rosy

@dksea thank you so much for the thoughtful reply - the part about all the other possibilities clicked with me. i find myself 'catastrophizing' a lot, and thinking only about the worst case scenarios, so much to the point where i feel like i'm just waiting for it to inevitably happen. i'm feeling a little better from earlier and trying not to ruminate on the thoughts too much. it's just hard when it involves something you hold closest to your heart ? the thought of losing it all is unbearable. i wouldn't expect other people to understand if they somehow found my pocd posts - i was going through a very hard time and felt the need to paint myself in the worst light possible, so that my ocd couldn't come back later and say 'oh you forgot this detail' or 'you sugarcoated this'. reading them back makes me anxious, even though the kind people that replied told me i was normal. i guess the real fear isn't even about getting hacked, it's about non-ocd people finding these posts, and being hacked would just be the first step to that. i know it's not realistic for anyone to say i'm not going to get hacked, even though it's what i want to hear. like you said, my ocd would find another way to worry about it. i appreciate the honesty! i'll try my best to get on with my life. when i had hocd, i forced myself to stop the compulsions and move on... and that's the only theme that hasn't come back, lol. the rest have just been replaced by another theme, and thrown into the rotation to come back sooner or later. these fears are just a lot harder to kick for me.

i've unfortunately dug myself into another hole with this by doing something stupid... i needed customer service for the acc in my original post, the one that's incredibly important to me. i had to sign up for another website to contact customer service, and being lazy, i used a temporary email service. if you don't know what that is.. it's basically a site where you get a random email, no password, and anyone can access it if they have the address. the customer service site emails you whenever you have a message, so i assume all of the following conversation got sent there. the problem is, these messages obviously contained info about my acc - my username and my support case #. people post these things publicly all the time... but i’m so afraid if anyone saw it they’d try to hack me. i’m so dumb for using an email that anyone could access if they tried. i’ve taken the necessary steps to protect against hacking (2FA and strong password) but i’m terrified. my mind is telling me someone’s gonna get into my account and message people, tell them awful things about me, and i won’t find out. i don’t know how likely this is but... my stomach is in knots and my heart won’t stop pounding. i feel like the account is contaminated and it needs to be deleted again. i haven't been able to eat or sleep properly in days... i feel so sick. do i just wait to get hacked? and wait for these terrible things to happen? because that's what i feel like i'm doing, just being a sitting duck...

feeling quite defeated over it, my brain is now telling me i've been secretly banned from that site because no one has directly acknowledged my messages... but i'll try to distract myself! and thank you for replying - eases my anxiety a bit to have someone listen

thanks polarbear, unfortunately i made myself worse because i found an unnamed phone logged into my email, in addition to my phone (conveniently around the time i started to obsess about this) which actually is something to worry about... though i'm pretty sure it's just a glitch and actually is my phone - the IP address matches my phone from another account, and the location is in my city, but i'm still super anxious. don't understand why this would happen now... thought it was just paranoia now i'm trying to figure out what's going on, ugh.

can someone maybe talk me through this? i realize how irrational it sounds, but i couldn't handle the consequences of it. so lately i've been really into a certain site. like, the things on this particular site are what keep me going and make me happy. so of course my ocd decides to switch themes and attack it... basically i'm afraid someone is going to get access to my personal email, find the emails from ocd forums like this one, read all my posts, and expose me for it - thus making everyone on this site i'm enjoying hate me. i've posted about my pocd on several different forums, and if it was any other form of ocd, i wouldn't care if people found out. but there is no way non-ocd people would read those posts and understand them. i'm panicking nearly every second at the idea of the people i love thinking i'm a p*dophile. this started because i messaged a random person on that website to 'test' and see if i was banned, and played it off as an accident (another compulsion). i'm afraid that somehow made them angry and they're gonna be the one to hack me (for whatever reason?? they haven't even replied, and i wouldn't really expect them to). here's the thing... how likely is this exactly? my ocd is telling me this has already happened and i'm just waiting to be exposed for it. if this did happen, the person would have to get into my account without me knowing (which would be difficult because i have 2FA) THEN get into the email i have listed on that account (which isn't even my personal email, and again, 2FA) and THEN find my personal email somehow, sift through it, and find my ocd forum emails. part of me knows how irrational it is, but the other part of me is so scared of it that i don't even care. i keep thinking of situations where this could happen - like how i could have missed an email stating someone broke into my account, because i've switched emails so many times out of paranoia. the email could have been sent to my previous deleted email in the minutes before i switched to my new one. which again, i'm pretty sure i would've gotten a notice from my 2FA, but UGH. i've since deleted every email i have, but again, my ocd is telling me that i've already been hacked and someone saw those emails. i've checked and double checked and triple checked all of my email security settings, and i don't see any suspicious activity. the site i love doesn't have those features so i can't check there. my stupid brain won't let me stop panicking. if i justttt delete my account and remake a new one, i could be 'safe'. and even if the 'hacker' did find those emails already, they wouldn't have a name to pin them to if i made a new account. but i've already done that once before. and put actual money into it. and my friends would wonder what in the world i was doing if i did it again... i'm feeling so drained, and i can't even enjoy that site anymore because of this. :( can anyone give me some advice?