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We’ve been seeing one another a little over a month so it’s early days, jusr had our second date where we booked somewhere for us to stay, however he’s jusr changed his hinge profile pictures. So this probably means he’s talking to other girls? Now this has really freaked me out like what do I do now? This man suffers from ocd, adhd and burnouts and has explained to me several times that if he disappears it’s nothing perosnal but now seeing that I feel slightly like it’s personal. I know I need to ask him what we’re working towards but I’m scared it’s gonna overstimulate him. I’m unsure what to do

Hello again, It's 1 thing after another & OCD & autism/adhd has worn me down to feeling more depressed than I can remember & sleeping almost non stop. Can't seem to muster the fight these days. I feel more shame posting on here & I don't know how to stop seeing myself as a bad person or that i've done a bad thing that needs self examination or worse. An old theme has come back with a vengeance, way worse than before as the previous 1 I posted about hovers in the background. In 2016/17 when I was 22 & 23 I tried to date or hook up with three 18 or 19 year olds. These were all dating app chats over the course of a few hours and 2 of the girls were doing their final year school exams, 1 working. 1 of the girls got really upset with me as I briefly didnt believe why she couldnt meet up & she was stressed with exam prep. There seemed to be a gap in maturity (I wasnt very mature myself) which put me off & looking back makes me feel even worse about pursuing that to begin with before we spoke. Maybe it's cause she was in school and i was in uni. It's hard to get my head past. The other 2 petered out & I tried to persuade 1 of the other girls to come meet me & it was a bit sexual over the app. Even with the 1/2 your age plus 7 age gap "rule" I feel like I was a predator without meaning to be. Where is the generally accepted line when things like these are immoral when it's a hotly debated subject in places like reddit? How does 1 face ERP (ive meant to be doing it for the last 6 weeks) when you know if you posted about what you done on another forum many would label you a creep or even a predator? It feels like I'm just letting myself off the hook. Have any of you faced this & how did you overcome?

I’ve struggled with OCD for around five years now and I had it under control to an extent with the help of medication. I recently upped my dose and for the past week I have been struggling with one of my themes big time. For context, i’m a white female. When I was 14 years old (10 years ago) we had been learning at school about a specific racist hate group who wore white cloaks (who I don’t even like to name now). My friend is dyslexic and when she had to read the name of the group she pronounced it completely wrong and it came out sounding silly. I remember not so long after I was sitting watching TV and a show about said same group came on. I took a photo on Snapchat of myself and on top, I drew a white scribbled version of the outfit and captioned it with the way my friend pronounced the name wrong. I sent this to her - and thinking it was funny, she screenshotted it. At the time it was common for people my age to post photo dumps on Facebook, especially with photos their friends had sent them on Snapchat. She included this photo. Not long after my parents said to me you need to ask her to delete that photo. I couldn’t understand why and told them it was just a joke between us and they explained to me how it could be perceived the wrong way and how it could be highly offensive. I deleted it and went on to learn more about said group through school. It wasn’t until I began to suffer with OCD around four years later that this resurfaced in my mind. I also think about when I was around the same age I would use the N word in Snapchats or when singing along to songs just trying to be funny and dark humour, shock humour. My friends were the same so I didn’t think much of it. This brings me to present time it’s been 10 years and I’m in a slump right now obsessively thinking about this. I am in no way of racist or hateful person and never has been nor has that been my intention. My current problem is that my career is going quite well and there is a chance that I may become somewhat more public and I have this horrible fear in my mind that this image is going to resurface and ruined my life. I’m in the mindset right now that I think I can’t enjoy anything because of what a horrible disgusting person I am and people are gonna find out and that everybody knows and is going to out me. I find myself comparing events and dates to when it happened and counting back to try and put into perspective how long it’s been for reassurance. I can’t help but feel like I don’t deserve anything because I’ve been such a horrible person in my life. Even though I know that I never meant anything in a hateful way as a grown-up I now understand how disgusting my so-called jokes were. My personality and lifestyle now are quite hippie and I am so disgusted by certain language, including this and i’m big on morals. So it just feels like im faking it. I just really wanted to get that off my chest, but also ask if anyone else has a similar OCD pattern or something like this that they also can relate to if so, what do you do?

I finally figured it out, I was assaulted at work and i currently still work there but ever since then ive been having anxiety that it can happen again or i can be one which scared me the most because I have really bad intrusive thoughts and images to the point where it’s real and now those images are coming back and I’m convinced I really did those things like what that man did to me what do I do??

