Welcome to
the NOCD Community

This thread is for a chat between me and JulioKelle

Okay so has anyone had OCD where they are fearing that they have cancer and are going to die? Here’s my story. This is a new theme for me and it came on as I was sitting outside in the sun over the weekend. I have a lot of moles/beauty marks on my body (I always have) and just the other day I started being hyperaware of them. I started feeling like some of them got bigger, then I started analyzing the shapes of them, the colors of them, I started looking at others around me to see if anyone had moles that looked like mine. Immediately it led to me possibly having cancer and spiraled from there. I can’t focus on anything but my body for the last few days and it’s driving me wild. I made a doc appt and that’s adding onto my anxiety. Can anyone relate to this? If so I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences. Thank you in advance

I just would like to know if anyone else has struggled with when eating getting gross images that make you stop eating. Or is that just me 😭

Fear of psychosis ocd For about 10 months now I’ve had an OBSESSION with developing schizophrenia or some related psychotic disorder. In the beginning my symptoms manifested as hyper awareness of potentially hallucinating and things like that but the main fear that has really stuck is the fear of having delusions. I’ve reached a point to where I can’t enjoy anything in life any for because according to my brain EVERYTHING has to mean something or is suspicious. I’m so suspicious of everything, “what if this commercial means something” “why did that person make that weird face” “what if this song has some kind of hidden meaning” “everything feels so fake and staged” “why did my cat look at me like that” “what if none of this is even real” “what if there’s more to reality than what we know” etc etc. it’s fucking exhausting. I can’t enjoy anything anymore, everything has to have some malevolent intent or meaning. These thoughts feel real, some of them feel like they could genuinely be possible, but I don’t want to think about this kind of stuff, I’m not sure if I even care if there’s something more to everything that I’m missing, but my brain will not stop this search for delusional things to believe. It’s gotten to a point where everything just feels fake and staged like a big act or illusion. Government, politics, media, just day to day life, feels so fake and artificial. It feels like I’m losing emotional attachment to things I love and care about because I’m constantly getting thoughts like “why should I care? Nothings real anyway?” Etc. Has anyone ever dealt with this?FYI: I’ve been to NUMEROUS mental health professionals who do not believe I have anymore more than ocd and sever hypochondria.

Hey, I’ve been struggling with ROCD and intrusive thoughts as well as groinal responses. I’m worried that all of this means I’m sinning even though these are things I do not desire and I’m committed to my man. To be with someone else is 100% not what I want and I want to honor him as much as I can, but I can’t help but feel like I’m sinning. Any help with this? I’ve been praying and talking and praying to Him and He’s been answering my prayers. But I hope there’s a community that can help:/.

This may make someone uncomfortable So I struggled with a porn addiction for 5 years, and so far I’m almost a month clean. I’m really happy for myself, but I still feel really ashamed because of the kind of porn I was watching. I started watching really extreme things that make me feel disgusted with myself and caused me to question if I’m even a good person. I’m scared that I would be attracted to that stuff in real life. I’ve been ruminating all day. I haven’t eaten, I have no appetite, and I’m so so ashamed. Btw, the content that I was watching had absolutely nothing to do with children or animals. But it was definitely extreme. I’m terrified of being attracted to the porn that I watched in real life. I’ve even been testing myself by imaging those scenarios that I watched in porn, and it’s only making me more anxious but I seriously can’t stop.

I don’t even know if I love my own boyfriend anymore because of my OCD, I want it all to stop…

I am currently in mainland Europe instead of the UK, as my girlfriend’s (who lives here) father just passed away. So I cannot do the usual NOCD sessions while I am here. She has been my main source of support during this awful disease. But now she is obviously facing her own very difficult time. I feel terrible seeking support - sometimes reassurance from her. I have been doing ERP 3x a day to make an effort to keep my OCD at bay. This is making me extremely depressed and I don’t know how to keep going. I am so worried I am being too much for her. The theme of my ocd is ROCD but can vary and has varied in the past. I love her more than anything and it’s killing me that I’m so dependent on her especially in this difficult time.

No matter what I do my emetaphobia is not getting better I think it’s gotten worse I’ve been struggling with it since I was 11 I’m 19 now:( I’m scared of being away from home and getting sick and it also ties into fomo fear of missing out I don’t know why I feel like if I get sick I will also miss out and be absolutely miserable. I’m just so scared of feeling nauseous I need help .

I was wondering if anyone had any tips on getting over someone when they’re your limerent object? I’ve been in love with my best friend for nearly 5 years now and he’s rejected me multiple times. I just don’t know what to do to get over him at this point, it feels like I’ve tried everything.

