- Date posted
- 5y ago
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Hi! I am 13 and one of my themes is mental contamination. I used to go to the hospital weekly believing I had appendicitis. Blood tests were a regular thing. ERP has helped tremendously. It sounds like your daughter is quite scared. I don't know her so I could be WAY off, but it seems to be that after she did ERP once she realised how hard it was. Unfortunately it is one of the only ways for your OCD to improve. I once had to go to school with a pounding headache and blotchy vision as part of ERP, because it was just a migraine and I panicked about it being other things and researched everything on the planet. I still get these thoughts and Coronavirus hasn't helped, and I still sanitised my hands up to my elbows, but it's a lot more manageable than it was before, and all of that is thanks to ERP. One of the things that I can do now is gardening. It is so relaxing and I'm so glad it isn't such a problem to me any more. Your life is so much more free when you don't have so mmany compulsions knocking at your door. Now that that theme isn't so bad, I have more time to focus on the others. I hope this helped in some way! I've been living with OCD since i was around 6 or 7, so I've come to learn a lot about how horrible it is, which has fuelled my determination with ERP
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Thank you much. You are a very mature young lady and should be so proud of what you have achieved. I understand that the. Fears feel like it’s Life or death so understand how scared she is. Your mum and dad must be so proud and your message to me will inspire many other teenagers living with this awful Bully. Ocd is the illness and The doubt is the symptom, well done for facing your fears and confronting the bully. It’s true the things you fear like the mental contamination and the bogies and snot ( my daughters triggers) won’t hurt you but OCD will. Wishing you an amazing life, I know from My daughters suffering what you have been through. You are an inspiration!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you don’t Mind if I Message again at Some point to ask your advice. Take care Best wishes from a mum who just wants to help her daughter x
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Of course! Ask any time I would be happy to help! OCD is hard and I haven't nearly recovered, but that what this app is for! I seem very mature now but I promise that a lot of the time I am not, OCD brings me down ?
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Also I completely forgot to mention earlier but it is my recommendation that you start of battling the smaller compulsions and make your way up, as I have a lot of compulsions that are too big and rooted to fight right now, but I know that if I start off small I will one day be able to make the big compulsions at least a little easier to handle. I hope your daughter find OCD a little easier soon, and thank you so much for wishing me well, I hope my OCD eases off soon too. It's hard for everybody, no matter who you are, OCD or not, in this difficult time, so I hope you and your whole family are safe and happy
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I wish I could say that I fully understood your daughters compulsions - I do not as my compulsions for each form including this one are very different, but I am very pleased that you believe that i was helpful, it made me feel very happy. I would just like to say that i admire you greatly, you are clearly caring and passionate and will do anything to help your daughter, it reminds me of what my mum does every day and it's great to see how supportive you are. You're also very inspiring and other others should strive to be as accepting as you are! X
- Date posted
- 5y ago
@EvaJazz Thankyou xxxxxx best wishes and I hope you have a gorgeous day xxxx
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Bless you, Thankyou for sharing this with me. I have sent her the link for NOCD but she won’t go On the chat rooms - she used to have intrusive thoughts when she was about 8 they seems to go Away and then At xmas Start to Come Back and Now Turned To this sort of thing, how do your parents help you , if we don something she doesn’t like She will have a Major Panic attack and gets so stressed and I don’t like to see Her with the discomdort, she can be quite horrible to xxx I’m so glad you have had the strength to fight this nasty bully xxxxxx
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Well my mum has helped by helping me make mind maps and other things like charts of different kinds of ERP, and encouraging me. Sometimes she'll put me in a situation that gives me anxiety, and I'll dislike her while its happening, but I thank her so much once we've moved past it. It's so great that you're making such an effort to help. Another thing I do is I keep a journal. I write all of my compulsions in the front of the book and what I fear will happen if I don't do it, then I'll tweak the compulsion so it's a little more lenient, and then write whether the fear came true or not. When you look back at it it really shows you how the routines aren't too important. Nothing will completely eliminate the thoughts and fears, but this definitely helps. Also maybe buy her a pair of gloves (latex or gardening, maybe even rubber gloves) and have her do some light gardening. This way she won't get dirty but she'll get more comfortable around dirt? I don't know much about your daughter so I'm not sure if this will be too much, but it definitely helped me. I get intrusive thoughts too about multiple different things, and facing my fears is a very effective form of ERP. I hope this helped!
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Have you watched Unstuck https://www.ocdkidsmovie.com/ together? It might be a gentler way of opening the conversation. The book "Talking Back to OCD" is also a great parent resource. Also here is the iocdf kids and parents pagehttps://kids.iocdf.org/
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Yes thankyou I’ve watched it and my daughter is having therapy - it’s just so hard To Know sometimes if she just doesnt want to do the things I ask like tidy then mess Around the place she sits Or try And get the matted tangles out of her hair that she has Neglected. She has started some ERP but doesn’t push herself and when the therapist over Skype says so This Etc she is like Mum I don’t want to mum !! And it’s Hard and if I Keep on at her she just wants To Argue And fight and says it’s Me making her so It - But we have to Live with it too, it’s like walking on egg shells ! To be honest, it is like she doesn’t care what it’s doing to rest of us Only her, I’m a Type 1 Diabetic so it isn’t helping me being stressed and upset alit if the time when everything has to Turn Into a Big thing. Sometimes I just don’t want to be here so I don’t have to watch her Like this But I have to be the strong one and take what’s thrown at Me . I Keep saying we aren’t going to do Ocd - but when she won’t eat the food or Coe Into the room when u r facing her incase of Nose Breathing or you itch your Nose it’s hard. I will just have to be patient - She Shows Know Interest in reading or watching anything- at the No it is Lock Down But she will have to Go back to School when Back Open And it will Be so hard For her. I have Had Inspirational message from a young girl, who is doing so well. So hopefully my daughter will see soon that this is the way to go. Thankyou
Related posts
- Date posted
- 21w ago
Hey guys! So I struggle with OCD, especially harm, relationship and moral stuff and I am somewhat recovered now. However, my current girlfriend has started showing signs of OCD but it’s abou5 something I don’t know much about so I wanted to see if anyone on here had thoughts about it. She is constantly thinking about food (when to eat it, what is healthy, what is too much, what is too little) and controls the thoughts by giving in and controlling her entire day around food. She don’t really know the feeling of being full. She never starved herself and always eats, but then she feels extremely guilty afterwards. Her thoughts do have to do a lot with her body image and not gaining weight but also not losing any either. Does this sound like ocd or an eating disorder?
