Welcome to
the NOCD Community

how do you guys not feel extremely guilty for your intrusive thoughts? i’ve been struggling with the guilt over having these thoughts in the first place. any tips would help so much!!

Anyone in a relationship and struggling with HOCD or SOCD hmu so we can talk and help each other 🙏

Can Someone Tell Briefly How Real Event ocd is like? I'm confused about this....and not sure if i have it or not...

I know I’m safe, I’m told I’m safe but yet I keep thinking I’m in danger. Here’s the story: My boyfriend comes from a 2nd to third world country where gangs/terrorists and violence run rampant. So much so that his country’s government had to hire/run a new president to fix the issues. Whether their president gets re-elected we don’t know. In said country the people are sometimes forced to give gang members money to not get hurt/murdered. For no reason, these terrorists just like being in charge. It’s sad. Anyway he’s told me it’s over with and that he didn’t really have to live that way and sends money to his family for water, food, and meds. He tells me about his childhood and tells me he was asked by “insert terrorist group here” to join in his country and he said no. And right then I started panicking because the news media tells us that saying no to these kinds of people in their country is a no no and you can’t escape. So for weeks I was under the impression he came to the US to run away from said people and I panicked. I even thought about dumping him in order to feel safe, not because I didn’t want him as a boyfriend. Anyway fast foreword to yesterday after a small argument on my part for feeling unsafe he tells me “let’s talk” and told me there was nothing to worry about and that these people were childhood friends or acquaintances that ended up choosing the wrong path in their lives and asked if he wanted to come along and he said no and that there was nothing to fear and that he came here on a work visa and showed it to me before too. Even though I felt relief the panic still came back the next day and it won’t go away even though my boyfriends been in the US for 5+ years without issue, and it’s not like I don’t have friends myself who got into dirty deeds so me and my boyfriend are the same. We come from the same background and had bad groups of friends that we had to leave behind. So why am I like this? So how do I calm myself down? Has anyone else been through this?

You don’t even try to think about it much more , but ocd has left you with the feeling . Plus, you still ruminate about it . It feels like temporary little depression stage :( where everything you were great full for prior to the spike, is no longer there . I feel like my episode is gonna last for a long time again:( I want me back .

I’ve never experienced any feeling like this, but lately for the past few weeks I have had these really scary thoughts and graphic images pop into my head out of nowhere, and I can’t seem to get them to go away. Every day I have at least 3-4 moments where I’ll just be minding my own business, living life like normal, and i’ll see very typical things out in public that my mind takes and creates terrible ideas from. Like, i’ll see a bad car accident on the highway and for a moment i’ll wonder what it would be like to die in a car wreck (and or some reason it feels like a peaceful thought - dying so quickly and unexpectedly), or I’ll imagine a brick flying out of an eighteen-wheeler and smashing through my window into my face while i’m driving. It’s all very intense and graphic, and in the moment that i’m thinking about it, it feels like a comforting thought, until I snap back into reality and am terrified of my own mind. I feel like i’m going crazy. I don’t know if this is all attributed to my past traumas (i’ve been raped twice, locked in a window-less garage with no food or water for three days, have been a heroin addict and an alcoholic, suffered through 6 years of anorexia and bulimia, was naive enough to be lured into sex-trafficking that lasted 2.5 years, and I have been in one severely toxic relationships where I was beaten and given drugs so I would submit to sexual activities I’d otherwise would never do). I always came out of each of these situations with no issue, I just let it go and said “it is what it is” and I’d go on and be what I thought was “happy”. I have quit heroin cold-turkey as of a few months ago with only two instances of relapse that lasted two days each time, but I have never gone back to it with an addiction mindset. I have also quit binge-drinking as of 7 months ago, and now I only have a drink now and then (not nearly as much as before). I am now with my soon-to-be husband and we just moved out into a new place. I thought my life was seemingly fine, but lately I have been getting these horrendous thoughts that I should either hurt myself or commit suicide. It’s not always, but when the thoughts do come out of the blue, I feel like at any moment I will lose control and give in to them. I’m beggining not to trust myself, I have started intentionally scratching my skin with a thumbtack to feel pain (It’s weirdly comforting when I feel physical pain. It distracts me from the scary thoughts). I also have been diagnosed with betrayal trauma PTSD and have had ADHD my whole life. I just don’t know what to do because I’m starting to fear for my own life. I don’t want to die, but I also don’t want to live sometimes. It’s all very confusing and came out of nowhere. I thought I was perfectly fine and happy. All these thoughts are completely out of left field and there were no warning signs. I don’t know what to do or how to make the thoughts and images go away

