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the NOCD Community

This week might’ve been a bit chaotic with the holiday, but you made it through—be proud! What was a win for you this week?

Has anyone ended a relationship because of ROCD, almost preemptively, out of fear of hurting the other person or because of obsessive fears that they might be cheating, and then regretted it afterward? We have gotten back in touch and I have already changed the dynamic. I am no longer seeking reassurance, I am sitting with the discomfort, and I am handling the anxiety in a healthier way. My question is: for those who have been in this situation, how did you handle the night before the first date after reconnecting? Specifically, the obsessive thoughts about how to act normal, not seem over eager, not chase, and not slip back into reassurance seeking.

i’m scared if i’m dying or if i have a tumor my side head hurts on my left and it feels like something is crawling on my head and my eye kinda hurts idk what to do help.

Guys I need help issues I've been going through and I honestly need help because if I was masturbating earlier today and it's felt like I purposely thought of my father why it's just I don't know why I just did and I feel so weirded out by it it's just like my thought just starting you know I don't know how to explain it it was just that was doing it and then my brain just focused on that instead my for some reason like it felt like I chose to think it's I am sorry if I'm not explaining it well but I feel like a weirdo and I don't want to be near my family anymore like I've been going through a lot and this is just horrible it's just like I chose to thank the thought and it felt like I wanted it and I feel so weird at all if someone had the same issue please let me know I just want to know I'm not alone in this it's not even that I also had sexuality issues because recently I've been down a spiral of looking at transgender and feminine men content and it's just like confusing for me I think it's just because my brain makes association of men that just made me think of my dad because I'm 18 and young and I'm on explorer myself so after I do it to be so types I honestly just feel shame and regret I don't think I am gay at least not that I know because afterwards I don't really like it but I just feel shame when I do it but also I feel so horrible because it felt like I thotght it on purpose like it's just I don't know how to explain it I just thought it and now I'm afraid

I want to know whats the worst thoughts / content you ever got and how you got through it , and what about your relationship? Because I’m currently having thoughts that go like “imagine xyz act “ (sexual ocd) and it can throw in things like my bf friends names or even continue the statement like that and it bothers me so much . I feel like I’m going numb yet at the same time I feel really sad and depressed about it

Tw: intimacy I’ve had bad ROCD, especially around intimacy and sex. It was actually manageable for a little while but now it’s gotten bad again. Sometimes when I’m half-asleep or not paying attention I get subconscious thoughts or little flashes of wanting/imagining intimacy. The second I snap back to reality I feel instantly disgusted and sick to my stomach. There’s kind of an opportunity to date someone right now but the whole idea terrifies me. I have literally zero experience (and I’m not that young), so people are always surprised and it makes me feel weird and alienated, like I can’t just be “normal” about it. On top of that my retroactive jealousy is awful. I can’t get over the other person’s history or body count, especially if anything was casual, because it goes against everything I actually want. Logically I don’t even care that much about sex or pleasure, but my brain is completely latched onto it. I can’t feel comfortable being touched by someone who’s touched other people that way. I hate the idea of being someone they just settle with. I hate the idea of them teaching me anything because all I can think about is how they learned it with someone else. Yet I want love so, so badly. I just want to feel safe and comfortable with someone while my mind is finally quiet instead of screaming “they’ve slept with other people, you’re not special, they won’t find it as special with you because you’re not the first.” It’s so frustrating and exhausting. I want a perfect relationship while knowing no one is perfect and has a past. :< Anyone else stuck in this exact mess? I could really use some hope. I know I keep posting this but I'm just feeling hopeless and scared. I know it'll get better but right now it's very bad.

Thanksgiving and I’m worried I’m gonna over eat and feel like Gods telling me to fast but I never know when or how long and when I’m fasting I just have anxiety the whole time but I think I have a good addiction cuz I always think abt it and I try to not over eat but whenever I’m hungry I’m like oh I like HAVE to eat so I don’t starve myself and over indulge later but it’s okay to be hungry.. idk why I always think I have to and go to it for comfort instead of Christ but deciding the boundaries and what not is hard. And it’s a sin if I ignore it and just keep doing what I’m doing I think it’s an idol cuz I can’t fast and deny my flesh for a certain amount Of time

