Welcome to
the NOCD Community

my intrusive thoughts are kind of quiet right now which is giving me more anxiety bc if i don’t feel anxiety rn does that mean i actually want to act on them..

I want things to change for sure. I feel like where I am is not where I want to be long term. To be fair, things have changed, but I’m still in my childhood bedroom living with my parents with no long term romantic relationships. I feel stuck. Having said that, change terrifies me. It makes me wonder if I’m even capable of it. I know that change is inevitable no matter what and that if I don’t change I’ll get left behind. I don’t know what to do with this. I want to just scream at myself MOVE DO SOMETHING! I want someone else to scream at me and tell me I’m wasting my life. A satisfying life feels impossible.

I saw him texting the guy he’s expressed he’s overly attracted to. When he’s brought him up (at least twice) he talks for several minutes about how pretty and hot and sexy they are. He’s said how they “only had sex once,unfortunately.” I’m trying not to share my unease because I don’t want to fall into reassurance seeking ways. I’m also struggling with being my usual bubbly self. It’s also late and I’m tired so maintaining energy is hard . Truthfully I’d prefer if they didn’t have contact but I know that’s unreasonable. Being friends is completely normal and fine. I think I’m just surprised they still actively talk. I want to know what they talked about and whether or not it’s my bf reaching out and why. But that’s definitely OCD’s reassurance seeking and I don’t want to fall into that. He doesn’t talk about any of his ex gfs the way he talks about this guy. I’m stressed and trying not to show it and letting myself be uncomfortable. It feels awful.

I've just found out my iron is extremely low. My iron stores are almost completely empty, and it's now caused anaemia. My doctor is concerned, and honestly, so am I. It's been wrecking my concentration, and my energy. On top of that, my work OCD has been really loud: checking, second-guessing, reworking things over and over. With the brain fog, it takes me twice as long to do half as much, and I've started to feel like I'm failing at my job. Plus my manager is a bully. They berate people, they're insecure and conniving, and they use gossip as a tool. It's such a toxic workplace. It doesn't stop there. I'm struggling with group work in my university course, with teammates who don't want to pull their weight, and I feel like I'm clashing with everyone in it. I'm physically seeing Mt body breakdown, flu, sweating and sore throat. I've also been in a year-long battle with my condo association that just won't let up. It has triggered so much of my OCD, and it's shown me how little my parents care. With every part of life feeling like a fight at once, I've started to feel cursed. If there is a God, he hates me.

