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the NOCD Community

Hi everyone. I am new to Nocd. My story: The first time I got intense intrusive thougts of religious ocd is when I was 11 years old. They were very intense. I was ashamed of those thoughts and didn't know what to do with them. I literally didnot tell anyone and suffered alone. It made it hard for me to pray. Over the years it took many forms. I didn't know it was OCD. My mental health deteriorated with waves of depression because of OCD as I got threatened from my OCD thoughts of death of me and my closed ones. They were scary. I also imagined things and felt like seeing things out of fear. These phases of depression brought me down everytime I stood up somehow. Soon I was struck with existential and identity crisis, questioning the meaning of life and existence, nothing seemed valuable and worth it. I questioned my academics and everything. Definetly my grades and health everything deteriorated. It showed in my physical health too. I started having mental fog and questioning reality, my self along with a lot of changes in my life. After class ten, there were suddenly a lot of changes when my mental health was already not okay making it hard for me to adapt. I saw everything blurry and removed. I couldn't connect to anyone. I associated fear to all the things, plus my home. And because I already had so much threatenings of death, I couldn't even recognise the reality. I felt far removed from my reality like I went somewhere far away, a lot of time has passed and there's not much time for me and I struggled with memory too. After 12th, I joined University. One year later, I met a boy with whom I instantly felt sparks. Note: I never dated anyone before and feeling a spark like that with somebody which made me take the step is a lot. I wanted to commit to him but then my ROCD kicked in. I didn't even know about it but I did some mistakes because of it I feel like because ROCD was so intense it made me feel like an emergency to leave the relationship. He had OCD too as he said. He have it in terms of 'perfectionism'. Also he was very sensitive, enraged kind of person, I got to know later on. Had a lot of emotional outbursts making me more question the relationship to leave. We became like an anxious-avoidant couple. I regret many things like what I have avoided if I knew its ROCD and worked on it and so many. He 'abused me. He started abusing me. Idk I started feeling like I made him that kind of a person because he actually compared me with his former gf, with whom he used to even secretly talk. I couldn't get out of the abusive relationship sooner but recently which added extra trauma. Well, here am I 'single' but I feel a lot of guilt and also I need to make my mental health better because this experience made me realise how my bottled up things made an explosion. Thankyou! to whoever reads this! Oh yeah I also deal with a Lott of decision making difficulties, indecisiveness and regret over small things and doings. And also because of my life going like this and getting ruined where there was so many expectations from me, I regret a lot I guess. I think of many possibilities how my life would have gone and always put infront of me possibilities and choices. So I am currently dealing with my thoughts and uncertainty about my future after a Lott of trauma. Oh my god..there is so much

Lately I have been going through this theme about being obsessed with just being a brain. I constantly wonder What if I’m just a brain and genuinely have no control over anything I do and just think I do. Like I question why do I make certain decisions specifically and what makes me make those decisions specifically like in my brain. Literally every thought that pops up in my mind I question like how did this thought get here? What makes me want this thought? What makes me make this decision based off this thought? If I’m not my thoughts then what determines my actions if actions are determined by thoughts. Even writing this I have these same thoughts. I genuinely don’t know how to sit through these ones, they feel so important. Like what if I’m not questioning these I’m just on autopilot basically and not actually conscious of anything. I also catch myself doing little actions that I am not usually consciously aware of and fixate on them and wonder what in my brain makes me do these things. Like is it me or just my brain?! I feel so stuck and was just wondering if anyone has had this theme or these thoughts.

Has anyone else experience mind reading where you say something in your mind and the other person answers out loud? For example I was telling someone in my head that I don't have dog treats for their dog in my head like repeatedly.. and when I saw them they said "we know" out loud which basically freaked me out bc what do you know?! And how could you know anyrhing as I haven't said anything to you out loud. Things like that happen all the time it feel like incan have full blown conversations in my head with someone except they're responding out loud and I'm not. Has anyone experienced this?

I am a Christian and OCD is coming at me currently about my faith. I am not perfect and no one is. I get that but I keep getting the thought of “if you have sex outside of marriage again you’re going to hell, you will melt down and you’re going to be alone” I think I can just keep from doing it until I get married but I am 35 single mom of 2 and that could never happen or be forever so I start freaking out about that.

