Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Hey everyone. Don’t really know what’s going on here. Basically my wife and I have been together for a few years now. We’ve know each other a really long time, almost 13 years. At any rate, it all started up when she texted me one night. That’s when the conversation and idea that we would like finally get together and hang out (at the time hadn’t seen each other in almost a decade). I was in single mode really hard at that time and was talking to a few different girls. Now here’s where the guilt, anxiety, and OCD come into play. I never felt like I’d done anything wrong. I have distinct memories of continuing to text girls; and my memory has always been that it was some time between when me and my wife first texted and when she came over. When she came over I remember that I was no longer texting or talking to anyone anymore, but I can’t remember if I stopped texting other girls before she came over, or if I stopped when she did indeed come over for the first time. My OCD has always come up and I’ve felt wracked with guilt and anxiety that I was texting other girls while I texted her. I know that she and I weren’t even dating yet, but that thought still gives me extreme pits in my stomach and anxiety. I can’t remember an actual time where I was texting my wife and other girls at the same time, but it’s the unknown that gives me such bad anxiety. Any advice?

I have a fear of my therapist not responding to my question before I go to sleep. I have harm and false memory ocd. My fear is over taking brain meds or supplements, being in a state of confusion, and acting on my harm fear or religious scrupulosity fear (basically something that prevents me from being saved). Yesterday I messaged my therapist about a new wave of thoughts I was getting. If-then thoughts. Example) if you stand next to this smoker you will act on your fear. Therapist told me to ignore those thoughts but didn’t answer my question of: if I get a thought that says if you send that text you will act on your fear then do I send the text anyway? I know the therapist would say yes and send my texts anyway, but the fact that I did not get a response makes me feel like something has happened because I had a “if the therapist doesn’t respond then you will do your fears”. I feel like it’s different when you are intentionally doing what ocd tells you not to do vs. not being able to get a response from the therapist and not really having a choice to choose to do the opposite of what ocd says to do. I feel like this could mean that something has happened and that I am ruined. I feel so hopeless. I am not sure what to do but I feel like giving up.

Should I change my therapist? TLDR; Therapist keeps ignoring my issues and has triggered a serious obsession twice without prep or anything. Advice would be great. I've been seeing her for around 4 months, and not only have we made absolutely zero progress, I feel like she keeps ignoring the problems I bring up regarding my absolute need to be hypervigilant with my thoughts to make sure no "wrong" thought enters my mind, my obsession with my memory that makes me unable to read or study and multiple other issues I've faced for years that are debilitating. Twice now, she has brought up the possibility that I might not have OCD after previously agreeing that I do have it. Every time this has happend I spiral into self-doubt, guilt and shame for having potentially deluded myself and others that I'm sick and a lot of old, painful themes keep coming back because I start to doubt their validity too. Not to mention the actual loss of reality sometimes.. I feel betrayed and angry at her for hurling a massive trigger like that at me twice, while knowing how much this hurts me and what consequences it brings. Had she told me and prepared me that she'd like to work on my fixation on being certain that I have OCD I would have gladly worked with her. But it always came out of nowhere and I don't know anymore who I should believe now. It takes so much work to convince myself that I do have OCD and trust this feeling I have deep in my bones that it is really OCD. I feel like I've lost a lot of trust in her and I'm not sure how to proceed. I had to call an emergency service today, because I had been crying and panicking for hours and felt like I desperately needed help from someone that believed me. I need therapy desperately to get my life back on track, but I'm not sure if I wouldn't be better off on my own. I will attempt to have a serious talk with her next session, because I'm not ready to give up yet. Has anyone had similar experiences with therapists? Does anyone have any advice on how I should proceed?

How do those of you with ROCD manage the feelings of guilt etc when you don't fight your doubts? For example, I often have this nagging thought that I don't "really" love/like my partner, even though all evidence is to the contrary; I know that the best thing to do is to avoid engaging with these thoughts, but then I just feel so awful for having them, especially as my partner is so considerate, caring, and everything I could want and need. I also worry that allowing these thoughts to stay in my mind without disproving them will mean that I will start really believing them, and I really can't stand that idea. How do I continue to not engage with these thoughts when they feel so awful, and like they will have horrible consequences???

