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the NOCD Community

I really am not doing well my Prozac is making me feel worse I think I’m gonna switch to another med because I really can’t focus on school or work I can’t eat I can’t sleep can anyone relate? I’m so close to quitting my job because this is so debilitating to me

Does anyone have any good tips on how to reduce the urge to pick your skin? I wasn’t aware that this was something often associated with OCD until my therapist told me about it. I regularly engage in skin picking especially on my face and it has made my acne even worse and lead to scarring. I don’t want to continue doing it but sometimes I just do it without even realizing I’m doing it.

Has anyone ever dealt with breathing ocd?

Can someone help me? I was trying to clean my daughter’s car got hot and got anxiety now all I can focus on is my heart rate and it doesn’t feel good and I am freaking the f out!

Hi I’m new to the community and I have such weird ocd tendencies I was curious to see if anyone else has so I’m just going to list them in no specific order: 1. My brain goes “I hope” every time I think of something bad happening. Like “I hope that pedestrian gets hit by a car” or “I hope a demon snatches me under the bed right now.” 2. I have dermatillomania mostly on my arms, chest, face, and shoulders. If I have a bunch of open wounds on my body, I make myself feel “cleaner” by doing an everything shave in the shower. Conversely, if I’m having a period of mostly healed skin, I like to leave my body hair growing out for a couple days as a way to gloat to myself how “clean” I am even without shaving. 3. After my whole life living with these symptoms, most of them I’m able to brush off. But this next one still shakes me and disturbs me to my core every time it happens and it’s picturing sex acts with people I would NEVER want to do sex acts with. My earliest memory of this is when I was a little kid, as young as 5 years old, I had an image in mind of what I thought God looked like. Every time I would imagine God, I would automatically imagine him naked and I would shove my head under the pillow and shut my eyes tightly and try to make the image go away because I thought I was being blasphemous by imagining such a thing. 4. This one is relatively new, the past year or two, but cutting my own bangs. The only reason I consider it an ocd tendency and not just self sufficiency is because I SUCK at it and botch it every time!!! But I keep trying to find the perfect parting that contours to all the existing cowlicks and kinks in my hair and try to carve out my “natural bangs.” I convince myself a hairdresser is just not familiar enough with my hair growth patterns to give me what I want. This one is particularly embarrassing because it’s like I’m wearing my mental illness on my face. I have been wearing a headband for the past year to try and hide it but it doesn’t stop me from cutting it again because I am so insistent to get it right. I always regret it after. 5. I don’t know if this one is ocd but I suspect it might be and it’s that I rarely ever am not drinking water. If I finish a glass I’m filling up another one. Sometimes it will be a different beverage like coffee or matcha but I almost always am sipping compulsively on something. I use the bathroom about once every hour and 3-4 each night. That’s all I can think of for now but I wanted to share some atypical traits to see if anyone relates! This isn’t by any means all of my ocd tendencies unfortunately:/ just the ones I’ve never heard anyone else share before!

does anyone know if ocd and chronic stomach issues have a strong correlation? 😭 I havent been diagnosed with any stomach issues but I have also never checked. Plus ive had ocd and like persistent and painful stomach aches since i was like 5 and still do get them. I think i may have ibs.

I posted here before but I picked up a kitten like a week ago on the road. The kitten is completely fine health wise and I can’t stop thinking I have rabies. What’s happening right now is I’ll take a drink and since I looked up that ppl with rabies have a hard time drinking I convinced myself I’m having a hard time swallowing and then that makes me panic then when I also read it makes ppl hydrophobic I’m turning that panic of thinking I have rabies into thinking I’m scared of water which furthers my obsession that I have rabies. I told my mom about all this and she told me I definitely do not have rabies just like she told me yesterday and it’s not helping and it won’t help. I’m thinking of doing the rabies shot that you get before you show symptoms in case i haven’t actually showed symptoms yet. I’m so scared I don’t want to die. I keep drinking water to prove to myself that I can swallow it. And the fact that you cant have a definite answer if u have it until you die is rlly rlly rlly freaking me out.

