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the NOCD Community

Does anyone have any tips on overcoming dermatillomania? I pick at my skin for hours every day... So bad that sometimes I can't leave the house in fear of people looking at my skin. It started when my ocd symptoms did (about 14 years old). I'm now 24 and just learning that I have ocd (intrusive thoughts, tapping, checking, counting, involuntary blinking, excessive cleaning of myself and house)... I wasn't diagnosed properly until now. I also have anxiety about writing emails, googling, social media, texting etc in fear that I've said something horrible or offensive or that my intrusive thoughts are going to somehow take over and type for me .... Lol so this took me about an hour to finish writing and to post.... Had to read it precisely 30 times just to be sure ;) thanks for reading ... Also does anyone else suffer from the writing messages and ocd thing ??? Or just me? ?

How can I accept that I may need medication for the rest of my life? Some background: I have several family members with OCD, my paternal grandmother and one of my cousins on my dad's side. I had anxiety issues from really early on as a kid, particularly around health related stuff. I would clean little cuts frequently, small things like that. Other than that, I never felt majorly affected. That changed when I was 19, a few months after I gave birth to my son. I started having obsessions rooted in hypochondria, like that I might have some disease, or that myself and/or those I love would get some horrible illness and die. I was diagnosed and started taking Prozac at 21 years old. I'm now 27. Medication works incredibly well for me. I have no side effects, I function totally normal when medicated. But I've gone off medication like 5 or 6 times just to see if I'm finally okay, and without fail, I relapse (which is happening to me right now, and yes, I've restarted my meds.) My OCD thoughts don't want to accept this though, and I'm being thrown all kinds of thoughts like what if someday the world falls apart and I don't have access to medicine? Or what if I take it for years and years, just to someday find out that it gave me brain cancer or insertdiseasehere? Does anyone have any tips for accepting medication as a necessary part of my life?

Existential OCD Bit of a rant... Are the majority of people unaware of how meaningless their lives actually are or are they aware but think fuck it and carry on? Example; Saving up to go on holiday Brain "why would i want to go on holiday? You're going to work all year, to go to a warmer part of the world for 1 week and lie around sun bathing, maybe get drunk a few days and fly home?" .... As much as i don't want to look at it that way, its true. I look at it right at its core, what it truly is. I can do the same with life... My brain - "whats the point in working all year, every year to go on a few holidays (warmer parts of the world) in my life, have some good times to die, like whats the point in that?" And im baffled because its true. I'd literally go on holiday to see some pointless monument or get drunk like i could anywhere, eat food i could get anywhere (nowadays) Am i supposed to try and stick my head in the sand and pretend its not a thing or do people just accept it and get over it and live their life knowing its quite meaningless. Its just so annoying that i question 'why' am I actually doing this. Does everybody ask themselves these questions? I can't believe its took me to get to my late 20s to realise this. Its like BAMMM everything you've ever thought was cool or fun actually has no meaning to it. How do people continue to do their daily lives, care free without feeling what they're doing is pointless? I suppose i have a few options; 1. Its true but accept it and get over it. (Currently trying) 2. Freak out forever about it and become depressed 3. Freak out and try and find purpose desperately before realising there is 99.9999% no point in my life (tried) 4. Other..? Anyway, ye any thoughts would be appreciated ??‍♂️?? Cheers.

had a breakdown and started crying in my drawing class because my ocd wouldn’t let me start making marks on the page for the fear of messing up. I talked to my professor about needing to leave and he was very nice, and said I can come work on it over the weekend. I went to the bathroom to wash my face before going back to class and as I looked at my red crying face in the mirror I thought “what if I’m just faking this and I’m actually just lazy and don’t wanna draw” :(

Can someone who has dealt with a similar situation help me. *warning* do not read unless u can deal with depressing post. Recently my girlfriend broke up with me and she was my best friend so I dont have anyone else to ask. I've been increasingly depressed lately and have been feeling suicidal. I'm afraid to reach out for medical help because last time they almost sent me off to a psychiatric ward and im not sure I can deal with that. I just feel like like my OCD is worsening. I have a hard time getting up in the morning, I used to only sleep 4-6 hours and now it's around 10 a night. I try to eat but I just never feel like eating even when I cook. I just dont really know what to do anymore I just want some advice and to know if anyone else has gotten past this point.

My OCD theme just switched so fast. I was freaking out about having schizophrenia now my religious theme is starting. I’m having a lot of anxiety. Is that normal? Can your theme just change. Can you have more then one at a time? I feel like I’m losing it. It’s also so intense that I started feeling hopeless. I hope this passes?.

Has anyone gotten over hocd?

