Welcome to
the NOCD Community

I’ve been on 25mg for a month and first 3 weeks were rocky, but I think the medication is working. Just took my first 50mg dose and I’m so scared !

Hi, I’ve always had OCD, but it was very manageable. I’d obsess over something not being clean or in the right place, but I’d be able to redirect quickly and move on from the thought. After my Mom died in 2015 and I had my first child, I started to have intreusive thoughts. I’d replay her death over and over and wonder where her soul was or if she was okay. It kept me up all night and turned into insomnia. I was put back on Lexapro at a high dose and a sleep med and anti anxiety med were added. It seemed to help for a while until til I started to get adverse side effects from all the drugs. About 16 months ago, I started to wean off. The tapering process has been horrendous and I have had every symptom in the book , the worst being bulletproof insomnia and extreme irritability. I feel like I’m reverting back to the intrusive thoughts, but ten times worse. I keep thinking that I will never sleep again and that my life is ruined because of the long term use of meds. I’m not even off all the meds yet, but I keep playing the worst case scores over and over in my head. How do I get through this tapering process especially the obsessing about sleep and health?

Someone in my house is sick right now, probably with a cold or the flu. All I can think about is how I am going to get sick. We share a single kitchen and bathroom, so quarantine is not available in this situation. Every time they sneeze or cough I panic inside. It makes me not want to interact with any members of my family but then I get shamed for that. They shame me for wearing a mask and wiping down surfaces because it is rude to the sick person. I don’t know how to stop being so selfish. I can’t look at any items in the house without thinking about all the germs that must be on them. The air feels poison. I think my family must be right and my avoidance behaviors are selfish, but I don’t know what else to do. Even mentioning the illness makes me freak out. Imagining getting sick is terrifying, even a cold, because it means everything around me changing and canceling important plans and not getting to see my other friends and family and being isolated. On top of that it means that the germs have infected me and I hate that.

I got my bloodwork done this morning. I usually watch to make sure they use a new needle but I forgot to watch this morning. Now I am worried they reused a needle and I will get HIV. 😔. I hate myself for not watching.

Hi all, I’m new here. For the past 5ish years of my life I have lived with what I called health anxiety but recently have been researching more into OCD and I’m wondering if that’s what I might actually suffer from. I have tried multiple different therapists and types of therapy (mostly CBT and talk) but nothing has helped me. Every day I think about death and it plagues most of my thoughts in any given scenario. Usually I think about it in terms of myself because I am terrified of dying young but slightly less often I obsess over losing my husband as well. For myself this usually manifests as thinking I have specific diseases (cancer, bone disease, heart conditions, brain tumors) that are undiagnosed and underlying. I am doing constant checks and googling of my symptoms and thinking about what will happen after I die and how it will affect my loved ones and everything around me. I also become very triggered when I hear about young people dying and whenever I hear something like that or see something on social media about death or disease I think it’s a sign from the universe about myself and I spiral. I am terrified of the doctor so I actually haven’t been in a very long time but I have been trying to talk myself into getting blood tests. I’m just terrified of hearing what I feel are going to be bad results. I try not to think about my thoughts because I also have thoughts that thinking this way will manifest bad health even if I don’t already have it so then I become in an obsessive loop of thinking and then thinking about not thinking and then thinking about thinking about not thinking … I don’t know if any of this makes sense and I don’t know what I can do at this point but I am just so so exhausted of living my life this way so here is my word vomit.

Got hit on back of my head from someone elbow by accident kinda hard but there was no pain or anything I am shy and nervous so I just said why you do that and left. As I was walking I head my heart beating in my head. Now I fear I have brain damage or something bad I still remember everything my passwords my name so I didn't lose my memory. Now I'm going feel different all day and worry in my head because of it

I’ve been obsessing over the same thought for so long it seems so real and I’m questioning my sanity and I think it might be real. I’ve been thinking I might have aphasia but I can read and respond to people but sometimes I can’t understand people and it’s really confusing. Every time I try to let it go my stomach tightens but I’ve been getting these headaches for a long time and I’m scared it might be something serious. Can someone help?

