Welcome to
the NOCD Community

It’s comforting to know that with OCD, often what makes people describe it as ‘terrible’ and what often makes it ‘terrible’ - is not the intrusive thought - but the fear and negative feelings we attach to it. Now I am able to have intrusive thoughts through out the day - and they don’t give me bad feelings or anxiety bc I know they are just thoughts! Also everyone, even those without OCD, has intrusive thoughts. But the destructive and terrible emotion we attach to it is what makes the experience so terrifying! It is quite comforting to realize this!

I’m 14 years old and I’m pretty sure my doctor won’t prescribe me anti-depressants or something to help with my anxiety but I want to know if they actually work and help and any other alternatives? My anxiety kills me something

What do you do if you feel like you can’t get away from some people who call themselves ‘friends’ but you know that they don’t actually care for you and are no good for you? Since my mental health has been getting worse over these past few months, I have felt like I’ve hit rock bottom. My best friend of twelve years has more or less been avoiding to come and see me. I clearly know that it’s because of the way I feel at the moment & it’s not easy to be around me but I more or less try to hide it all when I’m around people anyway. I feel like most people around me are so bad for me, they add no good into my life and it sure does show when you are going through a bad time who your friends are! Any advice?

I’m starting Mamentine (Namenda)this week to see if it will work on excess glutamate in the synapses. Is anyone else taking this medication? Hope to see better response than SSRI’s.

Does therapy actually help people with Harm OCD?

Does anyone else constantly hate themselves and think that they don’t deserve help? Like I’m not depressed and I just wish I would shut up. I hate how I complain so much and I never seem to be right about anything. I’m never anyone’s favorite or the best at anything. I look weird and I act weird and, I saw someone write this earlier, I feel like I’m in the wrong movie. As if I’m not even the main character in my own life. Sometimes I just want to be alone and lie down and stare at something without feelings for a bit. Idek if this is OCD or if I just hate myself ??‍♀️

cw: weed talk Does anyone have any success stories with using pot, and/or cbd? I recently got my medical card and I’d LOVE to hear strain recommendations, what ratios work best for you, how much you tend to need, etc. Just anything that can help me with the weed <-> ocd correlation. Thanks!

Accepting uncertainty feels like I'm accepting my intrusive thoughts (that I know are false) as truth. Does anyone else deal with this thought and have any tips to avoid thinking this? (I know it's my OCD telling me this so I can continue ruminating and "proving intrusive thoughts wrong", but it's a thought that makes me feel like ERP will make things worse)

It’s been a month since the breakup, and all I can think about still is my ex. While I walk, eat, sleep. It feels like it’s interrupting my life. The breakup triggered my depression to come back after a few months. I’m not on any medication but I feel like I need it now. Any go through the same thing?

So I haven’t been 100% diagnosed with OCD. I’ve had weird thoughts my entire life I just always thought everyone had these thoughts and that they where normal. Until recently they have been horrible so I went to the doctor and she prescribed some anxiety medication by it hasn’t been helping. So I started googling the weird thoughts and my symptoms and came across ocd and I always thought ocd was being really neat and tidy I didnt know it had these horrible thoughts and compulsions but the thing for me is I don’t have any compulsions besides touching the zipper on my pillow(it weird I know)I know this isn’t a diagnosis but I’ve taken a bunch of the ocd test on the internet and they all say I have it. So I am kinda lost here

Does anyone else have this - having to do things a certain number of times. Touch things, but other more difficult things. Mine started as 2 and then became a multiple of 2. Then OCD made it a multiple of 4 and I had to do things 16 times. I thought that was bad and then years and years ago OCD made that a multiple of 4, so 16 times 4 and now sometimes I have to do things 64 times. I have called people, including an HR person for a job I was interviewing for, changed the channel on the tv, had to stop and look at something and a host of other things. Does anyone else have this type of OCD? I also have combined with that an OCD of ‘if I do this then I will ruin the rest of my life’ - and that can be anything like if I see this person again, or call this person again, or walk down this path again and more keeps getting added to it. Does anyone else suffer from these two types of OCD? I don’t even know what to call the second one. And if anyone does, what will ERP look like if I want to do that? What exposure should I be doing. This is making me very isolated and tired, I am so tired all the time, it makes me so tired and exhausted all the time. Any help, advice will be highly appreciated.

Hey guys I’m new to this and reading your posts really help me relate and not feel so alone. So I’ve been having a problem lately, I had an intrusive thought about my nephew that I had his finger in my mouth when I was doing something. Now I would never do this and it goes against everything it caused me distress and agony it was so much anxiety, it was effecting my health physically and mentally. I was driving home from school the one day when I was fighting with these thoughts in my head. I basically was having an argument with them in my mind, me against me lol. But I yelled at the top of my lungs what do u want me to say that I did it and liked it, all of a sudden the anxiety went away. I thought wow my mind finally saw that this is not true and it was all in my head. But I’m not sure what was going on because I think instead of that intrusive thought it took the power over to another much stronger one. The thought of OMG why did that anxiety go away am I attracted to kids? Am I a pedophile. It made me sick and want to puke everywhere. Then I did the worst and did compulsions I started to look online and look at random pictures of kids and was talking to myself saying u didn’t have an attraction or get a sexual feeling from and say see you are not attracted to kids it’s just a thought you had. I then got scared and said omg did u just get a sexual feeling from that, mostly my mind playing tricks on me right? it made me shake and want to puke. Im so scared of this thought. I am far from one to want to harm or do anything to kids at all I love kids. Tomorrow I’m going to decorate a tree with my nephew, do u think being around him will help take the anxiety away ? Does anyone have any preference in this? Help, thanks so much

