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the NOCD Community

How do you guys deal with emotional contamination?

Can false memory make you have a theme that you did something bad and when you try to remember if you did you search for it and then something seems familiar and you think you might have done something sexual with someone years ago but you never thought about it till now??? I am so confused 😞 I feel like I would remember this very clearly.

Good morning! My name is Zach and I currently suffer from what I believe to be harm OCD. I constantly have thoughts of hurting myself or others. It has really become exhausting and I need help. I’m currently seeing a therapist for it and just started ERP but I want to know more about this program and what it has to offer. I want my life back and I want to be in better control of my thoughts and compulsions.

Does anyone have any advice on how to best practice ERP? My ROCD revolves around constantly worrying about “what if I start to like someone else” and feeling like the scary awful feeling of having to break up. I do a lot of talking out loud and envisioning the scenario happening (my therapist and I do this) but the thoughts and worries are loud and that’s not really helping right now. Anyone with ROCD have any advice?

So I’ve been dealing with severe ocd for the past 3 years.. I’ve dealt with it all my life but had up and downs and thought I was finally getting my life back and now over the weekend I got a huge trigger. It revolves around being intoxicated and having holes In my memories of that night. I was fine the next day and hangin out and then started to look back on the night and that’s when my brain picked the blank in my memory. It got really dark with the what ifs and the anxiety went thru the roof but now it has stuck and I can’t stop trying to figure what happened in those blank moments. Everyone I was with said nothing bad happened but I just keep having false memories. Anyone have these moments?😣😣😣

I have intrusive thoughts in my mind practically every minute of my life. I exhaust myself fighting them. I dread the night. I cannot sleep . Most evenings I lay awake trying to distract my mind until the sun comes up. I am so very tired. I had OCD since I was a child. But back then I didn't think anything of it because I didn't know that something was wrong. I went to a doctor once. He prescribed medication that made me feel like a walking zombie and even that didn't work 100%.

How can you tell if a thought pops into your head or if you are conjuring it? And does it matter that I can't tell? I am tying my brain in knots trying to work out if the thoughts I have are simply there or if I am creating them/bringing intrusive thoughts and images to mind. It's like I can never truly relax my brain and see it for what it is. It feels like there are a million thoughts in my head at the same time that haven't even materialised into thoughts, but then by being aware of that I am thinking about those thoughts. It is also like my brain is constantly scanning for intrusive thoughts and then inevitably thinking them. Do I need to just accept not knowing/fully understanding my brain?

https://youtu.be/ZXsQAXx_ao0?feature=shared Love you all 😂 have a great Monday

Does anybody else feel like they have to go pee just one last time except it happens over and over again at night time? I usually cave and go to the bathroom after feeling like I have to for a long time but it’s always just a dribble like I didn’t actually have to go. I was seeing a physiotherapist for pelvic floor exercises and she said that it wasn’t a physical issue and that it was most likely psychological. Wondering if this is OCD? Somatic OCD possibly?

I'll be 31 this year and I'm such a complete failure as a human being. I just had a breakdown over doing dishes. I have four specific cups that I use and normally I try to wash all of them at once, it really reassures me knowing I have three backup cups in case the one I'm using gets "dirty". Lately, though, I've only been able to wash one at a time and that causes a lot of stress only having one usable cup because if it gets dirty I have to spend the next half hour washing it, my hands, etc. Well tonight my cup got "dirty" and I thought everyone was asleep so I thought I'd try to wash them all. I don't like doing it when people are awake because it takes so long, I have to do it in a specific way and I'm embarrassed by it all. So I started and I was really struggling. I kept having to rewash and rewash because the bubbles just wouldn't go away and then my mom came into the kitchen and we were talking. My anxiety spiked because I was afraid she'd mention how long I'm taking or try to rearrange my cups or touch my arm and I just felt like a horrible person thinking these tboughts when all she's doing is talking to me but it just makes an already really stressful situation even more so. Then she left. I got two done, so I was half way through and then I thought the next cup was clean and I put it into the stack of clean ones but then I noticed it still had bubbles and now I had to start all the way over again. I wanted to cry and I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I just wanted to be done and get something to drink and lay down. I tried starting over but my mom came back and I just couldn't deal with it so I quit and she smiled at me and said "finally done?" She knows and tries to understand how much I struggle and tries her best to help me and I love her so much for that and I'm so awful for feeling more anxious around her and having thoughts of just wanting to be left alone. She looked so proud of me, thinking I finally got done with my stupid little task and I just couldn't handle knowing how much of a disappointment I am and I started crying. She hugged me and offered to clean my cups for me and I wish I could let her but I can't. My OCD won't let me. Only I can clean my cups. My OCD isolates me and makes me feel so alone. I need help but I can't have any. And just facing the realization that I'm having a breakdown at 1am in the kitchen over not being able to clean cups properly just made me want to die so bad. Every little victory I have doesn't mean anything because I'll never get better. I lost so much time, I'm old and I don't know how to be an adult or take care of myself and I don't know what to do anymore. I hate myself.

