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Persistent intrusive thoughts that my child could have been switched at the hospital. I don't know where it started, this thought suddenly came into my head, in detail: how they come to my house, tell me this, take my child away and give me another one. My heart starts racing. I sometimes can't even look at my daughter without crying, and she becomes a strong trigger. She's my copy, looks very much like me, and all the tags from the birth had my name on them, everything is correct, but I get very stressed, obsess, and worry. I've been suffering from OCD for a long time. This thought is one of the worst in my life. Right now, I don't have the means to go to a good psychotherapist, and I don't know how to cope. Before, I visited different ones; it would get better for a while, but then the thoughts could come back. I don't want to take antidepressants because I am 20 weeks pregnant. How can I calm and convince my brain?

Hey everyone. I’m gonna get a bit personal on here. I hope you all can help me. Or give some helpful advice to me? So to give context. Me and my partner at the moment. Moved into my Nans house. We also live with my uncle. As he lives with my nan. We moved in here because otherwise. Homelessness was the other option. My nan offered us her spare room and we are forever grateful. Now. I’m aware of my faults. I. No matter how much I want too. Can’t get myself to do things I need to do, The guilt eats at me. But my body just wants to stay frozen and still. rotting in my room I suppose. I have a dog. And I have been trying to get into a routine of walking him daily. I have been failing as of late. But I am trying. My OCD is bad again. I need to see a doctor about my meds it’s been a lot. Now you are caught up. The dilemma. Me and my partner went for a walk today. Didn’t take my dog cause we were going on a date to a food place in the neighbourhood which didn’t allow dogs. Only found out last minute. I was gonna take him. Then found out. And i was gonna make it up to him tomorrow. Because of that. Now also. I was warned by some family that my uncle can be a bit much. Gets drunk and berates you I suppose. So far he hadn’t except for one night complaining about the dishes. But it wasn’t to bad we simply just cleaned them up, however tonight that changed. Though it’s still not as bad as the stories we heard. But that scares me for what is to come. When I get home. My uncle. Who smelt distinctively of alcohol, came in to my room. Just as I had got home to lecture me on not taking my dog for a walk. To which I said I understand. And I will take him tomorrow. You know. He wasn’t wrong but he was certainly direct. And kept repeating himself. It made me uncomfortable I suppose. There is only so many times I can say I will work on it. Then I close the door and just try to relax after that. And he knocks and comes in yet again to complain once more. To sum up his very long rant about me and my partner. He is mad? that we ordered groceries to the house one or two time instead of asking him to drive us. (We have no car atm) But we aren’t exactly trying to burden everyone with our presence. You know? My partner also hates asking for help. And that we stay in our room most of the time and don’t socialise. (Most of the time him or my nan are doing their own things and I don’t want to just intrude. But I normally talk to them when I’m out and about in the house) but then. He started calling us weird. Over and over again in his long rant of saying the same thing multiple times. And me and my partner are just sitting on my bed. Saying “sorry we weren’t trying to be. We will make a better effort. We didn’t realise” ya know. And he kept going. Like not listening to our apologies and continuing to berate us. Just using the same “weird” insult. Meanwhile I’m trying to hold back my tears. While I necessarily don’t disagree with anything he said. I feel there was a better way for him to bring up his concerns then to ambush us like that.. I also don’t think the insulting was necessary. Or repeating everything. I got it the first time. I already feel like I don’t belong here. My nan owns a nice house in a nice town and neighbourhood. they all live on the coast. Ya know. And growing up I was living in rundown houses and moving from place to place. I feel out of place here and i don’t feel like I fit in. And I guess I was right. Because apparently I’m weird. To rectify this I offered to hang out with him tomorrow morning. But I can’t shake off his insult. I can’t stand up for myself. I need this roof over my head. And I fear any defiance from me will land my ass on the street. I’m not saying I’m perfect. I could try harder. Be better. I’m really struggling mentally. But I can’t be. I need to lock in and I can’t. My nan is leaving for a month or so soon. It will just be us and him in this house. And I’m scared on how this will go..