Perhaps triggering to ROCD This is gonna be long. Ive been with my fiancé 9+ years now, and i feel that we have a very good and healthy relationship 99% of the time. Of course we are still both growing together and trying to improve communication all the time as couples do. I know that we both love and care for each other alot, we plan to spend our lives together. During our relationship we have had arguments mostly revolving around my ocd and his own behaviors stemming from trauma and mental health issues that need addressing but we always pull through and come to an understanding and decide that what we spoke about made us stronger in the long run. Welll ive been dealing with ocd fears for awhile now about him cheating or lying to me or about there being someone else. Its been a couple years now since the theme started and i hate it. It flares every period and It makes me paranoid, no answer is good enough to satisfy for more than a few mins. I try my best to keep this to myself as it genuinely affects him and he feels that i dont trust him because of this theme. He struggles to get that intrusive thoughts are not thoughts i am actively choosing to think. I try proving to him that i trust him and I NEVER try to do anything to invade his privacy as i have seen upclose how toxic and unhealthy that can be for relationships. I try my best to believe in him, but my ocd always seems to pop up and ask those “what if,” questions i have to sit it it and its so unpleasant. Anyway he finds this theme very triggering because previous relationships he was in were volatile and full of constant accusations of infidelity and tons of insecurity. It makes him feel threatened and sometimes he reacts like ive accused him of something. I want to 100% believe he is honest and loyal as i dont think i could be with someone who isnt ever again, but ocd just doesnt work that way. Today i woke up and went into the kitchen and he panic closed out an app and then seemed defensive and said, “ yes i redownloaded instagram, you’re on there all the time” and opened it back up. I hadnt said anything at all yet this started an argument mostly on his side (my short term memory for what is said in these moments is not great especially when im stressed so i can only give the gist of what happened.) i was deeply offended and felt that it was a red flag how upset and defensive he got when i hadnt said anything to him at all, and mostly ive been trying to keep any cheating ocd thoughts to myself. He started justifying it without me even saying anything about it, all i said was “i only just woke up and youre acting like youre guilty of something when i hadnt even said anything.” And he said he knew i was thinking something. I said that i hadnt been but now im not so sure with that reaction. He said maybe you need to go through my phone (for reference i never have and never wanted to) with how things escalated so fast though i told him maybe i should so we can just let this go and he got upset and thought this was it that the relationship might be over. Of course this only made me feel more worried that he had actually done something. I told him i wanted to only go through it with him so we could move on from this. He tried to avoid the situation and have me look through it alone. I didnt want that i felt uncomfortable and made him come with me as he has a tendency to try and shut down and avoid conflict but sometimes these things need to be talked out. I found nothing and i figured there wouldnt be anything but after that reactivity out of no where i wouldnt have been able to stop having ocd either way. And ive been cheated on by previous partners my biggest fear is being deceived and being so naive and unaware and taken advantage of because im pretty ready to see only good in people, and pretty quick to tell myself its just my anxiety or ocd. I love my fiance so much and i think he is the most important person in my life. He felt relief when he realized i could calmly sit with him in that moment and that it didnt mean we were over he said maybe it was necessary to move past what happened and he thinks maybe he needs to go to therapy for always assuming that people are thinking the worst of him ( we have had moments like this before, just not this bad.) Unfortunately i knew that once things were improved and i was alone my ocd would start to ruminate and try to think of ways that something is still being hidden and that im being naive. I just want the rumination to stop i feel sick in my stomach. I just wish the whole incident never happened and i never ever wanted to look through something of his as i strongly feel against things like that. We always end arguments with reminding eachother that we plan to be together for life and that we love each other so i should feel relief, but my brain keeps replaying the negative parts and making knots in my stomach. Its rare when i see other people talking about the ocd fears of being cheated on so i dont know who i can talk to that relates most people without ocd just make it seem like i should “trust my gut” but that doesnt serve me with ocd i feel i cant actually trust it.

I'm really struggling right now and wondering if anyone with OCD has experienced something similar, especially when it comes to relationship uncertainty. My boyfriend and I have been going through a difficult time over the past few weeks. He's been struggling with his own personal issues and has emotionally pulled away from our relationship. When I've tried to ask him whether he still wants to be with me, his response has been "I don't know." And those three words have completely consumed me. I wake up every morning in a state of panic, and I experience intense anxiety and panic attacks throughout the day. My mind constantly replays his words, our conversations, and things that happened weeks ago, trying to figure out whether he still loves me, whether he's going to break up with me, or whether there's something I missed along the way. The hardest part is that I'm not asking him to fix everything overnight. If he simply told me, "Yes, I still want this relationship, but I'm going through a difficult time and can't be the partner I was before right now," I genuinely feel like I could accept that and give him the space he needs. But it's the uncertainty of not knowing whether he even wants to be with me anymore that's sending me into a spiral. I have OCD and am currently working on ERP, but I'm having an incredibly difficult time applying it to this situation because the fear feels so real. This isn't just an irrational hypothetical scenario. There is actual uncertainty in my relationship, and I feel like my OCD has latched onto it and won't let go. I find myself constantly mentally reviewing conversations, analyzing his behavior, looking for signs, and trying to predict the outcome. It's exhausting, and I feel like I'm losing control of my thoughts. I know ERP involves learning to tolerate uncertainty, but how do you do that when the uncertainty involves something happening in your real life that could genuinely hurt you? Has anyone experienced OCD attaching itself to a real relationship issue like this? How did you distinguish between addressing legitimate relationship needs and engaging in compulsions? And how did you practice ERP when you were genuinely terrified of the outcome? I'm really struggling and would appreciate hearing from anyone who's navigated something similar.

