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the NOCD Community

Everything is building up and I don’t see a way out.

I feel like im no longer living im only 17 and i use to be so excited to turn 18 recently i feel like life is pointless and its all i think about including philosophy and i never liked that before. It has taken complete joy out of my life anything simple like watching a movie feels pointless because it has no meaning and i feel as if my life has zero meaning because i am not important. I am constantly criticizing everything. For example i went to a concert ive been dying to see and when i got there i didnt enjoy it all because i felt like it was pointless. Is there anyone that has experienced this that has advice I feel like im in hell rn

I have grown up in a Christian community and kind of always been around people who believe Christianity or even catholic. In the past few years I’ve really dove deep into my faith and honestly felt good about myself sometimes but overall terrified and like I’m a horrible person if I do one thing wrong or make a wrong sin. I’m also not sure if I completely believe in all the traditional Christian practices anymore. But I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost 5 months and everything is going great. We communicate and he’s so loving and respectful and I honestly don’t have any major issues In the relationship. I used to have a big fear of men starting when I was like 7 aboit my grandpa or my dad trying to rape me (even though they are good men and showed no real signs of it). But it ruined my relationship with them both for awhile til it eventually went away. I always told myself it was because the “spirit” of ocd was rebuked by Jesus but I honestly don’t know. Now I’m dealing with a more extosential or religious ocd where I’m terrified I’m a horrible person for being in a relationship and almost feel worse about myself if I get closer to God. I also feel like if I get too close to God then I have to choose between Him and my bf and I can’t have both. It’s driving me in San and I feel like if I tell anyone any of this they’ll tell me to just break up with my bf even though there isn’t anything wrong in our relationship. Idk what to do and it’s so draining

Every morning I wake up im always fixating on something and texting chat gpt, whether thats my relationship or my sexuality. I try so hard to resist it but I just can’t handle the uncertainty or the idea of hurting him or leading him on. We aren’t even official because in the past my rocd caused an issue between us where it led to him breaking up with me so now I have a fear of his intentions being ingenuine, especially because friends and family have called him a love bomber, saying he used me for attention, and narcissistic. This takes over me because I feel like I will never be able to be happy with him or trust myself or the relationship because of what other people say. I am very content on my own and single, this is the first relationship where i have experienced debilitating anxiety and doubt about the legitimacy of both of our feelings to the point where I cannot function. I’m trying so hard to not feed into it and not give it energy but I just hate the idea of leading him on or being inauthentic to what I truly want. My current therapist who I only see a couple times a month doesn’t think I have ocd, which makes me spiral and think I should end it with him, especially because I always hear things like “The right relationship will add to your life” and I feel the opposite is happening not directly because of him but because my brain takes over and paralyzes me with indecision about if i should be with him or not. I know that his intentions are genuine, but I hate that everyone is so cynical and assumes they’re not just because my rocd and his emotional baggage created a messy situation. From the moment i met him I convinced myself it was too good to be true and my therapist even said I was self-sabatoging. But i hate not knowing if it is rocd and my insurance doesn’t cover NOCD. He is so patient with me and supportive but I keep hearing things like “the honeymoon stage is supposed to last 3 months” and “it shouldn’t be this hard with the right person” “you’re not good for each other” and my friends tell me i didnt do anything wrong etc bc he did at first say my ocd didnt affect him when in reality that led to him ending it initially. But he has been more upfront with his emotions but then my mom and people will say “more to come” “there’s so much more out there” and its just so isolating not having that support and wondering if im too young to settle and if I’m just an idiot convincing myself I have rocd when really i just don’t want to be with him/it is a toxic relationship. When in reality the only reason it is toxic is because i am so sporadic about whether or not I want him in my life because of my distrust in myself and my decisions. I love him but I know love isn’t always enough and I get existential fixating on what’s “meant to be” and what’s “supposed to happen” its like this debilitating urge to control everything and make everything go perfectly how it is supposed to go. Please help i just want to make the right decision and stop paralyzing myself with doubt