Starting to reach a point where I'm not really feeling anything or emotions towards my partner... at points, even disinterest.. been about a month into therapy here and its only been a small decline of emotions... thoughts dont feel as debilitating as they were before. Low key this post might be a little reassurance seeking... but kinda dont know what to do.. having trouble distinguishing whats true emotions vs ROCD induced emotions or feelings.. 😮‍💨

I recently realized that rumination is a big part of my OCD. I’m still trying to understand how to manage it, and even with therapy I feel unsure about what actually helps. I’m kind of stuck between knowing what’s happening and not knowing how to change it yet. I’m currently on Zoloft, and I recently increased to 75 mg. With everything going on in my life right now, I don’t know if it’s helping or not, considering I have a lot of stressors at the moment. My therapist keeps bringing up that switching medication is an option, which I’m open to if that’s what it takes to feel better—but I also feel like I just increased the dose and haven’t really given it a fair chance yet, especially since it’s being tested by so many life stressors right now. I also feel like the way therapy is going for me isn’t really helping. It doesn’t feel focused on OCD and seems more like general talk therapy. I told her at the beginning that I need to work on specific things and that talk therapy doesn’t really help me. I don’t know what to do. I feel lost in my healing journey at the moment. I feel very suffocated, like all the stressors in my life are piling on top of me. Therapy isn’t really working, and I constantly find myself wondering if it’s my medication. Now that I’m writing everything out, I realize that I take CBD oil (with no THC) in the morning, and then I take my Zoloft at 6 PM. My anxiety tends to increase at night.

Feel like the doctors are not listening to me

One of my biggest triggers is my things being touched, and change. And I feel incredibly disrespected. My parents know I have ocd they’ve known for years what my triggers are, we worked with a pediatrition since I was like 13 to help my parents and I understand my ocd and my triggers. I was over my dad’s house which I was annoyed because my grandmother came over and cleaned my room (it literally wasn’t even messy btw) everything was placed exactly where I don’t want it, to the point it was just so agitating and just a waste of energy for her as I place everything back to how it was, I was already so irritated by all of this and when I tell yall I don’t like change I mean it takes me months to adapt to big changes like this simple change I was still mad two days later, my mom calls me the day before I’m supposed to go back to her house and tells me THAG while I was gone she decided to re do my bedroom, paint job and all, yes, my mother, without telling me re did my ENTIRE BEDROOM. When I came home it wasn’t done, so I had to sleep in my brothers room, awesome I don’t have my own space! I go back to my dads, my room was rearranged there and cleaned to exactly how I don’t ficking want it, I’m irritated once more, I express to my father how much anxiety THAG gives me and how it puts me in horrible spirals of uncontrolled anger and anxiety to which he says THAG if I myself keep it clean to his standard my stuff won’t be moved and THAG if I’m under his roof it’s his rules, I go back to my moms again, she shows me my room is done, there’s things in my room rearranged to how I DO NOT WANT ITx there’s things she decorated it with THAG I DO NOT WANT. I tell her this, and THAG I might redecorate some things when she asks me what I think (mind you guys I’ve been extreamly polite and haven’t crashed the fuck out) she then begins to tell me THAG I’m ungrateful for her work and THAG I’m spoilt. Mind yall this is my room, my space. Imagine if she wasn’t home and I rearranged all of her shit, regardless of who’s paying for the house and shit that’s fucked up. I’m not even complaining aboht how the room looks either because it is really nice, I just don’t understand why motheruckers need to touch my stuff and be up in my space without letting me know. Especially when you know this is the type of shit that really really triggers me, these people listened to me explain countless times how I hate change. They know I hage that shit. So why catch me off guard? Sorry this is crazy long yap.

I fell in love with this girl and long story short we tried and didn’t work out but my heart is still so attached to her. When I don’t hear from her, I get so worried that something’s happened to me and my mind goes to worst case scenario. I feel responsible if something goes wrong and I’m freaking out

would love to hear some positive success stories as im feeling completely discouraged. my amygdala (fear center) is just completely on overdrive mainly tied to a thought that once I get ROCD about someone (friend and romantic) I have to completely cut them out to be calm ever again. mainly because every time ive had the rocd it never calmed down. I now have it with a few friends I really care about. The ocd and anxiety make it feel like its impossible to practice the exposure therapy because the anxiety never actually comes down on its own. no matter how long I sit with the feeling of anxiety it doesn't come down. its pretty much on 95-100 percent of the day. Does anybody else have this problem with an ocd thought where its always there so every second feels like its just one big exposure.

