Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Do y'all ever have intrusive thoughts that you're faking or being manipulative when you try to be kind to someone or do a good deed?

can’t see anything on social media about kids ill immediately get intrusive thoughts and groinal responses and thoughts like “u are a p, u can’t have kids because u are a p” and it genuinely feels like im destined to be a p. like impending doom. that no more what i do i am one and i can’t change or stop it. does anyone feel like this? can it get this bad? my brain feels convinced and it’s like whenever i say im not my body gets all uncomfy and then the groinal responses come. i hate this. am i a p? if i am one i want to get help. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I would rather be gone then be a p but if I am one the least I could do is get help for it but im stuck between ocd and this. what if im just a fraud hiding behind ocd

Sometimes I feel like if I didn’t have my OCD thoughts to focus on…what else would I be thinking about? Like my rumination has almost become my hobby - and my brain doesn’t know what else to focus on instead. Has anyone ever experienced this? My OCD ruminations involves a tv show/characters and my compulsions include checking social media incessantly, news outlets, etc - anywhere that I can get information. There are days I feel like this will be the rest of my life and I am trapped. How do I break out of this? Thanks for listening.

I am going through a hard time right now. I feel so alone. I am scared that I am not taking care of myself. I know it could be worse but I am just so stressed out, it has been a while since I have had to deal with my ocd, but I can sense it slowly eating at me. I am just having such a hard time.

I feel so embarrassed in my sessions. I have a nocd therapist and every session she asks what I want to work on and has me come up with an exposure and idk the whole thing feels so embarrassing, i don't want to say the wrong thing or come up with a stupid exposure. I cry after every session because I feel so put on the spot and so embarrassed and I feel like i'm so difficult for her. idk what to do it makes me want to quit therapy all together. ive had good sessions in the past but its so hard to get past the embarrassment every time idk what my problem is.

Hi, I'm 17 and I'm not sure if I have OCD My symptoms started in lockdown and I was really scared my parents would get covid and something really bad would happen so: I kept praying to God, taking my shoes off to pray again and again before I left to go somewhere In my religion(Hinduism) materialistic things are ignorance so I'd balance my phone in a risky position and pray everyday --- then I thought that by sacrificing materialistic things (ignorance) like chocolate and music I could go to my dream uni ---then I kept thinking about my mum and I kept thinking she might get cancer so I kept sacrificing things like wearing make up, nice clothes and I kept limiting how much food I ate. I 'fasted' a lot and I prayed for an hour every night. I thought I would regret it so much if I wore make up because id suffer from the ignronave of the materialistic pleasures When I was eating,I would keep looking at a picture of Lord Krishna and swallowing really fast to avoid the materialstic pleasures of taste. I can only do some things by thinking 'i promise to god I'll eat this chocolate' for example. I don't think my symptoms are normal and I really don't know what to do.

Even though I know that an instrusive thought can be a thought that has become a compulsion and disturbs us, I cant just tell this to myself and move on. What I mean by move on is that I didn't say that just think that and forget about it, I mean like proces cuz its not easy. I can see the perspective of others when I read on this app and can tell that its ocd, but I cabt just tell myself and say that its an instrusive thought about this one thing. Or I can, but I also cant I cant explain it. For instance, Im telling myself it is but when it comes to writing it down here, it feels wrong because what if the thought is real. But if it hasnt still went away, it probably isnt a part of me right?. It might be ROCD. So I can try to tell about the thought without mentioning it because it feels like mentioning it will make things worse. from the moment I had it I have had this guilt feeling because I know Id never think that but it just came and makes me feel guilty even though its a thought that is the opposite of what Ive always thought, it always disturbs me and I feel guilty and like a betrayer for thinking such thing. Since I guess that I dont trust my thoughts I cant really help myself. Its not a severe thought right now but it used to be worse but it never went away. I feel like Ill always feel guilty about it my whole life and will never get over it. Even right now my mind is telling me not to write about it here because its just not good for me to not because it isnt in reality. And right now my mind is telling me that I cannot be sure that Im actually telling the right stuff, maybe Im just saying these to be saying it and it keeps going on. I always talk to an AI because I go to my psychiatrist once in a month and I left therapy. I just need reassurance...