My partner had perfectionist parents. He demands perfection from himself. He also has severe trauma. He's been pretty okay about acknowledging it's not fair to insist I be perfect. Though that's been slipping as he's in the phase of trauma therapy where "things get worse before they get better." Recently, he's been learning to set boundaries, where before he avoided asking for what he wants. I support this. I know boundaries are healthy and it's good that he's speaking up for himself. But the boundaries are hard to remember and execute sometimes. I occasionally slip up. When I violate a boundary, he gets super hurt and upset. I apologize, and say I'm not dodging blame, but also point out that I'm trying to improve and it's impossible to be perfect. This doesn't land at all. It doesn't matter if I did something right 10 times and slipped up once. He feels betrayed like I didn't listen. He doesn't seem capable of processing the idea that someone can be working at getting things right but will inevitably slip up. He says that if this is how people are, then nobody is good enough to be in a relationship with. How do we navigate this?

my mom bought a bunch of water and stuff cuz she thinks there’s gonna be a grid power outage. and it’s genuinely freaking me out so bad, i’m very heavily relied on technology for my anxiety and stuff and im so scared. trying not to research ab it but i just saw a tiktok and went in the comments ab it. ugh

The hardest part of my ROCD that i’m facing right now is trying to not let that “what if you ignore this right now because it’s “OCD” but it actually ends up being true in the future” thought. Like for instance, If i’m worried about If i truly love my partner or not, my ocd will say “why are you ignoring this thought? This could actually be true and what if you end up marrying this man and completely regret it because you didn’t listen to that thought.” I’m not sure if that makes sense, but it’s making it harder to push away my intrusive thoughts. Anyone have any advice?

I’m realizing something about my contamination OCD that I wanted to share and see if anyone else relates. When I imagine leaving my house without completing my cleaning routine, I don’t just feel anxious about germs. I feel lazy and irresponsible, like I’m actively choosing to put my family’s health or even their lives at risk. Cleaning feels like a moral obligation, not a preference. Even when I’m sick, exhausted, or completely overwhelmed, I feel like I HAVE to do it. I genuinely cannot relax or feel at peace until my home feels clean and safe. And I think this is part of why I struggle so much to recognize my compulsions. They don’t feel irrational or unnecessary to me. They feel like acts of love, protection, and responsibility. I’ve created so many household rules to prevent contamination that I actually feel like I’ve gotten my cleaning under control. But I’m starting to question whether I’ve really reduced my OCD or just created an environment where it’s less likely to be triggered. My therapist and I are working on separating reasonable responsibility from the guilt and fear that OCD may be attaching to it. But this is incredibly difficult for me because I genuinely believe I’m doing what’s necessary to protect the people I love. Does anyone else experience their OCD this way? How have you worked through the guilt of NOT performing a compulsion when that compulsion feels like something you’re morally responsible for doing? And for those further along in ERP, how did you begin recognizing the difference between genuine responsibility and OCD convincing you that something was your responsibility? I’d love to hear others’ experiences because this is something I’m really struggling to wrap my head around.

I just finished an ERP exercise, and I’m really struggling with the concept of observing intrusive thoughts without engaging with them. I understand what I’m supposed to do in theory, but actually putting it into practice feels almost impossible sometimes. When an obsessive thought enters my mind, I feel like I only have three options: * Avoid or suppress the thought, which I know isn’t the goal. * Try to reassure myself or mentally reason through it. * Give in and follow the thought down the rabbit hole, analyzing, questioning, and spiraling (which is usually what happens). What I genuinely struggle to understand is what I’m supposed to do instead. How do you allow a thought to exist without entertaining it? How do you observe something that’s happening inside your own mind without interacting with it? And how do you recognize the difference between accepting a thought, avoiding it, and subtly reassuring yourself? Sometimes I even find myself obsessing over whether I’m responding to my obsessions correctly, which feels like another rabbit hole altogether. I’d really love to hear from others who struggle with mental compulsions and rumination. What has helped you practice disengaging? What does that process actually look like for you in the moment? I’m not looking for reassurance about my specific obsession. I’m genuinely trying to learn how others approach this part of ERP because right now it feels like one of the hardest things for me to grasp.