Hi everyone — I’m hoping for OCD-aware insight rather than reassurance. If someone can respond with a similar experience, I’d appreciate any insight. I have diagnosed OCD (relationship/perfectionism themes), and I’m dating someone I genuinely care about. Emotionally, he has so much of what I value: he’s thoughtful, patient, ambitious, intelligent, funny, and makes me feel seen and understood. I’m attracted to him — especially in private. When we were long-distance and mostly talking on the phone, I felt very safe, very connected, and very attracted. Things shifted when something objectively small came up: he mentioned gaining a couple of pounds and shared some eating habits that don’t align with my very health-focused lifestyle. Almost immediately, my nervous system flipped into threat mode. Since then, my OCD has latched onto his body, food choices, and “follow-through,” and my attraction drops sharply in public — not in private. What I’m realizing is that a huge part of this is fear of judgment and perception. I’m worried about how we’d be seen as a couple, and what other people might think. When I imagine us in public, I start viewing him from an “outside observer” perspective, scanning for flaws and feeling embarrassed — even though, internally, I’m attracted to him and care about him. In private, the attraction is there; in public, my nervous system shuts down. I also notice that I attach a lot of meaning to health and self-care. For me, it represents discipline, responsibility, and care — and emotionally, my brain translates self-care effort into “this matters” or “I matter.” I know that’s my wiring, not necessarily reality. In a past relationship, I over-functioned around health and felt disappointed and resentful when the other person didn’t follow through, which seems to be feeding this trigger now. Because of that fear, I catch myself trying to control in a “nice” way — encouraging workouts, suggesting nutrition resources, praising effort, coaching rather than demanding. It looks supportive on the outside, but internally it feels like anxiety management and an attempt to prevent future disappointment or judgment. Patterns I am noticing: • The anxiety shows up as urgency, mental checking, future-tripping, and hyperfocus. • Attraction fluctuates with anxiety level, not with how I actually feel about him. • Fear of public judgment seems stronger than fear of incompatibility itself. • My urge to “help” or “fix” increases when anxiety spikes. AND if he expresses a desire to workout, my anxiety decreases

To anyone on here, what’s your longest lasting theme, when you finally got through it how did you feel? Also hope everyone’s having a great day

Really struggling with the SOOCD this week! I know I shouldn’t use reassurance or rumination but today none of my reassurance methods are even working. It just feels like I’ve been lying to myself and using OCD as an excuses to not be a lesbian 😭I really want to be with a man but any time I get close to dating I just feel sick like it’s not what I really want when it’s all I’ve ever wanted 😭 then I just think I only want to have sex with a man because I want the cuddles and intimacy and to have more kids but my brain js telling me cause I find same sex intimacy arousing that really I should be with a woman but I can’t imagine being with a woman romantically 🙈 I’m so lost I’m at the rock bottom where I just feel like I need to admit to myself I’m a lesbian because none of the normal glimmers of light that remind me I’ve been attracted to men before are coming through 😭😭😭😭 help!!

does anyone else get anxiety in the morning for no apparent reason? i wake up and feel so anxious to the point that i'm trembling, i feel cold but my palms are sweating, and my heart rate is so fast. i wasn't having many thoughts regarding OCD when i first woke up, but then i felt like i had to think them and caused myself more anxiety?? has anyone else had this experience?

Does anyone else have the subtype of false memory? Where their minds will try to convince them they’ve done something they didn’t. It feels so real and I can’t get this one false memory intrusive thought out of my head and I’ve been feeling the guilt of it as if it actually happened and I’m so spun up in it I’m like I don’t even know it I did this thing or not. Help :(

