Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Me and my online boyfriend have been broken up for a week because our mental health wasn't going great and we need to focus on our health first. After countless of stress and overthinking of many doubts and waiting for him, I am having many many many unwanted thoughts of a past ex and I have many worries all at once. self harming (hitting my head) is usually what I do to punish or correct my mind for even thinking such thing like ex from 9th grade. But I feel like after hitting my head so much, it made it more worse? TikTok and other social stuff is not helping me rn after seeing "soul ties" of ex's, relationships or mercury retrograde and it worsens. It makes me anxiety more worse. I don't know what to do and I'm more terrified than ever. All I wanted to do is wait for my online bf and believe in the good possibilities and hopes between us especially hope that we would reconcile when we are ready. As you know I really love this online boy and would never cheat or hurt him. Idc if we are apart I will wait for him and still be there for him yk. But my thoughts are so messed up and it's bringing like a feeling or werid emotion :( like a rushy feeling of unwanted excitement I suppose. I'm literally stuck. I'm stuck with these thoughts and I don't know what to do.

It's like sometimes (only sometimes bc im mostly obsessing), I dont care how I feel in that moment. Like Iam numb to anything. There is not happiness or sadness. Like I dont care what happens to me, dont care about my friends, family, life. When I know deep down thats not how I really feel. In reality, I love my life and family so much. I just cant feel it at the moment. My poor husband and kids. I have to keep telling myself that is my OCD and that Iam a good person that does actually care about everything... Its so sad

Eight months ago, I went to dinner with my boyfriend at the time, his teenage daughter, and my friend. I drank way too much to say the least. Anyway, when I woke up in the morning I was mortified and I remembered I was cut off by the waitress. I was so embarrassed that I was that drunk in front of my boyfriend’s daughter. But then my mind started to go all over. I started worrying “what if I did something inappropriate to his daughter.” I ended up staying the whole weekend and spending time with my boyfriend and his daughter. They all assured me I had done nothing wrong but I still had the feeling like I did do something. Then a few days later, I was talking to my friend and she told me I went to the bathroom with the daughter by myself while at the restaurant. This of course convinced me that I must have done something wrong and that my initial fear had to be right! Of course I was reassured again by my boyfriend and his daughter that I didn’t do anything bad. My boyfriend and I are no longer together (was amicable). I am still feeling like something bad happened. I cannot shake it. I keep thinking I did something inappropriate which is completely contrary to who I am. I am worried to be happy because I feel at any minute it will be taken away and I’ll be arrested. I can’t get over this. I try to accept uncertainty but I just can’t seem to get there.

I keep having unwanted sexual thoughts or images in my mind and its really stressing me and my compulsion is to avoid and block the tought the thing is that i am a believer i dont and if do erp i am supposed to facd my thought and let myself think abt it but my rocd male me feel that i will have sins and that i can not let myself think such things so idk what to do abt this sexual thoughts

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?

I just recently started Zoloft and all of the sudden it’s like all my OCD is gone… which is a good thing, but it makes me feel like I made my OCD up in my head? Im not sure if that makes sense, but I’m just not getting triggered by the things I used to get triggered by. I’ve only been on it for a week, I am just curious if anyone else has experienced this?

What is the difference between the two? For our mental health we have to be aware of our feelings but then theres the compulsion that we checking how we feel, what emotions we have, and i do that alot but i do it to be aware of my emotional state and to not become numb or to just be aware how i feel cause its bad if you dont understand your emotions. But i feel like it might me checking and not normal awareness but im afraid of stoping it cause then i will stop being aware of how i feel and i will avoid my emotions(cause it happened when i tried to ignore fear)

Do you ever not give into a compulsion then feel extremely guilt like you did something bad? I was working at my desk and my child wanted my attention. They were putting their toys on my knee and thigh. I was trying to multitask and not worry so i didnt move. Then the anxiety increased and i meant to say please stop. At first i said please and then moved her hand and toys if i recall then said stop. Again i was reading emails and trying to multi task. So i worry by not moving initially. And then by saying please… pausing and then moving and saying stop instead of all together was that inappropriate? My ocd makes me feel like i was saying please with bad intent but i dont think so i was trying to multi task. It sounds silly i know. Anyone else out there with these same issues.

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?

this is an event that im not at all clear on, it took place 7 years ago when i was 12 (i am now 18). i was holding my baby cousin on the couch and using snapchat filters to entertain them per the usual. i used to love doing that, i was always the baby in the family so i was excited to have a baby cousin of my own. and then i think i looked down and noticed my hand was over their diaper area and they also had on a diaper & pants ofc), and i think i scratched it and rubbed over the entire front of it (ew)🤢 i think because of the area and curiosity, this is what i've tried to remember. and now my head is saying that i liked it and was turned on idk truly, it happened years ago it's all a blur. i don't know why i would do it. but i know i would never hurt them, i mean i've been obsessed with them since before they were even born! but i don't have any clear memory of what happened, but i do think it was something like that. I think i was too young to think much of it or see the full spectrum of things because they had a diaper on. but i still feel terrible, this is an old obsession because i almost offed myself 2 years ago because of the same dilemma. the whole thing disgusts me. I've talked to my sister about it, she's a therapist/ social worker. i broke completely down and was crying so hard i could hardly breathe. she told me to calm down, & that i was probably curious and i was young. but i still feel like i sa'ed them, even though i didn't actually touch their privates and definitely had no intentions of it either.

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.

