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how to treat intrusive groinal responses? any advice?

I jumped at the opportunity to share my story when NOCD told me about their advocacy program so today I’m going to tell you all about my OCD journey to help those not feel so alone! I want to start this by saying just because my story may not look like yours doesn’t mean your story isn’t valid! Everyone is different! The first time I remember having an intrusive thought was when I was around the age of 6-7 I remember I was making sandwiches with my father and as I held the knife I had the thought “stab him, you need to stab him” I was so scared at the thought, I thought it meant I was a bad person or that I wanted my father dead. I was terrified. Years later different thoughts and themes would be more prominent and by the time I was in my early 20s was when I read in depth about OCD. I dealt with POCD for YEARS before I got help, I remember doing compulsions like googling to find answers to what I was thinking and feeling or any form of reassurance I could get! While I was googling (and never finding any peace) I came across an article saying “do you have POCD?” I remember thinking “I don’t have OCD, I’ve never been diagnosed and I’m not clean!” It’s crazy what the stigma can make you believe about an illness. I however read the article anyway and I’m so glad I did because that’s how I found NOCD. I realized I had been struggling with POCD as a main theme from the age of 16 (I am now 27) I went to my doctor to get a professional diagnosis and started therapy after a few months of saying “I don’t need therapy, it doesn’t work for me!” I realized my ways of “making things better” AKA compulsions!! Weren’t working and I needed a professional. I was scared, I remember thinking my therapist will think I’m an awful person with awful thoughts and call the police, I can’t tell her the truth about what’s going on in my head! But when I met my therapist I exploded with emotions, crying, telling her everything about what I was thinking and how I was feeling. I desperately needed help and NOCD and my therapist Lourdes were the life line that I needed to get better. My therapist was my rock, constantly cheering me on, telling me “I could do hard things” that simple saying has stuck with me since the first day she said it. I learned how OCD attaches to what you value most, that the reassurance seeking and constant googling I had been doing for my entire life was not helping but hurting my recovery and we worked together to craft the perfect ERP exercises so I could heal. I was doing well for so many months until OCD decided to attach onto another thing that I love and value most, something I wasn’t expecting, my relationship. I had a horrible run of intrusive thoughts about my partner. These thoughts lasted for about 8 months when I realized that I needed an extra boost of help. That medication and therapy would be my best shot at fighting this and that taking medication is nothing to be ashamed of. I started Luvox and continued ERP exercises I am so happy to say that my OCD is very manageable now! I still have intrusive thoughts but they no longer have that intense chokehold on me. I can sit with the uncomfortable feelings and let them pass, I do still catch myself doing compulsions which is a very normal part of recovery and will be something I will most likely catch myself doing for the rest of my life! However it is so important to recognize it and try in the future to resist! I am so happy to say that I have been going on a few months now of minimal intrusive thoughts and anxiety and I am beyond happy in my life and relationship. If you take anything away from this I hope you take away that you are NOT alone, ERP therapy saves lives, it will get better, medication is nothing to be ashamed of and you can do hard things!! You may feel like when you have another tough patch that you’re “right back to where you started” as I have felt in the past, but I promise you that isn’t the case. You can and will get through this and I know that my OCD may get worse again but I know with the support of my therapist, my inner circle and the support of this community I can and will make it through. We can do this and I know it may be scary at first and may feel impossible to get better or that somehow you’re the exception and that nothing will help you get better but I promise you that’s not the case. I felt the exact same way before I started therapy. You will get better, I believe in you and you aren’t alone ❤️