So in high-school I had a great GPA and life was good but 12th grade is when my ocd kicked in I barely graduated and now I'm in college I bet all can guess how it's going 🙃 and my GPA has plummeted I do the work and go to class but it's never enough especially with ocd constantly ruminating and doing compulsive behaviors the tight anxiety feeling in my chest everyday every morning the times I wished I was dead because of ocd I don't know if I can bounce back from this I f%$#king hate ocd I don't know what to do

TW! So one of my old hobbies that I like to do was watch those really messed up shocker films. That's what kind of desensitized me to a lot of stuff that I used to draw. One movie that I happen to own on DVD (it was a gift) is the movie Salo'. And for those who have serious pocd that movie can be extremely triggering given the content in the film. Back then that movie really was nothing to me because to me it was just a movie. However I've been thinking about watching it again purely for exposure reasons however a little bit of my head is questioning it given what's the film has and of course the age of the actors in the film. I wonder if it would be a good exposure or maybe it's just not something to dive into again.

Hi my name is Audrey and this app was recommended to me to join a community with others who have OCD. I want to share my story and I think the best way to do that would be to share my college application essay. I wrote about my OCD journey and I think it sums it up well. Here it is: One of the main debates in grammar is the use of the Oxford comma. Some people strongly believe that you must use the Oxford comma when completing a list, and some people question its very existence. Where do I stand? I love the Oxford comma. But not because I am some big grammar-police, but because I have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and I feel a need for symmetry in my life. My whole life I have always loved when things were symmetrical. If I scratched my right arm, I scratched my left arm too; if I stubbed my left toe, I would purposely stub the right one too; I would line all of my pencils up in a perfect row. I felt a deep need to keep everything symmetrical. So when the debate over the Oxford comma first came to my attention, I, of course, was in support of it. Two commas between three items, nothing seemed more perfect to me. I could not fathom why anyone would not love the Oxford comma. I just always thought everyone's brain worked like mine. That was until I was diagnosed with OCD. I never knew other people didn't think and process information like I did. I never knew how my brain was "faulty" and different from others. When I first received my diagnosis, I felt like the odd pencil out of the row. I had spent my whole life making sure everything was equal and symmetrical, and it turned out that my brain was the unequal one. After my diagnosis, I started exposure therapy. And what did I do to work on my OCD? Well, I would move one pencil out of its row and stare at it until I physically couldn't anymore. I would only stub my right toe and wait while my brain practically screamed at me to stub the left toe. These exercises were hard and uncomfortable, but through therapy I learned to sit with discomfort and unevenness. Before therapy, one thing I struggled with was note-taking. I would write one word and then go back and “fix” the letters until my brain was satisfied, then do the same for the next word. It took twice as long and I would fall behind. I became stressed because I was missing half the notes and felt too embarrassed to ask the teacher to repeat. When I started therapy, this was one of my main issues I wanted to tackle. So, in our sessions, I would have my therapist talk about random topics and I would take notes. In the beginning, I would still go back and fix how I wrote each letter. But the more I practiced continuing writing no matter how uncomfortable my brain made me feel, the more I could write without going back and fixing my handwriting. In the past year, I have been able to take better notes faster than before. Now, I am confident that I will be able to follow along during lectures, and even understand concepts on a deeper level. As I’ve worked to confront my issues head-on, my cognitive flexibility has grown and the disruptive urgency that OCD creates has slowly diminished. My new ability to sit in discomfort has not only been useful with my OCD, but it has been useful in my day-to-day life. I am now able to live with unanswered questions, deal with the possibility that things will not always go my way, and tolerate my anxieties. I feel that these new qualities will serve me well in college and in life. OCD does not make my life better or make me perfectly organized, but it has taught me how to prepare for all of life’s challenges and adversities. But I must admit, despite learning how to tolerate things not being symmetrical, I still do love the Oxford comma. Maybe I am the grammar-police after all.

i know people say to just accept it but im so tired i genuinely just dont care if im this or if im that. I just want the thoughts to stop. Thats all. But i feel like a bad person for not caring anymore. any advice?