So I’ve been off sertraline 50 mg for a couple months now after being on it for 3 years. I got off cuz I was getting bad side effects from it like gaining hella weight and low libido. My anxiety has been so bad so I’m considering trying Prozac since apparently the side effects are less. What’s your experience with it/does it help your anxiety from your intrusive thoughts? I mainly have just somatic ocd

so about a week ago around june 12 or 13 coming back from the beach i was having vulva pain on one of the lips then eventually i went to grandmas house and everytime i bent down or moved around i was having some sharp pain “down there” eventually i was scared and then it started to kinda hurt to pee… and i was like ok this is kinda worrying me eventually i forgot about it for two days it didn’t hurt but then i come back and start to have it again. so then i was like okay i’m just gonna schedule a doctors appointment. i schedule my doctors appointment got tested and i was negative for UTI but i was having bad lower back psi so they sent off a cultural test and told me a few days after that i have bacterial vaginosis so i was like ok i’m guessing to get antibiotics for it… i get the antibiotics yesterday theyre capsules i can’t swallow them but i cut them and put it in apple sauce where it was so gross the smell was awful and the taste was awful… atp i got a liquid i haven’t took it yet.. but my stomach has been hurting and had numbness and weird tingling feeling down there… where it’s scaring me and now my stomach hurts almost like cramps but it makes me so nervous… i keep thinking i have ovarian cancer or some type of cancer or a cyst or kidney stones… even tho they told me i have bacterial vaginosis somehow i can’t believe them… but i soon start my period on the 30th and my OCD gets so bad 2 weeks before my period and symptoms start a week before my period… idk i’ve never had this OCD go out for so long but like my urine looks fine it’s just when i pee now it’s almost feels weird idk my stomach is hurting rn when i lay down and i’ve been freaking out ugh. and this morning i had sorenness down there… i also had some inner thigh pain… i can’t stop googling i keep thinking it’s something worse than i have from what the doctor told me

…(for those who came off of it)how long did it take for you to feel normal again/when did ur anxiety level out after tapering off the meds after being on it for awhile? I’m in month two and still feeling very anxious, is this just how it’s gonna be now that I’m not on meds? I didn’t wanna rely on them cuz I was gaining weight and it lowered my libido but it was helping me so this sucks. I can’t eat much and diarrhea like am I just gonna be like this forever now that I’m not on meds?

I’ve been on Zoloft for 3 years almost for somatic ocd/anxiety/panic attacks and I slowly tapered myself off the correct way because I’ve been good for awhile and I felt like I was gaining weight from it. It’s been almost 2 months off the meds and NOW the last few days my anxiety has been so bad I’ve had no appetite and diarrhea and waves of panic is this me relapsing or a delayed reaction? Am I gonna have to be on meds my whole life because I really hope not :/ idk what to do I don’t wanna go back on my meds tho

i am nearly constantly extremely anxious and i don't want to live like this. my family and friends are so done dealing with me to the point that i feel that i'd be better off completely alone. every small twinge or pain in my body sends me into a panic, and if it's not that it's something else i manage to be worrying over. i'm fairly certain my stress has caused an ulcer to form. i try to sit with myself and not seek reassurance/check myself for issues but it is genuinely agonizing at times. most days i sleep 12-14 hours a day because it gets to a point that i cannot deal with it anymore and i take something to sleep. sometimes i do feel that i would be better off just not around so i wouldn't have to feel this any longer. i do a lot of unhealthy things to cope (drinking, smoking, and otc sleeping pills being the main culprits) and those habits end up hurting me in the long run and making me more anxious. i do have a counselor and she is great but i'm having a really hard time finding a medication provider under my insurance. i really really do want to get better because this is the most miserable i have ever been and i hate being like this and exhausting myself and the people around me. i've been told a big part of the healing process is to make yourself sit with your thoughts and deal with the uncertainty and fear as it comes, but it feels torturous to do that. sometimes reading through these posts does make me feel better knowing that i'm not alone but lately i have been unable to pull myself out of this frantic state. what are some healthier ways to cope/distract yourself that you guys find to be at least semi-effective? i am genuinely willing to try anything to make this terrible feeling go away

