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the NOCD Community

If anyone is willing to talk, I'd like that

I would love to know for all my SO-OCD/HOCD sufferers -how old are you? -when did this start for you/how long has it been going on? -What triggered it? -How many OCD themes have you had? -Is this one the worst one? -Whats one thing you wish more people understood about HOCD/SO-OCD? -Are you currently in a relationship? -Whats the worst symptom? -Whats your most scary thoughts? -How real does it feel to you?

i’ve realised that i spend pretty much all day every day mentally checking everything going on in my body and every sensation that i’m feeling and trying to analyse what it could mean. i have no doubt that this started because of medical trauma but i don’t know how to stop. i’d definitely say that i think this is my biggest compulsion and i know i need to stop for ERP to work but i don’t know how to make myself stop. it happens so fast before i can even notice i’m doing it and suddenly and it’s like a constant awareness. how am i meant to stop a mental compulsion? it feels like i have no control over it and the thoughts just enter my head without me realising it

Anyone with OCD dealing with active narcissists ? My father is a Virgo male with narcissistic tendencies. Manipulative, lies, & contradicts him self everyday. He does this with not only myself, but anyone he can step on [anyone who allows him to step on them?]. It can be difficult when I forget that he has this narcissistic personality. This is because he shields 🛡️ his ego with “Enlightenment” “Consiousness” “Acceptance” and “Silence” yet he is only ‘trying’ to replicate these beautiful words, in turn falsifying and rotting them into an egotists paradise. I know it’s gone way too far when he starts calling Me Mom. Or says I’m like his mama. Then he repeats “my mommy”. I’m his daughter, not his mom. But since I cater to him [people pleasing tendencies due to fear of his passing away which he has threatened multiple times, and still does] he continues his own cycles 🔄 of hurting people mentally, explaining why they are crazy or doing something wrong [gaslighting], then apologizing and love bombing [so you’ll forget and do something he wants to do, that he just remembered😹😵‍💫] Confusing and consuming if I do say so my self. I understand he misses his mama.. which hits me right in the chest, so then I continue catering to him [folding his clothes perfectly, getting him anything he needs, washing dishes, cleaning, going along with his desires, and putting him first instead of my self, to the point where I don’t eat or drink], but then the cycle begins and he starts putting me down, making me feel lesser, and raising his voice and tone to create fear in the situation. This in turn makes me anxious, which he knows, then my breathing feels restricted and I hold my breathe at times without realizing. Because I was raised by him and my mother separate from each other (divorced) I tend to people please towards him. I could understand people pleasing developed as a child because I wanted his attention, but I didn’t end up receiving much due to his job and emotional unavailability and unawareness. He would replace his emotional availability with toys and such to distract me but these things never brought happiness, just a gaping hole 🕳️ of emptiness. Nevertheless I will always be grateful for him and his life’s work, for he has done well. Again.. I’m his daughter, not his mom. And this hurts me in my soul core and uterus, sorry to be specific, because my parents have been divorced since my 4 years of age. Which made me want a mama in my household doing what mamas do, but the girls he brought in the house were only there because they wanted someone to marry, wanted money, or thought they might get something out of it, and that may be because, who in their right mind would willingly want to live a life and create a family with a mentally abusive and twisted narcissist. He doesn’t enjoy being alone with himself as well. It’s actually quite difficult for him, although he denies it. But you could ask any of his close friends and they’ll tell you, yea he’s out somewhere doing something with someone. Maybe he’s not happy with himself so he’s trying to keep himself distracted… but I don’t want to be like that.. I don’t want to become my father.. and I don’t need to because he is him, and I am me. We are so beautiful. Such beautiful beings able to live and create in this bittersweet world 🌎 I will live life with Love ❤️ Moving with light 🌞 and when faced with ego, hardship, and unconsciousness 🕳️, WE WILL MAKE IT THROUGH💎❤️‍🩹

It has completely switched to me being scared I don’t want to be with him. I’ve been struggling for days. I’ve been googling stuff all day too. And then my friend asked me “do you actually like him?” And it’s been stuck in my head. And then I answered yes but my head was like do you really though? Can it really convince you that you don’t and that you’re lying to yourself? And can you feel like you’re lying to them about it all? It makes me feel sick. And then my friend said “I think you’re just second guessing things because you’ve never been in a healthy relationship” my mind keeps going to “what if you really are not mean to be together? You know deep down. What if you’re having all these thoughts because you just aren’t mean to be?” And I don’t have like insane butterflies or infatuation with him like I did my previous partners, but they were so abusive and toxic. Im so terrified my mind will convince me to break up with him and I don’t want to 😞

I feel like I’m at at point where I’m disgusted by men and it’s making me feel like shit. The false attraction is too much to the point I don’t even know what to believe anymore. I feel like my whole life has been a lie. I’m scared and constantly feel depressed. I’ve started impulsively buying things to feel better and my self care is lacking majorly because I just don’t see the point. I don’t want to be gay. I don’t want to live my life differently than I was. I don’t understand how my desires seemingly no longer correlate with my thoughts. But now it feels far too real and I feel like I need to accept it. It’s getting me nowhere and making me feel awful but I see no other way out of this.

