- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
Keep posting and share your thoughts and feelings.
- Date posted
- 6y
Also will look into taking the 90 minute interview with professional.
- Date posted
- 6y
Sounds like pretty classic OCD behavior to me! Treatment for OCD is pretty standard across all themes: CBT, ERP therapy, and mindfulness training. You can learn more here: https://ocdla.com/cognitivebehavioraltherapy Since you’re just figuring this out, I’d also recommend grabbing a book on OCD. There are tons out there to choose from but here are some recommendations: https://ocdla.com/ocdreadings Welcome to the community!
- Date posted
- 6y
You are not alone. All of those themes trouble me as well...
- Date posted
- 6y
I have EXACTLY the same contamination issues you described, also showering till feels alright and perfectionism that I now getting less. Yes, sounds like you have mild OCD. There are a couple apps or websites you can do a survey to see how you rate (kinda).
- Date posted
- 6y
I think you might like this book – "The Complete Guide to Overcoming OCD: (ebook bundle)" by David Veale, Rob Willson. Just $5.
- Date posted
- 6y
Have I got OCD? Only a trained health professional can diagnose you as suffering from OCD. The following is a screening questionnaire from the International Council on OCD. 1 Do you wash or clean a lot? 2 Do you check things a lot? 3 Is there any thought that keeps bothering you that you would like to get rid of but can’t? 4 Do your activities take a long time to finish? 5 Are you concerned with orderliness or symmetry? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions and it causes either significant distress and/or it interferes in your ability to work or study or your role as a homemaker, or in your social or family life or in relationships, then there is a significant chance that you have OCD. This test can be a bit over-sensitive to diagnosing OCD, so if you think you might have OCD, it is best to talk to a health professional and get appropriate help.
- Date posted
- 6y
Thank you so much for your comment. Extremely helpful. Will definitely look into the book you recommended.
- Date posted
- 6y
Here are some key ways in which you can lessen your OCD and improve your life. 1 Imagine how you would like to be different, in terms of how you feel and behave. Picture yourself being this way in your mind’s eye. 2 List all of your hopes, dreams and aspirations. Imagine how being utterly free from OCD would help you towards them. 3 Develop a mental image that represents your OCD when it is trying to force you to carry out a mental or behavioural ritual –a bully, a demon, a computer virus, Nazi propaganda on a radio or choose your own mental image. 4 Develop a mental image that represents defeating your OCD. 5 Find inspiration for overcoming adversity –choose a role model or metaphor that helps you to stick with progress and resist the urges to check, wash, seek reassurance, review or analyse in your mind. 6 Identify someone who you can share (and celebrate) your progress with. Help them to see that you need cheering on in your progress, NOT reassurance or debates over safety etc! 7 List all of the strategies that you employ in your mind and in your behaviour that are maintaining your OCD. View these like bad habits you are going to train yourself out of and do not respond to such urges by giving yourself reassurance or try to suppress such thoughts and urges. 8 Imagine that you have a twin, who is the same as you in every respect, but is free from OCD, and use them as your guide in changing your behaviour. 9 Test out treating your problem ‘as if’it’s a problem of worrying too much or being too cautious. The trick is to do this even though you’re not 100 per cent sure. Remember that looking for certainty is very much the problem, not the solution. 10 Find a metaphor for treating intrusive thoughts as events just passing through your mind. Traffic passing in the street or leaves on a river are just a couple of examples. The trick is to allow your mind to take care of itself, without interfering with or responding to the intrusive thoughts. The flow of thoughts in your mind should be as much left to its own devices as the blood flowing through your veins. 11 Deliberately practice refocusing your attention on to the things you can see, hear, smell and feel in the ‘real’outside world, here and now. 12 NORMALIZE your doubts, images, thoughts and impulses. This means fully accepting that your intrusive thoughts, images and doubts are normal and part of being human. 13 Embrace each time you have an intrusive doubt, image, thought or impulse as an opportunity to accept them willingly into your mind. Think of it as keeping your friends close and your enemies closer! 14 Practice assuming the best. OCD has a habit of knocking your rose-tinted spectacles off so get back to normal by assuming the best rather than the worst. 15 Listen to music that helps you to get into the frame of mind to drive your true values and aspirations straight through OCD and out the other side. 16 Focus on getting better, more than feeling better. Measure your progress in terms of your levels of distress and ability to function across the course of a couple of weeks. 17 ‘OCD loves a vacuum!’As you recover, fill the gaps in your life that your OCD might leave behind with hobbies, exercise, education, friendships, deepening relationships with loved ones or furthering your career. There’s evidence that doing so will help you keep OCD out of your life.
