Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Has anyone tried using the supplement NAC before? I read it has helped a lot of people, but unsure if this is true!

My name is Sofie. I have OCD and sometimes it disguised itself with depression or hopelessness. I feel stuck for no reason. It’s like i’m stuck in mud and can’t lift my feet but there isn’t any mud or obstacles. Just life. Everything seems to trigger me back to my roots, an anxious stressed girl. My personality is happy. I’m always “happy,” but no one really knows the struggle in my brain and how something as normal as relaxation can send me into a spiral. I don’t know how to live in the now. I am always thinking about the past and the future simultaneously. For example, if i’m having a really fun day and have work the next day, the fun can be ruined immediately after thinking for a split second about my obligations. I just want to be content. I want to be free.

December 17, 2022 I woke up at my parents house for Christmas vacation/visit. I felt off, weird, not right but didn't know why. The day prior I got my PoTs diagnosis and was relieved, believing this answer has proved I won't die anytime soon. My biggest fear was dying, leaving behind my partner. While also, having the fear that he would die as well. So on this day, the 17th of December, something went wrong. It felt like my brain just stopped working, I didn't feel like me, my memories didn't feel like mine, and the memories of me and my partner felt like a dream, like the past 4.5 years of our relationship didn't happen at all. I told him about how I was feeling, almost like I couldn't recognize my life and he came to my parents home to help out. When he walked in the door days after this had started, I looked at him and I did not recognize him, it was as if a stranger had walked in, hugged and kissed me and told me everything was ok. Pure anxiety rushed through my body, I will never forget it, ever. This is when the thoughts began. My brain has gone through every possible thing, even the tiniest of "problems" which aren't even problems, and have used them as a reason why my partner is not right. Not only did he feel like a complete stranger, but I felt like a stranger in my body. Non of my interests interested me, things that made me happy were simply dull and muted. Getting tattoos? Something that has ALWAYS been a huge thing for me , nah you don't want tattoos anymore, you don't like the tattoos you have. Tiny home? Nah you don't want that, that isn't what you want. Become an artist? Create a buissness? Naaaaaaaaaah. I could go on. It didn't just affect how I saw my loving, beautiful, amazing partner, it changed me and who I am. This disease is pain. It changes you. 10 months of dealing with this now, and it feels like its been an eternity. Though it has got better, some days are still as hard as the first. The one thing I know, through ALL of this pain, the thoughts the feelings, is that my partner is incredible, my partner is loving, is caring, is supportive, ALWAYS has my back, is my best friend, will always try to make me smile when I'm feeling down, and has helped me through this journey without hesitation, even though I know it has been so difficult for him too( even if he doesn't admit it). Thats how I know I have someone special, and I will hold onto these things. It sucks that the good days get overshadowed by the bad days, almost like you can't remember the good days at all. But I know they happened, I know how I felt, and I know those days will come the more I help myself, get the help I need, and do the work. My life changed in December, but that doesn't mean its over, or that this struggle is forever. For whoever read this crazy amount of words, know that good days will come, if you have a loving supportive partner, don't let this disease rip that away from you. You are strong, you are important and you deserve happiness and love in your life. OCD wants to protect you, but in the worst way possible. Even though it feels like you've been robbed of your own identity, you are you and you are in there fighting to get better, and thats what matters. ✌🏻& 💖 Side note- DON'T READ RELATIONSHIP ADVICE ONLINE, MOST IF NOT ALL OF IT IS SHALLOW NONSENSE AND HONESTLY RIDICULOUS.

