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tw: pet loss. nocd please dont shadowban this one i need support ocd stole years of my relationship with my childhood dog from me. i am so selfish. even when my mom told me she was taking her to the vet tuesday afternoon i assumed it was just dental problems. i didnt want to accept that i wouldnt have any more time with my dog. i was doomscrolling and posting selfies like whatever. but then we learned she has liver disease kidney failure and diabetes. needed iv. she wouldnt eat or get up. when she got home, she walked to her water bowl. we were hopeful. nope. she didnt eat. my mom facetimed me with her. she then told my dad to pick my brother and i up ( we live 2 and a half hours away for college ) she wanted her to push thru a little longer for us but nope. with an hour and 30 minutes left of the trip she passed. two seizures. her body is so cold and hard as a rock. even now my ocd doesnt stop. even petting her all i think about is my brothers snot and the contamination of the couch she would sleep on. i was able to kiss her but i had to step out to process everything and i feel so bad. i was overstimulated with all the sources of contamination in my parents house. i passed thru a narrow hallway with my dads hamper with his belt sticking out and im so scared i touched it. my brother is in shambles and i feel like i dont care but the guilt is so overwhelming. i would only pet her like once a year because of my ocd and it wasnt always like this. i remember kindergarten nap time, imagining her in my arms so i could fall asleep. my arm sleeve touched her body, and then when i was changing, my underwear slid down and my jacket touched my backside and i feel like an animal abuser necrophiliac. i dont have it in me to shower and even if i did i would feel bad because why do i want to get her off me so bad. i mean im sorry i dont mean that in a creepy way i mean like, idk i also washed my mouth and it doesnt feel clean but whatever. i didnt even bring a change of clothes. i hate ocd so much i hate it. im not even able to hug her after she died. i hate this. i hate it. i hate this evil disorder that turned me evil. i am rotten and i deserve everything bad that has ever happened to me. it should have been me. please dont let this happen to you. please take care of yourself and your pets. please show them you love them. the only goodbye i gave her was over facetime, where she could barely lift her frail little head when i said her name. i wish she had a few more hours. we could have gone to the lake. gotten a pup cup. but even then she was way way too exhausted for that. i’m so selfish. i’m sorry pepper. i love you. rest in peace my baby.

I can stop obsessing over something that happened 2 years ago and feeling guilt. I have been in a relationship for 4 years, 2 years ago I won’t say we were going through a rough patch but we were in finals week and very stressed. In addition to this, I was in the worst of my eating disorder/body dysmorphia. I was down 30 lbs and felt so disgustingly huge, barely eating and obsessing over the gym. I genuinely couldn’t tell if I was fat or not, so I posted a photo of my body on a weight loss and “am i fat” subreddit. I desperately wanted reassurance about my body (a very boring photo of me in a sports bra and super oversized boxers with my face cropped out, not posing or anything). I got replies telling me I looked very normal or thin. Normal replies, but I also received a lot of DMs. I didn’t reply to the obviously sexual or flirty ones, just blocked or ignored, but I did reply to the more normal ones. I remember talking to a few people about weight loss, like how many calories I was eating and my gym routine. I know for a fact I wasn’t flirtatious at all, but I can’t stop retroactively thinking that I was desperate for attention or something. I just wanted reassurance that I wasn’t fat, this was before I ever speculated that I could have OCD. I deleted all of the chats like 2 days later once I realized how weird it was that I was talking to strangers, most likely men, on the internet about my weight and I was consumed with guilt. I wish I didn’t delete them now because I want to go back and read them to make sure. One chat was still there that I read recently and it was a very normal conversation, I even mentioned having a boyfriend in it, but I can’t get over it knowing that these people probably DMed me because of my body and I replied to them. I feel even worse knowing I deleted the messages out of guilt, because then I knew I was doing something wrong. I want to confess to my partner badly. I can’t tell if this is OCD or if I genuinely did an awful thing and he deserves to know. By the way, at the time I told him almost immediately that I had posted on those subreddits and that I got some weird DMs, I even showed him the photos I posted (had deleted the posts at this point) but obviously didn’t go into detail about the conversations I had from some of the DMs.

