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the NOCD Community

People don’t understand how much ocd takes over your life, here’s some of my old compulsions through the years, I can laugh about these ones now as I’ve managed to stop them. Although I’m yet to beat false memory ocd. - Checking the knife draw before bed 14 times just to be ‘sure’ the knife’s were all there. - Filming under my bed before I went to sleep to make sure no one was there. - Barricading my door at night as I had a fear I would sleep walk and ‘hurt’ someone. - Video myself doing my nightly compulsions (locking doors, turning lights off, checking everything etc) to make sure it’s done. - running up and down the stairs 44 times before bed to make sure no one dies 😅😂(honestly no clue) - tapping an even number of times on each side of my body. - whenever I made someone else a drink I would have to re-do it about 10 times and video it, as id convinced myself I’d poisoned it🙃lol I mean I could go on forever but here’s some!! I’m hoping this makes someone feel less alone as I’ve stopped this now with a lot of work, it is possible!! False memory ocd is next for me , I’m hoping I can beat this as I have the above.

I don’t know how anyone does it! I’ve tried so hard to face my intrusive thoughts because I’m so tired of my mind telling me to do things over and over or else my mom will die. I know it won’t happen but my mind refuses to let me let it go. I don’t mean to bother anyone who isn’t religious but I just have to also get this off my chest. I’ve never been more ashamed of myself for how I’ve acted today revolving God. I love God more than anything and yet I can never fully put my faith in him because I’m so scared. No matter how many quotes and bible verses I read telling me to let go of my fear, I can’t. I’m terrified to even move at this point. I understand I need to get a job and get outside more. But how can I do that when I too scared to leave my bed because I know what my day will consist of. All I do is sleep because I’m so drained, I’ve completely lost myself. I just keep telling myself others have it worse because it’s true, I just wish these thought would go away because I’m tired of feeling like I’m crazy.

Hello, My son is 22 and started having intrusive thoughts about hurting himself and us his parents. We have tried outpatient therapy, he has seen a physiatrist and has been in therapy all this year. He started with these thoughts after watching a very violent show/video game and kept picturing himself causing harm to his father, then moved to me, then his sister. The guilt he feels for feeling these things and having these thoughts becomes overwhelming at times to the point he thinks of irrational solutions. Such as cutting his hands off so he dont ever put himself or us in any kind of danger. He did really well for a couple months but now his meds don't seem to work. He's not motivated to do anything. He's never driven, he stays home all the time. Is afraid to socialize. Has gained a lot of weight. As a mother I dont sleep, worried about him. I feel like we walk on eggshells around him. Have had to move anything sharp out of the house. Please tell me he cab get better and that there is light at the end of this dark tunnel. We as a family are desperate. I love my son and there is absolutely nothing I wouldn't do for him. But I feel like he's not motivated to help himself and life is passing him by to the point he feels he has no purpose in this life. Please help.

People who weren’t diagnosed and/or didn’t even realize they had OCD until they were older. Are there any stories or memories you look back from when you were younger and now see the OCD gremlin laughing in the background? For me I just recalled the other day how starting in elementary/middle school, and lasting for years, that I refused to allow myself to fall asleep on my back because I was afraid of my tongue falling loose and choking on it while I slept. I even just recently learned how obsessive thoughts about death are common for people with OCD, and I can recall times from when I was even younger of just thinking and ruminating about the afterlife. Not that these are necessarily 100% OCD related but…

So I made some REAL terrible past mistakes, but due to OCD I ruminated about them last night and cut myself for the first time ever (I’m 20) I didn’t do it in a dangerous place like my wrist or anything and I used a razor/it was not that deep hardly any bleeding etc. But I don’t trust myself to not turn to this again in the future, cause I liked it. (I struggle with False Memories, Intrusive-Thought-Action-Fusion, Magical Thinking etc.) Advice for embarrassment/distress?

