Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Does anyone else get a random wave of anxiety and an awkward feeling that you are not yourself??? i don’t know how to explain it but it feels like i’m gonna act on my intrusive thoughts because i barely feel like myself, i even feel out of my body and horrible body sensations

I jumped at the opportunity to share my story when NOCD told me about their advocacy program so today I’m going to tell you all about my OCD journey to help those not feel so alone! I want to start this by saying just because my story may not look like yours doesn’t mean your story isn’t valid! Everyone is different! The first time I remember having an intrusive thought was when I was around the age of 6-7 I remember I was making sandwiches with my father and as I held the knife I had the thought “stab him, you need to stab him” I was so scared at the thought, I thought it meant I was a bad person or that I wanted my father dead. I was terrified. Years later different thoughts and themes would be more prominent and by the time I was in my early 20s was when I read in depth about OCD. I dealt with POCD for YEARS before I got help, I remember doing compulsions like googling to find answers to what I was thinking and feeling or any form of reassurance I could get! While I was googling (and never finding any peace) I came across an article saying “do you have POCD?” I remember thinking “I don’t have OCD, I’ve never been diagnosed and I’m not clean!” It’s crazy what the stigma can make you believe about an illness. I however read the article anyway and I’m so glad I did because that’s how I found NOCD. I realized I had been struggling with POCD as a main theme from the age of 16 (I am now 27) I went to my doctor to get a professional diagnosis and started therapy after a few months of saying “I don’t need therapy, it doesn’t work for me!” I realized my ways of “making things better” AKA compulsions!! Weren’t working and I needed a professional. I was scared, I remember thinking my therapist will think I’m an awful person with awful thoughts and call the police, I can’t tell her the truth about what’s going on in my head! But when I met my therapist I exploded with emotions, crying, telling her everything about what I was thinking and how I was feeling. I desperately needed help and NOCD and my therapist Lourdes were the life line that I needed to get better. My therapist was my rock, constantly cheering me on, telling me “I could do hard things” that simple saying has stuck with me since the first day she said it. I learned how OCD attaches to what you value most, that the reassurance seeking and constant googling I had been doing for my entire life was not helping but hurting my recovery and we worked together to craft the perfect ERP exercises so I could heal. I was doing well for so many months until OCD decided to attach onto another thing that I love and value most, something I wasn’t expecting, my relationship. I had a horrible run of intrusive thoughts about my partner. These thoughts lasted for about 8 months when I realized that I needed an extra boost of help. That medication and therapy would be my best shot at fighting this and that taking medication is nothing to be ashamed of. I started Luvox and continued ERP exercises I am so happy to say that my OCD is very manageable now! I still have intrusive thoughts but they no longer have that intense chokehold on me. I can sit with the uncomfortable feelings and let them pass, I do still catch myself doing compulsions which is a very normal part of recovery and will be something I will most likely catch myself doing for the rest of my life! However it is so important to recognize it and try in the future to resist! I am so happy to say that I have been going on a few months now of minimal intrusive thoughts and anxiety and I am beyond happy in my life and relationship. If you take anything away from this I hope you take away that you are NOT alone, ERP therapy saves lives, it will get better, medication is nothing to be ashamed of and you can do hard things!! You may feel like when you have another tough patch that you’re “right back to where you started” as I have felt in the past, but I promise you that isn’t the case. You can and will get through this and I know that my OCD may get worse again but I know with the support of my therapist, my inner circle and the support of this community I can and will make it through. We can do this and I know it may be scary at first and may feel impossible to get better or that somehow you’re the exception and that nothing will help you get better but I promise you that’s not the case. I felt the exact same way before I started therapy. You will get better, I believe in you and you aren’t alone ❤️

Anyone who is in a relationship, does OCD flare up when you are being sexually intimate with your partner? I have never had this experience before and I was caught off guard. However I still continued to be intimate with my girlfriend and not let OCD dictate my life. Just wanted know.

What books, links, articles do you reference to build knowledge and awareness about OCD?

Are anyone else's intrusive thoughts SO quick that it seems like you're skipping the thought and going straight to the fear? For example: out of the corner of my eye I thought the closet light was on, but when i looked, it wasn't. I instantly felt fear, and backtracked my thoughts and realized I was afraid that I was seeing things. This makes it feel like I'm afraid of everything!!! 🥲