Everyone keeps sending advice to me. I just honestly keep overlooking it it’s like it’s really nothing else than what everyone can give and I truly appreciate it. I am willing to work hard If I find the right strategy or develop enough willpower to use more general advice. Maybe right now I’m just writing down and journaling all my thoughts. Whatever it could be on here as I do prefer listeners, maybe there is advice out there that could really work for me that I don’t know about however, I have not seen much yet regarding that, or regarding something unique in terms of advice, but as of right now I don’t tend to be in the best mindset and my energy is so low it’s not even funny I can’t remember the last time I felt full of energy it must’ve been right before July 2020 the date that is negatively iconic with me. OCD phases shape me differently. It makes me do stupid shit sometimes or things that I wouldn’t have been doing if I was outside the phase and it really pisses me because I feel childish for doing things that I would’ve not normally done. An example would be posting drill music on Snapchat and making jokes about getting sturdy or something, which is not something I would usually focus on outside an OCD phase, as I am more focused on my goals and aspirations, while symptom-free from OCD. I may be faced up with a lot of consequences, including knowing that when the time comes when my body and brain eventually gets sick of OCD I will probably be desensitized to it so I will realize that this whole ordeal I was living a lie and because I am aware that now before the OCD phase has even ended which it’s still ongoing right now I want to eventually start working on managing it even better. I just can’t imagine feeling regret in the future after an OCD phase ends and looking back on when I had OCD and being like, why did I listen to it? Why did I listen to the OCD? Why did I do the compulsions? Why did I be so gullible? It’s horrible to live with this kind of regret, because you know that there was no reason to worry, feeling like a prisoner, and that you were just deceived. I’m already upset that I lost four years and that I never got to spend 2021, 2022 and 2023 and part of 2020 and 2024. It’s gonna hit me I know it will whenever I manually get rid of the OCD or not or if it gets rid of itself just by my body and getting sick of the old patterns that I’m going to feel a ton of regret for wasting time when I could’ve been using it for more resourceful means and adventure and fun and peace. i’m just so upset I think my symptoms are severe now because it’s telling me to wait till September to do a compulsion and it just sounds so fucking stupid because September is six months away and we don’t know what’s gonna happen. It doesn’t make sense it doesn’t make sense if you think about it but feel so real to me feels like something really bad is gonna happen if I don’t do this I’m starting to question is the power of the brain is really that amazing and just outstanding, sometimes human life doesn’t make sense it’s like set up with this kind of shit and evolution and science does a scary thing and mystery. it’s a vibe that’s hard to explain, but to be honest to sum it up these kind of mysteries feel scary. I always talked about fighting the matrix, and I try to fight it in terms of economics and even as like excelling in school with great grades, which is not always easy right now, and I just feel sick sometimes because of the OCD and a combination of the challenges of college I love school I do I always will but if I can’t heal, I can’t perform my best and then what am I supposed to do? In the blink of an eye from September 2019 to September 2020. My world changed, and I certainly didn’t feel the same in terms of how comfortable I was in my skin when it came to the presence of OCD. September 2019 I felt every adventure every moment peace freedom, happiness, hope fulfillment satisfaction, no OCD issues really and something to look forward to but then by September 2020 I felt fear, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, constant intrusive thoughts not being able to let them go, and I at that point was somewhat hopeful but in the end, as long as I do the compulsions, I was not getting better and unfortunately, I didn’t really know that enough, because I was too biased, and I was convinced that I had to do the compulsion in order to "fix my life." The best dreams I had when I was asleep whenever it was the moments of me in high school in September 2019 or just symptom-free from OCD overall or same familiar faces from high school when I was symptom-free from OCD we’re just magnificent I did not want to wake up and when I did wake up I was very mad and this only happened one time when I was angry that I woke up from the best dream ever, and then I had to come back to real life thus to the OCD nightmare that plagued my mind in the real world. I am a dedicated student in college and it’s upsetting me that it’s hard for me to excel math because I was doing this in high school last year so that I knew that I could prepare for college. I was only serious about academics last minute in high school and I should’ve been serious throughout all of high school but unfortunately, I knew I couldn’t change that and this kills me because this is my only life and that I can’t change my circumstances I feel like a fucking idiot. I’m just fucking angry . Now that I go to community college, I have a chance to excel and stay on high honors the best I can, but sometimes math isn’t always easy with college because there’s more complexity in contrast to high school I think. I’m not sure if the OCD is affecting my willpower with math but if it is then I know that I gotta do something about it. Otherwise it’s over for me and my future it’s really over and there’s no going around it it’s either I’m gonna do this or I’m fucked to be honest. I know this sounds very black or white polarized thinking but I want my kids to learn academic skills from me academic skills. I mastered when I’m 37 I’m 22 right now I’m not married I don’t have a girlfriend I don’t have kids but I’m saying is what I’m 37 I want all this to happen and I believe that I can make it happen. I’m disciplined enough and smart and skilled. if I could get this OCD off my head, maybe I could study and bebmore committed. I don’t know how the person would feel comfortable, studying and feeling motivated while having these thoughts in their head at the same time it’s almost like trying to multitask or juggle two different things at once. my life has been hell it’s really killing me everything just feels wrong and to be honest it may not even be real just being illusion. I know that it has to be but I’m just saying what I just said because I’m gonna tell the OCD that it’s an illusion obviously it’s not gonna listen to me. I’m better off saying maybe maybe not but right now I’m just so upset I don’t know what to do. I just feel like doing nothing right now. Just relax right now maybe later I’ll figure it out. I have to be thankful for the days when I was symptom-free from OCD and carry-on with knowing that it’s never too late to get better but the amount of power I have to put in I’m not too sure how I could do it yet, but hopefully one day I find out or at least create something to find out.

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!