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the NOCD Community

Is it just me who feels like they just aren’t pretty? I know it happens in the movies but I need someone real to relate to. All the girls at my school are gorgeous and a lot of the time I just end up as the third wheel. I joke and say I am eternally single but it hurts. Deep down I actually wonder if I will find someone for me. Are my standards too high? Does anyone think I’m pretty? My mom says I’m pretty but that doesn’t count. I am only 13 and know that I shouldn’t be worried with my career or my future just yet but I can’t brush it off. They say there is someone for everyone but is that true? And if so when will I meet him? I have never had a serious relationship or even a crush on anyone and wonder if my standards are just too high. Or have I just not met the one? How will I know if I do meet him? All the princesses in the movies get swept off their feet by handsome young men. I dream about that happening to me, but then reality sets in. Sorry, that ended up being really long I just hope there is someone I can relate to.

Hi everyone- I have been diagnosed and working through therapy and processing the fact I been have OCD, but have yet to talk to my husband about it. It’s like I have the entire convo in my head prior to even bringing it up and get overwhelmed so I just don’t bring it up. It’s a secret at this point and it’s really effecting me and our relationship. It’s like I’m living a lie. Anyone else here have a hard time talking to heir partner about even having ocd? How can I explain this to someone who I’ve been with for 18 years? To make things harder, one of our best friends has severe OCD and it literally destroyed her career, marriage and relationships as she never truly worked on her OCD so that makes us both fearful of the whole thing too. Thank you for your kind words I’m advance as I’m sure others have been in this position!

I ruined the relationship because of my flaws and it’s a living nightmare everyday. I relive all my mistakes and I no longer trust myself. I’m a terrible person that’s incapable of loving well

I’m sure others can relate but sometimes feeling alone can hit so hard especially by family. I kinda got my feelings hurt earlier and I try to understand that my mom lived in a different generation so she’ll never fully get it or understand anxiety or OCDs struggles. She’s been complaining to me about work and job finding due to stressful reasons. I hear her and I’m trying to find work but getting a job now is really hard I’ve applied to many places and have only had 3 interviews/responses. Some jobs were too far and others just didn’t have a decent schedule. However I know work is work and I won’t lie my harm OCD has ruined a lot too, even though I’ve applied and done interviews I get bad panic attacks and shoot part of the reason for one job I almost got I declined because I was having bad harm ocd anxiety about it since I’m scared of having panic attacks at work or me losing it (harm ocd thoughts 😞). It’s so annoying and I hate it, however the main reason was also because it was really really far too and my mom doesnt wanna drive all the way out there all the time. Other than that places have barely replied. I know my mom is trying to help in her own way but it’s the way she compared this one friend of hers anxiety to mines. To be fair I’ve never met her friend so I’m not bashing or saying mines is worse, but my mom basically invalidated my anxiety, she started to tell me that her friends anxiety is actually chronic and that she deals with worse because she has had worse anxiety problems than I have and that mines is not as bad and it’s better than hers. Even though I’ve had severe panic attacks, almost every night, I have avoided leaving the house for months and months before, I’ve panicked in public, I do a lot of compulsions to calm down, I struggle with themes she’ll never understand and her saying that made me feel like I’m just being extra and maybe so but she knows I have bad anxiety so I don’t get why she said mines isn’t chronic or isn’t a real struggle like her friend…and that’s the thing when it comes to others who have anxiety she’s so nice but when it’s me it’s pressure, pushiness and her getting mad because she doesn’t understand why I’m this way, and it’s always the “oh back in my day we actually had things to worry about now and days yall have it easier” Type of thing…It’s just so frustrating because family should comfort and be there and mines can’t even do that for me :/. I wanna get help and therapy for my harm ocd but I have to wait to save up more since a lot of ocd therapists are very pricey. I still wanna get better and shoot there were periods of time during my harm OCD where I was doing better but now it’s like back to square root 1. Either way I hope everyone is doing well and remember we can get through all this together.

Does anyone else ever have these feelings that they're attracted to someone else? I keep thinking I'm attracted to everyone and have weird/sexual intrusive thoughts. I just wanna crawl into my boyfriends arms every time. No matter who it is. A new person, or my best friend, like? It feels like hell because I feel like a cheater and I know avoiding people is not the solution but this is just so exhausting especially because I love my boyfriend and it feels so real..:(

hi all! i’ve been dealing with something new and really frustrating lately. i am constantly terrified of being pregnant—i don’t have any reason to believe i am (i always use protection) and yet it eats away at me. im so scared that i will be pregnant and that will make me a bad irresponsible awful person. I know my ocd will want me to confess to my mom who is my confession person, and i just cannot stand the thought like im horrified. i’d be a bad irresponsible daughter and it’s just awful and it makes me feel so sick. any advice??