I Recently diagnosed with ocd. The onset of my symptoms started a month ago today. I just moved back in with my parents because I am in the process of transferring colleges. I was doing great. I took a vacation about 2 weeks after I moved back on and planned on relaxing then coming back home to prepare myself for the upcoming semester at the local college (I am going into nursing school). The vacation started out great. The first day made me drowsy because of how long of a flight I had and also switching time zones. The second day was full of fun activities. I really enjoyed that day and what there was to do not knowing what was coming that night. Fast forward to that night I was pretty worn out from the day and started to settle down the way I usually do before bed. I love scrolling through YouTube and used to love watching content such as crime network as this was something me and my bf routinely watched and talked about. The video just happened to be about a kid who had done something absolutely horrific. I was pretty invested in the video at first but then all of a sudden got a thought about me doing something horrible to my family. I was so shaken by this thought and felt a physical shock to my body. My heart started to pound out of my chest and I didn’t know what was going on and how to react to something like this. My only reaction was to go take a long bath. That bath somewhat helped and I somehow was able to go to sleep afterward. I woke up the next morning and began remembering what happened a few hours prior and just thought that it was “just a weird thought” and tried to push it off. I had a full agenda that day and didn’t wanna dwell on it. At first that day started out ok. I went and ate lunch at a great restaurant in the area. Though I didn’t feel the distress, the thought of what I experienced the night prior was still there and kept popping up. Suddenly the violent thoughts of me harming my family hit me again. I was out doing stuff with my family at the time and remember being so panicked and confused but yet I couldn’t show any of what I was feeling. The rest of that day was ruined. I remember watching my family enjoying the activities but I just kinda sat there and pretended. The thoughts turned into some kind of voice or command. All I heard was “you’re going to enjoy the rest of the day but this is your family’s last time alive together” and things of that nature. I felt so sick and confused. This ultimately went on throughout the vacation and ruined it. It would come and go and sometimes I thought it had gone away only to return again. It’s been a month now since this started and it has snowballed into crazy obsessions. Sometimes they are still about my family but it has morphed into obsessions of being the next serial killer or mass murderer. I keep thinking back to my childhood and all of my mistakes and taking that as proof that I’m a psychopath and have every mental illness ever despite every dr I’ve compulsively seen telling me that I’m not. I ruminate over shows about crime that I’ve seen in the past and envision myself following in the same footsteps of these killers. I can’t do anything without relating to what Ive heard about those people. 2 weeks ago it got so bad that I literally slept all day and was up all night researching all of this stuff. I’ve become almost emotionally blunt to things and even the thoughts which in turn gives me anxiety. For the past 3 days now I have been productive for the first time and actually eating somewhat normally again. Even though I feel better than I have I still have something nagging at me in my mind that makes me feel guilty for doing anything other than googling or doing my compulsions. I don’t feel the anxiety I have been and that alone is freaking me out. I’m in doubt that I have ocd even though I’ve been diagnosed by 3 professionals including a therapist. I am scheduled to start erp this week with NOCD. I feel like I’m living life behind a glass wall. I see everyone going on with life and wanna be able to engage and enjoy the things that I used for without the worry. I feel like I have a bully in the back of my mind constantly shouting at me when I’m trying to live life and it always calls me back. I catch myself looking a pictures taken prior to the start of this and feel like I’m looking at a different person. I often think about stuff like what if I never watched that video, what if I had known a day or even an hour before it started and had some warning sign about how my life was about to change. My ocd makes me feel like a narcissist or horrible person for posting this because I always doubt this diagnosis and say that I manipulated myself into it even though this has really been my experience. If this really is ocd then I don’t wish this on my worst enemy. I wanted to share this so maybe someone going through this similar manifestation of the disorder can relate and won’t feel as alone as I do.

My anxiety is really bad today and I’m struggling to be in public for fear of fainting or dying due to my anxiety 😖😭

Hey everyone so I’ve been just having a bad day already! I feel so detached from myself that I don’t even know who I am. Feels like someone else is in control of me bad dpdr. Now I’m having bad intrusive thoughts because I don’t feel like myself like I’m out of control. I haven’t been able to eat or get any sleep. I’m so down idk what to do anymore.

Does anyone else have intrusive thoughts during sex that make you lose your ability for focus/make the experience less enjoyable? I have POCD so having intrusive thoughts of this nature during sex not only make sex with my boyfriend way less enjoyable, but also make me feel perverted for having them while simultaneously aroused. It feels like they’re causing my arousal even tho I know rationally that they aren’t. Any advice? Feel kind of alone in this.

Help! If you can’t picture yours or your partners body parts and bodies perfectly in your head does that mean you’re picturing someone else’s body or body parts or that you’re turned on over someone else? Please let me know I worry because I would never get off or feel turned on by anyone else but I feel confused when I haven’t pictured something perfectly 100% does it mean what I’m worried about??

