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the NOCD Community

Ever since my worst relapse and ocd diagnoses I have this constant grieving feeling towards myself like I lost who I was before.

I’m relatively new here. I was hoping to sign on with a therapist until I discovered my insurance doesn’t participate and I can’t afford even the discounted rates. I’m trying to get an appointment with someone local, in network, but it’s taking months to get in the door with anyone reputable. My question is, what do y’all do when you start spinning out? Deep breathing, meditating? Just trying to figure out how to manage these anxiety attacks until I can get with a therapist. My husband of 30+ years seems to feel uncomfortable with me “coming out” as having OCD. I’ve lived with it for years, not really knowing what it was, so I kept all of my feelings bottled up… “stuffing” we call it… because as soon as I try to open up, he gets defensive and things it has something to do with him. It’s very frustrating. I love him, but I don’t feel like I can really open up to him about these feelings. ANY suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

Do your intrusive thoughts happen while you’re pleasuring yourself…? It feels so scary it’s like if I was pleasuring myself bc of the thoughts… The other day something weird happened like I even tried to pleasuring myself about my intrusive thoughts to see if that would really made me feel something but while doing it I was so sad like I forced myself to it just so my brain will shut up… Now all I can do is cry cause I’m scared that means I finally accept the truth otherwise I couldn’t force myself… That makes me want to throw up

Okay. I'm close to actually completely giving up. I'm 18 and now an adult. But there are some pretty big mistakes I've made when I was 12 and when I was 15 and these haunt my present and i am currently unable to accept the past and that it cannot be changed and i currently cannot forgive myself to the point that I think that I need to die to actually pay for my mistakes but I don't want to die. I want to live and i want to love myself but the immense guilt i keep inside of me for these mistakes keep me trapped in a cycle of "I'm not normal, I'm a monster and i always will be because of those things and my life is ruined" even tho I know that at the time I didn't realize that it's wrong what I'm doing. I just want to be free of it but it keeps haunting me over and over. I forgave myself before but now I feel guilty that I even did that because it feels like I'm legitimizing to keep living even tho I'm a bad person and that I need to die. I just feel hopeless and it's been like this for the past two weeks. I feel like I'm not allowed to forgive myself and even the "i was a teen back then, i didn't know better but now I'm an adult" don't bring me ease. I keep distancing myself from everyone, thinking "all those people are normal and morally clean, they can live a life full of happiness and deserved fulfillment whereas I need to die". It makes me sick that I did these things. All i want is to love myself and to feel inner peace. And all I want is to be with that special someone i have. I know that this will pass probably but i feel like I don't deserve anything anymore. I feel like I deserve to die. I really don't want to. These mistakes don't align with my values at all. I suffer from extreme depersonalization and headaches and i stress eat and I'm gaining weight which also stresses me out more. I wish I could travel back in time. How do you forgive yourself for things that are unforgivable?

i keep feeling like something is going to happen to me and i’m scared. i keep having to do things over and over to keep it from happening, but i am tired. this is giving me a headache. i can’t do it anymore. i really can’t tell if the Holy Spirit is warning me or if it is just ocd. i am nauseous.

Whenever I talk with my boyfriend I’m extremely sensitive about anything he says or jokes about our relationship as I have RA/ROCD. He doesn’t know the full extent to how this goes cause I’d like to make sure he doesn’t get worried about what I think about. He made a joke about how he always matches my energy and that I don’t but it’s okay. He’s always a bit more hyper than I am and his libido is higher so sometimes they just don’t match up. This joke caused me to become so quiet and over think like cause in some ways this is true but I don’t think he would joke about it if it really bothered him. I confirmed this with him on the phone and he said he would tell me if this is an actual issue. I’m just scared that a joke like this is like an early warning sign that it’s a bad relationship but I’ve made jokes like that too but when he does it I get super sensitive. I fear I’m getting toxic and I’m never going to let him say anything that isn’t ‘right’ without me making it into a moment where we need to discuss something. I’m just tired and want this to stop.

I post a lot here, but I might as well come out with my entire story. I'm in a living hell. First got harm OCD in 1995. I had violent images of hurting my mom. I didn't know what it was then. And it took me 2 extra years to graduate from university. Then I Had to leave graduate school because an obsession started about my dad. I moved back home and have been here ever since, working small jobs. The most money I ever made was $11.44 an hour. From 2006-2022 I was on Paxil and things were OK I guess. But during that time a lot of bad things happened to me. I lost 2 jobs and then broke my back. I haven't worked since 2013. In 2022 my dad got cancer and I have to be his caregiver. This is very very very stressful. For some reason I stopped taking my Paxil last year, I don't know why, and now the harm OCD has come back in addition to unexplained rage. I don't know if I have rage from the withdrawal of Paxil (and Xanax, I took it for 5 weeks to help me sleep last year), or if I'm angry as a caregiver. My father is the target of my harm OCD. The stress of doing things around here being in close proximity to him, the depression I have, the feeling that my mind has completely broke, I don't know what to do. THere are no therapists around me. And I struggle with feelings of resentment and hate which exacerbate the harm OCD. I feel as if the only way out is suicide, but then feel trapped because I can't bring myself to do it. Then for some reason in my mind I feel upset about my family going on and me being dead. I am totally insane. Even this right here, writing this, is simply a time-wasting mechanism. I'm always on the run. I don't know what to do.