I feel horrible. I feel like I treat my boyfriend as if I don't care for him or our relationship, like its something new and foreign as if we haven't been together for 3+ years. I walk past a guy and pick up on his looks then feel like a cheater. And when I consider my own boyfriend, I try to rationalize my thoughts, reassure myself of my feelings for my boyfriend, all the while feeling completely and utterly disconnected not only from him and our relationship but from myself. I feel like the voice and thoughts and feelings I have a lot of times aren't me. I feel like I'm trying to fit in wherever I go. I feel stuck, tired, and drained. I'm depressed and then I'm anxious, always low with a few highs and not the good kind. My head hurts, my body hurts, everything hurts, but especially the guilty I carry for feeling like I'm wasting my own time and life and my partners time. I feel like I'm convincing myself that I like him, that I care for him, but somehow my mind always tells me he's my forever and I want him to be but it doesn't FEEL like that inside me and it's so hard dealing with 2 opposing thoughts of that level. I am so lost. I don't know what to do. Every day, I feel the much more like I'm out of touch from our relationship. It's been years and I'm still like this, and it makes me wonder whether this ocd shit is all in my head and really I'm just running from something I don't want to accept. But I don't want it to be like that, but it just doesn't make any sense. Even saying that the ocd is making me second guess myself feels like a lie. I am so fucking lost.

I’m tired of being me with this brain and body it’s so hard everyday

My real event ocd theme is back and I just had a random thought about it and now I’m triggered all over again, repeating what went wrong and how stupid I was as a dumb teenager to not realize it when I should have.

Hi, I need advice. I'm a 21 year old college student, turning 22 in November. If I go back to school this year, I will only be a sophomore by credits, with no progress toward my degree. For 5 years I've suffered from off-the-charts-severe OCD, with 30+ obsessions, and hundreds, if not thousands, of compulsions. I have not been able to function whatsoever for 5 years, despite being a 4.0 student before my condition worsened. I'm beginning to truly understand and accept that all of my problems are a result of this disorder, including my severe depression, and my social anxiety. I have trialed 30+ medications, brain stimulation, years of therapy (NOT ERP), partial hospitalization (NOT ERP), and inpatient hospitalization (NOT ERP). None have been effective. I could return to school with this new understanding & acceptance, working vigorously on an outpatient basis; OR, could enroll in residential inpatient treatment specifically for OCD, with lots of ERP—for the first time. I would prefer to return to school; I am impassioned by learning, and independence from my family, and would love so dearly to begin my adult life and earn my degree in physics. However, I am concerned, despite my newfound acceptance & understanding, that my return will be the same story as the entirety of my college career thus far: an incapacity to engage in school due to obnoxiously profound OCD. In other words, if I were to go back now, I'd be vigorously working on ERP, on an outpatient basis, but I'd essentially be starting at school with no guarantee that my efforts toward vanquishing OCD will be effective. My alternative option is to enroll in residential inpatient treatment and fully conquer my OCD, once and, hopefully, for all. Afterward, I would begin my adult life with more propensity to succeed and heightened vigor. However, I would need to accept a tainted college transcript (very difficult and saddening to me, having a history being a 4.0 student, and with some degree of perfectionism OCD); I would need to accept that I am not able to retake the classes I failed, because it would be irrational to wait one more year (next fall) to take those classes, when they're offered, instead of jumping straight into my college career after residential treatment. This is furthermore difficult because I plan to go to graduate school. I don't trust admission counselors' goodness-at-heart to overlook my profound challenges for the first 3 years of my college degree; I've had my heart set on Ivy universities my whole life, and I'm 100% certain if they would overlook my challenges, I'd succeed tremendously. Thank you for your advice.