TW: talk of cancer I don’t post on here much, but I’ve been dealing with Health Concern OCD my whole life. I am constantly searching for mystery illnesses that could be causing even the slightest discomforts in my body. My lymph nodes are swollen, I am trying to rationalize my thinking by saying I could just have a cold. However, I cannot stop thinking about it. I am terrified of having some form of cancer/lymphoma that I may not have noticed until now. I am restless and unable to sleep, all I can think about is what is going to happen if I get this checked out by a doctor. I want to know why this is happening in my body, but I’m scared that my worst nightmare might be true and if I was too late to get seen. I’m feeling very defeated, and trapped in my own head. Nobody knows how debilitating my OCD really is because I put on a very good facade of seeming like I’m cool calm and collected. Most of the time, I’m freaking out over the smallest changes or feelings.

I had some drinks and ate dinner last night and now wake up with anxiety. Sitting up in bed because I can hear my heart rate and am focused on it. I feel so bad!

I struggled with severe ocd since I was in 2nd grade and now I’m turning 19 so I’ve had it basically my whole life, I’ve had it bc my dad abused my mom when I was little all the way up until I was a teenager and it really hurts me and affects my life. I have intrusive thoughts and images of loved ones getting hurt and I constantly overthink about my relationship and it got worst since I became a mother bc I ALWAYS worry about my daughter and I’m scared and it makes me panic I always think that if I listen to certain songs,take showers,get cute,put on certain clothes,or just take care of myself in general that something will happen and it makes my mental health worse and i have severe anxiety I struggled with pyschosis for 2 weeks and addiction to pills I don’t have money to get a therapist or even health insurance please help me how to stop it bc even when I try to let the thoughts pass through it hurts me and makes me freeze and not even be able to breathe bc of it and I can’t even say certain words bc I overthink that something will happen and it makes me want to take my life

How do u stop overly worrying about your health. I have a sinus infection, eye infection, and ear infection and im scared there’s more to it because it doesn’t feel like anything is working

Does anyone have any suggestions for remedies and supplements that help your anxiety that aren’t medication or prescribed? I don’t think I want to go on medication, but I want some options to help calm my mind down and relieve my stress. I currently take vitamin D3 and Magnesium bisglysonate.

I'm having so many racing thoughts after dealing with a very hectic week. I can't fall asleep despite being very tired because of so many thoughts. The thing that is worrying me is that I'm not feeling my usual anxiety that I get when having racing thoughts. Does that me something bad or good? Does it mean I'm managing better? Or have I become numb? am I just too tired? I decided to google racing thoughts but no anxiety and I wish I did not google this because there were so many scary things written about different mental health disorders and now I'm wondering is there something wrong with me besides intrusive thoughts (OCD) maybe it is something worse and more scary: but I have a tiny bit of anxiousness that I feel for a tiny moment but it is nothing close to the anxiety I usually go through. I just don't know what to make of this.

And I dont know how to stop. Every minute on my mind of me trying to make myself feel better about it, hoping there is an afterlife. I keep trying to not think about it but It keeps coming up. I keep trying to imagine it to hope I give myself peace about it or think of possibilities that were in a timeloop and I’ll be born again after the loop. It’s gotten to the point where I keep thinking im about to die. Im hypersensitive to everything about my body and I keep checking my pulse to see if my heart is beating normally. I keep trying to reassurance myself im not gonna die but the thought is scary and I know im not supposed tk seek reassurance but I dont know how im not supposed to seek reassurance about this. I dont know what to do. I just feel like vessel with a brain.