I have so many mental compulsions I didn’t know I had. I strait convinced myself that I had no compulsions (basically just self gaslighting). I have been in mental health treatment for like almost 8 years now and I haven’t even begun to address my ocd yet and I’m yearning for relief. Everything in my life is made harder by ocd and things seem impossible to achieve. Questions for the community: 1) Has anyone here been married while they are suffering? How can I properly explain to them how I feel and my triggers without exploding? 2) How do any of you guys get relief? I feel like I’m always wound up in a knot and I can’t eat or sleep and it’s painful honestly. 3) Have any of you ever overcome mental compulsions? I feel like it’s so much easier to hide than physical ones and I’ve been doing them since I was a small child I just had no idea. (Definitely not invalidating physical compulsions though).

I've had a diagnosis of bad depression a couple weeks ago, which I didn't really agree with, because I more thought I was mild/moderate. But since that diagnosis alongside with Health and Rocd, I've started to obsess about depression... I'm googling, reddit-ing, confessing, asking everyone around me about the symptoms, the medication, the treatments and if it is curable. It hasn't left my mind. It made me feel like it was the end of the world, it feels like terminal cancer now, feels like I'll never recover, that I'll have horrible side effects from medication, can't drink or do drugs not to exacerbate it, can't wean off the meds if ever taken... Today it clicked for me, I have OCD about depression. I created an ocd about depression for myself? It was to me mild/moderate, never stopped me from doing anything really, but now that I'm obsessing over it and it's ruining me. I already knew I had health ocd (including fear of mental illness), but I never thought I would have one of my fears. And like a cycle my OCD about the depression is making the depression worse and so on. Has anyone ever had OCD about depression? Is our ocd brain just wired to worry about that kind of things? If so, do you guys have ERP exercises for that?

i’m not sure if this is an ocd thing or just an anxiety thing but i find it very hard to sit comfortably with being not anxious. i used to be involved in a lot of stressful/anxiety inducing relationships or situations in the past and now i’m in really good relationships with friends and my life is a lot less stressful but my brain is stuck in that anxious zone. if i have a good week and i think my life is going really well then the next week i start overthinking everything and searching for something to be wrong and then i make myself anxious over these problems that don’t even exist. it’s like i can’t relax because i expect something bad to happen. i’m not sure if many others have this issue but any advice is appreciated

has anyone here ever fully recovered from pocd?

I am struggling with a relapse of OCD after years of feeling much better with CBT and Sertraline. I took Sertraline for 7 years and stopped a few months ago, but found my OCD has come back as strong as ever. I have since resumed the medication by titrating back up to what will hopefully be a helpful dosage (under the supervision of my doctor), but I would like to know if anyone else has had a similar issue of relapse after stopping an SSRI. Additionally, did anyone find that resuming the same drug was effective in returning them to their previous baseline? I am new to NOCD and look forward to getting started with my new therapist in March. Thanks for any and all responses in advanced!

Hi everyone, not completely sure if I have Pure OCD or not but damn everything I read is extremely accurate. My things are: - confidence and body issues - basically being a no one - toying with the idea of suicide sometimes but completely afraid of pain so never happening - scared of telling my emotions (romantically) - my sexual life in non existent - broke I've always thought of myself as an overthinker, I've been told I'm too in my head about things ( jokingly but there's always a little truth in them) and overly sensitive. I'm just an analyzer of everything around me and always doubt things cause I somehow think of a way something will fail me or the image of me failing won't get out of my head. I never knew it could possibly be OCD till this one video came into my life. If anyone has any tips on how to control my "triggers", it'd be extremely appreciated. Much love and respect to my new OCD homies!! :) (Just finished typing this and almost deleted everything cause do I really have those things? Are those things truly my triggers? Is it just cause I'm weak??) ^ My average thought process I have with literally any idea or thought. Yes those things are real, no I'm not doubting myself anymore, no I'm not weak

i don’t know how much longer i can do this, i feel like my life is pretty much over. i can’t afford a therapist and i’m only getting worse, im scared of myself and i don’t trust myself. i’m scared that i’m going to eventually have to kill myself because i don’t want to hurt anyone else. i don’t want to go through this anymore and i don’t want to end up going crazy

My retroactively jealousy is ridiculous. Why does my girlfriend’s sexual past cause me so much pain? It’s not like I thought she was a virgin before we started dating. She told me about things and at first it was fine and then it became real and it’s been my biggest theme ever since. I feel like the only way I could ever feel relief is to reach into the past and erase the events. I get such vivid images of her fucking other guys in numerous different ways. Of how they felt her skin and how she sucked their dicks and how her first time was with a boyfriend who was horrible to her and how all those men are out there with the memory of having penetrated her, how her moans sounded, having spread their sperm inside her and all over her body. I fucking hate this so much. I am going fucking insane. I looked all over the house yesterday for my knife so I could cut myself but I gave up because I couldn’t find it. How do you even apply ERP to something that already happened? To something that you don’t even know why it hurts you so much? I don’t understand myself. It seems so ridiculous and irrational. I’m such a joke.

