I’ve been dealing with hypochondriasis ever since a heart condition scare and cancer scare last summer. That led me into hyperawareness somatic OCD. Now every day I feel like I can’t fully take a deep breath, so I keep trying to, which makes my anxiety worse. Has anyone ever dealt with this? Any tips?

Hi, new here to NOCD 👋🏼 I have struggled with what I now know as somatic OCD for the last 3 1/2 years, when it comes to breathing & taking deep breaths. I have noticed that I spend 98% of my day, thinking about it & paying attention to it. I know it’s a normal bodily function but I get the urge to take deep breaths every couple of mins. When I don’t get “a full deep breath”, it sends me into a panic & the intrusive thoughts start.. “what if I never get a deep breath again” “there is nothing I can do to make myself get that full deep breath” “if I don’t get a deep breath, you must not be able to breathe” - sometimes these thoughts & moments totally take over & I find myself spiraling. I feel like all my walls are closing in & my heart starts racing. The panic usually lasts a couple of mins if that but it feels like forever. I’m much better at handling and working through it now than I was 3 years ago, but I still have bad moments & sometimes bad days. At times, I’m able to talk myself through it & I don’t let it take over but other times, it feels uncontrollable. NOCD has been helpful so far, it’s comforting knowing I’m not alone. I’m just wondering if anyone else deals with this type of OCD? Have you found anything to be helpful to deal with it? Thanks in advance.

Sometimes I feel absolutely fine, then the next few moments I’m gasping for air and it feels like it won’t fill my lungs no matter how hard I try. Sometimes it comes on so suddenly without me consciously thinking about it so I’m having a really hard time differentiating between what’s physically happening and what’s caused by somatic OCD. I wonder at times if it’s a mix of both, but either way it’s a terrible feeling and makes me feel dizzy, weak and anxious. I want to break this cycle so badly but I don’t know how to tackle it. Breathing should be such an easy, mundane thing but now it takes everything in me just to make it through each episode.

Hi I'm new here, I have been suffering from somatic breathing ocd for like a month now but has gotten so much worse since like 2 days ago my chest hurts everyday bc I be so focused on my breathing I feel like I can't switch back to automatic anym until unless I'm asleep the thought of breathing is always running constantly in the back of my mind when I'm distracting myself or when it gets worse its the only thing I can focus on. I literally feel like gasping for air too. I'm scared I might damage my automatic breathing system or something like that. Im lost as to what to do I feel like I'm beyond fixable.