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the NOCD Community

Does anyone else get moments of feeling like they are not normal or like they can’t connect with anyone socially? It’s a little hard to explain but I’ll be fine and suddenly the world feels so far out of reach. I hope it’s not just me. Knowing this is something that does happen to people with ocd would help me change the way i handle this. 😥

A few weeks ago I put up a post asking about what I suspect is depersonalisation after a really bad OCD episode, the main advice I got was to wear the depersonalisation and be okay and happy about it being there and it’ll go away. I tried that and it didn’t work, every time I try to act like it’s not there it just gets worse and worsens the worst part about it that I have been experiencing which is a loss of my identity, it makes me feel even more distant from my identity. I feel like I have really bad brain fog that’s preventing me from being able to process and understand those emotions I was experiencing during that bad OCD episode that made me go into what I suspect is depersonalisation. And just a quick note, I feel like what’s preventing me from going out of this whole depersonalisation is the fact that I feel like my bad OCD episode hasn’t been resolved and processed, I feel like I’m mentally still in that bad episode but physically I’m here right now. Any advice? :) thanks so much in advance.

About 4-5 months ago, I was walking to the grocery store and I noticed a tiny newborn pink runt mouse or maybe rat right on the curb. Eyes closed, must’ve just been born, but no mother in sight (which is why I assume it was the runt). There were a bunch of cars making the right turn for freshman move-in day at the college I live near. I had a dilemma — should I take this rat out of harm’s way and put it on the sidewalk? But then what if someone steps on it? Since it’s a runt and its mother is nowhere to be found, wouldn’t it just starve to death if I move it and it doesn’t get hit by a car? The only ethical choice was I have to pick it up and adopt it, but then I was like I don’t know how to even care for it and I may just cause more harm by doing that. Also being the stupid people pleaser I am, I didn’t want to “inconvenience” the oncoming traffic of stressed out parents moving in their kids. So I made a split-second decision and I just kept walking. I didn’t pick up the runt. I had a feeling it would get run over, and I almost turned around but I didn’t want people to look at me like what is this weird girl doing (if you can’t tell, I care way too much about what other ppl think of me). Anyways, I was walking back from the store, and of course, the runt had been run over and was completely dead. I feel like it was completely my fault for not picking it up and adopting it and I feel like I manifested the car to run it over too bc I had the thought that it would. I still think about this every few weeks or so, and I feel like a murderer. The guilt I feel about this event weighs so heavily on me. I have considered adopting a pet rat to “undo” my immoral behavior, but I know the regret and guilt would keep coming back even if I compulsively rescued a rat and it wouldn’t even be enough. What do I do?

Firstly, no, I do not want to harm myself in any way shape or form. I feel very uncomfortable with these thoughts and I’m not sure how to let them stay without interacting with them. I’ve been really sad lately with some non ocd stuff and it doesn’t help. Feeling sad and that depressive feeling almost reinforces the ocd thoughts and makes it appear more real

I’ve been vegetarian since I was 6 years old when I realized that meat was dead animals. I didn’t put the pieces together until I was on a field trip to a farm when I was in kindergarten and I decided then I was never eating meat again. At 16, I went vegan and still am now at 24. That’s all fine and dandy because I like being vegan and it’s something I don’t want to change. However! Every time I accidentally eat something non-vegan or realize that a product I’ve been using isn’t vegan, I feel AWFUL. Like I cannot sleep right now at 3:30am bc I’m just thinking about the fact that I eat root vegetables and that means I kill plants (everyone loves to remind me that vegans “kill plants” which also does not help) and I accidentally drank this stupid energy drink the other day that turned out to have bovine collagen in it and that I’ve been using regular paper towels for my whole life and apparently those have gelatin in them which isn’t even vegetarian. I know that my unusually strong moral obligations come from my ocd, and I’m constantly ruminating on this and compulsively trying to think of ways to “counteract” my immoral behavior or punish myself. How do I grapple with moments where I accidentally or unknowingly have something non-vegan when it makes me feel like such an evil person? Does anyone else have this issue?

Lately since my obsession started (which has gotten out of control). I have not been able to function. I keep forgetting to do certain things. Forget where I put things, remembering certain dates. I am a mom to 2 beautiful kids. and I can’t even give my kids or husband the love they deserve bc of OCD. I feel terrible. I feel like my husband is going to eventually get tired of me and leave me. It’s sucks bc he has no idea how OCD affects the life of some many people. Some people have some forms, they can just let go quickly. But OCD like ours is another beast. Would not with this on my worst enemy.

