OCD & Intrusive Thoughts – Trigger Warning Database

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

He says he loves you. So…why does he do that?

You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:

• The early warning signs of abuse
• The nature of abusive thinking
• Myths about abusers
• Ten abusive personality types
• The role of drugs and alcohol
• What you can fix, and what you can’t
• And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Sexism & misogyny
Body shaming & fatmisia
Racism & racial slurs
Slut-shaming
Victim blaming
Sex worker shaming & slurs
Rape, including by coercion
Sexual abuse
Sexual harassment
Abusive relationships
Age-gap relationships, including adult-minor
Cheating, including grey-area cheating
Child abuse, including sexual abuse
Domestic abuse & violence
Dubious consent scenarios
Emotional abuse
Paedophilia & grooming
Parental abuse & neglect
Physical abuse
Verbal abuse
Mental illness
Substance addiction, including alcoholism
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
Suicidal ideation
Intrusive thoughts
Physical assault
Murder & attempted murder
Recreational drug use
Medical treatment & procedures
Death of a parent or guardian
Gun violence
Disappearance of a loved one
Poverty themes
Blackmail
Bullying

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Sexism & misogyny
Victim blaming
Sexual harassment
Workplace harassment
Abuse, neglect & abandonment
Abusive relationships
Verbal abuse
Intimate partner abuse & violence
Estrangement & disownment
Child abuse
Mental illness
Intrusive thoughts
Addiction
Depression
Suicidal ideation
Medical treatment & procedures
Terminal illness
Cancer
Heart disease & heart attack
Physical injuries & wounds
Amputation/Loss of limb
Hospital & hospitalisation
Death of a child
Death of a friend
Death of a sibling
Grief & loss depiction
Physical assault
Stalking
Car accident

Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne

Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne

All Evie wants is to be normal. She’s almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the girl-who-went-crazy. She’s even going to parties and making friends. There’s only one thing left to tick off her list…

But relationships are messy – especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make any girl feel like they’re going mad. And if Evie can’t even tell her new friends Amber and Lottie the truth about herself, how will she cope when she falls in love?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Anxiety
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Intrusive thoughts
Self harm
Alcohol abuse
Drug abuse

A Hundred Hours of Night by Anna Woltz

A Hundred Hours of Night by Anna Woltz

When Emilia de Wit ran away to New York City, she planned everything to a T. Plane ticket, purchased. Cute apartment, rented online. Subway map, printed and highlighted. This was no ordinary trip — this was Emilia’s declaration of independence. Her chance to escape the life her parents were ruining. To get away from the horrible scandal that had rocked Amsterdam, the scandal that was all her dad’s fault. To see if her mom, the glamorous, world-famous artist, would even notice.

New York steals Emilia’s heart at first sight — even though absolutely nothing goes to plan. She didn’t plan to end up homeless on a stranger’s doorstep… Read morez.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Anxiety
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Bullying

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

On her very first morning on Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao and she instantly can’t stand him. She really can’t stand it when he kisses her and they are caught by her disapproving cousin, Charlotte.

Daughter of an American-born-Chinese mother and New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself in favor of the white side, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, Lucie finds herself drawn to George again. Soon, Lucy is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé, the co-op board of her Fifth Avenue apartment, and ultimately herself.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Intrusive thoughts
Anxiety
Panic & anxiety attacks
Dissociation & derealization
Self harm
Death of a parent
Car accident
Disappearance of a parent

We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon

We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Quinn Berkowitz and Tarek Mansour’s families have been in business together for years: Quinn’s parents are wedding planners, and Tarek’s own a catering company. At the end of last summer, Quinn confessed her crush on him in the form of a rambling email—and then he left for college without a response.

Quinn has been dreading seeing him again almost as much as she dreads another summer playing the harp for her parents’ weddings. When he shows up at the first wedding of the summer, looking cuter than ever after a year apart, they clash immediately. Even as they can’t seem to have one civil conversation, Quinn’s thrown together with Tarek wedding after wedding, from performing a daring cake rescue to filling in for a missing bridesmaid and groomsman… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Anxiety
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Depression

Girl Against the Universe by Paula Stokes

Girl Against the Universe by Paula Stokes

Sixteen-year-old Maguire knows the universe is against her. No matter how many charms she buys off the internet or good luck rituals she performs each morning, horrible things happen when she’s around. Like that time the roller coaster jumped off its tracks. Or the time the house next door caught on fire. Or the time her brother, father, and uncle were all killed in a car crash–and Maguire walked away with barely a scratch.

Despite what her therapist tells her, Maguire thinks it’s best to hide out in her room, far away from anyone she might accidentally hurt. But then she meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star who wants to help her break her unlucky streak. Maguire knows that the best thing she can do for him is to stay away, but it turns out staying away might be harder than she thought.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Death of a father, uncle & brother recounted
Car accident

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can’t turn off.

Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn’t help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she’d be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam’s weekly visits to her psychiatrist… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism, internalised ableism & ableist language
Pure O OCD & intrusive thoughts (theme)
Panic attacks (on-page)
Hallucinations & psychosis
Depression (sc)
Suicide by drug overdose recounted (off-page)
Hospital mentioned
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a friend (off-page)
Death of a mother from terminal cancer mentioned
Prescription drug use mentioned
Bullying

Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry

Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry

Astronomy-loving Calliope June has Tourette syndrome, so she sometimes makes faces or noises that she doesn’t mean to make. When she and her mother move yet again, she tries to hide her TS. But it isn’t long before the kids at her new school realize she’s different. Only Calli’s neighbor, who is also the popular student body president, sees her as she truly is—an interesting person and a good friend. But is he brave enough to take their friendship public?

As Calli navigates school, she must also face her mother’s new relationship and the fact that she might be moving, again, just as she starts to make friends and finally accept her differences.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Racism
Emotional parental abuse
Anxiety
OCD & intrusive thoughts
Death of a father mentioned
Bullying

Influence by Sara Shepard & Lilia Buckingham

Influence by Sara Shepard & Lilia Buckingham

After a video she makes goes viral, everyone knows Delilah Rollins. And now that she’s in LA, Delilah’s standing on the edge of something incredible. Everything is going to change. She has no idea how much.

Jasmine Walters-Diaz grew up in the spotlight. A child star turned media darling, the posts of her in her classic Lulu C. rainbow skirt practically break the Internet. But if the world knew who Jasmine really was, her perfect life? Canceled.

Fiona Jacobs is so funny–the kind of girl for whom a crowd parts–no wonder she’s always smiling! But on the inside? The girl’s a hot mess. And when someone comes out of the shadows with a secret from her past, it’s one that won’t just embarrass Fiona: it will ruin her.

Who wouldn’t want to be Scarlet Leigh? Just look at her Instagram. Scarlet isn’t just styled to perfection: she is perfection. Scarlet has a gorgeous, famous boyfriend named Jack and there’s a whole fanbase about their ship. To everyone watching online, their lives seem perfect . . . but are they really? The sun is hot in California . . . and someone’s going to get burned.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Drug abuse
Murder
Bullying