Welcome to
the NOCD Community

My mom just told me she doesn’t really believe that I have ocd because I don’t have enough “repetitive actions” and I just have bad anxiety. I feel so beaten down that someone so close to me doesn’t believe my struggles :(

Can anyone tell me usually why or when ocd first occurs? Is it trauma from childhood? Or do people randomly wake up one day and have developed it?…. I can’t remember the first time I started/developed it, but I must’ve been like in 5th grade… I come from a Hispanic household where unfortunately a lot of these households don’t “believe” in therapy or a counselor or mental illness’. I knew something was wrong with myself but I never knew how to express it. I just thought I was actually a crazy person & wasnt “normal” as others. Until this year I started seeing a therapist & he really made me feel like I was not alone. Due to insurance purposes I had to stop seeing him. I don’t think I’ve gotten better I’ve just gotten heard…but the only positive thing about it is that I can hide it very well now, a lot of ppl wouldn’t know vs in the past I had people catch me doing “weird” things. (Very repetitive stuff, fixing things, the list goes on & on). I had to learn to manage & “hide” what I was doing because my kiddos were catching on & would ask me what or why I was doing it, for example “repetitive stuff” lol . I really want it to go away, although I have managed my ticks & triggers, it’s still always in my mind, it stops me from having fun family time, stops me from doing my work at work or doing things or even speaking in a “normal” speed way. For example telling a story or when talking, I have the need to say every single detail, I get side tracked a lot & have to explain those details then it just goes & goes I take forever to say what ima say , it takes me a long time to get to the point like this whole post here it started with a question & now idk what my point was no more 😂 ps. I love making jokes about it to myself to keep myself positive, my close family knows and they’re supportive, it’s all love. I just wish it can actually go away I am concerned it will always be with me…

I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts about pedophilia, I was highly addicted to porn for 2 years or more, I even masturbated a couple times to someone younger but when I did that my ocd didn’t trigger or nothing till months after thinking what if I am a pedophile, after that is when I decided to quit porn indefinitely I realized I was going too far,I always thought I was a decent person, I have never hurt anyone, I always had this idea that I could become someone people can look up to or just become someone everyone respected, I’ve always loved sports, my family and video games, but lately I haven’t been able to enjoy any of that it’s like my ocd is making me think I’ve always been like this and all my actual beliefs weren’t real that I’ve always been this horrible person, at first I would get panic attacks and disgust but now I feel kinda numb and I don’t want to feel like that cause it’s making me think that maybe I am one and my mind is getting used to it, I even feel uncomfortable talking about kids or just being around them and I have never been like that . I am a heavy nicotine and weed smoker (I’ve tried to stop since it seems to make them worse). Now it feels like I am a completely different person, I also have a girlfriend who before this i would love with everything in me, and would be afraid to lose her every time we would argue, I would even think about a child with her in the future, but now I don’t even feel love or any attraction or any of the previous feelings I would feel towards my future and I just feel it makes it even worse cause if I’m not attracted to her and all my previous beliefs feel like lies then what can I believe in? Any advice or tips? I’ll be starting therapy this week so I pray there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

i'm going to lose my life one day to this illness i never asked for. it could've been beautiful.

people here say that their ocd isn’t completely gone but it’s not ruling them and it’s in the back of their mind still but not ruling them. but i don’t want it on the back of my mind. i want clarity about what i believe and who i am again. i don’t want a shred of doubt. i want to be freed. i feel like this is impossible.. like the ocd doubts are apart of me now.. i don’t understand why this happened to me.

Hi there, I’ve recently been diagnosed with OCD after seeking help because of worsening performance at work. I’m a nurse practitioner and work in a busy clinic. Throughout the past few years I’ve become slower and slower as a clinician because I’m so scared of making a mistake. I constantly recheck things that I know I know, recheck my charting and make it as perfect as possible, re-review medical history, obsessively follow patient’s charts, consult the on-calls even though I know the answer, and call patients outside of working hours to check in on them. I’m wondering if there any other healthcare providers who have OCD on this platform? I feel like my OCD symptoms have in someway made me a great provider but it’s getting to a point now where I’m afraid I’ll lose my job because I’m not meeting my patient numbers. Since I can’t see as many patients my coworkers have to pick up the slack and I feel horrible about that. Curious if anyone has similar experiences. Thanks so much for reading :)

I just need help. I’m in a spiral right now! I feel like I offended God with an intrusive thought. I’m scared. I know it’s not rational. My brain is making me think it’s me, but I don’t want to think that way. I’m scared.

Does anyone else hate when people use ocd as a characteristic? I’m involved in a community service group that builds things and the supervisor of the group said “I need my ocd people to come check this straight line”. This girl walked over who is a perfectionist and I’ve watched her closely trying to figure out if she does have OCD but I can’t tell so I don’t want to say she doesn’t bc she very well could but the supervisor saying that made me upset. She was using it as a characteristic of someone. It’s like she was saying “I need my artistic people to come paint this for me”. My ocd isn’t a characteristic. Yes it’s a part of me but I don’t want to be defined by it. I really wanted to say to her “hey that isn’t something people who actually struggle with OCD want to be called.” I don’t want to be called the “ocd girl”. Bc yeah I have ocd and yes I’ve been working extremely hard in exposure therapy and yes I take medication for it but do not define me by it. I find it rude and inconsiderate. I’m not sure how any one else feels but it just made me upset the rest of the day and I’m still thinking about it.

