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the NOCD Community

Will there ever be a pint in my life where I can completely feel free of OCD and be semi normal?

What helps when u can't stop an obsessive thought from Occuring?

What does it mean if you are not always bothered by every single intrusive thought?? Because sometimes I have them and don’t even feel disgusted, and I don’t always try to get rid of them. Not because I want them but idk I feel guilty for not trying to get them out

Hello everyone. I have posted a couple of times let me explain before I get into it. Two years ago, I started having panic attacks due to the fact I was having major guilt about things I did as a child, sexual things. Completely ashamed of it and now I know as a young adult it was wrong of me. Later on, I started having intrusive thoughts about harming my boyfriend. It literally scared me SO SO bad that’s when I started having panic attacks. Because if I did those things as a kid am I gonna do something bad? Like I completely lost myself, felt like I didn’t know ME anymore and I was so scared. Sometimes I still get like that. During that time, my boyfriend was not sober and it was traumatizing. He’s been a year sober now and we’re doing really great. Last year we moved in with his parents, his parent’s are alcoholic and not that fun kind. There is constantly screaming in the house, a month ago his mom was so trashed that she bashed her head open and I had to call 911 in the middle of the night. This past month, my anxiety has been worse, my thoughts are rambling again, I want to move back to my parents because we cannot afford rent in the area we live right now plus with me paying out of pocket for school. Work has been very stressful, I’m a certified nursing assistant In a nursing home. If you ever worked there you know how it goes, it’s very stressful. I can’t seem to manage my stress, my thoughts. I’m rambling because I feel alone and unsure how to help myself. Im already on medicine and it was working very well for me until a month ago. Any comforting words or tips would forever appreciated it.

Like just chilling having a good day then you start searching inside for something wrong something you done in the past or you start making things up just to lead you in failure

Hello, my wife has OCD and is having swirling / respective thoughts about our dog (whom we’ve had for 8 months). The dog is a runner and has run away a couple of times. We have installed an invisible fence that now has the dog very timid to use our back yard. My wife feels suffocated that we have to walk our dog for exercise and bathroom activities. She obsesses over the invisible fence, situations of finding someone to care for the dog when we go away, fear of him running away, and the activity of having to walk him every day. We have handled all of these situations pretty seamlessly but she continues to obsess and seek reassurance. She has threatened to get rid of the dog (who is truly a love). Her panic and mental breakdowns, irrational scenario thoughts, continued “but” statements to solutions, and continued need to talk is hurting the family. This is not the first situation - there have been many obsessions since moving into this new house, including the house, the move, a paved driveway, hardwood floors, and more. There is always an irrational obsession - it’s really adversely affecting the family. Any thoughts / support would be much appreciated.

Hi, everyone. I'm new here. I was diagnosed with OCD in 2021, during the height of COVID. Ever since I was little, I had struggled with my brain latching tightly onto disturbing thoughts and feeling intense emotions relating to them. However, during the height of the pandemic, my stress levels were off the charts, and this caused my OCD symptoms to get worse. I decided to get tested and do research as a result. I briefly had a really good OCD therapist, but my changing insurance situation meant I had to find another. I've struggled to find one in my area who actually specializes in OCD treatment, although therapy has still helped me with other things. I did briefly have a therapist who was very unhelpful, which scared me off from therapy for a bit, but I'm trying again now. My sibling has been immensely helpful during my journey with OCD. They have been so supportive during all of this and have talked me through many intense OCD episodes. I also appreciate that they've researched OCD to figure out what are and aren't healthy ways to support me. I am deeply grateful to them.