I’ve been experiencing an unfamiliar, unsettling feeling when my boyfriend acts sweet or shows effort, especially when I notice him trying to change things. It’s difficult to explain because it doesn’t feel like a clear thought that I don’t want him to improve. It’s more like an internal reaction that suddenly appears, and then I become confused about why I’m reacting that way. I start wondering, “Why don’t I feel happier about this?” or “Why does it feel like I don’t want him to act this way?” Sometimes I miss his teasing and playful personality, but then I question whether it’s more than that. I also notice an urge to start an argument or find something wrong, even though I don’t understand where that urge is coming from. This happened twice yesterday. I can recognize that he’s putting in effort, but my internal reactions don’t always match what I expect to feel.I’ve also been experiencing the familiar breakup feeling again. After therapy, I remembered the previous spirals and how real those feelings seemed. When my therapist questioned something about the situation involving his stepmom and the flowers, I noticed that instead of feeling defensive, I experienced that unsettling breakup feeling and thought, “I don’t want to break up, but I have to.” Later, the sadness from the previous breakup spiral returned, and I felt like crying. I’ve repeatedly told myself things like “I do want to leave him” and “I don’t love him anymore,” sometimes saying them out loud to see whether they feel true or to understand why I’m having these feelings. When I said, “I don’t want him anymore,” I was crying, and it sounded settled to me. That made me question whether I was discovering something about myself or getting deeper into the thoughts through repetition and mental rehearsal.Sometimes I imagine myself crying while explaining everything to my therapist, even when I’m not actually crying. The breakup feeling can become so intense that it feels like I’m physically experiencing heartbreak. I also notice that I act like myself when I’m with my boyfriend, but when I’m alone thinking about what my feelings mean, the uncertainty and breakup feeling become stronger. Even when I’m with him, I sometimes monitor my reactions. I want to understand why my internal feelings seem different from my actual interactions, why I experience unfamiliar annoyance or discomfort, and why the breakup feeling returns so suddenly.

Something that I'm trying to do is be comfortable with uncertainty and just not knowing. It bothers me, but I'm trying to tell myself that it's okay anyway. Something that's been weighing on my quite a bit is my sort of lack of personal interest and urge to pursue dating. It comes up every now and then and it puts me in deep thought. I think about the expectations, the benchmarks, the time it happens for people on average. I'm just trying to be at peace with it and accept that I may not ever know. That it may not come up and that I can live a happy life despite that. Just to leave it up to God who does know all my plams for me pretty much. I think it's the best thing that I can do even if it feels like I should be doing something else about it. Hope everyone else on here is doing well. :)

I have been sleeping with the same blanket all of my life(I am now in my mid 20’s). Once my contamination OCD developed I began to use it as a sort of “air filter” that I would put over my mouth and nose when sleeping. I can’t tell if it is the sensory aspect of the blanket that I am attached to, or the fact that it is now affiliated with my compulsions, but I cannot sleep without it. I recently moved in with my boyfriend, meaning we now share a bed. My bed has always been a safe space for me, so opening it up to another person was hard in itself, and the idea of getting rid of the baby blanket seemed too daunting to fathom. I am so embarrassed and terrified of living the rest of my life relying on a baby blanket to sleep. I feel so stuck and any advice would help.

TW very controversial nsfw topic. My post “spiraling” goes into further detail for context. - - - I had a past history of nsfw addiction. I watched taboo anime material on and off, as a way to cope with stress. This may be an extremely humiliating reason, but although I never felt actual attraction to these childlike characters, I projected myself onto them. Guess because I’m really childish myself and I have a fear of facing adulthood head on. At this point in time, I am avoiding everything, and I can’t look at most young fictional characters the same. If they’re in highschool, and the content isn’t even nsfw, I push it aside. Above all, I’m starting to avoid my friends. I’m aware this is an unhealthy compulsion but I can’t even look them in the eyes. Many people think if you watch this content, you’re officially a p-dophile. I’m too scared to bring this up to my therapist (they specialize in many things not just ocd). I feel like they’ll see me differently.