I keep obsessing over diabetes im so scared of getting it because im overweight and what if I dont lose weight quick enough and end up getting it? I'm soo anxious. I also googled the symptoms and it said tingly feet and hand are a symptom and mine are tingly. I'm so scared. It doesn't help that the healthcare where I live is awful and my doctor refuses to help me when I need her it's making my anxiety so much worse

i have an elder cat that is so loud and has a very annoying meow. He doesn't understand personal space at all. A while ago i wanted to sleep but he kept jumping on my bed bothering me no matter how many times i would get him off the bed. Eventually after he kept doing it over and over again i felt disrespected and i got pissed off and i picked him up very quickly and a bit roughly, in the sense that i didn't pick him up slowly and gently by supporting his legs, only by his armpits and he is a bit of an overweight cat, so im afraid it hurt him; what makes it worse is that i knew i should have supported his legs, but i was so tired and frustrated that I impulsively did the "not nice" way. Then for a second in my brain i felt like punishing him, an intrusive kind of voice "hold him still in air as punishment", and i did that as a test i think, I self sabotaged myself into carrying out that order, and I held him in air for a second and immediately felt horrible and put him back in the floor again. The very moment I picked him up in air i immediately felt bad and any ounce of anger was gone, just horror for what I did. I felt like I did something unforgivable and irreversible. For some time I reassured myself thinking that i didn't hurt him, at most he had a meow of discomfort, and at worst he would have felt slight discomfort. Now I googled and apparently i hurt him. Lifting an overweight cat only by his armpits will hurt him no matter what. I feel evil and like an animal abuser. Maybe I am. I've never harmed my cat physically outside of possibly this event. I don't have a lot of patience but I force it upon me, so whatever annoying thing they do i suppress it all the time and i try to treat them with care, I was left to deal with 3 cats alone all by myself in a tiny apartment and sometimes is overwhelming.

I've had fluvoxamine prescribed to me for my OCD/anxiety for 2 months now and have yet to try it out because I'm scared it could make me feel emotionless or have some sort of psychosis feeling side effect. Has anyone taken this for their OCD and does it give bad side effects? Should I just take the leap and try it? I'm so scared 😨

Happy Thanksgiving! Tell us one thing you’re thankful for today.

I recently found out that I have OCD and it was honestly an enormous relief. I spent nearly ten years having been diagnosed with generalized anxiety and depression, receiving incorrect treatments and trying to apply coping mechanisms that were actually making things worse for me. You may think that this would make me angry to think I could have been on the path to recovery sooner and wasn’t, but I’m honestly just thankful to finally know. When I read NOCD’s list of subtypes, my jaw was on the FLOOR because it felt like half of the article was written about me. The only time in the last decade I felt I found something effective was an audiobook I found on my own about intrusive thoughts which used a technique very similar to ERP. Go figure. Anyway, I had a couple of questions that may be cathartic or help others be reflective. First, who else was misdiagnosed? How long? What was your treatment experience like and what was your reaction when you learned the truth? Share as much or as little as would be helpful to you. Second, were there ancient signs you suddenly started remembering that now make way more sense? For me, it was sensorimotor and existential OCD. In high school, I had an extended phase where I couldn’t stop paying attention to how much I blinked and also had a phase where I could not stop questioning reality and your classic existential questions. I also had a period in college when my eye floaters drove me absolutely nuts every day. Anyway, hope you’ve come across this feeling well and I’d be happy to hear from you.

Just need to vent. Starting off by saying I just started my journey on NOCD and I’m feeling super hopeful. I went to dinner tonight in the middle of Manhattan with my aunt uncle and cousin and just was a wreck the whole time trying to keep it together. I had a bad migraine today due to work being so overstimulating and stressful. But of course the OCD took it to another level of convincing myself that I was going to embarrass myself at dinner and pass out or lose balance bc of the headache. This then caused me to spiral and have several mini panic attacks, which I think I had fairly well but I know I was fidgety and uneasy. I’m just so over this. I used to be the life of the party. Able to make conversation with anyone. Funny and outgoing. Now I’m stuck in the prison that is my mind and I can barely get through a simple dinner sometimes. It’s moments like these that I feel helpless and quite honestly, like a loser. Any positive words would be appreciated right now. Thanks for listening to me vent ❤️