Once again I fell into the trap of using porn and eroticism as an escape valve, even though I knew that this was never a good thing. And as always, I got worse than before, sadder and more disappointed with myself. I'm a failure

this is going to be a strange post but bear with me!!!!!!!! a therapist i had once suggested looking at my ocd/intrusive thoughts as being in a car with some weird guy in the back who says all the upsetting ocd stuff. theyre back there and are annoying or offputting BUT ultimately you are driving and can just ignore the weird guy and remind yourself YOURE the one driving, basically. does anyone else personify their ocd thoughts/impulses/fears/etc? if you do, do you get along with this personified guy? or do you argue, or ignore, or shame it? i am currently in the camp of "i hate that guy and he scares me so i dont want to socialize with him" hahahaha. but i wonder, would being curious or empathetic towards the guy maybe help him chill out? i wanna know if anyone else has a personified relationship with their ocd too, and how you treat this personification. :) much love ☺️🌈✨🌷

my boyfriend is perfect. i cant believe how happy i am. but my ocd has this image of his ex gf and doesn’t drop it. Even tho she went insane at the end, they dated for 4+years. it just makes me feel like our experiences even cute aren’t original. i just want to let myself be happy but her face and etc is stuck inside my brain. i even stopped stalking but it didn’t really help. help.

I’m in a really good heathy relationship and have a completely supportive partner but I still always go out of my way to try and find stuff from his past to upset myself. Mind you my partner doesn’t even have much of a past but anything that has to do with another female will drive me absolutely up the wall. I try to find his ex’s and see their social media accounts and try to upset myself. Meanwhile these girls have no idea I even exist and don’t even care about my boyfriend. We’ve been together for 5 years and I’m about to be engaged and I’m STILL doing this to myself. Why?

i have severe existential ocd and get plagued with existential thoughts especially when i’m stressed. I have exams this week for finals and all i can think about is the existential thoughts and it’s causing me immense distress. i’m crying 24/7 and having multiple panic attacks a day. i don’t know what to do? does anyone have any advice?( please be gentle)

I lost my job after 10 years with the company because they combined our office with another office. My anxiety, depression and panic spiraled out of control. I was so afraid I would never find another job and lose everything I had and have no insurance. I got a new job within 2 weeks and was sure that would solve all my problems, but I continued to get worse. I went to my new job and pushed through one week and ended up in the hospital due to my high anxiety and OCD. I have been so many different drs since trying to get the help I need. I finally found a dr that has me on Prozac and I am working with NOCD. I just can’t seem to get rid of the fear of losing the new job I just got. It’s such a scary and sick feeling.

does anyone else find that when you start to get used to the thoughts/they stop becoming so distressing that it becomes difficult to decipher whether you want them or not? i know the fact im posting about it probably shows that i don’t but just out of curiosity do other people relate to that also?

Does anyone else feel their pulse, worry about the heart rate. Constantly worry about feeling bad? I have anxiety now and can feel it and it feels bad! I just wanna cry. Everyday is a struggle.

Had a really good day today in which I didn’t engage with many of my worries and didn’t ruminate, but of course that’s left me feeling like I’m just missing something to worry about or I need to look harder because I can’t just feel okay. Any tips?

So I’ve been in a pretty rough spiral/ocd spike for about a month now. I used to have this theme of being severely mentally ill or schizophrenic or psychotic and it went away for like 6 months and now it’s back full force. I have never hallucinated but I have this intense fear of what if I do. So with this theme I have these delusional thoughts that are just bizarre and I know how delusional they are but they feel so real and scary like I believe them. My body reacts by my stomach feeling uneasy and I’ll get a chill and just feel like I’m gonna be sick. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a thought per say.. it can just be a weird sensation or feeling and then I’ll become extremely anxious and borderline feel like I could panic. I can usually talk myself down from a full blown panic attack and but it’s just so distressing and I’m wondering if anyone else goes through this? I think it stems from a core fear of losing my family, ending up institutionalized away from my family and my family being devastated and judging me bc I “went crazy” please if anyone else can relate I’d appreciate any advice.