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the NOCD Community

I am struggling a bit with school lately. I end up studying until everywhere between 6 and 9 pm most days, and it is making me miserable. I am considering doing school part time, as that is an option available in my country, but I am afraid of “giving up”. I am also scared I’ll end up with too much time on my hands. What do you guys think? By doing it part time I’d be able to rest more and probably work more on my mental health. However, I would have to spend more time in school, and I feel like I would be a failure. Also, all my friends would graduate before me.

Does anyone else not know how to tell their (new) therapist I have distressing intrusive thoughts? No, they aren’t an OCD specialist and those aren’t really available in my area. I’m seeing a CBT specialist (soon) who typically treats anxiety and depression, who said they’d feel confident treating OCD.

I’m scared of everything. I’ve been diagnosed with severe OCD, GAD, MDD, panic disorder, BPD, PTSD and OCPD. I get really upset when people say “I’m so OCD”. I start feeling bad because here I am stuck in bed while people who are just neatfreaks glorify this illness. I’ve been hospitalized several times, took meds, have seen multiple therapists including the ERP specialist, and have tried different types of therapy including the ERP, talk therapy, DBT, ACT and some other thing my insurance recommended me. At first I was getting better but now I’m stuck in bed again. I have difficulty with a lot of things such as contamination fear and fear of losing, forgetting, dropping things. Even as I write this I’m scared I’m forgetting to write something. At one point I had to write down everything that was said to me. At one point I didn’t trust myself enough to do things like cleaning that I had to record myself. At one point I had to shower after using the bathroom every time. Those are under control...for now but now I have to face new obsessions. I’m scared of stupid things like chocolate and crying. I know what’s garbage but hard to throw out because what if there’s something important inside the folds of the plastic/paper bags. There’s always something that triggers my anxiety. Getting out of bed has gotten easier but getting back into my bed is exhausting with my rituals. I’ve tried leaving the apartment and on good days I would just feel nausea but push through. On a bad day I would get really sick with nausea. And on a really bad day I won’t feel anything and go through with getting ready, about to leave my bedroom heading towards the door and I have a complete melt down. I can’t even sleep without having to do my compulsion of writing down my dreams. On a good night I do this three times. So I’m always tired. I’ve tried to stop and have succeeded when I was working with the ERP specialist. My insurance has expired, I can’t get a job let alone leave my bed to go get any assistance, I’ve tried work from home but everything is difficult. I was a bridal consultant, artist/designer. I’ve also tutored Japanese online but it’s not enough to get the “residential level care” that the ERP therapist had told me I need. The insurance won’t pay for additional treatments with the specialist so I’m stuck. And what sucks is that my PTSD has become stronger which makes doing everyday tasks even more difficult (if that makes sense). What makes everything even more difficult is that I can’t do anything to help animals in need. I’m an advocate-have volunteered, rescued, spread awareness, sign petitions etc and all of these add up to my feeling of guilt and shame that I can’t put my passion of wanting to help animals before my OCD fear. I have a dream. I have a goal. I want to have my catcafe and work with high risk shelters to eliminate euthanasia while I save to start my own animal sanctuary. I’m sorry this has become a long post but I needed to vent to people who would understand and not have to explain why OCD is more than just “get over it” or “just stop your compulsions”.

My OCD: Me: It's not clean enough. It doesn't look good! I've tried everything I can think of. What do you suggest? Friend, who is literally a professional housekeeper: That is as clean as it can possibly get. You did it better than I would have. Me: It's not clean enough. *has a complete meltdown for 2 hours over it*

Ah I’m really panicking right now and I knew you guys always provide fantastic advice. So since I’m in hospital, I’ve had my medication plan reviewed and adjusted. I’m already taking Clomipramine, which is a drug used for OCD when SSRI’s have failed (in Australia at least!). I also used to take quetiapine (an antipsychotic) as an augmentation strategy. However, My psychiatrist has decided to switch my quetiapine to olanzapine. One of my biggest obsessions is preventing weight gain. I restrict my food intake and also purge frequently. Anyway, olanzapine is associated with significant weight gain. I’ve taken it the last two nights and I’ve experienced this insatiable hunger, which is severely distressing. Is this a reasonable reason to ask my psychiatrist for a different augmenting drug? I can’t bring myself to take another dose ? d a i s y

I’m so convinced I have borderline personality disorder cause of all the intrusive thoughts and the fact it’s makes me wanna do them( my intrusive thoughts is telling me to) I’ve been taking quizzes all day on line tomsee if I have any other mental Illnesses that serial killers might have. I get very annoyed easily and mad which is a symptom of BPD, I’m so scared :((((

Hey guys I just wanna share what I have been going through. Haven’t been here for a while because some posts trigger me. I’ve been suffering from HARM ocd since September 13,2017 and have attempted to go the therapist multiple Times but quit because they didn’t specialize in ERP. But College started and I never had time. Some Days the thought are super hard and other days they’re controllable. These past few days I’ve been having constant headaches and I feel I’m Going insane and bouta go To mental. I’m not depressed or anything cause I still eat and go to class but lately my head always hurts I always get horrible dreams and I feel insane. I don’t even get anxious I feel like there’s something wrong with me. I feel like one day imma lose control and I have the same mindset or a serial Killer. I feel so deattached and spaced out. I can’t travel anywhere without being scared or having this creepy feeling again. I went to panera and it was 30 mins away from my house but I felt so dark and evil. I feel lost! And days where I don’t get intrusive thoughts I feel so nasty and my head pounds and i really like i want to go mental and do crazy things and want to scream on the top of my lungs and lose control. Is this Normal? Please someone help. I wanna give up. ( dw I won’t harm myself so don’t report this post) please share tips!

