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the NOCD Community

I'm 32 and was diagnosed a few weeks ago. It's been really hard to accept how much of my life has been affected negatively by OCD and the paranoia and anxiety that comes from it. Just sad about it.

Hi, I'm Ali. Nice to meet you. I just randomly today started searching about OCD because I related to so many of these experiences on this app (which I don't want to mention) and I wonder if I really have an OCD. For example, yesterday my brother gave me his iPad since he hasn't used it in a while and there's a scratch on it, and I'm really scared if I did or he did it because wouldn't that show I'm careless with it, and he's had it for so long, so I don't know if he scratched it or I have, and the buttons are so clicky, and I don't know if they are meant to be like that. I really want to tell my dad, but I don't know if I'm just seeking attention because I've already told him about other experiences in the past and he has sorted them (I love my dad).  But if I ask him that I have an OCD, I don't think he would believe me. Please guys, I need your advice. Thank you for reading this much. Have a good day.

Hi all, A week ago, my dismissive avoidant boyfriend of 4 years broke up with me after a stupid argument. We started dating in August 2020, adopted a dog in February 2023, and moved in together in May 2023. We were each other’s first *everything*. We are both fully integrated into each other’s lives through family, mutual friends, and years of commitment. Not to mention our dog whom we both love like a child. For the past couple of months, I have been dealing with relationship OCD that turned into self harm OCD and the support I needed from him ended up being too much. His reasoning for breaking up was “it’s not you, it’s me” and that he is not “emotionally mature” enough to cope with his own stress and be there for me while I process mine. He has a very physically demanding job (construction) where his dad is his boss. This dynamic creates a high pressure environment that he feels like he can’t escape. When he gets home from work each day, he wants to unwind and not have to think about anything serious (through golf, video games, gym). But with me in therapy and also going through a hard time, I asked him to be home with me more to comfort me and take my mind of my anxiety. This required a sacrifice of the typical things he turns to to de-stress. Keep in mind that I was also very mindful to give him space to do the things he wanted, he just couldn’t keep doing them all night after work. Throughout the past couple of months I have expressed time and time again that while, yes, I am going through something hard, that doesn’t diminish his pain or his problems. I’ve always asked him to open up to me and let his problems be my burden too. But because of his trauma repsonse to suppress negative emotions, he never takes me up on the offer. So now, 4 years of (what I thought) would be the rest of my life with him is gone. He has emotionally shut down and told me that there is no room for a break or to try couples therapy or to try anything other than breaking up. He keeps saying he needs to work on himself and figure out why he can’t give me what I deserve. He says he can’t commit to me now, doesn’t want me to wait either, and yet is still saying that there is a chance I am in his future. I have a hard time accepting that as an adequate explanation. If anyone reading this is anxiously attached and has been through a long term relationship break up with a dismissive avoidant, please offer some hope, closure, or advice to me. I am currently feeling numb and like nothing about my situation is in my control. If this is not about me and this is truly about him, then why is he not willing to do the work on himself together, as a team. How is throwing away 4 years of a loving, amazing relationship easier than confronting his core issues with commitment and emotional maturity? Please riddle me that!

I usually always watch my drink or leave it around a close friend, but about a week ago, I had to do something urgent & took my eyes off of my drink for a long time. Somebody who I’m not sure if they like me was around it & then as soon as I finished what I was doing they left off & when they came back they were looking in my direction. I started to toss it altogether, but I took a sip & thought it didn’t taste the same but it could just be OCD. It’s been a week but I still feel uneasy worried my drink was tampered with or that there was some type of undetected poison. Even when I’m doing good, I wonder back to it & it makes me anxious. How do I move past it?

How can I beat ocd

So today was great I went out and had a good time went to the mall and just chilled for a bit. Then went to see my friends and I decided to tell them what I go through on a daily basis with OCD and they excepted me with open arms. But I do feel that stuff might change but it was progress and I'm proud of myself I just couldn't keep it in anymore and I did it. I hope anyone going through any type of OCD is able to tell friends and family and hopes of more positive outlook. I'm proud each and every one of us who is going through this. Love yall

I’ve been vaping for about three years now. I’ve tried to quit multiple times but with the people around me, also do, and it makes it difficult to stop buying it and or hitting it. My OCD is based off obsessive thoughts on my health and worrying about natural bodily feelings. Twitches, random pains throughout my body, scare me and make me feel like I can’t control my thoughts. When I vape, i’ve heard about lungs collapsing and I worry about it. I want to stop, but can’t seem to. If I have a headache I worry about a brain tumor, when there are many reasons I could have one. When I mess up a sentence I worry about a stroke, and check my face to see if it’s even. I worry about cancer on a regular basis, a small pain or lymph node swollen, i convince myself it’s cancer. I go to the doctor often because of this. It’s scary, that there is a possibility it could happen. I hate this.