I’m not looking for reassurance with this post, but I am looking for community because I do feel very alone. I am currently struggling with incest OCD, at least I think I am. I had had intrusive thoughts for a while, but it never really stuck. Then for some reason one day it’s stuck. And I was absolutely horrified to tell my new therapist about it as she is not an OCD specialist and I didn’t know if she would understand. I am kind of forced to see this family member often and have always been super super close with them. However, for the past couple months, I have been struggling with this family member as I feel of, so they’ve been very controlling in my life and I want to live my life away from them. I want to live my own life, but I still want them in my life as they are very important to me. So would have this theme, but the theme wouldn’t last very long because then I’d be forced to interact with this family member basically as exposure and the theme would kind of fade away because it felt stupid. Well, I went on a date with a guy and suddenly I had the fear of what if this person looks like this family member. From there, this sphere has absolutely plummeted and destroyed me to the point where I actually think it’s true. I cannot tell if I am distressed because I am worried that this fear is true or if I am distressed because it is true. I went on a trip with my family, including his family member last week and the first few days of the trip. I was not very nice to this family member as I did not want to be around them and I wanted to avoid them. However, after a few days, I felt very stupid. I felt like I was no longer consumed by the sphere and basically like I had done exposure therapy again. So naturally, I felt extremely guilty for how I had acted the first couple days of the trip and to make up for it. I let this family member have a bite of my sandwich to which I then became worried that I had basically made out with this family member because Now our mouth germs had touched because I gave them a bite of my sandwich. I have been forcefully, putting images of sexual activity with this family member, and into my brain to see how I might react to them. For a very long time over the past couple months when I did this, I did not like the image. Now when I do this, I cannot tell it says, though I have no reaction like I don’t care which makes me fear even more that it’s true. However, I’m not distressed in the same way that I feel that I have been with them in the past. Part of this could be due to medication. But it does make this theme seem different. To circle back to this family member being very controlling. It is one of my parents, who was very strict when I was growing up. However, I absolutely idolize this parent and lately with a bunch of conversations with different friends, have realized that I have an extreme codependency on this parent that I really want to break. I do not know how codependency and incest coincide or even how codependency and OCD might coincide. But I feel like oh well is not working because there is a much bigger issue at hand that I do not know how to resolve. If anyone has any advice, I would love to hear it. I’m not convinced that this is OCD. A lot of stuff I’m finding on the Internet says that it is OCD. But the distress feels different, maybe because of medication or codependency? I don’t know if I’m numb or if I’ve just accepted it. Again, I am not looking for reassurance, but maybe some community maybe somebody who’s been through through something similar or even just some advice. Advice for if it’s OCD and maybe even advice for maybe if it is real?

+18 So yesterday, I was playing with some friends on a video game server, it's a server where people usually play around on as dinosaurs but then a certain individual who was known as a child joined. Truthfully, I was irritated with this individual and it became annoying to even be in their presence, but I had began to question myself if I was creepy or acting like one of THOSE people, I began to spiral and Google frantically until I got a memory? Truth be told, I don't know if this memory actually happened or not, but it scared me nonetheless. It was a memory of me playing the video game and I was aroused and it felt pleasurable and enjoyable in the moment, I didn't immediately panic or anything, it wasn't just the arousal that made me feel like I liked it but also my feelings. After I "remembered" that memory, I began to spiral terribly to the point I had to get off my PC and keep myself onto my bed out of fear I'd act on my thoughts. I can't be for certain if this memory is true or not, but it genuinely felt like in that moment that I was enjoying the feeling and the thought, it was sexually intrusive in nature yes, but I didn't panic immediately afterwards! I only panicked hours later, I could use some advice or explanation to what the hell this is all about. Please and thank you

So I’ve never been diagnosed with ocd or adhd due to not getting checked out but I honestly think I have adhd I mean I have intrusive thoughts here and there and anxiety but the symptoms of adhd are there idk someone explain please

Went to sleep at 4-5 AM this morning, very tired. I don’t feel like therapy and I never do but been crying spontaneously these last few days and I can’t control my mind so I know that something is off. I know something is wrong but I don’t know how to. OCD feels like a lying spirit. Anyone have intrusive thoughts of selling their soul? Just me? I need to know I'm not crazy.

Good morning everyone I wanted to post because I’m having a huge setback. I was doing really well and I’ve been in OCD therapy for about a year now, but I’ve been having a big relapse and I’m having all these guilty feelings of not knowing how to explain urges that I had back when I was having really bad Intrusive thoughts towards my husband and now it’s like I still can’t seem to get over the fact that I could’ve or would have hurt him if I didn’t remove myself from the situation. I just feel like a horrible person and that I can never truly be content with myself cause I can’t understand my emotions at the time and I have fear of it happening again in the future.

