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Learning to sit with it. It’s hard I’m still not sure about this and not quite ready to blow up a good thing. I also think o I could be in the right relationship. Or I dunno. When I met my partner, I was not attracted to her. She was not my type. At least on paper. She had a different body type than partners I had before. And I think that messed with me. That said we had so much stuff in common l, that I found myself drawn to her. (Stop me if you heard this one before). Since I have OCD my brain stuck on that fact while also letting her in because I k ew she was and is good for me. I was and am stuck between two truths. My partner is amazing and great for me and wondering what else is out there. If I’m settling, if this is the right relationship for me or do I need something else. The uncertainty can be maddening. That said I have been i have an amazing relationship with a fantastic partner and know, when my brain decides to chill out. That attraction did grow and when I take time to stop and smell the flowers, acknowledge that other women are still attractive. I think maybe the hardest part of this is accepting multiple truths exist. I was not attracted to her at first but attraction grew over time despite being fixated on the fact that I wasn’t initially too into it. And yes even compared her to others. A hallmark of rocd. That said it is really challenging some days. Especially days like today. I have been fixated a lot. Should I stay while I go. I have specific needs that aren’t met yet. Is this ok? I struggle with all of it and look forward to a day when it ends. When my brain decides to accept what’s i front of me or doesn’t. And I get that clarity. This is rough and for anyone going through it, I empathize l. Some days are better than others.

Can intrusive thoughts be like the MOST disgusting stuff on the planet and can they be specific kinda bc sometimes they're so specific or just so insanely vile im just worried im blaming it on ocd/ intrusive thoughts when its all my fault. They still shock me and feel like they come out of no where but idk. I hate the content of them more than anything else on tne planet but I also question if that's true or not sometimes. Im really scared and feel so much guilt. I know I dont want to do these things so much but also its like.. do I know that?.. God I hate this so much

First post here - Day 5 of ERP tomorrow I’ve been dealing with OCD for years but never got proper treatment until now. It’s always shown up strongest in my relationships, and the timing couldn’t be more challenging - right as I’m finally starting real therapy with NOCD, things fell apart with my girlfriend because of my OCD patterns. We’re in this uncertain space right now (break? space? I don’t even know what to call it), and she’s the person I want to build a future with. The uncertainty of it all is absolutely brutal, especially while I’m just beginning treatment. I’m committed to doing this work - the ERP, all of it - to stop the self-sabotage cycle and learn to actually manage my OCD instead of letting it control my relationships. I want to be able to show up as a healthier partner. Has anyone here been through something similar? Starting ERP for ROCD while your relationship is on the line or has just ended because of it? How did you navigate doing the work while dealing with that kind of uncertainty?

So I have ROCD really bad and sometimes I’ll remember random memories from my past of random things and extremely weird things that I did and I know that I did but then my brain will tell me that I did them during my relationship with my fiancé and I’m terrified about if I did or not, and I can’t remember because it was almost 2 years ago when we first started dating, but I’m terrified about if I did it or not or if like I was close to it, my OCD tends to get really really bad around my cycle and I’m on day two of my cycle and so my OCD and anxiety have really been ramped up the past couple of weeks and it’s like every day It’s a new worry or a new fear and I have to try to see if it happened or you know if I accidentally did something and I didn’t realize it was wrong or disrespectful to my relationship. I’m just honestly terrified and worrying about so many different worries or intrusive thoughts about if I did something or not and It’s like I can never have a moment of peace and I only feel better when my fiancé is around me, but my head will try to convince me that I am an awful person and that I did the worst case scenario about anything that I think of or remember in the moment. I have the compulsion to basically go tell my fiancé everything and get reassurance and at the time when I get reassurance, I didn’t know it was bad because you do feel better in the moment but it’s like I have gotten reassurance from my fiancé so many times and the same exact worries come back every single time and it’s just they get worse and worse and worse. I don’t know if I’m ever gonna get better from this or not, and I don’t wanna be in my 40s still worrying about these things. It’s just I don’t really have a great memory sometimes and I’m worried about if I did the worst case scenario and I blocked it out or I just don’t remember because it’s so long ago and I’m genuinely terrified about if I could’ve done something that would be considered cheating or being disrespectful of my relationship. Does anyone else deal with this :(