I have completely lost myself. I was doing so well yesterday. I have absolutely no desire to hurt anyone but why does it bother me that I couldn’t hurt someone even if I wanted to. Like Do i really want to? I know my belief in God fully convicts my heart but why would I want to do it. My heart just wants to praise God but I even question why God made our hearts to praise him. Like why is it bothering me? I loved to be a good person and I truly want to be the old me again but why does it feel like I just don’t want to. I’m so scared. I don’t want to go to hell but why is murder in my mind. Is this existential more than harm OCD? I’m sorry if this is a confusing post.

I just came back from Disney World and was the happiest I’ve felt in a really long time. Then I came home and developed a new theme today from reading a book that the author decided to not properly warn his audience about. The trigger warning was way too vague and wasn’t even about the book. So now I just feel hopeless and as if the second I get happy about something it immediately gets taken away. I recently got really into StarWars and was so happy I had found something to bring me joy and take me away from everything. But lo and behold, here I am again.

It seems like my husband brings out more O.C.Dness in me when he's home, does anyone else have the same problem or similar one???

I believe I (currently) am experiencing ROCD. Growing up as a child, I was always double checking the door was locked, wouldn’t walk on cracks, had to count to step. I eventually grew out of it. But I feel it has grown into ROCD. I currently have a year long relationship with a person I love and has treated me very well. I have plans to move in with him and I went job seeking at his house (we are long distance) last weekend. I had anxiety the entire time. I kept telling myself, I’m scared, what if this doesn’t work, what if this is telling me to break free of the relationship, what if I’m not attracted to him, and I was avoidant because I was so scared to feel the anxiety around/with him and question it all again. Once the anxiety would settle I would cry to him about it and tell him I’m just scared and everything is caving in. But is this normal in ROCD? I found myself googling everything the weeks leading up to me going. I once told him to give me space (he is very affectionate and I am not) and very selfless when it comes to calls/texts. PLUS - long distance adds to that. With everything, I started googling it all nonstop for days and feared we aren’t meant for each other. Now when he calls I feel anxious because I don’t want to feel that “trapped” feeling of not having space again and I googled how to find common and reasonable communication with long distance. UGH just everything is scaring me and I fear my obsessiveness over it is making it worse.

I am an anxious person generally speaking. That is my ‘safest’ negative emotion. It is my home base. But I have been learning about the other negative emotions as I try to heal some of those parts of me that cause anxiety because anxiety is running me ragged. And when those other emotions arise, I have no idea what to do with them. I'm like a baby giraffe trying to walk. Not knowing what to do with negative emotions sometimes means they get stuck. And prolong someone's suffering. Most emotions don’t last long, but you have to be willing to sit with the discomfort and let go of the negative stories about them. Lately I’ve seen that underneath my ‘go get em’ attitude is someone who was at some point very scared at the loss of something. And resolving the anxiety brings out sadness. Sadness, or depression, without an external immediate cause like a death of a loved one or a tragedy feels very difficult for me to move through. I find that I feel the need to cry, but the inability to. I feel the need to be with myself but the anxious avoidance of it. I don't feel I know what the hell I’m doing. And I don’t see examples of how to deal with it. The other morning I woke up and dropped into my body with meditation and I could feel multiple emotions at once - anxiety (the most familiar), sadness and shame/embarrassment. At the time I thought, that's weird, why am I feeling shame? I’m alone. But I realized that I think the shame of being sad might be keeping my sadness trapped in my body. Along with my anxious buzzing around - likely there from habit but also trying to protect me. I know shame is sort of ‘blame turned inward’. And sadness is kind of ‘anger toward inward’. No wonder anxiety showed up to keep me from noticing. 🙂But the work is internal so I need to figure out how to get in there. But if I am honest, I do feel shame. I don't feel it's okay to be sad. At least right now. I don't know where it comes from. I could hypothesize all day but everyone feels sad sometimes. It's not a character flaw, it's a sign of being human. I do find that crying is a very self compassionate act, if you get there. But even just sitting with sadness is good, if I can manage to not get anxiously avoidant of it or judge myself for being sad. I found this flow diagram interesting, it made me think about how layered emotions can become. I bet it would work with other negative emotions too. Basically, perhaps, at one point you went to someone for help (or even just google) with an emotion and they didn’t realize that they were instilling you with ‘values’ or ‘traits’ that you would then use against yourself. It's wild how simple it is to be with someone who has negative emotions. You just have to be there. And signal its okay and you believe they will get through it. (I don’t think google works here but maybe AI can in the future ;)) But it's so dang hard for us to tolerate it in each other. We are like “okay problem solved… no need to be sad you have/are X, Y, Z”. That isn't the point. Emotions aren't really problems to be solved. I dono what I am saying except I felt like maybe someone out there is also struggling with a negative emotion. And I'm rooting for you. It's a very human experience. It's okay and if you let yourself feel it, and love yourself through it, it passes. Also maybe I’m saying this to myself, that it's okay to feel sad (or anxious, or mad…etc) at times. There isn’t a need to shame myself about it.