Does anyone have any advice on discerning when something is an obsessive thought versus you're just trying to have a positive thought? Like for example if I have low grade anxiety constantly and then I get the urge to do something to get rid of it and I get frustrated like I saw this video and this guy was talking about allowing yourself to imagine what it's like to feel okay. Sort of stuff like this where I'm like thinking I'm going to give myself the allowance to relax and remember what it feels like. I just feel like I'm always trying so hard to not reassure myself to where now I feel like everything is avoidance if it has any sort of reassurance to it and I'm like am I supposed to never feel reassured? Am I supposed to never have a mentality or mindset that makes me feel empowered? Obviously I don't think these things are true but it just gets really hard to feel like you can't trust yourself so much. I'm just basically trying to figure out if it's bad for my recovery to say to myself you're going to have a good day today and everything's okay even if it's not you'll deal with it. Of course getting bothered by this is a form of OCD I'm sure but I do think it is helpful to understand when it's useful to have affirmations and when it is really just holding you back from healing

hey, ive been diagnosed with ra/rocd a year ago. Ive been through loss of feelings, break up urges, intrusive thoughts about my gf etc. but i managed to heal a bit and the intrusive thoughts were gone for a couple of months. However, me and my partner started arguing lately and its been really intense. We even thought about a break form eachother. It did not happen because we decided to actively work on ourselves and the relationship. Weve been to one couples therapy session and are planning to attend regurarly. The biggest problem for me now is obssesing whether or not its worth it. Because there are a lot of things my brain is telling me i cant accept and that we are not compatible enough. But i cant differentiate if its real or not because ive had these thoughts before and it turned out that her behaviour wasnt the problem. But i dont know now. I dont know if were right for eachother. I would really like us to be. cause i love her with my hole heart and i know that with leaving her i would lose a part of myself too and i would handle it really badly.

Have you and your OCD ever “realized” something even though it made you nervous and anxious and you feared it meant that even though it wasn’t true. It’s kinda hard and weird to explain. Like you “realize” something in the moment but you know it’s not true but you start to believe it to be true and it gives you agita, even though it isn’t true

I really appreciate those advice for people who's suffering from OCD like i do but it makes me annoyed that those sentences kept repeating in my brain and it feels like there is pressure on my head, am i only one like this?

Hi, I just got this app and I'm 15. Ive been struggling for the past few months with what I think is severe OCD, mostly religious OCD and pocd. To any teens or anyone who grew up with it, does it get better? I've talked with my therapist, but sometimes the methods she gives me don't always work with channeling my OCD.

Anybody else with ROCD in a looong oong term relationship? I have been with my girlfriend for a decade, and I love her and want to be with her but for the first time ever I'm having anxiety about all of the different life paths I could have taken and whether or not I am choosing "right". She is my first and only, we've been together since I was 16. I don't want anyone else. But my anxiety has latched onto this fear of finding my forever person so young, especially because I have BPD and dependency issues. I want to sort those things out and heal and have a healthier relationship with her and myself, but I'm so terrified that if I get over the dependency, I will realize that that was the "glue" in our relationship. I get worried that I have never been single or lived alone as an adult. Like that's something everyone "has" to do. I just get scared. But I lovey girlfriend and I will fight for her forever. I feel like for a majority of our relationship I have felt so confident, but I have recently been lind of obsessing how many different paths there are in life and how I chose my path so young? On the otherhand I feel so lucky that I have gotten to grow up with this woman, that we could potentially be together for 70-80 years. Why after a decade am I suddenly so worried about this? Im just afraid because I have been an unhealthy person for so long, and I'm so scared that when I fully heal my dependency our relationship will change and I won't want it as much without the unhealthy "need" factor. It scares me even writing this. Why am I suddenly so obsessed with all of life's different possibilities? I don't want to be apart from her, but what if it's for the wrong reasons? Dependency, comfort, fear of loss, etc. Anyone relate? I am sick of this spiral. Im sick of not trusting myself and second guessing myself. Especially because I have made up my mind. I will fight for this forever. But what if that's wrong? What if it's my dependency? People talk about how you should know yourself before being in a relationship, but I feel like I have never really found myself. I have spent so much of my life in survival mode, grasping onto any bit of pleasure to get me through the day. Loving day by day. Very little goals or plans. Making my relationship too much of my life and personality. Isolating myself. Can I untangle this and become more independent and find myself without losing my best friend? How do I stop worrying about my choices and where they are coming from? Anytime I feel good, I second guess it. Like im forcing myself to feel that way because that's how I want to feel. But if that is how I want to feel, doesn't that mean that is how I feel and what I value? I'm just struggling. I just want to be healthy and present with my girlfriend. But the whole big "what if I'm deluding/lying to myself? What if I want to want it but don't actually want it? How can I trust what I want when my brain and attachment are so fucked up?" It's so difficult, i'm going back and forth between feeling confident and good and anxious and disconnected (which is better than I was only a few months ago-constantly sick with anxiety). I'm afraid I have passed some point of no return. I wish I could figure it out. I wish I could trust myself. Im so afraid of becoming more independent and finding out rhat my dependence was what was keeping me attached. This is triggering to even write. Anyone out there feel like this?