How do you guys (in counseling) feel like you’re making progress. I know I’m doing better at like identifying when something is freaking me out, and then I am aware of trying to not do a compulsion…so that’s progress right? But I just feel bogged down by everything and I keep messing up and I just feel discouraged like it’ll never get better. I keep getting disappointed in myself. It just makes me kinda sad.

Hi! I’m new here and I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, and I don’t even know if I have OCD for sure because it hasn’t been officially diagnosed but that’s also because I’ve never told anyone besides a therapist one time. I’ve never shared my intrusive thoughts with anyone and no one can see them or know them unless I tell that person because they’re in my mind. But the intrusive thoughts get so so bad that I don’t even know if they’re intrusive, like they take up absolutely everything and are always there to the point where I can’t think straight at all and it’s so extremely horrible and I can’t tell my true thoughts from my intrusive thoughts and it’s terrifying to me. It’ll always go against what and who I love the most like God because from what I’ve looked up I probably have scrupulosity ocd, but also against my family and pets too and just intentions and motives and quite literally everything. But I don’t want those thoughts to be true about me at all, but then I feel emotionally numb and burnt out so I can’t discern what my “true” and “genuine” feelings and intentions, beliefs are, etc. It’s so difficult for me to get my personal thoughts together and communicate and that I can’t stop thinking no matter how hard I try, I’ve tried that and it always comes back and it feels careless to ignore the thoughts and not only that but I have this physical dread and sadness or detached feeling or I don’t know what it is and I can’t get rid of it. Another thing I’ve felt, which is very hard for me to describe too, ever since I was a little kid was this feeling of longing for something but also feeling small and inferior (in some way?) but also just wanting to be safe and protected somehow and now that I’m older it makes me want to be a little kid and it’s weird to talk about but it’s like this emotional regression of some kind where all I want is to be safe and hugged as cheesy as it is to admit to others, and I’m so sensitive to everything and cry over everything to where I feel numb and then can’t get my emotions out anymore and no one knows how much I’ve regressed emotionally and deep down I really just wanting everything to be ok and for nothing or no one to hurt ever again and for nothing or no one to die ever again, and again it’s very hard for me to describe and I just feel weird and helpless and I know my longing is for God/Jesus and then my intrusive thoughts tell me that it’ll never be ok and then I don’t know what’s wrong with me and the intrusive thoughts are genuinely disgusting and it’s like it’s become a part of myself and then I hate myself so much. I can’t fight against the thoughts because I have nothing to replace them with and when I went to therapy she told me to focus on reality and my senses and what’s around me and how what I’m doing proves the thoughts aren’t true but then I’m scared I’m just going through the motions somehow if that makes sense and that I’m lying/faking/pretending and that it’s somehow a heart issue of myself and that I have a hard heart and not a mental issue and that scares me so much because I don’t want that to be true about me. And again I just feel stuck inside myself, like I’m stuck in my body and soul and can’t get out and that I’m limited to something and stuck in it and that there’s just something fundamentally wrong with me that will never go away and that I’m doing this to myself but if I’m doing it to myself and can’t escape myself and soul then I’m so confused and scared and lost. It most of the time comes back down to: I don’t know what’s wrong with me as in like is it ocd(?) am I just overly sensitive and lazy(?) and it sounds weird to mention but I’ve been told that before and as a little kid, but I don’t know if it’s something like neurodivergence (which I know ocd is as well although a little different) such as autism since I was tested for that as a little kid but they said I didn’t have that at least then when I was only a few years old, and it’s just difficult to comprehend anything or think straight or understand anything and so I shut down on myself and get so mad and frustrated with myself and like I deserve every way of hurting myself whether physically or emotionally even though deep down, like I said, I just want to be safe forever and with God/Jesus and for nothing to hurt ever again and be safe forever even though right now it’s difficult I don’t want anything bad and brokenness and sadness and death or any of that to ever have to final say and I’m so weak and stuck in myself and it’s terrifying to think about like stuck in my perception of consciousness and then I dissociate really badly and sometimes things feel blurry around me, not always physically but sometimes a little and like I’m dreaming and like time has already passed and I’m dead and just watching my surroundings like a glass wall or some kind of barrier around me and that I’m stuck in myself and all I want is to get out and be safe and I know all I need is God/Jesus but then I get these intrusive thoughts that like it’s my choice if I want to believe and stuff and given free will but then all I want, so so incredibly badly beyond any words I can ever describe, is to be secure in that choice eternally and genuinely chosen and safe in Him forever and that it’s not dependent on myself because I don’t trust myself and to just be secure in Him forever and ever no matter what and just to know I don’t have to be scared or cry and that it’s going to be ok forever and ever. So sorry for rambling so much, I was trying to explain how I felt but I can’t get my thoughts together and put them into words or even describe what that feeling/thing is. I hate myself and I just need God/Jesus and the idea of being seperated from Him and things not being ok and with Him forever just makes me want to kms and I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I need Him! I’m so scared and terrified and what He thinks of me too and I know people say as long as you believe Jesus is Lord Who died for us and rose from the dead you’re His, and I’m terrified I don’t believe that somehow because I know that’s all that matters is God/Jesus!! Why am I so disgusting?? I hate myself and don’t know why He made me. I don’t want to be this way I’d do anything to be someone else and to be His and chosen by Him. But then I’m terrified I don’t have the gift of faith! No one knows what’s wrong with me, I’m so disgusting and I always push people away because I think I’m some horrible person deep down who is violent somehow and evil and horrible intentions and thoughts and since I’ll be eternally separated from God/Jesus anyway I’m not worth anyone’s time or help because it won’t matter when I die and eternally anyway. But I need Him!! I just need to be with Him now and forever for all of eternity forever and ever!!! I’m so terrified!!!