Hello, I want to share my ocd story as I’m struggling with it severely right now. I was a very anxious child, when I was nine I started to have intrusive thoughts/fear/theme that I was somehow “pregnant”. Now this was concerning because I was nine..and a virgin CLEARLY. I hadn’t even gotten my period. The reason this scared me so much is that because i was a virgin, I was afraid if I was pregnant and the baby came, no one would believe me and everyone would hate me. When I was 13 this soon transitioned to being the same fear only this time because I had my period I was afraid that I either got gr@ped in my sleep, or somehow sp3rm was on the toilet seat and it well yk. However, none of this made any sense and I made myself sick worrying about it. My ocd would take a turn when I developed emotophobia, the intense fear of vomit and vomiting and so alot of my intrusive thoughts regarded vomit. As I got older they would switch and I was ALWAYS under some sort of stress. That’s when things got worse, I’m also diagnosed with anxiety so all the therapists were just treating me for anxiety but the main cause of this anxiety despite other things, is my ocd. I started to have “religious” ocd, as I consider myself a Christian and it’s a big part of my life, doing compulsions like “read that verse again, you messed up” ect. Which consumed a lot of my life. Here’s where things get hard to talk about, I started having what they call moral ocd? I was at least 15? And I thought my life was over, now the thing is when I was a kid I was messed with once, which gave me a lot of anxiety over the years and I didn’t end up telling anyone till I was older, I thought it was my fault. So I know that I would never, ever want somebody else to go through something so horrific. This fear eventually subsided, until this past year. When I was sixteen, my boyfriend sa’d me and I didn’t really have time to realize what had happened. We broke up right after which hurt a lot but I was relieved. Ever since then I was always very cautious about people, I knew what that felt like, so much shame, and not feeling like you can do anything about it. Eventually I started to get that moral ocd back, things like “what if I’m attracted to so and so” a family member ect. This would repulse me. I also watched a lot of true crime which didn’t help anything, this caused me to develop pocd/moral ocd. Now, I feel trapped I feel like I’m not at all what my intrusive thoughts say, I would never do them, and I want to isolate from EVERYONE. I feel like I don’t deserve to be here, I feel ashamed like God is ashamed of me and I have just cried and cried. I really need some encouragement or at least advice.

So I my family shared a water bottle with me and they were still drinking it. I was still a little sick with my sinus infection, although it's getting a lot better than it was before. They gave me the bottle and I drunk from it. I really don't know why I did this. What was I thinking? Why didn't I warn them? Why did I do this? I don't understand why I just went ahead and drunk from the bottle. This isn't the first time I think that I got them sick. I still had this same sinus infection and they had sore throats just like I had sore throats. I felt so awful about it. It was completely my fault that I got them sick but they did get better while I'm still dealing with a dry cough and blowing my nose. I guess I thought they wouldn't get sick? How does that even make sense? I guess it's because my mom didn't get sick when she drunk from me after I told her she shouldn't. She was fine. But now it seems like things are different. My mom doesn't seem sick but my sibling seems to be showing slightly symptoms of what I have. Why did I make such a dumb mistake? Why didn't I just save it for last? Why did I do this? It was 100% my fault. I don't want them to be sick at all. So why did I drink from the bottle? I just don't know why I would do this. I guess I was just ruminating in my head that they wouldn't get sick because I'm getting so much better and my mom didn't get sick from last time. But still, why would I do this? I feel like a bad person. I feel like a bad sibling and a son. I just feel like I've failed because of this. This completely threw off my day and it got me to spiral into old coping habits that only make me feel worse. I just don't get why I did this and why I wasn't thinking.