Just a positive post for those who may need it tonight. I have been feeling very, very good about my current status dealing with OCD. It’s really crazy to finally feel like I’ve gotten ahead of my intrusive thoughts. I recently have found strength in accepting the uncertainty, which at first sounded like total bullshit. But now, I actually feel pretty good. I guess for me (really for anybody) dealing with uncertainty did not mean I had to accept my intrusive thoughts as a reality but I had to take away its potency by continuing to believe in what I always knew to be true and devaluing those stupid intrusive thoughts by stripping the feeling of anxiety away from them. Unfortunately I know that sounds like all advice to help defeat OCD but I really feel like that’s the only way to write it. I would constantly find new ways to make myself anxious , and feed my ocd. Which for about a year was just awful because I was in the initial stage of fear. I had no fight in me, everything in my world at the time seemed to have just flipped upside down. Work, family friends, everything felt so awkward and wrong which really gave me no time or courage to work on the ocd that was bothering me. In turn, I sat with those feelings ..constantly thinking about my fears, JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. And in time after unwillingly analyzing those fears, I realized that ocd had its flaws and they were kind of easy to notice. I realized that there was really no other substance to my triggers other than the emotion of fear. 0 other emotion. true emotion. It’s easy to think yourself into believing that you’re feeling a certain way but in all reality the whole entire time you’re only feeling anxious. When you feel “happy” about a trigger or “excited”about a trigger you’re immediately anxiety ridden..why? Because those feelings aren’t real! They are exactly what you don’t want to feel, so you’re creating that emotion to test your ocd and see if it’s what you would “like” or how you feel deep down. It’s fucking crazy lol. I like to compliment myself and others and say anyone who is suffering with ocd has one thing to blame and that’s an intelligent brain. I mean being capable of thinking one million different variations of negative ideas and one million different variations of solutions to those negative ideas is kind of impressive, it’s like our brains are capable of working too hard. So really if that statement is true, with a little determination to learn your mind and callous it towards the ideas that may trigger you..anybody is capable of beating this bullshit mental illness. It starts with wanting to work, and then once you get that fire lit it is time to work. Do those ERP’s, do them with your therapist, do them on your own, don’t let that fucking feeling of anxiety touch you instead tell it you don’t give a fuck and you will continue to have those thoughts and act the way you want anyways. You are capable of living any life as long as you defy those anxiety ridden thoughts. And just like anything else failure is ok, there is a win in every failure especially if you remind yourself that. Continue to listen to what you want to believe , and pay attention but don’t react to the thoughts you hate. Your recovery starts when you want it to.

So tommorow I’m going to a psychiatrist and telling them what’s been going on & telling them some of my instrusive thoughts. Honestly idk how to feel about taking it. Bc I still want to engage in social activities like drinking and smoking every once in a while. Also my girlfriend’s birthday is coming up and I don’t wanna be a loser and not engage in any activities🙄.Also, me being a black guy asking for medication… we often get criticized for taking it. Any advice on medication and which one works best for you guys ?