QUESTION AT THE END —- I have a migraine disorder and also moderate to severe OCD. A handful of months ago I made the plunge to restart medication for my OCD, and it became clear to me I REALLY needed it. I was completely dysfunctional, and medication made me semi functional and brought my OCD down to mild/moderate. The problem is, I’ve tried 2 different SSRIs so far and both helped my OCD but made my migraines so much worse. Like, daily low grade headache, every trigger is way worse, and my bad migraine episodes last weeks instead of days. I’m currently on Prozac, and I’ve been on it for just over 2 months. And I think I need to come off of it because of the migraines and I’m super worried because I’m so dysfunctional without meds. But it seems like SSRIs in general are the problem. (I also remember being on clomipramine as a teenager and it also gave me much more frequent headaches. This was before I started having severe migraines though so idk) Has anyone found medication that works for them and helps them manage OCD that ISNT an SSRI? Or, has anyone found alternative treatments if medication was not an option for you? I am doing ERP through NOCD already, but I’m wondering about lifestyle changes that have helped, cognitive practices, etc? Thank you for reading/responding 💗

Let me introduce myself first. I am Reense. 25 years old & my biggest dream is to become a girl 1 day ( i am transgender ). I am very kind to everyone and i show always respect. I compliment many people & like to talk. But! I had one really bad day 2 weeks ago Goodevening NOCD. I really need your help, please. I am so fucking scared. Let me explain everything. What if i did something extremely bad & i can't remember it exactly because any reason. The images i get in my head, are disturbing, but does that mean it was real? It's playing with my emotions too, i was exhausted & was a little bit mad & angry, but now it's like, i felt angry then, so it must have happened. My mind just won't let go of it. I am so confused. I really can't remember it. Nothing. Help me. Please, don't recommend Therapies like ERP, i need advice & words & answers. I am so scared. What is it? Am i the only one with this in the world? It really feels like i am. It makes me really scared & very sad & it feels like i am dangerous. Please, help me. As i said on the beginning, this OCD is the exact opposite of this extreme situation. I am kind & i care about people. It's so fucking .... !

i like to watch america's got talent with my family, and i think it's great that howie is there because that gives ocd a spotlight in a sense. he's open about having ocd, and it's just a relief seeing someone so beloved and famous (and funny) that has this same disorder. but one thing that bothers me so much is that people make a joke of it so often on there. examples: - a guy went on to get the world record for most fist bumps in a minute, and he made howie stand there as the one being fist bumped. specifically BECAUSE it's well known that he hates having his hands touched due to his ocd - people insisting on shaking his hand or high fiving him - he's often the judge that's brought up as the guest on stage when the act involves direct contact skin to skin, and when he tries to say no, everyone pressures him they make a big joke of this and laugh at him for a very real very serious disorder and have done this for years. i know that he's choosing to stay on the show etc and he could just leave, but it's still incredibly rude and harmful. it clearly causes him distress and makes a mockery of ocd. and yes he's a celebrity and there's only so much sympathy to spare for celebrities, but i think it's totally fair to feel empathy for him and be bothered by it. no matter how famous you are, this disorder is a beast, and this is, in my opinion, completely unacceptable. the other judges and people involved with the show should be standing up for him, not pressuring him to become the butt of the joke just because "germaphobia = funny" and he's a comedian and i'm not just asserting based on personal opinion that he has ocd or playing armchair psychologist— he has talked about it and directly stated that he has it and has even done ocd awareness ads. it is a known fact that he has ocd. this disorder is no joke, and i'm tired of it being treated like one. contamination ocd is not and has never been funny. yes, we can laugh at our own experiences, but other people should never be laughing at someone FOR having a clinically recognized disorder or their symptoms. laugh WITH, not AT, people who are struggling. i thought this was a simple concept everyone was taught i still enjoy the show, but i immediately dislike any acts that pull that move when they absolutely didn't have to and could've called up any other judge or the host terry crews (terry almost certainly would've been enthusiastic about the fist bumps, for example. it was completely unnecessary to pick on the one person that hates hand to hand contact). no matter how interesting their act may be (which it usually isn't— typically it's a gimmicky act that doesn’t make it past the first round), i root against them on principle this was meant to be a small rant, but it just gets me so heated. "germaphobes" (people with contamination ocd) have been treated as a joke for basically my whole life and definitely longer than that, as well as "neat freaks" which are (in my experience) usually also people with some kind of ocd like perfectionism ocd. it's just ridiculous. it's so unnecessarily cruel and needed to stop before it even started. it should never have been treated as acceptable. in howie's case, even the other judges pick on him for it sometimes i'll call it what it is. it's ableism. and i'm tired of it

