Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Sorry I couldn't think of a better title lol. I gotta ask this though. Is there any one here thats older (35 up, I'm 43) that has developed a new theme? If so what is or was the theme and how did you deal with it?

Does anyone have trouble with anticipatory anxiety especially with physical sensations? I constantly find myself worried about “what if my heart palpitations happen again?”… It’s pretty consuming when I’m stuck ruminating about it and causes me to lose focus on the present.

anytime i describe how i’m feeling or who i am as a person, i physically feel like i’m lying. for example, i clearly am anxious over these thoughts, but saying that i’m scared feels like i’m lying. or when someone says “you are not your thoughts” it feels like i’m upset or don’t want that to be true because i want to act on them. like it’s making me feel like the only way out is to do them. but then i think back to when these began, the idea of actually committing such acts made me absolutely terrified as a child. i couldn’t even imagine why i was thinking those things. why does it feel like the opposite now? i just feel like my morals have completely flipped and no matter how much i try and find an answer to it, i never can.

I don’t know if I have OCD, but I’m in the verge of asking my mom to maybe go and get me checked. I will get a thought or several thoughts in my head and then think about them for HOURS and not be able to do anything else until I am satisfied. It is usually an agenda and I will go over it again and again in my head until it drives me crazy and I break down. I get thoughts in my head while out in public usually, ones that I am so ashamed of and make me feel disgusting. I also get unnecessarily angry and violent when certain sounds happen. Especially coughing. I don’t know if it is the repetitive part of it but when I say angry and violent I mean it. I think this might be misophonia, but I heard the two are related. Anyone with OCD, does any of this seem familiar? I’m hopeless at this point

I feel tired. I should really be focused on going to bed, but here I am. On top of ocd just feel like lately my head has been spinning faster than usual, yet I’m disassociating quite a bit more than usual too. I finally got a new job, so I’m sure my nerves, etc. have been up last week. And I volunteered to help my bf sister clean her house. She’s got a kiddo and a little one on the way, and her husband is out of town. Idk I feel like I’m over doing it mentally for myself, lots of socializing, but it’s good right? I just feel tired and tbh not myself. I just need to remember to rest and to take deep breaths. So, basically while I’ve been two hours away from home and am staying with his sister at her house. I’ve been triggered a bit. Last night a palmetto bug aka big arse looking cockroach was in the room with me inside a wrapper, crinkling away in the corner. That had my skin crawling, etc for hours. Today while cleaning there was more and I did a good job of accepting and getting past contamination and bugs, bugs is hard, especially anything that resembles a cockroach it’s like an alien to me. And it feels life threatening and all of the thoughts I have in a panicked state. It all sucks too bc I get a little nervous around children. I love them to death and I’m a child myself at heart but I just have so many inside my head compulsions and checking and I’ve touched my face idk how many times today for no reason, it was like a tic or something almost. I often felt like I was being perceived anytime I was in conversation, cuz I don’t get out much so I’m kinda introverted. I’m a great listener but small talk is not where I shine when it comes to me talking and I just judge myself and think of what the other person is thinking and it all happens so fast there’s barely even thought at all to any of it. There’s no real time to stop and breathe, hence the lingering feeling that my brain is just going way too fast. Anyways, idk why most things I type gotta be so freaking long, but anyways ocd sucks, overthinking and analyzing sucks, and it’s great when you can catch it but days like these where there’s hardly time nor boundaries nor my environment and routines it’s just chaos. Good news is I’m working the next five days after tm, but I’m gonna be exhausted by the end of the week going from cleaning for two days, and working 5, but aye gotta get that bread and help out. Just pray my brain doesn’t short circuit. Thanks for coming to my Tedd talk

Hi all, I’ve just increasing my Zoloft dosage to 150 mg, as my psychiatrist told me the dosage needs to be high to see results for OCD. Ever since increasing the dose, I’ve had intense physical anxiety throughout the day and my brain feels foggy. I can’t even go to class without trembling. I find myself overthinking and ruminating for entire days at a time, unable to get out of bed. I’m worried about these symptoms but also scared to try any other meds. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

I am not asking for reassurance I’m just freaking out about something that just never crossed my mind before. I’m helping to raise my nephew since he was a baby. I vaguely remember patting him on the bottom when he was one playfully. He was bouncing around the couch and I was also just making sure he didn’t fall. I never thought of that contact or interaction as inappropriate or weird. Why on earth 6 years later am I freaking out? I started having unwanted intrusive thoughts surrounding past events and my anxiety is through the roof. Is it normal to question yourself like this if you have ocd? Please know I love my family so much and this questioning is killing me.

i got broken up with, a month and a half ago. it’s been terrible to say the least, because at first neither of us really wanted to break up. I can’t help but think about how they’re feeling. I want to give them space, but it hurts really badly. I’ve been going to programs (learning DBT), and they’ve been helpful but it seems these thoughts have been happening most of my day. I just want to live in the present.