I had dentist appointment yesterday and I had so much panic attack I tried to control my anxiety but it got worse my mind kept telling to run outside and cancel my appointment but I sit there I told my mind nope I need my teeth done so if something happens then let it happen I accept the anxiety and it went away but I felt terrible after when I got home I see I got a little cut inside my lips and tongue then I got worry what if I get hiv from that I had to google if dentist clean their tools or use new one I m still afraid that will get a serious issue also I have tmj flare up I didn’t want to do my teeth because of the fear of what if that cause me more tmj or other issue no reassurance just telling you how was my day yesterday

I use to argue my thoughs cause I was anxious and didnt want them, but now I get the thoughs and feelings without anxiety, so when I argue them or fight them just feels like something a person in denial would do, like literally just feels like a discusión, not one time I think I had a trigger and be like, o that was just OCD and then let go

Does anyone else think TikTok is the biggest trigger, for all my themes! I also get triggered so much by ‘late bloomers’ I just watched a tik tok of a women who came out later in life and the comment section was full of so many comments like I was married for 10 years, 40 years, 20 years etc and it just triggered me so much I feel like I want to cry, even thought right now I don’t feel like one I’m so scared I’ll realise it later in life or that I’m just hiding it And it brings in so much guilt incase I am because I have a boyfriend and don’t want to ruin his life if later in life I do realise I am

I’ve never been religious, and I don’t plan to be. I’m happy with what I believe in, but sometimes I think about what would happen if I’m wrong. What if I will suffer for my sins? What if I find out god is real before it’s too late to save my soul? I’ve spent so long being suicidal but death absolutely terrifies me in a way nothing else could.

It's the middle of the night and I just had a really intense and scary attack of ocd. Not really sure what it was all about, but it was a whole flood of different themes all at once. Only thing that was clear to me is that I was full of such intense fear of myself. Afraid of losing control of my mind and ending up in a psych ward tonight, afraid of thinking of hurting myself and how it might feel good/relieving, afraid of losing control and hurting my pet, afraid of having a full blown panic attack and needing my parents, afraid of losing control and screaming, afraid of giving into the urge to lash out and throw things/throw myself around (lately I've been feeling the need to exert/stim), and afraid of how each and every one of these outcomes would affect others. I'm falling asleep now but I'm still terrified of what just happened. I've never felt anything like it before. I've now been having problems every single day for a month straight (happy anniversary lol). My therapist of four years is not an OCD therapist and I won't be seeing her for two weeks yet. I also just started seeing a psych but I won't be seeing her for over a month yet. I'm wondering if i should get in touch with a NOCD therapist asap because I swear I just keep getting worse and I'm getting more and more paranoid and terrified by the hour. I feel like my behavior has definitely changed. The problem is though I know i'm obsessed with getting help for myself because i'm THAT scared of my own mind. I think having a SECOND therapist would be a bit overkill but i'm also extremely desperate and have been considering this for about a month now. Has anyone else tried a NOCD therapist paired with their normal therapist? Anyways now i'm so scared of what i'm gonna wake up to. These intense mood swings are getting scarier and scarier.

It's been 2 nights in a row that I haven't been able to sleep normally, last night was horrible, I only slept like 4 hours and all night long I kept having bizarre "dreams" and I kept having this kind of mind chatter, where random words, phrases, songs or even images kept popping up in my mind non stop for all the time I was asleep. It got so bad and uncomfortble that I jolted up in a panic and couldn't go back to sleep I was so scared bc as soon as I closed my eyes seconds later I would start getting those random sounds and images in my sleep and it really frightened me. Is this normal or anyone has this? what worries me is that it lasted the whole time I was sleeping, not just for a few minutes.

I posted this on reddit and decided i should share on here too! i just wanted to share some things ive noticed with tocd that keep sucking me back in! -My brain will keep telling me that i enjoy the thoughts even if i dont, which starts to freak me out -Not getting anxiety from the thoughts, then i get anxious because why didn’t i get anxiety from that? -Body discomfort + pronouns making me uncomfortable and being hyper aware of them. -Constant mental compulsions that i can’t stop that are making it worse. for example my worst one is looking at a guy and imagining myself as them. -Not feeling like the gender you are. i don’t feel like a girl anymore which is extremely confusing -Feeling guilty about using your desired pronouns. for example: when i call myself a girl to other people i start to feel guilty and like I’m lying? -Being scared that even though your thought isn’t true now eventually it will become true and you will have to face your worst fear. -Is it OCD? or am i using it as an excuse -Am i in denial? -THE URGES!!!! All i want to tell you guys is OCD will do anything in its power to make us think that our theme is true or “this time it’s different” but in reality we really cannot trust our brain especially when we are having a flare up. my advice is to try your very very hardest to not do compulsions, i know it’s hard but i believe in everyone. Do ERP, i write down the thoughts I’m having in a journal. Lastly, ACCEPT THE THOUGHTS!!!! “maybe its true maybe its not true” you do not need to solve it! we need to accept the uncertainty even though its scary. i hope everyone is well and if you guys want anymore advice feel free to message me. 💕💕

