Welcome to
the NOCD Community

I feel like the worst kind of person and I am ruining my husband. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to change.

Idk if this post is even worth it but it seemed like a normal day for me, called off work due to the weather so I get to just stay home and play games all day. Easy day besides dealing with the constant and unbearable battle with my intrusive thoughts/feelings. Took a shower and I just had constant thoughts, (heart palpitations are pretty constant) ended up breaking down and bawling my eyes out. I was diagnosed with HOCD and ROCD about 2 months ago and since it's just gotten worse. It feels as real as it can get and after talking to my girlfriend about the anxiety attack, it feels even more real. I have no desire or enjoyment from what comes from my brain, and at this point I'm on my knees begging the big man upstairs for my old life back, how do I go from being obsessed with women (sexually and emotionally) to pretty much doing a 180 overnight (with the obvious anxiety and worry behind it. No real desire obviously). I'm just at a loss, I've done a little ERP and it seemed to help with the brain fog but besides that, everything that it does to someone, I have. And again there's the doubt I even have OCD and I'm in straight denial. It just sucks.

I find that the intrusive thoughts that hurt me the most are the quiet ones. The ones that, at a glance, can be hard to differentiate from your own thoughts. The louder thoughts are easy to diffuse, to say "maybe, maybe not" to but the quiet ones leave me ruminating for hours trying to figure out if they're mine or OCD's. They leave me feeling disconnected from those around me and even from myself. I can go from happily thinking about marrying my boyfriend in the future to feeling like I have never actually loved him in a matter of minutes all because a thought was a whisper rather than a scream. This is my first post and I'm not sure what I'm looking for in making it. Advice? To know I'm not alone? I guess if there's anything you feel the need to share I'd love to hear it.

Have you ever felt the need to hide knives because you’re scared someone might hurt you while you’re sleeping? Or have your thoughts ever tried to convince you that you have feelings for your family members? Maybe you feel like you need to tell your parents to “drive safe” every time they go somewhere, believing that it will prevent them from crashing, or that something bad will happen if you don’t. These are things I’ve experienced, but they didn’t last long, and because of that, I’m unsure if I actually have OCD, as these thoughts don’t happen frequently. I’m 17, so maybe it’s still developing, but I’m not sure. At one point, I even thought I might be a psychopath and would become a serial killer (i was analyzing my past and feelings but it went away quickly) When I was a kid, I was also scared I had a tumor and constantly needed reassurance from my parents that everything is okay, but it wasn’t as intense. Recently, I’ve been scared that ghosts would come or that a demon would possess me, or that if i open my eyes i will se my dead uncle (i was 16😂) which kept me from sleeping. Are these signs of OCD? Should I consider getting treatment? About three months ago, I had my first big obsession about possibly having OCD itself (i was scared of going crazy, of feeling like this forever, of not being perfect, of not having control), and now I’ve been struggling with HOCD for three months. But I’m scared that I don’t even have OCD, and that these thoughts might be true. It’s funny because just a few months ago, I was terrified of having OCD, but now I feel like I want to have it. I think a traumatic experience with weed might have made my OCD worse, but I’m not sure. What do you think? I also found out that my mom is also hiding knifes and that she was also obsession over sickness…

some days I wake up with so much dread and guilt. It makes it so hard to keep going. I open my eyes and I’m hit with a wave of nausea and terror. I feel ashamed of my compulsions and my OCD. I feel like a monster for my checking compulsions. For momentarily sexualizing things that shouldn’t be sexualized out of anxiety. I’m ashamed of a lot that I give into because of anxiety. Confessing things that are meaningless to my boyfriend. I feel so awful and unworthy of existing and of love. I feel hopeless I don’t want to keep pushing, the more I push the more meta my OCD becomes and the more guilt I feel for this mental illness. The more confusing it becomes to do ERP. If compulsions are a choice, they feel like life or death and it’s driving me insane, I beat myself up so badly over them I’m scared of compulsions, I’m scared of thoughts, I’m scared to be awake, I’m even scared of sleeping because my intrusions and compulsions haunt me there too. I spend my dreams trying to explain or justify my OCD and compulsions to people. I’m exhausted, I want this to stop so badly. My severe OCD isn’t feeling any less severe and it’s been months. I don’t want to keep questioning my every move but I’m so hyperaware of everything I do. I’m so tired. Some days I don’t even have tears to cry with. I’m just so full of despair and shame