I. AM. IN. MISERY. I have NOT slept for the past week, this lab is past due (like almost 4 days LATE) in an AP class I'm in + poster and I did the math completey wrong. I promise I am trying but I am SO tired. And because I haven't slept, my OCD has amplified like CRAZY and I feel like I'm hallucinating.. TOT💔 SOS. I'm behind in my other classes as well arghh. I feel so stressed both with OCD/mental stuff and school and I'm scared that my teachers think I'm just being lazy. My head hurts, my eyes hurts, I'm trembling from exhaustion, no OCD I did not need to know THAT... just let.. me... rest... 😵‍💫 But- ehm, anyways, am going to take a 10 minute nap until I have to get ready for school. Sigh. :,^) (Darn you procrastination)

I’ve reduced compulsions and the anxiety has reduced but it hasn’t reduced the realness of the thoughts, they still feel like fact and fill me with fear. My biggest fear is I’ll stop compulsions and it will still feel real and then I’ll have my answer and have to face the “truth”. When I reduce compulsions (although still doing some), and it still feels real after a few days, I then think “why isn’t it going away, I’ve reduced compulsions, ocd can’t exist without compulsions, if I stop compulsions and it stays then it means it’s real and I can’t use ocd as an excuse anymore to avoid the “truth”, I better increase compulsions again, as they protect me from the “truth” etc etc……I mean how can I even think this stuff, sounds like blatant denial!

I've heard that journaling COULD be bad for OCD when you write and are unaware that you are ruminating, so how do I become more mindful of that? Thank you to whoever answers, it's my first time here and it feels good to be surrounded by people who have similar experiences, I feel less alone.