Lately I’ve been feeling really frustrated in my relationship, and I’m trying to understand where these feelings are coming from. My boyfriend and I are long-distance, so the time we plan together really matters to me. Recently, when we plan date nights, his parents or siblings often pull him away at the last minute. For example, this past Sunday we planned a movie night. We both got snacks, were excited, and had everything ready. About an hour before, he told me his family was making dinner again (even though they had already eaten earlier) and that he had to help, which meant our date was canceled. This wasn’t the first time something like this has happened his family often calls him to help with things right during our planned time. What frustrates me is that it makes me wonder: if I were physically there, would he still walk away from our plans to help? It makes me feel like our relationship time is less important because we’re long-distance. I talked to him about wanting at least one dedicated date night a week, especially since we only see each other about once a month. His siblings get to spend time with their partners weekly without interruptions, and I brought that up not to compare us, but to show that they’re allowed uninterrupted time, while our dates get disrupted a lot. He told me we shouldn’t compare because every relationship is different, but I still feel like the interruptions are happening too often. Another thing that’s been bothering me is how our phone calls have changed. They used to be something we both looked forward to three hours of talking, laughing, and feeling close. Now our calls feel rushed, sometimes only five minutes, and I feel like the excitement has faded. It makes me worry because it feels like the “honeymoon phase” is already gone and we’re only eight months in. We’re both 21, and I know relationships change over time, but the shift feels so sudden that I don’t know how to process it. There’s also the issue of sleeping over. His parents don’t want him to stay the night at my place, but I can stay over at their house, just in a separate room and basically supervised. He insists it’s not about trust, but logically it really does feel like a trust issue. It’s frustrating because it feels one-sided and inconsistent, and I don’t know how to bring it up without causing more tension. Now I’m also stressed because I’m seeing his whole family on Sunday for an event where I’m getting an award. I’m scared it will feel awkward because I’m still hurt and annoyed about everything. He keeps trying to explain that because he’s home, his family depends on him to help. I get that, but it doesn’t feel fair that he’s always the one dropping everything, especially in a house with six kids. I guess I’m posting because I don’t know how to balance being understanding with still needing consistent quality time in a long-distance relationship. I’m trying to figure out if my feelings are valid or if I’m expecting too much.

I am in a contemplative mood this evening, and thought to reflect on my thoughts and feelings here for a while. Mmmm… the mind! Is it not fascinating? It can be so many different things all at once. Look at it from one angle, and you have peaceful rolling curves, like clouds. Completely neutral feelings, with maybe some noise ferrying back and forth a while, hardly mattering, but interesting… Look at it from another angle, and you see the burning white hot fury of ten thousand stars. Sharp, jagged thoughts, splintering out in bold and piercing javelins of hate. Adjust the angle slightly and you see passion and empathy instead… At a third angle I look at my mind and see a pale blue glacier rising out of the fog as a horrifying monument to sadness. Puts ice in your veins, doesn't it? Makes you feel nothing is worth trying, so might as well lay on the floor moaning. Ah, but I adjust the lens a bit and it is elevating me; it is a call to action; a clarification of my values; of what to do; and I go forward once the ice heals me sufficiently. Ah, and at this fourth angle there is… oh, fascinating! Fear. Yes, a great fear. A mortal terror. It's shaped like all of the worst things that could happen to me. Posturing at me like a many-eyed monster, every pupil filled with the promise that the worst will pass. And then another angle, I see a wounded animal. A starving creature who just wants to be fed. To feel okay. To not be in pain anymore. And then at another perspective, it is not really in pain at all, but only afraid that it might one day be. And then I look again and it is the neutral, cloud-like shapes again. Calm, and contemplative, and here right now in this moment. The only one that exists. So some soft shapes, and some sharp ones, some bold lines, and some blurry lines. Concave and convex. Kind of all at the same time at every different angle. Minds have a fascinating geometry, don't they? It never ceases to intrigue me how I can have so many different types of thought and feeling and emotion all the same time, many of them being even contradictory with each other! Do you ever visualize your mind like this? Not literally picturing your brain, but figuratively speaking; what does your mind look like? What colour is it? What is it shaped like? Does it resemble anything? Does it change form if you look at it for a long while? My own path with OCD demonstrates many different shapes. It's all very fascinating to me. thoughts can be lovely or terrifying. Or they can be lovely and terrifying at the same time. Or I can be terrified of how lovely they are, or in love with how terrifying they are. Sometimes all at the same time. And that's an example on just one axis. Those intrusive thoughts are shaped in such fascinating ways. It's so interesting how OCD can make the mundane and the ordinary suddenly feel strange and mysterious and overwhelmingly frightening! Sometimes I try to make the scarier shapes go away. Try to mold them. Try to change them! But I have found over time that I do not have to do that for them. Thoughts are just thoughts. I don't actually have to make anything more or less of them than what they already are. They come in and say hi, and I give them the space that they need, and then they eventually move on their way to wherever other shape they want to be. I mean, as an example, my mind was a ball of barbed wire when I started typing this message because I have been trying to cut back on screen time and in recognizing intrusive thoughts forming around that fact I decided to type this message out as an exposure. And that did things to me. Ah, but now it's changed shape again. Basically, if I stop running away from these frightful shapes of the mind, and just sit down and let them be; it always seems to turn out that they weren't really chasing me at all, and are actually just running in the same direction as me. Oh, they're frightening, don't get me wrong, but they eventually dissipate into different shapes and such, and they part ways with me as I sit with the discomfort. All of their own accord. The thing that matters is that I didn't have to run for that to happen. You ever been running? It's hard! I'll just chill out and let the thoughts run themselves around, if it's the same to you! And so such is the reflection and teh exposure. Ah, a typo there. Many fascinating shapes… well, I'm going to go now. Do have a pleasant time now! Good vibes to you all. ^-^