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the NOCD Community

I’m making some gains battling my ocd and I really feel supported by my therapist Shawn Welty.

This is my first ever post on here, because honestly my anxiety over my health has gotten really bad. Ive had really irregular bowl movements as of thanksgiving and that’s about it no pain , no weight loss, no change in appetite, no blood , etc. My Brain is still trying to convince me that I have some horrible disease that’s going to kill me. I have an appointment with my doctor today at 9 but I’m do scared and anxious. I can’t fall asleep because I’m actually stressing out and my brain is telling me if I fall asleep I won’t wake back up. Honestly I’m struggling really bad and if anyone relates I’d love to hear how you calm yourself down or what makes you feel a little bit better because I haven’t been able to leave my house or panic attack free in about 4 days. Anything helps 💕

I don’t know if anyone will see this, but I just wanted to encourage you as things can absolutely get better. I was a total wreck before I started ERP. i had no idea how much it would help me or re-wire my brain. I used to be so depressed, so anxious, my life was completely different. OCD ran my everyday, dominated my thoughts and actions. I now see pretty much everything a whole lot clearer. If you are just starting ERP or are having doubts along the way, please stick with it. it will get better

First of all I apologize for my grammar english isnt my first language Im 19 and I am from germany, ive been suffering with severe ROCD since ive been 14 :(.. I have a big fear of cheating on my boyfriend thats why I keep analysing ALL my intrusive thoughts and actions ive done, for example if another guy from my class texts me and asks me for homework I keep thinking: Oh this is cheating.. or I asks myself: have I ever done this? Example: I handshake a guy from class my false memory ocd tells me: oh but youve also kissed or hugged him, you just dont remember Then i am not sure anymore if thats false memory ocd or reality I must admit my boyfriend has been toxic for a long time and it started at a young age, he often thought I was cheating or didnt believe me when we were around 14/15, I was very insecure and full of axinety at that age thats why I can tell myself this was strongly traumatic for me. it gets worse, I once convinced myself im cheating on him because im lesbian or p... (POCD) and also sexual orientation ocd. I keep asking others: Have I done something wrong? Do you remember when you were there when I was doing ... did something bad happen? Did I cheat? What If I cant remember or what if thats considered cheating? I once deleted my textmessages from my male classmates because I had a fear my boyfriend would think: why is she so nice to them or why is she laughing that much? I also chat with chatgpt all day to make sure none of my actions are cheating or none of my thoughts. I always get triggered when people talk about relationship rules because I compare myself with it, for example a girl tells me its considered chating if her boyfriend talks to his girl classmates. I tell myself: oh I have done that too I am a terrible person, girlfriend, daughter etc.. If he treats me good, it gets worse because I feel like I dont deserve it. Sometimes I wish I was single and alone so I wouldnt have ROCD but id probaly have other forms of ocd. Im tired from this, I cant focus on school because of these thoughts, I skipped so many days because it became worse, currently Im in 12th grade and its my last school year so the most important one. Im trying to fight myself against this but I cant, there were also times where I didnt have ROCD 24/7 and if I remember these times I feel like ive lost control over these times.. I analyse every joke ive made, every step, every thought, every breath, every intention, every conversation, everything. Im tired. :/ I go to sleep with ocd and wake up with it continiuing. My class friends dont understand me, "You wont pass this year" or "Just dont think about it" they dont understand how it feels thinking about this sh.. everyday all the time Im just tired of everything. Im dizzy and tired all the time, Im zoning out in classes and always talking to my amazing parents who are helping me 24/7. Theyve always been perfect, helpful and kind and Ive made a huge mistake not telling them earlier, Ive been suffering alone with these thoughts. I love my parents I just hope somebody can relate to all of this, I feel like Im alone deeply I know that I love my boyfriend more than anything but I cant handle it anymore Im tired.