I can’t stop overthinking about my friend and her soon-to-be boyfriend , I feel like I’m jealous but not of HER, I’m jealous of HIM, like, I’ve known her for so much longer , me and her have always been closer, and this guy comes in and is gonna take up a bunch of her time. Idk, ik I shouldn’t feel this way. She reassured me she would never leave me and I guess I’m also scared of that. I had a breakup with our friend oldest bsf a couple months ago , I guess that might’ve done more damage than I thought. I feel like I’m losing myself , and then I thought I found myself again once me, my bsf , and the guy became friends , but as soon as I found oit she liked him and he liked her its like everything crashed:/// I hate feeling this way but idk what to do

My boyfriend told me that he feels like he’s losing me, that I’ve changed, and that I don’t seem happy to see him anymore. I know that this should hurt me deeply, but when he said it, I didn’t feel anything. And now I’m terrified. Why didn’t I react? Why didn’t I feel instant sadness or guilt? It’s like I was emotionally blocked, like I didn’t care at all—and that thought is destroying me. What if this means I don’t love him? What if I’ve just been lying to myself and I don’t want to accept the truth? I feel so disconnected and numb. My brain keeps telling me: “If you really cared, you would feel something.” But instead, I feel nothing. And the fact that I feel nothing makes me panic even more. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I used to feel so much, and now it’s like I can’t access my emotions at all. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to feel like this forever. I just want to feel normal again

When I talk about how terrible I used to be to my girlfriend it makes me feel like I’m gonna do it again which I don’t wanna do and it scares me and then I get intrusive thoughts and feelings about it doing it but I don’t want to, weird I know.

hi guys, i’m struggling again. the other day, my bf and i went to get ice cream and there was this girl with a fat ass. i pointed it out first because like super impressive and she’s my ideal body type at the moment. (note: i get jealous and freak over girls i have jealousy to) so i was staring at him to see if he was looking at her but i couldn’t tell, he was looking in her direction but she was in the front counter. idk if he was looking at her. i brought it up and he was really sweet about it and reassured me that he didn’t and that he purposely didn’t look out of respect for me. i believe him but i have a little voice in my ear telling me he’s lying and he obviously was looking. any tips on how to diminish that little voice ??

I know OCD is a hard thing for those around us to cope with, but man… I feel so dismissed by the people in my life. I actively stopped seeking reassurance from them — but they can still tell I’m sad, so when they ask me why, I tell them, and this is what I get: My mom: “Oh my god, you’re on this AGAIN?! You’re driving yourself crazy! If you refuse to go on pills, I don’t know what to say at this point.” My boyfriend: “This is just getting repetitive. You’ve been so sad lately, and if you’re gonna be a bummer to be around, then I don’t know what to say.” Honestly, I don’t feel like my support system is very good, but maybe I really am just driving them crazy and need to own it? Because, believe me, I wish I could just stash it all away and be okay, but the whole issue is that I can’t. Plus, ERP literally tells me to do the opposite, and I’m still learning how to do ERP properly, so it’s gonna take time. I started ERP therapy. I bought self-help books and I’m reading them. I’m doing meditation daily. I’m moving my body and trying to keep doing what makes me happy. But, it seems like if I’m not 100% better immediately, no one has patience for me.

My boyfriend told me that he feels like he’s losing me, that I’ve changed, that I never seem happy to see him anymore, and that I haven’t told him I love him in a long time. Hearing this completely broke me. I feel numb, stuck, and unable to process my emotions. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. What if he’s right? What if I don’t love him anymore and I’m just in denial? I want to feel something when I’m with him, but I feel blocked. I feel like I can’t express love the way I used to, and now he’s noticing it too. That makes me feel even worse, because he doesn’t deserve this. He’s been trying to help me, but he told me that I’m not changing, and now I feel like I’m the problem. Even when I’m calm, I still feel disconnected. My brain doesn’t work the same anymore—I can’t think clearly, I can’t process my emotions like I used to. I thought that when my anxiety would go down, I would finally feel normal again, but even in moments of calm, I feel like I don’t know what’s real. I feel like a horrible person, like I’m emotionally unavailable and ruining everything. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I just want to go back to how I used to feel, when love wasn’t something I questioned every second. im ruining my relationship

my boyfriend td he feels like he is losing me , like im different amd, that i have changed, that i never told him i live him anymore and im never happy to see him as i used to. why is this happening to me. i feel numb. is my fear real? im a horible person