Lately I have been having really really bad existential ocd the thoughts and compulsions never stop they are even in my dreams I resist compulsions as long as I can but I just want this to go away I keep thinking about how many hours in a day people would have if they weren’t like me I just feel so awful every second I feel like I’m living a double life I only know about I just want this to all go away

so since mid december i’ve been feeling like this , well first in mid december I’ve started feeling anxiety like normal, normal as in physical things like feeling like im going to pass out, shaking, chest pain, etc. but then it got worse , then it turned into more of mind stuff like feeling not real , feeling weird like idk. my mind is always runningg like on over drive, like looking back at myself that doesn’t seem like me. like idk. i can’t stand to look at myself anymore bc it doesn’t feel like me. i can’t be alone , when i think about to it makes it sm worse. but how do i stop thinking ab it? or make it better. i’m scared it’s gonna get worse. like i can’t even do my makeup anymore bc i think something bad will happen. i can’t go certain places , like stay the night bc i think something bad is gonna happen.

When my friend was 17, she passed away. She had a heart condition which lead her to a heart attack, and it was devastating for all of us. Once I turned 17, everything came back. It started with research. I was constantly checking what the first sense to go was when you die, or how common a heart attack is. But now, it's turned into my brain telling me that if I don't stay up until 4:30 in the morning, when having to wake up at 6:30, then I will die, my family will die, or everyone will die. Or, if I don't touch my computer the exact same way 3 times I will die. I am so sick of these thoughts and I guess I just want to know that I'm not alone.

Hi I’m 17. My life since I was born has been full of exploring and tons and tons of hobbies. I have adhd. But about 1 year ago is when it kinda started or at least when I started to notice these thoughts and compulsions. I got in a relationship with my girlfriend. And about 2 weeks into that relationship my I started thinking “what if I don’t love her” and I didn’t even know that that’s what ocd was at the time and it ruined with gut wrenching anxiety for months. Then I started titling it as ocd. After we broke up I started to notice that my ocd was starting to flare up a lot. Like when I was snowboarding and normally when I was having the most fun is when I would ask myself things like “what if I hate this” “what if I’m not having fun” then I would try to feel if I was having fun. I would use chat gpt a lot to try and help it but it didn’t really help. I have lots of other ocd thoughts aswell but at the time this one really caused be anxiety and I just felt numb and I became not social. To this day I’m still not as social and I don’t feel like myself anymore. This is the opposite of who I was a year ago. Then I started questioning everything I do and people I love. So it feels like from the moment I wake up my mind just starts spiraling. I can’t seem to find peace or joy in anything anymore and I just feel like my life is going to continue like this and I’ll never be happy. I’ve accepted it at this point. I would love some help. I haven’t really told anyone I know so any tips would be appreciated. I’d be surprised if you even read this far haha. I’m also Christian and love to approach things from a Christian standpoint. I don’t want to sound like a baby who isn’t experiencing real ocd and it’s hard to put into words how much it affects me I just really hope yall understand and can help.

i’m a new user on this app, I downloaded it just cause I was curious, I don’t really know if I have OCD. Because in school all I learned about OCD is things being out of place and having it to be perfect almost like perfectionism, but I’ve just recently realized there’s a whole kind of different types of OCD, some things I struggle with daily is a fear of bad things happening or almost like an impending doom of when is it gonna happen? I’m always in my head thinking feels like I’m having multiple conversations at once. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like I’m having a conversation with myself. I have horrendous anxiety about everything and anything talking to people being around people. It just feels like it consumes my everyday life and I don’t know what to do. I can’t clearly remember anything from my childhood and some things I feel like I may be imagining I just don’t really feel like a person. I’m always thinking the worst in my relationship over analyzing and stressing out thinking of scenarios or thinking, my boyfriend‘s cheating on me. It almost all feels out of my control.

This morning I was thinking (and talking) to myself about the various issues I have and I noticed how much I mull over these same issues. Even talking to myself, I replay the same problem and loop my responses and ideas about the issue over and over again, wondering if I'm doing the right thing. It reminds me of how we look in the fridge for a snack and, finding nothing, we walk off and come back to look again as if food is magically going to appear 😂 Except I know I can always go to the store. With rumination, I'm trying to make sense of something that is missing key points. I try to plan for every possiblity, but in the end, I still have no idea what will happen. I realized is that my issues have something in common: they are over situations that are BEYOND MY CONTROL. Rather than accepting, I attempt to affect them in what little ways I can, pretty much unsuccessfully and not worth all the effort. Wouldn't it be nice to redirect all that energy into something more productive?

