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the NOCD Community

I was tryna find photos of my spouse. I knew it was around the month of august but i stopped scrolling at november and saw other family pictures so worrying was it innappropriate. Ocd sucks

Is it normal in recovery to feel better but, at the same time, have the thoughts in any case? I can manage them most of the time but they are still there. This makes me feel like I’m lying. Is it a bad sign? I wonder if I can experience again the peace and quiet in my head, without being threaten by my thoughts and constantly feel in danger and be finally happy and secure about what I want for my life.

Going through a tough time. In December, I lost communication with the girl i’m in love with. I made poor decisions and I’ve been beating myself up over them for a long time. Today I saw she found someone new and my heart is hurting so bad. I don’t have a friend to talk to so i’m posting here. I’m just extremely hurting and I feel this is gonna be so heavy on me and i’m not going to be able to move on. I miss her so much and I just have such a heavy chest

Currently dealing with panic bursts while sitting with these thoughts. My brain is definitely catastrophizing and I am not engaging but anxiety is really high. Has anybody experinced this?

I'm tired of life

I’m having a hard time tonight. I’m 24 and I was just talking to a friend about a tiktoker and I mentioned that I thought she was pretty hot. They said they don’t think she is attractive because she looks like a teenager. I never thought about that before and now I’m freaking out because maybe she is a teen, and even if she isn’t, I’m grossed out by the fact that I could think that if she is perceived to be so young. I can’t find her age anywhere and it’s worrying me. I know I probably shouldn’t be looking for it, but I feel like such a huge creep and I feel like I need to know. I’m just feeling a lot of distress and I could use some advice/encouragement/kind words from someone who’s dealt with something similar. I feel like I HAVE to find out her age to make sure she isn’t a minor. But I’m afraid she is. And even if she isn’t, my friend thinks she looks like one so I’m gross regardless. Idk why I never had any second thoughts about this til now. Fuck :(

Hi I haven’t slept in a week because I’m so afraid of my thoughts and not being able to control them or work through them by ruminating. I’ve slept a few hours here and there but I wake up with this really scary fear response/adrenaline rush because i feel like I know I was thinking something really disturbing in my sleep but I wasn’t conscious enough to remember it and the adrenaline is so intense that I feel like if I can’t remember what the dreams were I don’t know what I will do. Sometimes I run to the shower and turn on the water and just rock back and forth on the floor because I’m so afraid of my thoughts. I have such a hard time letting myself relax enough to fall asleep because I can feel myself losing control over my thoughts in my half asleep state and it feels like I’m tripping or something. Does anyone else feel like this? How do you get yourself to fall asleep? Any advice? Thank you

hello, my ocd turns me into an extreme perfectionist. i can’t take criticism well and noticed it gives me so much anxiety when anticipating it. i’m trying to learn a new language (swedish) and i even have a pen pal who’s willing to help me. i could tell in his text to me in swedish that he is providing some sort of criticism tho i’ve been so afraid to translate it cuz i get so scared that i’m being judged or thought of as stupid when really i know he’s just trying to help me. tips for dealing with this? i hate feeling like people think i’m ‘stupid’ i know it’s rooted in past experiences of bullying and social rejection etc etc

Trigger warning to those who are susceptible to the power of suggestion: I won’t get into the nitty gritty of what my OCD currently consists of, but I can speak vaguely. Imagine constant torment in the most personalized manner. Imagine trying to juggle all these things that feel like are in your control, but not. An analogy for this is like being a manager and trying to micromanage employees that can’t do their job. You’re in control, but you’re not. Imagine all this, and then a moment of serenity comes at an opportune time that you weren’t even looking for to begin with. That urge to give in is so strong, stronger than any drug. And as soon as you give in, the behavior you were trying to overcome becomes reinforced and you take two steps back. Okay, where does that leave us. Maybe faith would work? Problem is, I’m very skeptical about God. Okay, well, you don’t need to be religious to pray. You just need to believe in something and placebo will kick in. What if my prayers work? What if they’re answered? Then it feels like I’m manifesting my thoughts into existence, exactly what I’m afraid of what my intrusive thoughts will do. I’m just so. tired. It feels like there’s no winning.

I have had pretty bad ROCD these past two years, and I recently went to a couple friends for advice (which my partner was okay with). A guy friend (WHO CLAIMS TO KNOW OF AND UNDERSTANDS OCD??) immediately began asking me if my fears of my partner cheating came from real concerns or not, and he kept asking. He kept saying that it could be intuition.😭 He then also told me it’s okay for people in relationships to have crushes on other people, which both my partner and I heavily disagree with. Like, finding someone attractive is one thing, but a crush???? 😭😭😭 He then continued to tell me ALL people have crushes while in a relationship, including him and his former gf. My OCD went wild, and while some of his advice helped, these points he made were DEVASTATING. Worst part, he claims to know and understand OCD (part of why I went to him for some tips)!!!!!!! So why the hell did he say these awfully triggering things!? Tbh, part of me wonders if he doesn’t believe I have OCD and so he wasn’t handling his advice with as much caution….