My thoughts are so loud today even just normal overthinking when I don’t know what’s related to my ocd anymore I’m trying to stay positive but sometimes it’s hard to get through the day especially when I can’t talk to anyone My head hurts and my sleep has been not good lately like I know I’ll be okay but sometimes just feels like a mess and my head won’t shut up

Intrusive thoughts destroyed who I've always known myself to be, I wish I could go back to when I trusted who I was and my morals. I'm constantly paranoid that I've lied about terribly awful things and theyre gonna come out and haunt me. What a sad way to live :(

How do get rid of intrusive thoughts?? And how do you know that they’re intrusive thoughts if you started thinking of them? Or if you feel like you’re the one who’s thinking of them rather than them just popping in your mind? Like if you’re looking for it, like you’re looking for trouble… Anyone else feel like this too?

Anyone have any compulsions they didn't realize were compulsions? I ruled out OCD as a possibility for a long time because I didn't think I had any compulsions, but I'm realizing they can be a lot more subtle than the common examples, like locking doors over and over. I'm slowly discovering many small things I do that could be compulsions (excessively proofreading my posts, ruminating, seeking validation for my feelings in comments sections, etc), and I'd like to hear other people's examples too

Hello, bit of an odd one, but I got out of an abusive relationship about 18 months ago and I am really worried that I was the problem/ people think I’m the abuser. Im trying to separate my thoughts into ‘facts’ and ‘feelings/fiction’. I know that i was abused. For a long time i couldnt call it that, but then I went to therapy and sought help from external sources, including the university I was attending. It was emotional abuse, which makes it even harder to understand (even after therapy). I’ll spare the details. But … “what if youre the abuser?” “What if you were trying to manipulate them?” “What if when your career takes off, they say things about you and ruin it?” “What if that housemate backs them up because you never got along?” “What if you really were the abuser?” These thoughts plague me. I have friends who know everything, who saw the abuse and what it did to me, who could reassure me in an instant, but I am trying not to rely on reassurance. I am trying to find acceptance. Is is so hard. (I don’t even know what to tag this under.)

How should i manage this automatic reassurance behaviour??? Pls someone help me Plsssssssss This automatic reassurance behaviour failing my hard work😔

i know compulsions are not helpful on the long run. but they can help to give certainty and a bit of peace for the moment. i usually imagine scenarios and check how i feel about them. has anyone experienced that sometimes this does not make you feel certain and safe, but somehow confirms what ocd is telling you, e.g. after imagining a scenario it feels like you could actually want it? so compulsions sometimes don’t even help on the short term and i feel the need to ruminate more and more to come to the solution i want

I’m kinda laughing at myself because I’m extremely disappointed that I just now found out that seeking reassurance doesn’t help anything…y’all wanna guess why I’ve been scrolling this app for the last hour and a half? … welp someone tell me what to do because it’s the only thing that seems to help me…

Ever since I was a teen I wondered what my purpose in life is. I constantly wonder when my next long term relationship would end and mentally prepare myself for it so I don’t feel as lost and to have my own closure. No one’s ever proud of me. I don’t understand complexity. I need constant reassurance. I need to check and double check and triple check everything I touch for 5 seconds, especially if I’m locking it. I need to check and be reassured that the dog is in the house. I need to know everything that’s going on, and if there’s a change in plans then count me out. If I park a car I have to pull on locked door handles and make sure the gear shift is in park. I constantly google to try and make sense of my mind and feel somewhat normal or fit in somewhere, but normal is a dream. When I shower I must wash my body and then my hair and then my body again or else I’m not clean because my hair would be dirty from my body or my body would be dirty from my hair, there’s no medium. I cry because I just want to be normal. I’m tired.. Thanks for reading.