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the NOCD Community

I always put trigger warning just to be safe because honestly OCD will find ANYTHING to trigger itself. I used this app when I really needed people who had a similar experience and since I have ADHD and OCD my OCD meds are slowly not working because my ADHD meds were upped. Which stinks but I’m going to call and tell them I need the dosage upped. I wanted to come here and say that this road to recovery isn’t easy. It’s bumpy and it’s messy. I’m still confessing as a compulsion and giving any new friends an out so they can leave me. I just want you to know you aren’t alone and I know how it feels❤️we will get through this and we will be okay😊

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?

I hate how compulsions can just lead to more obessions. I have fears that I ended up on dark web sites and a video popped up on my feed about illegal websites. At first I didn't want to watch it but I hoped it would reduce my anxiety if I watched it and didn't remember being on any of the listed sites. The creator ended up listing dark web search engines, and thats where i stopped the video. While sort of relieving because I didn't recognize any of the things he listed, now I have a fear that since I know how to get to the dark web I want to and look for terrible things. I should have listened to myself and moved on from the video.

I’ve been doing good by not posting but I’m hoping that someone can validate me a bit… I know I don’t feel sexual feelings towards anyone but my partner, but the thought of intentionally imagining someone’s body intentionally makes me so anxious, even my own family including my little daughter… I guess what I’m asking is do people without ocd experience that same discomfort of not wanting to intentionally imagine anyone’s body regardless of the context or who it is? I feel like depending on the person and context, maybe imagining someone as a whole person may not be bad? But I feel uncomfortable about intentionally imagining just peoples body even though there’s no sexual meaning? Does that make people without ocd uncomfortable too? I don’t want to feel like I have to do things like that to become “normal”… sometimes I’ll have intrusive thoughts saying to intentionally do something and then it’s like the image just comes in my head when I don’t actually want it to?? It’s really confusing and upsetting. Can someone please give me a bit of clarity? The AI thing on Snapchat said that it’s normal for people without ocd to feel uncomfortable by that… and I understand you could have a thought and an image just comes in on it’s own without you trying…

When you realize that your thoughts will never go away, but that you need to create a world where you and those thoughts can exist in harmony, is where you find peace. ✌️

Made up scenarios have gotten so much worse lately. My intrusive thoughts make this whole story up where Im an awful terrible person, and vivid images show up in my mind. I feel so so guilty about it until i finally snap back into reality and realise its just my brain trying to trick me. I am so sick of this.

Does your ocd ever make you feel like people/pets/loved ones are somehow "contaminated"? I have about 1 real bad episode per year.. that my dad & my cat are somehow "contaminated" just because I had scary thoughts about them. The belief that they are "contaminated/messed up", leads to depression. It is the scariest thing. It's like an emotional contamination fear.

I (20f) adopted a cat about 7 months ago from my local animal shelter. I absolutely adore him and he is the light of my life. However, I can’t help but obsess over the fact that I am not giving him the quality of life he deserves and that he’s actually suffering and depressed. He is a healthy cat and I’m giving him the best quality foods/toys and attention that I can as a busy college kid, but this thought just plagues my mind and I can’t seem to think that the life im giving him is sufficient. How do I get over this guilt?

I’ve fully convinced myself that I want to harm my family, and I don’t know what to do, as I’m completely paralyzed by this and can barely get out of bed. I’ve been struggling for the past three months, 24/7 every second of the day. I used to have panic attacks, and I knew for a fact that I didn’t want to do these things, I just couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head. Now I keep telling myself that I just don’t care anymore if I do act on them. It’s like there are two completely people inside of my head, one convinces me that I want to, and the other is completely terrified. I bought some weed gummies yesterday, knowing that it was going to try and convince me that I bought them to make my thoughts worse and so I would act on them. I’m feeling super guilty because I feel like I just don’t care anymore, and I still ate one anyway while convinced of that. Fast forward to today, I can’t function at all. I have no idea how to forgive myself, and then I question if I do want to forgive myself. 😫😫😫 If I was truly this evil person, why would I be completely debilitated and unable to focus on anything?

My OCD gives me the need to confess things. It’s really hard and exhausting. How do you combat this, anyone else had this problem?

So I'm not sure if it's just me, but I've been diagnosed with OCD for a couple years, and I've had symptoms since as far as I can remember, but I still feel like maybe it's all in my head and I'm just imagining all the compulsions? I sometimes feel like maybe all the struggling from compulsions is just me trying to sub-conciously manipulate other people to do things for me out of pity. I don't like the pity, and I want to be able to easily do things for myself, so I know it makes no sense, but sometimes I just can't talk myself out of it. Any thoughts or recommendations?

