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the NOCD Community

Because you CANT STOP RUMINATING. I’m really trying the non engagement responses but my head physically hurts :( feels like my brain is just looping !!

I've been a musician for 13 years now, and I have had some incredible moments with it as well as trauma too. My OCD has gotten so intense lately, especially while I'm with my band, that I feel like my only option is to stop doing it for a while. It feels like when I make any progress with it, I take 2 steps backwards. When I'm around them, I can't stop obsessing about how much better looking, smarter, and cooler they are than me. Those things may sound silly, but I truly get engulfed by the pain of OCD in those moments. I just don't know what to do. I know music is an important part of my life, but maybe it's too much for me right now? Especially with all of the other change going on in my life.

I’m starting to think I have rocd, either that or something els like commitment issues or it could be both? Anyway, I enjoy telling my friends I love them, because I do I really treasure my friends- however I don’t enjoy telling my boyfriend it, it feels forced or fake? Does it sound like rocd or something els? Or just a me thing? I’m just curious because I want to help myself, some people with rocd have said (on this app previously) they relate to other things I’ve said, so that’s why I’m curious if I have rocd or if it’s something different- sorry if it’s confusing but can anyone tell me if they relate to that, maybe it’s the person..idk! My head feels messy so I’m sorry if it doesn’t make sense, I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong

I hate to say this but I want my anxiety back the severe one… I want my feelings back! I want to love him like before!!! I want my relationship back to normal again!! 😭😭😭💔💔💔💔 I don’t wanna say goodbye!! I don’t wanna end it!!! Please this can’t be me!!! I don’t want my life to change without him!!

Hi Everyone. As someone that doesn't have OCD... I am struggling to come to terms with elements of my partners OCD intrusive thoughts. I feel really terrible as I feel like I am being selfish for taking some of these thoughts personally... But at the same I can't help it. I don't know everything about my partners struggles with OCD, but I do know parts. It is really starting to affect how I interact with oir relationship - and I really don't want it to. Whilst the word crisis seems very severe... I feel it is relevant here. Because I feel like even the smallest OCD appearance is starting to upset me. The main OCD thoughts that I can't seem to see past, are constant thoughts about an ex love interest of his. Whilst I truly understand that these thoughta are not his own, I also really hate that they impact how he is with me. I don't think he realises how much he is impacted when the thoughts appear, and I try so hard to ignore the outward impact of his internal OCD, but at the same time... It is getting harder and harder to do so. Is there any key advice anyone has that might help me to lessen the effect my partners OCD has on me? Am I a terrible person for even allowing myself to feel terrible when I know he will feel much worse than I do about it? X

1st thing is- can ocd make it seem like you are forcing yourself to think of your intrusive thoughts? For example the last few days I’ve been okay if you will. And then once or a twice a day i have a moment where it will be like I’m fine, but then me and my brain will say why are we thinking positively we are supposed to be thinking about xyz (Dahmer in my case). And it doesn’t feel like ocd brain it feels like it’s actually me. Can anyone relate? I know it’s reassurance but i just don’t want to be crazy. Like and it feels like I’m trying to trigger myself or something. Like i have to cook hamburger at work and looking at the raw meat usually doesn’t bother me at all and then my brain was like why aren’t you triggered it should remind you of Dahmer. 2nd thing is- how can you tell if the workforce you work at is bad for your mental health. Like I’ve never struggled mentally before so now im just trying to learn why it happened to me out of the blue. I like my job and i love to cook but the people are super toxic. So it’s not the job it’s mainly the people and how hard i work. But like when people say “this isn’t good for my mental health” its just really confusing because im struggling to figure out what that even means. I don’t anyway i just feel a lot of different things but little all at once. Like i am struggling with 100 different things but i hardly feel anything. Like i hardly have any anxiety towards my intrusive thoughts and it’s scary. I just feel numb like i feel no emotion or something. I know this is reassurance seeking but i just need to know that im not crazy.

Can ROCD really make you stop loving your partner…? I am so depressed right now… before I left from work I cuddled with him bc i miss being close to him… He said I love you to me and I felt so much guilt bc I didn’t feel the same way at that moment… I still love him. But i felt like a lier… my partner and I share a room at my family’s home.. so I have to cry in the bathroom since I have alone time there.. I am just sticking with the idea that I don’t love him right now…. B/c I can’t fight back anymore… my brain is worn out i can feel it…. I didn’t wanna stop cuddling with him… 💔 It’s like our emotional connection is gone and that the 12 years we had together never happened… 😞 I wanna talk to him about this bc it’s becoming concerning but I know he will say I still need to get help..: like many of you will probably say… I obsessively though of his flaws… I don’t wanna leave him… We both don’t know what to do… he knows we live in an unhealthy environment…. That we need to get out but he and I don’t know what work we could do to get out… we don’t wanna find another job that’s retail bc we already have one….. We’re both very depressed..: why couldn’t I stop loving my family… I don’t even like being near them as it is… they’ve done a lot of damage to me mentally…. My partner doesn’t understand how I am even related to them. My partner’s mental health is bad too but he knows how to control it but he still needs help. He said my mental health is a lot worse than his and I need to be treated quickly before it’s too late…

