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the NOCD Community

therapy isn’t super accessible to me rn and i’m wanting to start practicing erp on my own the best i can. how can i start?

My brain tends to tell me that i’m lying about my OCD for attention. Or thinking that i’m just using it to lie about my intrusive thoughts…but when I ask myself and others. I was diagnosed with OCD but my brain says it’s just attention. Is this normal?

OCD and anxiety are back in full swing due to something I have absolutely no control over. My brother has been a drug addict for a long time. He’s been able to get sober a couple times but this time is the worst I’ve ever seen him. I know there isn’t much I can do. You just basically sit and watch the demise of the person you used to know and love. He tells us he wants help but he just needs to get high one last time then he’s done, of course, neither I or the rest of my family help him with that request. We don’t give him cash, we will get him food and that’s it, maybe my dad will buy him cigarettes. I don’t sleep well, I am constantly over thinking, I have images going through my head constantly, I’m planning events that haven’t even happened yet. The OCD thoughts are terrible, and although knowing what the thoughts are helps, it brings me extreme guilt. Today I feel like I’ve just been floating through the day, I can’t remember the last time I’ve dissociated this hard for this long without being able to snap out of it. It was easy to ignore his situation but this time he asked me for help, good help. Help to get him out of his situation, what do you do in that situation? Of course I’m gonna help him. Of course he wanted to seek help then after saying he wanted to stay at my house till he went, but now it’s been 2-3 weeks, he still would’ve been at my house if I had said yes cause he clearly isn’t ready to leave this chapter behind. I’m so tired of dealing with this. I’m 23 in 3 days. He is gonna be 27 in March, our parents are no better than he is at this point, and no help to me or him. My brother won’t talk to my mom cause he’s angry with her for kicking his gf out, he talks to my dad but my dad doesn’t think he’s in any position to tell him anything (which is true, he really isn’t but he can try at the bare minimum) so it’s basically on me to figure this out, our sister offered to help with the charges up against him, but he didn’t ask for a PD so he needs to do that too. I’m stuck, I’m tired of dealing with this, and I don’t want the anxiety that comes with it. Thanks for listening to my rant :)

I’m so angry right now. I saw a quote of a tweet and I didn’t know what it was about. I opened the tweet and saw p0rn. People were talking about ages, cps, etc etc. I was like ?????????? I checked underneath the tweet bc I KNOW someone In following did not repost cp. I have no clue what it’s about but I’m so scared right now like what the FUUUUUUUUUCK. What’s if that’s what I saw? And what if when I opened it again (I didn’t look, I was trying to see what people were talking about because I was confused and I hoped it wasn’t cp and that it was just my OCD). But oh my god. I unfollowed the person. They’re just a girl who’s my age and we both like astrology. So I’m like??????? I really hate ts like omg this is my 13th reason

Today I woke up with an intrusive thought of being scared to have hurt my dog when I was last downstairs. Then I went through everything that I remembered from the night to prove that everything was always alright. But then suddenly I got the intrusive thought „what if I had hurt my little sister when k woke up one time at 4 am?“ and like, before this thought I remembered everything from 4 am really clearly. I woke up bc of noise coming from outside of my room and thought that it might already be 6 am so I looked at the clock to realise it wasn’t. I then realised that it wasn’t 6 am yet and then I don’t know what exactly had happened but at some point my AirPods were next to me and I was looking for their case to charge them but saw it was on the table and I was too lazy to get up so I just let them stay there. I was still hearing the noise which was my little sister crying bc she probably felt ill idk. My mother was there. I know that my little sister had been in my mothers room all the time basically. And then I went back to sleep. I can’t remember anything else after that anymore, probably bc I was sleeping. But I keep being like „but what if my mother had brought my little sister to her room and I hurt her then?“ and like idk if this even makes sense at all bc my mother has like this camera thing whenever she’s not in the same room as my little sister and has it on full volume. This only just now, after hours of ruminating, clicked in my head. Like, she def would’ve heard if I had hurt her right? And from what I remember, she had spent the entire night in my mums room anyway. Like I genuinely don’t remember standing up, nothing. But even when I resist ruminating, the thought won’t leave me. Like it’s this pitch in my stomach. This pitch telling me „what if it’s true though? Why do you not feel bad? What if it’s actually real and you really forgot doing this and now those are your memories and you don’t even feel bad abt it? Would you live with the thought having done this? Are you capable of doing this?“ and it won’t leave me. Like it makes me feel as it this is actually a real memory. But I didn’t remember this even when I got the thought. Like it’s all powered by „what if“s. I keep being told that not ruminating will give a sense of logic back but no matter how many times I’m like „yea no don’t ruminate, later you will have your logic back and you’ll be able to think abt this as irrational“ but it feels as if I’m further away from the truth than I was the first time I replayed my memories. It’s as if ruminating completely messed up my memories. I don’t know anymore, this feeling is making me doubt whether it’s not actually true deep down and I just lost control over myself at night. Like I remembered the night so well the first time I was replaying it. Had No doubts over this. Maybe if this thought won’t leave I’ll ask my mother but I don’t want to distress her but at the same time I just need to know. I generally always wake up with such fears. One time I was scared to have lost control over my brain at night and if I had just watched illegal videos and forgot abt it (turned out wrong of course after checking my screen time so), then 188273 times I was scared to have hurt my dog and now this. Like I think she was with my mother but now I’m not sure anymore. By now I’m yet again back at having to lock my door at night to make sure I don’t have to worry abt hurting others.