It was a hard day week month year several years it’s hard to wanna live anymore I’m a live and not sure I can say well because how depressed and scared I get I’ve had multiple attempts of ending my life in my life I feel broken anymore and alone everyone is tired of giving me reassurance but I feel like that’s what’s keeping me alive I don’t always wanna die but sometimes I just wanna give up checking online reassurance sometimes makes ocd worse and gives answers that I know people would say are wrong and not to trust everything online usually the answers are comforting but sometimes not and make me more scared what do I do I’m not wanting to die now but did earlier I don’t wanna die I’m scared of dying I have kids and a husband I want to live for them but sometimes it gets to be too much I’m tired of living in fear has anyone else fully recovered? I’m also afraid of being punished and dying I worry GOD will either let me dye or kill me and I’m scared of going to hell and finding out that I’m a awful person after all and all my fears are true or if I live they will come true I’m feeling miserable anymore when does it get better?????? Also freaking out not because I typed does and autocorrect typed it as dies and I fixed it I’m scared what if that’s a sign I hate this !!!!!

I’m really struggling with trusting my boyfriend. I had been in a situation before dating him where my trust was severely broken by two people really close to me. My boyfriend and I got together soon after that, and I feel like I have been questioning everything since. At the start of our relationship, my boyfriend had told me he looked at porn after knowing I wouldn’t be comfortable. I feel like this also severely broke my trust. He told me, and we’ve worked through it. However I’m still having a hard time getting really past it. I’m scared of the ads he gets on instagram that are someone sexual, I’m scared of him talking about other girls, I’m scared that I am not enough for him and that he is looking elsewhere. I’m scared I’m not attractive to him, he doesn’t love me, etc. I feel like I’m constantly seeking validation from him or having the urge to check who he’s following or go through his phone. I hate that, and I would really appreciate any advice on how to control those impulsives without drowning in that feeling.

I wanted to share my story of what I went through the first half of 2025 Around September of 2024, I went through a psychotic episode and was hospitalized for a month. I do want to remind you all that ocd cannot cause psychosis, I just have a diagnosis of schizophrenia as well!! The combination of shame, guilt, and extreme heightened stress caused by the psychotic episode sent me into the worst ocd spiral and most painful experience of my life. I felt so guilty and ashamed of myself for going through psychosis and having my loved ones see me that way and worrying them. Having another psychotic episode after years of not having one made me feel like a failure of a person. All of November, I was feeling really on edge, constantly ruminating and spiraling over every single perceived mistake I made, going to 10 people every time I did or said something slightly off, or something I perceived slightly off, and asking them the same questions repeatedly over the course of a few days, about if what I did or said was bad or if it forgivable or a mistake, what they thought about it, and how I could fix it. This would happen around 5 times a day. I would actively call mental health professionals and hotlines, as well as seek therapy from multiple providers just to ask how to fix my mistakes and confess my guilt each day. I would have almost daily severe dissociation episodes where my brain completely lost function, I could barely speak, think, walk, sometimes I’d fall down the stairs or bump into things, I had to have people help me get from one place to another and I was medically told I wasn’t allowed to be behind the wheel anymore and had to take public transportation. The only thing I would talk about was the same repetitive questions and reassurance seeking whether I was bad or what I did was bad and confessing my guilt. Eventually, with close friends, my brain didn’t have the mental capacity to interact or form conversations, so I’d resort to scripted small talk so I could still stay in touch. January was the last time I left the house for a long time, besides for work once a week and school once a week. I went into severe mental and psychomotor depression where I could barely get up, stand, walk without help, get out of vehicles without assistance. I would fall asleep in public places such as work, school, whenever I saw family, and in therapy. my body felt so heavy and all I wanted to do was sleep. The painful guilt feeling in my gut would ache so bad I would have to put pressure or ice it and eventually I started daily puking, and all I would do all day would Google search how to fix my mistakes or if I was a bad person or hurting people, that’s the only conversation topic I would have with my parents. I lost 3 jobs due to the dissociation and panic episodes. This carried on from the beginning of January to the middle of June, and ever since then it’s been very up and down, but I can say I’ve made great progress and can talk to people without feeling afraid of making mistakes or causing them harm, my body is fully functional again, and I’m currently enrolled in school! I have a long way to go with both ocd and schizophrenia, but we’ll get there and I’m hopeful :) Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this!!!