Idk how to express or write this so sorry for the wall of text,just desperate bc this has been an issue for a long time. Several themes like scrupulousity,religious (I'm not religious please be respectful.),harm,magical thinking has been making it difficult to enjoy alot of things including hobbies for me for a long while,specially recently which has been breaking my heart bc I feel like its ruined so much time and enjoyment of things in my life already.This includes playing some videogames or writing/drawing original characters,which does effect when I'm trying to hang out with friends who share these hobbies,and it causes me to feel really left out or feel like a husk of who I am,like a watered down version and I feel like its unfair to me and my friends with how I water myself down?This might sound stupid,but it bleeds into ALOT of things including drawing or writing,I've had genuine high anxiety spikes and straight up cried over not being able to enjoy the few hobbies I have,I've made myself not participate with activies worrying I'd be doing something wrong or something will happen,its so dumb bc anyone else like my friend who also has a tiefling oc my brain doesn't think the same about it,like I'm the exception. Example,I worry that me using a character (who's a human in most settings) I enjoy alot in a dnd setting as a tiefling and somehow now me and this character is tainted or I'm a bad person and I'm going to hell even though I don't exactly believe this bc I'm not religious (and ik its ocd bc like,I'd be going to hell for other things like being gay supposedly yet my brain latches so hard to the tiefling thing) and I've tried to shake it off,but its been really difficult ingeneral but especially as of late,like,I can use him in any other setting and feel fine but for some reason my brain has been obsessing over tiefling = bad when I know its not?And it really sucks because this character is comforting to me,and drawing/writing these characters has been a healthier way for me to be creative and cope with things or distract from stress.They're fun to talk about with my friends when we talk about our characters,I miss enjoying my hobbies and characters fully. I just want advice,or support,idk how to approach the ick and scared feelings when doing my hobbies,to not do a compulsion and make it worse,affirmations.Specific to the example previously with my original character do I just keep him as a tiefling in the dnd setting till it feels less urgent then change it,do I just keep him as a tiefling?How would I do erp around this,I've tried explaining this to my friend who enjoys hearing and interacting about my characters or art/writing to hold me accountable when I overthink and start to spiral and he agreed but still feel like I'm messing up or not explaining right and I feel like I sound stupid or ridiculous. If you read this far thank you,idk,I just really miss enjoying my hobbies and it makes me so sad that I let these stupid intrusive thoughts kill any fun and how much it effects my mood and anxiety to the point I lay in bed nauseated and crying.Please,please if you have any advice or links to things that helped you,or you relate I would appreciate hearing it.

Is there an ocd them that makes u feel like u can’t do life anymore? Every second of everyday is thoughts consumed in see this is why u can’t do life, this is something else you’re failing at, here’s another area you suck at, you’ll never be able to do life, nothing will be easy, as soon as things get good they’ll get bad again. Nobody wants you to win. I mean it’s hard to shut it off bc it’s not wrong……

Today has been a shitty day. I got triggered this evening about the same intrusive thought and scenario I always worry about. Its scary because I try to think logically and realistically. But I really don't trust myself and am unsure if these things happened or not. It's very frightening and idk how much more I can take

(20, mdni!) okay, so this is abt my real event ocd, but I can totally see ppl w/ other types of ocd being affected by this too, so feedback from ANYONE is appreciated. do you guys ever wipe your hand when you bump into/graze against something on accident? like let’s say you’re talking to somebody, they’re showing you something, you reach for it, and your knuckle accidentally brushes against their boob. when it’s over, and you go back to whatever you were doing before, would you also wipe your hand on a rough surface repeatedly or scrape at the places you touched something with using your teeth to get rid of the lingering sensation? bc that’s something I do on top of rumination. it happened a lot when I was younger, too. I’d be reading a book/playing a game abt nature, and when something like a picture of a bug or fungus came up, I’d get spooked, drop what I was doing and wipe my hands on my pants. I have a good feeling I’m not alone in this, but I haven’t seen a lot of people talk abt it. pls let me know if I’m right!!

