Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Can thoughts or this disorder makes you want to have the intrusive thoughts to happen even when you don't and it becomes a confusing mess? Because I'm dealing with that rn and it's hard to manage.

I am interested to know has anyone here decided not to have children because of the risk of severe OCD resulting in a terrible life? How has that experience been for you? I am going through this myself at the moment but of course my OCD makes me doubt every decision I ever make. One minute I want something, the next minute I don’t!

Why do intrusive thoughts feel so real? I sometimes fear it isn't OCD and I actually do feel/think those things and it causes me immense distress.

I'm wondering if it's better or worse to tell your partner about your ocd thoughts, if you can be specific or if it's better to keep it vague bc it's so distressing to hear the specifics to people who are close or if they're like.. rocd threads. Mostly in the context of when they're strong or compulsions are strong.

am i a bad person for not letting these thoughts get to me anymore? I cringe when i get them, but i dont put any meaning behind them. Or atleast i try not to. Am i getting better? Because i feel like im a bad person and actually a p word for “accepting” these thoughts. How am i ever gonna recover if my brain is always doubting?

Hello, this is my first time posting! I just want to reflect on how cruel and unfair OCD is. It’s so hard to tell where OCD ends and where you begin, and vice versa. Anything and everything can become a compulsion, and there’s no real way to know without falling into a trap. I honestly thought I was just being responsible and aware before finding out it’s all been ruminating and mental compulsions my entire life. Breaking away from the pattern of Pure-OCD is brutal, but necessary to get my life back. Anyone else feel this way?

Hi all! Any tips for riding out an OCD episode? Trying not to use safety behaviours/compulsions or ruminate etc.

I’m trying to get past the thought in my head that “this is not ocd”. Mainly because I’m not doing compulsions that much anymore it’s just the constant thoughts and still some anxiety from them. The idea that I haven’t figured this out puts a pit in my stomach and brings me to tears. I just know if I do compulsions it’ll feel like the cycle will never stop and it’s exhausting. I already think about this every second of the day and I feel like I can’t enjoy anything so my mind says “well you’re not doing compulsions you’re just anxious about the fact that your life is gonna change and you don’t want it to”. This is so hard I don’t know what to do

i obsess over extremely negative unwanted thoughts and no matter how hard i try to convince myself they’re just thoughts and i don’t actually want that they continue to almost consume me in a way? it’s like a constant battle with myself and there’s been many times where it physically makes me ill and distressed and like i need to tell someone even if it also affects them. i have some decent days where i can fight them but ive noticed when im stressed i can only fight them for so long. i seriously feel crazy 99% of the time and like nobody understands me. everyone always tells me they get bad thoughts too and it’s human which i understand but not everyone gets them to the extent of some others. its to a point where i just want to give up sometimes so i won’t have to deal with the thoughts. of course i never would but my mind does go there.

how to treat intrusive groinal responses? any advice?

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.

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?

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.

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.