The 'what if I'm actually trans' came back after a while

One of my compulsions is that I HAVE to confess every little thing in my life my ocd perceives as wrong to someone or else I’m lying to them! And I know from experience that this never helps because it goes away only for a little bit (hence it’s a compulsion) but I wonder how people get through this compulsion in todays world where people can be a little harsh about keeping secrets and such?

I have been obsessed and scared with the fact that when I was 12-17 or 18 I was fully addicted to p*rn , I watched many website and platforms and I am so worried I had watched something illegal without knowing because I was genuinely so addicted . The addiction started when I was 12 , unfortunately a grown man had sent me his private areas and was calling me names etc it was horrible but after that I came across a video on YouTube and things spiralled out of control I watched so much of it and I even had titles I saw with “t33n” and I have been terrified what if they were actually underage and because I watched so much what if it included illegal content . I’m turning 20 now and I do NOT engage with that content anymore at all , I have had a solid months without it especially cause of OCD and I saw articles people with that content arrested and I’m scared mabye it’s on my phone or something I confessed to ai too ( stupid Ik ) . I would watch mainly focused for female perspective , audio , couples but that was the main range but I obviously watched way more in the depth of my addiction which worries me even if it was years ago . I’ve never searched that sort of stuff up but I can’t be sure I didn’t consume it mabye I came across it and just watched it without knowing I don’t know because it was so expansive my usage . I’ve feel like with ocd and having POCD I feel like my life’s over . I’m passionate about the wellbeing of children and their safety and if I could ban porn I would it’s disgusting in my opinion because it destroys lives . If I have any advice to young people do not watch p*rn . It’s not real love or depicting sex correctly and is such an unregulated industry that causes harm to many people . I am also a female and I know p*rn addiction we see lots of men talk about it but lots of women are affected by it too . If you are , I’m here for you . 🫶🏽 😭

Over the last several years, there have been a few instances where my friends have gotten really drunk and need to be taken care of - more specifically, they’ve peed their pants, thrown up, and are in various states of undress/nakedness. I take care of them when this happens but I really struggle with intrusive thoughts and then false memories the next day. I get so hyper aware of my body and my thoughts in the moment and then the next day those moments feel really clear to me and I get pulled back in. I worry I’ve done something wrong, that I’ve been inappropriate or weird, or have taken advantage of them in a vulnerable state. We’re always have discussed it the next morning to make sure everyone is okay. And in each of these instances my friends are apologizing to me for putting me in the position to take care of them and apologize if they made me uncomfortable. But I always say I’m happy to help them, and they have nothing to apologize for, I just want to make sure I haven’t done something wrong. Has anyone experienced this? Any advice for how to deal with OCD as someone who goes out and parties? I know sobriety can be helpful for reducing the instances where you find yourself in this situation, but I actually think sobriety might hit on some moral scrupulosity and perfectionist ocd type thinking.

Hey everyone, i am looking for some help with health OCD or health Anxiety I have had cervicalgenic headaches for 4 months straight due to a whiplash accident. This caused me to have migraines for 4 months straight and a lot of tension within my traps and shoulders and this would cause me to have anxiety attacks and impulsive thoughts. I have been seeing a life coach for this and i have eliminated 80% of those anxious overwhelming thoughts that were on repeat. Whenever something felt wrong I immediately thought I had a brain tumor or im about to have a stroke or seizure. As of today the stroke and seizure thoughts have went away almost 100% and for some reason i like to try and convince myself i have a brain tumor sometimes even though I dont have any symptoms of it. These thoughts typically happen when I get a headache or a aching pain somewhere in my head. This comes with my cervical adjustments as my neck and head will be kind of sore and might produce some type of pain from my body trying to adjust itself again. Most days I drink to distract myself from the pain but I would like someone to try and help with a different coping mechanism rather than drinking. I also have been checked in my head to see if i do have a tumor and the results came back negative and spotted nothing in my brain. I also have very low testosterone for my age even though I am 20. I want to feel whole again and without anxious or OCD type thoughts where I continuously non stop think something is wrong with me. I also have been separating myself from going outside as much unless its for work. These thoughts have prevented me from wanting to grow my business because of how I feel most days. Any help will be appreciated.

