Welcome to
the NOCD Community

I haven’t been professionally diagnosed with POCD but I’m pretty sure I have it. I keep having to question myself if I’m genuinely disgusted at the thought of being sexually attracted to children or if I enjoy it. I also can’t even tell if I’ve even felt guilt or shame at the thought of being sexually attracted to children. All I know is that I’m scared of the idea I might be turning into a pedophile and start developing an attraction to kids. Like I honestly don’t know what I’m feeling anymore and it scares me. I’m even getting thoughts like “What if your dad is a pedophile?” or “What could be so bad about it? Just stop being in denial and admit you’ve got a thing for kiddie porn.” My brain is constantly creating these new thoughts and I hate it so much.

How did you guys find out you probably had ocd, diagnosis or no diagnosis? I haven’t been diagnosed and my parents don’t know, I actually turned 14 today. I have had intrusive thoughts since I was 11 or 12, but throughout the 2nd half of 2018, the occasional intrusive thoughts slowly became more common, but didn’t bother me too bad, but I kept obsessing over: what is wrong with me? And “Am I schizophrenic?” I kept thinking I had schizophrenia but I would only occasionally think of it. Eventually in december, I bought me and my dad a pocket knife, basically as a gift for him. Over the next 3 days I kept having harm ocd about my knife but I refused to hide it. Then at school the thoughts went wild and I knew something was wrong. I looked up “scary thoughts” when I got home, and ever since then, the way I used to feel has been gone. I think about ocd everyday now. Idk what to do. My harm ocd has gone away mostly but now I have a lot of thoughts of me hurting myself and “what if I just die”. It scares me. Anyway, anyone have a story similar to this? Thanks.

(Pocd) Please help me!!! I'm a Christian and as i've mentioned before Ive had mind chatters where i tell God to confirm if im a pedo or not by me hearing about a pedo getting delivered (and it actually happened because a user on here who's a good friend of mine shared a story about that!!!) And ive also mind chattered to Him to lemme know thru a dream and it just happened too!!!. I literally feel hot right now and I feel so much doom because I just woke up and dreamt something about a paper like a test having the word pedophilia in it I think it asked "do you have pedophilia?" with a fill in the blanks answer and the word "truth" was written as the answer ? these are just too much coincidences for it to not be God actually telling me. As we Christians know, there are no coincidences in God and that scares me even more!!. I always tell Him " don't listen to my mind chatters you know they don't come from the heart!! The reason I mind chatter about things is because I'm scared of them actually happening!" But now I'm starting to think my mind chatters are so much more meaningful than i thought. Maybe it wasn't even a dream and I just pictured it while being asleep and awake at the same time since my ocd thoughts wake me up night sometimes? Or am I just in denial to try to calm myself down? Omg how can I forget about all this I really don't wanna relapse ...

Does anyone get “intrusive feelings”? I’ve experienced intrusive thoughts and urges, but I’m noticing intrusive feelings too. I’m about to start PMS-ing and I’m having weird depressed feelings like “I hate my life, everything sucks, maybe i want to die”. I have suicidal OCD and it seems like this is what my brain gravitates towards when I’m under stress. Even though I DO NOT want to die by any means, my brain throws these thoughts at me and it’s so scary bc I feel like maybe a part of me actually wants to do it. Idk why I feel depressed and shitty about my life when really I don’t want to be you know?? What do you guys think?

Hi all has anyone got an experience with medication to treat OCD checking. Has it helped? What are the pros and cons from people who have experienced medication

Does anyone else ever get obsessions where you worry that your OCD isn’t real or isn’t bad enough to be OCD?

Saw a post on tumblr this morning about a 15 year old boy helping a little girl learn how to skateboard, and my initial reaction was "awww, that's so sweet" but then I got a weird feeling in my stomach and wondered "do you think that the 15 year old boy is attractive for being kind to the little girl?" (Don't ask me how that even makes sense idk) And I know it's probably because I'm worried about being attracted to anybody teenaged or younger but I can't help but analyze my feelings. Like was my weird feeling in my stomach unease? Arousal? I have no idea. I'm uncomfortable now but trying to focus on breathing and watching gilmore girls

Does anyone ever feel like they don't know what they truly want anymore? feeling a sense of loss of identity? To stick to what they truly believe is correct or what OCD is telling them? and feel like their desires are changing since OCD?

Does anyone have any tips for when the thoughts are just so overwhelming? Even the little things I used to enjoy like grabbing a coffee or watching a tv show I just have no motivation for. These thoughts are happening by the minute and I can’t focus on anything else. When I try to distract myself they’re in the back of my mind.

I hade a intrusive thought when I was half asleep but I can’t remember what it was and I feel like I’m trying to know what it was so I don’t feel like a bad person incase it was something bad because sometimes there really intense any tips to stop trying to find out what it would be

So my POCD started because I had the misfortune of running into a drawing depicting a child being raped (granted it was just a video game character and not an actual real life child) but now I feel like my brain is telling me I enjoyed looking at that and even I can’t tell whether or not I did. I’m just so ashamed and I wish I never saw it. Soon after that I was constantly trying to reassure myself I’m not a pedophile, that I don’t enjoy the thought of children being sexually abused, or that I’ve never been sexually attracted to a child, etc. My thoughts never leave me; I’m stressing out about this literally every hour, minute and second of the day.

Is anyone a nurse with contamination OCD? How do you work with that??

Anyone else fear falling out of love with your partner and falling in love with someone else you know of? My ocd convinces me this other guy I go to university with is ‘the one’ and creates false memories! It’s the worst feeling ever i feel so much guilt and don’t feel happy and loving when I’m around my boyfriend anymore :( I don’t want to be with anyone else but my boyfriend I just wish I was happy with him and never had these thoughts in the first place.