I feel like my head is so messed up. I tell myself, you wouldn't do the things you think about and fear, you have morals. But then I question if my morals are strong enough? Or if my morals have changed at all? I never used to question things like this until my ocd really flared up in the beginning of September, and it's sort of been hell since. Questioning myself, questioning my morals, questioning my intentions, feelings, everything. My main obsession right now is if I find the thoughts enjoyable or not. I feel constantly uncomfortable, uneasy, and anxious. Whenever I see kids in real life I feel fine, I know I'm not attracted to them. But when I'm in my head and the thoughts pop up I question everything and worry that I enjoy them, even though I don't feel bad about kids for the most part in real life? The thoughts are never usually even explicit, it's just like, do you see children in a sexual i ed way? Did you imagine that child in a sexual used way? And I bounce back and forth between being like "no, I'm fine, I know I'm not a pedophile, I find the thought of pedophilia disgusting," and "constant anxiety worrying that I am one and that I only feel anxiety all the time because deep down I know I'm a bad person." Does anyone else share any experiences similar to mine or have any words of wisdom?

You know my Harm, responsibility, sexual and paedophilia OCD really get me on the vivid imagery. I’ve always had a very active imagination but when it creates intense graphic images those are what get me. Starts with questions and doubting but I can shrug that off. But the pictures are literally traumatising! If anyone else’s OCD manifests this way then at least you are not alone.

These anxiety attacks are really taking it out of me. Worrying over stupid shit that will never happen is making my whole body so tired I can barely keep my arms up to tie my hair up. My bones feel so heavy and I feel like not even sleep helps. I’m tired of the stupid “what if” when I feel so alive with my fiancé that it’s just the thought of losing him and having to be with a woman instead that terrifies me. I’m just tired. Even my hair looks different, more thin and all my split ends are out of whack. I shouldn’t be so depressed about stupid shit so young.

is it normal to have OCD? I’ve never told anyone i have it before. will my friends judge me for it? am I going to lose them? ):

Does anyone else have issues smoking marijuana due to the ocd?

Dude! I’m so pissed and upset. I went back to see when I first emailed a psychologist to help me and when I saw the date I realized what prompted me to get help. It was because I got an unsuspecting phone call at work from a girl I used to love and even though she didn’t know it was me until I sent the email and it had my name on it because she worked at a bank and I worked in insurance I knew almost instantly who was on the other line because all I felt was just a warm very happy to hear her voice again feeling but I knew I wasn’t right then and knew I needed help. But no one a year ago had room to fit me in and never got back to me which prompted me to get the self help and I just ended fucking up myself worst and it just makes me mad because if I was good I would’ve chased her I would’ve gone after her and now I’ve lost my chance and just feel depressed about it. I’m not sure if she was the one but I sure as hell would’ve liked to find out. I just had to get this out because it was in my head and I thought someone on here would understand how I’m feeling. Having HOCD, depression, anxiety, and trauma sucks and has prevented me from loving someone and has prevented me having friends. I know I’ll get better in a month or 2 but still I just needed to vent a bit.

*Trigger warning* I did something stupid and looked in the DSM at Pedophilic Disorder, and of course, freaked myself out. A lot of people always say you can tell your thoughts are unwanted because they cause you distress, but in the DSM distress is also listed for Pedophilic Disorder. Basically now I'm scared my thoughts actually ARE wanted. Of course, I was always scared they were wanted, but seeing it in the DSM makes it feel so much worse because what if? Any advice?

Hi all, I will try to make it short (and will probably fail). I had my first real bout of pure ocd 15 years ago (I was 15). It started after smoking weed and a sort of depersonalization episode. Back then I did not understand what was happening so I spent almost a year keeping things to myself. The first obsessions I had centered around not being able to tell if I was real, or in a dream which created acute anxiety, I was also afraid of losing my mind as I did not understand what was happening. When I finally talked about it to my parents, they sent me to a therapist but he only wanted to give me meds and I was against it so I had to find another way. Through research and from experience I developed an habit of blocking thoughts that I started to recognize as obsessions by saying "I know this is all in my head". The disorder came and went throughout the years, I had many different themes, homosexual OCD, paedophile OCD, BDD. It was insufferable until I recognized it as a new theme (partly because it was listed as one on wikipedia) and then after a few weeks of telling myself this was just the disorder morphing I started to get better. I got a lot better, I went to study abroad, had the best year of my life, met my girlfriend who is wonderful. I think for three years I barely felt any deep anxiety, at least nothing compared to what I use to feel. But things got out of hand some months ago, I think due to life stressors (having to reconsider my career plans, feeling mike a failure, money and relationship problems). I think I went through a massive depressive episode, I lost interest in my creative passions, I was too anxious to feel anything anyway. I got a bit better but what I struggle with now is kind of hard to shake. See music as always been my main passion and it helped me a lot to get over ocd in the first place. But since this episode, I started to develop a fear of not being able to feel anything, especially toward music. I have tried to treat it as OCD and expose myself to the fear, but I can't help checking my feelings whenever I listen to or make music which I think might be a mental compulsion. I'll just tell myself "oh see you aren't feeling anything" or "you are feeling anxious listening to this song that you use to like so that must mean you don't love music anymore" and it makes me feel really anxious because I feel like it is a part of me dying and of course I can't enjoy the music because I'm constantly judging my feelings. It's kind of tricky because it is not really a typical theme, which maintains the doubt that it might just be real. Although I sort of see it as somewhere between ROCD (the loved one being music) and health OCD (the fear of having damaged my brain because of anxiety and thus being unable to feel joy anymore) So does anyone as ideas about what I should do if I want to use ERP for this thoughts ? Try to accept that maybe I lost my passion ? And do they sound like OCD at all ? Thank you ! (And sorry for the long post.)