I am currently unemployed, living with my parents and sister again as an adult and my father was abusive and volatile growing up. My sister took a bunch of pills two years ago and was admitted to a hospital for a while. She lived with me for a year, then lived abroad for a year and now we are both back with our parents. I don't think I ever fully recovered from her suicide attempt or from my childhood. I always felt it was my role to be the peace maker and keep the family together even though I am the youngest one in the family and that was a false responsibility I gave myself. My mom has compulsions and my dad is a hoarder so I think my heightened sense of responsibility and genetics could be factors with my ocd. I first showed signs of ocd when I was younger but didn't know that was what it was. I have used smoking weed as a form of stress relief however I never thought of it as self medicating because I would go several months without smoking and then when I was stressed I would smoke on and off for a month or so. I always thought that was due to external factors in my life and never habit forming or addictive. I never even started smoking weed until I was 22 and I am now in my late 20s. When having a stressful time the other week I started smoking again and the next morning it's like it set off this huge panic attack inside of me. All of my ptsd and fears/ obsessions came up to the surface like when you have food poisoning and your body is trying to expell toxins from your body. My death ocd, sexual thoughts ocd, and real ocd and then ptsd have been swirling around in my head nonstop since. Eventually my mom took me to patient first to get something to help me get through the day. They prescribed me attarax and I am taking 2-4 a day as need be since Monday. I also immediately started listening to the ocd stories podcast after googling intrusive thoughts and realized what was going on with me in terms of my fears and obsessions being heightened. My ocd has always bubbled under the surface but I've never had panic attacks and depression like this before. That's when I decided to try NOCD. I am still waiting to have my first session and I am trying to do things every day to give me hope and I am looking forward to my appointment. I feel like this house and my family are a big trigger for me, but I feel stuck and scared especially during covid-19 on how to get out of my situation. I guess I was hoping if anyone could provide me with some words of hope and encourangement in terms of the recovery process and battling multiple problems on top of ocd.

Hi I kept seeing this app on repeat on TikTok over and over and I thought I give it a shot. I have never been diagnosed with OCD but I know that I have it. I’m a young adult and I found out the first time I had OCD was watching lelelons truth video? I was 14 at the time She had to resist sitting back down in a chair after her having sat down she started having a mental break down when she was told to resist. That’s when I knew. It started with myself going up and down a staircase twice buckling unbuckling my seat belt everytime I’m in the car ect I have always been super anti social but trying my best I can socialize but my mind wants to make it sexual with family and friends ughhhh I hate it because that’s not me when I graduated thoughts of hurting my loved ones corrupted my mind I broke down outside of church one time asking if this was really me or not i question if I’m a good enough friend or person in this world to begin with thinking everyone is judging me so so close how can I make this situation better did I do something wrong I struggle with depression as well not to bad but it’s there I come from a loving family but broken as well i believe in god and my OCD makes me go often he’s not real that stuff isn’t real no one is there to save you the list goes on. Anyway I struggle a lot and I really hope that this will help me because I feel extremely hopeless. Lucky for me I do have the ability to seek therapy and I am excited. The only person I ever tell my thoughts to is God no other human has heard so I’m really really hoping this helps me out if your reading this thank you it means a lot because this is my first time ever admitting all this it’s a lot to take in I know and I hope you are ok and that you have a great night and know that we got this

Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?

Please read this. I’ve had ocd pretty much a lot of my life but never knew what it was until my senior year of highschool. I’m 21 with 2 kids and i believe i’ve had pocd a little bit before my daughter was born (which was 8 months ago). It made me start looking at all kids differently and i hate it. But it really started triggering me about 3 months ago. I’ve been thinking if i’d intentionally touched or harmed my kids the wrong way, or any kids for that matter. This started giving me false memories (or at least hope they are). I’ve been having panic attacks, yelling at myself, punching walls, praying, and even thoughts of ending my own life. I grew up in a severe toxic household throughout my childhood and teenage life. I’ve never wished that on my kids since i became a dad. I wanna give them the life i never got. I look back my photos of my children and i feel like i’m a complete fraud of a dad. I cannot look at my kids or be around them a lot of times. I can’t hold my daughter right. I can’t change their diaper when they need it. Even my son came and was hugging on me the other night while i was watching tv and i acted like a stranger to him. I can very little do this stuff sometimes because it’s either i get relief or i push my thoughts as far back as i can. I get scared if i did something to not just my kids, but any other kids in the past. I have such a a great life and such a beautiful family. It was hard and stressful at first being young with a family but i couldn’t be more thankful at all for them. I’m just so lost and stressed right now that i just don’t know what to do anymore