Hi I’m new here for about 8 months now I have had this it all started after my friends made me take a gay test and I got gay and I started having anxiety and bad intrusive thoughts and images they really bothered me a lot and I had lots of anxiety I have lost attraction to girls fully like my mind every time I see a girl is pretty it feels like I’m lying to myself I constantly now stare at guys and their butts or gronial area and my mind everytime goes oh that guy is hot or cute I’m also 16 so I’m really confused on whether this is ocd or not before this all happened I never questioned I always had girlfriends never thought of a man like that also when I say to myself I’m not gay this little area in my stomach says your gay and also my head says your gay but I don’t know if this is intrusive or not so someone please help I don’t know if this is Denial or not

so recently i’ve got into a relationship with someone who i love dearly and deeply care about but my OCD has now latched onto consent and boundaries, also i have a massive fear of “what if i pressure her or make her feel pressured” wether unintentionally or intentionally, ive been compulsively asking chat GPT about consent, boundaries and that kind of thing, and im so scared, i would never want my girlfriend to feel uncomfortable, i’ve told her about this and i said how scared i am about it but ive told her that if i ever do please tell me, but what if she doesn’t because she’s worried if i spiral? i’ve told her though if i ever do please let me know, also before our first kiss i keep going over everything that was said or that i did, and im so scared that what if i made her feel pressured or anything, i asked her afterwards and she said not at all but im still scared. I don’t want this to ruin our relationship, also another fear is “what if i miss one of her non verbal cues of her being uncomfortable or something like that. also before we kissed i asked her are you sure like 5 times and she said yes she wanted to, but then i told chatGPT about it and it said i could of pressured her by asking that, i know i shouldn’t if told chatGPT and im trying to stop, but this is so overwhelming for me, like what if i said something that made her feel pressured? obviously i would never intentionally do that, but im really scared to be intimate with her. and even if we are just holding hands or hugging my OCD says im doing something wrong, i truly can’t tell if im overthinking it or not, and, im just posting this to see if anyone can relate or share some advice because im truly stuck and feel like im going to pass out with the stress, guilt and anxiety, im so scared.

can ANYONE see this post??? I don’t know if my posts keep getting removed or something because I still see them but don’t know if people can. if that’s true, then that sucks. but if people did see them & no one replied, I’m going to think I’m an actual evil person and will have to take action to game over myself. I don’t know if this post will be removed bc I tried to censor/reword what I wanna say. someone please, for fucks sake reply if u can see this. I feel like I’m going crazy

What do you all do when u have tried your tools and techniques and the panic has lasted for hours????

In my previous post i explained how due to my disgusting thoughts and feelings i have stopped engaging with the things i used to love such as my nice clothes, music, tv shows etc… This is because 1. i believe i dont deserve to enjoy these things and 2. i dont want them to be tainted by my terrible thoughts and feelings. Anyways, this has caused me to abandon a lot of the things i’ve received from people or i bought myself, Like a new JC tracksuit or a brand new camera i got for my birthday. I haven’t used these since my birthday (jun 7th) because i am terrified of ruining them. They’re infact my most prized possessions and my mum believe i hate them, im ungrateful and that i love wasting peoples money. I don’t. i just cant tell her why i don’t wear my nice clothes or branded fancy shoes because she wont believe me. I sound insane even trying to explain my behaviours rn. i hate the way i live. I don’t wanna be like this but i don’t wanna ruin my favourite things either. This rule applies to everything in my life. Oh as a side rule, once i ‘poison’ something i cant use it again. Recently i’ve been trying to break out of this habit by coming back to the things i once ‘poisoned’ but it makes me feel the same dirty way i did when i tainted it. It brings back all the bad memories and the things remains tainted forever. I fucking wish i could enjoy everything like i used to but i can’t. Its so difficult and i just feel like shit for it. I feel guilty about making my loved ones ‘waste’ their money and i don’t wanna be like this anymore. I haven’t listened to my favourite songs in months. I’ve been rotting in the same clothes for god knows how long and i haven’t been myself in a long time. The more i live like this the further i feel the things i love slip away, leaving me terrified of ever going back to engaging with them because they’ll get poisoned. I’m sorry if this post makes no sense but i just can’t deal with my mum making me feel so guilty all the time. I can barely speak about my feelings on here to people who understand and can sympathise with me let alone my mum who has no real idea how i feel and thinks my ‘ocd’ was a phase when i was 12 and just some joke.

