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the NOCD Community

how do i know my hocd thoughts aren’t real. i don’t want to be gay, i love my boyfriend it’s just i can’t help but worry for some reason. i genuinely don’t understand it and it’s scary.

i’m curious to see how OCD kicked in for other people. in retrospect, it’s easy for me to see times before i was diagnosed where i was obviously struggling with a theme. i’ve always been an anxious overthinker and i’d tell my friends offhandedly that my brain fixates on things for weeks at a time before it passes, but until the Big One, i was never so crippled with anxiety that it made me dysfunctional and completely disconnected. that was until my last theme hit, started by a friend who was making an innocent comment about my dating habits. it was like a bomb was set off in my brain. the anxiety was so acute i felt like vomiting. i was an insomniac for about three months. it was awful. when i stumbled across an article on OCD, i sobbed for finally having an explanation. and when i was diagnosed i told my therapist i think i lied (LMAO). so what about you guys? what was the theme that finally made you realize you had OCD and how old were you? looking back, did you recognize early signs or was it a sudden onset?

I can't afford therapy, and it's so exhausting having to wash my hands for 30 mins cause I feel like everything around me is disgusting. Ignoring it or forcing myself to touch something I feel might be dirty only works for so long and idk what else to do

So i was just wondering if anyone is willing to share what there harmful intrusive thoughts look or sound like. Because i just feel like mine are over the top really bad (like I’m scared to confess them to anyone because of how bad they are). And I’m just wondering if it’s normal or not because they are so bad. Like i know the typical stabbing a loved one or running your car off the road. But like my intrusive thoughts are about being a serial killer / murdering people/ and stuff Jeffery Dahmer or Ted Bundy or Dexter did. And it is sooo scary because it’s not things that I want to think about but it’s making me think that I’m crazy. So i was just wondering if anyone else experiences this? Like i can’t even look at my family the same because what if they are victim? 😭

Mom's with pocd ... have you ever had a groinal and made a pushing movement "down there" to kinda push away the groinal? My son was sitting on me one day and I was worried over this groinal when he was against my breast area. So I moved him after a while but as I was moving him I was like making that pushing away feeling and then it ended up turning into like a few times of this pulsing feeling I'm so scared it was an "o" or was about to be an "o" Has anyone else experienced this? I feel so alone. I can't get past this.

can anyone please tell me their experiences with rocd. i love my boyfriend more than i’ve ever loved anytbing to be honest, yet my brain doesn’t understand what i’m telling myself and i spiral into thoughts about maybe you just don’t love him or maybe this relationship isn’t right

I just had a very very gruesome intrusive thought that I don’t even want to repeat. And I feel like I’m in a dream state of mind and that i don’t know what’s going on with me. I’m sooo sooo scared that I’m just gonna go off and do what my thought says. Like i feel so weird. I’m not hallucinating or seeing things or anything but i just don’t feel like me. My head feels heavy i feel weird and now I’m scared that what if it’s not ocd and i end up doing something seriously wrong. What if i secretly like my thoughts? What if I’m not me? What if i do something bad? Please help. Any advice would be great. Am i truly going crazy? I don’t know what’s going on

Anyone with panic disorder ever have it go away and then come back? I feel in the same hopeless place I was many years ago when I first started experiencing it.

My OCD is about something I did 10 years ago something I’m not proud of , it’s nothing serious I didn’t hurt anyone not even myself but something I can’t manage to get passed and I’m afraid and ashamed that i worry about tellin a therapist my theme

My depression has been getting worse for about 4 months now. I was originally on Prozac for anxiety and OCD for about a year when I started having a depression episode about 4 months ago. Ever since then, I have been on and off of different SSRIs. I have tried Lexapro, Prozac (twice because my psychiatrist didn’t believe me when I said it wasn’t working), Trintellix, and now Viibryd. Nothing seems to work for me. Each one keeps giving me new or worse side effects and then I have to taper off again. Every week something new is going wrong. With my depression, I already don’t have a lot of energy and this process has completely drained me. I honestly don’t know what to do at this point. Should I keep trying new meds? Find a new psychiatrist? Or just try to cope on my own with therapy? I just feel lost. Any input is appreciated.