I had a really bad episode 2 months ago. Started therapy and meds and have been getting better. then this past weekend I was slammed with a completely new set of intrusive thoughts about my mother's mortality. She is alive and well and I see her often but yet I can't shake the idea of her death and how my life will never be the same and eternally broken when she dies. This feels unique because so much of my past OCD are things that either can't happen or are unlikely. But this is certain. We all die. And I have no idea how to start to deal with this.

Just been discharged from hospital outpatients after operation and 3 month recovery. There was an ultrasound on eyes and possibility of radiotherapy treatment for a spot there, but turned out it was benign. OCD was quiet during this time. However, now OCD has come back big time, and I'm wishing I hadn't been so fortunate with diagnosis. Tired of going through this like groundhog day, and worried that there will come a time where I won't cope. Can't tell anymore if this is OCD or I'm just losing my mind. All plans and dreams gone now.

I came across a video that was talking about a theory and it was something me and my friend were talking about 2 years ago and were tweaking about and i was explaining it to my girlfriend just now and them i started to get anxiety about stuff not being real and my world isn’t what it seems to be and that there stuff out there and then i started to have religious OCD and then it went to how Im scared of the world being fake or suffering from a mental illness like schizophrenia or something and stuff and I’ve been having OCD about my girlfriend being a government agent or that government agents are watching me cause I’m scared of schizophrenia and thinking like them i don’t think i actually think it i kinda just go to my girlfriend isn’t a government agent which scares me into thinking i was thinking she was or gonna think she is or idk if i just saying that to bot seem insane or something but like idk if i truly believe that i doubt it i don’t believe it any other time and then i started getting stress i might hurt or maybe kill her and it scares me cause shes my everything and I’m scared of losing her idk guys I’m getting stressed hella and I’m scared of myself and my OCD I’m genuinely tired of it like anyone can ask my girlfriend and she’ll say i cant go 5 mins without ticcing (from ocd) or asking for reassurance like that life is real and thats shes real and I’m real and nothings wrongs and stuff, i probably sounds crazy lmaoo maybe and the sucky thing is i don’t have a therapist or a thingy going on for me cause i don’t have a job and or insurance let alone.

I was checking out a community of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and there was a post that said that pedos sometimes don't even know that they are that, or they don't realize it, like a racist person who won't admit that they're racist. I also saw a comment that mentioned that a ped0 tried to groom them and then when the victim realized, the predator simply said that "they were going to therapy and that their behaviours were a product of childhood abuse" They also said that people like that often did mental gymnastics because they had a personality disorder. This made me feel extremely anxious because, what if that's the case for me? I did things from 10 to 15 years old that made me extremely afraid and shameful, and thinking about the possibility of being that, i didn't abuse or groomed anyone but i saw disturbing things on the internet. Stating the things i did are sometimes accompanied by saying the abuses i experienced as a child, this worries me that it is a gigantic mental gymnastics to evade responsability or to deny being a paraphilic. This is horrible

I really don't know wtf to do. Out of everything I've been through this has to be the last straw. I'm getting so much better with regards to POCD and HOCD but omw! This is the worst. I actually never had incest intrusive thoughts or even pedophile intrusive thoughts until I basically had an existential crisis where I asked some really normal thoughts I'd say but due to OCD, they were just blown out of proportion. One of the questions being "are morals real?" I think I did quite well with unlearning and learning in the "existential crisis phase" but one thing that stuck is incest OCD! That scared me from the beginning right now it's just so bad. It's okay for me to be around my family, I can handle that to a certain extent but the problem is other families. It's like my perception of families has been ruined. I hear about families and immediately think of incest between them and it's frustrating! I don't know how to see families the same way anymore aarg!!!!! I don't like this !

