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the NOCD Community

I’ve had Harm OCD in the past and with ERP and CBT I’ve got it in check. About 3 years ago it returned with a theme of suicide (we lost a friend to it and a few months later it triggered). I’m in peri menopause and that didn’t help. I’ve been having ERP since April and I keep relapsing. I’ll have a good patch and do some exposures then hit a rough patch and my exposures go out the window. Always at the same hurdle ‘what if it’s not OCD and these are actual thoughts about harming myself’. What if the exposures make me worse. Then I get down about the relapse and think the depressed feelings must mean I really am at risk. And all the compulsions kick back in. Has anyone else experienced repeated relapses with ERP? I find it so hard to manage the up and down.

so, i’m in this relationship which is the healthiest relationship i’ve ever been in, he treats me well, he loves me, he is supportive of my struggles as he shares some of them, even if it isn’t full blown like mine are, but my brain out of fear of what could come, is shutting down my feelings. my ocd is known for locking down my feelings about anything, putting them in a cage so i become numb, allowing the hurt to be less once someone leaves or gets tired of me. but i don’t want my relationship ruined out of fear, i’ve had a few that ended due to me never being able to stop the intrusive thoughts about them leaving, hell some even got exhausted or annoyed by trying to reassure me that they aren’t gonna leave, so they left anyway. i don’t want to lose my relationship with my bf as i truly do want a future with him, but my ocd fear paralysis is stopping me from tapping into how deep my feelings actually are for him and it makes me really sad. i also had a bad dream about him ending up with someone else and since then, i’ve been extra worried. but it’s an inner worry as that’s happened before to me. my ocd is manifesting into more than worries and i don’t want this relationship also ruined when it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but my ocd is constantly scared. does anyone else also struggle with it?

Does anyone else have a situation like me where their living situation makes OCD so much worse? This is going to cause a lot of controversy in the comments but idc. I have had OCD my entire life. I have bought every book to help. I have been in therapy for over 10 years. I have tried anti anxiety medications to help. I have tried EMDR and every other kind of therapy to help with OCD. I have had more than 6 therapists (most changes because of insurance coverage) and nothing works. NONE of the traditional methods of treatment work for me at all. I have also tried numerous times “exposure therapy” and every single time my anxiety goes through the roof, my blood pressure shoots up, everything in my vision goes black, I collapse and the ambulance has to be called. The ONLY thing that has helped my OCD is the reassurance that I know I could fix the issue if I needed to. ie: my biggest thing is the bathroom. Specifically getting piss on myself every time I pee (I have pelvic floor disfunction from massive amounts of stress in my life from not just OCD but other serious health issues) if I am able to shower immediately all my anxiety disappears. I understand that people will say “you’re just giving in” But I am telling you, on God, the truth when I say if I don’t shower and I ignore it and go to bed I will have a full blown breakdown. I will either collapse as I mentioned, or I will be fine until morning where I not only have to shower repeatedly but also have to wash my sheets. I will spend the entire day hyperventilating and on occasion vomiting/having diarrhea. So for me personally the exposure therapy is always worse. Always. And I am 32 so I have tried exposure for years. So point I’m getting to is because of my chronic illness (disability) I have been working since I was 14 but can’t save enough to move out. So I live with my mother who freaks out every time I shower. (Shes the kind of person who thinks you don’t need a shower if you didn’t jump in a pile of mud. So you can imagine how difficult having OCD Is with her) This anxiety of living with her makes my OCD worse, which she doesn’t understand, which makes my OCD even worse. Its a nightmare and it is the reason that on top of. OCD and anxiety I have severe depression.

Yesterday I was helping a child change and I was touching their skin for some reason (helping them pull up their pants or something) and then I was like “wow their skin is so soft and then I had a bad thought and then backed away. I’m really scared I am I p*do pile and did I touch them inappropriately?? I don’t want that answer to be yes or else I’m gonna throw up. I feel like I should’ve backed away when I was touching their skin soft but it felt like I was in slow motion. I’m so scared.

I feel so engulfed by these thoughts that I cannot find a way out. It physically and mentally feels real and feels like I’m going to do it. I’m starting to believe this is actually me and I don’t know what to do.

I think I know what to do here. Got up in the night for the washroom... Brain is now going "what if you touched your face when hands are dirty" and I've given in and washed my face a few times... oops. Well this time it also went, "what if you washed your face BEFORE your hands and now there's pee germs in your hair from the water?" I went back to bed and now it's screaming my bedding/shirt/etc is contaminated... I want to change the pillowcases/bedding/clothes... It could use a wash anyway, but in this instance I think I need to wait until my brain calms down about this issue, even though I don't want it to escalate to "now the house is contaminated! And your hairbrush/the drawer it's in/everything in it!" If I did the bedding I know I would start spiralling. Ah yikes. I don't even know if this is even true, I don't think I would do it this way, I know better. I hate this. I wish I could accurately remember.

i took a break unintentionally from personal life and sadly i can’t say life is better. a lot of aspects have changed and i have a new partner and different living situation but my brain is still suffering. i’m still struggling and still triggered everyday. why? i know i can MANAGE things but why can’t thoughts just go away? why can’t this go away ?

