Welcome to
the NOCD Community

GoodMorning All! Anyone have any useful tips on what to do when you are physically, mentally, and emotionally drained?

I've heard so many times, if you have a lack of peace about a decision, then don't do it because God will give you peace when you're going in the right direction. I've always had anxiety from a young age and always had fear when it came to anything new in my life. I'm praying for God's direction concerning marriage to my bf, and I am still very anxious about the decision to take this step. It appears that the relationship is all that I prayed for when it comes to values and spiritual components. We have similar decision for various ministries in church. And our church families dont seem to object and have been supportive. Doesn't make sense why I have debilitating anxiety and fear. I need the Lord to move in a powerful way.

Hey guys. I wanted to make a post specifically about SOOCD - because I think that in some ways, it can be difficult to deal with because of the nuances of this theme. I think what makes SOOCD so difficult is because these doubts can feel so powerful, so real, that you lose attraction to the gender that you previously preferred. They make your libido go down, your desire for intimacy go down, and your shame and sadness go up. Now, all of these symptoms - loss of attraction due to anxiety, loss of libido - all seem to fuel SOOCD because ocd can easily grab that “evidence” and say “Well the reason that this is happening is because you’re actually gay/straight/bi(insert feared outcome). It can so easily twist what really is- you feeling so down about these doubts - that it feels impossible to think about a connection like that again. I just wanted to write this to all those dealing with SOOCD right now. For me, well, it’s been about two years, on and off. At first I thought it was a legitimate search for my “real” sexuality, before it came all consuming and I was diagnosed with OCD. For me, it’s been really difficult because going so long dealing with SOOCD symptoms made me forget what attraction felt like. And even if I did feel attracted to a man again (to clarify I am a heterosexual woman)- well, my ocd would find some way to question it. I am 20 and have always wanted a relationship. Always wanted to date and find a guy I really connected with. So for me, it was devastating to question myself to this degree. I spent days, weeks, months ruminating, trying to figure it out. It always felt like the answer was right there, just evading me. I would settle on one label, then another, then another. I felt like I couldn’t date unless it was gone. That I might be a fraud, a liar, a bad person, if I didn’t figure out my sexuality. And I think that sometimes it’s worth addressing the pain that ocd can bring. For me, it’s devastating to realize that ocd has kept me from dating and finding someone. I kept trying to date anyways, despite my doubts, hoping to use it as an ERP. But what made it difficult was that the false attraction was so bad that I couldn’t tell what guys I was even attracted to, or not… so I went out on dates with a lot of guys that I wasn’t even attracted to. I went in knowing that it would be difficult to discern this - cause man, that false attraction is insane! So after trying that approach, and realizing that it simply fueled ocd every time I didn’t find a guy attractive, I decided that I would just go about my life doing ERP and if something happened, it happened. In some ways, with SOOCD - I just choose to trust that someone great will come my way, especially when false attraction is making it difficult for me to discern that. The thing is - it’s okay to want security - not certainty - about your sexuality. And that’s something I struggled with here- is thinking, well, now that I have ocd about my sexuality, will I ever be able to be secure in it again? Or will I constantly have to say “I don’t know”, in order to keep the doubts from coming in again? People without ocd don’t go around saying “I am living with the uncertainty of my sexuality right now”. They live with the uncertainty by not addressing the topic, not addressing doubts, and continuing with what they want to do. And what I want to say is - You deserve to feel secure in your sexuality. To say proudly- I know who I am. You don’t have to live in this amorphous gray zone because ocd says so. But in order to be able to be secure - ERP is the only way. You must face the doubts, the fear, because that is the only way to be free to choose what YOU want, not what OCD tells you to do. And coming from someone who has had this theme - SOOCD feels so real. So absolutely real. But I can’t tell you how worthwhile it was for me to do the ERP, and to finally feel secure again, even if it lasted only for a moment. So to anyone dealing with this theme - I’m sorry. It sucks. Especially because honestly, our sexualities are a really important part of the way we relate to people - How we move forward to have meaningful relationships, with the people we want to have them with. And it can feel paralyzing to have these doubts, like you have to resolve them before finding love, or that having them means something at all in the first place. If it helps to think about it like this - we must face the fear to find the love we deserve. Do that ERP, resist resist resist, because on the other side of that - is what you deserve. A chance to find love. And clarity. And security. Because you, as a human, are inherently worthy of these things. Keep going guys, I am so proud of each of you ❤️🤗

Just went down the Reddit rabbit hole. Consumed a bunch of posts of people saying that anyone who did what I did is a piece of shit who shouldn’t be given the time of day. And guess I agree, but seeing so many people say it in one place can make my head spin. It’s just hard because I was having an ok day. I even gave somebody on here advice earlier. But now I feel so drained. And so so selfish for trying to move forward.