Hey, I'm new, but but been dealing with OCD for about 3 months. I developed it after a really stressful life period, and I've been trying to treat it myself as I have no access to professional treatment. It's genuinely one of the hardest and most scary things I've ever had to deal with, and I really feel so lost. I tried ERP, but I feel like it made things worse. I'm trying I-CBT now, and I think it's helping a little bit, but I have no idea and honestly, I'm just so scared. The only support I have IRL is my spouse, and it's often not enough. Does anyone have tips or ways to support me so I can get better?

I’m going through what is hopefully just a really bad hypochondria episode where I’ve convinced myself I have schizophrenia. It’s been about 8 months and I’ve been through a range of crazy symptoms but the most prevalent symptom is getting crazy delusional thoughts like “what if my wife is a demon and trying to get to me” “what if NOBODY is real and these are all monsters/demons out to get me” etc etc. the thoughts are absolutely terrifying and they make me look at people differently, i get paralyzed with fear and i have to question myself whether I truly believe the thoughts or not, they feel so real, when they come on I catch myself genuinely feeling paranoid that they are 100% real and having a panic attack, but then the tiny bit of me that’s still rational brings me back to reality. And from then on I have to question myself all day “do I really believe this?” “Well you technically can’t disprove those things” “if it’s not real, then why does it FEEL real?” “This really is schizophrenia” “ what if it’s not schizophrenia but ACTUALLY real?” “who do I go to for help?” “What if I can’t trust anyone” and the scariest of them all…”why would a see a doctor if this is all real” etc, it’s literally hell. I can never give a satisfying “No, I don’t believe this” to these thoughts. I can go days and weeks and be able to confidently shrug them off and tell how ridiculous they are only for them to come back with a vengeance the next day. No amount of evidence can calm these thoughts. I no longer have little breaks where I’m not thinking about this, this obsession has completely consumed me. I feel like nowhere and nobody is safe, I just feel so fucking stuck and isolated. I try so hard and pull myself back to reality and provide myself with evidence for why these thoughts cant be true, but there’s just almost like a gut feeling, and such a sense of urgency and panic that comes with these thoughts that it’s becoming more and more difficult to talk myself out of this thinking. I’m truly at my wits end. This has ruined my life. I could really use some reassurance even though I know it’s bad. I have never been like this before until I started obsessing over schizophrenia. I’ve been like this for 8 months now. I’m at the point where I either believe the thoughts are true or this is ocd or schizophrenia, there is no more fear that I might believe the thoughts, it is now, fear that the thoughts are REAL. Can ocd/anxiety really be this severe?

For a long time, I would have an annoying process when doing things I enjoy. Here is how it was/is: 1. I’m enjoying something like games or music or videos. Anything. 2. Intrusive thought(s) show up 3. Feels like it’s tainted me or what I’m trying to enjoy 4. I stop doing it and get super upset or start over because I’ll feel relief after. Like I’m undoing the effect the thought made me feel by restarting or retracing steps or something. For games, it’s especially annoying because of how much I have accomplished in it already. Sometimes, I gotta keep redoing it until I just give up and don’t play cause…god, it’s so damn time consuming. This made it hard to even like things anymore. It’s annoying and I have a habit of hurting myself physically to cope. Obviously, not good but in a way, it’s punishment/relief. However, after watching the live streams of NOCD, I’ve learned and been practicing how to sit with the thought. A book I read also helped remind myself “Those thoughts aren’t yours, it’s your OCD. Just crazy thoughts made cause of a biochemical problem in your brain, dork.” HELLA uncomfortable in the beginning but I think I’m getting better at it. Trust, it’s still tricky and undoubtedly makes me feel awful sometimes but I make it through and feel lighter after. Now, I can listen to music and play games or watch fun things without letting the thought ruin my day or make me cry or distressed. I get the thought, and let it sit (maybe internally shrug my shoulders at it lol) and then it flows away and I keep enjoying what I’m doing. The thought was just a thought and I’ll treat it as such. And I continue on! I never thought I’d ever get to this point but here we are! I’d think “I wonder what it’s like for other people. They just sit and enjoy things without doing compulsions.” I think I’m finally experiencing that. I still stumble but I’ve been lessening the compulsive urges. Even the compulsive…hurting of myself… has lessened. I don’t stop doing what I like just because of thoughts that much now. I truly believe you can do it too, just practice and it gets a little easier day by day. (Hope this made sense, I’m doing this as I go hehe)