Ugh. So I’ve been having some stomach issues for about two or three months now. I started seeing a naturopathic doctor who ran some tests and put me on a restrictive diet. The stool test she gave me revealed that I have high levels of a pathogen called Aeromonas caviae. I was kind of relieved to find this out since it finally gave me some answers to my issue. That was about 3 weeks ago. Last Friday I got my food sensitivity results back which revealed that I have some mild problem with gluten, dairy, egg whites, and other random foods. They were all low-level igG sensitivities though. Again, I was kind of relieved to receive the results at first because it helped me better understand what might be going on with my stomach. I was good for about a day. I even had one of the foods that I’m “mildly sensitive” to and had no issues. I remember eating with my husband after getting the results and telling him that I was happy and that these results were “tolerable.” That was until I visited my mom on Saturday night. I decided to tell my mom about my food sensitivity results and she just had a reaction that kind of set me off for some reason. I’m not even entirely sure why it set me off because her reaction wasn’t overly dramatic or anything. She was more just shocked and made the comment “well what can you eat then?!” I immediately got super anxious after this. I started thinking maybe I wasn’t taking the results seriously enough and that I should be more concerned. I started doing research about food allergies and it’s all been downhill since then. That night I could hardly sleep. I kept waking up every couple of hours because I was just super anxious. The next day I cooked and ate a breakfast meal that I had the day before and was perfectly fine with. Except this time I noticed that the back of my hand started burning and itching a bit. I put some creme on and took a nap and by the time I woke up I felt better. Then again later in the evening my husband and I meal prepped for the week and ate dinner. After eating I noticed the same thing was happening but on the back of my foot. It went away after a while but I started going down the rabbit hole of “what ifs.” I started wondering if maybe I was having a mild allergic reaction to the food I ate. The next morning I ate the same breakfast and brought my meal prepped lunch. I was fine all day until I started driving home and had the itching again. I got home and was super worried. My ears and throat got a little itchy. I was going to eat dinner but I was too afraid that I was having an allergic reaction to my breakfast or lunch. Yesterday I ate the same breakfast with no issues and brought my lunch. While I was eating my lunch I noticed that my mouth was burning a bit. I did have jalapeños and a salsa in my food but the burning felt different than usual. I started to get super hot and my face was burning and getting a little flushed. I spiraled for much of the rest of the work day thinking I had an allergic reaction/I have a food allergy that I’m unaware of. I ate a snack when I got home and again, it felt like my mouth was burning a bit. Now I cant stop focusing on how my mouth feels and if it’s burning or not. I ate the same breakfast this morning and it felt like it was burning a bit but I cant tell what’s real and what’s psychosomatic.

I've recently decided to get tested for HSV because I have kissed someone with HSV-1. I tested negative several months ago, but I want to be sure. Today I started feeling a tingling sensation and when I pressed my lips together I felt a bump there. So ever since, I've been trying to confirm if there is or is not a bump, where it is, if it's an early HSV breakout or an early pimple. The web searches say that tingle sensations usually means cold sore, but I know that as of a few months ago I tested negative and I have in fact had this tingle happen for zits along my lip line. So I'm super confused and dying to have an answer. I'm planning on heading in to a clinic for a test first thing tomorrow morning but if I can get any advice or knowledge I would so appreciate it, even if that advice and knowledge is helping me break from my compulsion to fidget with my lip or search up information.