I don’t know when or how I developed OCD but I remember it coming out of nowhere. I think I was 14 years old and I kept obsessing over silly things. I would do things because I thought that if I didn’t do those things, then bad things would happen. for example, if I was making something in my microwave and I didn’t stop it once second exactly my family was going to die that sounds very silly and I know probably some of you relate to this I’m sorry if you do, I noticed other things like I have to count something couple times or make sure that the oven turned off even though I didn’t use it but somehow maybe there’s a chance that I did and if I didn’t turn off then I would probably die. I would constantly constantly wash my hands and if I had a cut I had to wash it and keep an eye, even though if it was a very, very small cut, I would think I would eventually get an infection and die!! Sometimes if I don’t have things in a right way, I feel like unsettled and there’s like this weird bad feeling and if I don’t fix that thing, then I just feel uneasy until I fix it. I’ve gotten better with my OCD but they are definitely sometimes I struggle more. Recently I have been having lots of health OCD or whatever you call it thinking I’m going to get sick, I feel like I feel like this every single time there’s an important event coming up. This Friday is my birthday and I’m terrified of getting sick and ruining plans so I’ve been very cautious about getting sick washing my hands constantly, taking all the precautions etc. I think I just have this feeling that like if I have an important event coming up then I will get sick and then it will just ruin the plans I have because it has happened to me. I know that there’s an OCD where you have intrusive thoughts or compulsive thoughts and it is where you have weird thoughts that make you think something I really don’t want to say it out loud I’m using text speech, but I’ve had that too. For example, this is a less serious one, but when I was dating someone I had to thought that I would accidentally cheat on them, even though I would never do that and that’s not possible because I control my actions I’m not gonna cheat on someone. It was so weird. i’m in a new relationship that’s healthier. I’ve never had that thought so I’m glad I got over that. OCD is just so… I’m trying to think of the right word. It’s so restricting I feel like I can’t live a normal life like everyone else. I think I’m weird for the thought to have for the compulsion or whatever, my brain is different from normal person. I think the worst part about OCD is when you’re trying to explain it to “normal “person. I’m explaining these feelings and thoughts and they’re like what the heck I’m like yeah lol that’s so weird who would even say that, I think the worst flair up of my OCD was when I had fiberglass in my bed and the fiberglass was getting everywhere. I had to clean my whole room put a thing on my bed to stop it from spreading more fiberglass. In my head, I thought every single thing in my room was contaminated and I wanted to throw everything away but I couldn’t. Do not have money to go buy a whole new wardrobe or new bed or new shoes was probably the worst ever experience I’ve ever had. To this day I still feel uncomfortable in my room. Sometimes I feel like all my clothes still have fiberglass on them and I’m cautious, I feel like I won’t feel normal in my room until I move out and get a different room but I wont for a long time. It’s something I’ve accepted. I guess I just want to share my experience with OCD. If anybody has experienced these let me know show your story I know this is a lot to read, but I’m using text to speech ha ha thank you for reading if you came this far, take care.

Hello, i don't even know if this is ocd related but i feel like i need help either way Me and my boyfriend have been together for three years now and i love him so much like i truly believe i want to be with him the rest of my life, the only thing is he doesn't have a job, not that he doesn't want to, he's an artist and yeah its a really hard area to get into, but i really believe in him and his talent, and he even applies for like regular jobs at stores and restaurants but it just hasn't happened yet, and it's something that really frustrates me A while back i was crying really hard on the phone about it because i felt like he wasn't making as much of an effort as he could to get a job and to create content on his own to get his art out there, and he recognized it and apologized and has gotten a lot of work done actually Getting to me being mean to him, he has an opportunity with someone in the industry, like to pitch his idea, and like 4 days before they were supposed to meet my boyfriend tells me he still needed to get things ready And i flipped, like i started saying all the same things, that he isnt taking it seriously and i spoke in a way that i am not proud of After he explained better to me i understood that he obviously already had like everything done and planned, he just needed to like fix the storyboard or something, and honestly, even if he had procrastinated, it was not okay for me to speak the way that i did, and i fear its something i do a lot, i get angry and lash out and say mean things/am rude and im really scared its going to drive him away eventually, how do i work on myself? Does anyone have any tips?