i’m very aware that one of my main compulsions is confessing/seeking repentance, specifically from my boyfriend. however i can never seem to get past this one specific event from my past. to sum it up, i remember while having me time (if yk what i mean) i kept having random ppl that i know in my daily life popping into my head and sexual images of them kept coming in as well. i felt like i couldn’t fully control it which makes me think it was OCD and i didn’t know it at the time. however, a specific person that kept coming to mind is now standing out to me. i would be lying if i said he was not an attractive person, but i would never in a million years actually want to be with him in any way. i love my boyfriend with every fiber in me and i am confident i would never do anything to jeopardize that. the thing is that since i know i found him attractive at the time i am struggling with my intentions behind those thoughts i was having about him. although its out of character i wonder if it was real thoughts and not just intrusive. it feels like a cycle of me trying to figure it out and i feel so incredibly guilty at times over it that i feel as though i should confess this to my boyfriend. this happened over a year ago and this person is no longer even in my life but i still can’t shake it. is this something i would need to confess to him or is it just my OCD taking? also, something that feeds into my obsessing over this is that i remember distinctly trying to make sure i looked okay when i was around this person in the past. not in a way that i wanted him, but just that i didn’t want him to think i was ugly or anything. i don’t think this is uncommon to want to look good in front of an attractive person, but at the same time i wonder if i was seeking attention for the wrong reasons or something. it’s just so conflicting bc it’s very out of character for me.

How to know are your thoughts OCD or it’s just you. (if that makes sense)?

What’s your favorite way to combat your OCD morning anxiety? It sucks and I sit with it, but it still sucks. I get up rather than hide in bed and I start getting ready for the day and I start doing some ERP. How about you? I’m looking forward to this evening!!!!

my intrusive thoughts are so scary and i hate it so much. they are also just so annoying it makes me cry a lot. i don’t wanna live like this im only a child. (i am not suicidal btw im just upset)

for the last several months, OCD has had an absolute chokehold on my career as a self employed artist. Just constant new subtypes and intrusive thoughts popping up one right after the other, all boiling down to the fear of me potentially losing my career. I'm not currently in therapy (nOCD does not take my insurance) but currently waiting to hear back from a therapist and OCD specialist while taking advice from OCD resources in the meantime. I've been doing everything I possibly can to keep my life going and working through my OCD, but it is so exhausting. I'll be working on a project and when intrusive thoughts pop into my head, I do my best to do some self ERP and tell myself the usual "well, maybe!", or "oh well!" ect, ect. but the anxiety will still linger and i will experience such extreme anxiety symptoms like sweating, dizziness, disassociation, and nausea to the point i will start gagging while I'm still trying to get my work done. It's become physically debilitating to deal with, it takes so much longer for me to finish work, and I don't even enjoy what I've created once it's done. I decided in a few weeks I'm going to take a short hiatus from my art account, so I can take a break from having to deal with the constant physical symptoms ontop of dealing with social media/algorithms which have also been frustrating me. I even plan to wipe my page so I can come back to a clean slate when I decide I'm ready to post again. But now my OCD has taken a hold of me wanting to take a step back. 'What if you don't recover when you come back?' 'What are you hiding/running from?' 'Maybe OCD is just telling you to take a break?' I am so tired lol. I don't know what the right choice is for me right now. But I do want to take a step back from work to work on my mental and physical health. So I think I'm at least going to listen to what my body and brain needs. if anyone has some advice or words of encouragement (not reassurance) pleaaase drop it here bc I'm gunna need it!!

Does anyone else do repetitive actions?? And I’m not talking about when we think “oh I have to do this three times or else my family will die”, I mean more like turning on the shower and just sitting there while it runs bc it’s the only thing that brings me comfort. I know it’s horrible of me and a waste of water which is why I’m trying to stop and find something else that brings me that comfort. But when my ocd strikes I just wanna sit in the bathroom with the shower on😭

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to stop ‘joy checking’? Like I feel the need to keep checking my emotional state, both in the moment and in the past, to make sure I am feeling happy and joyful. This is due to my fear of developing depression which will lead to suicide (or so my ocd tells me). It’s quite distressing. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!

Hi guys also another question I’ve been doing ERP for awhile now. And I’m just getting into exposures and when I’m doing them with my therapist like writing out the things that scare me and saying them out loud it doesn’t seem to scare me. It’s more so when I’m alone having these constant thoughts daily is what becomes overwhelming and makes them feel real. Any insight on this?

I hate that I get over one thing then my brain moves into the next thing to be upset about and I feel like this one is the worst thing to be obsessing over. Eugh. I feel evil and gross and I feel like ppl will think I’m a threat and I don’t want ppl to think of me that way. I’d never hurt anyone or want to ever But I’m trying to get through the day and survive. AS HORRIBLLY CHEESY AS THAT SOUNDS ITS TRUE I JUST WANNA BE OK😭 does anyone know how to move on from these feelings especially when it’s stuff from the past. I want to move on from and live now but I’m so scared to move because what if ppl find out? And they’ll think I don’t care because I’m not actively feeling ugly about it like I do now and literally all the time. I feel so horrible for even saying that too much guilt. Anyone have help ideas? Advice? Words? Idk I feel dizzy af with my emotions rn sorry if this didn’t make sense.