My OCD is a little odd. I have intrusive thoughts about my loved ones getting hurt, mostly my girlfriend being raped. She’s in the army and you hear such horrible stories and I’ll be at my internship (we have a lot of people who have been sexually abused there) and I’m worried that since the people who need to share their stories make me spiral and spend twenty minutes trying to convince myself she’s not being by one of her fellow soldiers, that I’m not cut out to be a psychologist. They always get graphic and I end up convinced it’s actually happening. We’ve talked about it and she said she takes precautions and she’s mostly around women (only comforted me a little. I’ve been sexually abused by a woman) and that she’ll be fine and that if something does happen she’ll tell me, but still. It scares me so much. Like, how do you deal with graphic intrusive thoughts of someone you love with all your heart- someone you may want to marry down the road- being penetrated against her will? It’s so terrifying and I think it might be interfering with my work.

Anyone have a scientific explanation for the OCD? I don’t mean why some people get it, I know that’s unknown, but I mean as in what happens to the brain during an attack or why we get stuck on obsessions and can’t react logically like most people would?

I need help I think I have homosexual OCD, I know I’m not but I can’t get it out of my mind...

Let's say I worried that I could've dropped money somewhere & I go back to check over and over again? What would ERP look like here?

Does anyone have any tips on how to become more confident over time. Today I was at my boyfriends house and I was in the kitchen and his brother came in with his new girlfriend and they were laughing randomly and I always assume the worst like they’re talking bad about me. It was pretty awkward as they didn’t initiate any convo towards us and I said ‘hi’ to his girlfriend to try and at least make her feel a bit comfortable but she ignored me. Afterwards When I was walking home with my boyfriend he asked if I was okay and I just cried because I’m sick of being unconfident every single day like I want to change and boost my confidence but I just don’t know how because I get so overwhelmed

I was referred to CAHMS and the referral went through fast because of the severity how much my OCD affects my life. With my GCSEs coming up I need to get some help. We were supposed to see a doctor but they were called out to an emergency. Instead I saw a practitioner. I was mostly open about my OCD in the first appointment but we then we had some issues where she told my mum somethings about my OCD which were not required or that she was unaware of. This made me feel uncomfortable. I have had x4 1hr30 sessions with her. So far I have talked about some of my obsessions and intrusive thoughts to which she said that I just need to think less about. I often do things in 4s or 16s so she recommended I do them in 4s. I asked her what the structure was to be and she said that she’d do 3/4 more mindfulness sessions and see if it had helped. I need more than that but don’t know how to tell her that. Part of my OCD (like for most sufferers) is to think overly about other people’s thoughts and feelings. How would this make her feel? Etc When I explain my obsessions she takes notes and when I ask her to give me some coping mechanisms/ strategies she seems lost. She writes notes and says that this is a lot for a brain to go through, that I must feel tired. It’s no fault of her own, just lack of expertise in the area. She has particular interest in mindfulness - not anxiety and related disorders. I feel like she maybe does not want to admit this and is just continuing. I went for help but I am not receiving it. I want to get better, feel better but that might be months before she realizes it’s not helping. I want to speak to somebody else but the only person I have seen at CAHMS is her and I feel uncomfortable expressing this with her. Sorry this is long but does anyone has any advise on how to deal with this situation? What to say, suggest. Like I said, it causes me great distress if I help myself at others’ expense.

Therapist: There are germs everywhere. You can’t get rid of them. So, why don’t you learn not to wash your hands after touching washroom door knob ? ??‍♂️ Me: Would you touch a dead rat and not wash your hands? ? Therapist: No!? Me: Why?! You said there are germs everywhere and you can’t get rid of them. ? Therapist: ? Me: That’s where you draw the line and this is where I draw the line. ? Therapist: I will not try to convince you that nothing is going to happen to you if you don’t wash your hands. Probably, something can but its probability is really really low. So, you have to take the risk and be uncertain. Me: ?

What annoys me is knowing intrusive thoughts are apart of life. I have to do exposure in order to decrease the level of anxiety I feel from them but I hate every second of it.

I have CDO. It’s like OCD but all the letters are in alphabetical order as they should be.

It’s ridiculous how much people discussing HOCD bothers me. I know it’s a form of OCD, which I understand is out of the person’s control. I know mental illness is not a choice. I have OCD, so I get it. I get invasive thoughts about being hetero, so it makes sense that it works the other way too. I know the people who have HOCD aren’t necessarily homophobic. It does kind of make me feel like my sexuality is a worst case scenario, though. I can’t help but think “people are as afraid of being like me, as I am of heart attacks”. Idk. It just almost feels like people are saying “oh no what if I’m gay” “don’t worry, you’re straight. You’re okay because you’re straight” (which I know isn’t the case). It could just be because of the lack of positivity I’ve seen surrounding the queer community lately, though. I’m not trying to call out or invalidate people with HOCD though, I know it’s something that they don’t enjoy, and it’s something they suffer with just as much as I suffer with my OCD. Sorry, just needed to get that off my chest

I don't understand ERP. How is it logical? I can sit with my hand in a toilet all day & I refuse to habituate to it. I don't even have contamination fears & that's nasty. Making a picture hanging on the wall crooked on purpose? Why? I prefer my pictures to hang straight. I wouldn't habituate to a crooked picture.... Lick the bottom of your tennis shoe? Ew. Not gonna habituate to that either. Curse God out with curse words? Don't care to do that & I'm not even religious. So, how does ERP work? I don't get it.

Anyone treating their OCD with weed? It’s legal where I live so I think about trying it, but I had bad experiences with it when I was younger (panick attack). Any tips? Is it worth a try?

Looking for some rOCD friends here. Been with my boyfriend for over a year and it hit almost 2 months in and hasn’t stopped.