I’d RLLY like some advice if possible. I want to get the most help i can and I’m not sure if my new therapist is a good fit. Idk im just too sensitive but he’s every session session he says “if it’s true you have ocd” “if you have adhd” and it just irks me like idk 😭 he’s says it because he can’t diagnose me but like… I’ve been diagnosed for around 10 years at this point. like if my back hurts bc i have scoliosis or like if i tell him I’ve had a tonsillectomy i feel like he wouldn’t say “well if those things happened or were true” like idk 😭 I’ve never had anyone talk to me like that? I’ve brought it up once and he was like “ok i see i have to hedge w you” and im like??? What confuses me the most is that my psychiatrist is giving me new meds for ocd and SHES the one who reccomended him so im like??? Okay?! I feel that almost everything he says i already try to do. Except for an OCD worksheet. But my psychiatrist is the one who gave him the worksheet anyways. So when i flip the ocd paper over and see a thing that’s literally OCD why i don’t drive like ITS ON THE PAPER it just feels almost invalidating to be told yeah you might have issues. I want to keep going to therapy but im think maybe i should try again? And hes my first male therapist so i feel really awkward. I’d be willing to wait a long time if i have to even. OR im overthinking things and maybe i should go back and try to talk about him again even though it seems he doesnt want to.

The more I talk to people with ocd and the good brave sufferers on this app I’m starting to see a bad trail of miss information and poor therapy execution. Also can we please be honest with the sufferers, medication is not going to properly fix anything. Medication that pumps unnatural amounts of a neural transmitter, numbing emotions, causing loss of libido, genital numbness, weight gain, migraines is not fixing any biology, it is artificially changing biology. What changes real biology is good therapy. The biology of ocd is not what people think it is, and to be honest science is not solid on it either. What causes ocd in a individual is not black and white, Is it the chicken or the egg with ocd science, but the good news is science shows it doesn’t matter, and it is not a rd block to recovery. Now I am not against people taking meds. I’m not against people doing anything that brings them relief and gets them freedom, I don’t want anyone to suffer and everyone is in a different position in life, with different life stressors, and meds are necessary to stabilise and get them out of a dark hole. I was in one myself once and meds got me out of it, but meds never fixed my problem, meds masked my problem and gave me others. Please let’s be honest with them. Neural plasticity is a real science, meds are a poor understood one. Therapists please make it your goal and please remind yourself to Execute your therapy well and with passion and clarity. Some people want to try do it without the meds, but they just don’t know how. So please encourage them and show them the way, they are stronger then you think. Lots of love. From Former OCD sufferer who loves the power of psychology.

Does anyone have a before/after story? How to OCD start for you? I haven't always had OCD. I would say that before OCD I was an over-analyzer and liked to debate things. Also hyper concerned about "integrity." So maybe those are traits that make people susceptible to OCD. Mine started as a slow but steady addiction to confessing things to my g/f. You can say it was initiated by a mistake I made in the relationship. I felt bad about it, so I went on this mission to confess every little minuscule detail or potential thing e.g. "OMG I glanced at a girl once!" etc. Stupid stuff like that. I specifically remember the period of time where this "switch" happened. This was organically created OCD. This issue caused it. It switched from rumination and "problem solving" into an overwhelming NEED / "you must confess" every little thing ELSE anxiety, guilt, shame. OCD attacks things we care about. I cared / care about my integrity to g/f to build trust. "Not confessing" went directly against that. So you're left in purgatory. But the point is Idk if everyone has that same "origin story." I think this gives insight on what OCD actually is. At the end of the day, it's a mental addiction that needs to be broken somehow.

I have an urge to correct something I feel I made a mistake on. I keep ruminating about it. If I don’t engage in what OCD is telling me to do, how long will this last? I feel like it’s going to haunt me forever, and guess I’m supposed to sit with that discomfort; however, I’m looking for peer support. I guess my question is… if you don’t give into your OCD, how long does one specific thing last for you?