Like clock work my body is trying to tell me I’m having a heart attack I just can’t anymore

So I’ve been suffering with intense health anxiety for a few years now, and just recently I learned it may be caused by OCD. It’s to the point where every time I get a headache I start to freak out, scared that I could be having an aneurysm. I am far too worried about having a stroke or heart attack for being 21. I can’t even enjoy a casual, relaxing hot shower anymore. I have to slowly increase the temperature when getting in and slowly decrease the shower while getting out because I am afraid that any drastic temperature change can give me a heart attack. I know deep down that these fears are illogical, but no matter how often I get them they still feel just as real every time. I try to reason with myself, but every time I feel mild discomfort in my body I can’t help but freak out. I am so tired of checking my face in the mirror for symptoms of stroke every time I get a headache or feel a weird sensation in my body. Every other day of the week I force myself to stay awake for a certain period of time because I’m scared if I go to sleep I won’t wake up. I get hymnic jerks every single night (where you jolt awake when drifting to sleep) because my brain is so occupied with making sure I’m staying alive that it jolts me awake because my body is trying to sleep while my mind stays awake. It’s so difficult for me to pay attention during lectures because I get so caught up in my health anxiety that I’m focusing on grounding techniques in order to keep myself from hyperventilating. I spend more time making sure I can understand the words my professor is saying to make sure I’m not having a stroke than actually paying attention to the lectures. Another thing I struggle with is having to count my medication every time before I take it to make sure I didn’t accidentally take two or more doses, even if I KNOW I only took one. I have to count them anyways otherwise my mind will convince me I overdosed. It will not stop until I count my medication and make sure I didn’t overdose. It’s honestly so tiring, and the sad part is that my health anxiety has actually gotten better. It was even worse before now, and everything I’ve listed is stuff that I still do. Does anyone else have this struggle? Because it feels so isolating and makes me feel like I’m going crazy.

Several people have shown me I’m not very important to them. I don’t know how to cope at times when I’m afraid of being sick and alone. Can you imagine what that would be like, and it’s a real possibility for me. I’m told to accept life on life’s terms, so I should accept that I might be in my own if I need help? I think I’m worth much more than that, but I might not get what I need. Will this life get worse as I get older because I have no family? I shudder to think of my future and no, I will not accept that I’ll be abandoned. I deserve better

I’m here because I’m looking for help. I’ve tried CBT but my therapist isn’t specialized in OCD and I don’t know what else to do. I’m terrified all the time, I wear a mask every day and wash my hands till they are raw. I don’t know what to do, I didn’t have anywhere near the levels of anxiety and depression before the pandemic that I have since the pandemic started, I am terrified of everything, I had Covid once but I am terrified that I’m a ticking time bomb because it does cause long lasting symptoms and can disable or kill you even after one infection and that’s what terrifies me. I’m forced to go into the office with people who don’t mask and don’t care about coughing up a lung and not covering it up. I can’t sleep without feeling like something is wrong with my heart or my body and I am constantly afraid of going out and being around people and crowds. I’m terrified of Covid and getting it again and losing my life and quality of life because of it. I’m also terrified of losing my wife because she doesn’t want a partner who just stays in the house all the time.

i’ve had pretty bad anxiety all day because of what happened last night. basically it made me scared i was getting the stomach bug, but i never threw up. i also ate a pretty good amount of food today. however, all day today i’ve just been so anxious. it’s like one minute i’m completely fine and the next i’m scared that i’m nauseous and don’t feel good. i can’t figure out if i’m okay or not. i feel like it might be me getting scared that i have symptoms which then makes me feel like i have symptoms. it’s a never ending cycle. i can’t bring myself down. i feel like i’m going at 100.

With a little backstory, I've been struggling with physical sleep issues that a medical hospital is trying to to help me with (sleep apnea, TMJ issues, etc.). Anyway, I guess my OCD knows that sleep is a problem, so it's created an obsession around it. I was laying on my two pillows, on my side, and had the thought "Hmm, my shoulder is horizontally up against the pillows, is this squishing the pillows in, bunching them up? Is the level of the pillows now unevenly distributed because of my shoulder against it? How soft/hard is my shoulder pushing against the pillow?" It's ridiculous, because I've slept this way my whole life. But now I'm hyper focused on how my body is laying against the pillows and having to have the pillows perfectly even, without any dents or flaws in them. This sucks because on top of the physical sleep issues, now I'm having OCD sleep issues. Im just so tired. I wish I could ignore it, but OCD gets so strong when I lay on my pillows now. Any advice? Anything to tell myself that could help? Thank you ahead of time.