New Mom New Fears

My struggles with OCD began in childhood, but it wasn’t until after giving birth to my first child at 30 that I finally received a diagnosis. For years, I suffered in silence with intense anxiety, insomnia, and intrusive thoughts, but because my compulsions were mostly mental—constant rumination, reassurance-seeking, and avoidance—I didn’t realize I had OCD. I experienced Pure O, where my mind would latch onto terrifying thoughts, convincing me something was deeply wrong with me. After my son was born, I was consumed by intrusive fears of harming him, even though I loved him more than anything. Seven weeks into postpartum, I hit a breaking point and ended up in the emergency room, where I was finally diagnosed. For the first time, everything made sense. I didn’t discover exposure and response prevention (ERP) until years later when my son developed Germ OCD during COVID. I went through the program myself first, and it completely changed my life. ERP helped me sit with my intrusive thoughts instead of reacting to them, breaking the cycle that had controlled me for so long. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s so much better than before. I can finally be present instead of trapped in my head. Now, I’m working on trusting myself more and handling challenges without fear of “losing control.” As I prepare to help my daughter start therapy, I feel empowered knowing I’m giving my children the support I never had. If you know you have OCD but haven’t started therapy yet, what’s holding you back?

Have you ever had a thought so unsettling it stopped you in your tracks? That’s how postpartum OCD started for me, triggered by my grandfather’s passing. After he died, a terrifying question popped into my head—What if I’m not a good person? From that moment, I became afraid of my own thoughts. When I had my daughter, a new fear took over: What if I could hurt her? I avoided being alone with her and constantly sought reassurance, but nothing eased the panic—until I found NOCD and realized I had OCD. Therapy was terrifying, but learning to face my fears instead of running from them changed everything. One day, when I was alone with my daughter, the thoughts came, and I simply responded, Maybe I could. Maybe I couldn’t, and moved on. That’s when I knew I was getting better. OCD no longer controls my life—and if you’re struggling, know that recovery is possible. I’ll be live on the app around 6:00 PM CT answering any questions, so ask away!"

Hi NOCD community, I was hoping to get some advice from fellow sufferers. In December we welcomed the first baby into the family, my beautiful niece. Since then, my POCD has been awful, which I know is probably very normal. Last week, in the middle of a very high stress day in my family, I was changing my niece and as usually happens, I got intrusive thoughts about awful things people do to babies when changing them. The thoughts were so harrowing to have as I was also changing her at the exact same time, and I felt my hands just quickly want to finish patting her dry before putting her nappy on, and for some reason, my heart dropped with that hand movement, because I was afraid that I had acted out the awful thoughts in my head, in a moment of mania because my morals, values and heart do not align with abuse of any kind, especially to children. My niece is my everything, and I know I would never want harm to come to her in any way, shape or form. I love her endlessly. I am having therapy, but have only had a couple of sessions. But, I cannot shake the 'what if'. I am tortured over trying to remember what it was I did that made my heart drop, but I can't, and its getting fuzzier and fuzzier the more I try to remember. Could anyone offer any advice on this please? Thank you.