Welcome to
the NOCD Community

I'm freaking out right now. I have a friend that I'm really close, and she's very special to me. But since hocd started I'm always wondering if I like her romantically. It's awful. I don't want to be with her, but then, what if I in fact do? And I get so anxious, and I get groinal responses, and when I'm around her I keep wondering: what if I kissed her? This is just too much. I don't like it, I hate it. I'm so scared that I'm going to act on it, or that it's true.

Question, I’ve been in treatment for over a year now and have always had trouble having ERP scare me. I have mostly mental rumination and compulsions and have found that when I do scripts and recordings, they never make me anxious. Can anyone else relate? Any tips?

Right now I’m having a moment where it feels very real. I don’t know whether to trust the feeling. I’m getting the urge to ‘come out’ but I don’t even know if it’s true. Or maybe I’m lying? Do I really ‘not know’ or am I just pretending I don’t know? I feel very sick in my stomach and nervous and keep going to cry. I keep going to stare at myself in the mirror to figure myself out and I keep repeating phrases such as ‘I’m gay, I like women, I’m a lesbian’ to see if it feels right but I don’t know if it does. Yesterday I had about 6 breakdowns and read articles and I was so sure I wasn’t gay. Now I’m having like a wash of ‘I must be!’ I don’t know whether to trust this feeling or not ughhhhh.

This may be a form of asking for reassurance. I really don't even know at this point. But for those with HOCD, I seen and heard videos about this where some OCD sufferers are so tired of the doubt from the thoughts that they "adopt" a gay lifestyle. Or just basically accept all the thoughts. I'm just tired of constantly fighting this. The problem is I will like have "fantasies" of the same sex (female) and every time doubt comes up like for example, Do you like this fantasy your having? I'll just be like yes. I don't want to have these fantasies but I feel like I have no choice because of it being inevitable. I find it distressing but I'm barely if not nauseous at all so I feel like this is just who Ive always been. I still get anxiety sometimes and doesn't feel natural like with guys but then sometimes it legit feels real and feels like I like it. I'm truly so exhausted and just want to die.

This isn’t an ocd related post this time but I need some help... So my girlfriend told me one thing and my parents said another but my girlfriend denied it to my parents but Her and I know it’s true but now my parents think I’m lying to them “I don’t like being played” but I don’t wanna say that my girlfriend isn’t telling them and she’s mad at me now for telling them the thing she denied and my parents are mad and I lost my bestfriend recently because he backstabbed me so I have no one to talk to and I don’t know what to do.:(

Well to today I watched gay porn and got no type of groinal response then later a girl on Instagram posted a picture and i got hard I know I’m straight but the intrusive thoughts are still getting me

Could people share the different ways they practice exposure?

can you guys relate your anxiety to irregular sleep cycles? when you go sleep in 3-4-5AM do anxiety flare up?

I don’t have ocd but love someone who does. I need advice. My SO had leg pain once and a coworker said it sounded like thrombosis. So now his leg constantly hurts and he thinks it’s that. He’s seen the doctor several times (doctor can’t find anything) and went to see a nerve specialist (who also didn’t find anything). Can this be part of his ocd? If so, how do I tell him that? (Also I added the trigger warning because since I don’t have ocd, I don’t know what could trigger someone)

My husband hates me because of my OCD. He's blaming me for everything. Sometimes I just wish I would disappear compeletely so he can be happy.

What kills me about my hocd is that when it started I knew i disnt lime or enjoyed the thoughts. Now I get erected or aroused at almost any thought I can think of in a sexual way: with guys or transexuals. I don't know how I got into this in like 11 years with hocd. I'm not attractes to them but i can think of even grabbing a man's penis and enjoy that thought or feel aroused. I feel like hocd has defested me. Almost no one gets erected apparently...

I normally never post on boards, but I am just struggling with existential OCD so badly and I wanted to know if anyone had any advice. It’s just so hard when all my thoughts are about the fact that I/everyone will die someday. I then can’t figure out how we all live knowing this. I’m literally afraid to be alive. I’ve lost my appetite, my happiness, and my love of life. It is so hard to believe I ever was or could be normal again, even though I went through something similar twice before, both times lasting about three months. It’s been about a month of this now and it’s just pure hell, especially since I have a five month old baby that I just adore. Everything now just seems so hopeless and terrifying. I am doing ERP. I’m not taking meds because my therapist thought it would take such a high dose, and I don’t usually take anything at all so she was concerned with making that much of a jump... Basically I just need to know what worked if any of you have had this before. ANY suggestion is appreciated, I am struggling to figure out how I was ever happy!