No one who cares No one who understands No one who shows up No one who listens I have no one… Not even on a post venting to the world… I have no one…

so i need advice because i genuinely am not sure what is the healthiest thing to do. my partner knows i have ocd and knows a little about the specific themes i struggle with. but there’s a lot i haven’t told them because i’m scared to open up about it and/or because i think it’ll negatively impact their own mental health. how much of my ocd should i tell them about? do i carry on keeping most of it to myself, protecting their feelings and mine but bottling up all my problems? or do i lay it all out, helping them understand me better and finally giving myself an outlet but potentially hurting them? or something in between? i would ask a therapist if i had one but that’s not a possibility for me at the moment so if any of you have advice then i would really appreciate it

How do you make a jar of muddy water clear? Do you stir it? Do you shake it? Do you add something to it? No matter which action you take, the water remains muddy. The only thing you can do is to let the water sit long enough for the mud to settle at the bottom. In other words, the only thing you can do is ... nothing. The same is true of the human mind. There's no way you can think about things to make your mind calm down. The mind only works in one direction: more thinking. Whatever thought, problem or strategy you throw at it, the mind will always think about it more. As such, trying to think your way out of overthinking (or fear, anxiety or stress) is the psychological equivalent of trying to clear muddy water by stirring or shaking it. All you can really do is leave the mind alone and it will clear all by itself. Clarity is the mind's default state. When we don't interfere with our mind, it returns to clarity, automatically and effortlessly. Of course, not interfering is easier said than done. We often feel that we have to keep stirring the water for fear of something terrible happening. We tend to want to analyse, fix, or cope with whatever problem we are faced with. Yet this only makes the problem worse, because all our efforts only result in more thinking, rather than less. What underpins this behaviour is fear - fear of a negative outcome. We are so afraid of failing, being rejected or being alone that our mind compulsively tries to analyse, fix or cope with the problem. Yet it is not the situation or circumstance that causes the overthinking - it is our fear of the negative outcome. Of course, our fear isn't real. It is a fabrication of our mind that we create when we use our incredible creative powers to imagine a negative, scary future. Yet just as our fear isn't real (although the experience of it is very real), the negative future isn't real either. All that is really happening is that we are creating an imaginary future which makes us uncomfortable and afraid and pushes our mind into overdrive. So how can we help our mind not get tangled up in its own spiderweb? In my experience, there are two ways: The first is to simply sit with the idea of the negative consequence that you fear (being alone, failing, being rejected, going broke, etc) until you become emotionally okay with it. Most of what we fear is a fear of the unknown. The idea of a particular negative outcome feels so bad or uncomfortable that we do our best to never think about it. As a result, again, we try to avoid, analyse, solve or cope with the problem. We don’t want to think about failure or going broke. Yet whatever solution we come up with and whatever action we take, they are grounded in the fear of the negative outcome happening. As a result, we continue being driven by fear. And we keep overthinking. Yet if we sit with our fear and explore it until we become okay with it, the fear loses its power over us. Instead of being yanked forward by fear, we can approach life from a place of freedom, joy, curiosity and love. This allows our mind to naturally settle because we’ve neutralized the fear that was causing our anxiety and overthinking in the first place. The second way - and this is what I prefer - is to simply understand the mechanism that creates our experience of reality. When we see that all fear is just mental energy and not the result of the outside world with its circumstances, events and people, it no longer makes sense to analyse, fix, avoid or cope with it. When we learn to see that we are only ever living in the feeling of our thinking and not the feeling of our circumstances, our life transforms: We become free to simply float with the ebb and flow of our mental energy. When our mind overthinks, we sit back and enjoy the show. When we feel afraid, we allow that feeling fully without getting caught up in its story. When we are irritated, we feel the incredible power of the feeling without lashing out at others. We become more human because we allow more of ourselves. We can end the tyranny of trying to limit, control and deny ourselves who we really are. All this is possible when we realize THAT we are thinking, rather than focusing on WHAT we are thinking about. We can let our mind do what it does without us getting in the middle of it. We know that no emotion can actually hurt us, no matter how strong or negative. This allows us to feel all of it, to end the life of trying to avoid, hide from, and attempt to fix feelings of discomfort and fear. And when we stop trying to control the mind (which we can’t control anyway), we allow it to return to calmness and clarity every time it gets caught up in too much thinking. Just like a jar of muddy water - when we let it be, calmness and clarity returns, naturally and effortlessly. By Antti Vanhanen

Today I had to talk about hearing God and it brought up all the old questions of if the loud intrusive thoughts I’d hear were God and if I’m marrying the wrong person and if I’m in the wrong place. Is there anyone that understands or can relate to this fear?? I want to peacefully marry the man who is good to me and loves God, not the one who’s been abusive along with his family. Idk how to fight today.