I’m going to rant while trying to be as concise as possible. I stopped taking my lexapro a few months ago because I truly felt like I had the coping mechanisms I needed, and I was tired of the vertigo I’d get if I forgot to take my meds for even a day. I got thru withdrawal symptoms and was doing SO well for over a month. Then I was triggered by an event relating to my past- I had a 10 year friendship end terribly in 2022. My OCD was telling me it all all my fault and that I was projecting all of my insecurities on the friendship- I know objectively that both of us were hurt, and both played a role in the friendship. I let the OCD win and compulsively apologized to my ex best friend, taking ALL of the blame for the friendship. I also said i wanted to reconcile, which is not true. She hurt me so bad, and I’ve never had as much peace as I have without her in my life. I only said that in a moment of not seeing the situation for what is truly was. She, however, was fine with me taking all the blame and said I clearly had “more clarity.” This has sent me into a spiral for the past MONTH where all I can think about is this. I feel like I’ve been sucked right back into the past. I’m also graduating in a month and I’m super busy with work right now. Everything has completely piled up and I’m so fucking exhausted. If anyone has compulsively taken all the blame in a situation where both parties are at fault, I’d love to hear your stories to know I’m not alone in this :( I scheduled a psychiatry appointment to get back on meds (not lexapro- I want to try something else because lexapro made me feel so numb). It just feels like no matter what coping mechanisms I do, nothing helps. I’ve tried just letting the thoughts sit without engaging; they persist. I exercise every single day, but all I can think about is this situation. I have regret for A. Reaching out in the first place, B. Taking all of the blame and C. Disrupting her peace by letting a compulsion drive me to reach out. I know that I hurt her as well and I’m disappointed that I let this reopen wounds for both of us. While it would be ideal for us to end on good terms, it’s not possible, and it was impulsive of me to reach out thinking that would be achievable. In her reply she stated that reconciliation was not possible. Throughout my friendship with her I felt as though my feelings were never validated. If I was upset, it was my fault for “misunderstanding her.” If I didn’t communicate being upset, it was my fault for not communicating. Now, I’m upset with myself that I gave power to her after having finally been free from that friendship and all of the pain that it caused me.

I got up early at 6am to go to a gym class that was at 7am. It was my first time going and I really enjoyed it. However, since then my mind has been spiralling. I've been having horrible intrusive thoughts and feelings, and I've been feeling more sensitive to my triggers. I don't know what's going on, is it due to lack of sleep or maybe having a new experience like going to the gym class??

Things have been so good lately, haven’t had a worry about anything and have been able to go through my day ignoring all the bad thoughts towards anything that would come in my head, but out of the blue. Aster being here at my boyfriends all day it wanted to do something. I have to go home tonight and to be so honest I really don’t want to. At all. But as I’m sitting here while he’s playing his game my brain is saying “you’re losing feelings for him” when in reality, our one year is in 2 weeks. I’ve been staying at his house frequently the past few weeks. If I was really losing feelings would I want to be with him all the time. No, i need this shit to stop cause it’s gonna ruin something so good.

Hi everyone, I have a situation in my life that’s causing a lot of stress. Without getting into specifics, I’ll just say there is no way for me to remove myself from the situation. I’m finding that my thought patterns revolve around this situation throughout my whole day no matter what I’m doing - just obsessive thought cycles non-stop. If there anything any of you have found helpful to do when you get this obsessive rumination about a particular issue? Thank you.

I've tried accepting being BI. But even THATS not good enough for my ocd. Its telling me that I don't actually love my bf, the one I've been with for almost 4 years now... I feel so numb today, I don't want to ever lose him. I want our romantic spark we have, not for him to just be platonic or whatever. Somehow it convinces me that I'd be better off with a woman :(

Today I got a new intrusvie thought from the same themes and I feel really sad and devasted because it feels really scary and like I'm worried that I agree with the intrusive thought or that it is revealing something about me ...the intrusive thought feels more intense like why would I have such a thought? and I feel to tired to react but I have a heaviness and worry for my mental health. I feel ill/disgust and tired but too tired to fully react. I almost feel like the more intrusive thoughts I get the weaker I get because of the distress and mental/emotional pressure and stress. I don't know how to describe it but it feels very heavy and I almost feel like I will never recover from this intrusive thought.... I also get moments when I think what if I'm making this up and I do not struggle with OCD

I'm jealous that other people can find a therapist and get better and I cant

I sometimes worry my situation is too uncommon to be OCD and can’t find many people to relate too with similar situations. Anyone else?

Anyone else experience this? I recently got a pair of really nice and really expensive headphones, I’m a major audiophile and passionate about music. The headphones are well built but I find that I keep inspecting them to see if there are any minor imperfections, I keep putting light pressure on different parts of the headphone to see what they can withstand, then when I do this I start to worry that I damaged them, despite no evidence of damage. Even when I’m away from them I fear that they’re just sitting there broken. It’s mildly annoying because something like that shouldn’t occupy my mind so much. I don’t want them to be broken and I like using them. Then I worry about using them because I fear even if I just touch them I’ll do something to break them. There’s nothing to indicate that something is wrong but I’m constantly worried that every time I use them the more I’m damaging them.

My brain is so messed up that I m having panic attacks at the doctor office just get nervous for no reason even when they call my name during the test I had to take couple deep breath my life su*ck why I can’t just be normal getting nervous and anxious for a doctor appointment only me my stupid brain I don’t think I can overcome this :(