I got a new job in a new city then pretty quickly fractured my wrist. This job posting said “will train” and “no experience required” it is in the medical field and requires a lot of hands on tasks. Since my wrist got hurt my hours have been cut in half, now I am also struggling financially and am not able to move the rest of my belongings into my apartment. At work since turning in a Doctors note for my wrist that restricts me from some essential job functions, I feel as though my trainer and manager are very frustrated with me. They paused on training me on a lot of stuff and then told me to observe and be ready to jump back in once I am fully cleared. I messed up a couple things while charting, rooming, and a couple other things during training so far. From day one I have half the tasks I am responsible for down and accurate independently. 90% I have done accurately after a correction. The other 10% have to do with charting, I am dyslexic and have no charting experience and they have no resources on what needs to be filled out, the protocol, etc. and the staff are too busy during the day to ask for help. The office has no formal training or onboarding just shadowing and I am becoming resentful of the half pay (I am hourly) and feeling like I am always messing up and like they do not want me there. Some days it feels good and rewarding and like they do want me there as well. The manager and MA have started to talk down to me explaining things I already know over and over again not the things I need to practice and teaching me things like how to write an address or center something on a page. Obviously I know how to do that I am known internationally for some clinical education materials (ironic in this situation). Then said I’m behind in training, and their job is not to assist me but to assist the dr. (Referring to me asking questions making sure I am doing something right during the day/ the charting accommodation) Then said well we’re all kind of dyslexic. This was just straight up offensive and I just asked for someone on one time charting for 30 minutes one day so I can make an accurate checklist and run it by one of the other MAs. They said I should be past checklists, which bothered me cause they never had me practice it myself yet, and I’m just trying to get it down with a reasonable accommodation. I am so frustrated this situation is triggering my ROCD (relationships), Perfectionism OCD, and Symmetry OCD (my apartment being not pleasing to look at) because I do not understand how I can get something down without the muscle memory/ without any supervised practice. Everyday the OCD says I’m going to get fired I’m going to be fired I’m not perfect. I want to be good at this job and get it down, the work is very rewarding and I do have a 100% satisfaction score with the patients so something there is a good fit. How do I handle this? Does anyone have some advice? I want to keep this job, there are some amazing opportunities available down the line if I keep it for a year or so, I like the rest of the staff, and the Job market is very tough in the US right now.

I always try to make sure that I refrain of confessing, as well as seeking for reassurance.. yes, this account is made to vent and seek help but I also want you guys to as well follow along without witnessing me spiral like how I did last post. "" I need to just take deep breaths I know this disorder is awful. But let me put it in more simpler terms.. (without rambling into 5 seperate paragraphs. Ok now onto the actual purpose of the post.) Is anyone here someone who posts online? Whether it's about creative things.. life updates... hobbies... etc? Have you ever been someone who also involved yourself in the internet at a young age? I've gone through many debates and comments and posted cringe stuff and now they're lost in the abyss somewhere, maybe I've done something offensive there, maybe not. Have you also ever been wronged during your school years? Or maybe at work, or any other environment. Maybe rumors have spread, maybe you've said something offensive or derogatory in the past that you regret, maybe you've did something crazy who knows! I sometimes get scared that I will gain recognition online through my creative works, maybe I'll make good memories.. but then I'll get cancelled through allegations or rumors. I fear so much for that, maybe because of that my loved ones will get in danger as well. Or they'll get cancelled as well? Who knows. The Internet has gotten more progressive, but strict. Even if you don't post, what do you guys think of cancel culture? I personally have lots of thoughts, bad and good.

when did luvox start working for u guys? on two weeks i dont feel anything working... almost three weeks 😭

Hello! I have this fear about staring at people innapropriately. Breasts, bum, groin. This moved onto children, and it affects me greatly. I personally feel like I cannot get rid of the thought until I look. This makes me feel like I did it intentionally, which makes me worry I am a pervert. And obviously, so much worse now it's happened to children. I also get the feeling like I want it, which makes me feel worse. Like I am doing it to molest someone, but everyone knows I hate pedophilia and anything of sorts I wonder if anyone has similar stories. I feel so alone, and I don't want anyone else to as well. I'm hopefully going to a proper professional soon thankfully.