A couple days ago I was angry and had a really bad thought about someone and remember feeling like I liked it for those couple of seconds (I wasn't going to act on) and didn't think much about it afterwards like I completely forgot about it at the moment when I was upset. After I cooled down I felt like a psycho and feel so gross and wish I never had thought about it. I've been having anxiety bc I'm scared this means I'm some monster who's in denial. Ive been waking up with knots in my stomach. Im scared that this isn't OCD anymore. Is it still ocd?

For the longest time, I struggled with feeling like everyone hates me, even my own friends. It’s exhausting. I pay attention to every shift in someone’s tone of voice and body language, and I will overcompensate or compulsively apologize to people for no reason. It creates a lot of frustration and even resentment because I try so hard to be perfect for everyone that I end up disappointing myself when I realize certain people just don’t like me, even though I’ve done nothing to them. It wasn’t until this afternoon when I was crying to my manager about my coworkers coming together to talk about me in a bad light, even though I’ve done absolutely nothing to them personally. I never thought for a second that this may have been my OCD at play. I wasn’t aware of it until today, and I never thought my OCD would be connected to this obsession.

Hi all. Kinda freaking out here. It’s the girl with the dog here again. It’s 5:30 in the morning here and I am legit in a freak out. This is going to be long so please bear with me. My intrusive thoughts about my dog have gotten so bad even with ERP, I can barely function. I am constantly seeing in my mind her being chopped into pieces. Over and over again. And it’s like I suddenly become aware of different body parts that I’m seeing in this images, so if I am around her, I become aware that she has them, and it makes me feel like I’m so freaked out I’ll do something to her because I’m freaked out by them. It’s usually her neck, or her internal parts, etc. I get near her, get reminded, and all these images start coming and it feels like I’m being pulled/will do these things. Not to mention the fact, that I consciously think of the thoughts and sometimes still feel like I’d do them. It feels like I’m actually considering doing these horrific things. And I have different feelings that go with them - physical sensations, urges, etc. It puts her in every horrible violent situation and makes me feel like I’d actually do these things to her (i.e - see her being pulled apart - I get a weird feeling in my chest with these thoughts that feels like I’d actually kind of black out and do them or be okay with it; almost like a sense of dropping calm thought my body?!). I ate meat today and it made me think of someone doing that to her - and made me feel like I would - and would be okay with it. Frankly, I’m freaking out. I feel like I will actually end up acting on these thoughts. The longer this goes on the more I feel like that. I also feel like I don’t care about her anymore and that scares the living shit out of me because then I feel like I don’t value her and that it wouldn’t bother me to act on them. I have loved this dog for 8 freaking years. What the hell is wrong with me?!!! I feel like my thoughts about her are SO much more violent and the rest of it is just so off - I then start scouring the internet for stories of people with harm ocd, and instead found a story of a guy who went into psychosis and killed his pet. Which of course makes me feel like with everything I’m seeing and already feeling…let’s just say it didn’t help. Am I a lost cause??! Is my dog unsafe with me? I feel like she is. I don’t sleep anymore because of these thoughts so I’m literally up all night watching tv because I’m so scared and convinced that I will do these things. I don’t understand what happened.

It's been 9 months that I've been ruminating on this memory. I really need some help figuring this one out... it's more so about did I do something wrong and I am losing sleep over something I did... I'm sure we all know with Pure O and "me time" (if you get my hint) there comes a lot of shame. About 9 months ago I had some "me time" in the morning before getting up to start off my day with my sister who I live with. I was fantasizing about a fictional character as I'm sure others do (it's pretty common) and after I was done I panicked because I didn't want my sister to know or even suspect that I was having some "me time" . Before I even walk out of my room to greet her I try to calm myself down both from the anxiety of her finding out and the "high" I guess you could say. I went to use the bathroom to wash my hands and to continue to try calming down. At this point, I feel like I might've started to have a silent anxiety attack but I'm not sure because I couldn't concentrate all that well on what my sister was talking to me about while making breakfast and my fear is that I was still sort of in a daze after the "me time" and between the anxiety about her even finding out what I was doing, I don't know if this whole morning was a really just an anxiety attack or if i am a pervert or if my OCD brain is trying to just ruminate on it to confuse me. Please I need some input. It's getting to the point where I am losing sleep.

