Welcome to
the NOCD Community

I feel like OCD has made me a shell of the person I used to be. I am not able to keep up with work, family or friends. I am worried I will lose the ability to work and connect.

It’s so hard to not seek reassurance and to not engage in mental compulsions and rituals. You will feel safe and reassured, and then the vicious OCD cycle returns coming back with “evidence” and putting memories on loop. The reassurance you did feels useless and it feels like you’re against a monster that keeps asking what if’s, how about’s, and you will’s. I miss who I was a week ago, being able to go to clubs, on vacation, hang out with friends, go on walks, watch movies and listen to music. I was a college radio DJ and would listen to hours of music and now it’s triggering. I was looking at my screen activity and noticed I started using NOCD again on Wednesday, I miss who I was on Monday and Tuesday. But it’s been comforting to know I’m not the only one experiencing this. I know ERP is scary, OCD will have you thinking you’re a special case or that this flare is different, it’s a mental hell. It’s comforting knowing I’m not alone, my family is supporting me and they’re going to help me get enrolled to get insurance and start ERP with NOCD and start sertraline again. It just feels scary, what if this time is real, what if this time it’s not OCD. Of course it’s OCD, but OCD has no logic and will latch on. Sending everyone strength and courage. Don’t give up! We got this!

I feel like something that pulls me back into the ocd cycle is the fear that I won’t ever feel like my normal self again. That every single thing I go through since OCD ruined my life will be tainted by OCD. I have been in therapy for six months now and days like today I feel hopeless that I will never get better coz it’s been too many months now and it still has a hold on me. Does anyone feel the same way?

Has anyone continuously googled themselves?? I hear of people doing background checks on themselves. I just need some support. I have done this compulsion for 6 weeks straight now. There are some spam results at the bottom of searches that contain key word stuffing phrases some which are inappropriate. I guess when spammers create these pages, the more you click on them, the more they get paid. reported to google and they even sent me an article about spam/key word stuffing and read some other stuff of people going through this. Ugh but why does my OCD have to put meaning to this!! This is so scary, I hate that i can’t use logic because clearly it’s not even related to me. This can be so distressing

How can you accept uncertainty when it is maybe, maybe not a false memory and it would ruin everything when it is true? How can someone accept this? I do not remember the act of cheating, I just remember drunken thoughts like "I wanna die, how could I have forgot about my bf earlier this evening etc." I can not do this anymore, I feel like I am living a lie. I love my bf so so much and doing stugf with hin hurts me so badly. I use this as exposure but it is just getting worse.

Whenever I read about erp and recovery I find something like "it's not a full recovery, thoughts will still be there" and it triggers a massive anxiety attack in me and a feeling of hopelessnes. What does it REALLY mean to recover? I think I don't know anything at this point

I think i have all themes of ocd. I just overthink literraly about each and everything in my life. I am now scared of relationships in my life. I will be getting 30 next month and i am not even married. All people of my age will be in relationships and might be married. I feel like i will either die single or if i get married it won't be a good person and i won't be happy. I think negative about both cases. What age is too late for marriage? I feel too old now. I feel like my youth has already passed and i don't have any energy left. I am just so stressed and have anxiety about it😭😭

I was watching a video about mental health and self hatred was mentioned and as i was listening it, i started feel anxious and then i was like "i hate myself its so bad" and i started to feel depressed. This happened in the past alot of times and with different topics too, but now i was more aware and i could notice, this isnt true. If i would go to therapy and i would tell that i feel depressed cause i hate myself, we would work on loving myself, but now i was aware that its not that the problem. I felt really sad, cause i believed the thought that i hate myself, when i dont, i just struggle a bit now and i cant feel that big loving feeling towards myself as in normal days, and i interpreted that as i hate myself, so i started feeling sad about it. Is this part of ocd? Alot of times it happened that i had a really strong thought like this, i had like "youre depressed, youre a narcisisst, youre suicidal or i was suicidal in the past" and i believed these thoughts, expecially when the feeling of sadness came with them, it was hard to not believe them.