I don't think I'll be able to deal with this, I'm so scared that it's true, and I don't think I can manage this. I feel like I've lost myself, I'm so scared

Twice I posted about my obsessions about possibly having an STD because of my addiction in the past. I don't know how long ago the events happened but the first time I posted about this, I read the rules and it said I can't ask for medical advice from group members. Twice I had done this whole initially posting about my fear of this and being so fed up with this addiction. Someone had asked what makes me think I have an STD but I deleted this post because I didn't want it to go to asking for medical advice again. I'm trying to stop these compulsions but I'm having a hard time. I've been googling again and even though I've gotten to some conclusions that have calmed me down, it still continues. Then it led to this. I hope I didn't bother those people badly about these obsessions. Now I'm getting thoughts that this is attention seeking

I’ve had this 7+ years ago. I was fine until this intrusive thought that came back. “What if I’m in a dream”, “what if we’re in a coma, and you can only get out if you end it”. These thoughts have come back and are really affecting me again. When I was younger I would use logic, like “dreams arnt powerful enough to always be in them. I can feel pain, I remember things” etc. It’s really effecting me again, and I cry to sleep every night just wanting to go back to how I was just 3 weeks ago. I desperately want to live a long happy life and I’m tired of this. Anyone else got anything like this and PLEASE give me advice or what you did to help it. I REALLY NEED HOPE!!! PLEASE

Whenever sth happens in my pocd that „yet again proves I’m a bad person“ I ruminate about how my life will be from then on. Like, I can’t leave the house like that, I can’t post myself anywhere, I can’t take pictures of myself, talk to people, ever have a boyfriend etc. I hate it sm.

I’m an only child, and since I was little my mother was always having some kind of attacks or breakdowns. We used to sleep together in the same room, every night, in the dark, once starts to get headache, she starts screaming and shouting and talk about things that bother her and say her own ocd thoughts out loud, even though she’s religious, I remember her cursing God and talking bad to him and talking about existential things such as God created us to makes us suffer and to play with us as toys, which was extremely scary to a little kid, she also used to blame me for everything she’s going through cuz she wanted to get divorce but couldn’t because she got pregnant with me and she used to abuse me physically sometimes, and the most scary thing she used to do, is acting as if she’s insane and beating herself and suddenly laughing, it was horrible, and what’s more confusing, is that she turns into a completely different person in the morning, as if I was living with two people. I grew up, and my mother is way better than before, when I remember these days it feels like someone kind of an old dream, and my mother thought that I wouldn’t remember these things once I grew up, but I still do, I don’t think about often, but I think maybe it’s the thing that made me develop OCD, especially existential OCD. Before two weeks, I had an argument with my mother, she did me wrong, and I was too upset and she was trying to gaslight me into thinking that I’m being sensitive and that she did nothing wrong which makes me feel more upset that I started saying some harsh words to her such as that’s why no wants to be friends with you, and she suddenly started to scream and beating herself and saying things for about half hour, it was just like these old nights, I’ve never seen her like this for years, and what made me more scared, is that once she started doing that, I suddenly felt numb, and I had a poker face on, I felt nothing and did nothing, as if my mind was trying to protect me from having such an extreme emotions that it won’t handle. It’s been almost two weeks, all this time I’m feeling detached from my body, my brain is foggy, I suddenly lost my confidence and I feel shamed and don’t want anyone to look at me or notice me and I just wanna hide somewhere, I lost my appetite and I lost some weight, I don’t feel secure nor safe, and I’ve been having nightmares every night. I’m trying to get back to myself, I thought maybe it’s an OCD episode and I have to make ERP, but I can’t spot any obsessive thoughts, my brain is so foggy and dizzy. I’m thinking is it possible to be Depersonalization/ Derealization?

I would be overjoyed to hear some positive experiences of people who have successful romantic relationships despite their OCD.

I’m on day 6 of Joyous’s Ketamine treatment. It doesn’t make me feel weird or loopy, just a little tired which is great for bed. I have noticed an increase in my mood. My anxiety did feel worse the first couple days but I think it’s gotten a little better. One thing is I never realized how much I ruminate till I started this. I have had Covid for the last week and I return today. If you’ve read any of my old posts you know I HATE my job. Going back today is giving my anxiety however I noticed I’m having a better time talking myself down. I always feel anxiety before going to work in the morning, I thought I’d feel worse about going back today cause I haven’t been in a week but lucky me, it’s not as bad as I thought. I’m up to 45 mg with the K treatments, I’m thinking today I’ll split it up into a couple doses today to see how I feel at work, I’m hoping it makes me happier and less miserable through the day. My depression seems to have gotten better, I’ve had a better outlook and have been in a better mood than usual, but ofc I haven’t been at work so that probably helps but I’m hoping it will help me in work life as well. I’ll update my journey with K treatments, so far I don’t see a dramatic increase, but something is better than nothing!

Does everyone have the same problem with not being able to designate whats a real memory and what is fake and constantly worries that the memory u think is fake is actually real and your OCD is just suppressing it? Ley me know if people have had an experience with this and if u can designate between real and fake?