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I only find very few men attractive/am attracted to them. Does that mean something?

Hi everyone. (|||❛︵❛.) Tonight is a bit rough I'm noticing, which is unfortunate because yesterday was a lot of fun and even today was good with the exception of one intrusive thought I had earlier. I will take the opportunity to vent, since I don't normally do so on here (even though I should—who will understand me better, besides my fiancé and sister, than others who also suffer from OCD?). I went out grocery shopping with my fiancé today, which we went to Walmart, and we had gone into the toys area because we like to look for Magic the Gathering cards and plushies. He found a Vaporeon plushie and knew that I'd want it, so he showed it to me and said I could get it. Really sweet, right? ⸝⸝ʚ̴̶̷̆ ̯ʚ̴̶̷̆⸝⸝  I was so happy, and then I had a classic OCD thought: what if we end up breaking up, and I leave my plushies at his house? It was upsetting and I ended up zoning out for a little until he asked me what was up, to which I tried shaking it off and carried on with our trip. I successfully finished shopping, getting food, and coming home without feeling too uneasy! I also helped put groceries away, ate with him, and then we watched some YouTube videos before he fell asleep. ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ ) It was only until the past 20 minutes or so that I started getting the unnerved, uneasy feeling in my tummy that usually comes with my intrusive thoughts. I notice sometimes I get the feeling without a direct intrusive thought attached to it, which ends up with me trying to figure out what's causing the anxiety or nervousness. I know that's a compulsion, and I typically am good about not engaging with it, but for whatever reason tonight is a bit more difficult for me. It sucks dealing with ROCD, same with all of the other themes there are, especially because I love my fiancé with my whole heart. I went through 2 very bad relationships before I got with my fiancé, and he's done nothing but treat me the way I want to be treated. He's my dream partner, and before my OCD latched onto the relationship I couldn't have been any happier, so it's really hard sometimes not being able to get that same level of excited happiness anymore because of how anxious I am. I know love isn't a feeling but a choice, and I have consistently made choices that align with uplifting my relationship and fiancé, but I really do hate being so anxious and having my mood tank so easily sometimes over what would be a passing thought for someone else. I had a lot of wins today, so I'm going to try and remind myself of those and also the many wins I've had throughout the week where I didn't engage with my OCD and let the intrusive thoughts pass by without latching onto them. I'm also going to try and give myself grace—it's okay for me to cry and to feel sad about having a rougher time tonight, because that's the nature of having a mental health disorder. I'm going to have good and bad days, good and bad nights, and plenty of days that are both. Hopefully I can try to sleep soon, but until then I am going to play games on my phone that I like, cry, maybe eat some snacks that my fiancé and I got today, and let myself feel my feelings that I'm entitled to feel. ( ᵕ̩̩ㅅᵕ̩̩ )

Does anyone have tips for sleeping with terrible night anxiety? I have tried no screens, reading, melatonin (it just gives me nightmares), vitamins, a guide diet, exercise before sleep, and when im at my wits end I hope a benadryl will do the trick. I know the tricks of counting down from 100 to 1 I often do it in German and English. I am stuck in a loop of sleepless nights where I get 15 to 30 minutes of rest just to be woken up alert and panicking. I'm getting desperate... I just want to sleep

I remember when I had no mental illness. In fact, no one would know I have one now unless I tell them. I remember the years when everything was “normal” and I want to go back so badly. Will I ever be normal again? I don’t think so. I see others who appear normal and feel sad.

(18+ if ur a minor pls dont read!) I keep remembering back to when I was… yk, while watching a 🌽 vid, (2+ yrs ago?) Anyways, I remember having an intrusive thought of how the girls in the video sounded young/ (or like little girls I don’t remember exactly what the thought was) and it felt like I finished to the thought… but the thing is I can’t entirely remember, and I keep thinking about it and the more I think the more I’m unsure. I remember at the moment I moved on and was fine. Idek how I felt after or what exactly happened. My memory is so fuzzy. But I started thinking about it in july of last year(I got over it but idk how or why), and then again this past week. I can’t stop thinking abt it. I feel so grossed out and terrible if that’s the case and I can’t stop thinking back to it and trying to remember more. But it also feels like me not remembering or saying I can’t remember is me trying to lie bc I don’t wanna admit it’s true or something. Idk. I hate this sm .