I have ROCD. It fully came out of its shell in 2018, but I had a moment in 2015 that I believe was a pre cursor to it. I was on acid with my girlfriend at the time and we were having a good time. Then suddenly, I got the thought, what if she doesn't love me? I felt so horrible the next day and was now questioning whether I lived her. I al.ist broke up with her. A year and a half later we had a kid and the feeling came back when he was born. Again it faded, but came back with a vengeance in 208 and has been with me every day ever since. She ended up leaving g a year after this started and I got into a different, much more healthy and stable relationship, but as soon as we started to get more serious, the feelings came right back like they never left. I am saying this because I was watching a special by Bill Burr where he talked about taking mushrooms and at first having a good time, then suddenly being hot with a wave of loneliness and feeling unloved. His wife walked in while he was feeling this way and he started to question whether he loved her or not. He thought to himself, I've gotta pull my self out of this feeling, so he tried thinking of his kids but still felt the same. He thought, well I know I love my kids so that's bull shit. So where is this feeling coming g from? It suddenly dawned on him that ray was how he had felt his entire childhood. I am now wondering since what happened to him is so similar to what happened to me, could this while rocd thing for me come from somewhere deeper? Repressed feelings from the past? I'm not here for reassurance so please dont offer any. But I would like your honest thoughts and feelings towards it and maybe a story of your own if you are Interested. Thanks for reading.

I feel 100% trapped in my mind, DP thoughts of if I’m even real or not and I can’t stop them. I don’t know how, I try to explain it but I physically cannot, I just freeze. I feel so crazy, I don’t want to do this anymore :( Havin questions like how is my body just working automatically? How do I just know what to say without thinking much about it? It’s hard socializing, I’m scared of everything I just want it to stop. My body feels autopiloted while my brain is stuck in a loop of worrying and wondering what is wrong.

I keep seeing people say that they thought they had intrusive thoughts about their sexuality and ended up being with the same sex and it’s really triggering me. I don’t want to end up with another woman. I only want to be with men. I’m scared that my thoughts aren’t intrusive thoughts. Please help

TW!!! hey. my name is luna and i have been diagnosed with so many stupid things like depression, bipolar, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, and shit like that. i’m not even sure i have any of those things if i’m being completely honest. it’s been pretty hard these last couple of years because I’ve been in so many treatments and a residential. I’m not sure if anyone else has been through this but it’s been kind of confusing too. i’ve made a lot of stupid choices also. I currently have an obsession with cutting myself. I just can’t stop. I used to also have an obsession with giving myself stick and pokes. And the list goes on. But sometimes I have horrible intrusive thoughts. They actually have been more than less. I have them almost every day all day. sometimes they’re about my sexual orientation and how I’m so confused. Or maybe about wanting to kill myself or jumping off a bridge. But sometimes they’re about homicide and being a murder. I’ve been so interested in Jeffrey Dahmer lately. I know it’s really fucked up to have these kinds of thoughts but I just can’t help it. I really need some advice if anyone is willing to give me some. I’m not really sure how this app works because I just got it but if you guys have any tips that would be a big help. I know I said this before but my name is Luna and i go by they them pronouns!<3

Hi, I am new here, I have been reading the forum posts & replying to them when I can but this time I thought I would be brave and have a go myself so... I had my first tattoo last December I was excited & nervous. I thought I would treat myself as I had a horrible time in lockdown when I realised I had OCD and was officially diagnosed. I started to re-admire tattoos & became very interested in them. I did my research on vegan studios, I also watched many YouTube videos etc. When I found a local studio I had to go inside by myself, wear a mask due to covid precautions etc. It wasn't until I was sat in the chair waiting for my stencil to dry, that I realised the artist smokes and went out for a cigarette. I did my best to stay calm and not panic, but thoughts started bombarding me. I did not even think about their lifestyle choices😮‍💨.The artist did wash their hands, wore a mask, put gloves on (hygiene standard) but that still didn't comfort me (did they wash their hands with soap, long enough? Will particles of tobacco go through the gloves and their mask into my skin? Will I get ill and its all my fault?). I could smell the smoke through my mask. Then we had a break and the artist went out again to smoke; this time round the artist didn't wash their hands, instead they quickly used hand sanitiser and quickly put their gloves on. I was having a fight inside of me, my heart was beating fast etc and I just couldn't voice my opinion. The thing is I kept reassuring myself it was going to be ok, I don't think it would have been bad if they kept washing their hands after smoking its probably the fact that they did it once and that was enough 😥. I have recently been going back to this and wishing I said something but its too late and everytime I see my tattoos it just reminds me. I have been Googling to justify my thoughts for some scientific answer but its not helping. Questions like how effective is hand gel on cigarette hands, handwashing vs hand gel, if gloves really do protect and are they porous. I felt really contaminated and just wanted to leave but it was to late. 6 months later I had another tattoo by another artist in the studio, I had booked this appointment a long time ago and also regretted it as the artist also smokes. I thought she would probably have better hygiene standards but no, she used gel too and this time no mask. So I felt very sick , the smell was too overpowering, I felt (thought) like as she was talking, the tobacco and germs from her mouth would enter my bloodstream. I should have just cancelled the whole thing, and lost my deposit. The tattoo is really bad and it wasn't worth it as I'm now having laser on it 😵‍💫. I had horrible experiences but the 1st one wasn't as bad as this one. I wish I used my voice. I am never going back there! I really appreciate you for reading this and thank you 🙏🏼💚.