Before I write this please do not read if you struggle to talk about your feelings. :) I wish I never started this in my head, I don't want it to affect others reading this. I feel like I can't vent. I feel like I shouldn't. I feel like I don't need to. Everyone else can but I shouldn't. Writing this right now is making me feel so guilty and scared. Everytime I want to or a do something bad happens and said person probably thinks I'm weird now to top it off. I keep telling myself "what's the difference between if I say it or not?" And I realize I only have more problems when I do and I don't feel that much better. I feel like in my family I'm gonna get negative feedback. The last times I've opened up it gets used against me in an argument. I don't like talking to my friends because I don't want to make them feel bad for me or for them to think I'm an attention seeker but sometimes I start to spin out and I feel really bad because I really want help but I don't trust anyone or myself. I feel helpless. I'm tired. It sucks because at the end of the day I know that I shouldn't talk and that I'm not going to because as I write this I feel guilty for needing help. I don't know what kind of OCD this is but because of my other OCD types I over think to the point I need to take breaks during the day just to sit and try not to cry and that's so dumb of me but it's true. Then I feel like I shouldn't talk to anyone. A part of me knows I should but there's a bigger part of me that knows that I really shouldn't.

Idk if it’s ocd or not. But I’m feeling so guilty for thinking this. It’s bothered me since I started dating my bf. We been together 9 months now and he’s 5’8 and I’m 5’0. I understand how shallow and stupid it is to care about height. As every guy I spoke to has been about 5’8-5’10 idk why I care. It’s been bothering me how much I care about it. I’m in love with him so much but it isn’t getting out of my head how “I wish he was a little taller” I don’t want him to be 6’ or anything but even a bit taller. He’s also just smaller too and I feel so damn bad saying this and thinking it. He knew I felt this way in the beginning cuz someone told me and I told him it’s not how I felt now and I grew to love him so much so idc and it is true I don’t care he’s taller than me so who cares? And he’s the best person I’ve ever met and I don’t ever want to lose him. I have never ever felt this way for anyone ever I want to marry this man but I can’t stop fucking thinking this and it’s causing me so much guilt I don’t know what to do

Hey guys, So I'm not entirely sure if it's my ocd or if I'm just a stickler for rules. A doctor once told me that drinking and meds is a no go. Now I avoid alcohol, being on 3 different meds out of fear that an interaction will occur. My problem is this. If it is infact OCD than my ocd brain is blowing its importance out of proportion and I am displaying avoidance behaviour out of fear. Everyone I know says "live a little,it's fine, people drink on crazy meds all the time" this reassurance does not help and often makes me feel badly that I can't get past the fear that it will somehow mess with my chemistry due to them both being drugs essentially. And so the way to face it would be to have a drink or two and face the fear. BUT.. But if it is actually unsafe than am I doing right by avoiding? I'm not sure how to handle this situation theraputically in terms of moving forward. Any guidance is appreciated.

I hate how my mind works. It’s more annoying than anything. I can’t look at the number six without feeling disgusting. I can’t hear the number without panic arising in my body. I can’t say it. I can’t do anything with it. I hate how there’s good numbers and bad ones. It’s annoying. Why does my brain make me think I’m infected when I come across it??? Why can’t I think of the number without trying to “protect” myself and say it’s just “two groups of three” Every time I see the number I want to puke and get it off. Get what off exactly?? Idk. The infected feeling. The bad feeling. But it’s a number. A number. It’s not even physical. It’s a way of keeping track of an amount. But no matter what I say logically. It doesn’t matter. The feeling doesn’t stop. The thinking doesn’t disappear. It ruins stuff for me. I hate it