Hello, Ive struggled with OCD throughout my life. The themes have changed as I gotten older but it ranges from being certain I was HIV positive to that I would have comitted terrible crimes. But I finally thought I kicked it when I went on medication and had a really great year with little to no Intrusive thoughts. But now the thoughts are back in full force because I’ve met the most wonderful woman and I’ve never felt like this for another person in my life. I’ve started to think I’ve cheated on her early in our relationship. When we first started to see each other I still talked to other people because we met on a dating site and i’m very afraid of rejection so I dated multiple people until our 5th date when I realized she is the one I want to persue. We didn’t become a couple until 3 months later because she wanted to take it slow. I’ve told her all of this that I still talked to another girl until our 5th date but after that I fell in love. I confessed to this multiple times and felt awful for weeks. Now I’ve let it go and started to Imagine that I talked to the other girl longer and that i’ve forgotten. I ruminate constantly, read old messages that confirm my story but I still can’t stop obsessing that what if I talked to another girl later. If that would be the case I could never forgive myself. I’ve beaten myself up for it for months now and it’s starting to ruin my health and relationship. I really need some advice. Please help, I don’t know what to do😓

I have such bad ocd over my looks and my friends aren't helping. A lot of my friends are dudes and they tend to he really crass. Yk the engineering types right? I have this one friend who's like well super honest and he's not a bad person he's my fashion friend no shade against him. I often ask him for advice for fashion and he told me I looked a lot hotter without my glasses, that I go from a 7.5 to a 10/10. Me and my ex were joking around and we are still friends and i was like "you're a 7 youfe cute why are you still single?" Amd he was like "you're an 8 and you are too!". We were just joking around and my ocd fixated on it. My other friend once we were talkijgbaboit looks and dating and he was like "you're not average but you're not a model" which is true. This other time (now this was actually kind of weird) I have this one male friend that is objectively unattractive and was into me, and i had a massive crush on a guy who's super hot and we were talking about him and he was like "well he has low self esteem so will probably say yes" which kind of hurt my feelings. We were also just talking about men and women and dating and he was like , if you make the first move unless he's smoking hot he will say yes. So either he meant he's not going to try to look for other options first so will immediately say yes, or you're mid. The same dude also told me that I was pretty so idk. My ocd is making me fixate on my looks. My depression is terrible so being pretty feels like the only way I can have value. I don't see how I'm worth anything if I'm not pretty. Like there's nothing else about me that's worth anything

Let out some tears tonight, man. I was over at my parents and my niece came home. She was sitting across from me and my ocd kept drilling into my head that you need to look to see if you see anything. It's always been that way but as if recent I've done a great job at resisting. But this time it's like the ocd said "stop putting up so much of an effort to not look. It'd be less stressful if you gave into the compulsion!" Obviously that's a lie because we all know when we give into compulsions, they make us feel worse. It's hard to not feel "why me? Why do I have to deal with this? Why do I feel compelled to look?". It's defeating because I've done well with resisting compulsions like that and it's like out of all types of compulsions in ocd why does it have to be this? What's crazy is after the compulsion, I was still at my parents and talked to my niece about coming over next week while she's on break and watching Christmas movies with her and my brother, then she came up to me as I was leaving and we gave each other a hug. I mean that should be great news right?? But the OCD is shutting that down and I'm allowing it because it's like the ocd is shaming me and I'm just taking it because I feel ashamed. It's hard not to fall into that mindset of "you haven't been triggered by this in a while, so you should be good". One thing I have to work on is having Self compassion with being triggered and feeling bothered. It's just difficult. Because with POCD, it can be easy to feel so ashamed and not worthy of self compassion. I know God will repair me. I have faith that he will continue to uphold me with his righteous right hand. I pray that he helps me to remain hopeful. OCD can knock me down as many times as it wants but what I want is to never stay down. To never change my course in fear of the OCD. I will not let this ruin the plans I made to watch Christmas movies with my niece and brother next weeks. Because I've wanted to watch Christmas movies with someone as I haven't watched any this year since I didn't have anyone to watch them with. The holidays can be a rough time for those who deal with all sorts of mental health issues. But let's try our hardest to enjoy them. To smile. ❤️💚

How exactly do you stop ruminating? It’s my worst compulsion and it’s pretty much constant.

Today I had a session with my therapist just checking in and giving her a bit of what I’m struggling with at the moment in terms of ocd. She told me that something I had thought was completely outlandish and abhorrent was actually very common in the general population but I still continued to doubt her and she made me do an exposure on it by reading a peer reviewed article by professional psychologists and I STILL doubt it even as I’m typing this right now. The point of this post is to show you that no amount of reassurance is enough, ocd will ALWAYS doubt the answer because it wants to see you panic. I have decided that i will live uncertain. i will let my values guide me instead of my thoughts. it's scary but worth it in the end.