my mom knows I have ocd and she knows I have adhd or some problem with executive functioning but when those disorders impair my functioning she tells me im not trying at all and i dont care about anyone else and when I tell her you don’t know what ive been doing this whole time (actively trying to get ready) and you don’t see what goes on in my head she’s like no I do know you’re not trying at all 🙃 lately ive been up all night freaking out spiraling cause im afraid of being a narcissist and manipulative and sometimes i ask her for reassurance which i know is bad but the point is she knows i freak out about it all the time and it causes me debilitating worry but now she literally just went “maybe you are a narcissist” because she was mad at me and thinks I don’t care or try when I am trying but it just doesn’t work anyway and I just feel like telling someone their biggest ocd fear is true because you’re mad at them is just unfair Maybe she’s right maybe I am a narcissist and this is me being unable to accept responsibility but I feel like I am trying but it just takes me forever to get ready because it’s so hard to start any task and once I do start getting ready there’s a million things that my brain tells me have to be done right that second because if I don’t do them I feel disgusting and I just feel like I can’t stop myself and I don’t have a good concept of how long things are going to take anyway and im stressed the whole time because I don’t want people to be mad at me but she just sees it as not caring or trying and it really hurts my feelings when I stay up all night doing compulsions because im so afraid and then I’m not awake at normal times she tells me that im not trying and im rude because of how it affects other people but she never ever seems to think about how it feels to be the one up all night with the horrible anxiety or to be unable to get yourself to do anything you need to do and the whole time you know people are mad at you and you know you’re only making things worse but you just can’t seem to stop I don’t want people to be mad at me but I don’t know how to be normal Maybe im just a bad person I don’t know

Potentially triggering, but I’ll try to be vague. So having ocd + ptsd has been really hard. Ever since I found out about my trauma, I’ve developed all kinds of cognitive distortions that caused a significant increase in intrusive thoughts. These were really dark and self hating distortions. I still have them and that’s why I feel so horrible. I need to come up with some cognitive defusions so that I can finally be free from this debilitating anxiety. It’s all about what I believe, so I try not to believe in lies. Ocd is really good at making me believe I’m lying when I’m telling the truth. Makes it really confusing. Any tips on cbt? So that I don’t live my life believing in lies?

I feel like I'm not myself. I know that deep inside there's an excited girl who loves music and books anything pink and her boyfriend, with whom she acts like a cuddly kid. But on the surface, it doesn't feel like that's me. I keep getting the urge to break up with him now because I feel like I don't love him. But what is that based on? He's coming over tomorrow and we're gonna build the lego bouquet he bought me and we're gonna make dinner together. I was the one who suggested making dinner because I like making stuff with him. We made brownies before and I thought we could make heart-shaped pizzas now. It was our 3-month anniversary yesterday but I wasn't excited. I've convinced myself that I only like our relationship or the idea of him but not him as a person, even though he always makes me laugh and makes me comfortable and I love spending time with him. I feel like a terrible person who's pretending and faking. I've spent the whole day cleaning my house, vacuuming everywhere, scrubbing the carpet, organizing my books, changing my bedsheets. I thought I was doing well in managing my thoughts, considering I always lie in bed alone for hours fueling the thoughts, but it seems I was just pushing them away and avoiding them by cleaning.

I’m finding it hard to defend myself against these thoughts and ‘evidence’ that my brain is coming up with. It feels all too real. I don’t feel happy, everytime I try to do something to make myself feel normal, I get this feeling like eerie, sick feeling come over me as if ‘no your evil’ and I start thinking I’m bad and can’t do normal things. Also even when I’m not having intrusive thoughts I start thinking and imagining scenarios of me being evil on purpose and i don’t know why I’m doing that. Like randomly imagining go downstairs to get a knife and acting out on the stabbing thoughts and that makes me think I’m actually evil because why am I imagining it for no reason 🙁🙁

I’m looking into starting an SSRI or some sort of medication for my anxiety and rumination. I deal with ADHD and pretty moderate daily anxiety and I’m curious to know peoples opinions on medications they’ve taken, thank uu!!