It’s been bothering me for the longest already

I'm just sick of feeling like I'm below other people because of fuck ups that happened in the past. I'm just tired of comparing myself to others and I'm very sick of worrying about what people may think of me when they don't even know who they are and I don't know who they are. Why does this happen? It's very annoying to have thoughts like "Why aren't you in a relationship? All of your friends have someone, why not you" Deep down I just think, so the fuck what? It's not a bad thing to be single and relationships aren't exactly easy. I root for friends that are in relationships but this whole thinking process of "Why can't you get what they have?" Or "You're unlovable and won't get a relationship no matter how much you think about it" It's very unhelpful to be thinking about EVERYTHING like this. When I try to do some drawings, I'll enjoy it and have a good idea of how I want them to look, but then uh oh. Here's a dumb thought that goes "There's younger and older people that are way more talented than you are. Why don't you draw on the level they do?" I've had this problem of low self esteem and low self confidence for a while now. It's not like anyone has told me these things whatsoever. They just so happen to be in my own inner critic and it's infuriating.

Basically I was diagnosed with GAD about 9-10 years ago so I know at the very least I have anxiety. However how do I tell the difference between anxiety and OCD, I know the compulsive behaviour isn’t really part of anxiety. But can people with anxiety get fixated on one specific fear for a significant portion of time? I think I do compulsions (googling, seeking reassurance, hand washing and others) but I’m not diagnosed so I don’t really know I just feel like guilty sometimes having this app and posting because I don’t have a diagnosis and I kind of just suspect it’s OCD - because it feels a lot more intense and immediate and scary and I don’t remember GAD ever feeling this constant and overwhelming and I also find myself needing answers to the situations my brain gives me a lot more then I used to, and even if I’m 99.99% sure of something the 0.01% is all I can focus on. I have a GP appointment in a week and a bit and hopefully I’ll be referred to a specialist but I really don’t want to bring up OCD to the GP because I’ve had a GP and a councillor tell me because I don’t do the generic compulsions (checking locks and at the time I wasn’t washing my hands excessively) that it was just anxiety. Anyways the point to my overly long post is; how does someone know whether they need to be seen for OCD, I’ve already been diagnosed with GAD, so should I just leave it at that?

I apologize if this is tmi, but i just looked at myself in the mirror naked and i look so fat. I feel so disgusted by myself and i keep getting these intrusive thoughts and racing thoughts telling me how ugly i am and how no one will ever find me attractive. I barely leave the house because of ocd and i use eating as a coping mechanism which i know is bad but thats how I gained weight. I feel so badddd, i cant take these feelings and thoughts anymore. It feels like i have 19282 people in my head that wont shut up. I cant sleep and i cant do anything. Im so done, when will this ever end. Im even sick of talkimg about it because im basically rehashing the same shit and im so done right now. Fuck this

What ssri has worked for you? And at what dose? Currently on Lexapro but I'm considering switching due to the side effects... I know that medications effect everyone differently, I'm just curious what else is out there! Thanks :)

