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the NOCD Community

I can’t find anyone that can help me and I feel hopeless

Hoping to find others that suffer with similar issues.

Hi, I'm writing this just to see if someone else can relate. I've always been very confused by the difference between regular therapy and ocd therapy. What I mean is that, at least in my limited experience, regular therapy involved examining your feelings and thoughts (why you had them) and I was told that you can only process something by getting to the root of it. However, since I developed ocd and was diagnosed with it, therapy has been about tolerating anxiety, guilt, fear, sadness, etc., while forcing myself to not analyse the thoughts and feelings that I have. I feel very weird about this. It's like I went from "everything you think and feel has a reason (i am not talking here about fleeting thoughts and emotions, I am talking about recurrent and persistent ones) to "whatever feeling or thought you are having is not who you are and you should just observe it and not get involved with it". Am I the only one who is so confused by this? Also, if I am not my thoughts, and I am not my feelings, and I am not my sensations, who am I then? I mean, what is supposed to define me? I know some people say "your values" in response to this, but values are thoughts as well, and they can change over time, so, I don't think that this makes anything any clearer. Others say that it is our actions that define us. I can agree with that, but aren't our actions based on our thoughts and feelings? Anyway, I am not saying that therapy for ocd is ineffective, I am actually finding it very helpful, however I am still very confused about many aspects of it. I hoped that some of you could help me understand it better. Thanks. I wish you all a good day.

I have an extremely overwhelming phobia of the germs of other people's mouth germs entering my mouth. I have a phobia of mold as well and the last time mold touched my skin I washed my hands over and over again until they were bleeding and I kept washing them even after that. I essentially took layers off my skin from how hot the water was and the aggressive scrubbing. I quit the place I worked, where it happened, that very week bc of it. I can't imagine what would happen if this happened with my mouth phobia and if I'd be able to even eat after loosing myself like that. Examples are sharing straws, sharing cups that hasn't been washed since someone used it, kissing or placing my mouth on something someone else may have placed their mouth on. I originally thought this stemed from a traumatic experience where I was essentially kidnapped for an entire day and half a night when I was 7 years old by my 16 year old neighbor. He locked me in his shed and wouldn't let me out unless I kissed him. I came home crying and my parents, specifically my mom, always invalidated my feelings, told me to stop over reacting or to get over it. I told them immediately and my mom said, "oh I didn't even know you were gone." This hurt because it instantly felt like she didn't care and her first reaction was her reassuring me that she doesn't care what happens to me. My dad went over, the neighbor immediately admitted to it and was forced to come over to our house and apologize. That was it. Nobody asked if I was okay, nobody asked if I wanted to talk about it. It was slid off like it was just something that happens. My that day forward I've had this phobia. It's only gotten worse as time goes on. To the point that I don't really share straws with anyone. The only person I will kiss is my spouse (obviously) but I don't think if I ever had kids I will kiss them or share food / drinks with them. About 5 years ago I was just dating my now husband. I didn't even start sharing straws with him until we got married I think. But, we were at a restaurant with my roommates and their boyfriends. They all knew I had this phobia. None of them knew I had OCD as it's completely misunderstood and even after years of trying to explain it to my spouse, he still doesn't get it. I went to the bathroom and one of my roommates decided to take a sip of my drink out of my straw. Which is easily the hugest no to me. She even announced it to the table, "Hey you guys I'm going to take a Sip out of her drink, haha it will be so funny don't tell her don't tell her" Everyone told her not to but she did it anyways and again said, "She's not even going to notice and we can ethier not tell her or tell her in a week and she will see she is fine!" I came back to the table and her boyfriend and my boyfriend immediately told me. I felt like I was going to black out and tried to stay with reality as much as I could. Luckily I hadn't taken a sip and I asked her if she really would do that to me. (At this point she had already tried to cheat on her bf with my bf and my bf said no so I didn't really consider her a good friend anyways) and she admitted it with a smile. I asked, " I respect you enough to not cross your boundaries. This is my boundary and you crossed it. Are you going to do this again?" She said, "I don't care about boundaries. You can get over it." So I raise my fist and asked, "Yeah? You don't care about boundaries? You wouldn't care if I beat the shit out of you and you'll get over it?" She looked at really scared and said, "No no no I won't I'm sorry." And my boyfriend pulled me back. Idk what happened and I still feel bad for it bc it's like I left my body in that moment and went into full protection mode. She ended up leaving our table and sitting at another table with a family and they kept asking her to leave the table. But she was kind of crazy like that. 😭 Over the years tho this has developed more and more and I fear it's going to get to the point where I no longer kiss my spouse as I generally avoid kissing him for this very reason.