I Recently diagnosed with ocd. The onset of my symptoms started a month ago today. I just moved back in with my parents because I am in the process of transferring colleges. I was doing great. I took a vacation about 2 weeks after I moved back on and planned on relaxing then coming back home to prepare myself for the upcoming semester at the local college (I am going into nursing school). The vacation started out great. The first day made me drowsy because of how long of a flight I had and also switching time zones. The second day was full of fun activities. I really enjoyed that day and what there was to do not knowing what was coming that night. Fast forward to that night I was pretty worn out from the day and started to settle down the way I usually do before bed. I love scrolling through YouTube and used to love watching content such as crime network as this was something me and my bf routinely watched and talked about. The video just happened to be about a kid who had done something absolutely horrific. I was pretty invested in the video at first but then all of a sudden got a thought about me doing something horrible to my family. I was so shaken by this thought and felt a physical shock to my body. My heart started to pound out of my chest and I didn’t know what was going on and how to react to something like this. My only reaction was to go take a long bath. That bath somewhat helped and I somehow was able to go to sleep afterward. I woke up the next morning and began remembering what happened a few hours prior and just thought that it was “just a weird thought” and tried to push it off. I had a full agenda that day and didn’t wanna dwell on it. At first that day started out ok. I went and ate lunch at a great restaurant in the area. Though I didn’t feel the distress, the thought of what I experienced the night prior was still there and kept popping up. Suddenly the violent thoughts of me harming my family hit me again. I was out doing stuff with my family at the time and remember being so panicked and confused but yet I couldn’t show any of what I was feeling. The rest of that day was ruined. I remember watching my family enjoying the activities but I just kinda sat there and pretended. The thoughts turned into some kind of voice or command. All I heard was “you’re going to enjoy the rest of the day but this is your family’s last time alive together” and things of that nature. I felt so sick and confused. This ultimately went on throughout the vacation and ruined it. It would come and go and sometimes I thought it had gone away only to return again. It’s been a month now since this started and it has snowballed into crazy obsessions. Sometimes they are still about my family but it has morphed into obsessions of being the next serial killer or mass murderer. I keep thinking back to my childhood and all of my mistakes and taking that as proof that I’m a psychopath and have every mental illness ever despite every dr I’ve compulsively seen telling me that I’m not. I ruminate over shows about crime that I’ve seen in the past and envision myself following in the same footsteps of these killers. I can’t do anything without relating to what Ive heard about those people. 2 weeks ago it got so bad that I literally slept all day and was up all night researching all of this stuff. I’ve become almost emotionally blunt to things and even the thoughts which in turn gives me anxiety. For the past 3 days now I have been productive for the first time and actually eating somewhat normally again. Even though I feel better than I have I still have something nagging at me in my mind that makes me feel guilty for doing anything other than googling or doing my compulsions. I don’t feel the anxiety I have been and that alone is freaking me out. I’m in doubt that I have ocd even though I’ve been diagnosed by 3 professionals including a therapist. I am scheduled to start erp this week with NOCD. I feel like I’m living life behind a glass wall. I see everyone going on with life and wanna be able to engage and enjoy the things that I used for without the worry. I feel like I have a bully in the back of my mind constantly shouting at me when I’m trying to live life and it always calls me back. I catch myself looking a pictures taken prior to the start of this and feel like I’m looking at a different person. I often think about stuff like what if I never watched that video, what if I had known a day or even an hour before it started and had some warning sign about how my life was about to change. My ocd makes me feel like a narcissist or horrible person for posting this because I always doubt this diagnosis and say that I manipulated myself into it even though this has really been my experience. If this really is ocd then I don’t wish this on my worst enemy. I wanted to share this so maybe someone going through this similar manifestation of the disorder can relate and won’t feel as alone as I do.

Hey everyone so I’ve been just having a bad day already! I feel so detached from myself that I don’t even know who I am. Feels like someone else is in control of me bad dpdr. Now I’m having bad intrusive thoughts because I don’t feel like myself like I’m out of control. I haven’t been able to eat or get any sleep. I’m so down idk what to do anymore.

I use to argue my thoughs cause I was anxious and didnt want them, but now I get the thoughs and feelings without anxiety, so when I argue them or fight them just feels like something a person in denial would do, like literally just feels like a discusión, not one time I think I had a trigger and be like, o that was just OCD and then let go