Hi everyone I hope you all are doing well . I have been really struggling with this idea , I know I have POCD , but with it I think I have false memory and real event too . I worked with kids for the first time I started working and I have a situation I keep thinking I did something wrong like something terrible if you get what I mean and it was just me sorting some cds in a room with two of my students at my old after school care camp job and my brain is telling me I did something wrong while doing it and like it makes me feel ill cause I get “ memories “ of me saying something weird or acting weird or just that feeling and I genuinely don’t know what I did ??? And same when I was a tutor it’s just making me think why did I even work those jobs I was so passionate and good at my jobs and now I quit them all because I’m scared . I’m scared of who I might be , it’s really difficult and I’ve tried ERP and I just think I’m terrible and I need to be locked away or I will be one day and it breaks my heart because my colleagues all liked me too and it feels like I’m playing a facade and mabye I really did something terrible I can’t forgive myself . It just keep looping in my head you did this and I feel so guilty crushing guilt and I can’t even try and work again even tho I need to support myself through my studies . It’s really hard and if anyone has anyone other advice or have gone through similar situations I appreciate any advice , comments and suggestions 🥹❤️

So I am doing much much better than I was. Some compulsions, but not like I used to. So I guess I have a question for other people like me: When I have a bad episode of ROCD and SO-OCD I worry that one day I will have a gay experience and then realize that I’ve actually been wrong all along and the feelings I have for my fiancee now are a lie. Then this perpetuates the ROCD cycle of do I actually love them, do I love them enough, etc. So has anyone else experienced this? How did you deal with these thoughts? For me, the “maybe, maybe not” just isn’t worked as well for this one.

I’m struggling with existential OCD and derealization. I get hyper-aware of my own consciousness like constantly thinking ‘why am I here?’, ‘how do I have my own mind?’, ‘everyone has their own consciousness and that feels scary’, and ‘life has no meaning because we all die’. It turns into rumination that makes me feel disconnected from my body and the world, like I’m looking through a fishbowl or I’m not really here. The thoughts loop and make me panic that I’ll be stuck like this forever. It spikes under stress I guess and after big periods of pushing through (like exams), and it makes me feel numb, sad, and exhausted and it’s just so fucking distressful I hate it. I know it’s OCD but the thoughts feel so real and distressing and asking if it’s OCD or psychosis is just a compulsion to get certainty that no one can ever give me. On top of this I’m trying to access therapy and it’s just so challanging and I’m scared I’ll be in this hyper awareness of conciousness and existential ocd state forever and I’ll just never get to live my life again. I feel crazy. Has anyone else had this and found ways to manage the hyper-awareness and existential dread? Looking for support and tips ):

I'm currently an inpatient on a psychiatric ward, home for weekend leave. I have OCD, along with depression and severe anxiety. This morning I was lying on the bed under a sheet while my wife gave me a face massage. My five-year-old climbed on and started "massaging" my stomach the way small kids do. Three times his hand ended up somewhere it shouldn't. I moved my hand across to stop it, but he'd already stopped on his own. Afterwards he laughed and said something like "haha I touched Daddy's willy." He was playing. My wife was right there. He thought it was funny, the way five-year-olds do. About half an hour later my wife and I were intimate, while the kids were downstairs watching TV. Here's the part that's really got its hooks in me. The thoughts were already going before we were intimate. My brain was already saying: if you do this now, it means something — it means you're only doing it because of what happened earlier. And I went ahead anyway, because wanting to be close to my wife mattered more to me in that moment. So now it isn't just "did something happen." It's "you were warned and you did it anyway." That's the bit I can't put down. It feels less like an intrusive thought and more like a decision I made with full knowledge. I can see the mechanism when I look at it straight. It's retrospective linking — two ordinary things, half an hour apart, and my brain drawing a line between them and calling the line proof. It's the same machinery that had me replaying the first moment frame by frame and then going back to correct small details so the account would be exact enough for someone to finally rule on it. I know the urge to get the story perfectly accurate is itself the compulsion. But naming it hasn't touched how it feels. It feels true. It feels like something I've found out about myself rather than something my illness manufactured. That gap — between knowing it's OCD and it still landing as evidence — is where I'm sitting, and I feel sick with it. I'm not asking anyone to tell me I did nothing wrong. I know that's the compulsion, and I know reassurance is a loan against tomorrow. I'm not going to add more detail so it can be assessed either. What I'm doing: not reviewing it further, not seeking reassurance from my wife, and telling my treatment team today when I go back — once, as a theme, rather than every time it surfaces. What I'd genuinely value: hearing from anyone who's been through this flavour, particularly the "I was warned and continued anyway" version of it. How did you hold the line when your own mind was building the case against you? I didn't want to sit with this alone until I'm back on the ward.