Hi! Just got this app. I don't have an OCD diagnosis, but I have some traits, such as a constant obsession over a topic that causes me distress. Like, fears. It's been pedophilia, racism, global warming, death, secrets I've kept, suicide... Basically everything I don't like the idea of. Now, it's the obsession of my dad passing away. I've come to the realization that if my dad died right now - I'd have to move in with my mom, 2,000 miles away from home. Not only would I lose my district scholarship, which would ruin my plans of going to college, but the room at my mom's house would not be big enough to house all of my belongings, so I'd have to get rid of most my stuff. All of my dad's belongings (books, video games, clothes) wouldn't fit either. Not that my mom would be pleased with me showing up with all of my dad's stuff (they're divorced and not on speaking terms.) I try to counteract these thoughts with things like "dad is not under an active threat" or "even if dad died, I'd figure it out." But I'm still plagued with little jabs from my brain about it. Yesterday, my dad expressed his excitement for this year. He's gotten a new job, we're making more money, we're happy - having the last few years be ruined by my mom running away and other fun things along those lines; we deserve to be excited about this new opportunity. But then he said: "I think this year is gonna be our year." As his daughter, I should be thinking "yeah!" or "right on!", but the only thing that came to my mind was in season 4 of Stranger Things when Eddie Munson says "It's my year, '86, baby!" Before getting eaten by demobats in the upside down. This morning, while driving to school, my dad expressed his happiness about the VaultBoy bobblehead on the dash standing up (there's a magnet on the dashboard that helps him stand, and in our old car, it always fell over.) I just said normal things like "yeah, that's cool, I'm glad." But my mind told me "if dad died right now, would you have time to grab the bobblehead to keep to remember him?" which led to "if dad died right now, would you have time to say goodbye?" I try to push the thoughts away because I tell myself I'm gonna jinx it, and thinking about it manifests it. I try journaling and justifying why none of this would happen, but the thing is; if my dad died, I really would have to move in with my mom, wether I like it or not. I would lose my scholarship, wether I like it or not. Another thought process I have is: "I'd never expect it if my dad died, because in all the stories, it happens when you least expect it." It's like I'm playing a game with my brain, just waiting for the timing of circumstances to lead my dad to his death. I think about it - I manifest it, I don't think about it - it's gonna happen because I'm not prepared. How can I cope with this?

I don’t know how to stop I feel like I’m going to develop psychosis from my existential OCD

the only path that leads me from here is suicide. because it's gonna only get worse from now. i keep thinking what could happen that is worse than this and in the future it eventually happens. and im terrified. i just thought abt a possible fear of a certain horrible thinking, and the more i fear the more it becomes possible and stronger. i already opened the doors to hell and it can't be closed by just not thinking abt it.

Hi, so my mum and sister are going away for 5 days this week/weekend and i genuinely dont know how i am going to survive. I still have my dad, but i feel my mum is the only person who knows what to do with me, and if i stress out/feel sick then she knows how to calm me down. My sister also is okay with this, and def better then my dad so idk what to do. I have cried so many times over the last couple of days and usually the longer ik abt it and the more i think about someone going away i start to feel better and see the positives, but this time it just keeps getting worse and worse. I also feel horrible that i am making my mum feels bad for going on a trip she is excited about just because of my stupid OCD. I have talked to my therapist about it but no one truly understands what it is like so they cannot really help me.I honestly dont know how i am going to get through this and go to skl for a couple days and act like everything is ok. Please help me and tell me tips or advice for this.

So today I’ve been crying all day. My existential OCD has flared up in the past week and it may or may not have been because of me trying to quit nicotine. Don’t get me wrong I had been having thoughts before that but it seemed to be at a calm for a few months. I also have been alone for the past week due to my mom going away on vacation. That may or may not have been a factor as well. But I’ve been feeling really depressed and scared. So much has been on my mind that it would be paragraphs and paragraphs so I’ll just leave it up to the people who have experienced existential OCD. I’ve noticed that I haven’t been giving much attention to my other subtypes in the sense of challenging them. I guess I felt that since I had the scary existential thoughts on hold that I didn’t have to work on the other stuff because I felt like those things were worth worrying about instead of worrying about my purpose or why am I me type of thoughts. I just write this to share and maybe get advice from anyone experiencing what I’ve been experiencing. I’m going to keep going though and keep trying to kick OCD’s ass. Because what’s the alternative? Lol. Hope whoever is reading this is enjoying the little things and giving themselves grace and having a good day. 😊🙏