i love you, with pure o, whose ocd makes you waste time the entire day by ruminating about hypotheticals. i love you, with real event, whose ocd makes you treat your emotional pov on a past situation like the gospel. i love you, with pocd, whose ocd makes you believe you are a pedophile. i love you, with false memory, whose ocd makes you believe you did things you have no proof of. i love you, with rocd, whose ocd torments you for being "unfaithful", "immoral"; and demonizes your partner. i love you, with somatic ocd, whose ocd makes you hyperanalyze your bodily function to the point of exhaustion. i love you, with magical thinking, whose ocd makes you spend indescribable amounts of time practicing rituals to ensure nothing terrible with happen. i love you, with existentialism, where your ocd torments you about meanings, meanings, meanings. i love you, with religious/moral scrupulosity, whose ocd makes you hyperanalyze your relationship with god. i love you, with contamination ocd, whose ocd makes you scared of touching anything, anyone, and makes you so scared of getting infected. i love you, with harm ocd, who is being tormented by thoughts of being harmed or harming others. i love you, with racism ocd, whose ocd makes you question your morality and stances on race issues. i love you, with responsibility ocd, whose ocd torments you with an inflated sense of responsibility and guilt. i love you, with sexual/sexuality related ocd, whose ocd has made you uncomfortable with anything relating to your vulnerability and intimacy. i love you, with gender ocd, whose ocd has made you question your gender identity and brought you great confusion. i love you, with perfectionism ocd, whose ocd has made you hyperanalyze your surroundings like you're a divine being with incredible knowledge on the "perfect" details. I LOVE ALL OF YOU. your ocd does not stop me from seeing the person behind the disorder. you are suffering and you won't have to suffer forever. this post is not only a reminder you are loved, you are worthy, you are SO beautiful and brave, but also a reminder that ocd is extremely treatable— it doesn't have to be chronic. it doesn't have to take away your happiness. it doesn't have to take away your sense of self. with enough effort and self-love, you can make this disorder a thing of the past. i tried to include all the subtypes in this post, for ocd can manifest in so many different ways for so many different people. in the end, it's still ocd. and i'm sure that people with multiple subtypes especially know exactly what i mean when i say— the pain is so real for all of us. but thankfully, and fortunately, there is HOPE. you can have hope. you don't have to compulse right now. when you opened this app, what did you think to yourself? did you do it out of compulsion? did you do this to check-in with your therapist? did you do it to complete homework? there's a bunch of possibilities. what matters is you downloaded the NOCD app because, deep down inside, there is a part of you that knows you can defeat this utterly terrible disorder that has you by the neck sometimes. like i have said above, you do not need to suffer. in fact, you could probably stop ruminating right now if you wanted to. it should be effortless. we are scared because ocd knows exactly how to make a fear seem real. ocd is about fearing a hypothetical. a positive answer to a negative what if. when i thought about writing this post, i realised how much i needed to hear someone loves me, too. that somewhere on this earth, someone cares. because even if we don't realise it, many of us with ocd also suffer from depression. so take it from this post- it's your sign to have faith in your recovery. YOU CAN DO IT. you don't need to search for reassurance, to compulsively google, to do anything at all except focus on yourself at the moment and your recovery. the past or your future are irrelevant here. the past doesn't matter, and your future is to be dealt with at the right time. for now... remember these 3 fundamentals: 1. you are loved, SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU KNOW. so much more than your ocd allows you to accept. 2. you are worthy. like every other human being on this planet, you have a purpose. whether that is to do something never before seen, or simply exist, is enough. 3. your ocd might be debilitating, but you are so much more than a slave to your thoughts. they're thoughts— they hold NO power. no matter what they tell you, or how much proof they bring you, or how much distress they bring you, they're just thoughts. imagine a baby duckling telling you constantly it's going to turn into a killer stegosaurus and kill you— yeah, that won't ever happen. it sounds convincing, you might think "huh, well what if"- STOP RIGHT THERE. that's the ocd trap. it doesn't matter what it tells you. a duckling is a duckling, just like a thought is a thought. i know many of you who opened this app might've never expected such a long post from a random nocd cohabitant, but i'm glad you got to the end of it. i hope you got a sense of inner peace reading this. sending all the love.

I just woke up with my head full of thoughts & it kept repeating “why are we alive if in 2,000 years we all gonna be dead” .. “ are we really gonna get to live for ever even after life how does that work ?” .. everytime I hear someone talking my mind says “ why even talk if we just gonna die ?, why aren’t they thinking about the fact that we’re gonna die .” & now it has me actually freaking out about that 😅.. but idk what type of OCD that is.

So I’ve gotten WAYY!! Better with my pocd but there are times when I’m just living and almost forget or have some interaction with OCD. But sometimes I feel like even though I am, I get depressed immediately because, the future I’ve always wanted (having a wife and kids) just doesn’t seem like it’s even possible anymore, I feel like (A. If I do every get in a serious relationship, All I’ll be thinking is (you have pocd, you can’t tell her cause she’ll freak out and leave you and maybe possibly call the cops) its been so severe that I have these false attractions or whatever but not all the time and intrusive thoughts so graphic I spaz out or get goosebumps cause of how disturbing. I hate it with a passion. But I just feel like I don’t deserve to have any of that. That’s literally all I’ve been looking for in life have a wife and two kids and a good home. And it probably won’t ever happen sadly. Anyone on the same boat? 😔

I've been struggling recently, pretty bad. I've been taking my medicine so idk if it's just my actual thoughts or if it's just my ocd but im worried that I like someone while i'm with my amazing boyfriend. I always worry about liking people but it all got so much worse after I had a se*ual dream about them. And I know you can't control your dreams but after that dream I had a shift with them yesterday and like idk all i could focus on was worrying if i liked them or having thoughts about how i would like them because of a way they would talk or something. And like the feelings i've gotten around them feels so wrong. I just need to know if i'm doing the wrong thing. I really need reassurance.