During therapy I got to understand that my ocd requires relaxation and peace, I started spending time with family and started meditation. Helped me a lot but past a few days it feels that my rituals of relaxing have become compulsive. I wonder what would work properly and long term. I have pure-o ocd and haven’t tried ERP. Seems that relaxing techniques are also going down the gutter.

This is my first time posting. Mainly just want to get my thoughts out about my particular circumstances in hopes of gaining clarity or possibly helping someone else. I’ve always battled with anxiety and depression off and on my whole life and the OCD has only been around the last 5 years. Recently, I discovered through testing that I have a MTHFR gene mutation which long story short just means my body doesn’t naturally methylate fully on its own, so I have to take certain vitamins in their active form and avoid anything that creates inflammation in the body which exacerbates the symptoms of the mutation. The big thing is that the process of methylation has everything to do with creating dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine neurotransmitter, so basically those with the mutation are prone to having anxiety and depression. My big aha moment is that my entire life I haven’t even had a fighting chance to find joy and contentment because of this which is both disheartening but also relieving to know that there’s a chance to overcome it. I’m really hoping after making the appropriate lifestyle changes and supplementing correctly I will begin to feel joy and hope again which will then in return help me fight my OCD. The occasional days when I do feel a serge of serotonin, I’m able to rolls my eyes and laugh at the things that would normally trigger me, as the weight is lifted and my racing thoughts soften. If anyone else here has the mthfr mutation, how have you dealt with it?

Whoever has hocd.. does ur thoughts say “he’s cute or he’s hot” if ur a guy afraid of being gay? I hate when it does that

I have contamination ocd and I’m constantly cleaning and organizing for sometimes hours until it feels “just right” and it’s truly miserable. I asked a friend of mine if cleaning for hours at a time all day is excessive and his reply was “no you’re just a clean person!” It honestly hurt to hear that I guess I was just seeking reassurance and shouldn’t have asked. Does anyone else get that reply a lot? And if so how do you deal with it? It made me feel like my ocd isn’t a problem.

Very frightened about lack of sleep

I've seen many things tbh. I've seen spells, cursed items, and more. These images play in my head and then I get intrusive thoughts saying horrible things will happen to people I love. It's been so hard to deal with that I don't even sleep well anymore. Anybody know how to solve this?

So, yesterday I found out that one of my coworkers (I'm her boss) cries because I'm so mean to her every day and the last time she felt as bad as I make her feel was when her dad was in the hospital, and that everyone encouraged her to report me because of how awful I am, including MY BEST FRIEND'S SISTER. I genuinely cannot think of a single time I've been mean, let alone so mean she wrote a resignation letter, cries every day in front of everyone, and is scared of me. How can I be that mean to someone and not even realize it? I'm not doing anything unusual, so I'm being that mean just by naturally being myself. I feel like the worst person on earth. I want to quit so badly, I can't continue working with this girl, she deserves better than me. I can't stop crying, I had no idea I'm such an awful person to be around. I've never felt more autistic in my life. I'm so genuinely shocked by this. I thought I was friends with everyone and that we were all fine. But nope, I got reported and they all hate me because I'm so mean to them and especially one girl. I don't know what to do other than resign. I don't know how to process this.

Yesterday I started taking paroxetine. Is there someone who is taking it? What dose are you taking and what was the dose you where starting with? When it started to work?

So I watched Barbie yesterday with my girlfriend. It was okay, a bit strange, certainly a different experience. Ryan Gosling was definitely a scene stealer and I won’t lie he was really funny in the role. Which is exactly what has triggered me. My brain seemingly just jumps to the conclusion of “that means you’re gay” and it’s been doing my head in all day. I’m constantly trying to reassure myself and it’s exhausting. I never rated Ryan Gosling really (this is the first film of his I’ve ever seen) but now every time I so much as see his face anywhere I have an anxiety attack of sorts, it’s just strange man… I never gave the actor a second of thought in the past. Oh well, this is nothing new really… My ocd as of lately has found itself attached to specific people from time to time it’s strange…

How is everyone?? Is there something you want to talk about?

Do you still describe yourself as having a specific subtype even if it doesn’t happen super frequently and doesn’t cause a huge amount of distress? For example I’ll have an occurrence occasionally that would fall under harm OCD or POCD but assuming I have OCD and not just anxiety, it was all originally triggered back when I realized that I likely have ROCD, which is the main one for me.

Been seeing an amazing guy and I'm attracted to him and he treats me better than anyone I've met. I cant be present and I question every single thing and I broke it off because I've only managed one calm lovely month out of 4 but I miss him a lot and still feel terrible. Is this just a breaking up with a lovely man thing or is this regret? I know he will support my mental health through anything and I'm terrified of losing out on him due to this. Thanks in advance and sending so much love to you absolute warriors x

Lately I have felt like I care less about everything. People, hobbies I used to enjoy. Etc. can ocd do this to you after you’ve been fighting a flare up for awhile ? My POCD has been back pretty intense for about 2 months.