I have an obsession that I secretly have undiagnosed autism and that everyone can tell there is something off or weird about me. If you have Tiktok, you probably know that people on it like to talk about mental health a lot. Because of that, whenever I see a video on signs of autism, for example, I always force myself to watch it, to make sure I don’t have the things named. Obviously, watching them makes the algorithm recommend them to me more. This is incredibly frustrating and distressing. It makes my social anxiety a hundred times worse because I’m worried that I act autistic around people. I’ve never felt like I was different or “alien” before this, but this obsession and these videos make me feel like I SHOULD be feeling this way and that I’m not noticing something obvious. I’m trying so fucking hard to tell the difference between what is a real a symptom and what is not. If you’re autistic, I’m really sorry if this offended you. I just needed to get this off my chest. Can anyone with mental health obsessions also relate?

I dealt with soocd about 3 years ago for a few months, then it went away and didn’t come back until right before I left for college. Which after looking into it, it makes sense for it to come back when a big change in life happens. With that being said me and my boyfriend have been together for almost 2 years. And right before I left for college, I developed rocd with my hocd. It’s taken over me completely and made my life miserable. Before we officially left for college I would check to see if it still “felt right” when we kissed, or would see if I was forcing myself to kiss him. And after battling with rocd for this long it has me fully convinced I need to break up, but I don’t want to. I love this guy. Before all of this we had a plan for long distance, and we had dates scheduled to see eachother, and I would bet money I’d marry this guy. I’d never fallen in love with someone like this. This rocd is killing me now though. Thoughts flood my kind constantly. I cant catch a break. I feel sick all the time. And I spend my days trying to sleep it off, or googling rocd stuff all day long. I don’t want to lose this battle. I love my boyfriend. My subtopics have changed during rocd, and some triggers don’t bother me as much as they used to. But I feel extreme guilt and feel like I need to tell my partner everything. Which I have and I’m so grateful he still loves me and supports me. But I’m just a mess. I never get my mind back, and I cry all the time. When will this end? Will j ever be happy with him again? I feel so hopeless. And I just love my boyfriend. I feel like certain times throughout the day it comes and goes and gets worse or better. Can someone please help me. I do not want to lose my relationship, I just want my old life back.

Hi everyone, I hope you’re all doing well. I wanted to make a post because last night and today are borderline unbearable. I got triggered by something last night and had the worst physical urges and intrusive thoughts in a long while. I’m also scared because I usually can revert back to my original feelings before my ocd after a while, but today I can’t and it’s scaring me. I’m worried this means I’m accepting what ocd is telling me and it’s scaring the life out of me. The pit of my stomach has been heavy all day long and I’m on the verge of tears. I’m not sure if you can private message on here, but I would really appreciate some chatting or support from people who have had similar experiences because I feel so alone and helpless. I feel like I’m doomed and I’ll never get out. I never wanted this but my ocd tells me I do because I’ve had this theme for so long but I feel like my values are fading and I’m so scared. I’m not sure what to do and I have nobody else to talk about it. If anyone can talk about it or similar experiences, please do. Thank you