- Date posted
- 13w ago
It’s been 4 years. 4 years since I spiralled into a world controlled by rituals of 4, it started as 2, then 3, then 4 - my safe number. The amount of times I wash my hands after touching something dirty and how many repeats it takes until I feel ‘clean’, the amount of taps I make when closing doors to make sure I don’t ‘die’, the amount of times I rinse cutlery and plates before eating off them, the amount of times I disinfect things. My OCD subtype is contamination and I know 2020 lockdowns and the pandemic caused it to spiral but what started as a small ritual quickly became bigger until I no longer remembered what my life was like without the obsessive thoughts of germs and contamination. Could that person be ill? What if I go outside to the shops and someone makes me sick? You can’t answer the door to get that package from the delivery driver because he might make you sick, oh you can’t put the shopping away without disinfecting it first - what if someone has coughed on it? ‘I’ve got to wear gloves to do that’ I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. For 4 years I’ve lived like this, the ‘I don’t want to touch that’ or ‘I can’t go to this place because I don’t want to get ill and die’ ‘can you go do that for me as I don’t think I can right now’ - I know my OCD is irrational, I know the likelihood of those things actually happening are slim to none and I know my OCD stems from a need of control in my life because for so many years I felt like everything in my life was out of my control. But no matter how much I know of how many books I read, how many mindful practices I do the panic I feel after being ‘exposed’ or before exposing myself to a trigger is horrible. I’ve avoided and avoided and avoided to the point where something small now seems and feels like an impossible mountain to climb. It often feels like there isn’t light at the end of the tunnel on the dark days, when I know there is, it’s just going to take some time. Despite this on the outside to those not in my circle my life is a whole picture perfect painting. I run my own business, have a nice car, a nice house, a happy relationship and the of best friends and I’m so grateful for all those things but the reality is much different - behind closed doors and hidden in the closest is the OCD monster. I’ve decided now, after 4 years it’s time to change. I’m breaking the cycle and starting anew. The irony that 4 is my safe number too and it’s been 4 years since things started to get dark. I’m ready to lose control and find myself again. Why am I writing this? Honestly, I really don’t know. I found this app recently and hope it can be a help for my ERP practices I’ve been practicing on my own and it’s actually the first time I’ve ever openly posted or spoken about my OCD to date. For years I have lived with a huge amount of shame and embarrassment, hiding my issues from everyone - even my closest friends have no idea how much it impacts my day to day. I’ve felt shame as I can’t control my own mind despite knowing the thoughts are irrational and the rituals only provide temporary relief but each day again and again the safety blanket of the rituals wraps me up and takes over. The only person who truly knows how much it affects me is my partner, who has been by my side through it all, he’s burnt out and has seen first hand the impact it has had on me, my life and my happiness. I’ve sheltered him as much as I can, but I’m sure those who are in relationships with OCD can relate to the burnout their partner feels day in day out. So that’s my story, I hope those going through similar can take comfort in this and know they aren’t alone in it all as my OCD has made me feel so incredibly lonely, isolated and empty for 4 years too long. It feels freeing to finally share my monster and I hope I can connect with others who are on a similar journey to me. The biggest thing I want to be able to do again? I want to be able to hug my loved ones without feeling triggered, I want to go outside and enjoy life without worry, I want to live again. This app has made me feel seen for the first time in a long time and reading your stories, your experiences and how you’re coping is comforting, encouraging and makes me feel less alone ❤️ thank you for reading x
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 12w ago
Hi everyone, I’m Cayla. I’m a mom that’s lived with OCD since childhood, but my breaking point came more recently after having my son. I was consumed by terrifying thoughts—What if I hurt him? What if I did something awful without realizing it? I was so afraid of my own mind that I couldn’t be alone with him. The shame and exhaustion were unbearable, and I convinced myself I was broken. In 2024, I finally sought help. ERP therapy at NOCD was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it saved my life. Even now, I have tough days, but I know I don’t have to be ruled by OCD. When my 12 year old daughter began showing signs of OCD, I felt overwhelmed with guilt. I never wanted her to go through what I had, but I knew what to do. I told her that I have OCD too and made sure she knew it wasn’t her fault—and that she wasn’t alone. One of the hardest parts of this journey was trusting someone else with my daughter’s OCD. I knew how vulnerable it feels to share intrusive thoughts, and I wanted her to feel safe. Her NOCD therapist was able to establish trust and genuine empathy from the start, and that relationship gave her the confidence to face ERP head-on. Seeing her build that trust made me certain she was in the right hands. ERP has helped both of us reclaim our lives, and it is beautiful to see my daughter managing her condition and making visible progress. Parenting with OCD while raising a child with OCD isn’t talked about enough, but I know so many parents are struggling with these same challenges. If you have questions about managing OCD while parenting, helping your child through ERP, or breaking cycles of guilt, drop them below—I’d love to share what I’ve learned. I’ll be answering all of the questions I receive in real-time today 4-5pm ET.
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