I have real event OCD as well as scrupulous OCD A couple years ago I was hanging out with my friend and he had a girlfriend at the time. He kissed me and I didn’t stop him but I didn’t really want to do it I just have a fear of setting boundaries due to past trauma. In an effort to say no he was about to have sex with me and I said I didn’t want to have sex without a condom but he did anyways. I felt really gross and violated afterwards and I told some friends what happened they said it was SA but now I’m convinced that I actually wanted it the whole time and I’m putting the blame on him so I don’t have to cope with the idea that I homewrecked a relationship and now have convinced myself I have NPD. I hate this

I'm not even sure if this is OCD or just general anxiety. Today is my dad's birthday and my girlfriend told me to tell him she said happy birthday. I told her I would, but then immediately felt anxiety. I ended up telling him and all was fine. She has a very unique name and my dad cracked a joke about it and I laughed it off. During all of this, and starting a new relationship, she's talking about a lot of really big things like marriage and kids. And while I do want all of that, I find myself feeling uncomfortable when we talk about it. And I hate that. Because I used to be so excited about all of this stuff. But my heart has been hurt so many times it's hard to be genuinely excited anymore. I also find that I'm unsure of how I feel when I am not with her. But when I'm talking to her I love every moment of it. She's very sweet and we communicate well which is really good. I just find myself asking if she's the right one. She lives across the country. So we call every day. And there are a bunch of other little things that I'm overthinking. Usually how I'm not always as attracted to her physically as she is to me. She fell for me first. I'm just in a panic because usually I fall first and having someone obsessed with me is new and in a way it makes it almost harder to obsess over her because she's always there. There's nothing to latch on to that would cause an obsession. Idk I'm just going a mile a minute.

Can OCD make you have a fear of depression? I’ve struggled with harm OCD for a while but now it’s morphing into “I’m depressed” theme. I got instant anxiety. Has anyone else experienced this where it convinces you that you’re depressed ?

I’ve been on 25mg for a month and first 3 weeks were rocky, but I think the medication is working. Just took my first 50mg dose and I’m so scared !

hi. so i’ve been struggling with a schizophrenia/paranoia/psychosis theme this week. yesterday on accident i saw a scene from greys anatomy about a man with schizophrenia and he was saying “my mom was impregnated by an alien” and i was worried id get stuck on the thought which is exactly what happened. so now that thoughts in my head, and im like am i experiencing paranoia, am i schizophrenic, do i believe this thought to be true, i don’t know and i was trying to just relax and my mom was like im tired and my brain said “cause you’re alien pregnant” and now im really not sure if its an intrusive thought or paranoia and i dont get how to tell the difference and im really really struggling. someone please help

OCD making me feel like a terrible human being. Focusing entirely on my flaws I forget the good things about myself. Sometimes I question if I ever had any. My OCD does center around themes that question my morality. Lately I’ve scared myself into believing I’m a covert narcissist. That comes heavily from my ROCD and CPTSD symptoms lately. I look at my partner who is such an accomplished, educated man…and then I look at myself as a woman who has let the years pass by out of fear. It makes it worse he wants to help me. Get me back into school. Help with my finances. I feel like such a parasite at times. He deserves better. Idk I just needed to type this out and get it off my chest.

Not reassurance seeking but is it possible to feel so overwhelmed by your thoughts that you feel like you are going insane 🫠

I always put trigger warning just to be safe because honestly OCD will find ANYTHING to trigger itself. I used this app when I really needed people who had a similar experience and since I have ADHD and OCD my OCD meds are slowly not working because my ADHD meds were upped. Which stinks but I’m going to call and tell them I need the dosage upped. I wanted to come here and say that this road to recovery isn’t easy. It’s bumpy and it’s messy. I’m still confessing as a compulsion and giving any new friends an out so they can leave me. I just want you to know you aren’t alone and I know how it feels❤️we will get through this and we will be okay😊

Hi, I’ve always had OCD, but it was very manageable. I’d obsess over something not being clean or in the right place, but I’d be able to redirect quickly and move on from the thought. After my Mom died in 2015 and I had my first child, I started to have intreusive thoughts. I’d replay her death over and over and wonder where her soul was or if she was okay. It kept me up all night and turned into insomnia. I was put back on Lexapro at a high dose and a sleep med and anti anxiety med were added. It seemed to help for a while until til I started to get adverse side effects from all the drugs. About 16 months ago, I started to wean off. The tapering process has been horrendous and I have had every symptom in the book , the worst being bulletproof insomnia and extreme irritability. I feel like I’m reverting back to the intrusive thoughts, but ten times worse. I keep thinking that I will never sleep again and that my life is ruined because of the long term use of meds. I’m not even off all the meds yet, but I keep playing the worst case scores over and over in my head. How do I get through this tapering process especially the obsessing about sleep and health?

Someone in my house is sick right now, probably with a cold or the flu. All I can think about is how I am going to get sick. We share a single kitchen and bathroom, so quarantine is not available in this situation. Every time they sneeze or cough I panic inside. It makes me not want to interact with any members of my family but then I get shamed for that. They shame me for wearing a mask and wiping down surfaces because it is rude to the sick person. I don’t know how to stop being so selfish. I can’t look at any items in the house without thinking about all the germs that must be on them. The air feels poison. I think my family must be right and my avoidance behaviors are selfish, but I don’t know what else to do. Even mentioning the illness makes me freak out. Imagining getting sick is terrifying, even a cold, because it means everything around me changing and canceling important plans and not getting to see my other friends and family and being isolated. On top of that it means that the germs have infected me and I hate that.

I’ve been doing good by not posting but I’m hoping that someone can validate me a bit… I know I don’t feel sexual feelings towards anyone but my partner, but the thought of intentionally imagining someone’s body intentionally makes me so anxious, even my own family including my little daughter… I guess what I’m asking is do people without ocd experience that same discomfort of not wanting to intentionally imagine anyone’s body regardless of the context or who it is? I feel like depending on the person and context, maybe imagining someone as a whole person may not be bad? But I feel uncomfortable about intentionally imagining just peoples body even though there’s no sexual meaning? Does that make people without ocd uncomfortable too? I don’t want to feel like I have to do things like that to become “normal”… sometimes I’ll have intrusive thoughts saying to intentionally do something and then it’s like the image just comes in my head when I don’t actually want it to?? It’s really confusing and upsetting. Can someone please give me a bit of clarity? The AI thing on Snapchat said that it’s normal for people without ocd to feel uncomfortable by that… and I understand you could have a thought and an image just comes in on it’s own without you trying…

What are some wins you had this week?