I just want to genuinly feel all those feelings i used to get when i imagined a scenario w my crush in it or when i imagined a love scenario at all. I miss al those feelings and not expierncing them changed me in a bad way.

Anyone here afraid that they'll find out that they wont enjoy sex (im avirgin)with guys in future because they are actually lesbian. Im sooo afraid of that.

Is it normal that when you have hocd you like get turned on by more same sex thoughts because they cause you these groinal responses not caring do you feel comfortable or not. But when you tryna have like straight sex thoughts you enjoy them little end then your brain is no you are faking it you don’t like that so you can not enjoy them fully anymore? I am dying here because I am scared that’s mean I am lesbian

Is this even ocd anymore? Suddenly I start thinking “you don’t want to be with a boy you want a girl” I can’t be at peace for one second on my day. Now it just feels like I actually am gay and I don’t know what to do. I’m nauseous the whole day and every time I think about a boy the a picture of me with a girl comes up. At this point, it feels impossible to ever recover. I just feel like it’s me and not my head. How could my head make it seem so fucking real? I just don’t know what to do. Will I ever be in love with a man again??

Hey,who's had ocd for 5yrs+,I've got some questions

My pain will last forever

** DEATH AND DECOMPOSITION OF HUMANS MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING ** Does anyone have an obsessive fear of death? Not like the act of dying, but like rotting things and contamination from corpses or people losing what makes them human. This was one if my old themes. Anything related to decomposition like maggots, flies, or smells that I thought smelled like death would set me off. It started when a guy in my building died from TB and they didn't find him until a few days later. They supposedly had a clean up crew come in, but I have serious doubts that they actually cleaned anything properly because I live in an absolutely disgusting slum with a slum lord owner who doesn't give two shits about people, only saving a dime. My mom worked in a cemetery when I was little so she knows what crypt gnats look like and what death smells like due to mausoleums. I still don't recognize the smell (even though she explained it to me), but she's pointed out the flies to me so I know what they look like. I wish I didn't because now I know when someone is dead in my building. One of my neighbors went into the apartment of her other neighbor down stairs from me and found him dead and went into extreme detail about his decomp to me. I went outside and found a medical glove with fluids on it that I think were from the clean up of his body the same day. It made me have a big mental breakdown. I still get intrusive thoughts about the description of what he looked like sometimes. I ate a guava and realized there were worms in it and literally chucked it across my kitchen and screamed and promptly sobbed while washing my mouth out for like 15 minutes. I know fruit flies are totally different, but any maggots remind me of death. It's not even people dying that bothers me. My next door neighbor died fron a drug overdose a few months back, but they tried to save her. It's decomposition that bothers me both because of contamination and the loss of humanity that decomposition brings. I had this intense curiosity to look at images of decomposition on reddit even though I didn't want to. My bestfriend told my about her mom working with old people and how she found rotting people multiple times and again she went into detail. I was afraid see someone I'm very close to for a short period of time because they told me that they died as a child and had to be resuscitated. He told me that you evacuate your bowels when you die (sorry for the details) and again this bothered me because it's a loss of humanity type thing, not because he died. I don't know why this made me avoid him because he's alive now. Old people bother me for the same reason because they lose what makes them who they are as people and pretty much revert back to babies. Sorry for the long rant, but I started thinking about it again.

I can't stop myself from checking for arousal by thinking sexually suggestive thoughts about teenagers. And I also check for arousal by thinking about a pedophile getting an erection while looking at a child to see if I'm attracted to pedophiles themselves. I'm so terrified. I don't want to check like this anymore, but it pisses me off that I always feel something down there. I feel absolutely disgusting. I don't want to be a pedophile, nore be attracted to pedophiles nore be a pedophile apologist. I just want it wiped off my mind. I hate it so much these compulsions make me feel like an irredeemable piece of garbage. I am so fucking sick of this. I feel like even if I get diagnosed and treated for OCD, I'll never get over the regret of willingly thinking these things to check. I feel like a horrible person.

It’s hard accepting uncertainty for certain ocd thoughts because if it is true then it makes me feel I should not exist. It sucks.

An excessive irrational fear of hiv. I know it can't b transmitted by this process but still

So scared of becoming delusional, does anyone else struggle with this? Is it possible for your intrusive thoughts to copy delusions? As well as thinking you believe the thought for. Split second? I’m also feeling like I’m losing touch with reality. Does anyone have advice. I’m scared this is the beginning of me losing my mind.

Does anyone feel like they’re losing themselves? I just experienced something really strange and I’m scared I’m actually developing schizophrenia

I hate that it just feels like I’m attracted to girls now.. anyone else this way?