Hi I am wondering if my phone use has become a compulsion and if anyone has a similar experience to me. So I have had absolutley debilitating OCD for over 3 years now that has completely taken over my life. I first really began to feel it in 2019 when I stumbled across a random video on the earth being flat and then proceeded to spend the next few hours researching whether the earth is flat when of course I know that it isn't and most of all I don't particularly care if it is. I personally think that I did that because I was beginning to struggle with my mental health around that time and rather than try to deal with it through councelling or positive activities I began spending hours on my phone looking at random things that I have no interest in and then feeling really rubbish and gulty for spending my time doing that. Yet I couldn't stop. Since then it completely spiraled and my whole life is completely taken up by rituals either spending hours upon hours on my phone going down a rabbit hole or doing physical rituals when trying to do anything else. I feel so silly because in my head it feels like I know what it is I need to do to at least begin alleviating the OCD and anxiety. One of those things is to take a good break from my phone but whenever I try to do those things I get an instant spike in anxiety and rather than calming myself down and doing something productive like reading a book or going for a run like I used to I go straight back to the behaviour that makes me feel like rubbish in the beginning like going back on to my phone. I can honestly spend half of day on my phone looking at things that I don't have any care for but when I try to stop I feel like something bad is going to happen if I do. Any advice will be greatly appreciated

Wouldn’t it be nice to not feel guilty all the time? Wouldn’t it be nice to not always be worrying about everything? It sucks to have OCD. OCD goes hand in hand with anxiety, guilt and endless worries!

let’s talk ROCD ???

I struggle with rocd and false memory ocd. My ocd likes to obsess over consent and one time my partner and i were making out while his siblings were in another room. We had the door closed and fan going but because of the suction noises happening from making out, i was obsessing in my head whether or not his siblings could hear us. I said to my partner “I feel like we’re being too loud, i don’t know if we should kiss” and then my partner pecked me on the nose. i wanted to keep kissing and so i kissed him some more on the mouth but trying to be really quiet and then when i pulled away, it was his turn to initiate anything or we would just be done so he asked “can i kiss you?” and i said “yes let’s just be quiet” my intrusive thoughts are: “was it unconsensual when he pecked your nose since you just said what you said?” “does this mean he sa’d u?” “i don’t feel sa’d but what about it possibly being unconsensual in that moment what does that mean?” “he asked for consent but it was after he pecked you so does that even help anything?” i’ve had this theme for years and it always does this to sexual encounters with my partner :// i don’t even really know why i’m coming to the app to tell all of this when i know my ocd will interrogate everything sexual and if it was consensual or not. and if not (even by accident) then does that mean it’s sa. the false memory part is where it gets so scary for me. about a month or two ago i just had a random intrusive thought that was like “did he peck your nose or your lips??” and while generally remembering it was my nose, i started to panic because i couldn’t fully remember if it was on my nose or lips (both are in the same area of the face) and so my ocd keeps pestering me to try and remember fully but i just can’t it was too long ago AND i’ve thought too much on it now to where it’s muggy. my ocd is now asking if the peck on the lips would be any different than the nose and if it would mean my fear is true. i liked that he asked for my consent however my ocd was already going off when he pecked me. even though in reality it just felt like a nice peck to signal it was okay and that we didn’t have to makeout. i didn’t feel like i needed to kiss him more after the peck, it just felt like he was trying to be sweet. but if that is unconsensual in a way, does that mean it’s assault?