I am struggling to feel close to my partner because i feel like my feelings of attraction come and go with my partner and it is hard for me when they are gone and it makes me wonder if I should even be with my partner. I’m wondering if anyone else deals with struggles of attraction to their partners and if they are able to deal with them in a helpful manner what that would look like. I really love my partner and I wouldn’t break up with him but we have Ben dating for a year and want to move in with each other and progress our relationship but because I struggle to be attracted to him sometimes I think maybe I shouldn’t even move in with him.

Adults only Any other adults and only adults feel like porn is something they should never see in life? Or that it's so compromising, or that it impacts morals, or that it really messes with you mentally? I feel this way all the time yet I've become so addicted to it. I'm trying to get it to stop in therapy once and for all. I haven't given up on it, no matter how difficult it's been to stop it. I just feel like it's removed a lot of novelty in my life. Happiness or excitement over smaller things. The true importance of respecting people as human beings and not objectifying them based on how they look. Deep down I'm really sick of it but I feel like I can't control myself when it comes to watching it most times. Just wondered if other adults felt this way.

Sometimes I start to feel okay, like the fear isn’t really that important and I know it’s not helping me any to panic and spiral, but other times it just randomly hits me so hard again and makes me panic horribly. Every time I start to feel better and see the light at the end, I get pulled right back into the darkness. I finally started getting over being so scared of dying in my sleep and all the sudden a couple days ago it just came right back. I was talking about it to my sister in law and she started talking about it from a religious perspective, which kinda made me more anxious. I’m just so tired of my brain going back and forth between acceptance and re-igniting the spiral out of the blue. I just want to be able to enjoy things without overthinking my existence and mortality with every decision I make. I want to be able to sleep without panicking about if I don’t wake up, because in reality I know there’s nothing I can do about it anyways, but my brain won’t let go and accept that I can’t control it. I’m so tired. I just want to be able to accept God’s grace and not worry about things I can’t control.

Has anyone ever had an intrusive thought and then after having it, you start imagine scenarios of you doing more bad things? I don’t know why that happened but it’s making me feel like I secretly want to do bad things and I’m holding myself back. I feel scared, it’s never been this bad before, I feel like there’s a chance I can’t go back to normal now. It feels like I’ve turned evil and now I will ‘want’ to be evil 🙁 I keep thinking I’ve been influenced to be evil and now I want to. If I try to be normal I feel like a fraud and feel like it’s only a matter of time before I’m evil later on