Regarding my last post, as a 15 year old, these thoughts have soured my mood—in an act to subjugate my feelings, I’ve strived for answers. I’ve contacted an Oxford professional regarding these concepts. It’s not my best email; I’d like to share though. The email: Dear Professor Fricker,  I have been contending with recursive questions, arguments, and allegory's that I've come across within my own thoughts. Specifically in subjects such as epistemic self-doubt and meta-ethics. I am hoping you might point me toward contemporary literature as well as philosophical notions that allude to some sort of solution to these matters.  Ignorance situates itself within fools paradise. Without the contextual narrative; rather, encapsulated within the narrative of the naive. Ignorant people get to live happily, fools paradise—but there is a side-effect for those informed. Those informed are hurt by those who aren’t, the moral dilemma is atrocious when introduced by the ignorant fool. It’s a curse to society, but for a particular individual, a blessing. Either we all live in blissful happiness—or we all fundamentally understand the world at its truest form. But, what if I myself am living in a fools-paradise; we constitute ourselves in who’s right and wrong, under the gauze of moral and logical authority. And yet, who’s to say what view point is objectively correct. People will strip, and strip, and strip logic into its crudest and worst form possible—they’ll be correct. And the matter of saying “oh, I question my possible ignorance, I must not be ignorant,” constitutes in its own ignorance. By saying you’re not ignorant because you questioned ignorance, can and will make you ignorant. So maybe, I live in a bliss; I’ll never know, Maybe we’ll never find clarity. So what’s the point of arguing—but even then, who'll listen to that?  The concept:  Level 1: The people around me are ignorant. Level 2: I see their ignorance, so I am informed. Level 3: But what if my belief that I am informed is just my own ignorance? Level 4: But what if my questioning of my own ignorance is just a trick to make myself feel smart again? This has garnered, specifically for me, an epistemological regression: observing and analyzing systemic/moral ignorance in others, recognizing my own framework, but then recursively questioning whether self-awareness is simply a secondary layer to the bias or quesdo-intellectual vanity.  Furthermore, I am struggling with many philosophical ideologies that don't sit comfortably with me. A friction between Moral Realism and Nihilism. While pure nihilism logically reduces atrocities to moral neutrality, my cognitive architecture experiences profound sense of "intellectual insult"—and grief when structural order or purity is degraded. It feels impossible to accept nihilism without completely surrendering the very logic required to evaluate the world.  Given your work of expertise, I hope for clarity, thank you for reading.

Hi all. I'm on my medication journey right now and I feel like nothing helps. I have tried several meds over the years. Currently I'm on Wellbutrin and Caplyta and I feel like it's not helping. My anxiety surrounding my obsessions is so debilitating that I wake up with panic attacks and shake like a leaf all the time. Can't eat, can't sleep, can barely work. If you're on a med that works for you, what is it? Does it dull the anxiety surrounding your obsessions or compulsions? Or do you still feel the anxiety intensely anyway?