I’m the kind of person who hates to be inbetween. I want to be here or there. I’m very lazy with ocd and sometimes very okay with agreeing with the negative thoughts because at this point I don’t mind agreeing if it guarantees I stop spending my whole day questioning. I’ll rather agree my fears are real and deal with the pain that comes with it. Yesterday I panicked a whole lot and had to give in to the fear. I felt calm after, I convinced myself it was my truth and decided to stick with the identity especially because it’s a weird and specific theme that might not really be understood and will be judged by others if I was to explain it. I gave in and it felt really painful like really painful then I felt calm then it felt like the pain washed away. At this point I was confused. Wanted to continue to remind myself of the identity I chose at it started to feel like I was forcing it. So I thought “Maybe my fears are not what I think it is” started to relax into that realisation but weird feelings I didn’t understand came up, I didn’t care to analyze because I was exhausted. It was 3am in the morning and I just wanted sleep with the little calm I felt. I woke up this morning incredibly anxious. I’m back being uncertain. Ocd won’t let me pick a side. I don’t know what is true for me and my future and now I think I’m just forced to sit with uncertainty. I have to deal with it and not try to agree nor disagree. My memory are back to feeling incredibly negative and I’m really confused on why I have to sit with not knowing what is real or not even if negative feelings come up.

i was diagnosed this morning and i can’t stop questioning the diagnosis. i’m currently struggling with tocd and up until recently the thoughts have started to come with false emotions. i get butterflies a lot when i’m anxious and sometimes i get scared that the butterflies are actually me being drawn to the thought. so i just want to summaries my whole experience with this disorder. so, when i was only 4 years old i had a very strong urge to touch all of the corners in the room. nothing would feel right if i didn’t. when i was 10 i had to do everything 6 times, had to say “night, night” as my last words, and had to get to the door before the garage closed or i thought i’d die. when i was 11, i started experiencing what i think was existential ocd. nothing felt real. i constantly asked my mum for reassurance that i’m real. i remember avoiding going out because i felt so dissociated. i was so scared of developing derealisation and depersonalisation and frequently checked in mirrors to see if i recognised myself, and i would also type out the word ‘derealisation’ on a keyboard on my ipad to see if the word came up. if it didn’t come up, i felt okay. but i literally couldn’t watch movies like the matrix because i was terrified. now fast forward to when i was 12, i feared i was becoming a psychopath. i genuinely worried that i would grow up to be a murderer. i would have frequent intrusive images that would cause distress. i also had pocd around this age. for pocd in particular, i saved many tiktok videos to reassure myself that i wasnt becoming a pedofile. now i’m almost 14. yeah, i’m young. but my current theme tocd is really not questioning. i’m going to summarise my experience with it a little bit here. i use envy men a lot. like i always thought they got more attention, more power and people swooned over them more than women. i was introduced to a popular fandom at the start of 2025 which i literally loved. the main ship were two straight men. i shipped them. i admired the dynamic. their ship got the most attention in the show. i of course blamed that on gender. i got very jealous of the attention and wanted to be in a relationship like that. like i would try and act like one of the characters (i didn’t try to look like him i just wanted to be like him because he seemed cool) and imagined myself being with a boy (me as a girl though) and basically ‘wearing the pants’ in the relationship because the more dominant man in a mlm or even the most dominant person in a straight ship always seem like the coolest. i still imagined myself as a woman like i didn’t want to be in a gay relationship, i wanted to be in a straight relationship. but in july last year i saw a video that resonated with me. it said “i want to be in a mlm relationship as a woman” and the top comment was “this is how i found out i was trans btw” and that dont scare me. but then i got curious. i didn’t feel like a boy and i still don’t now. so i went onto chatgpt… yeah i know. not the best. but i told it about what i was going through and it said all these different labels which i didnt understand. demigirl however, resonated with me. at least i thought it did. i few weeks later it kinda just wore off. but i started to get involved with political matters and yada yada i was an alt girl. i was very accepting of the lgbtqia community. i wanted a future in human rights or politics. i think i kind of tried to push labels onto myself as the alt community is very diverse. so i just left that aesthetic because again, it wore off. but in november i had a dream of me wearing a suit and tie. it freaked me tf out. like i was asking chatgpt why i had that dream. this is where my tocd started. (i have a history with ocd). i basically got really scared and started compulsively checking my memories, my feelings and i had so many uncomfortable intrusive thoughts of me as a boy. god it’s scary. this ocd subtype ruined my holiday, my christmas and more. i start school tomorrow and i’m nervous as. all of the things i wrote here are extremely hazy as ocd kind of gives me false memories. so, yeah. i don’t feel like a guy. never have. i literally had pinterest boards of feminine clothing i wanted to wear when i was a mum/older. all i ever wanted was to be a beautiful, feminine woman. i forgot to mention that the other night i did my makeup and felt so happy. i was happy with what i looked like and for a moment, i felt absolute certainty in my gender. but then the doubt came back in 😒 so, that’s it! thanks for reading. what are your thoughts? do i sound like i have ocd or was my psychologist wrong?