I have this persistent feeling inside that everything feels fake (almost like everything is a lie), the media, politics, war, just day to day life. Sometimes I stop to look around and feel like I am alone in some way. Why do I feel like everything is an illusion or a lie? Im getting these constant thoughts and feelings that there is more than what meets the eye about reality. Has anyone else ever been through this?

Being trans is such a normal thing these days that I feel like I'm just in denial. There's no good reason not to transition other than that I "think" I like being a guy more than I would a girl. I feel like there are so many signs throughout my life, and that I'm just using a disorder as an excuse

I have no one to help me anymore, I wish I were dead. I hate being alive.

I feel like i deserve a head full of pain because I’ve been so toxic and I’ve done things I’ve never been held accountable for so it feels like my punishment that I deserve

at a young age i was diagnosed w anxiety and ocd. i was on antidepressants, and eventually got off them and quit therapy. i recently started again, and my ocd has been insanely bad and anxiety has fired up a lot too. however i can’t shake the feeling something else is wrong with me. i feel like i feel emotions more than anyone else does. i feel so not normal. i think i might be crazy. i wonder if i’m bipolar or have bpd, like genuinely. but then i think, is this just my anxiety and ocd making me think i have this? but sometimes i genuinely really want to be evaluated. it’s like am i just looking for something to be diagnosed with? but i feel like anxiety and ocd shouldn’t make me feel ALL of this. so idk i’m kinda stuck. i feel like i’m making myself want to be diagnosed w something, but all i want is answers

is reading through posts to find someone to relate to in regards of a symptom a compulsion? i do that all of the time because i feel like an outcast even though i’m not diagnosed. i literally feel like i won’t get diagnosed, but instead i’m just using ocd as a way to deny who i really am. another thought i’ve been having is what if i have anxiety because i can’t act on it instead of because i’m scared i will act on it? i typically relate my feelings to all of this too and it feels like i want to everytime i think about it. however i’ve never done anything remotely harmful. i actually am staying with my sister for the week hoping it will help the thoughts and alleviate them since i’m more isolated. and no matter how much proof there is or how much i remind myself of who i was before this that i’m not this person, the urges and feeling like i genuinely want to i get when the thoughts come just overrides everything.

One of my first themes came back. I'm again really worried about developing schizophrenia. Everything about it terrifies me to my core. No one in my family has it so I know the chances of me getting it are really low but... I once read that the first symptom someone noticed was they thought bugs were crawling all over their body and now every time I think about this I get itchy and I'm so afraid this might be the start... I don't know how to help myself in this situation. Im so so so scared

Hello I’m new to this app. I haven’t been given a diagnosis of ocd but I feel like whether it be from my other problems it seems like I have the same struggles in a sense. I have depression and adhd and I struggle a lot with anxiety but I haven’t been diagnosed with any specific anxiety disorder. I just wanted to give a little context. Now time for the real questions It feels like I constantly struggle with not knowing how I’m supposed to feel. Which is strange because that implies there is a correct way to feel but it feels like my brain tries to convince me that how I’m feeling isn’t correct Another thing I often struggle with things feeling meaningless and I try to push this thought away but I can’t. It just makes everything feel empty

I can’t shake this , I don’t know what it is. i struggle with derealzation terribly and it’s been being triggered by my boyfriend , I don’t know what it is and it scares me so much, he’s my favorite person and my mind keeps telling me “ he don’t exist” or I can’t recognize him. It started last night because my mind starting make all these fears and I just have never felt this bad .. I really would like some words or help if anybody can relate or share ?🥺

This weekend i was in a funeral, a 21 year old guy lost his battle with cancer, the sad thing was that 1 and a half month ago he was okay. It just happened so quickly. I wasnt friends with him, i knew him, but i went to the funeral cause he was almost the same age as me( im 23). So i noticed since then im really afraid of dying young. I know the common answer is "well everybody is, that's normal" i dont want to make it a normal thing in my life. When people are dealing with this im really angry about how others react to this. You always get "well you have to accept it, you can die anytime, its part of life" which is somewhat true but you wont help the other person with this, for me personally this makes me spin more and im more desperate cause its like im forced to accept i will die at a young age. I dont say it cant happen but i know those who experieced this fear understand what im saying. This "accept that you might die a young age" is really an ignorant answer and then they come with "youre not ready for life, life is tough" and all that, well maybe you just dont know how to talk with someones heart... I went to reddit to read about christians having this fear and there were a bunch of "this is normal, everyone fears" and "you might not be saved" which is a bullcrap, but there was 1 answer that actually opened my eyey which said that its not that we are afraid of death or dying young, we are afraid of missing out of life. And then i realized, yes im not afraid of dying, im afraid of not experiencing life, not having a girlfriend, a wife, kids,grandkinds, and have experiences(if you want to say "well not everyone gets that" please leave it for yourself, im not interested on that) I realized im 23, i never had a gf and if i think about dying young and i wont experience these things, i really get angry. And it got to a point where its really bad cause when i get something, then im afraid i will lose it or i will die and i wont be able to ebkoy it. There were times when i was thinking about my future, that i have a gf or wife and i just get this fear that i will die after that, i wont be able to enjoy it, and it just really takes the joy away. Even with my dog, i wanted a dog but since i got him many times im worrying about losing him or leaving him. Yeah im really struggling with this missing out of life, i hope someone can help how to work on this. Maybe im a little afraid of death too, but many times i feel like im not, but this really opened my eyes that this fear of dying young isnt about death, its more about missing out of life.