I am apologizing before hand if it triggers. Be warned this is gross stuff.. I only feel comfortable sharing because my legal name is not cat attack & I am not a purple person. I have type 1 diabetes, PKD, Silent Migraines, pulmonary stenosis among many other random diseases/disorders. For those that don’t know, probably because they are physically healthy, the human body works together. Meaning unfortunately if you are someone with a chronic illness chances are a lot of other things will go wrong too. The current one I’m dealing with is pelvic floor disfunction. This is as a result of many things including my diabetes, also believe it or not my OCD. Because I have a fear of the bathroom my muscles now malfunction regarding bathroom things. This includes but is not limited to pissing all over myself when I pee because the urine sprays out like a broken faucet. It also includes issues with fecal matter. Meaning constipation & inability to control when things “come out”. Fortunately for me this does not mean losing my bowels randomly like it can for some with pelvic disfunction. For me it is…if I try to go to the bathroom and can not.. I get into the shower and I’m cleaning in between my buttcheeks and everything is clean but then all of a sudden if I push (not purposefully) Near my anus fecal matter will come out (as if it was waiting right by the door) not a lot a very small amount (as if you didn’t wipe) And this isn’t something that happens daily, maybe once every few months. Well today my sister cleaned the shower so naturally with my luck something gross would happen. I cleaned my bottom in the shower and shaved and the razor had 💩 on it. I had a massive panic attack spent an hour in the shower cleaning the shower with a bar of 🧼 . Still isn’t clean enough now I’m not clean enough. I now have to call off work tomorrow so I can spend the day deep cleaning my bathroom and washing my sheets 🤢 🤮

I regularly feel that my OCD is the worst case there has ever been in the history of mankind. I do so many physical compulsions and have done for almost 4 years now that it feels like I must have the worst case there has ever been and because it has gone on for so long I am never going to be able to stop it. It's terrifying

Is distracting yourself with social media a compulsion when you experience anxiety

My daughter has ocd, what can I say or do to help her? I know nothing about this🙁 She’s in her young 20s. She didnt get a lot of help from the counselor she saw her whole life when she was a kid. So many things are going wrong for her right now, i worry☹️. Thank you sincerely to anyone that answers 🙏🏻

I’ve been thinking about becoming a Christian. I’m not trying to force myself to believe in god. But after I read people’s experiences on becoming a Christian. Their lives improved a lot. I just wanted a peaceful life. Can anyone share your experience of being an atheist, then becoming a Christian?

For weeks now I’ve been getting stuck in a cycle of intrusive thoughts of my friends being in danger, in one way or another. Then texting or calling said person for reassurance, not being pleased with the response, asking questions persistently until they get angry and tell me to leave them alone then I start compulsively apologizing, then if they accept the apology I go back to the intrusive thoughts of them in danger and if not I start feeling like I’m not being understood and ranting at them about how I’m feeling and just compounding their anger. None of my friends are speaking to me right now, my best friend blocked my number and I think she’s done with me permanently and not sure about the others either. This has been a problem for years but three weeks ago I had a close friend lie to me about having tried to kill herself, and I’m not sure why she’s so such a thing. It seems to have been intentionally to hurt me and since then she has not spoken to me and I carried this frustration into my other friendships and let my OCD latch on to it and tell me she is dead and all my other will be soon, and that it’s my fault for not understanding that my friends false suicide attempt confession was a warning of what was to come and not chasing after her when she distanced herself and now the urge to seek reassurance in my other relationships is turned up to 11. I’m so afraid I’m going to be all alone now and it’s paradoxically making me want to start pestering them again and circumventing their efforts to block my number and social media accounts. I know this isn’t okay to do but it almost doesn’t feel like a voluntary action anymore I feel as though I can’t resist. That’s an incorrect feeling because I am currently resisting but I’m not doing well at it. It’s utterly horrifying to know you are destroying all of your relationships and understanding how you are destroying them and simultaneously feel as if doing that thing is the only option you have. I’m no stranger to this feeling, it comes and goes all the time, but for hours or days not weeks like this time. I feel as though my sanity is wearing very thin. I have no idea what to do to make it stop. I can manage a minute or few at a time of relief but those breaks are getting fewer and further between as the days go on. If any of these friends decide to try to work this out while I’m still in this episode I feel pretty confident that I will destroy what is left of them because I can’t not over analyze every word that they say at this point and ruminate on it until I’m convinced I have discovered some anomaly in what they are saying that convinces me they are in danger.

[I take 10mg Lexapro] I have a reaccuring issue and I’m trying to determine as to whether it’s caused by my meds. Everyday, I constantly sweat. The only time that I am not sweating is when I am in front of a fan (which I now have on whenever I’m sat at home) I don’t mean a little bit of underarm sweat, I mean to the point my T-shirt is dripping, by back is coated and even my legs. It’s so embarrassing because I can’t explain to anyone why I have drips of sweat coming off of me and I’m constantly wiping myself down and spraying because I’m scared of smelling. Is this caused by meds? Or possibly a different issue?