This morning I had the realisation I might have fallen asleep on a random stray kitten that snuck into my house, obviously I can’t find it anywhere in my house nor can I find any bodies of a dead hurt kitten anywhere home neither did my family, but each of these scenarios can be explained by either the kitten leaving my house in agony and dying outside or my family just lying about finding one as to not hurt my feeling. How does one go aout such unverifiable thoughts, how can I know I didn’t fell asleep on a kitten when I can’t really feel it on a soft bed when under me? Or that it might have jumped on my bed last second when I’m laying on it after I checked there was nothing on it? I know it’s unlikely but I can’t keep living like that... I spend several hours not sleeping yesterday night vecause I kept checking under me while in bed never being satisfied and sure I haven’t falle asleep on a cat and just forced myself to fall asleep regardless but I feel guilty now...

I have an awful confession/reassurance compulsion and I do it to my boyfriend all the time and it’s always upsetting thoughts for him and he says it’s ok and he’s fine but I’m afraid he’s gonna realize I’m a bad person or get tired of it and leave me

So I've been struggling deeply with uncomfortable intrusive sexual thoughts and it makes me feel so awful and like I'm a bad person even though I never ever want to do these things. I was doing really well recently but then at my school some stranger walked up to me and started being really creepy and making sexual comments and trying to touch me inappropriately and he was just being like really agreesive towards me. It really freaked me out and I've been feeling so dirty and gross. Apparently I found out it happened to another girl as well and now I'm worried about seeing him again or something. I guess I just feel terrible because my OCD is saying that im going to be like him or that I deserved what happened to me and it's been really difficult... I reported it and everything I just need advice on how to deal with this

I’ve been dealing with intrusive thoughts and groinals for over a year and a half now, and the problem has only grown worse and worse. It began with just passing thoughts, and then I started developing groinals a few months in. It is genuinely with everything I love- mostly my family, but also my dogs, the toddler I babysit- and I am suffering so so so much. Eventually, it got to the point where the thoughts didn’t just pass- they would turn into a MINDSET for me and cloud my judgement for seconds to minutes. I feel like I’m in the backseat of my mind, and whatever disgusting irrational monster exists in their is taking the wheel. This still sometimes happens to me, and after it passes I look back on it and genuinely don’t want to live because of how horrible and disgusting I feel. I’m writing this because I just had a really bad moment having to do with my sibling (although things like that happen almost every day to me). No normal human is built for this, and I genuinely can’t do this anymore. I’m not expecting anyone to do anything, as I’m already getting help, but I just needed to get this out. Also, I’m not sure if this happens to anyone else, but I’ll have the WORST and most awful intrusive moments, and then after a bit of time passes I can barely remember how I felt in that moment. It is so hard to feel okay with myself. If anyone even sees this, know that I am wishing for all your happiness and recovery.

do you hear your thoughts? are your intrusive thoughts words? it feels like I talk to myself all day fighting with my brain in my head and i’m worried.

I’ve been posting so much and I keep shaking my head and saying “shut up” over and over again. I really don’t wanna leave my room and have to face my sister cause she already knows what I’ve been dealing with. Especially with the content of my intrusive thoughts I just can’t. What’s wrong with me? Why is this only getting worse? When will I be me again? Was I ever really me or was this me all along? Will I have to accept and make peace that the worst might be true? I don’t want to do that cause I do NOT WANT TO BE THIS PERSON. I DONT WANT IT I DONT WANT IT I DONT WANT IT. I’m so horribly tired of constantly dealing with these thoughts and feeling like it’s what I want and like when it was NEVER SOMETHING I WOULD HAVE WANTED OR LIKEED. please please please I don’t want this why can’t it stop? I’m supposed to be better than this I’m supposed to be so much more please. I’m so sorry

Lately my OCD has been latching onto the fear of sleepwalking. As far as I know, I've never slept walk in my life. But it's been popping up a lot as a new fear...it's particularly distressing if I happen to have a weird or disturbing dream. I know how to handle it, accept uncertainty and all that. I'm just venting here. I hate OCD so much lol. I feel guilt today with this episode following a dream. Even though I was awoken by the dream in my bed and firmly under the covers. It seems evident it was a dream since I woke up immediately...but my brain goes "what if you actually woke up long after the dream but it just seems like you woke up immediately" I hate this disorder lol.