I have contamination OCD (namely shoes being the trigger) and it’s gotten really bad in the past few months since losing my dog of nearly 17 years and having my first child. I think I always had it but it was very manageable, almost never resulted in hours of cleaning, was just not wearing shoes in the house and would change my clothes when I came home. Now it’s like spiraled into these huge chain connection links that I make that sometimes results in me shampooing all the rugs, moping, washing the covers to the couch (my sofa has washable covers yay). Anyways, I’m just sharing this friend I guess do not feel alone. I feel so sad. I feel like a prisoner. I miss my old self 😭 If you’re reading this, thank you feel free to share anything you feel relevant or even just solidarity ♥️

I’ll force myself to be into like force the sexual feeling or tension with this sexual thoughts or images vividly. therapy today, I talked about the sexual thoughts I’ve been having. My therapist asked me, “Are you curious, or are you not?” I immediately started wondering what I was supposed to feel and felt like I needed to figure out the correct answer. I wasn’t deliberately forcing the thought in that moment, but I started paying attention to my reaction. Then a familiar sexual-type feeling came up, similar to the feeling I’ve gotten during previous times when I had deliberately forced/replayed thoughts and feelings. My brain immediately went, “Oh, you’re into it,” and it felt surprisingly real, which shocked me. I then felt off and almost like I wanted to pull away from it. I got stuck wondering whether I was actually curious or whether I was mainly monitoring my feelings and interpreting the sensation as curiosity. I’m having trouble separating the original feeling from the meaning my brain immediately attached to it. Also something similar happened with my boyfriend When I was with my boyfriend, a girl-related thought/image came into my mind. At first I noticed it and moved on without focusing on it. Later, I started paying attention to it and recreating the scenario in my head, and it became much more vivid and felt real. I then wondered if I was intentionally recreating the thought because I wasn’t getting the feeling I wanted with my boyfriend. I also noticed myself trying to recreate an intimate scenario I had previously seen in adult content, almost like I was trying to produce a certain reassuring feeling or reaction. That made me question whether I was genuinely experiencing something or whether I was deliberately creating and checking for a feeling.

i feel so trapped. i dont want to sit on a toilet seat roaches have walked on and i feel like thats not unreasonable. my family is broke so i dont have cosigners to move out to even a student apartment my mom is unemployed and they all treat me like the breadwinner when i just quit. i have no choice but to but i DONT WANT TO. ive spent so much on lyfts today because i dont have a car going to restrooms.. im on my period so its even worse. idk what to do. i feel like anyone would hate this. anyone would. like not wanting roaches is not a crazy thing but they act as if it is. its just the bathroom that gets them. my parents dont care.

Hi guys. It’s been a few weeks of waking up in the late morning, not eating, drinking water or brushing teeth till well into the afternoon. No exercise either. I got the flu last month and ever since then have been rotting away, never feeling 100% even thought I’m “healthy” now. How do I pick myself back up?