Ever since 2 days ago I have been so anxious thinking that I’m losing feelings for my boyfriend, I know it can’t be true cause I still feel attracted to him, but it’s just the little things like for example, whenever I say “I love you” it feels like I can’t feel any emotions, or when I look at pictures of him, it feels like I don’t have any emotions, like before we hung out 2 days ago, I would just admire and think about how handsome he looks in the photos and now I just feel nothing, but sometimes I’ll feel emotions. Idk. My mind is so confusing. And it’s been putting so much anxiety on me cause like he is the most sweetest, most caring man I’ve ever been with. I can’t let him go. Can anyone give advice on how I can get rid of this feeling?

18+ please I saw art of Marvel Rivals skins and one of them was Peni Parker, nothing weird official art of a skin they'll be releasing, I didn't realise who it was at first so zoomed in, my OCD convinced me it was with sinister intentions (Even if it was, they've confirmed she's 18 but I still don't like the idea of her being sexualised because she's not in every other continuity). I then kept getting intrusive images of the other version of her from Spider-Verse that were incredibly disgusting and disturbing and I'm struggling with the what if I saw something terrible involving her and didn't do anything or worse, even though it makes no sense as when I saw something like that, I freaked out for an entire day and the other time was just under some random tweet that again, freaked me out for a while. Those were both this year though and I have this nagging in the back of my head of "What if it was earlier than that and you forgot?". I know I have to just sit with the uncertainty and stop ruminating but it's really really hard. Does anyone have any techniques they use to do it that help?

(Sorry this is long wondering if anyone may relate to this!) 🙃 I have this weird really annoying thing where when I try to focus or relax (basically 24/7) my head feels noisy where it will “play” random song lines or sentences that i can’t get out of my head and in a sense I talk to me brain silently with my mouth or whisper the conversation back or for it to shut up. I also read words wrong as what I’m saying mentally and I feel like my thoughts aren’t mine almost. It’s hard to brush my hair, teeth, change, shower, etc because everything around me starts playing through my head and any slight noise wether the house cracking or someone laughing in another room makes me freeze up and my head starts convincing me that it messes up the way I was doing whatever I was doing and I feel extreme anxiety around it where I avoid doing these basic tasks. I also feel the need to repeat words with my mouth after reading or hearing them even saying things I repeat the words silently after or in syllables ex; “the theh thuh” or repeating the word “like” and “yuh” until it feels right in my throat. I also feel the strong need and sometimes uncontrollable eyebrow movements, teeth “clicking” to songs in my brain, and weird jaw movements. I constantly think about my hair, the way it is touching my shirt “knotting” it and how I move to itch my face or head and doing it “wrong” which I obsess over movements for hours if I do. I also get very uncomfortable when I move wrong or touch anything wrong, and can’t shake thoughts about super minor things like someone bumping me or breathing near me and it consumes me and my mood can go from 100 to 0 like a light switch. I hate this and always think “why can’t I just stop” and doubt myself if I’m making this all up, but then again it wouldn’t drain me this much.

We'd put OCD on the naughty list...but if it wasn't, what do you think it would want for Christmas? A mind reader on call 24/7? The power to make you doubt literally everything? Share your OCD's wishlist in the comments—humor welcome.

(30M) Can anyone else who is struggling with scrupulosity help me? I have not been practicing ERP. I have a hard time believing it really does good. My OCD is largely focused around religion and scrupulosity, and I feel like ERP is just trying to make me ignore my sins so I feel better, while blinding me to my need to repent. I don’t just want to /feel/ better; I want the feeling of being in right relationship with God. I want the good feelings to come from that relationship, so I know they’re authentic. I don’t want to plaster over my sins with good feelings and pretend that they don’t affect me. What is your experience with ERP, and do you ever feel like I feel about it? How do you experience closeness with God? Does ERP help, or get in the way?