I want to tell my boyfriend that I struggle with OCD, he knows about my anxiety to an extent but not the OCD. Things are getting serious between us and I feel like I ought to tell him about this part of me too. How have any of you handled telling those close to you about your OCD? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Having a really bad flare up and having intrusive thoughts over my real event from when I was a child (10/11) I feel like I’m a horrible monster and that I don’t deserve to live. I haven’t had distressing thoughts over this event as bad as I am rn in a few months but my mind is just running rampant and I feel like I’m gonna go to jail and that I’m a horrible person. I never had bad intentions at the time but looking back as an adult i feel like a monster. Not only do I have real event ocd with this event but also really struggle with false memory ocd and everything gets so jumbled and I’m so terrified that I’m actually a horrible monster and that I’m going to go to jail and that my life is over. I hate this and hate these thoughts and I wish they would stop

When someone is consumed with obsessions and compulsions, it can leave them exhausted and drained. It might be difficult to maintain important relationships, engage in social activities, or perform their job duties. But, since they are constantly dealing with fears and anxiety, they might find that further isolating themselves to avoid triggers seems like the safer bet. While it can lead to temporary relief, this avoidance only worsens symptoms long-term, and will often heighten one’s sense of loneliness. Fears of being misunderstood due to stigma can also make it hard for some to reach out to family and friends, keeping them further isolated. That’s why it’s vital to remember that you are not alone. Finding a community of others with shared experiences and connecting with a specialist who deeply understands OCD are some ways you can bring a sense of belonging and hope back into your life. NOCD Therapist Stacy Quick, LPC, shares more about how OCD can heighten feelings of isolation, and ways to bring back a sense of hope.

My partner and I have been through a lot through our relationship. A lot of the issues we have are my fault. I wasn’t honest with him at the start about things from my past because I myself wasn’t sure if things were correct and I was ashamed of my past. However I did tell him everything and then that lead to me feeling as though I have to confess everything even the unimportant stuff. I felt as though confession was a compulsion and that it was something I had to do to relieve these feelings of anxiety. This created a lot of issues as my partner didn’t want to be constantly reminded of things from my past which I totally understand. Things had seemed to be getting better as I had gotten out of this habit. But for the past month now I’ve been having intrusive thoughts/images regarding sexually inappropriate things or people from my past that I don’t care about or want to think about. I’ve tried so many things to try and stop these as it’s taking a toll on me, my partner and our relationship. I’m not sure how to stop it or if I even can. It just feels like my mind is always busy and I can never relax. I can see my partner getting upset and insecure because of the thoughts which I completely understand. And I hate having to tell him I’ve had these thoughts as he wants to know. But he tells me I ruin things a lot which I get I do as I can’t help the thoughts and I tell him about them. I just want it to stop and I’ve tried going through with therapy but it’s a bit of a tough situation at the moment with money and waitlists and stuff. My boyfriend isn’t comfortable with me going through ERP which I understand completely. I don’t want to do anything anymore I feel stuck. All I want to do is sleep because I know that nothing too bad can happen then. I get stressed whenever I wake up because I don’t want the thoughts to flood my head again. I just don’t know what else to do to help this or to stop my intrusive mental images. I feel helpless and I’m not entirely sure what to do. I love my boyfriend so much and I never want to hurt him. I know it’s selfish to ask him to stay with me but I just can’t bear the thought of losing him, especially because of this.

Hi! I’m queer and have known since I was a teen. I identify as pansexual. But have had periods of obsessions about if I am wrong about the specific label. Like I know I like everyone and am attracted to all genders. But with the discourse within the queer community, I get anxious that maybe i my identify is hurtful for others. Basically I’m obsess over if I am pan or bi. Or if saying I’m pan is bi erasure. Or if I can say I’m both. But I haven’t before and would that be going back on my word. And I felt pan was the right label for me when I was coming out and it felt right but what if people see me as just trying to be an “edgy bi”. I don’t know. I get wrapped up into. Even though my girlfriend is bi and we have solidarity with each other and support each other, the lgbtq+ internal discourse can be me anxious. So much so that I have stopped saying pan and say queer instead mostly. I do identify as queer also but I just worry that then I am letting know pan folk but not being visible. I think it’s a part of my morality ocd/ harm ocd about being a good person and not hurting anyone. I was wondering if anyone else with sexuality themes also experienced this sort of thing because I haven’t seen it talked about before?

Does anyone have thoughts they’ve cheated on their significant other but have no thought of names or anything it could be or have any type of proof? I mess up and go back and reassure myself and look at past pictures and stuff to make myself feel better and prove I haven’t but it don’t help