Hi everyone had a question I am 42 years old until about 7 months ago my ocd has become so bad almost debilitating. I think I have had ocd since my mid 20s but it was barely there and it would sometimes almost be non existent and I didn’t even know it was ocd until I was diagnosed four months ago It was always my family getting hurt especially at night I was convinced that someone would break in the house and murder us. Or a fire would start but j would just check the doors and stove appliances a few times before bed nothing to time consuming and I never had panic attacks or the physical symptoms of anxiety, I did do weird rituals like I blessed things that fell on the floor because I thought something bad may happen to my kids which seems strange and I would put clothes away a certain way or again something bad would happen and I hated the number 6 so the volume can never be on 6 things like that. When I type if I didn’t get the word right the first time I’d have to erase the whole word and start over sometimes the whole sentence which was super annoying! But since I had my daughter 4 years ago I would have this weird fear with knifes like only I could wash them and put them away or someone may accidentally stab themselves or someone else, and I began to get intrusive images of someone trying to hurt my daughter or someone would kidnap her or she would stop breathing at night but it all was pretty tolerable until out of the blue I had a really bad intrusive images of me hitting her in the head with my phone it’s scared me so bad I had a panic attack and started questioning why would I think that?! Then a week went by and another intrusive image of me hurting her and then eventually it was anything and everything in my house could be weapon to hurt her i was terrified I googled it and realized it was intrusive thoughts and it was harm ocd 😞I have been really struggling since and that was 6 months ago I try to tell myself that they are just thoughts and it’s just my brain being hyper vigilant to protect her but I fear that the more I have them I will do them in my sleep And the physical sensations of anxiety and panic attacks are unbelievable sometimes Can anyone relate to their ocd becoming worse almost overnight later on in life I want my life back I’m so sad I’m scared to sleep at night I just want this all to go away Any tips it’s hard not to react to the thoughts when it is about harming your own child who I love soooo much And please tell me this is ocd

Does anyone have any tips on how to remember your tools when you feel a wave coming on? It seems like my cycle is pretty consistent. I'll be doing great and able to recognize intrusive thoughts as they pop up and let them go naturally, and then one day a thought will be extra sticky and I'll start examining it because it feels real (in my case usually existential), and before I know it I'm down the rabbit hole of rumination and don't know how to get out - which inevitably leads to depression. What strategies do you use to remember your tools and not fall for OCD's tricks? I'm thinking of maybe putting up a sticky note with bullet points on how to recognize something as an intrusive thought. Or some sort of reminder of the tools so that I don't forget them when a wave comes on. Sometimes the worries feel so real that I forget I shouldn't engage with them and just let them naturally pass.

Does it ever get any better? Every day is a waking nightmare I can’t speak to anyone of my same gender I am going to lose my girl friend I can’t sleep eat or do anything, I’m half the person I used to be. Just tell me there’s hope please I resist all my compulsions and yet I don’t see improvement my mind races with the same thoughts all day it’s so frustrating because I don’t want to do any of the things my mind tells me. I just agree with the thoughts and my anxiety builds I go to sleep and do it the next day. I’m on an SSRI I’ve been dealing with this for a month right after I had major head trauma. I thought once I got my head better I was going to be ok and be able to get past that part of my life. Now every time I look at someone of my same gender I get images and thoughts of me having sex with them. Literally everyone it’s so distressing and I feel trapped In my own mind. Has anyone gotten past this it’s so overwhelming and it feels like there’s no way out of this. I get immense anxiety even speaking to anyone and I know at 19 years old my sexuality didn’t switch literally overnight. I remember the day my mind snapped and sense that day there has been zero happiness in my life not a single moment of life I enjoy. It’s a compulsion seeking reassurance from anyone I just want to know that if anyone else has dealt with this have they been able to move forward with life because I can’t fucking take this shit anymore.

so one of the thoughts is like me thinking like “what if i become a killer” and so with that i have currently been watching the jeffery dahmer series and i’ve been having these nonstop thoughts of hurting my bf help

does anyone get triggered by music in any way? for me, i associate this song ‘always and forever’ by the cults as a bad luck or bad omen. like i get triggered if i hear it on instagram or tik tok and start doing my compulsions. it used to be my fave song until coincidences started happening with bad luck and whenever i purposefully go to listen to it i get some bad luck and now i can’t even hear the band at all because my brain associates them as demonic. i miss listening to my favourite song but i just gave up because of the distress i get from it does anyone else have experiences with music and bands that affect OCD?