I wish for this to find the right people. Reddit is tricky, one of those sites where it’s a hit or miss. ( 23M ) I’m here to talk about something that will certainly give people who suffer with health anxiety/ GAD /panic reassurance that they will be fine. They will be okay, they are safe. I as well hope to find anyone or people who have experienced anything similar to me or close to identical. For this journey has been really grueling and very scary to say the least. In high school in 2018 I was depressed and terrified of being myself being my true self so much that I wouldn’t even act myself at home. I was terrified on going to public school I thought the kids there were meaner and more violent then the ones in catholic school which I traditionally went to before HS. For a whole 4 years I experienced non stop stress, non stop anxiety for the next day the next week. I am not exaggerating it was actually hell. I couldn’t focus on academics and I was too afraid to ask my parents to transfer me to another school, so everyday at school for 4 years I was in total misery and physical agony. I developed dpdr really bad because I was incredibly constant fight or flight everyday. Once I graduated in 2021 I was incredibly depressed, incredibly traumatized and anxious a few years after still the same level of angst and fight or flight everyday along with tachycardia that seemed to not let up for years it seems unless I was sleep. in 2023 I smoked weed because I wanted to feel “calmer” “at peace” that was a really bad decision, I had my first panic attack that lasted hours and was the worst thing I’ve ever felt. I started to have this phobia around my heartbeat and started to change my lifestyle to combat any possibilities I had a disease. Which is so sad and ironic because the anxiety wasn’t helping. Ever since then they have been happening over and over for a long long time until. 2025 they started to lose fuel and potency and I wasn’t experiencing as much high anxiety and panic as much anymore. Now here in 2026 I am now starting to discover the root of all of these episodes of anxiety and it stems from high school. When I never asked for help and struggled greatly in silence for years. I am currently working through my trauma to best I can. I forgot to mention but in 2024 I got almost all required tests done and they all came back fine ultrasound, 14 day Holter monitor, Trans Echo, EKG. Normal despite the agony I’ve been in for YEARS. none of my current doctors want to give me tests because the ones I did already were normal. so weird has anyone ever gone through something similar to this or very similar to this ? I am a worried about what these Prolonged experiences could have done to my health. Has anyone ever experienced anything close to the terrifying degree as me ? I feel alone and have felt very scared about my life as a whole because of what I think I’ve done to my health. So I am here at NOCD looking for support as a lot of my health fears stem from checking, compulsions, and intrusive thoughts about what my past has done to my health. So I’m seeking help. Hope someone, even just one person out there, can relate or know what this is like long-term.

Everyone with OCD starts off believing that the thoughts make us monsters--and that the thoughts are dangerous. However, this viewpoint only feeds the insidious cycle of OCD. I know it's counter-intuitive, but the only way to defeat the thoughts is to ALLOW them to be there. We have to stop caring if they are there or not. Do you want to defeat OCD? You have some decisions to make. See below: -------------------------------------- 4 KEY DECISIONS TO DEFEAT OCD 1.) Make a decision that the thoughts are not dangerous. They may FEEL evil and scary. But they are just wisps of smoke 💨 that exist in your mind. 2.) Make a decision that the thoughts mean NOTHING about you as a person. Again, they feel evil and scary. But you have to understand that that is the nature of the disorder. This is part of the disease called OCD. I know the thoughts make you feel like a monster. But you have to understand that the thoughts mean ZERO about you as a person. 3.) Make a decision that the thoughts have ZERO connection with the real world. I know that when we have OCD, we always think our thoughts have connections to real life (sometimes even magical connections). But remember, they are just wisps of smoke in your mind 💨 4.) Make a decision that you are not going to fight the thoughts off. You have to ALLOW them to run freely through your head. This is the only way to take away their power. You have to stop caring whether they are there or not. You see, the more you fight, the worse they will get. Your only way out is to ALLOW them and to stop caring if they are there. -------------------------------------- Now, I know how hard it is to make these decisions. I know that OCD is called a DOUBTING disease for a reason. Your brain will always say that it is not safe to make these decisions. Or your brain will say there must be some caveat, or "what if this?", or "what if that?", blah, blah, blah. I don't know how else to say it, but you have to ignore all the noise and "man up" and just make the decisions out of faith, and out of a sheer effort of will. You will never feel okay about making these decisions. You will always have doubt. Make the decisions anyway. Make them out of sheer will. Make them like a blind person makes a step in the dark, out of faith and nothing else. You WILL gain back functionality in your life if you do these things. You WILL start conquering the OCD if you do these things. It is the pathway to freedom. This is why I love ERP so much. A good EEP therapist will train you in all of this. I learned these things on my own journey, but they lined up with ERP. Take a step. You can do it:):):)

I’m really distressed over POCD, it’s so bad to the point where I feel way too guilty to even speak about it, but I’m going to anyway. When my cousin was talking to me about an event that happened to her when she was 14, as soon as I heard the number 14, i instantly have intrusive thoughts and false attraction (because thats what it is, idk what else to call it, because ultimately im not worried about this part),, I’m worried because I allowed myself to like it and like the feeling of liking it, if that makes sense, and I don’t know why I did, and it’s stressing me out, because I don’t want to do stuff like that or be a weirdo?? I feel so stressed out, i didn’t even want to talk about this, I just hope so badly it’s not true and that I am a good person.