I don’t know what kind of OCD this counts as, existential sounds like the most likely, or if it’s even OCD at work- but to put it short I have a very active and vivid imagination and I’m a writer/artist who uses it for those things. I spend a lot of my free time imagining scenes in my stories or art pieces… but another thing is that for a few years now I suspected I have some kind of dissociative disorder. I don’t always feel like the same person. Sometimes when I’m in these daydreams I “become” the character and stay that way once the daydream is over. Also when I’m “me” I’d talk to those characters in my head sometimes. It wasn’t a huge deal at first. But sometimes I’d really ruminate on if I was really “me” anymore. Then a few nights ago, I was in one of those vivid daydreams, or coming out of one I don’t fully remember- and it just felt like I was dying all of a sudden. Like, identity-wise, I was fading away. I’d read about how with dissociative disorders sometimes the “host” identity disappears, and a new one takes over. I don’t know if it was just that fact I recalled sending me into full blown panic, or if that’s actually what was happening, but I don’t think I’d felt that scared in years. It doesn’t help that prior to this I was experiencing weird, sharp pains, dull aches or numbness in parts of my head, that would get especially strong when I was feeling like one of my characters, so that also triggered my health ocd on top of things. I don’t know what I thought was happening but since then I’ve been desperately trying to stay firmly grounded in reality, and anything that involves drifting off from that sends me into panic thinking I’m really not gonna come out the same this time. Sleeping, getting lost in my thoughts, using my imagination to write or draw. I feel like I’m on a ledge holding on. I wake up having panic attacks because I think half my brain is still asleep and I’m really slipping this time, or there’s something really wrong with it. The sharp tingling pain came back yesterday. I get scared any time I hear a voice in my head, terrified if it’s just my imagination or someone or something else. (Even if the “someone” is one of the inner voices I used to trust prior to this spiral.) I don’t even know if it’s a dissociative disorder. Maladaptive daydreaming is also something it could be? I don’t know if that should give me less worry though. Before when I started suspecting I wasn’t alone in my head, I just rolled with it. I had a very “whatever” attitude about my mental health before. Yeah, OCD would get bad at times, but I knew I didn’t have financial means to get professional help so as long as I was still relatively functioning I was fine. But things went downhill, I started feeling like I couldn’t have privacy in my own mind or that I was under constant watch. Now I’m in a state of constant vigilance, scared that if I really let myself relax and go back to daydreaming like I used to I’ll disappear and someone who doesn’t feel like me or remember my life will take my place. Or that something is really wrong with my brain if not that. Sorry if this is out of people on this app’s pay grade or just sounds like nonsensical rambling. I just can’t deal with this fear anymore. I really want to go back to being sure that I’m one, singular person in this body, even if I feel a little bad for it because I felt like I was friends with some of those voices/characters/other identities. In the end I really just want to go back to being functional, and being able to create the way I used to without worry. (It doesn’t help that now I’ve ALSO come down with a cold, and that always makes my brain and thoughts more muddled. Ugh.) I figured MAYBE if this sounds like some kind of OCD at work in any of this, someone on here might be able to help.

less of an ocd issue, but moral ocd does make me do crazy things so i’m more so asking what a thought out response is, rather than just not interacting with content that uses the word out of panic and fear (even though i will do that if that is the thing i’m supposed to do.) a bit ago i saw a video saying that a certain word was a slur for indigenous people. i put a pause on research because i wasn’t doing well and just continued not to say it. now researching it, i feel really hopeless because SO many people use that word. that one megan the stallion song where the word is literally the title skyrocketed the use of the word and even though not many people use it as much it’s still normalized as not a slur. because it’s so normalized, it can be common to hear in tv shows, movies, and video games. if it was someone i could talk to it would be easier, but obviously i can’t talk to show producers or game developers, so should i just stop consuming that content?? i keep losing so many things because there’s like one problematic aspect in the content i like, and it’s been leaving me with nothing to do since i stop interacting when i realize it’s problematic. all of it has me wondering what on earth i should do because soon enough everything will be gone. it’s impossible not to be problematic in some sort of way but i don’t know what to do with it. especially with a word that’s used a lot near halloween that people use to mean “scary.” its origin was used as a derogatory term against black people but i’ve seen mixed opinions on how the word is used, since it’s used everywhere.

i want to take a moment to acknowledge something that i rarely allow myself to feel. a major portion of my life was dominated by ocd and my battle with it. i went through high school incredibly depressed and unable to think of who i wanted to be in the future. i spent all my time at home, didn’t care about school or grades or colleges- as i assumed i wouldn’t even be around for that. in college i kept floating, just trying to survive when every day felt like an internal war. only toward the end of college did i actually start improving. recovery takes time and hard work, and as proud as i am for where i ended up, i can’t help but grieve what was taken from me along the way. i wanted to give space to anyone who deals with similar feelings, and to let you know that it’s okay to grieve. you are allowed to be healed and still ache for the you that was suffering. im 22 now, and incredibly well and proud. i have a circle i love, relationships, ambition, experiences, and so much more. still, remembering the dark days where i was struggling to keep myself breathing and tethered to the ground hurts like hell. and i think that’s okay! im going to allow myself to look back, to grieve, and then to look forward again and keep pushing. i encourage you to do the same :)