Hi everyone☀️ has anyone ever vented to a friend without knowing it is a compulsion? Meaning like you believe the thoughts so much in your head you vent to them and they agree with you? Which then fuels your obsessions about your relationship even more? I have really done that less lately the more I have learned about my ROCD, but wanted to know if anyone else experiences this? It’s so hard when we think we are just venting and then someone agrees or goes along with the obsession because they don’t understand the OCD..which then fuels my ROCD 😭 idk if I’m making sense lol hopefully someone understands

Prior to coming to college, I knew that I was having thoughts that other people weren’t having and that it controlled my actions or feelings of guilt in a way that I just couldn’t see in my friends but I ignored it. Since coming to college, my compulsions and stressful thoughts have gotten a lot harder to handle and my new friends have started pointing out that they think I have OCD. I’ll try to explain some of the reasons people have pointed out or I’ve noticed but at the end of the day I always question if I’m just doing these things for some sort of attention or something. I have this strong belief that when I’m walking on pavement, the amount of times that I start stepping on a tile with either my right or left foot have to match. And people always ask me if I’m just superstitious about stepping on the cracks but I don’t mind that as long as I make it match with my other foot. The problem is that whenever I’m unable to “make the tiles or cracks match” I feel like I’ve left some universal channel open and something extremely bad will happen to me in the next 24 hours (after that it resets). Sometimes it makes me look weird when I’m walking and it’s really embarrassing when people ask me about it and I can’t fully explain the concept to them. People generally just get confused and I feel like they just regret asking and think I’m weird. Once, when I was walking down the street with some of my friends, i ran out of tiles to make my steps even and totally FREAKED OUT. I got really anxious and I couldn’t stop bouncing my leg. One of the people I was with made me feel terrible about it when he said “wait that’s actually real?” So now my fears of faking OCD just because has become a bit more real to me since my friends don’t understand the full extent of how it makes me feel, even when they’re actively seeing me break down. Besides this, which is really the most inconvenient part of my potential OCD, there’s a multitude of other things I’ve noticed that show signs of it. Whenever I take a test, I have to be wearing at least 2 hairbands on my wrist and be wearing a sweater in order to do well. Numbers really matter a lot to me because they each have a different meaning and I’m scared of some of them. When I was little, and even now in other instances besides sleeping, I used to count how many times I rolled over before I fell asleep in fear that I would land on one of the bad numbers. For example, 1 would mean a serial killer was in my room, 3 would mean something would come out of the mirror, 4 would mean a doll came to life and was trying to murder me with a knife, etc. They all sound like stupid fears and are highly improbable but it used to feel very real to me. Now I still associate those numbers with the bad things but I’ve worked on trying to expose myself to certain numbers some nights and find some safe ones. Now the number 4 has changed in meaning and evolved into my worst fear, the zombie apocalypse. This all ties back to my tile crack issue because when I “leave the channel open” by making my steps uneven, the number I mess up at (ex: 4 tiles started on the right means I need to start the next four with my left) is the chaos that the channel will bring. Also, I constantly feel like a terrible person because I’m scared that I’m faking my sexuality even though I only like girls. I’ve been closeted for so long throughout high school that sometimes I feel like my current shame and fear of telling important people in my life (ie. parents, family friends, people who I feel are slightly homophobic) is a sign that I’m not like devoted enough to my sexuality – making me scared of calling myself a lesbian. I’ve also never been with a girl because I only recently came out at college and it fuels my rumination that I subconsciously must just be asexual or once again doing it for attention. I’ve tried dating guys to make my mom believe I wasn’t lesbian but kissing them or the thought of spending the rest of my life with a man always makes me literally cry. I go to Virginia Tech and the lack of an LGBTQ+ community here is making my coming out process and search for a true relationship extremely difficult and bleak. Whenever I see a girl I don’t find attractive (even though I see a bunch that I do) it scares me and makes me think I might not actually be lesbian even though I like girls. Idk what to even say about this it just sucks. There’s so much more that I can relate to based on the discussion board such as fears of accidentally having pdophelia and cheating on people I’m not even dating. But at this point I feel like I’ve already written an essay and I don’t even know where to start with the different types of OCD and where to seek a diagnosis. The hardest part about asking for help or guidance is the fact that I never attempted to get diagnosed, making it feel like I can’t even claim that I have it. Thanks for reading this, please write back if you can relate at all :)