It's the middle of the night and I just had a really intense and scary attack of ocd. Not really sure what it was all about, but it was a whole flood of different themes all at once. Only thing that was clear to me is that I was full of such intense fear of myself. Afraid of losing control of my mind and ending up in a psych ward tonight, afraid of thinking of hurting myself and how it might feel good/relieving, afraid of losing control and hurting my pet, afraid of having a full blown panic attack and needing my parents, afraid of losing control and screaming, afraid of giving into the urge to lash out and throw things/throw myself around (lately I've been feeling the need to exert/stim), and afraid of how each and every one of these outcomes would affect others. I'm falling asleep now but I'm still terrified of what just happened. I've never felt anything like it before. I've now been having problems every single day for a month straight (happy anniversary lol). My therapist of four years is not an OCD therapist and I won't be seeing her for two weeks yet. I also just started seeing a psych but I won't be seeing her for over a month yet. I'm wondering if i should get in touch with a NOCD therapist asap because I swear I just keep getting worse and I'm getting more and more paranoid and terrified by the hour. I feel like my behavior has definitely changed. The problem is though I know i'm obsessed with getting help for myself because i'm THAT scared of my own mind. I think having a SECOND therapist would be a bit overkill but i'm also extremely desperate and have been considering this for about a month now. Has anyone else tried a NOCD therapist paired with their normal therapist? Anyways now i'm so scared of what i'm gonna wake up to. These intense mood swings are getting scarier and scarier.

It's been 2 nights in a row that I haven't been able to sleep normally, last night was horrible, I only slept like 4 hours and all night long I kept having bizarre "dreams" and I kept having this kind of mind chatter, where random words, phrases, songs or even images kept popping up in my mind non stop for all the time I was asleep. It got so bad and uncomfortble that I jolted up in a panic and couldn't go back to sleep I was so scared bc as soon as I closed my eyes seconds later I would start getting those random sounds and images in my sleep and it really frightened me. Is this normal or anyone has this? what worries me is that it lasted the whole time I was sleeping, not just for a few minutes.

Hey, I'm new, but but been dealing with OCD for about 3 months. I developed it after a really stressful life period, and I've been trying to treat it myself as I have no access to professional treatment. It's genuinely one of the hardest and most scary things I've ever had to deal with, and I really feel so lost. I tried ERP, but I feel like it made things worse. I'm trying I-CBT now, and I think it's helping a little bit, but I have no idea and honestly, I'm just so scared. The only support I have IRL is my spouse, and it's often not enough. Does anyone have tips or ways to support me so I can get better?

I’m going through what is hopefully just a really bad hypochondria episode where I’ve convinced myself I have schizophrenia. It’s been about 8 months and I’ve been through a range of crazy symptoms but the most prevalent symptom is getting crazy delusional thoughts like “what if my wife is a demon and trying to get to me” “what if NOBODY is real and these are all monsters/demons out to get me” etc etc. the thoughts are absolutely terrifying and they make me look at people differently, i get paralyzed with fear and i have to question myself whether I truly believe the thoughts or not, they feel so real, when they come on I catch myself genuinely feeling paranoid that they are 100% real and having a panic attack, but then the tiny bit of me that’s still rational brings me back to reality. And from then on I have to question myself all day “do I really believe this?” “Well you technically can’t disprove those things” “if it’s not real, then why does it FEEL real?” “This really is schizophrenia” “ what if it’s not schizophrenia but ACTUALLY real?” “who do I go to for help?” “What if I can’t trust anyone” and the scariest of them all…”why would a see a doctor if this is all real” etc, it’s literally hell. I can never give a satisfying “No, I don’t believe this” to these thoughts. I can go days and weeks and be able to confidently shrug them off and tell how ridiculous they are only for them to come back with a vengeance the next day. No amount of evidence can calm these thoughts. I no longer have little breaks where I’m not thinking about this, this obsession has completely consumed me. I feel like nowhere and nobody is safe, I just feel so fucking stuck and isolated. I try so hard and pull myself back to reality and provide myself with evidence for why these thoughts cant be true, but there’s just almost like a gut feeling, and such a sense of urgency and panic that comes with these thoughts that it’s becoming more and more difficult to talk myself out of this thinking. I’m truly at my wits end. This has ruined my life. I could really use some reassurance even though I know it’s bad. I have never been like this before until I started obsessing over schizophrenia. I’ve been like this for 8 months now. I’m at the point where I either believe the thoughts are true or this is ocd or schizophrenia, there is no more fear that I might believe the thoughts, it is now, fear that the thoughts are REAL. Can ocd/anxiety really be this severe?