Hi hi everyone. I wanted to know everyone's experiences with Luvox. This is my second week. And I will tell you that the first week it was rough. I had almost every symptom. And it did intensify my pure o. But today has made officially two weeks. And that's not to say that i'm not going through it. But I have decided to stick with this medication and give it my all. I do believe that if I do, it's going to improve and hopefully slow down my thoughts. And today I have to say, did I do feel better. Even though it's small and I have been doing compulsions, it just feels slightly different. Also, for the first time in my life, i'm able to see and speak with an actual OCD dedicated therapist. We have our first session on friday. And I feel like the medication is going to help, because maybe I can slow down long enough for therapy to actually work. Just a bit about my ocd. Just in case this post hits home, and maybe you just need to feel like you connect with someone. I have pure O OCD. It comes in the form of very intense thoughts about people i love and know dying. It will usually start with a thought about someone, then, it kind of turns into if i'm thinking about them. Then starts.... do you want something bad to happen to them? And in about two minutes, i've convinced myself that I do. And I have to, in some way, make it right. My compulsions are a mix of pacing, tapping and above all very detailed prayers. Of course there's more to it than that.... it's a lot of counting, fear. Ect. Avoiding people, because i'm afraid it will bring on a thought..... The last few years have been really rough. I'm really looking forward to this new therapy starting soon. A lot of the time I feel like i'm just physically here. Going to work, and barely maintaining that. The actual life being lived. That really did stop a long time ago. I need to find myself again. I need to believe that that's possible. This crazy ocd ritual foundation that i've built myself, that i've like foolishly convinced myself works. It's completely crumbling. I'm sorry for getting off track.... it has been a rough few years. And in an even rougher two weeks. If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Also, if you've made it thus far and have any advice on sticking it out with luvox. Please feel free to share. Thank you -B

TW / POCD, Real Event OCD im a girl and ive been dealing with intrusive sexual thoughts for almost 5 years, it started when i was 15 and im 20 now. but i just feel like ive reached rock bottom. the worst part of it all is just that i feel like im different from most people who deal with these thoughts, because sometimes i act as a compulsion. like one time i booped a toddler’s pout to make sure i didnt feel anything (i didnt) or when i stared at a naked baby far too long to reassure myself that to me its just a regular normal baby and that i dont feel attracted. but then when i read that “people with pocd would never act on these thoughts” and i think about these past situations and i think “oh my god i did act so this means im dangerous to children because i touched that toddler’s lips and im a harasser and im just faking ocd”. i also have been dealing with a bunch of groinal responses lately and they make me feel so disgusted, i panic at even a slight movement at my body parts. the guilt and shame is unbearable. i have such a loving family, good friends, a perfect boyfriend. they keep telling me how special and how much they love me. even the little kids in my life want me to play and want me to be with them (this makes even more guilty, like am i luring these kids to like me so i can be close with them?). but the fact is that the people in my life dont know whats going on in my brain and im too much of a coward to tell them because im so afraid of losing them and them being disgusted. but i dont feel like i deserve all the love i receive. like at all. i keep praying and crying to God to change me and to make me a better person and to make these thoughts go away. i just wanna look at kids and dont think all the awful things i do. even when my brain keeps telling me that i love and cant live without these thoughts. kiss and hug a baby and dont be afraid of how i react. be able to have a child someday. i miss loving myself, i look at all the other girls my age and i just wish i could be like them. i used to be a normal teen, who didnt have these type of thoughts. i just wish i could love myself and be confident and happy with myself but lately all i want to do is to die.

For those who have tried and benefited from SSRI’s, which one did you take and what did you notice changed after starting it?

I would like to hear someone who's struggled with obsessing over rabies and how you managed to help with the fear. For context I'm from the UK and we are fortunate enough to not have classical rabies but there are bats with lyssavirus. Bats will be waking up from hibernation soon and I'm struggling more than normal to go outside. Today I was walking with my partner and I felt a drop of something on my forehead, it wasn't raining and I don't know where it came from. Naturally, I felt scared because of the uncertainty of not knowing. So here I am, hours later, still worried about it. Despite the infinitesimally small chance that this liquid drop was A) from a bat and B) from a bat with rabies. I'm trying to push myself to go outside while it's dark but, my partner had seen bats nearby last summer, so I worry a lot about going outside at night.

We’re supposed to accept the intrusive thoughts and carry on regardless without doing anything to reassure ourselves but how do you deal with the feeling that you’re in denial, burying your head in the sand when you don’t do the compulsion ? This is what I struggle with most.