Lately I just feel like I’m on the verge of losing it and I don’t know why. I feel so uncomfortable in my own body. Physically and mentally. Not due to insecurity but just that something isn’t right… I never feel good, I’m always fatigued, my head hurts all the time, but my blood work comes back fine so doctor’s will do nothing. I have anxiety and panic attacks and recently I guess depression since I’m always down. I have relationship OCD so my partner deals with me not being sure of him constantly and it breaks my heart. I don’t want to leave him because he’s great but half the time my brain is telling me he isn’t the one. I keep counting as well, constantly counting every letter in every word and every word in every sentence… it just feels like I’m gonna go insane one of these days and I’m scared. When I talk to someone about this, they have no clue what to tell me or how to help. Am I alone in feeling this way??

i’ve been going through weird phases in life and it’s really not what i need at all. i’ve been recently having really bad anxiety and i think i have depression (not sure) but everytime i go out my stomach starts to hurt and my mind goes all over the place i just always overthinking bad things are gonna happen like im just having the worst panic attacks when nothing is even happening. i can never go out with friends feeling normal because my mind goes crazy about anything. i can’t hang out with my girlfriend without having really bad anxiety and panic attacks, it’s also so bad that recently i got a job i’ve been trying to get for almost a year now and i finally have the chance to get into the job but my minds all over the place about traveling to another state for training and also even getting the job in general i feel so scared and feel so uncomfortable and uninterested when i been hoping for this opportunity for the longest. idk what’s going on with me and it’s clearly ruining my life and my mental. im starting to think it’s because about 2 years ago i used to smoke weed frequently and i stopped a while ago but now i do it once every blue moon and im thinking about quitting everything in general. what can i do to heal my mental and help my panic attacks where nothing is wrong? i need help..

I went to internal medicine today, and i'm not perfectly healthy, My liver is a little bit fat, I have to lose weight so thats okay, also I have gallsand, which is not gallstone yet but it can become that if its not treated. Now im like these arent big problems but when i heard these I started to overthink and think about the worse that I will have gallstones cause the doctor said I have it cause it runs in my family(my mother/grandmother and uncle had it) and I just think that it wont go away, and even if i doesn I will be worried all year if it came back. Im just so afraid. Also they said I should go get a blood check, but I said i will hesitate now cause last time i almost fainted and felt horrible the whole day, and now i hear from people i know that they went and they felt sick and vomited there. But the overthinking comes from me thinking if these little symptoms I experienced which I thought its because of anxiety, was because of health issues then the other symptoms I experience sometimes (headache and lightheadedness) are there cause of another health issue, and im worrying about my health, im afraid of death, i keep imagining myself if they tell me that i have terminal illness or something really bad and i dont know how to handle it. Now i feel nausea and i would say its because of stress but i keep thinking that its because of the health issues I have...I don't know how to handle this fear, if you ask others or therapists, they will say "yeah everyone is afraid of death and suffering" or "Try to think about something else" and i wont pay for advices like this...

any tips

I feel like OCD has destroyed my brain relative to where I was before it. Headaches, worse memory, brain fog, mental fatigue, etc. How scary is that. Then I think "oh it's just 'cause you're worrying about that and it's temporary" Thing is, what happens when the temporary becomes the new normal? I hate this sh**

I had a migraine a little over a week ago after a few months of tremendous stress and anxiety. For a few days I was okay apart from a mild headache but then i got it into my head that I have a brain tumour. Yesterday I had the worst panic attack ever caused by all this overthinking. I started getting really dizzy, numb face and arm and I was convinced I had been correct and did have a brain tumour. The panic attack subsided after I calmed myself down a little bit but I am so anxious that I have a brain tumour. The numb feeling disappeared after the panic attack. But i have a dull headache, had a twitchy eye sometimes, and neck twitches. Sometimes when I really think about it I feel like I can’t focus or keep my vision straight. I can’t stop panicking about it I’m really really scared that there’s something wrong with me. I’m gonna go to the doctors to ask about it but i just needed to vent. I feel like recently I’m spending all the time thinking I have a brain tumour and it is honestly terrifying me so much.