For a long time, I would have an annoying process when doing things I enjoy. Here is how it was/is: 1. I’m enjoying something like games or music or videos. Anything. 2. Intrusive thought(s) show up 3. Feels like it’s tainted me or what I’m trying to enjoy 4. I stop doing it and get super upset or start over because I’ll feel relief after. Like I’m undoing the effect the thought made me feel by restarting or retracing steps or something. For games, it’s especially annoying because of how much I have accomplished in it already. Sometimes, I gotta keep redoing it until I just give up and don’t play cause…god, it’s so damn time consuming. This made it hard to even like things anymore. It’s annoying and I have a habit of hurting myself physically to cope. Obviously, not good but in a way, it’s punishment/relief. However, after watching the live streams of NOCD, I’ve learned and been practicing how to sit with the thought. A book I read also helped remind myself “Those thoughts aren’t yours, it’s your OCD. Just crazy thoughts made cause of a biochemical problem in your brain, dork.” HELLA uncomfortable in the beginning but I think I’m getting better at it. Trust, it’s still tricky and undoubtedly makes me feel awful sometimes but I make it through and feel lighter after. Now, I can listen to music and play games or watch fun things without letting the thought ruin my day or make me cry or distressed. I get the thought, and let it sit (maybe internally shrug my shoulders at it lol) and then it flows away and I keep enjoying what I’m doing. The thought was just a thought and I’ll treat it as such. And I continue on! I never thought I’d ever get to this point but here we are! I’d think “I wonder what it’s like for other people. They just sit and enjoy things without doing compulsions.” I think I’m finally experiencing that. I still stumble but I’ve been lessening the compulsive urges. Even the compulsive…hurting of myself… has lessened. I don’t stop doing what I like just because of thoughts that much now. I truly believe you can do it too, just practice and it gets a little easier day by day. (Hope this made sense, I’m doing this as I go hehe)

I will be ruminating and checking images/thoughts/ "video like images" in my head and i always feel like some sort of.. what i call an "excitement jolt" inside. This makes me want to check and ruminate more and i start to spiral and think well if my body reacts for this and not this then it must be true or if I react more to one image than the other (for example, being more attracted to women then my boyfriend) I don't know if that makes sense at all but does anyone else struggle with this?

i dont really care anymore. I just tell myself “eh whatever.” i know who i am. Is it normal to not let ocd control you anymore? to not be afraid of your thoughts? I had one today, and i didnt get any anxiety, but i knew it was intrusive and still physically cringed about it.

I have been told I have both. Can you describe how it affects you having both? I am genuinely curious. Sometimes I think I know but most of the time I am not understanding how it’s possible. My panic attack as a kid is something I think would be result of OCD type worries. I worried way too much as a kid and adult too. I have been on a hell of a roller coaster ride with meds and don’t want to find out I was on something that was working against me.

Lately I’ve been questioning my sanity. I think I have the theme of fear of pyshosis and schizophrenia, but it’s like intrusive thoughts that I don’t know who I am. Like who is Jenna? (My name) what does it mean to be Jenna? How did I live my life just being Jenna before ? even as I type my name it’s so weird looking. Am I going crazy? Am I losing my head? Can I just go back to living life and not worrying about this crap.

So I’m on insta and I see this young girl literally doing like a group Zumba type excercise and I think omg she’s fine the way she is she’s just a kid and she was so adorable but then it was showing her progress on her weight loss bc she was chubbier but there’s nun wrong with that, but then as she kept on losing weight I was thinking oh wow she looks good but then I had these feelings and I started to pay attention to like how her body was changing and it was showing her doing the exercise so I was like noticing certain movements and then my mind just kept on thinking “oh well she has a nice body” but it’s just ugh like I feel like I thought that and ik I did bc I was aware? And like idk I read on an pocd info thing that the ppl who have pocd have noticed certain movements and body parts of kids so when I read that I was relieved bc I thought i was like a weirdo but then after some time of reading that it feels like I’m thinking it’s okay and it’s just ocd thing where now I’m getting scared bc I’m not feeling anxious or anything and it feel like I’m just used to it so the feelings feel real or like normal like this is me now and ugh I hate it, bc I was noticing her like body bc of the progress but I just had troucvke with the feelings I felt :/ bc I was thinking omg she’s has such an adorable face like she didn’t need to do those workouts to be skinny but then she got skinny and I started noticing her body more :/ and I feel like I’m becoming a p :( and that I’m doomed and that I’m gonna do something one day which i don’t want to happen but what if I suddenly change and I do it?? :( It’s been a while since I Posted on her but yeah 🥲