I posted recently on this app about my false attraction Someone told me to stop obsessing and you'll know whether they're really false..! it triggered me But when i tried to calm down and asked myself am I really attracted to girls i heard a voice YES..😓 Like i havent been professionally diagnosed with hocd And also im too young they say im just exploring.. but how??I've always been interested boysand i ve always had supportive background but i dont want to am into coming out process? Im going crazy now, cant feel anyting almost out of breaths...

I’m really scared that if I stop panicking about my thoughts, they will become real. Lately, I’ve been feeling irritated by my boyfriend, and sometimes I even think he annoys me or disgusts me. When these thoughts come, they feel so real, like I genuinely don’t want to be in this relationship anymore. And now I’m terrified that if I stop reacting with fear, it means I actually don’t want him, and I’ve just been in denial this whole time. What if the fact that I’m getting used to these thoughts means I’m actually accepting them as the truth? What if my fear was the only thing keeping me from realizing I don’t love him anymore? I’ve read about people saying that, with ROCD, thoughts lose their power over time, but I’m scared that in my case, that will just mean I’ll end up accepting something I don’t want to be true. On top of that, I had a situation where I noticed a guy at school, and my anxiety made me obsess over it. I remember seeing him last year and paying attention to how he dressed, which made me panic and think, ‘What if I like him?’ The thought wouldn’t leave my head, and I even thought about it at home, which made me feel guilty. Recently, I had to go to his classroom for a project with my teacher, and when I saw him, I felt like I got nervous or something. Now I’m terrified that I like him, and that it means I don’t love my boyfriend. I don’t even know his name, I don’t want to know, but my mind won’t stop obsessing over it. Meanwhile, my boyfriend told me he doesn’t feel loved by me anymore, and that breaks my heart. I feel so guilty because I’m constantly thinking that I don’t like my boyfriend, and now my brain is telling me I like someone else. What if I’m only with my boyfriend because I don’t want to hurt him? What if I’m in denial? I just want to feel normal again. my boyfriend is amazing he dosent deserve this

hi this is my first post on here and I’m in desperate need for anyone to hear me out and offer support or advice or just about anything even though I’m fully aware reassurance is a nono A little about me : early 20s, straight female (my soocd would disagree lol) and mild to moderate autism I started seeing an ocd therapist a couple months ago and she was lovely. I was coming out of a difficult period of my life where I had stopped my ssri and that decision bit me in the ass because my ocd came back in full force (soocd, real event, pocd, rocd, pure ocd thoughts, statements, etc ) For the most part all of my themes have settled but today my rocd has struck so hard I can barely function, I’ve been a crying wreck all day feeling sick with shame and guilt over my fears with my bf and not finding him attractive all the time or when I notice other attractive men and sometimes I question if he is it for me because he is my first everything so I have nothing to compare to and all these thoughts are so overwhelming (even normal curiosity about dating other people freaks me out) I love him so much (at least i think i can never be 100% certain) and that’s what *obviously* scares me. No one here can tell me how I feel but I’m just so scared and the guilt and shame is eating me alive Another trigger of mine is the fact he wasn’t my type physically when we first met (we weren’t dating then) but overtime I started to like him a lot his personality complimented mine and he became attractive to me and I felt all the lovey feelings and excitement Essentially I’m scared I don’t really love him because if I truly did I wouldn’t notice or fixate on his physical flaws or the things he does or doesn’t do that bother me sometimes I try to think logically he probably has similar thoughts about me but doesn’t bat an eyelid Im just so tired and I can’t see my therapist till Friday :((