- Date posted
- 6y
https://youtu.be/pJp9vlp84Wk Check out these YouTube videos.
- Date posted
- 6y
Thanks for your comment! The information you provided is greatly appreciated and will not be wasted.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w
Hiii! This is my first post. I found NOCD through a tiktok ad that spoke to me. It was titled signs you didnt know were OCD or something like that, and one of the slides was “checking my pulse throughout the day to make sure i was okay”. This is something ive done for i dont even know how long. atleast 10 years, im 24 now. Ive always known Ive had OCD. Light Sanitation OCD runs in my family. But over the years ive started to realize i had way more than the “family trait”. Checking my pulse 40+ times a day is something i refer to as my “OCD tick”. Its to the point where people who dont know about my “tick” often ask if i am okay when they see me do it. Maybe this post is me putting it on paper for the first time so i myself can analyze but some other stuff i struggle with are: Often having thoughts of if i dont do A, B will happen. An example that is common for me is “if i dont refold this shirt me and my boyfriend will get into an argument” or if im out to dinner with a friend, “if i dont pick up this cup and place it back down, i will get into a car accident on the way home”. This is one i struggle with almost everyday, especially when im around people (work or outings). This compulsion happens multiple times a day. Now in my life i try to practice exposure therapy, even getting annoyed i feel the compulsion and think to myself “oh my god this is so stupid no!” but if i dont follow through i feel guilty. often when i get my next compulsion shortly after i tell myself “okay doing this will make up for not doing the previous one”. I definitely dont have a number based OCD, but i would have to pick up and put down the cup until it feels “right” or “correct”- same with checking my pulse. I have to check my pulse until the feeling is “just right”. With sanitation as i said before, i have a very clean and sanitary family, although mine is more severe than their feelings. I avoid touching certain surfaces after i have washed my hands, such as the front door knob, or living room tv remote, etc. If i need to touch or use these things, i have to immediately wash my hands again. Even if someone comes home and asks me to go and lock the front door ill often respond with “i cant i just washed my hands, if i lock the door ill have to rewash my hands”. thankfully my family is very understanding. I often feel like certain things are contaminated. For example when i come home i sanitize my phone immediately as it is contaminated from being outside of my house. I often have a feeling of something having to feel “just right”. If i go out to dinner i have to be the first to pick what seat or side of the booth im sitting on before the rest of my family sits down or i will feel anxious the whole dinner. Sometimes when im typing i have to back space and retype the same word over and over until i feel i typed it “just right”- even if i didnt make a typo. sometimes when i am driving and space out i often think “oh my god did i just hit someone” when there is no evidence that i have. it worries me. I think oh my god i mightve done a hit and run. But tell myself it can not be possible, theres no police chasing me, no honking, or anything. It is scary. this one is very rare. once in a blue moon i get a false memory. A main one ive felt since i was a kid is if someone or some object touches any part of my body, for example my left arm, i have to have them or atleast my self touch my right arm in the exact same way or i feel uneasy. this isnt with every single touch, but mainly when i feel triggered- although i never know what triggers a moment where i need the symmetry. I guess ive always known, i am very honest with my family, friends, and boyfriend about it. But i didnt start to realize how neurodivergent i was until asking some friends “you never randomly feel *insert compulsion*?” and they say never in their life have they felt like that. Im very self aware and have come to an acceptance with all these things, although it is debilitating. Periodically i think, wow it must be nice to not live life with these feelings but oh well. To be honest, downloading this app is the first step ive ever taken to find out more about OCD. Ive always kind of just been like “yeah i definitely have OCD but okay” more or less.