Is this normal? Does everyone experience this or if you experience it it really means that it's not for you. Or this is the same as relationship ocd? Im not in a good state these days but its okay cause im actually getting stronger now, but im really prone to have negative thoughts and any feelings that makes me question everything. I want to work with music, when im in my normal state i do know i want to work with it, but now i got feelings like maybe its not for me, and even that i dont like it now or something similar, and it scared me, it scared me cause deep down i think i want it and before i knew this is my path but now these feeling and thoughts scared me. "Does it mean its really not for me? Am i just avoiding to accept im not good for that, it's not actually for me?" I have these kind of thoughts.

I felt so understood when I learned that a characteristic of OCD is to question or doubt your own judgment. This is something I experienced quite frequently, and especially around my physical disability which causes pain. I wanted to ask if anybody else living with OCD and a disability or chronic illness sometimes questions their pain and has thought patterns along the lines of "this hurts... but does it really hurt?" Or " I don't feel good.... but do I just not feel good because I'm thinking about how I don't feel good?" Let me know in the comments if this is something you experience. Sending love and support to anyone living with OCD or other comorbid conditions. P.S- I have found OCD recovery YouTube Channel very validating

I don’t even know if I have ocd but recently, I started to get these intrusive thoughts whenever I talk to someone. Like I think of saying something very mean or harmful (which I obviously don’t want to say). This has made me lose a lot of my confidence and makes it difficult for me to talk to people. Nowadays I try so hard to think of the right thing to say that it’s made me take too long to respond to someone. It makes me seem boring and not fun. It sucks because my entire life I never had this problem. I used to be so funny and happy. I used to talk a lot and was very extroverted. I loved to talk. Now I don’t know who I am or who I want to be anymore. I don’t know how to talk to people anymore. This all started when I started college. I just want my old self back.

At what age did your OCD begin to develop? I've had mine pretty much ever since I can remember.

I have my first appointment next Monday and I’m basically just trying to bide my time til then. I’ve struggled with OCD for my whole life, but I’m 42 and am in a deep valley at the moment. I’m headstand to share my struggles on places like this because I’m afraid I’ll pass my fears on to others. (Which has happened to me before). Any comments about how quickly ERP will start to show results?

My ocd feels like my brain is convinced I am something that I don’t want to be, or never wanted to be. Even to the point it’s convincing that I like it, or want it, and I’m in denial for not accepting it. Since my first big theme (10 years ago) it feels like I’ve never been myself since. It feels like I’m unable to feel pleasure, excitement, drive for life. Either I’ve lost the ability or my brain says you have to figure this out before you can. It feels like a constant anxiety feeling in my stomach or back of my mind. It goes from mildly noticeable to full blown panic, but never fully leaves. It feels inevitable that it comes in the morning. Anyone else?

I'm the middle child of 3 siblings. My older sibling is getting married this year, and my younger sibling is working to get into nursing school. And then there's me. The one with the Problems. I feel like my parents deserve a better middle daughter than me. I feel like such a disappointment that they have to put up with me and my constant crying. I hate feeling like I kill the good mood/transfer my bad feelings to them. No matter how many times they comfort me, no matter how much they support me and accept me, I still feel like an annoyance and a burden on them. I feel like a f^cking baby because of my mental health problems. I'm normally unstoppable, and have my own unique strengths and abilities, but THIS is what stops me. Anyone else feel like you're just a dumb, dependent child because of your OCD?

im just questioning my ocd and myself as per usual. i just wish i could taste life again. i think i forgot who i am and how to live. every time i have a moment of peace, it's destroyed by remembering my ocd. "this is not normal, why am i feeling okay? what if it's bad? what if-?" or some shit like that. i dont like this and i dunno what to do about it anymore. oh well.

