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the NOCD Community

We Didn’t Choose This When I write on this app I like to write to the people really going thru it because, I know first hand how scary this disease can be and how I wish I had someone who knew exactly what I was going thru to tell me “everything’s going to be okay”. Because it is real easy especially with OCD to think of the worse case scenario. One of the things I always used to say and still hear a lot of people with OCD and on this app say to me is “why did this have to happen to me” or “I didn’t choose this”. I know. Your in it, your going through it right now. Life by itself can be hard and now you have to deal with a mental illness. We didn’t choose this. But we can choose whether we give up or not. These thoughts are going to have a presence in your life but they don’t have to stop you from being present in life. You can choose to enjoy each moment. You can choose to keep your peace. You can choose to have joy and to keep your head up high. Now I’m a man of faith and I’m proud of that, I know some of you aren’t religious (you can go to hell just kidding lol ?). But certain stories in the Bible help me understand what I am going through and when I talk to y’all I don’t like to use stories people aren’t familiar with because I want you all to know how this works in your life and how you can learn from it. The one story that sticks out to me that we all know about is the Nativity. When the angel appeared to Mary and told her she was going to have a child. She didn’t complain and say “I didn’t choose this” life was already hard for her, now she has a big responsibility at such a young age. Instead she said “let everything you said happen to me” and honestly that’s the way we need to be, we need to just let this happen and keep moving on. No need to stop and try to answer these thoughts or let it ruin our spirit. God already has the answers he already has a plan. He’s going to let this happen to you and what you should do is say okay, because at the end of this your life will change for the better. If any of you guys are still wondering will this get better please reach out to me. Ive been in recovery for a little bit now after relapsing severely, I know how great and beautiful life is and can be and that’s why even when things seem to be going wrong I can smile. Life is so much more beautiful once you learn how to deal with OCD. I learned how to just appreciate sitting outside in silence because when you have those thoughts running through your head all the time you can never just sit still and enjoy life and then when we put those thoughts behind us we have a much greater appreciation for the little things and that’s something a lot of other people will not be able to attain. Wishing all of you the best!! God Bless!!

does anyone else blame themselves for what other people did?

I just don't know what this is anymore it feels so real HELP My relationships always last barely a month and maybe just a tad more than that sometimes....I've met an incredible guy he's a little lanky but has the most amazing face and when we met I felt something I had never felt before and that lasted fro an incredible two/three months....however, all was well and I looked forward to seeing him everyday and thought that maybe this time I had done something right...that was until I did what I always do and triggered the thought "what if I don't think he's attractive?". He clearly is and I know I think so but this sent me into an anxious spiral about whether or not my relationship was working or right or my partner was good enough (which is dumb bc he is and at first I was worried I wasn't good enough for him!)....My parents and friends have noted that this tends to happen in every relationship I've been in and this fear cycle of judgement and unsatisfaction brings me to think negatively about my partner and feel scared and repulsed sometimes....I'm so scared and don't know why this keeps happening to me especially with a guy that I felt os special about....I've struggled with severe anxiety my whole life and have also exhibited lots of symptoms associated with HOCD, ROCD, and Pure O throughout my life (most recently I've been known to post here and on NOCD multiple times within a week and asking for reassurance about every five seconds from loved ones )....I'm scared I'm just lying to myself or forcing myself to be in a relationship that is not right for me but I want it to be right so bad bc it was! Can anyone relate? I want to start my healing journey but I need to know what is going on in my head first bc it all feels so real and I'm so scared...even scared to post this right noe

Has anyone made a full recovery from real event ocd with false memories tied in? With my OCD, false memories seem to constantly one up possible "what if" scenarios on details I can't fully remember, and I go from one possibility to the next, always one at a time. I know I'll never be certain, but I keep going anyway. I'm wondering what recovery is like ---does your brain sort out what's real and what isn't or do you just stop caring what happened. Would love some insight. Thanks!

