Welcome to
the NOCD Community

I’ve officially given my therapist some of the thoughts I get from POCD and I don’t really know where to start with how im “supposed” to expose myself to them?? There’s also something I didn’t mention to her that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing and I should I have but it was already late in the session so I didn’t. Should I just wait til she assigns me the exposures and then do them?

My compulsion is reassurance seeking and I seek it from my girlfriend. My intrusive thoughts are usually sexual and I can admit my ocd has latched on to her and came up with some pretty terrible things. It’s gotten to the point where she’s started to call me names when I’ve tried to seek reassurance. She gets angry that I’m even asking about certain things and calls me a “nasty person”. I don’t think she understands ocd but how could she if she’s never had to deal with it and my ocd is of the taboo nature? I just don’t know what to do. It’s ruining our relationship.

I’m so tired of constantly being in my own head. It’s so hard to explain to the people I love/ love me. I have pocd it started 2 years ago randomly when I was a live-in nanny. I literally got up and left one day. The person I worked for thought I was selfish for leaving but I couldn’t tell her I thought I was protecting her children. From then on I’ve had this parasite (aka ocd). I have hope that things will get better one day but it affects my everyday life and my relationships. I’m scared it’s going to be why me and my boyfriend break up. Which is terrifying because I love him. He knows about the pocd and still supports me. It’s hard to have intrusive sexual thoughts about kids. It gives me immense anxiety and depression. And now after 2 years of torture it’s starting to affect my relationship with my significant other. After 6 months of being with my boyfriend the thought “what if he reminds me of a young person and that’s why I like him?” popped up two days ago. Now I’ve been stressing ever since. I want to be free of this worry in my mind. I just want to feel free in general. I feel so awful everyday. Can anyone relate?

hey its been a while since ive last been on this app. tbh my health ocd has gotten a lot better since the last few posts (yay to that!!) but ive been struggling soo much with pocd. i used to struggle w/ intrusive, obsessive thoughts like these before but they werent common and they were bearable. not anymore apparently. im so scared and disgusted at even the idea of having these thoughts, i know i would never actually do something to anyone but i keep on ruminating and its been taking me into mental crisis. anyone that could help? ive been off therapy for 2 months so im thinking that maybe that caused the obsessions to get worse but idrk im 17, about to turn 18 this year. i feel gross

Moms who have pocd and groinals. Can anyone relate? Intimacy is a very hard thing for me because I'm always worried of intrusive and groinals. I actually was sort of contemplating with my husband later and I wanted to. Then we ate dinner and then my son sat on my lap and it's like I was waiting to feel any feeling in my body. And I kept feeling like I was feeling something. So now I feel like it will have to be another night since I don't want to do it just in case I had some sort of groinal response. I guess my question is has any other mom dealt with this exact thing and how did you escape from this? Ugh it's been years I've been tormented by this. But I can't just go do it anyways because I'm afraid the groinal could have been real and then I'm acting on it somehow. Ughhh

I just woke up from a dream where I was helping with someone’s baby, and I was excited to help them change their diaper. I don’t think I had evil intentions in the dream because I didn’t think anything creepy, but it makes me feel weird that I was excited. I think I was just excited to help with the baby but I also in the dream was nervous because I didn’t want to look at their privates. My mom was with me and I was asking her questions about what to do, so it makes me feel better she was with me like I really didn’t have evil intentions. But it still makes me feel uncomfortable and I woke up before actually going near their diaper. I feel anxious and my heart is racing because I feel like I wasn’t in a deep sleep and like I was fantasizing. I in real like have zero desire to go near a baby and I know I would be too afraid to help change a diaper. But also now I keep having images of them without the diaper in my head and it feels like I’m fantasizing. I don’t care about a child’s privates, it’s none of my business. I think the only reason I had this dream is because I worry with intrusive thoughts about harming children a lot in the day. But I’ve been up a lot of the night and again makes me worried that I wasn’t all the way asleep and was enjoying it. People have told me not to pay attention to dreams but it’s just hard not to.