TW for mental health issues, death, ptsd, ED i guess ill just start off by saying that i have struggled since i was young with severe anxiety and panic attacks since i was about five but an onslaught of CPTSD worsened a lot of things for me. i developed an eating disorder in my teens and was hospitalized for it. i’ve been in and out of therapy since i was ten and while i do my best without medication to live my life to the fullest, i often feel like i don’t deserve the successes and support i’ve received in the last few years b/c i feel like i don’t deserve to be happy at all. i saw a video recently of a girl talking about her obsessive hypochondriac thoughts that i resonated with and when i read the comments, a lot of people pointed out that it might be ocd. it hasn’t ever been a thought that crossed my mind and now im wondering if im twisting that video into some sort of self diagnosis for myself. im wondering if it’s just my high anxiety that’s causing these severely intrusive thoughts. for example, i have had a really hard time sleeping recently because the thought that i or my partner might die in my sleep keeps me up. if i have an aneurysm or a heart attack in the middle of the night and die, or worse, if my partner has an aneurysm or heart attack, is it because i don’t deserve to be happy with him? i don’t deserve a wonderful relationship? another thought i have is when i drive with us both in the car, im going to crash and severely injure both of us or kill us both. i have never once crashed my car or gotten into an accident btw, but for some reason i just get this extremely morbid thought that im going to crash and it’ll be the end. i had a weirdly spiritual experience/revelation in 2020/21 about the multiverse and i keep thinking that every night i actually die or that i get into accidents or something morbid happens and im somehow timeline jumping and going to a different multiverse and that’s been my odd way of coping with these thoughts. i guess im just trying to figure out if this is even remotely similar to OCD or if im just over analyzing it bc of my anxiety/hypochondria i guess?? i dont know i just want help. if this isn’t OCD, please tell me and i will delete this post and app and ill sincerely apologize to everyone who actually suffers. 🙏

I know I have had good days and even months, but I always have a relapse. I feel like I will never be “normal” or have a “normal” life. I am constantly lost in my compulsions. Every day I wake up and worry about what I did, what I felt, or what I thought. My family tells me to be stronger, but I am trying so hard. Does anyone else go through the same thing?

Does anyone else get worse OCD symptoms (for me it’s my obsessive and intrusive thoughts, my two big ones that i struggle with). These thoughts seem to bother me so much more the few days before my period and throughout it and it feels like clockwork that is slowly gets better as time goes on. This week was so bad. Some of the worst. I have nearly made life altering decisions that I would not normally make due to these thoughts that feel so real at the time. It is hard to work on them since they are really bad for about a week every month. I cannot explain it very well. I have obsessive thoughts often but on my period they become extremely debilitating. please does anyone else have this. PS i’m 21 and have had issues with my period and my doctors think i may have endometriosis so idk if my period and hormones are just awful and the reason for this.

Hey all, I was recently diagnosed with OCD and MDD a few months ago. I’ve been experiencing symptoms for the past 11 months though. I used to be a person who would downplay depression, reasoning that if someone is depressed, they should be able to snap out of it. This year has taught me the truth behind how debilitating mental health conditions can be. My OCD has been absolutely tearing my life apart. For the past year, I’ve been coping with excessive guilt over past and recurring mistakes, my anxiety of which has recently been causing me panic attacks and throbbing headaches. I’ve also been coping with feeling unnatural sexual attractions, to those of the same sex and to children, which contradict the values I hold at heart. At one point, even simply shaking someone’s hand would cause sexual arousal, due to my hyper-vigilance surrounding physical contact. My OCD and depression nearly led me to take my life a few months ago. There are no words to describe the amount of pain I’ve had to endure. My thoughts and feelings have been absolutely tearing my life down, bit by bit. I feel like I lost who I was, and like it’s impossible for me to know who I am. This isn’t me. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been feeling constant sexual arousal, it’s so easily triggered now. I don’t know if it’s because of the OCD, if it’s a result of the SSRI I’m on, or if it’s just a product of me being a young adult—Or maybe a combination of all of the above, but it’s debilitating. How easily I get aroused causes me so much guilt. There is a girl in my life that I love, but it doesn’t help that I get aroused around her because of the simplest of things. It’s not what I want for us. I want to be able to hone in on my self-control. I can’t help but constantly compare who I am now to who I was just over a year ago. My happiness has suffered, and my endurance is draining. I know there is a long road of insight and recovery ahead of me, this is just the beginning. If there’s anyone who can relate to me in any way, feel free to let me know. Comfort begins with feeling understood.

Theres so many effed up things i’ve done or said in the past which still bother me to this day. One day i’ll have one obsession, like ROCD over being scared i’m cheating on my partner, then another day i’ll have POCD because of a past experience with an underaged friend, and im just so burnt out from all the thoughts and overthinking. I feel like the most horrible person each and every single day, a constant urge to confess, a constant feeling like im a traitor, and then thinking im just using OCD as an excuse for everything. Im so SICK OF IT ALL. I can’t catch a break. There’s too much going on in my head, like this constant rumination and analysis and then compulsions to search up these obsessions. However searching up things relating to it is probably the most harmful and worst mistake for me, because then I see stories of allegations e.g like dream being exposed for grooming a minor and people exposing others for other vile acts and it just triggers me so much, because it feels like I BELONG on there but never in my life would i actually want to do such things, and if everyone knew what i did then i feel like everyone would agree i quite literally deserved to be burned at the stake. Should i just get a therapist at this point or can i get through this myself with the use of some mental gymnastics like i’ve been doing the entire time? I feel too much guilt, it’s eating me up alive.

i get anxiety attacks for everything ugh i hate it!!!😕just now i got anxiety over accounts i blocked in my tik tok and im overthinking why i blocked them in the first place and wondering if they said anything to me for me to block them :( even though i know i never talked to those accounts i keep overthinking it’s so tiring :( my anxiety doesn’t let me be calm

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, 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.

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

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.