Hello I am a 27 year old male who has battling with very aggressive intrusive thoughts, it is not letting me sleep or not letting me live my everyday life because I feel as if I could hurt myself or someone else, can someone please help me out, ever since I got the flu I haven’t been the same, I was rushed to the emergency room thinking I was going to have a heart attack, they just pumped me with Ativan and gave me a prescription, but I’m also a very heavy drinker at night, and when I drink heavy and wake up the next day, I have uncontrollable thoughts and anxiety all day! Someone please help me!

So I really need to do some cleaning in my room and the mess is so overwhelming that I'm not sure where to start. Like there's trash and clothes all over the floor, there dishes all over my room. Plus my bed is covered in clothes that I can't tell if there clean or dirty. I've tried cleaning by category ( ex trash, laundry, dishes) and it only helps for a few minutes then I get distracted by another task. So does anyone have any advice on where to get started? At this point I'm open to anything.

I experience OCD in what feels like cycles. I have a couple of good days or weeks and then something out of the blue will trigger a flare up. I’m just wondering if anyone else goes through the same thing or if it’s kind of a constant state for you.

I'm paranoid that I have several things neurologically wrong with me, and my psychiatric NP made me feel so insulted and infantilized this week at our appointment that it triggered an extreme OCD episode that I've been stuck in all week. I'm dumping him, obviously, and I'm trying to get in with a psychiatrist ASAP. My father and I are being more serious than ever about getting me help. It's been an extremely tough week. I feel absolutely insane and psychotic for believing everything my OCD is telling me, but I can't turn it off, and I feel like everything I do to try and help myself is just a mental compulsion. I don't know what to think anymore, and I don't know when this episode will end. I miss feeling like myself. I feel like a completely different person and it's both horrifying and embarrassing.

Its currently 6:53am, woke up around 6:00am in a panic from a nightmare and I can’t fall back asleep. I have contamination ocd and emetophobia. At night i have a hard time falling asleep because every time ive gotten sick its been in the middle of the night while im sleeping. Before bed i usually get bad anxiety its going to happen again, even if theres no reason for it to happen. This obviously can trigger dreams about it, which then make me feel worse. Through out the day Ill overly manage my eating habits (no chicken certain days etc), take certain routes home to avoid getting sick, wash my hands when i can *feel* the germs on them, do certain tasks so it doesn’t make me sick etc. Its really getting to a point where i feel like its consuming me , and I need help but I am so scared to get it.

Hi, so I’ve been dealing with OCD for the past four years intrusive thoughts and all. At first it started with being scared of panic attacks then the thoughts went to being scared I’d harm myself and now they’re associated around harming other people especially my family which is very very scary. It feels like I’m deeply rooted a bad person. I can’t even tell anyone my thoughts. It also makes me confused on if I want these thoughts. I’m not even sure if I have any compulsions bc I try to just ignore the thoughts and distract myself. Lately I’ve noticed my anxiety getting a lot worse Notjhing seems to calm it down anymore and I just want to stay alone in my bed and make it all go away. I’m scared I’m scared of myself and I’m scared these thoughts could happen one day and I’m scared I want them. Sometimes my thoughts can make me feel like that… does anyone have any good resources im doing ERP but it’s so expensive. I haven’t tried medication but I want to I’m just scared it will make me worse or make me gain weight. But I’m at the point where I’m desperate and something needs to change bc I can’t live like this. I feel like I’m fighting my thoughts all day. And one second I feel confident I’m ok and the next my whole body gets hot and I feel like it’s all possible and I want these thoughts. Someone please give me advice?

I know there is something wrong with me. Maybe it’s because of expose at an early age to mature content or maybe it’s undiagnosed hyper sexuality I think I’ve had for a while. Maybe I should unalive before I hurt someone. I’m addicted to fanfiction and my phone and I have been for a long time. I at a very early age knew everything to do with s*x and BDSM and kinks of all nature and nothing ever phased me really. I myself was an online victim of a p* but I led everything, he just never declined. “Vanilla” became boring in a way, a way I now know has led me here. I read fanfiction and things sexual with underage people, I thought oh there’s no harm because is just fiction and not real life and if stuff like that exists on the website and is able to be written maybe i can treat it separately from real life. But what if I am a p* for reading etc? I’m spiralling because I seen the comments under one of those stories and 1/4 were death threats, 1/4 are disgusting comments and the rest were neutral. I suspect I have C-ptsd, autism and adhd which all worked together in a very unhealthy tandem to led me to this. All I can feel is disgust and shame and the desire to end it. I don’t really know why I made this post or what anyone can say really but I’m sorry.