I have an EXTREME sensitivity to noise. I have sensory overload syndrome? My therapist basically said my senses are extremely heightened, where hearing someone talking sounds like they’re screaming and has the effect on me as if they’re screaming in my ear while poking me all over my body. My dad plays video games like a child and talks to people doing it, and every day I want to scream. Also our dog is older and is constantly sleeping and making noise, snoring, grunting, coughing. I’ve tried everything, listening to music, (which I’m doing now) earplugs, I even had my boyfriend bring headphones of his dad’s that he used for the shooting range! And I can STILL hear them ! I can’t do anything I want anymore. I feel like I live in a prison. I can’t read I can’t write. I feel like I can’t think. Every single day I’m crying from the overwhelming overload I feel every day. Currently in the tub trying to relax and have to blast the music to drown them out, which isn’t even working, I CAN STILL HEAR THEM. This may not make sense unless you have this too but the sensory overload is so bad that it feels you with uncontrollable anger and sadness and makes me think I would rather kill myself than have to deal with hearing them anymore. This spirals my depression even more Because I need to move out! But my overwhelming amount of medical issues and cost are preventing me from that. I can’t even work more than part time due to the issues and every paycheck is spent on bills, half of which are for my health. ?? so my life is going nowhere and all I do is wish I wasn’t alive. I understand I could go to the library etc..but honestly I shouldn’t be so stressed at my house. And. I’m currently sick so I need to stay home, I can’t leave. I’m trying to relax and it’s a fucking nightmare. I’m going to rip my hair out

I started to tell myself “leave it alone” every time I got a thought to remind myself not to engage and just leave it there but now I say it in my head when I anticipate a thought or even think about my situation at all. I’m kind of saying it to myself a lot now and I think it might have turned into a compulsion on accident but I’m not sure?

Ok, after 4 years I've come to the conclusion that I'm the most comfortable with the bisexual label. But nonetheless I still have the urge to constantly be re-checking the gender of the people I like,or find pretty/attra tive. Bc I'm worried I'm just pretending. And its so relative, bc somedays I find pretty guys on the internet and other days some cute girls and you can't really conclude anything from such ever-changing data, could 'ya? Hahs But...its been 4 years, right??? I wish it was enough to realize that it wasnt pretending but ugh trying to analyze yourself is such a hard and subjective task. It's getting better, and having self-assertion is super important and it's been really helping me. Not just on this, but in a lot of areas. But I wanted to know if anyone is going through something similar to try and get their point of view

For me, nearly everything is a repetitive struggle. Flipping light switches, closing doors, pouring milk in my cereal bowl or in a glass to drink, putting on a pair of pants or socks, walking on/past sewer manholes and drains on the street, walking past garbage cans, walking past or near something that is or looks like animal feces (such as bird poop or dog poop etc.) and of course, handwashing. Even typing on this phone right now is a struggle, if at any given moment I "feel" a particular sensation like a wet spot on my lip or a nerve in my foot while I'm typing, I have to back space and retype what I was going to type the first time in hopes that maybe this time I won't "feel" that sensation again otherwise the cycle will repeat itself until finally I do not "feel" a sensation at all and am satisfied enough to continue typing. These are just some of the many examples I suffer from. Ive decided to come on here and share my story with others out of pure desperation in hopes of finding someone who will give me the ASSURANCE I need to escape from this "monster" this "bully" living in my head by providing me with a logical explanation with the support of facts and scientific evidence as to why these repetitive "rituals" and cycles are unnecessary and why the beliefs Ive invented in my mind are in fact false and unrealistic. One of my most extremely irrational beliefs I've invented for example is dripping water from my hands onto a surface where germs are present; by dripping water from my freshly washed hands onto a dirty floor my mind has trained itself to believe the germs from the floor have somehow bounced back up onto my hands, causing me to then have to wash my hands again for relief of anxiety. Same goes with pouring milk in cereal or in a glass; if the milk were to splash on the floor out of my glass or bowl I then feel like the germs have bounced back up into my bowl or glass. Same goes for spitting; whenever I spit on the ground it cannot be on a manhole cover otherwise Ive convinced myself I have sewage in my mouth, I then have to spit again and again and again until finally I have found a surface I believe is "clean" enough to spit on. Same with urinating; It has gotten so bad that I will not urinate in a toilet in fear that the toilet water will splash back up on my penis, instead I would rather go outside and urinate, but even if I do that, say if I were to accidentally urinate on a surface with bird feces, I will then feel like I have bird feces on my penis. I just want to be able to pee in a toilet again like a normal person. This is all so embarassing but I TRULY NEED help. Please someonere, help me get my life back. I just want to be normal again.

Is anyone on here a Christian and struggles with doing ERP?

Been suffering with HOCD as my dominant theme for over a year, one of the most difficult things to deal with is when I'm around others, I constantly have these intrusive thoughts pop up "You're gay" "just tell them you're gay" "tell them, they will understand" "you're just in denial". Also, at times, i get this incrediblely strong urge to just scream "I'm gay", it feels extremely overwhelming and unbearable. It's extremely difficult and exhausting, in general before OCD, I've always known I'm Bi-Sexual and I've accepted that however I've never been sexual with anyone from the Same Sex, but I know i never exclusively gay, all of a sudden OCD is convincing me I'm in denial. Anyone else suffer the same or similar symptoms?

I said something stupid and insensitive earlier. I didn’t mean to offend but realized it came off that way. Now I’m feeling guilty and ashamed of myself. I’m sorry.