Hey my fellow NOCDers. I wanted to share a little bit of my journey and offer some words of encouragement and hope. I’ve had OCD since I was a kid. Looking back, I’ve realized that it has come and gone throughout my life. I’m 40 now and this past year I got pregnant with my third child. With the shift in hormones at the beginning of my pregnancy, my OCD came back full force. I found myself going back to therapy for the third time in my life for OCD. At first, I had shame that I was going back to therapy for OCD once again. My OCD was screaming that this meant something was wrong and OCD was stronger than me. However, something that I’ve learned is that having a hard chapter in life or a lapse in OCD (no matter how strong or long) is not indicative of failure nor your prognosis. I can now say that I’ve grown stronger, more OCD savvy, and more motivated than ever with each step “back”. Therapy, especially ERP is powerful. Trust the process. There will be hard days. Really hard days, days when you wish things were different and filled with doubt of getting better or getting through. There will be lots of ups and downs and twists and turns. That’s normal and a sign of GROWTH not failure. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in OCD recovery is that it’s okay to fall a million times. Let it be messy. The most powerful thing you can do is keep going and keep standing up every time you fall no matter what. Make the commitment that you will get back up every time and that you will choose discomfort and uncertainty no matter what OCD throws at you. OCD is a sneaky liar and will throw whatever it wants at you to get your attention. Try not to engage as much as you can. The fight is hard but it is possible. You can do this! We can do this! I had the thought recently that it’s not “my OCD”, it’s “our OCD”, we are a community that is doing the most courageous work. Every time YOU take a step towards standing up to OCD, WE all take a step towards overcoming OCD. You are not alone and you are stronger than you think. Every time I resist a compulsion, I think about how it will benefit not only me, but all of us. My newborn child, my children, my OCD community, all of us. I’m proud of you all! You did not choose to have OCD. OCD sucks. So give yourself tons of grace, kindness, and compassion. OCD is mean enough to you. You don’t deserve any more of its energy. Take any or all the energy you have to keep fighting and showing OCD who is boss, no matter what. You can do this!

Two days ago me and my partner had probably the first intense discussion/ argument. I was hurt, we apologized to each other and talked it out eventually. But now I’m constantly thinking about our compatibility, and if I’m being manipulated or if I’m with the wrong person or relationship? It’s been on loop since yesterday …. Does anyone else go through this?? Or is this not ocd related?

Just feeling alone, and really guilty over the thoughts. I’ve been trying my best to work on it and try ERP on my own but I can’t get out of the dump. On the bright side I’m going to the doctor tmmr to see about getting my Pristiq upped or to get on an actual SSRI

I could imagine myself with my partner if I was in a better mental state, when I look at old videos when I was anxious. I see oh I can see how I could have liked him. But then I get a scary anxious thought in the back of, but you didn’t like him or don’t like him. We were friends first & I liked his friend. And I set a perspective of him very early into meeting him. Also I don’t know how to get that girl back and I worry she was never gone and is coming up. TBH sometimes I don’t even know if I remember everything exactly right. But I am so stuck on all the negatives of our interactions or relationship. Since I didn’t like him in the past and it was real, I worry it’s still real now. But I want to think im not only with him because ocd. And it feels almost surreal because I feel like if I really don’t like him, that’s scary and I feel like I’m awakening again. And I get bothered because I don’t wanna believe it. I want to like him. I’m scared of hurting him and I’m also scared of handling my ocd alone, he’s a big person who’s helped me on my ocd journey and told me I have ocd because he does too. And I worry that’s our only connection and this whole time I wanted it to work, but it isn’t. And that feels real. I don’t want to accept it tho.but my brain is making me think im only staying for those reasons, im bothered i don’t get a follow up thought of “no i like him !” I smoke weed everyday for 4 years, i feel like i dont deserve him and I know what he wants in life and I just feel deep down I don’t love him like that, so I can’t. And it kills me. And it’s because I liked his friend before too, so it just feels real. But I don’t wanna accept this. It would be so scary. If I knew someone could grant me a wish that I want him, I would say yes ! But then I get anxiety, even after that wish is granted I’ll still be anxious. I can’t imagine myself happy with him, and I hope that doesn’t mean I can tbe happy with him. I’m hoping I’m just learning to accept the thoughts but we will be okay. I just haven’t felt in reality in a while, and I don’t know if reality, is the girl from the past who still feel like sometimes. Or a new girl that I am not allowing myself to be, and I can’t see it. Sorry guys I know this Is a lot. I really just want to know and I hate that I’m starting to feel alive like I know, because I don’t want it to be true. I don’t wanna hurt him, and I’m bothered I don’t have a follow up thought “but I like him.” I used too, but I don’t anymore and I’m hoping it comes back. And I want to hope that if I didn’t say I used too, someone would say I like him anyways. Anyone relate????