I feel like im back at square one. Ive made a lot of progress the past few months, going from house bound to going out almost every day. I did probably a hundred exposures. I even went to a hospital which was huge because just the thought of it made me sick to my stomach. But now im falling into depression again, my anxiety is through the rough, i have dark thoughts again (dont want to act on them in fact they scare me). Im so scared of falling into the black hole of depression and losing everything i worked so hard to get. I really dont know why this is happening. I feel like maybe im not trying at all anymore and something is seriously wrong with me. I keep imagining that ill end up in a deep depression again and do something to myself even tho i dont want to at all. But the anxiety is extremely exhausting

I know people always say intrusive thoughts ≠ attraction, and i agree. i know about groinals, etc. The thing is, though, for me to have an intrusive thought, shouldn't there be some basis to it? For example, i've recently been struggling with incest OCD. I know that my "attraction" is exacerbated by the OCD, but the original thought must be based in reality, right? Like, it wasn't intrusive—I really felt something. To describe this situation, back when I was 12 I visited my uncle for the first time in years. I remember vividly being confused about whether or not I was attracted to him, and having intrusive thoughts about kissing him. Luckily I know with 100% certainty I don't want to kiss him, not then and not now, thank god, but the fact that I was so confused about whether or not I was attracted to him really scares me. I think eventually I managed to calm my mind but recently I've been worrying about this again. I have these memories where I got nervous and excited around him, but I think they're false as I don't actually remember them happening. However, they FEEL real, you know? The one memory I know I have of us is me thinking that I liked being around him, but it wasn't exactly a crush—it was something like... a foreign familial attraction, if that makes sense. AKA, I wasn't really worried about it. I also remember getting sort of shy around him, a happy, pleasured sort of shy, but not an inappropriate sort of shy. But see, for me to have been worried I was attracted to him, I know i must have felt SOME sort of attraction in the first place. That's the way my OCD works. And that's what I'm worried about. Everyone talks about false attraction but it couldn't have been false—false attraction FOR ME (could be different for yall) happens after I start getting worried I'm attracted to them. The original attraction, though? I don't know if this makes sense. I don't actually remember a lot of what happened—a lot of it is false memories, which I hate. I guess what I'm trying to get at is... have any of yall experienced a "real" attraction to people you shouldn't be attracted to? I think in my case it wasn't attraction in the typical sense (not romantic or sexual) but simply unfamiliarity causing me to doubt my feelings, but I can't be sure. That's what worries me. If someone could answer please do! Thanks guys!

What is happening to me!!!!!! Why am I liking and wanting these thoughts when I had never had them before in my lifeeee!!!!! I clearly have ocd because I woke up 2 years ago with these thoughts and Iv obsessed and compulsed since!!!! But now I like and want them I don’t get anxiety!!!!! How can ocd do this to you?????

I have a tendency to tell someone about something that happened, but for some reason add in something that wasn’t true and for no reason. I don’t know why I do it and I’m obsessing like crazy over it to where I feel like a bad person or like people wont like me anymore. The guilt & shame are eating me alive. I absolutely hate it. For ex: maybe I was at the mall with my daughter and I started to feel a panic attack coming on so I decided I wanted to leave. So my daughter and I walked out of the mall and left. What happens is I will tell someone this story but instead of saying we walked out of the mall, I’ll say how carried her out of the mall when I actually didn’t. Or I’ll say how someone approached me to talk about something when I approached them. I also dramatize my feelings sometimes too. Does anyone else do this sort of thing? Am I just totally broken? I have beat myself up severely for a week now, because I do this sort of thing. It makes me feel weird and like a fraud. Ive just been sick about it.

I had a good week. Intrusive thoughts down. Then in zoom meeting a participant messaged me that it may be back door spikes. Now I'm doubting my progress and the thoughts are back. I felt I was doing so well and now I'm just not sure. How can someone else's opinion affect so bad?

Why does ocd attack me so much? Like I feel so guilty all the time, and it always attacks me for past things and makes me feel like such a horrible person. Like jeez ocd I’m a human being I made some mistakes but why do you keep reminding me of it over and over again and that I’m some horrible person who doesn’t deserve anyone or that people would judge me so hardly Anytime I see couples or people on insta my ocd will automatically say “this person wouldn’t do what you did” and it’s so frustrating because it makes me feel so isolated and that I’m really a horrible person bc of it

I can't stop relapsing. It keeps happening even though I tell myself that I shouldn't do it. The intrusive thoughts are really high and so is the anxiety. I'm just trying to let them all pass. My mind is so focused on this one thing even though it hasn't bothered me before like usual worries that I have.