Feeling hurt and triggered by something my brother said Hi everyone, I just need to get this out and explain what’s going on. I’m struggling right now because my OCD is triggering really badly. Recently, my younger brother, who has autism, said something that really hurt me. He claimed that when we were kids, I kissed him on the cheek and that it felt “inappropriate” to him. I know that sounds shocking and painful — and honestly, it is. It breaks my heart that my own brother would say something like that about me. I want to make it clear that I would never do anything inappropriate. I remember being a loving older sibling, and I’ve always had strong morals and values. I only ever showed affection in innocent ways, like hugs or kisses on the cheek as a child — something completely normal. I also know that if anything harmful had actually happened, I would remember it. I’ve told other people about this, and they’ve reassured me that I should just ignore him, that he’s probably just trying to get under my skin or doesn’t fully understand what he’s saying. And logically, I know that’s true — especially since he even admitted he might have misread my intentions. But emotionally, it’s really hard. My OCD is making me question myself and spiral, and it’s painful to hear that my own brother would accuse me of something bad when I know I did nothing wrong. I just wanted to share this here because I need support and reassurance that what I’m feeling is valid, and that I’m not a bad person. It’s tough, but I’m trying to remember that his words do not define me, and that my memories and intentions were innocent.

I have improved a lot on my OCD, but sometimes it still flares up a lot. But I still have trouble deciphering what is OCD and what is an actual truth or feeling. since day one of being with my boyfriend, I’ve questioned my attraction to him (set aside OCD). He definitely wasn’t my type physically. And he wasn’t that adventurous, which is something I really want in a partner, but I remember our personalities clicked like no other and he treats me really well and he’s kind and he’s hilarious and loving and wise and very personable and all the things. one week I’m asking him when he’s going to propose, but the next week I’m telling him I’d like to date another year. I’m feeling incredibly anxious because I know he’s going to propose the in next few months. I have this feeling that I would be a better version of myself if I wasn’t with him and that I would be free and that I should be with someone who is pushing me into adventures and challenging me and that if we get married, I’ll just be falling into this comfortability that I’ve, always wanted to avoid since I was younger. I just feel like I don’t want to marry him, but I know he’s already planning on proposing to me soon. Idk what to do. I really really do love him. We’ve been dating about 13 months now and we’re best friends.

I’ve been struggling lately with my ocd because I haven’t been taking my pills right, mostly because I have an extreme fear of choking and it makes taking my pills really hard. I’m going to try to do better at taking my pills but this isn’t the point of this post. My newest ocd obsession is about demons, but I’ve had religious ocd my whole life. My ocd is mostly centered around the idea that if I don’t do something the right way, a demon or God or some other powerful entity will punish me. It’s always been that way, but it’s gotten worse lately. Now I’m afraid a demon’s going to possess me or manipulate my mind, and if I don’t remember doing something exactly, my mind is like “a demon did it for you so now it’s going to take something from you” (this last thing has been part of my ocd for a long time too). My mind has also latched onto a demonic character from a show, and it’s become the face of the demon my ocd is centered around. They have a symbol and I keep thinking I see it behind my eyes or on shows or in real life, and when I see something like it my mind is like “this is proof the demon is watching you.” I know the character isn’t real and it’s all in my head, but I’m afraid I’m going crazy. Like what if I believe I’m possessed and hurt someone? I don’t want to hurt anyone and I KNOW this character isn’t real, but I do believe in demons. I think God would protect me from demons, but the doubt keeps messing with me. This is really annoying and I need some advice, or at least reassurance I’m not alone in demonic/religious themed ocd.

Hey guys! Hope everyone is well. I have been doing ERP for about a year and a half now. So far my ocd symptoms have gone down a lot but sometimes I have flares that really take me down :( I’m not on medication but lately part of me has been curious about it. When I was in high school years ago I was on a small dose of Zoloft, but I didn’t like how it made me feel like a shell of myself- I felt kind of numb to my emotions. Is anyone here on a medication that works well for them? What was your experience like? Thank you in advance❤️

I've been dealing with OCD for some time now. I havent gotten the chance to get an actual diagnosis and meds cuz i cant let people know, here in the balkans its still a bit of a taboo thing to talk mental ilness. I've dealt with it on my own and managed to make quite great progress, I started doing ERP a few years ago and managed to actually learn to deal with it in a healthy way and try to live my life again. For some time it was rough and then it kinda settled in, for most of 2024 my OCD wasn't a problem. Here comes 2025 and I got a massive flare up, I had anxiety over driving school, religious beliefs (that was deeper tho cuz i deconstructed from Christianity) and relationship OCD. What I'm looking for is a bit of hope, maybe experiences of people who have dealt with really bad simptomps (im talking anxiety that makes you sick), that feeling that it never will go away, that despair when ocd pushes you into a state of inner reflexion and you feel disconected from reality. I know there isn't a cure but I also know ERP work and it can help massively. But it's so hard to fight it and it's so tiring, waking up everyday with that anxiety and doing your exposures (seeing results) but never actually feeling like you're getting to that place of peace. Like, IM BETTER, but I dont feel like im ever gonna be ok in the real sense. Does that make sense?