It's the middle of the night and I just had a really intense and scary attack of ocd. Not really sure what it was all about, but it was a whole flood of different themes all at once. Only thing that was clear to me is that I was full of such intense fear of myself. Afraid of losing control of my mind and ending up in a psych ward tonight, afraid of thinking of hurting myself and how it might feel good/relieving, afraid of losing control and hurting my pet, afraid of having a full blown panic attack and needing my parents, afraid of losing control and screaming, afraid of giving into the urge to lash out and throw things/throw myself around (lately I've been feeling the need to exert/stim), and afraid of how each and every one of these outcomes would affect others. I'm falling asleep now but I'm still terrified of what just happened. I've never felt anything like it before. I've now been having problems every single day for a month straight (happy anniversary lol). My therapist of four years is not an OCD therapist and I won't be seeing her for two weeks yet. I also just started seeing a psych but I won't be seeing her for over a month yet. I'm wondering if i should get in touch with a NOCD therapist asap because I swear I just keep getting worse and I'm getting more and more paranoid and terrified by the hour. I feel like my behavior has definitely changed. The problem is though I know i'm obsessed with getting help for myself because i'm THAT scared of my own mind. I think having a SECOND therapist would be a bit overkill but i'm also extremely desperate and have been considering this for about a month now. Has anyone else tried a NOCD therapist paired with their normal therapist? Anyways now i'm so scared of what i'm gonna wake up to. These intense mood swings are getting scarier and scarier.

there’s a little kid outside my window at the community pool. i looked to see what he was doing. i looked a couple times and he was just fully clothed in the pool LOL, but then I started having thoughts “oh are u looking bc ur a creep? do u want to go down there and gr0om him???” like wtf!!! and i stayed there and kept looking to i guess test myself and be like see im not looking for any reason but i got this feeling of dread and had to walk away :( i hate this. pocd makes me feel like i am a p everyday it feels so real sometimes I just wanna say I am and admit myself to a mental hospital

I've been self harm free and on meds (Venlafaxine and Lamotrigine) for a few months now, I get the thoughts day to day of "you need to hurt yourself or God/ the universe is going to punish you" "if you dont punsih yourself youre going to get punished. Today my dog accidently ripped my nose ring out after I had a bad weekend were I felt like a shit friend and I feel like my nose got hurt because I'm such a shitty friend and the only way to stop all this misery is to hurt myself, so I'm punishing myself before the universe does. I don't know how to stop these thoughts because they keep getting worse and worse.

Is this an OCD thing: just the general sense of worry or dread something bad may happen in the future? For example: planning a trip, and the thought "you could die by then!" Or something similar but related to loved ones?

I saw a video where a kid was trick or treating and the dude filming opened the door and pulled out a knife on him and said “get away from here. quick.” and it was in response to a trend asking users to quote the tweet with the funniest videos that live in their head rent free. I laughed and thought it was funny because it was so random, but then I saw the comments like “that was so disturbing, what’s wrong with everyone who’s laughing at this?” and I totally agree. I feel horrible for laughing. It was just so random and it was posted in the context of being something funny. I wouldn’t ever condone doing that in real life, but with the internet it feels like a barrier and honestly I’m so desensitized to seeing stuff like that. I want to completely get off the internet because in reality that WAS disturbing and completely fvckd up and I wouldn’t be laughing if someone did that to my niece. I feel horrible. Am I horrible person? I don’t even want to think about it anymore. I deadass just don’t want to be here tbh and I don’t think anybody cares if I am here anyways so ✌🏽

Has anyone ever had an accepting response when telling a partner? I don’t feel like I can be honest because I’m afraid they’ll leave me for being a monster or just never see me the same

i know compulsions are not helpful on the long run. but they can help to give certainty and a bit of peace for the moment. i usually imagine scenarios and check how i feel about them. has anyone experienced that sometimes this does not make you feel certain and safe, but somehow confirms what ocd is telling you, e.g. after imagining a scenario it feels like you could actually want it? so compulsions sometimes don’t even help on the short term and i feel the need to ruminate more and more to come to the solution i want

Everyday i have unwanted thoughts and images in my head of me harming my loved ones in horrible ways, also urges too. i’m not like that at all, i don’t want to be like that at all and i also have an extreme fear of becoming a bad person and harming the people i love, or snapping out of anger and harming people. These thoughts scare me a lot and im really sad that i have these thoughts at all and its taking a toll on my mental health. whenever i see something like a gun or a knife or something like that i get anxious and scared at the thought that i could hurt someone with those things and i get thought about me in a position where i hurt someone. the last thing i want is to hurt anyone. i just wanna make people happy and i wanna treat others with kindness. i don’t want to do any of that i don’t wanna be a bad person. i hate these thoughts in my head and im so anxious at the thought that im gonna commit them. can someone help me and give me some advice on what to do?