TW// mention of pdf, Reddit Long post Feeling gross and icky. In the past I made an in detailed Reddit post about my pocd and trauma and sxual theme ocd including mas/turbaton as a compulsion. Anyways I had a full blown IN DETAIL convo with someone who progressively was being weirder but I ignored red flags because people with ocd sometimes talk as if they are criminal and like what ocd throws at them, I’ve seen it on here on NOCD with people who vent . Anyways I was relating to them from an ocd standpoint, they immediately mentioned they do not want to do these things etc. also mentioned rocd and asked if they had a partner and had normal feelings and still was able to have sx with them normally but still had pocd and it make things weird. and eventually as convo went on once they said something that I couldn’t ignore and was actually in my face that they were a pdf I stopped responding …. I think I blocked them but then they deleted their account as a whole. Everytime I re read , I can understand what im saying from an ocd standpoint, but a PDF reading my msgs would think I agree with them, and I think that’s what he thought, and was sortve maneuvering around what I was saying until he saw that I actually was weirded out cause after he said something weird about controlling himself I said wym? He explained that’s when I stopped responding. That’s when he disabled. There’s so many msgs im reading where I shouldve just STOPPEDDDDD RESPONDINGGG. I was just trying to talk about ocd and my own experiences and didn’t just want to assume he was a pdf bc I’ve heard it all on here NOCD and still thought the person had ocd and wasn’t a pdf I just feel terrible. Like a P enabler. I guess all I can say is maybe maybe not. I stopped responding bc I felt uncomfortable and that he was an actual p. If me continuing in convo for longer than I should’ve bc now im uncomfortable looking back on it, then I can just take that as don’t continue a convo that ur trying to dismiss as being uncomfortable… Don’t try to excuse weird things people are saying because you want to be open minded and not judge.

Whenever I have a non flirtatious, friendly interaction with a male my brain accuses me of cheating. I go into a full panic attack until I tell my husband then it goes away Same thing with intrusive thoughts. I'll have a random sexual thought about someone and my brain tells me that since I thought that it must be what I wanted and accuses me of cheating. Sometimes these thoughts come with actually physical feelings of what intruded. Thoughts of "what would it be like .." but I stop myself and then freak the flip out. With erp am I just supposed to let the sexual thoughts or accusations play out in my head?! It's excruciatingly painful. Also if I sit there and give into a sexual thoughts paired with the "mood" feelings how is that not mentally cheating 😵‍💫

I don’t understand why I don’t feel happy, why my mind keeps making me think so negatively about him. Nothing makes me feel joy anymore. I keep thinking that he’s stupid, that I don’t like him, and when he speaks kindly to me, I feel nothing. The worst part is that I feel completely numb, like I have no emotions at all. And that makes me think that maybe I really don’t like him, that I will eventually reach a point where I realize my worst fear is true. I keep fighting with him because of my attitude. I treat him badly, and I know it’s because of my thoughts. I can’t see the good in anything. Today, he told me that I would be better off without him because I always seem so sad. He moved to my city for university just to be with me, and instead of making his life better, I feel like I’m making it worse. The thoughts don’t stop, even when I’m with him. I see people posting about how they feel calm when they’re with their partners, but I don’t. I can’t look at him without having intrusive thoughts, and I can’t even kiss him. Today, he told me that he doesn’t feel loved by me anymore, that I treat him poorly. I am constantly afraid because I feel nothing when he says things to me, because I don’t feel like I care. When I look at pictures of us from when I was in a better place, I feel like I was a completely different person. I start thinking that I’ve “matured” and that’s why I don’t feel anything anymore—like maybe I only liked him because I was young and naïve. Everything he does and says irritates me, but he loves me. What if I’m only with him because I don’t want to hurt him? What if I’m just used to him? I feel scared all the time. I don’t understand what’s happening. He keeps trying to apply logic, but it doesn’t work on me. So many times, he has tried to make me feel better, to tell me that I still care about him and that I don’t need to feel love all the time. But my heart breaks when I see how attached he is to me while I feel like I don’t feel the same way. I feel like I’m hurting him, and I don’t know how to get out of this dark place . He keeps trying to apply logic, but it doesn’t work on me. So many times, he has tried to make me feel better, to tell me that I still care about him and that I don’t need to feel love all the time. But my heart breaks when I see how attached he is to me while I feel like I don’t feel the same way. I feel like I’m hurting him, and I don’t know how to get out of this dark place