Hello! I am new to NOCD I am coming on here to share my experience, a few months ago I was having a ROCD issues and I thought they were pretty bad to the extent I decided to look into this type of therapy for it then. It took a while for me to finally decide to do it but now that I have I haven’t had any ROCD symptoms in a month or so and I’m wondering if anyone else experiences this with their ocd where sometimes it seems like you don’t even have it anymore? It’s making me wonder if I even need therapy for ocd? Thanks!

I am seventeen, turning eighteen in a month, and things in my family have been rough for the last couple years. I have a few subtype of ocd and most likely autism, though my family doesn't want an evaluation. I'm not the best at phrasing things or noticing my tone, and a lot of the time get asked why I look sad, even if I'm not. Emotions aren't easy for me to express, and I struggle with noticing things out of place around the house, and certain compulsions are inconvenient, mainly when I cook or wash my hands a lot. Anyways, things started getting worse a couple years ago. I started keeping up with politics and ended up despising both of the major political parties where I live. I respect everyone's right to an opinion, but I am the only one not aligned with the party they support, so I normally get told to stop talking to avoid a fight, even if I'm asking questions to genuinely understand. Like I said, I struggle wording things less bluntly, but I've tried to explain my intentions. We got into a fight after I mentioned an assignment to my father and he turned it into a race and politics issue. Now, my faith has always been important to me, and that is a large part of why I disagree with the people they support. I mentioned something about how avoiding generalizations and viewing everyone the same, as children made in God's image, and was told that I don't have enough experience for what I say. I am a sophomore in college and live at home, but I don't think that means I can't say everyone deserves the same respect. He started talking about how my "ethics and morals" (to which I corrected my faith) would get me killed because I was stupid. I said that defending my faith even with my life was quite literally one of the things Jesus talked about and would not go directly against His teachings and got seriously yelled at for and told that it didn't matter in the real world and then, as I tried to leave, that if God was so important to me to respect my father and mother. I said that I do, but not more than God. So that also got me yelled at for, and I finished the housework and attempted to workout and then journalled for a few hours. When my mother got home, I tried to explain that I do respect them both but wouldn't go against God, the same way I argued when my father defended Nazi ideas and Nazis. So she said that he didn't mean it and that it was months ago, so why was it a big deal? I said because it was a moral issue. She asked why we couldn't agree to disagree, and I said that didn't apply to genocide. Then I said it was against the religion that they had raised me in, and that it made me feel unsafe. She started yelling and said if I felt so unsafe she could call someone and put me in foster care, but that they wouldn't tolerate my ocd. I said I just wanted to know it wasn't true, so my father came and it still took a few minutes to convince him to say he didn't believe it, and that I hurt him by saying he was a bad person. Also, he mentioned again that I b could just move out when I turned eighteen. He said I should get a dorm in the fall. So now they are both saying what I said was hurtful and my mother asked me earlier to apologize, which I didn't, but I don't understand how what I said was more hurtful. I called other family members just so I wouldn't spiral and have been on this app for a while. Does anyone have any advice? I genuinely don't know what to do.

Does anyone else have these problem and you just lay in bed thinking about all the bad things?

Thoughts? Do y’all ever worry about that or self isolate?

Yesterday i had that heart dropping feelings again and then my heartbeat just felt off. I didnt go to the ER and even though i haven’t shown any weird symptoms today, I feel like i want to go now. My boyfriend stayed home from work yesterday in case anything happened, and I took like a 5 hour nap. I also have been sleeping really deeply lately. Im worried my heart is off beat or irregular or something, but the only way I have been checking is by feeling my pulse on my neck which i am trying to stop because it only leads to no answer really. I feel anxious about it but i am trying to move on with my day. I have a gyno appointment on the 4th, maybe i can ask for an ekg then?