It might seem weird that I’m posting a picture of a squirt bottle, but it connects to my grandma, who died suddenly in her sleep yesterday. I struggled with emotional contamination for years, before I knew what it was, and it revolved around my grandma. Emotional contamination was my biggest theme, and it took me over a year to work through. It latched on to everything over my grandma-I couldn’t use the bathroom after her without scrubbing (which is the worst when you really, really have to pee but you have to clean first), I didn’t like having her text messages linger on my phone (what if they contaminated anything I did on my phone?), etc etc. So I worked through this with consistent ERP. I became ok with looking at her pictures and not knowing if I was going to turn into her, I stopped caring that she sat in my car, and that my car could have been contaminated, I became ok with using the same public restroom stall that she did—I worked through my fears that her energy would ruin me. Over time, I noticed progress from my ERP. I sent my grandma a picture of my cats on my bed—before, I would have worried her seeing my bed in a photo would make it dirty. OCD is so bizarre, but I know this community gets it. I texted her more often and could hug her. She moved out of state last year with my mom. On one of her trips out here, she gave me this squirt bottle so she wouldn’t have to pack it. The old me would have IMMEDIATELY thrown it away. But, the me who went through the most difficult ERP, decided to use it. I actually needed one. I didn’t care that my hair might be “dirty,” or my bathroom, or that her energy might go into the same bathroom where I take a shower. I’ve been using it almost daily and it’s just part of my morning routine. And now, sadly, my grandma is dead. And looking at this bottle just makes me reflect over how OCD got so tangled up in my family before I untangled it. I try to find a balance of not putting too much meaning or symbolism on things (so I don’t dip into magical thinking). I know one day this thing will break or I’ll get rid of it, and that’s ok. While I navigate grief and uncertainty and all the lovely emotions that come with death, I find some peace in knowing I was able to have a better relationship with my grandma after ERP. I’m glad she didn’t die when I was avoiding her. So, that’s my story. I’m flying out of state tomorrow morning to see my family, and I don’t know what OCD will latch on to when I go to the house she passed a way in. But it’s a quiet unknown. And this is giving me space to grieve, and feel angry and sad and all the things in between. ERP sucks, having a death in the family sucks, but somehow there’s some peace in there too.

I went to a church and i started to have panic attacks and since than i cant just move away from this depressive feeling, i just feel down, my mind is really negative and i try to use the tools what i learned but it doesnt works, i feel like im just using them to avoid how i feel, and feeling this doesnt help but it gives me more stress and i feel more hopeless and poweless about recovery. Everything i do feels wrong and im tired of it. Im juat tired of accepting it, accept everything and i still feel worse and worse, it doesnt want to ease, im stressing out more. Idk since ive been told that im just avoiding feeling bad and everything i do is a compulsion or avoidance i just cant do anything when i feel a certain way cause i spin about me doing anything is a compulsion and its tiring. And the panic attacks were just a sign that my body had enough of this stress, but a really negative discomfort or malaise is came after it and i cant just move away from it. Now every emotion is so strong, its stressing me out. And again i cant do anything cause i feel like im just doing a compulsion

I want to be happy and not be miserable and I feel like I try to help others be happy but I can’t get myself to be happy 😢

I have a friend who im close with (we are both girls) and we're both in a relationship with boys. I've always had ROCD intrusive thoughts that made me feel as if I don't love my boyfriend but this time it's different. It started when my friend opened up abt her sex life or something to me and I for some reason started feeling really upset and uncomfortable. I didn't know why it honestly felt like jealousy and I wanted to hear her out but also I didn't want to continue listening. I then started having intrusive images of HER and HER BOYFRIEND doing stuff (how creepy I know) and it just made me so upset. I started feeling like it meant I was jealous that IM not in a relationship with her. I start getting groinal responses every time I see her pfp online and I got so panicked I read the lesbian masterdoc which made me MORE confused bc some of the stuff on it I related to. I don't even know if this is ocd or not bc low-key I do think she is extremely attractive and obviously imagining myself in a relationship with her makes me cringe so bad, but also imagining her in any other relationship also makes me feel jealousy? Idk I saw a TikTok with a lesbian girl explaining how to tell if you have romantic or platonic feelings for your female friend. She said to imagine her standing at the altar at her wedding and how it makes you feel. It felt awful like i felt soo uncomfortable at the thought of seeing her get married to her current bf. Then I imagined for myself if I was the one getting married to her, and it felt easier and better to imagine. Surely that means something?? I also felt rlly tall and manly in that marriage imaginations which is weird. I feel weird. I'm now worried I'll never get over her and that I will never love my boyfriend the same again. I'm worried I am a lesbian even though I truly do love him and i remember so vividly what it felt like to fall in love with him (it was awesome). I've been with him for 3 and a half years anf im losing sight of where I stand with him because I have dealt with horrific TOCD for the last year and now I think (hope) HOCD. I just need this to GO AWAY!!!

I want to end It all, I feel so alone in my head, like no one understands at all.I just want to end it…

i've seen there are actual posts on here that straight-up talk about actual actions associated with "p", while i absolutely need help with this, i cannot and will not tolerate seeing such posts and nor should anyone else. this is disgusting.

how do you guys get over the anxiety of what people with no ocd would think of the stuff/thoughts we did/think. that’s my biggest thing right now is being afraid people wouldn’t talk to me ever again if they knew my thoughts and compulsions i had done.

Ive been in treatment for OCD off and on for 2 or 3 years now. Ive been finding myself in a “flare up” after moving and changing jobs. My biggest thorn/theme has been harm, specifically suicide. Just from having gone through this before, I know the line between what’s ocd and what’s truly being suicidal can be blurry. I’ve had people tell me that the intrusive thoughts of death can be OCD or it can be depression. Forever I’ve operated with the belief it’s OCD with sprinkles of depression (who wouldn’t be dealing with this) I guess my worry is that if this is what being suicidal is, I need help, bad. I can tell myself it’s OCD all day, but being it’s the doubting disorder, I ask “what if I’m lying and want to die?” I want this certainty that I’m not truly suicidal and it’s just these unwanted thought. Is it even possible to have that certainty? How can do tell the difference between the two?

if I stop trying to suppress or review horrible intrusive images, am I not just telling my brain that is okay to have those thoughts? Can my brain start to perceive horrible things as normal? Maybe I'm reaching.

What should you do when you're *about* to have a terrible intrusive image? Should you just let it happen? Something that I often do probably as a compulsion is to try to suppress the horrible intrusive image from fully forming itself, and when I do that I notice that I always scrunch my eyes and contort my face. Do we have to allow the intrusive image to just happen? Even though it causes us distress?