I know I have been posting quite a bit lately & I think it’s bc of my initial post of this week but today my progress is doing ok! I woke up with the heavy/tight chest feeling & have been ig replacing bad thoughts that come by with others. idk if I’m combating them with logic & maybe it’s not ideal for dealing with OCD. idk but I’m doing what I can to help relieve this like “ache” in my chest. I know I will eventually shake it off. I think for me, usually when something happens like hurting myself against a table, the pain stays there for a bit but eventually wears off. same thing when I get frustrated or annoyed when it comes to something. it might take a while for me to cool down but eventually I’m back to normal. anyway, here are some positive things: today is the first day of the winter storm! the power hasn’t gone out, my sleep was good that I ended up drooling lol, my kitties are cozy in my dad’s room where I’m at, my dad slept cozy as well. I woke up earlier than my dad and he still wanted to sleep more so I just went back to “rest mode” & tbh???? when I just tried to focus on resting and being comfy, a lot of thoughts seemed to go away (some came by but they were brushed off like whatever) & my chest felt lighter. cool thing! my brother is probably gaming or watching tv in his room. idk if my boy cat wants to go outside lololol but it’s coooooold. he’s looking out the window that now. :P I hope I can get this tight chest feeling down even more today!!! since everyone is home, I will focus on being happy :333 hope everyone else is doing alright!! if you’re in this storm, I hope you have everything u need to get thru this!! stay cozy ^_^

Most people think OCD is “about” the scary thoughts: the what if I hurt someone, what if I blaspheme, what if I’m secretly bad. But those thoughts aren’t actually the core problem. The most overlooked driver of OCD is the meaning a person gives their thoughts. Everyone gets weird, dark, or intrusive thoughts.That means EVERYONE. The difference with OCD is what happens next. A non‑OCD brain might go, “Wow, that was a random, messed‑up thought,” and move on. An OCD brain goes, “The fact that I had this thought must mean something about me. It must mean I’m dangerous, immoral, irresponsible, or secretly awful.” That interpretation flips a passing mental glitch into a moral emergency. Underneath that is a quiet set of rules many people with OCD live by, often without realizing it: -“If I think it, it’s more likely to happen.” -“If something bad happens and I didn’t prevent it, it’s my fault.” -“I have to be 100% certain I’m safe/good/pure before I can relax.” So when an intrusive thought pops up—“What if I swerved into traffic?” “What if I offended God?” “What if I molested that child without realizing?”—the brain doesn’t see noise, it sees a threat and a verdict. Now it feels morally required to neutralize that threat: confess, replay, check, pray “the right way,” seek reassurance, avoid triggers, research endlessly, analyze every feeling. Those are the compulsions. They’re attempts to solve a problem that was largely created by the interpretation in the first place. This is why people with OCD often say, “But my thoughts feel so real.” It’s not just the thought that feels real; it’s the guilt, the responsibility, the dread of what it would mean if the thought were true. The brain is not fighting a picture; it’s fighting a possible identity: “What if I’m actually capable of this?” “What if I don’t love my partner?” “What if I don’t really believe?” When you believe your thoughts are a window into your true character, every intrusive image becomes a moral trial. Here’s a simple example. Two people are standing on a subway platform and both have the thought: “What if I push that person in front of the train? Person A: “Weird brain glitch.” Keeps scrolling their phone. Person B (with OCD): “Why did I think that? Normal people don’t think that. Does this mean I want to do it? What if I snap? I’d never forgive myself. I have to stand farther back. Maybe I shouldn’t take the train at all. Maybe I should tell someone, just in case.” The thought was the same. The story about the thought was completely different. Why does this matter? Because when you only focus on “stopping the thoughts,” you end up fighting the wrong battle. Intrusive thoughts are part of being human; nobody has full control over what pops into their mind. What can change—and what treatment targets—is your relationship with those thoughts: how much authority you give them, how responsible you feel for them, and how far you’re willing to go to prove them wrong. A big turning point for many people with OCD is realizing: -Having a thought is not the same as wanting it. - Feeling responsible does not mean you actually are responsible. -The urge to be perfectly certain is part of the disorder, not a reasonable standard for living From that place, exposure and response prevention (ERP) and related therapies are not just “white‑knuckling through anxiety”; they’re retraining your brain to see thoughts as thoughts—not prophecies, not confessions, not moral verdicts. Instead of “I had this thought, so I must fix it,” the stance becomes, “I had this thought, and my job is to let it be there without doing the thing OCD is demanding.” If you live with OCD, you are not broken because your brain generates disturbing content. Your suffering is largely driven by how seriously and personally you feel forced to take that content. The most compassionate, and often most healing, shift is moving from “My thoughts define me” to “My actions and values define me; the thoughts are just noise I’m learning not to obey.”