I gotta share this because I think we can all get through this OCD! But you gotta put the work in! The homework therapist gives is to help us, and for me, i think i had a breakthrough. So I am a month into my ERP therapy through here and let me tell you… it sucks most days. What i like about my therapist I got on here is she told me she’s been working in hospital and prison wards, so she’s probably heard and seen some stuff and what I got probably ain’t that bad. I started with CBT but my OCD was getting rough after about a year so now I’m giving ERP a try. I was asked to write a letter to someone that I believed was triggering my OCD and so I did. I went through a whole spiral with my POCD, honestly I feel like a monster. But! I’m also recalling some stuff I have kept suppressed and never wanted to mention in therapy, and I think it’s probably time I process that stuff, no matter how ashamed or guilty I feel. Ultimately, it’s probably what is causing the doubt disorder to overtake me. So for those of you struggling, keep going! And be completely open! I promise you your therapist has heard some stuff and you are probably far from what they have heard.

Hiding in the bathroom at work cause I needed to let it out. None of this is ok. Can POCD be mistaken for actual pedophilia? I don’t want to keep doing this I really don’t like living right now.

I just want to obsess and attach a whole story. What if I’m stuck this way. What if I go crazy and can’t remember what I’ve done. What if I stop loving God and turn to new age and I become evil and start hurting people. I just can’t. I have never thought I was evil. My entire life until I had my daughter and my mind told me she was of the devil. I was so mad at myself. How could I think about my precious gift this way? And now I’m so clueless as to why I even exist and how could this happen. It’s like nothing is real an tangible anymore. I feel like everything is such a blur in this life. I want God to be real. He has always been my whole life. It even makes 100% sense to me at the same it doesn’t 😭 I didn’t waver on my beliefs at all before this kid and it’s like me thinking about her like that has caused me so many problems along with horrible side effects from meds that made me see things in slow motion. I’m in therapy but it’s take so long to heal and for me to love my life and me again. I feel like I look at my self and think. You can’t trust you anymore. This world too has turned upside down to me. I am just so heartbroken. I want to be a good person an it seems like I’m going to turn evil any second and I’ve never been purposely evil or mean to anyone. I got bullied as a kid. 😢. I feel like I’m losing my identity an understand who I am.

How do I stop the thoughts of false attraction towards a family member like my dad it won’t stop and I feel like such a bad and manipulative person

Ok, so I’m looking into past events…. So, I worked at a preschool and a little boy held onto my leg but I got a bad thought but still let my legs go apart to let him hug my leg. I feel awful cause I was thinking how his hands could’ve possibly hit my upper genital area…. I remember worrying about it back then and I’m still worrying about it to this day. Also, I remember thinking how this little girl may end up hitting my area if I don’t move. I didn’t move and felt awful cause I knew it would happen… it has bothered me ever since! I don’t know if that makes me an awful person. Was I taking away innocence of children by not moving?

hi all, i hope you’re all having a good day today, hopefully. i just wanted to come and ask if you guys think it’s possible for someone to have kids if they possibly have POCD thoughts? honestly, i’ve always really wanted kids, start my own family, etc, but out of the blue i started, not thinking sexually about kids, but started feeling weird-ish around them, and my thoughts flared up with weird things, and it distresses me so so much because i’ve never felt this way ever, i’ve always been fond of kids and have always wanted some of my own until these thoughts came up. i’m not sure how to overcome this because there are various times where i’m totally okay around them but then my mind wants to force itself to think these weird things about them & it confuses me all over again :/

Recently I have been struggling with sexual themed OCD and my main concern is that I can't help but thinking of real life situations, sexual thoughts, and feeling like I would enjoy it in real life (pocd, etc). I even have dreams in which I enjoy these sexual situations. I even feel like I like to think of these thoughts to test myself. I feel really disgusting and lost... Is is OCD or real attraction? Does it happen to anyone else? Would anyone have advice for me? Thank you so much and good luck 🫂

hi i hope everyone is well!! i’m a bit upset atm. so i have had pocd for a while now and one of my biggest fears is happening rn. my younger cousin has to sleep with me as her parents are away and she said she wants to stay with me as she feels less homesick with me which is so adorable and it shows she feels safe with me. but im so scared of false memory ocd playing up and the what ifs. like i’m petrified to go into my room rn nc the thoughts are “everyone is asleep what if you do something” “what if you do something and don’t remember” or “what if you do something when you’re half asleep or asleep”. it’s almost 2am here and ive locked myself in the bathroom. im actually really nervous. she hasn’t slept in the same room as me since 2022. 😭😔 like my body feels like it needs to be tensed up and that i cannot relax. any advice will be appreciated