Hi! I pop in here maybe once or twice a year now to update you guys on my recovery. I struggled with severe harm OCD towards my child/myself for years. I went undiagnosed for the first 2 years thinking I was becoming schizophrenic/going crazy. I finally was able to pin it down and search for help matching all of my symptoms to OCD. I got on here with a therapist for a few months who taught me the basics and put me through ERP therapy. And it saved me. I learned the toxic cycle my brain was in and broke through it. The first few months were not good mentally since my anxiety was at an all time high but I have overcome the worst of it. That’s not to say I’m completely symptom free. That’s not a possibility. Everyone has intrusive thoughts but now I know how to work through them, I have learned the tools to understand that my brain has crazy thoughts and that is separate from who I am as a person and that is okay. Trust me when I say my brain has thought of the most unhinged things. I was scared of myself, I hated myself. How could I have thoughts about harming the most precious sweetest little human I have in my life. Well that’s how it works. OCD attaches itself to what you care about most and throws you the most vile thoughts/visions. Anything you have thought of, any weird scary thought that you think only you have experienced, trust me I’ve been there. I see you. I understand you and I want you to know you’re not alone. This isn’t a fight against who you are. This is a way to better yourself, to become stronger to become the person you know you truly are. You got this. You will get better. There will be a light at the end of this very dark tunnel. You will look back on the days you’re going through right now and say “wow I survived it”. Wishing you all the best!! If you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer and also if your therapist is putting you through hard ERPs…do them! It may seem like they are crazy or you don’t trust yourself but I promise they help!!

Can ocd give u a completely false memory out of no where that u think is real like can it be completely made up all of it? Bc i had one and it felt real but it didn’t seem like a memory logically what do i do?

Im so depressed... and I feel alone... theres no hope... My pocd keeps saying that my worst fear of unknowingly cybering with a minor has actually happened and it's really triggering the hell out of me... I feel so horrible...My pocd keeps saying I "unknowingly erotically role played with a minor" when idek if this actually happened or not... this was nearly three years ago... (september of 2021) for context we were erotically role playing on an 18+ discord server, (she wasnt verified, but I assumed she was 18+ because we were on an 18+ place) and then she suddenly stopped responding, before leaving the server shortly after an unknown time... im so freaking anxious and scared... her grammar was fine at first, but then as we were going on, she kept making errors like "boxer" or "then" instead of "than"... my pocd keeps saying that I "UNKNOWINGLY EROTICALLY ROLEPLAYED WITH A MINOR" when idek if this happened or not... some people told me she sounds like/is a young adult... chatGPT tells me she sounded like a teenager... I genuinely dont know what to believe anymore... (these two photos are from her account, and the beginning of our ERP... I hope she wasnt a teenager... I really hope she wasnt...)

Hey guys lol So the longer I’ve been in OCD therapy, the more my meds have helped quiet my mind: I realize how many things I have been doing that was compulsive that I didn’t realize was compulsive. And for some reason I felt like those compulsions helped me to feel closer to God. Like felt closer to my values. And now that I’m recognizing what I’m was doing and now that my medicine has helped create space between my thoughts and what to do next, I feel like fear was what helped me be close my values? Can anyone else relate? Or does anyone have tips on how to still feel close to your values with the absence of so much fear and paranoia caused from OCD?

If your also feeling this or your positive and don't want to ruin the mood I would not advise reading this I just hate how I'm always the one with an issue always unhappy stressed angry etc while everyone else seems so happy I wish for once I could feel what they are feeling instead I feel like complete this everyday My OCD has caused SO MUCH problems in my life conflicts and chaos with other people I hate how they are always successful and I am always failing and recently I’ve hated people in general and I have enjoyed human suffering because nobody has ever had empathy for me or cared the slightest when I had ocd Those lucky dipshits just made everything worse thinking I was doing it for no reason when I only did it for ocd If I ever saw someone suffering and in need I would never help because I never got help I’m going to University in a year I don’t know how on fucking earth will I manage it ERP keeps failing and. My ocd is going stronger and stronger consuming me If there was a way to end it all I really would do it I don’t like my life Might as well fail in life because this ocd is never going to go away If I had a friend with ocd maybe I could have helped them or they could have helped me All I know is I need help right now My ocd is one of the most extreme cases probably on earth this Inst an overstatement just meet me and get to know me and you will find and ocd worse than other In my logic and perspective us vs them mentally makes sence And I hate to say it but until ocd has a real cure I don’t think life is worth living