When you have OCD, it might be hard to open up about some of your scary, intrusive thoughts. Certain images, words, or phrases can be particularly triggering, especially if they remind you of your OCD subtype or theme. That's why we're challenging all of you to describe your scary, unwanted thoughts in the comments - using only 3 emojis. That way, you can push yourself outside of your comfort zone while still letting others know that they aren't alone. You can even go through the comments and "like" the ones that you resonate with, so the person knows they aren't the only ones out there having that experience. We'll go first... ? ? ?

Does anyone else struggle with this and how do you overcome it? - I have obsessions and command intrusive thoughts/ intrusive urges of googling things that will traumatize me. E.g googling violent acts, reading disturbing articles. These thoughts STICK to my brain and I really don’t know how to let go of them? I also don’t know IF I should go through with them to show my brain not to be scared?

I'm fucking up my entire relationship. I feel like i don't give a fuck what happens and it's messing me up. I told him I expect him to break up with me. I feel like I'm using everything in my fucked up head as just an excuse. He deserves better. All this is making me this is how can I possibly call this love? You don't do this shit to someone you love. I want to love him so bad, and saying just that makes me think I don't and never have. I think I've never felt it but I swear I know it but how could I possibly know it and not think I feel it?

My therapist is getting on top of the way I wash my hands. Its really challenging. I am struggling with bad contamination OCD. It really takes up so much brain space. I would love to hear from other people how their journey is going.

I had a really overwhelming and scary episode last night about “not caring is I’m a pedophile”. I basically kept having unwanted intrusive thoughts that really shook me up and scared me because they were coming so quickly. And then I thought “what if I just give into these thoughts” “what if I just succumb to them” however I immediately regretted thinking that and I started crying and it was just really bad. It’s been in my mind all day and although I’ve been having a productive day I can’t stop feeling guilt and regret towards having those thoughts. To even consider that makes me so angry and frustrated I wish I never had that thought because now I can’t stop feeling anxious and like a terrible person. I don’t want to feel this way anymore but I don’t know what else to do. If anyone has gone through a similar situation or advice I would love to hear it. I just feel awful and my brain won’t stop reminding me of how awful I should feel. My brain hurts from how much I’ve been thinking about this and I just feel so frustrated.

I have a huge fear of war and I’ve been banned from watching/ reading the news because of the state I was in after reading it. However (I live in the UK) and a friend told me putin is getting closer to the UK. I’m so scared. I can’t sleep.

I don’t have covid but I do feel like I have the flu or just a really bad cold. I feel as though I’m sick because I deserve to be sick and this is one of my many positions of karma that I have been dealt because I’m the “bad person” the ocd says I am because of the real event that haunts me every second of everyday and that I don’t deserve to get better. I’m in college and I’m getting behind because I have been skipping classes by going home and sleeping because I literally haven’t been able to focus on any school work and I’ve called of for my job a couple times and now I’m going to be behind financially too. I feel terrible. And I feel like I deserve to feel terrible

I feel like I’m not “struggling” as bad as others might be and that’s making me so scared. Like don’t get me wrong the intrusive thoughts and images have been soooo horrible and gruesome and caused me so much stress and anxiety. But never once have i isolated myself from my family. Like I’ve always been part of family events and have enjoyed them. And on here i always here stories about how people have to isolate because they fear they will hurt their family. Like don’t get me wrong i too fear that i will do something wrong but I’m isolating myself. And it makes me scared that I’m not, like should i be? Does that mean that i want my thoughts because I’m okay with my family? Also others Struggle for years in end and i have only been struggling for about 3 months and i feel like I’m already potentially getting “better”. Like I’m not struggling with intrusive thoughts as much and if they do come i feel like i can shut them down quickly. I just feel so guilty and so terrible because others struggle so bad. And it makes me feel like there may be truly something wrong with me because I’m recovering quicker if you will. Can this be normal? I’m actually kind scared.

Are there any new teachers out there struggling to manage supporting your students during these challenging times as well as being overwhelmed with intrusive thoughts and physical symptoms. My thoughts tend to be centered around my own performance: the OCD tells me that everything that doesn’t go exactly to plan is my fault and I deserve to feel ashamed. Comment if you’re a teacher struggling with OCD. It would be nice to know that we aren’t alone.