Ok so I’m freaking out right now guys this has really got me , I’m reading up about urges etc on the internet and like how people with harm ocd might want to harm themselves , so what if u have pocd do u urge to want to do something sexual with a child ? Surely then that does make you a pedophile or are the urges compulsions ? I’m so confused and scared about this

I feel like giving up. Idk what to do anymore. All of these intrusive thoughts idk if they are real or not. I wouldn’t ever hurt my daughter but I feel like I can’t be a father or am capable of it anymore. I’m so down and out of it.

I made a friend recently online and we get along great/talk everyday/etc. But today they told me they've got like an internet stalker who doxxed them and knows where they live and has threatened them and stuff and won't leave them alone. Anyway, not long after someone messaged me saying my friend is actually 12 and is super racist or something, and that they have proof and need me to believe them. I dont interact with minors, it triggers my POCD. Secondly, I'm anxious because I don't want to get involved in drama at ALL. and I'm scared of just blocking them because I'm afraid I'll get doxxed or harassed. My anxiety is really bad, I don't know. I compulsively want to just cut off this friend but they told me they don't have friends because of this so I feel bad. Besides, I do like them as my friend but. I dont know. I'm not built for this kind of thing I just want to be safe.

Does anyone get unwanted sexual thoughts? I get them frequently and I didn’t know what subtype to add them into because it didn’t fit the “children” one they had as an option. I get these with family members and it makes me feel horrible and disgusted with myself. I used to get them when I was younger and I didn’t know what it was at the time, I just remember that I felt really icky and grossed out. I know these thoughts aren’t me but lately it’s been getting worse and I’m not sure how to stop them. I’ve never outwardly confessed this to anyone, but I know this isn’t me. And I want to stop these thoughts. If anyone has any suggestions on how please help.

Does anyone who has pocd struggle or has struggled with suicidal thoughts everyday just feels like a constant endless suffocating loop that will never end I can’t be around my baby I can’t get rid of groinal responses I can’t get rid of these thoughts I can’t abandon my child but it feels like that’s the only solution I don’t want to die but it feels like nothing is getting better.

Today I woke up with the intrusive thought „did I harm my dog sexually during the night?“. My brain is specifically relating to the time of 3:57 when I woke up once. From what I remember I only woke up and thought abt going to the toilet but being too lazy and scared of the night so I went back to sleep. But I keep being worried I might have actually been up before that time and done sth. Like I seriously have no Memoires of doing so. Only things that I know were produced by my imagination bc they’re not really possible. I’ve already asked my mother if she had heard me go downstairs at night (we have like some kind of door that keeps you from falling down the stairs which is quite loud to open) but she said she doesn’t know and she hadn’t heard anything and said she’s 100% sure nothing had happened due to how my dog doesn’t seem to care at all and seems to not be scared of me. I’ve also thought abt asking my father and sister but they can’t actually hear anything. Maybe at like 3 am they were up tho for a snack? I know my father often goes to the kitchen at night to eat sth and my sister too. I guess I’ll ask both of them tomorrow. And the thing is that we actually have a camera in our garden which captures a bit of the door where my dog always sleeps and we have a light there so I could’ve been able to check up for my dog in the cameras. Turned out that my parents had turned the camera off at some point. Seems like they only wanted to capture stupid animals hopping onto our car and watching our own family go into the house. Wonderful. I don’t know what to do. The only thing I could now do is either trust my memories and let it go or check for the logic. Last time I was scared I might’ve hurt my dog, I realised that it wasn’t possible for that to have happened and that all of my memories were false. But to be honest, I’m so tired I don’t want to fill 5 days of my life with checking the logic of my obsession. I’ve had multiple su!cide thoughts by now. I’ve spent almost half my day crying. This is my lowest point. I can’t accept the uncertainty. I’m so far in this rn I actually today decided to lock my room from now on and hide my key, take a picture of it to remember it’s exact position and then close the door of the wardrobe I’m hiding it in and putting tape around the openings of the doors from the wardrobe. I seriously don’t want to keep living if this is the life my brain chose to give me.