I’m trying to remember if I did something wrong during my late teen years and it’s killing me. They definitely don’t feel like real memories but the OCD is so convincing that it kind of feels like it is? I try to embrace uncertainty but I don’t know how to especially if your themes revolve around harm or other difficult themes.

Had an episode last night, Real Event OCD started flaring onto me- so did other subtypes, and my dog keeps following me and sniffing/grabbing/humping at me and only me and my mom asked why he is acting that way towards me recently which got me really scared- because I heard that dogs can sniff cancer and stuff so BOOM health OCD now onto me . I was FREAKING out. Did NOT help that my dog began to cry when I was gone. On the sprinkle of that, hypersexuality came at me again- fell into it and after it all faded I just felt super dirty and scared . + the intrusive thoughts during it and after were uncomfortable. Thankfully it's not awfully bad as it was in the past, and the relapse is normally only one time every few who knows how long but I always just feel super adultish (not in a good way) and like an object. If that makes sense I just don't like it . :^( I end up feeling super shaky . Other than that- that's that. I still feel depressed and extremely dissociated, I didn't have a good dream. School was cancelled today so yay ! But at the same time why do I have to feel this way when I have a break. <:") I feel like I can't look at anyone or do anything because I feel such a monster at the moment or some sort of freak.. arghhshhsh . Now that "monster freak" is going to still have desert and do fun stuff because there's no school duh, but also is going to cry while doing it because this still hurts. 😞 + no social media for sure for sure . Have a good day everyone..!

She was diagnosed with GAD at age 16 and put on Prozac. She’s had her ups and downs but when she started college three years ago, she got significantly worse. I feel like we’ve been on a roller coaster for the past three years. In the last few weeks or so it has become a parent that she really has OCD and probably BDD. My husband and I booked a session with a therapist from here and it was extremely helpful for us to start to learn how to support her and to hopefully come up with a plan to encourage her to get the help. She’s so badly needs. It is so painful as her mom because I’m the one she shares all her obtrusive thoughts with and they can be scary. Also, I’m feeling a lot of guilt because looking back I can see now as a young child that it was OCD, but we always thought it was anxiety because she doesn’t necessarily have compulsions, but her thoughts are obsessive Looking for any advice out there, and we will continue to go to the classes offered by NOCD.

I haven’t done a Q&A in a longtime because my life’s been really chaotic, but I have some time on this chilly Friday to answer some OCD questions! I’ve been on this app since 2019 and volunteering since 2021. I’ve been subclinical/recovered for nearly 6 years now. I’m not a professional, just someone who’s been through hell and back.

My psychologist thinks gay people are miserable,lets name him "ken". Ken thinks that I should gain weight,he barely remembers my name each session,most times he makes tude comments about my appearance even though he knows im insecure (i mean my weight,the way i dress or my hair or something) he mostly looks at his watch during sessions+most times he is on a call like 3-4 minutes gets spent for his calls,he talked about religion and why god was real for 3 sessions when I first went there, I feel like throwing my money into a trash can, he told me to be ashamed of myself because of not getting better and having dirty clothes (I have derealization and cant even walk/talk most days:() I understand that sessions should make you uncomfortable because thats the main goal but I feel like the "uncomfortable" i feel is the other kind of uncomfortable,i feel disrespected and i feel like im just wasting my money,i cried for hours yesterday because of the disrespect and i couldn't say anything,the things he told me yesterday was so horrible that im still mad about it, should I stop going or it will get better with time?