When you’re worried or anxious about something, it may seem like a good idea to learn more about the situation and try to figure it out, relying on your own knowledge and logic to stay out of danger. Unfortunately, OCD doesn’t work that way. People with OCD may understand that their obsessions are illogical, but OCD will always latch onto the slightest shred of uncertainty and come up with one more what if—no amount of certainty is ever enough. In fact, using logic to remove anxiety can actually make OCD worse over time. Instead, you can recover from OCD by learning to accept the uncertainty and anxiety that comes from your obsessions, without engaging in compulsions. Read more about why combating OCD using logic doesn’t work, and what you can do to fight back effectively against illogical obsessions.

Hi all, I am currently going through existential OCD and wondered how many people have gone through it, how well did ERP help and was medication useful too? Obviously everyone is different in terms of recovery so just curious. Currently on day 7 of Sertraline and hoping it will start working in the next week or two!

Gonna ramble a bit here. My OCD thoughts started a month ago during intimate time.. randomly thought of parents, googled and obsessed which caused me to find other themes, thought of everyone naked for a while. Thought of slurs and it devastated me as my bf is black and that's not me at all. I try to love everyone. I even started seeing letters in a cheetah pillow we have that in my ocd mind spelled out a slur among other normal words and that sounds so crazy. I thought of boyfriend one day in a sexual way and a kid from work popped into mind and now worried to be intimate cause I'll think of their name or other people's names as I think of it through the day since it bothered me so bad. I'm worried to think of friends and family and then think of sex. We've been together 3 years but have known each other for about 18 and have had lots of ups and downs during the relationship related to my mental health and just communicating/stress but never these thoughts. We talked about it being more stress than happy sometimes but we love each other so much and always made it work. Now I think sexual thoughts or mean thoughts about almost everyone. Lexapro 10mg is helping anxiety but I do find hard to watch stuff or listen to music sometimes, questioning who I used to be and worried about religion suddenly since asking an old pastor for prayer with MH and he basically saying if I'm living in sin repent. We used to be very sexual but I still had my faith and wasn't bothered. Was intimate for first time in a month today. Had thoughts and some things I read on here stuck in my head but I pushed through. I get thoughts that he's a stranger sometimes or that I don't find him attractive when I've never thought this before. I've always been anxious but not like this. Was able to live and not have these kinds of thoughts if anything was scared he would leave me. Just want my old brain back. Thoughts are all over the place don't want to think of others in thst way or think of names of family, friends kids or think of people in a sexual or mean way. Just want to live. I can't even smoke cannabis anymore as I get paranoid and I smoked daily for years. I tried to smoke one day and I was flirting with him and he mentioned his dad and an issue he was having which caused me to think of his dad which I don't wanna think of in that way. So now I just refuse to smoke as I'm worried I'll think weird stuff. I know they're not me I just wanna go back to stuff I enjoy and loving him and not thinking these things. I feel like I'm me but not me at the same time. I don't even know who I am sometimes. I feel like I'm boring or no personality. I don't want to lose him I know these thoughts are lies as I love having him by my side and anybody I'm with I would have these thoughts about. I would be devastated if I lost him and hate that I have these feelings after 3 years. I start 20mg tomorrow. I can't afford therapy. He knows all my thoughts and continues to love me, I just know I can't continue dumping this on him.

I’ve been in a flare up for over a week now. Worried about choking and anaphylaxis. Eating food is hard because it physically is so hard to eat now because I get psyched out while eating. I’m either worried about one or the two. I’m scared that I’m starting to get dysphasia or another health crisis. Sometimes my throat feels so tight or there’s a lump in it. I have to drink so much water while eating. My diet is so bland now or consists of meal replacement shakes. I feel like I’ll never be able to eat my favorite foods again or rather eat normally ever again without feeling like the food gets stuck in my throat. I focus so much on swallowing even when I’m not eating. I don’t even do it normally anymore and if I get even the tiniest bit of mucus I get really anxious. Eating is an ordeal because I have to literally calm myself down while eating bc if I don’t I won’t eat bc I’m scared. I focus so much on every sensation. I’m really sad and anxious. I just want to feel normal again. I don’t even know how to treat this except just keep pushing myself to eat and hope to one day calm this hyper vigilant state and get the answers I need for my health

I'm 67. My OCD is in my mind. It never leaves. I'm just barely starting this treatment. Hearing about it makes it worse. Talking about it makes it worse. Is there anyone who can relate? Is it helping you? I believe I am too old to to learn this. I believe there is something horribly wrong with my brain.