Has anybody with SO-OCD experienced their general obsession honing in on one particular person? For me, I’ve started having thoughts of “you’re in love with your best friend” because my brain is telling me that any feelings of affection (even platonic ones) equals romantic affection. Does anyone have advice on how to handle this particular obsession? I’m finding it impossible to hang out with her which sucks.

I keep getting very bad graphic images in my head I don’t want to tell anyone about. I don’t like this please please go away I don’t want to hurt no one!!!!!! IM NOT A BAD PERSON please

Can ocd make you think you want to harm someone cause they did something to you?

I feel like I’m always going to feel this way. Either I can’t feel connected to him because I’m anxious, or I’m anxious because I can’t feel connected to him. I constantly worry about how he’s thinking about me, how to respond to him, etc. But when I’m calm and relaxed, everything is really good and I’m trying to trust that. But I don’t get to live in a calm and relaxed state and it’s making me feel like maybe he’s bringing me the anxiety because we aren’t compatible. But then I think about breaking up with him and I panic because I really don’t want that. I love him so much and want him in my life always. Just wish my mind could calm down. I feel like no matter what I do, I can’t feel good about this or any relationship.

i’m at the end of my rope. i’m in non stop genuine f***ing agony every day over my own eventual death it’s making me miserable. it feels like my life has no more meaning and i’m missing out on so much. please i just want to be happy again. i’m so sad all the time i feel like i’m already dead. i cannot comprehend nonexistence and religion feels like a cop out. i can no longer sleep at night from stress. i’m so sad. anyways. i’m wasting my f***ing life. i’m only 18 please why won’t these thoughts STOP i’m in so much pain

I just went through my first breakup. My ex and I dated for almost 5 years and the breakup was mutual but it still hurts so much. I had ROCD throughout our entire relationship that I’m sure took a toll on us both but what led us to the end was completely separate—he hurt me in a way I couldn’t get past after it happening multiple times before. Even though the breakup was mutual and I know we need this to move forward either with or without one another, I am in so much pain. We both are still in love with the other and it’s making this breakup 10x harder because I am freaking out over whether or not I overreacted and I am throwing away something amazing just because of my ROCD sabotaging everything for us. It wasn’t the only issue but I guess I’m freaking out thinking it could’ve been the root of many of my frustrations. I just feel nauseous and depressed and exhausted (I can’t sleep). I guess I just need some guidance here. I have no idea how to navigate a breakup, let alone one where OCD is involved.

I randomly just got reminded of my past mistakes again and I was doing just fine until I got triggered all of a sudden. I don’t know what to do. I feel so much guilt just fill my body and now I can’t seem to let it go no matter how many times I’ve been told to let it go and forgive myself I just can’t because I was so stupid when I was younger and didn’t realize at the time what I was doing wrong and I hate myself so much for it that I almost want to give up because I feel like I don’t deserve to move on and be happy

Vent/Story time So regardless of what my OCD tells me, I do identify as a straight male. When I was 18 years old, my modeling agent (he’s openly gay) kinda groomed me. He tried to convince me that I was gay for over a year because I was a virgin basically. He also had a crush on me & this dude is a narcissist and a manipulator (horrible person). Personally, I realized I was close with him because I tend to be a very codependent person. But after I spoke to my dad about what this person has done to me and said to me (he sexually assaulted me and manipulated me to think it wasn’t his intent) I had to drop him as an agent. Ever since this kind of triggered my HOCD. And ever since my HOCD has been going crazy. “What if he was right about me?” Those kind of thoughts. It’s been hard for me to talk to girls because of the intrusive thoughts I get. I’ve always desired women, sexually and romantically. I’m a virgin because I personally never seeked out to have sex due to my anxiety and obviously my ocd and other mental health issues. I was always just worried about myself and my life to be doing anything like that, if that makes sense. Little vent, not looking for reassurance or anything, just wanted to share my story. Fuck all narcissists :)