Not sure if it’s allowed here but what lifestyle choices (diet etc) books and lifestyle choices in combination with erp worked for you :) would love to hear from those on the other side

my new psychiatrist was very adamant and persistent about knowing the exact content of my intrusive thoughts. i refused to tell him because it made me uncomfortable. is this normal??

I always thought it was just anxiety, but found out I have OCD. I have this constant need for reassurance and knowing that I'm not letting people down. I will ask them non-stop, and even when they promise me that everything is fine, I still think something isn't fine and they're just lying to me. So, I keep asking. I keep reading their body language to find something to make me not believe them. I have this NEED to make my parents happy and if they're not, then I'm going to spiral into an episode of not being able to rest until they have basically gotten sick of me. I will bring up the same subjects over and over and over again, ask the same questions over and over and over again because these thoughts won't stop. Thoughts of "you're going to lose your mom. she's so disappointed in you. if you don't do this, then you're doomed." There have been times when I've woken up in the middle of the night worried about my mom and wake her up to make sure she's ok. I have a hard time trusting that doctors are doing what they should be doing and didn't miss something in her tests. If I've upset my family, I won't be able to rest until I've asked them at least a dozen times if they're ok or if they hate me. I can't handle uncertainty. I also check lights, doors, curling irons multiple times every time I leave the house. I eventually started taking pictures to make sure, but even then I keep going back. I am about to turn down a trip to Washington because I am afraid I will disappoint someone by going, or that I will get infected by an illness and give it to my mom and she will be in the hospital and it will all be my fault. Please someone tell me this is all just in my head. Anyone else have these fears? It's scary to know I have OCD, but at the same time it's good to know that it's actually a thing and not just me.

For anyone in a serious relationship I need some help. There has been a lot of turmoil in my relationship, a lot. We have been fighting on and on, almost always about OCD. She hates it. Begs for it to be over, and doesn’t understand it at all. She asks over and over why I am anxious for no reason or sad or tired, and it is hard. Last night she told me to leave, and today we are supposed to talk because she has a lot of questions she needs answers to. I am asking for advice on what to say, as I want to be honest with her but I also need help protecting myself and not just feeding into her bc I know a lot of this isn’t fair to myself either! Any advice on how to approach this? Some common things she asks are: - If you love me why can’t that be enough? - Why are you sad all the time? - Why can’t you control your emotions? - Will OCD ever end? - I don’t know if I can stay in this relationship if OCD doesn’t get better

Felt like I’ve lost my attraction to men 😔 Ik I have my Icks to some and haven’t been treated right from past relationships, just needed to remember that I just haven’t found one that’s good enough for me to be with. Yet I’m backed up by thoughts that I’ve lost my attraction to them cause of those reasons.

Hello all - is/has anyone been on antidepressants and how were they for you? Finding my bad days super hard at the moment. Thank you!

I just keep constantly getting intrusive thoughts of dudes and dating them Everytime i think about beautiful women and dating them… what do i do…?

Was curious to hear what recovery looks like for some of you? If you’re doing better or if you would consider yourself “recovered” whatever that looks like lol

Does anyone get really irritated and angry at absolutely everything because of anxiety just wondering if it’s only me

My OCD is like being forced into a theme park haunted house. On one hand, I know that all the scary things are actors and props and machines. On the other, I'd like to avoid getting scared. Soon enough, I'm convinced that everything inside the haunted house is real and I barely remember that I'm in a theme park and I'm supposed to be having fun. I've lost sight of my life. And it's even more unsettling to be in a haunted house waiting for a jumpscare. If I go somewhere in the haunted house, an actor could come out and scare me. If I touch an unlucky object in my room, there's a possibility of something bad happening. In both instances, I feel stupid for getting scared in the first place. I'm living in a constant state of suspense. I know it's fake, but my body and my brain aren't lined up because I get a physical anxiety response. I just have to remember that haunted houses have exits!

How does one move on from having intrusive thoughts and feelings?

I started my first exposure yesterday coloring a Pride Flag, hanging it in my office, and saying “I may or may not be attracted to women.” I am suppose to do this 5x a day and track when my anxiety peaks, when it subsides, and total time. Now my brain is telling me these exposures feel like conversion. Like once I’m comfortable with thoughts of being bisexual I am going to become that or be okay doing things with women. Anyone else struggle with this when starting ERP for SO-OCD?

lately i’ve been feeling like my obsessions are real and i’m just in denial because of one thing i did in the past, i’ve spent hours upon hours reading articles and forums to find an answer as to why i did that in the past and what it says about me. I could just say “yeah this obsession is real” but i would never act on it or do something related anyway, i get nauseous just thinking about it, but again in the past i didn’t realize the magnitude of the situation so i just went on with my life happily without paying much attention to it until i developed ocd, i remembered that past situation and it was impossible for me to refute my ocd obsessions with that event in mind. I constantly question if what i read of other people having done the same thing (and it it not an indicator of who they are) also applies to my experience or if i’m just denying the evident.