happen internally: mental reviewing, reassurance-seeking in your own head, counting, or suppression. It's not actually 'pure' -- it just looks that way from the outside.

Intrusive doubt about your sexual orientation, sometimes called 'HOCD'. It affects people of every orientation and is not a sign you are secretly something you're not. The theme isn't attraction, it's the compulsive need to be 100% certain, and the distress that uncertainty brings.

Obsessive, distressing rumination about unanswerable questions - the meaning of life, the nature of reality, consciousness, death, infinity. It's not philosophical curiosity but a compulsive need to resolve the unresolvable, and the more you think, the stickier it gets.