Coming from someone in their 20somethings, I can say that transitioning into adulthood has been the most challenging thing on my mental health. I find more often than not, my brain is racing about 94 different thoughts, worries, responsibilities ext. and trying to find the meaning behind all of them.

How can I go back to my studying. I'm having a one month break from classes to self study what I've left behind. It's already in the 2nd week of the month and I haven't done any studies. My OCD had been so hard lately. I don't have interest in my future anymore ( even though my future isn't in a state that I should be staying like this right now). How do you guys manage to study with OCD happening. How should I put myself to study

One of my most severe ocd subgroups is dea()h (I can’t type it). If an image of someone who is de()d comes to mind I have to do compulsions to get rid of it. This of course all stems from the fear of dy()ng and I have this irrational fear that if I do anything at all, including breathing, with those images in my mind or actual images in front of me (like a picture or on tv) it would lead me to possibly have a higher chance of d()ing or earlier. I was wondering if anyone struggles with a similar issue, and if there was something you tell or convince yourself to help alleviate it. I had a really bad episode tonight where it was just constant image after image and I’m exhausted. Thank you!

I feel like my body and mind are just so tired of being stuck in these same mental loops of torment with OCD and don’t know how to do anything else. I feel exhausted from not being able to cure myself out of these thoughts and self-destructive habits and that I’m not going to make it out of them because I’ve been tied down to this illness for so long. I wish things could have been different growing up and I took care of myself better so I wouldn’t have gotten so negative and loved myself more so these thoughts wouldn’t be so potent. I’ve had OCD most of my life, and I just don’t get how other people can live their lives normally and not suffer so heavily. I get really mad knowing I’m stuck in this vicious cycle and other people can enjoy life so easily. And now the summer is coming and it’s when I get the most depressed and feel so helpless from sadness, and my OCD has only just gotten worse. I feel like I just don’t have the energy to take care of myself anymore, and hate how anxious I am about actually telling people what’s going on with me in fear of judgment and not accepting me, so I just go along with self-sabotaging habits. I’m also afraid that nobody is going to want to help me. This only makes things worse, and it’s really hard for me to be happy. I just don’t know how to cope anymore. It makes it so hard to function as a human since I’ve been struggling for so long. I feel so disconnected from God because of this illness, and it only makes me more upset with myself for lack of effort and feel depressed. Please if someone is struggling with something similar or has advice, reach out ❤️

Anyone else feel like they will never be understood in a relationship? Like I want to get to know other people but its like I feel like I am boring and my ocd just makes my life a living hell currently. No motivation to do nothing even though I have alot to do and literally having no purpose in life.Like I literally dont feel like I have ever enjoyed any of my life because it feels like I am not real or I am like a shadow in my own body? Its frustrating because my last relationship was horibbly toxic and the guy I was with was horrible and I broke things off after years of abuse and I have currently been having a hard time not to reach out to him after no contact for 3 months.I feel immense guilt like I was mean to him even though he cheated on me and a part of me says I deserve to go back to the abuse. And I feel like maybe I am punishing myself because my faith in God is not the strongest Ive stopped praying and I dont read the bible consistently becayse I get very overwhelmed because I want to make sure I am doing bible study correctly or ill be punished. (sorry for the spelling mistakes)

So this morning I woke up to the grim reaper for about two seconds then I went back to sleep. I don't know if it was a thought image or actually standing there. The thing is I can't really how it look or happen but I know it happen. Is this common with ocd