This is a little embarrassing to talk about but I’m really worried. I feel embarrassed and I dont want to sound like I just expect s3x all the time. But a lot of the times that I make the first move with my partner, he rejects it. I wish I could just get over it quickly like a normal person but my rocd tells me it means he’s not attracted to me anymore or doesnt like me. I really dont know what to do. I get so anxious I’m sick to my stomach, and then it looks like I’m acting out because I didnt get s3x when I wanted to. What if that is what I’m doing? I don’t want to be a pervert. This has been an issue before and I’ve brought it up but the conversation never really goes anywhere and I’m just left confused. I dont want to bring it up because I dont want him to have pity s3x with me for some reason or feel like he is being forced. But I dont know how to get over this anxiety, especially when my self-esteem has plummeted lately. Am I being a baby? To clarify, we have had s* x before.

After coming down from a pretty stressful week, I started to feel like me again—until old themes started to creep up on me. I hate having to live in this cycle…I’m so tired, I feel like I can’t keep living like this or something will break. Im afraid that I’ll go insane and these thoughts will become real…

It sucks, and it’s hard to understand that these thoughts aren’t mine cause why does it feel like I’m getting excited by them as well? When that should be the last thing that should be happening. It only convinces me more and I just sit there after feeling it like “what am I supposed to/can do about this?” And I just feel distraught cause if it’s not what I want, why am I feeling something like that towards it? When I should be feeling something more negative?

I was trying to help my child take their shoes off but they wanted to be independent and do it alone. They were struggling and getting frustrated so I tried to help. But their foot was resting on their knee and lap. After they got mad i was trying to help i said okay and walked away. I worry should i have not grabbed the shoe since it was on their lap. Should i have waited till they put their foot down. Did i do anything inappropriate? Should i just have not offered help. It sucks having ocd as a parent. I love my child. Want to help. Dont want to hurt or do something bad. Ocd constantly freaks out if i did something bad

I’ve been diagnosed with ocd. I first started off with harm ocd.when I got over it, it started switching into new themes. Every week I’d have to deal with a new thought/fear. And now i feel like im stuck again! Im not sure what type of ocd im going through right now. But im scared of hallucinating. Im scared of hearing things that aren’t there. So that caused me to be hyper aware of every sound I hear. And I now focus on white noises so much ( like AC, fridge, water pipes, the tv when it’s far away etc.) and I start to question my sister: can you hear that ? Because I’m super scared the I’m hallucinating. But usually she’ll answer with yes she can hear it. But I’ve been struggling with something else too. I sleep with the AC on and I’ve been doing for years. But during the past month that caused me so much stress and anxiety. Because I feel like whenever the AC is on I hear other things (not people talk or words or specific things) just unclear sounds. And I’m not sure if that’s in my head or it’s actually there but because the AC sound loud I can’t recognize the other sounds im hearing. And I get so anxious when I try to sleep because everything is so quiet and it’s just me and the AC on. So I feel like everything is loud. And I don’t know if the unclear sounds are in my head or real. And yesterday when I tried to sleep a police car went by and the siren of it was loud too. I focused on the sound. And questioned if it’s real or not. Then I started hearing the siren non stop for 3 minutes probably. Even though I’m sure the police car went by. So I was scared and terrified that I was hallucinating. And now I’m just scared that what if I’m not hyper aware ocd. What if I’m schizophrenic. What if I’m going crazy. I’m so scared. And I’m worrying that this will happen again if I go to sleep tonight. Someone help me please and give me advice!

It’s the third month of 2024 and life has been just a lot of good and bad no in between, and it’s affecting my OCD. My sibling got engaged (at first we thought it was an abusive relationship but they seem to be working things out) I started majoring in sign language and made Deaf friends, My friend’s mom died and my soul sister’s best friend died and she found the body. The thoughts about me touching something the wrong way and someone dying is going INSANE and although I think that an important part of life is remembering we all die, So much death has happened I feel like the world is caving in. False memories, magical thinking intrusive thoughts etc. Any advice?