I had an appointment with my psychologist today and it did not go well. I told her that I’ve had intrusive thoughts/images since my vacation started and how miserable I felt. What kept me through all this time was ocd forums and I also told her about it. That’s when things went downsouth, she said that ocd symptoms were things like overchecking if a door was closed for example and that the term was used in incorrect ways. She wasn’t disturbed by what I said (didn’t give any details though) but she said that I had violent thoughts because I have the tendency to keep things to myself and that I just needed to learn how to evacuate my emotions the correct way. I’ve been seeing her for two years and she knows me so I don’t know what to do? Should I see another psychologist? I don’t want to tell her she’s wrong, because she studied psychology and knows a lot more than I do but I feel like she doesn’t understand what ocd is.

Please help! I’m so scared right now. I have have HOCD for the last 7 years and I got so scared that I might be lesbian. And then when I started looking up pictures of girls I felt groinal urges and I listened to them and I liked it. I am scared that I am gay. But what terrifies me even more is that I acted on HOCD and I’m scared I might act on my harm OCD in the future. I’m terrified and I want to curl up in a ball and cry. Also I don’t want to be gay because I’m religious, but I’m worried I convinced myself I’m gay but idek.

❗️HUGE HOCD TRIGGER ❗️ I‘m having a panic attack right now. I saw a lesbian who said sometimes it can take a lifetime to figure out that you are homosexual and that the easiest way to figure out if you are gay is to see who you fall in love with. And then she said something that triggered my HOCD so, so much. She said „When I was a teenager the thought of having sex with a woman made me cringe, but whenever I kissed a man it was dull and when I kissed a woman it was really interesting.“ That’s the end for me. I‘m losing hope.

I have intense compulsions to pick at my skin when I feel anxious or sedentary or stimulated. I’ve heard that this compulsion is called “skin picking disorder” but the research on that topic has yielded no productive results. Often when I get the compulsion to cut myself, I can satiate it with picking. Does anyone else experience this?

Anyone use marijuana to cope with OCD? I would like to read your experience.

I hate my HOCD. I'm tired of my loss of aesthetic attraction to women. If I understood correctly what I was told here, it's because I want it to come back so much that it does not come back, but no matter how hard I try not to care, not to think about it anymore, but nothing comes back. Sometimes I just want to die tbh...

Hey everyone! Kind of just want some help. It sounds kind of stupid but I’ve had a really bad few months and been depressed to the point of not washing my face and not showering enough (weird and gross sorry). Tonight I just decided to get back into a skincare routine and I’m cleaning my room so I have a tidy environment because it’s a mess because I have been really bad. I struggle with HOCD and tonight I’m trying so so so so hard to tell myself ‘I don’t care, maybe I am gay, maybe I’m not’. I’m really resisting the urge to check scenarios in my mind and stuff. I’m finding myself having to do this several times every few minutes and I’m trying to keep up saying ‘maybe maybe not’ and keeping the uncertainty. Is this the right thing to do? I’m worried about it being too hard because it’s literally gonna be constant but I’m gonna try so hard. Also a thought keeps popping in ‘if you don’t think about it, that means you are your obsession’ and ‘if you don’t want to figure it out, it means you’ve accepted your sexuality’. As I’m typing this out I can literally SEE how ridiculous it is but when it happens I consider ruminating. I shouldn’t though because that’s definitely just another obsession isn’t it? I just really want to try and help myself properly and I’m unsure if I’m doing it the right way. Some guidance would really be appreciated! :) I’ve also deleted social media because I’ve found them to be really bad because of my checking and because I keep seeing relationships and keep checking my attraction to every single person, male or female, that I scroll past. Was this the right thing to do or could that be considered avoidance? I’m just sick of doing it to be honest, I’m literally tired of my own compulsion. I downloaded some brain games instead to keep myself distracted??. I’d appreciate anyone to help me tonight and I hope everybody is okay!!!

I’m having disruptive thoughts about my car alarm going off when I’m away. For background, I’m a college student that commutes to class. Lots are huge and I spend hours at a time away from my car. My biggest fear is that I’ll press the panic button on my car, and that it will go off until the battery dies, or be a nuisance to others. I’m sometimes late to class because I compulsively check every aspect of my car to make sure it is okay, as well as continuously going back to my car to check if I accidentally pressed the panic button.