I don’t know what’s been happening to me lately i feel like i don’t know myself anymore i’ve lost interest in everything i mean in the things i loved doing it makes me even question if it’s ocd i’ve had so many types of thoughts of every type of ocd in the last 5 months i’ve had 5 different types of ocd i kind of had a relief for a couple of weeks that i didn’t question anything now this time that it hit me it’s worse i feel like im lost mentally like im not in reality i question every single thing more than i ever have and keep obsessing thinking that there’s actually something wrong with me i don’t feel the same love i used to towards the people i love or my relationship im just always in a bad mood and get so irritated easily i just feel like i lost myself i don’t remember who i am anymore and the fact that now i question every single thing and everything about my past is like what and sometimes i like laugh and feel like im just pretending to have ocd and that i’ve been pretending to be a person that i never have been my whole life does it ever get better?and like sometimes i feel like i can’t explain myself or what’s going on or what mood im in

sometimes idk what my purpose is cuz if im always fearing my salvation like it’s just too much if im not fully following him and just think of modern Christianity and I need to be so strict.

Hi - My name is Chrissy and I am new to this group. I want to connect with others that have potentially gone through the same struggles or have the same obsessions I have and have learned how to cope. I have indecision OCD. I figured out I had OCD about 2 years ago and realized how much it has affected my entire life and my relationships. My compulsions involve heavily asking for reassurance from loved ones and online research. I can spend hours evaluating the pros and cons before making a decision. Minor decisions like what to eat at a restaurant aren’t the issue but big life changing decisions are. What I’ve been obsessing about most of my life the past 3 years is whether to change my job and whether to have children. I finally got the right kind of help and worked with an ERP therapist for about 9 months. She got me to change jobs, making a career change, and start trying for children which has been great progress for me. However, I’m still constantly caught up in every single day whether this new career path is a good fit, how it will work with me being hopefully a mom someday, and whether I can manage it all while also managing OCD. My intrusive thoughts can be so bad that it can make it impossible to even work sometimes at all. I’m on medicine now that is helping me more but I still am so stuck in the same looping thoughts. I question all the time whether I’m in the right job, should I go back to my old job because the ability to work part time was there while the ability to work part time at this job is very unknown, or should I just give up and be a stay at home mom because I can’t commit to any one job. I think I have this fear that I can’t handle being a mom and having OCD and having a full time job. Additionally I feel like I have an inability to commit to a career path and growth in one direction because I’m terrified of getting trapped in a position I’m miserable in. I’m also terrified of how that misery or inability to balance/manage my OCD will impact my life for my children and my marriage. I live most days battling my what if thoughts. I’m hopefully not seeking reassurance through this post but I’m ultimately looking to connect with others who have similar struggles with indecision OCD and how you’ve been able to manage, especially when it comes to career. I also just want to share my story and learn about more ways this community can help. If this post is asking for reassurance then feel free to tell me and this post can be disregarded.

I’m 19 and I just recently starting having what I believe is intrusive thoughts. It really started to get worse with my boyfriend recently because I made myself believe I had somehow emotionally cheated on him even though I had no specific example , I just felt like somehow I did and I needed to confess and tell him because I was so guilty and felt so terrible that I could do that to him, I didn’t realize until now that could be from OCD…I also after that guess I had become really aware of “looking for attention” and a scary intrusive thought came in my head and it told me I had changed my outfit because someone in my family was coming home. I would never in a million years want to hurt this person ever, nor would I ever think that way but now that it happened it’s like I can not stop. It’s just constant and I hate the thought everytime it makes me feel sick but I can’t get it to stop. It has me worried that what if it’s not intrusive ? What if I wanted it or still do want it. But I don’t. But part of me feels like I do I just need help please.