Sometimes when I’m in the OCD spiral I find it difficult to remember my tools so I keep this in my notes on my phone to realign myself. This is not reassurance these are just pure OCD facts. Sometimes it just give my brain the little shift it needs to put all I have learned into practice, hoping someone else might be able to find it useful too. 1 - You are not your thoughts - they are egodystonic and go against the things you value 2 - OCD will cling onto what you love the most 3 - OCD will trick you into fear and will cherry pick things in your life that could warrant a trigger 4 - you don’t need to react to these thoughts - simply say - this is an OCD thought/feeling and will go away as long as I don’t engage in the content 5 - call it bob! Cheers bob for that disgusting thought and laugh 6 - continue what you do with your life. Don’t avoid places or people, you win every time not OCD 7 - treat each day with point score every time you resist a compulsion it’s 1 point to you! 2 points for an exposure - 20 points for reward at the end of the week. 8 - rumination - catch yourself like holding yourself gentle to recognise that you are ruminating again, put a full stop on it when you notice you’re doing it and bring yourself back to the present. Tell OCD you can see what it’s doing… 9 - don’t compare yourself with other people - why do I have to be like this, why can I just be normal like that mum, dad or person. In life If you don’t get one thing, you get something else. 10 - everyone gets intrusive thoughts your just a bit more sensitive to them and you need to learn to let them pass by without any interaction After this a bit of self compassion is essential, I always imagine me but as a 6/7 year old scared of these thoughts, and it helps me really transmit that compassion power for that younger scared self xxx

rocd is ruining me and my life and my relationship. i feel so disconnected from my boyfriend bc of it and it’s so frustrating but i also feel so numb that i can’t even feel frustrated or upset or anxious or anything bad when the bad thoughts come bc it’s been so excessive over the past couple of months. i don’t feel anything like i use to and i just wish i could love him peacefully and purely the way i use to with no worry or doubt. i feel like he deserves better bc my mind is constantly telling me i want someone else secretly or makes over analyze anything and everything with him or about him and creates so much doubt in my mind. it feels so real to the point that i feel like i’m betraying him and even though i’m not actually DOING anything to him or behind his back or anything it feels like i would be lying and deceiving him to continue being a good girlfriend and just being good to him if that makes sense. like when i’m actually with him or talking to him it’s mostly good im not thinking badly too much but as soon as he’s gone it all comes and it feels like i’m hiding a different, bad, personality from him when he’s not around. he’s such a good person and i’ve done everything to be so good to him bc i want to and he deserves it all. but inside i feel like don’t know myself at all anymore. i want to get past it but i feel like even if i do i’ll feel like i’m hiding a past betrayal from him. i don’t want to lose him. can anyone help with any of this or share ways they’ve gotten past this.

it feels like theres a monster in my head that just keeps poking and poking and poking. I dont know how to stop this, i thought i was getting better. I dont even believe the thoughts anymore, im not giving them the power, so why are they still there? How is it possible to be so enraged at your own BRAIN. I feel my body slowly drowning and i dont know how to escape. Even when i get a brisk of happiness, my thoughts always remind me of my triggers, or my past intrusive thoughts. Its a never ending cycle that i cant seem to find the answers to. Ive lost all hope in getting better. How do i get help when i can’t even explain whats going on inside my head? Its like i know theres thoughts, but i cant hear then clearly. Is this even ocd anymore? It feels like a physical weight on my head.