Whenever I’m out having fun with friends. I feel such shame, guilt, and sadness that I am having fun without my immediate family and start to think about the fact that they won’t be here with me one day. They have difficult lives so I feel guilt that I’m able to have fun while they deal with depression or anxiety. It consumes me to the point where I will want to leave what I’m doing and go home. Even when I am with them sometimes I hyper-fixate on the idea of them passing one day or soon and I become overwhelmed with sadness so I try to do lots of things to tune out those thoughts. Any ideas on how to cope with this?

i keep having dreams about cheating on my boyfriend, but i love him so much and don’t see myself with anyone else. but it’s making me anxious and i feel guilty. could there be a specific reason for this?

I’m going through the worst ocd flare up , I can’t stop crying and feel like I’m the worst person in the world and that no one understands how it makes me feel and how I feel so alone and that I’m a horrible person. Why do I feel like everything I’ve done makes me the worst unlovable person. Why is it when I pray I’m still so sad and nothing get fixed so I can be happy. I just want to be happy and at peace and stop having these intense overpowering thoughts. I know they say it’s best to sit with the thought until it passes instead of trying to direct my self but it just won’t go away and I’m trying hard to let it pass but something will always remind me of it and bring me right back to square one. I’m just so miserable that this is my life and thought process every single day😪

I recently started ERP therapy with a new therapist where we pretty much exclusively focus on OCD, but I have found myself missing talk therapy a lot as well. Talk therapy never really helped with my ocd symptoms but It really helped to talk through issues such as coping/management of my adhd, gad, as well as talking through things I’ve been going through in life. Does anyone else relate to this?

I feel alone. I don’t know. I just feel alone. Why does everything feel off vibes right now? I just feel icky and I feel I’ve hurt people in some way. What can I do to stop feeling this way

From this app, I got reported for asking for reassurance. Sorry guys. That wasn’t great. I will try to do better for self care

when I was 13 I dealt with what I now know is suicide OCD. In the fall of 2020 my brain started to become completely flooded with thoughts and urges, hurting myself and graphic images that completely Messed with my life. It was so bad that I was throwing up every day, having panic attacks constantly, and having meltdowns in my room while my parents were trying to console me. I ended up completely failing my freshman year of high school. My brain was plagued with those thoughts 24/7, even when I was asleep. I truly thought that it was only a matter of time before I ended up taking my own life. I was never actually suicidal, but, since the thoughts were so prevalent, I thought that I truly did want to do take my life. For the entirety of October through January I was completely debilitated and I couldn’t do anything. My only way of coping was playing video games and I got so bad that I ended up spending 3000 hours in the span of four months playing on my computer. After a while it truly thought my life was over until I decided to research what was wrong with me. I found out what was going on and I learned that it was OCD. When I first learned that I was terrified because I didn’t know that truly meant. Once I did even more research, I learned that my thoughts are just thoughts, and it wasn’t how I truly felt, I learned that accepting my thoughts and accepting the fact that I have OCD would actually help me overcome everything. Deep down inside, I knew that since I was reacting so strongly to these thoughts, I truly wanted to live. with the help of therapy, medication, meditation, and hard work I was able to get better. I am a senior in high school now and I’m in a place that I never thought I would make it to. Even though the thoughts come back from time to time, it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to and i’m able to deal with them in healthy ways. You can get through this. Its going to take a lot of hard work but you can get through it.

How do I cope with intrusive thoughts that are provoked by things that are out of my control? Like if if I see someone I know. That’s out of my control. But it adds to my thoughts and fears no matter what. How do I know whether the thoughts I have are real or fake. It’s killing me I just wanna be happy

After many years of thinking I might have ocd, it’s official. It is nice to feel seen and to have an answer finally but it’s also really scary, mostly because I’m about to start Prozac and I’ve never taken any mental health medications. Anyone have experiences to share? I’m so scared of the side effects but I know I need to start something. My provider suggested finding a support group as I have no family and friends to support me during this time, right now I’m feeling very scared and alone 😔