I’ve recently started ERP, and my OCD is giving me so many extra and intensified triggers. Like it is not happy with being challenged and it is throwing a fit or something. Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Can someone have one crush on a girl and not be lesbian or bisexual

Can anyone help me out. I was going very well through the last years until I have one experience that I think provoke my OCD to the limits again. I had an experience with a girl that was a friend of mine for many years, that I think she also suffers from something different. She did things that was suggesting that she felt something for me but after she did not admit them. I never felt something for her, but when I separate with my girlfriend, this small continues love things she did to me, started to provoke feelings inside me. I started to feel that I was in love with her, but I felt that something was wrong. I read a few things and it really felt like love bombing. I tried to get far way, the far way I was getting the harder she try to bring me near. But when I was coming back the more she distant she became. So I get away again and the same story continue. From that situation I was feeling very confuse I could not understand what was happening and I always felt anxious inside me because I just wanted to finish, I came to a point that I did not care if she felt something back, just to be clear with me, so all the scenarios inside me would stop. So one day I decided to tell her and again without being clear she suggest that she doesn’t feel the same. So I try this time to get away so the feelings will fade away. The more i get away, the more I found her in my way, the harder she try to come near me. I talk with her a few times and I explained to her what she was doing to me. She said she understood and that she was sorry, and every time was the same, she told me that she didn’t felt the same way, but her actions and body language was suggesting other things, she was telling me for example that she was cold and to go more near to her, or that she wanted a Masaz and things like these, and almost always before we leave she was leaving me with suggesting words, like I cannot be really honest with you, it’s really hard to be honest, or something like you will never know who I really feel. All this create something very confusing inside me I felt like I was walking on egg shells all the time. To try to keep it short because it’s a really big story, I finally found out that she did the same and worse to another person I knew. We were all in the same company. The guy almost kill hill self from the things she did to him, and he knew that nobody was going to believe him, because we knew this girls for how many years and she always like a saint. We try to talk to the other members of the company what she was doing to us and almost nobody believed us. After of a lot of pressure and a lot of lies she admitted that she felt for the other guy, but it was to complicated, and she did all that things because she was in love with him. The guy even if he also felt with her he did not wanted something with her because for him it was like live or death situation because he almost kill himself and he knew that everything he felt for her was not real she was just love bombing him. The problem with me is that because she never admitted all the things she did to me and she blame both of us (the guys) for the reaction we had after all the lyings and love bombing she did, a doubt born inside me. And it goes like this, what really happened, what if I did not understood correctly, what if I am the bad person and several. And because some of our friends took her side another cycle began inside me that nobody of my friends love me, that everyone believed her, every time that a friend doesn’t answer the phone I feel that something bad happened, that she convinced him also and several. Behind all these there is a huge fear, a fear that I did not understand what really happened, I fear that I will lose all of my friends and a fear sometimes that if she did all these things to me and she was as she was always telling to other people that I was one of her best friends for almost a decade then anyone around me can hurt me this way. It’s worth to mention that when i found out some of the truth I blocked her from everything but she reacted in way that was suggesting that we misa understood her for everything, she continue her life with another guy like nothing happened and she blame the both us for everything. After all the lies she told all the things she did I cannot understand why I cannot believe in my self and blame myself and doubt him. I came to a point yesterday that I started to search again that maybe I am the problem, that maybe I had something else including the OCD, and I started to develop a fear that maybe I am narcissist or bpd.

Hi Guys. Really rough day today. As you may have seen in my other posts, blood in the bathroom is my number one trigger. Today, at my work at the mall, I was in a rush and the toilet liner ripped. No big deal, but I stood up, I noticed blood the size a bit bigger than a quarter right in the area that I sat on where the liner ripped. This was clearly not mine. I was very distressed by it but had to get back to my job. I am not worried about illness but just purely disgusted. When I got home I was so upset I took an extra long shower and feel as though I’m still not clean. I feel like all my clothes and my bag are contaminated and even the soaps I used in the shower. I’m trying to practice all the therapy techniques but it’s not helloing. Ignoring it is not helping. I’m trying not to ruminate but I’m overwhelmed with feeling disgusted. Please send me some techniques on how to move on. I know disgust isn’t harmful and I can’t get sick from it yet the fact that it touched me still bothers me a lot.

Hi I want to help my brother out with his OCD. He has many intrusive thoughts and rituals that he has to do. He washes his hands many times in the day. How do you all cope with OCD? What is some advice that you can share with me?

Does your therapist have to be an OCD certified therapist? I feel like I am not having success with my thoughts and much as I would like

Does anyone have those moments where one small inconvenience can literally bring you to a full blown scream-cry. Like traffic, not being able to pick something up the right way, fumbling with an old phone charger, or spilling a drink in the car. Like literally the saying crying over spilled milk I noticed on days when my anxiety is really bad I’m one minor inconvenience away from fucking LOSING it and crying like a toddler in a supermarket.