I always catch myself having constant negative scary thoughts or making up stressful situations in my head before they even happen and it puts me through a lot of stress and anxiety and makes me feel horrible and I’m afraid if I keep thinking like that god will allow something terrible to happen to me just for having what if thoughts or thinking of random crazy things and stressing myself out even more than I already am to the point where I lose sleep, a lot for example I really want to enter the modeling industry as soon as I can and I’m sixteen and I keep making myself stress and wonder of the fact that what if a horrible grown sick man tries to take advantage and manipulate me or what if I befriend someone again and once again they weren’t real friends and try and kill me or drug me it honestly terrifies me and that’s not even the begging another issue where I’ve stressed and thought so hard on the topic that it terrifies me just as much as that when last year I went to my older cousins funeral and before I went I wasn’t as traumatized and mentally shook and scared as I was at hers than others because those people were already very old but she’s 22 and she got in a car accident and was extremely messed up and obviously didn’t look the same as she normally did and because I’m getting ready to start driving this year and that is what caused her death and just the way she looked sand everything really really traumatized and scared everything in me and to make matters worse my mom was like that’s why you should pay attention on the road when you get your license not that she was trying to be rude and scare me more when she said that but it did because after that I couldnt stop remember what I saw that day because I don’t want that to happen to me and after that I developed necrophobia. anyways I could go on more and more but the point of this is that I overthink and hold on to traumatic memories and situations and get super scared and think out of nowhere 24/7 that I’m going to die to and when it would happen and just worry and I hope that the power of thinking or of talking isn’t so strong that something like that actually happen, Another thing I go through is anger because all my life until I got homeschooled I’ve been in drama with jealous cruel girls with all sorts of issues going on with in themselves that they have to project onto me and other girls who just mind there buissness I’ve once got so mad I wanted to kill one girl but luckily never did because I knew it was wrong and unnecessary and that I didn’t want to live with that and go to jail for losing it over immature high school girl drama but I often worry that gods upset with me just for thinking like that or getting mad in other issues with other people and cursing or just other stuff and it stresses me out so much and sometimes I wish there were some way to erase my traumatic negative memories and make me innocent and not understanding in certain things I understand now and maybe I would be ok mentally

I always catch myself having constant negative scary thoughts or making up stressful situations in my head before they even happen and it puts me through a lot of stress and anxiety and makes me feel horrible and I’m afraid if I keep thinking like that god will allow something terrible to happen to me just for having what if thoughts or thinking of random crazy things and stressing myself out even more than I already am to the point where I lose sleep, a lot for example I really want to enter the modeling industry as soon as I can and I’m sixteen and I keep making myself stress and wonder of the fact that what if a horrible grown sick man tries to take advantage and manipulate me or what if I befriend someone again and once again they weren’t real friends and try and kill me or drug me it honestly terrifies me and that’s not even the begging another issue where I’ve stressed and thought so hard on the topic that it terrifies me just as much as that when last year I went to my older cousins funeral and before I went I wasn’t as traumatized and mentally shook and scared as I was at hers than others because those people were already very old but she’s 22 and she got in a car accident and was extremely messed up and obviously didn’t look the same as she normally did and because I’m getting ready to start driving this year and that is what caused her death and just the way she looked sand everything really really traumatized and scared everything in me and to make matters worse my mom was like that’s why you should pay attention on the road when you get your license not that she was trying to be rude and scare me more when she said that but it did because after that I couldnt stop remember what I saw that day because I don’t want that to happen to me and after that I developed necrophobia. anyways I could go on more and more but the point of this is that I overthink and hold on to traumatic memories and situations and get super scared and think out of nowhere 24/7 that I’m going to die to and when it would happen and just worry and I hope that the power of thinking or of talking isn’t so strong that something like that actually happen, Another thing I go through is anger because all my life until I got homeschooled I’ve been in drama with jealous cruel girls with all sorts of issues going on with in themselves that they have to project onto me and other girls who just mind there buissness I’ve once got so mad I wanted to kill one girl but luckily never did because I knew it was wrong and unnecessary and that I didn’t want to live with that and go to jail for losing it over immature high school girl drama but I often worry that gods upset with me just for thinking like that or getting mad in other issues with other people and cursing or just other stuff and it stresses me out so much and sometimes I wish there were some way to erase my traumatic negative memories and make me innocent and not understanding in certain things I understand now and maybe I would be ok mentally