What has led you to believe that OCD is the source of truth? Or it could be that you cannot distinguish between what are thoughts and what are OCD thoughts. A normal thought considered significant becomes a compulsion especially when you attach meaning and get anxious about it. What OCD is doing in your brain is searching for threats when there are none. Trying not to have a thought is like pushing a baloon into the water in the hope that the balloon will sink, but it will come up and you know it's hopeless. That's how it's with OCD. I get that everybody is afraid to do ERP because I don't know how to emphasze this enough, it's really scary to do ERP. It's not easy. It's not supposed to be easy. If it was easy, we as a community wouldn't exist, nor OCD specialists. Because it would have been easy, and we would have gone on with our lives simply because it was easy. It's hard to do ERP. But it's worth it. And those people who still think they can't do ERP. They can instead actually try "Do nothing" about the intrusive thoughts thing. We are already exposed to intrusive thoughts whether we consciously do it or not in the case of ERP. But take the opportunity and use those intrusive thoughts as exposure and change our response around it. Sometimes I sound like I don't have OCD. And I know that. I suffer from OCD just like you do. I suffer from Pure O, Magical thinking, and superstitious numbers, and the list can go on. Even as I am writing this, my OCD is like erase that sentence and think about something positive or else something bad will happen. So what have I done then? Nothing. How do I feel? Terrible! And the distress is too uncomfortable. But this way I know, I am starving OCD. And then it tries its best to change and attack other things that I value and love. But once you decide and tell yourself with courage that, I can candle anything that OCD throws at me, that's when you claim power back from OCD. OCD knows your limit of tolerance. So it always try to go higher than that. Try not to outsmart OCD. Because you can't. What you can do is sit in the discomfort and do nothing about your thoughts and compulsions. I always say this and I will say it again, it sounds so easy. But when it comes to doing, we are all back to doing compulsions, and neutralizing thoughts. Somehow it just doesn't work. Why? Because deep inside all of us we have the what ifs, and they have us fight and flight response which makes the thoughts, urges feel so real. Except, it's not dangerous at all. So an alternative to the ERP is "Do nothing". And it's not something new, nor do I take credit of inventing it. No. Most of us are tired of OCD. We need to get tired of the default responses we have for the compulsions and replace them with nothing. We can try. Stay Safe. Awais Bahar

This is going to be more of a venting post rather than being a post that asks for advice but of course any advice is welcome! I’m very fortunate in saying that I have many many friends and a very healthy social life. But something that pisses me off more than anything is having severe debilitating OCD. Not only do I have this horrible disorder but I’m also the only one of my friends who has it and I never dare mention anything about it to them. Sometimes they’ll get mad because I’ll occasionally be late or just no show events when we plan to hang out because of my compulsions. See they just think it’s “oh he’s just trying to be cool and fashionably late” yea trust me I wish that was the case lol. What’s the most sad about this is that even though I always had OCD it hadn’t become debilitating until 2 years ago. Everyone who knows me probably thinks I’m the happiest most fun person they would ever hang with. But behind closed doors I suffer everyday :(. I would do ANYTHING AND I MEAN ANYTHING to go back to the version of myself I was 3 years ago. My 25th bday is in May and this disorder has held me back in so many aspects of my life. Most people my age are planning to move into apartments and advance their careers. Me I’m just trying to go day by day and work to defeat this disorder. If I ever get to a point where I can defeat this disorder which is literally from the depths of hell I will never take anything ordinary in life for granted ever again!

I spend a lot of time ruminating about my health and how I'm going to get past all of the thoughts I think of and the events that I think of in the past. It leaves me really nauseous randomly throughout my days. Anyone else get this from their OCD? It makes me worry more about my health

This is the worst my OCD has gotten! I’ve freaked out many times about harming my children, touching them inappropriately, etc. the other night I got blackout drunk and woke up and had thoughts of something specifically that I did to my 5 year old. It’s horrendous. Do you think it’s possible to become our worst fear when drunk? Do you think my son would wake up if I did something? This is awful! And I’ve been very suicidal since. I’m not sure how I can accept the uncertainty of this and move on. Yes, I’m in therapy.

That I hate that joke. It's made a bunch of people that have no idea the depths that it can bring people to.

Has anyone successfully conquered this type of ocd, if anyone does I really need to talk to someone and ask a few questions❤️

I’m not 100% sure that I have OCD, but I do have PTSD and some new intrusive thoughts were triggered a couple weeks ago. It feels like they have changed my whole perception of my life since then. Every experience that should be fun or relaxing is tainted with the horrible dread I feel when these thoughts creep in. I was really enjoying my life for a while before these new thoughts started and it feels like I have lost contact with that version of myself and my life. I’m afraid of these thoughts tainting things that I want to stay good and pure. I’m just feeling really lost about how to soothe myself and dig out of this

Had a new type of OCD though today which startled me and out of nowhere. “You can’t handle it.” You will eventually lose control no matter what you try and do.” Anyone else have this? And tips on how to fight back so it isn’t as strong next time?