Hii! I hesitated before posting this but here I am.. Ocd are a living hell rn to me. I barely eat or sleep anymore because of it, I’m just scared of everything, ruminations are here every night leading to panic attacks, sh, psychosis,.. it’s like « what if I’m/or do something bad, what if I did something wrong and I don’t remember,.. I store my studies because of all of this..I can’t do this anymore I’m so tired of compulsions and everything I have more ocd but rn it’s the most debilitating for me, if someone have experienced the same things or just have tips I take it!

I feel like I’m at a point that I’ve had the thoughts so long that now this just can’t be OCD. It feels like I’m losing touch with reality. And I’ll get one thought and then another one comes and it gets so confusing. I will feel better for a split second but then I will feel like I’m just getting worse in the next second. I don’t even know how to explain it. I am terrified and I want this to go away. The feeling of just being out of it or not all here is killing me. Even writing this feels odd. I’m so scared I’m losing touch with reality. I don’t know what to do.

How do you battle your reassurance seeking? I think I’m driving people crazy with all my questions, constant bothering, and phone calls. I just can’t stop asking “how do you know?”, “are you sure?”, and “what if”. It’s like it just comes out without thinking about it because I HAVE to ask the question. It’s constantly burning on the tip of my tongue waiting to be asked.

Is anyone going through something like me ? I have false memory intrusive thoughts , thinking of the possibility of having committed a crime and no remember about it And also have religious ocd thinking that God is angry at me for some reason , and that's why I'm not able to pray, like i used to... I'm so sad because he is so important to me and I would feel such big connection to the Lord when I would pray, and right now I'm afraid ...

I'm terrified that my biggest fear happened on a night I drank too much and blacked out. I now keep finding/looking for evidence to try and prove/disprove and it's terrifyingwhen I find something that supports the belief. Does anyone else experience this. So angry with myself for letting myself drink to this point. Have been so depressed

I am in my third year of university for my law degree, and I finished and submitted my essays without a proper proof read. I read over one of my essays and realised I made a mistake using the wrong word, it auto generated the wrong word and I must have clicked on it. Anyway then a whole obsession stated about me worrying that the university are going to think that I have used Ai. The thing is, I used wordtune to enhance my writing (reword my own words) but I didn’t use it to reword other people work and pass it off as my own. Anyway I’ve just terrified myself that I’ll get accused of using Ai to cheat and basically it’ll ruin my life. I can’t stop obsessing over it. I obviously haven’t cheated and it is my own work, I just used wordtune to improve my sentence structure where if needed more clarity. I don’t know if that is considered cheating or not. I’ve read up on if and it seems to be cheating if it’s used to paraphrase someone else’s work (which isn’t the case). I had to rush my assignments so that’s why I’m worried. My brother says I’m being ridiculous. I honestly can’t stop worrying.

I’ve been dealing with OCD for quite some time, and have had plenty of themes come and go. Some lasting years and some months. I have three major themes that still haunt me. They’re this constant dread of death, my moral dilemma of if I’m a good person, and recently my gender identity as a man. They all tie into each other and I more or less look at them as evolved forms of “conquered” themes. Like my self harm, Sexual Orientation, and pedophilic/assault themes. Death is a hard thing to accept though and I no longer have too many intrusive about harming myself or others for that matter because I’m constantly afraid of death. I don’t feel like a good person for my constant compulsions and compulsive behavior. I feel weak to them. I give in to my constant googling and forum browsing. I know for a fact I ask for reassurance constantly. I question my own sexuality and gender identity quite often because I’m not sure if I’m a good man and how could I prove that I am? I have a lot of compulsive regrettable and more importantly unproductive sexual encounters to make me feel like 1. I’m not gonna die 2. I can do something with my life that isn’t destructive 3. I’m a man doing my duty. Now for the gender identity portion of this I wanna make it clean that I love people from the LGBTQ+ community and support them 1000% but I feel like I’m a horrible person for being anxious and uncomfortable with these thoughts because nothing’s wrong with being gay or trans y’know?It’s either what if I’m in denial or what if I’m being too feminine y’know the whole “what ifs” thing? I don’t wanna die, I wanna be a good person. I am genuinely just scared, I just wanna live and not have the noise so loud. I mean I have panic attacks constantly. I try not to ruminate but it’s an ugly battle. It seems to me that my OCD flares up moth to month like I’ll have a good month of manageable intrusive thoughts but then the next moth I just decay. You know how many times I’ve scanned my mind just to find proof for and against all these themes? I’m sure some people can relate. OCD has made my life so isolated and I hate myself for that. I’m sorry for all the words, I’m just a mess right now. If you read this far I appreciate you so much.