This kinda isn’t related to OCD but I just wanted to rant: Ok so my boyfriend asked me to hang out tomorrow and now I’m scared to. Ugh I’m so tired of this anxiety shit. I make up excuses and say I can’t hang out even though I want to. I think I have social anxiety, but when I don’t hang with him my anxiety isn’t bothering me. I just hate that feeling. I need help can anyone please give me some advice. I could really use it :(

what's happening is everyday or so I realize I've done something bad or wrong to god and I go to say sorry but when I say sorry my feelings feel a mix of things and I realized those are ocd feelings but I feel like that after I say sorry I didn't say a long or proper enough sorry so what should I do now ? Should I not say sorry because I know God understands all my feelings and he knows I'm sorry but my question is should I not say sorry should I ignore the feelings and how can do realize something everyday

What does a false memory feel like? I have an actual event, but my brain always tells me lies about it and makes it feel worse and I know what its saying is not real but it scares me. Is this a false memory?

Don’t usually have bad dreams about my intrusive thoughts but I just did. And during a daytime nap, too! That never happens. Can I tell somebody about them?

I feel like my hocd is targeting all girls but one in specific. And I just feel like that’s not as common. It feels real. I sound like a broken record about this but I am mainly obsessing if it’s real with her or not. I don’t want it to be. We used to be so close. As well as in general but it’s bad bad with her. My sexual intrusive thoughts have pretty much limited to just her. And I honestly want to throw up. Why do I feel like this situation is only happening to me

I wish I wasn’t grieving and depressed so much about my ex who i felt I didn’t have enough feelings for, whom with I was forcing loving actions because they didn’t come naturally. I’m just wanting to do nothing right now and wallow in grief until it lifts. But that may takes longer than I have actual time to do nothing. I feel like the universe didn’t deem me good enough for him ?? despite that I mentally wanted him and fought for it so much. He was amazing. Was trying to tell myself the universe probably has a more complex way of deciding who’s with who, and it is too simplistic and probably incorrect for me to assume ‘I’m not good enough.’ See, I even said ‘probably’. Sigh...I wish I was nicer to myself.

This isn't OCD related but Honestly realising how antisocial I'm makes me sad. But whatever :). Like holding convos online and in real life is so different. I'm worried nobody actually likes to talk to me and I'm annoying so I usually don't speak. I sometimes can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing? ?

I have BPD on top of OCD and had a falling out with a best friend of 10 years. I have friends who say she’ll come back she just needs time and after a while I started giving her her space. Either way she recently blocked me on everything except Facebook and another website, instead she kept me as a friend on some things and just made it where I can’t see her stuff. (I wasn’t trying to really look just check to see if she removed me on those as well) and ever since then I kinda went back to square one where I was mentally a couple months ago. My OCD keeps making me think of every terrible thing I’ve ever done in my life- especially in my teen years. I’m on social media quite a bit especially because I’m an artist and need to post on social media to get my stuff out there, and I constantly think what if people find out bad things about me? What if I get some terrible call out post? What if I’m a horrible person deep down? If it’s not one thing it’s another thing. Like one day I’ll be obsessing about my best friend and I’s relationship or our roleplay we had for a decade and the times we’ve rpd sexual things and my brain is like what if she was uncomfortable with it and never told me??? Next day I’ll be obsessing about my real life friends and how they say really bad bad things politically. And then the next day after that I’ll obsess about a relationship I had online when I had just turned 17, and I didn’t know how old the person was and they go on to tell me like a month or two later “I’ll be 14 in 2 months” and asked if I was mad and over the years therapists had given me reassurance that I didn’t do anything wrong even tho I told them this person and I even role played once I don’t know. I don’t wanna do wrong and I know people make mistakes in their lives I just wish I could redo life a lot of the time. I’m 23 now and I feel guilt and cringe at every stupid thing I’ve ever done. I end up feeling sorry for myself a lot of the time and end up self loathing and wondering the purpose of continuing to go on in life. I’m a perfectionist. I’m depressed. I can’t even find a job that’ll work with me. I also possibly have ptsd and autism and I can’t even get to a therapist. My old therapy place won’t take me back either and I don’t have a car to get to the other therapy place. I just want a normal life. I want a normal life. This is such a ramble. I just feel so scared and depressed all the time even when I take my medication. I feel like I’m not allowed to enjoy anything, I feel like I’m not allowed to live my life because I hurt someone I love. I keep switching emotions from guilt to anger at her. My friends are getting tired of my shenanigans again because I was ok for a while but then when I was blocked just randomly my mood just dropped again.

Hi everyone, i was just wondering if there are any germaphobes on here?