- Date posted
- 20w
Hello, I’m new to this app. I’ve always had an anxious brain, and I’ve had coping mechanisms for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, from as early as I could spell, until I was probably early teens, I would constantly write words in my head along to the beat of music. It’s such a vivid memory because I never stopped doing it. The word had to perfectly match up to the lyric and I loved that it kept my brain busy. I grew out of that, but felt like good context. My anxiety increased drastically around ages 17-19, and I began therapy. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and panic disorder, due to having a panic attack nearly every day at that time. I overcame that as well, and now the panic attacks are every now and then, but the anxiety is constant, and some recent symptoms have led me to believe I might have some form of OCD. Maybe not. I’m trying to understand myself and get better so I joined this app to make sense of things. Lately I’ve been having really intense intrusive thoughts. I’m really embarassed and they make me feel like a bad person. Thoughts pop in my head seemingly out of nowhere. It will be an image of me harming myself or someone else in a really bad way. (Trigger warning) for example the other day I couldn’t shake the image of me putting a knife through my own forehead, although it’s not something I want to do. Or I’ll imagine someone killing me. I imagine my loved ones dying often. The thoughts feel so out of my control it’s insane. I hate them. Another persistent issue that isn’t as new is replaying social scenarios. I’m a hairstylist so this one is difficult since I meet a bunch of new people every day. I obsess over how I act and if people like me. I will impulsively say things all the time and they will haunt me for weeks. I question even my closest friends and family who show their love. I find myself so angry and numb and like I have so much built up emotion and a busy mind always. While doing my job I spiral really badly if any little thing goes wrong and it’s embarassing. I know there’s more but I can’t think of it now. I just want to feel better and like I’m not constantly battling my mind.
- Date posted
- 20w
I don't really know if these will count as ocd 'proof' and I'm almost trying to prove to myself that I have ocd at this point. I really don't know. And these don't even mention my current themes (pocd, soocd) and rocd but its kind of stopping idk. So here's what I wrote do you think it's worth mentioning or it even counts as ocd idk? -Blinking in a certain way, breathing in a certain manner till it feels right, making sure that im breathing right, holding my breath for a bit again and again, made sounds that disturbed others (my mom) because of that. -Focusing too much on my eyesight and what i see to make sure I don't have symptoms of an Illness in the eye, checking my body reactions a lot and getting scared. Checking my pulse regularly for a heart attack. Fear of dying, researching random illnesses of symptoms I have -When i was a child I pictured my family dying a lot and got intrusive thoughts about their heads being cut off, especially in Eid El adha (where we basically sacrifice cows and sheep) I couldn't handle being there because I was scared that the guy killing the cow will accidentally cut my mom's head instead and I'd picture it so graphically. random intrusive thoughts about me doing harm to others but they didn't make me anxious just disturbed, fear that someone will get in the house and kill my whole family since I was a child that I have a slight fear of doorbells. Can be sensitive to gorey images but not always a persistent fear unless I'm focused on it. In the streets I get stressed out by cars around me because I get thoughts that someone will shoot me and kill me from the car. Fear of dying in general as a kid I saw a video that talked about if you see fish in your dream it means you'll die soon and I wasn't able to sleep for a long time without literally collapsing out of tiredness because I was scared of sleeping and dying in my sleep. -Irrational fears when I hear really loud sounds, as a kid I'd hear sounds of parties or so and it stresses me out because I got intrusive thoughts about someone playing party songs but killing everyone in the enjoyment of the killing. Doorbell sounds stress me out and I keep hearing the doorbell ringing in my ears a lot that I check the door randomly sometimes. -When I play games I have to do things a certain way and I can click on a button multiple times in a different pattern until it feels right, repeating prayers constantly until they feel right. Same with the breathing from before idk if these count -I question morals a lot, I'm not sure If it's in an ocd manner but I am really scared of being a bad person with bad morals, I get scared I'm racist and sometimes I see someone from a different race and I get racist thoughts like racial slurs or so get in my head, I question morals in general a lot and the idea of them and why they exist. And that makes me scared that I'm just a terrible person and I don't want to be. I can fixate on "trying to do what's right" too much that I end up messing up more -Immense guilt on things from a long time ago that I already dealt with. -what I'd say my worst compulsions are (pure o I think) : Checking constantly, feelings or thoughts or reactions. Sneaky reassurance seeking from friends and confessing my thoughts. Excessive ruminating trying to find an answer, can take so long out of my life that I can't eat or drink. Researching my thoughts and asking people. Repeating prayers in my head constantly even though I'm not religious anymore but I get so disturbed by my thoughts.
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