I just saw this notification pop up on my phone, that I was awarded the “OCD Conqueror” badge around 6 months ago. I just wanted to share some advice and support to anyone who is currently struggling, feeling lost, or even feeling better! OCD is honestly a very serious mental disorder. It is known as the “Doubting Disorder”, which I am sure many of you know. It can make you doubt your own character, value, intentions, beliefs, morals and so so much more. I am someone who has lived with OCD for around 10 years now, and honestly, the best advice I could give you guys is to see a therapist specialised in ERP. I was someone who was constantly doing compulsions, avoiding my triggers, trying to neutralise my unwanted negative thoughts. I always believed that these thoughts must have meant something about me. I always believed that I would never be able to live a normal life. I always believed that I would never get better. I have experienced every single sub-type under the sun, whether it has been False Memory OCD or Harm-OCD or whatever it may be, I have pretty much been through it all. I know how difficult it is, and honestly, I know how easy it is to get consumed into your themes. Here’s a little secret: the theme and content is actually IRRELEVANT. (OCD targets the things you love in life, it targets your values, your beliefs, your intentions, and your fears. So the theme and content is IRRELEVANT, because what really is the problem, is our reaction to these thoughts and feelings!) Everyone in the world has unwanted intrusive thoughts, whether they have OCD or not. The difference for those of us with OCD is that we have a much higher intolerance of being able to handle and accept doubt and uncertainty in our life. We have all probably been in this position here: “OMG, why does my brain keep coming up with these thoughts. I hate them. It must mean something terrible about me if it keeps popping up. I need to try and stop them”. At the end of the day, a thought is just a thought. Nothing else. It is literally a stream of words in your mind. Thoughts are not facts. Thoughts are not predictions. Thoughts are not indicators of anything. Thoughts have no influence on real world events. The best advice I can give you guys is this: Fighting with your thoughts and feelings gets you nowhere. Performing compulsions to reduce anxiety and distress gets you nowhere. Avoiding things that you feel will trigger you gets you nowhere. Mentally going over past events or scenarios to try and “figure” something out gets you nowhere. Honestly, coming from someone who has tried all of the above for multiple years, I can confirm that they feel like they are helping you, but truly, they are just making this worse. I got better when I figured out the goal is to just be able to co-exist with the likes of unwanted intrusive thoughts and anxiety. The goal is NOT to banish them. Once you learn that acceptance is the way forward, you will start to realise that your thoughts and feelings and urges or whatever it may be, are not actually dangerous at all. They may make you feel scared, anxious, on edge, and this is okay! Feelings are just feelings, again, they do not mean anything! Just allow everything to be there. At first, this does not feel natural at all. Most likely because your brains have adapted to the “OCD Way Of Life”, such as performing compulsions to banish the feelings of distress and anxiety. But over time, and with support from the community and your therapist, you will be so so glad you made this step and you will start to live your life under your own terms! You all got this! 😎🫶🏾

How can I tell the difference between suicidal ocd and suicidal thoughts?

Has anyone seen improvement from lifestyle changes? If so, what changes did you make?

Hello all. I (20 y/o female) have an intrusive thought that popped up about four months ago and has not been able to leave my head ever since and it is ruining my life. I have a memory (?) of when I was about 7-9 years old (although I really have no idea and my brain has told me varying ages even going up a few years) when I was in the shower and turned around to see my dad popping his head in the curtain to (realistically) either check on me or try to scare me as a prank. He is the most wonderful father and has never done anything inappropriate aside from this “incident” but my brain cannot let this go and is trying to convince me that this was sexual. I have always been a “daddy’s girl” but some days I cannot even speak to him on the phone because this fear that I was somehow abused is so deep in my brain. I’ll have days where I can reasonably tell myself that even if this did happen, he did not see it as inappropriate because I am his little girl, but other days it will disgust me to no end. I’ve brought it up with him once when my thoughts were at their worst but he said he didn’t even remember it happening. My brain will randomly go “hey, think about this–you’re a victim” through out the day and it’s like my whole body will shut down, my face gets hot and my heart starts beating faster and I just feel like all of the joy has physically been sucked out of my body. It often leaves me in a depressive episode. I can’t even fathom going to therapy out of the fear of my therapist telling me that this really was concerning behavior on behalf of my dad and I don’t think I could handle that. A little while back I posted this on a subreddit and someone in the comments said “this doesn’t give me a good feeling…. But it could have been innocent if you say so” and I haven’t been able to forget this. It send me into a total tailspin, if someone from an outside perspective says it’s weird then it must be??? Ever since this thought has popped up I can’t act normally. I sometimes can’t even watch movies that have dads in them because it makes me think of it, any time I hear a sex joke my skin crawls and god forbid anyone make a “sweet home Alabama” joke around me. I’ve never seen anything online about people who have experienced this too which just makes my worry so much worse. I’ve experienced OCD symptoms since early childhood however never anything like this which makes me even more scared that it is real. I truly don’t know what to do with myself anymore, every day just feels like the precious minutes I have between the times this thought pops up.

Does anyone think we are Selfish for worrying so much about our problems. Or is this jus my ocd?

Any tips on how to stop SH?