I have been so depressed lately that on my 3-month anniversary with my boyfriend, I can't even feel any happiness from his sappy message to me. He texted me about how these past 3 months have been the happiest of his life and how we'll get through my issues and how much he loves me. I can't feel it. I just woke up and I'm feeling so numb and down and like I need to break up with him. I know that when we're together, I'm happier. But I can't feel it right now. I feel like such a bad person. I'm usually the sappy one in my relationships, but now I can't because all I feel is anxiety. We've been together for 3 months and I've been struggling with these thoughts worsening for about 3 months. At first they were random and I could wave them away, but they got so bad that now the majority of the time I have the thoughts and the anxiety and I've become so depressed that I can't find joy in my hobbies and I've lost interest in my biggest dreams. I want to be happy with him. He's all I've ever wanted. But my body won't let me.

Hi everyone. ⸜(๑'ᵕ'๑)⸝* I am writing this sort of as a way to engage with myself and my OCD a bit more healthily, as I'm trying to not do compulsions and instead things I value, which includes being an active community member here on the NOCD app. ❀ I know that it's relatively common for folks to point out that social media is not the best tool in general, but especially for people like us with OCD and other mental health disorders. I knew this, but I am guilty of using social media a lot to dull my brain a little when I'm bored or have nothing else to do. This, however, sets me up for failure (or success, depending on how you view things). I went on Twitter (I know—literally the worst app to be on, I use it to look at fanart usually) to catch up on some Marvel Rivals drama that I saw on Instagram. Boom, one of the suggested posts was something that is pretty triggering for me both OCD and not OCD-wise. (›´-`‹ ) Admittedly, I've been wanting to stop using Twitter because I hate the guy that owns it and the app overall is... gross and not somewhere I want to be. So, I'm taking this as my sign to get rid of the app and not use it anymore. (‾^‾)ง⁼³₌₃ Social media impacts a lot of aspects of life, but I already don't use a lot of the more popular social media—not using Twitter isn't exactly a big loss (especially because I barely use it anyways, and I've been triggered more on Twitter than anywhere else in my entire time having OCD). I think I'll just stick to Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. I can get my silly video game drama updates from Youtube, Instagram, or just by googling it. Plus, as I'm getting older (I turn 27 this year—I'll have had OCD for 6 years this year!) I'm realizing that I want to move away from being so... internet obsessed? I spent so much of my life online that I want to start to live in the real world more, for better and for worse. Especially with plans to move in with my fiancé this year, plus transferring from my community college to a university, I want to make memories that aren't in front of a computer screen. I want to be present in my real life, not so much in my digital one anymore. (ฅ'ω'ฅ)♪ I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way or can relate, but I'd love to know if you do! Do you guys also find social media to be triggering? How do you go about handling being triggered when you see something online that upsets you or stirs up your OCD? I'd really like to know what you all do in moments where you're struggling because of content online. ⸜(๑'ᵕ'๑)⸝*

i dont know what say without a fear of triggering others on here but i feel so helpless i just started therapy and will have my first erp session tomorow has anyone ever felt just to broken and beat down by life right now i feel like a monster and having trouble not hating myself i also try to reinvision myself as other people who have it together attractive funny and smart sometimes while talking to someone i feel like a spectator like my life is a movie but i see myself as someone who is more likeable prettier even during disagreements someone who is understood and not hated but rather felt sorry for instead of being the antagonist it makes me wonder am i just truly crazy typing this makes me worry that since im typing it it is true what if me typing this means i will find out im crazy and a awful person after all i cant except that as a outcome it makes me sick i just wanna get well and know that im not crazy or a monster and that i deserve to be loved happy and to get well and recovery is possible for me it all feels so bleak