I would GREATLY recommend anyone who reads this and can help me manage my sexual intrusive thoughts amongst my many other intrusive thoughts. I can really use any support and help possible. I feel very trapped and alone. For the past month or so I could not shake the thought that I have or will get someone pregnant and ruin my life and my relationship. Originally, I was receiving therapy for other reasons but once my therapist expressed to me that I “always have my support system to fall back on to” I gained a new fear. That being “what if I lost my support system?” And so my brain does what it does best and found a loop hole to my peace and confirmation and started making me second guess if I have gotten anyone pregnant and ruin my relationship with my girlfriend. I have known my girlfriend almost my whole life and she is my bestest friend. Never in a million years would I ever even think of hurting her but my mind is making me think I did or will in the future. Being away at school does not make this any easier either. It has gotten so bad that I cannot leave my house without being on the phone with either my mom or my girlfriend (basically as confirmation that nothing wrong can happen). I refuse to use public bathrooms as well. Pretty much anything public/exposed to other people makes me feel the need to call my girlfriend or mom at all times because I need to make sure nothing bad can happen, or more clearly, as bizarre and upsetting as it sounds, I need them to be on the phone to make sure I’m not having sex with anyone. I’d also like to note here that I do not drink, do drugs- I don’t even party. I’m actually very against doing any of these activities. In other words, I haven’t had any experiences where I may have been in an environment or headspace to ever do these actions I’m afraid of and yet they still feel so real and threatening. I don’t have a name, date, or memory. I just have thoughts, and yet they consume me. I love my girlfriend so much and I couldn’t imagine my life without her and I am just so scared of losing her. Cheating was something we never had to talk about be we are built on a strong foundation of love and trust. I’m not even scared of “ruining my life” per se but more so “scared of ruining my life with her.” If anyone has any experience with this and these irrational sexual intrusive thoughts, please let me know because I am struggling and need a lot of help right now. I am very lonely and sad. Is this an original experience? Thank you for taking the time to read my vent post.♥️♥️

Hi! I’m looking for some advice for dealing with the fear of contamination when cooking. This isn’t my main theme but I have been trying to learn to cook lately and I’ve found that I have a lot of trouble eating the things that I make in fear that I’ve done it wrong or the food isn’t cooked all the way and it’ll make me sick. It’s becoming a bit distressing and I cannot keep eating out like I have been lol (for some reason I only get scared when I am the one who made it). For the people who have dealt with something like this before, any advice?

After years of struggling and never getting evaluated, I am finally going to get evaluated for ADHD next week (yay!). I’ve suffered from OCD symptoms since I was young and was only recently diagnosed as an adult with a more severe case. I have also been told by every therapist I’ve ever had that I should get evaluated for ADHD (my dad and brother as well as multiple family members also have it), but I honestly procrastinated the steps to even get diagnosed 🤣 Putting it off felt like a mix between procrastination due to executive dysfunction annnnnddddd avoidance due to OCD. The rooted fear of incompetence only grows when you have to admit how much you struggle, not to mention the perfectionism I developed to keep myself accountable for so many years often co-existed (reluctantly) with a very scary very real fears that aligned with my OCD. I was wondering if this is a common experience for people who struggle with both ADHD and OCD. I am also curious as to how medication has helped people who struggle with these two conditions. Let me know! How has your ADHD and OCD lived in your brain? I figured more people could relate!

Recently got a new dog but I’ve had trauma about losing my past one. I’ve been told by many that I shouldn’t be scared to try again and I get that so much…but half of me feels guilty for having her and sometimes I feel like I’m just forcing myself to love her but then there’s times where i genuinely feel so much love for her. I don’t know my emotions are everywhere. Any advice?

I got fired from my internship because they said I didn’t take enough initiative to learn how to do things. It was a sports analytics internship, and during the practices, someone else usually was the one who put stuff into the iPad and set up the drills. With OCD, I just want to make it through the day, so I was happy when someone else was the one putting stuff in the iPad, because it would mean I didn’t have an opportunity to mess it up, and get fired. They said it should have taken me a week to learn how to do the stuff which is only like doing it 2-3 times, cause that’s how many shifts I have each week. With OCD, my mind is always somewhere else, and my case is extremely bad. I didn’t even get a warning about not taking initiative, they just fired me. They also made me work today before telling me I was fired at the end of the shift. I also went out not early enough to one of the practices (they want us out 30 minutes early to practices and I went out 7 minutes before the practice started), cause someone else had always been the one who told us when it was time to go out to practice, and there wasn’t anyone who did that this time. For this practice, I was there with one other intern who it was their first day. My boss said that that was my opportunity to take leadership, especially as a senior, and I didn’t do it. I feel like this was going to happen at some point, because with the OCD being as debilitating as it is for me, and the high expectations they have, it wasn’t going to work out to meet their expectations of learning it immediately. I wish this stupid disorder would go away, and I could have a normal life