Not every emotion we have is important or say something, i struggle with this alot. Why should i accept an emotion that doesnt help me? If someone hurts me, and i get a feeling that the world is evil, and i feel depressed, its nothing good in that to accept feeling depressed that the world is evil cause this thought is even a lie, its a distortion. Its okay to acknowledge that someone hurted you, but why should i accept feeling depressed cause now i think life is bad. I dont understand this. Then if you try to change that and say no, not everyone is evil, this isnt true, now youre fighting with the thoughts so thats a compulsion. Then all you can do is actually accept the feeling being there, which frustrates me cause its based on a distortion. Not every emotion is useful. For exemple i saw a post on tiktok that roman males had the right in their time to sell, or execute their childrens and because i dont have a good relationship with my dad, i had a thought that he would sell us or kill us, and that made me feel so angry at my dad and depressed, but then i realized this is a huge distortion, my dad its not like that even that we dont get along, but instead of relief i felt like i pushed away the emotions, not numbness, but that feeling that i just pushed away all. But what shouldve i done? Feel the distorted feeling that i made up? Do you know that we have alot of thoughts and a day and letting all their emotion be there would be really tiring. This really bothers me, if i dont have to let myself be controlled by emotions then why i feel like im pushing away and i get worse when im just not letting them control my day, not letting them get fully in the surface to control how i view things

Has anyone ever had ECT treatment for their intrusive thoughts? Mine have become so bad I am suicidal, and while we are trying medications my psychiatrist has suggested ECT may be helpful? I’m just curious if anyone has any experience with this?

All my life I’ve only ever been too much for people. I can’t be authentically myself and keep people around. I truly hate myself. I have no friends and it makes me want to die. You don’t know me, but if you did, you would get sick of me fast. No one can love someone this traumatized and this broken.

So, recently I’ve started looking into OCD. My partner thinks I could have it, and I used to think it was always just a cleaning thing or being a little particular. I talked to my partner recently about these intense intrusive thoughts and I guess compulsions(?) that need to be done or else things would feel bad. That’s obviously simplified, I don’t really want to get into full detail since I’m still real uncomfortable with it? I don’t know, I’m worried that I don’t actually have OCD and I’m just using that name with something that’s not that? When/how did some of you realize you have OCD?

Hi everyone I understand intrusive thoughts but how would you describe impulses and images. Sometimes at work I get this fleeting thought or it feels like “what if I did” this moment. And it makes me panic or anxious. Is that find of how you describe it. I sometimes get triggered by them. Can anyone else relate?

Hi Guys. So I’m having a bad week. I used to have HIV fear but it got a lot better. Anyways for work we take residents into the community for activities. This week we took them to the snowball stand. I had my snowball with me the whole time. But I noticed blood on my ice cream so I asked my friend to look to see if I was bleeding. She said she saw a red spot in my mouth but couldn’t confirm I was bleeding. Then as I continued to eat I noticed more smeared like blood on my spoon. I didn’t know what to do so I kept eating thinking the blood had to be mine. Long story short, after intrusive thoughts popped in and I was like what if one of the residents put their spoon in my snowball and switched spoons with me and I didn’t know and the blood was from them? My rational brain tells me this isn’t possible as I had my snowball with me the whole time and would have noticed but my irrational brain is like what if. My husband said I’m being absurd as I would have noticed. Also the odds of them bleeding from their mouth would be low. Later I looked at my mouth and I had what looked like a cut/busted lip. I’m freaking out about hiv although I know I’m probably catastrophizing and blowing this up. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before so it scared me 😭😭 has anyone ever experienced something like this before or can you give me advice?

Today I was watching inside a well and while watching that well I had a thought what if I jump into it and now My mind is convincing me what if I am dead and all the things I am seeing are actually after death dream like how can I come out of this illogical thoughts, I mean any helps? I am in super panic state right now and my false memory is trying to convince me that I actually jumped into the well 😭😭