Welcome to
the NOCD Community

How do you guys know if you’re worries are OCD or not? I’ve sort of attributed my worries/paranoia/anxiety to being OCD, but lately I’m questioning if these are even OCD at all. How do you differentiate legitimate concerns from OCD concerns?

Anyone else find that their OCD is strongly connected to trauma?

I’ve been diagnosed with OCD recently. It seemed to come out of nowhere. I had a lot of overwhelming stressful situations in my life hit me at once. Situations I have no control over. And I started having this crippling anxiety that I focused towards my job. I work in healthcare so things that I do directly effect patients and even though I know I’m great at my job, my brain has convinced me that I’m going to make a mistake that will hurt someone. So the compulsions started and the extreme guilt and the hyper-responsibility. I was leaving work every day convincing myself that I hurt someone and having severe panic attacks. I’d have to call into work and ask people to double check things for me or even drive in and check them myself. One time I even hit a pothole after work and my brain convinced me I hit a person and I had to turn around to make sure. I felt like I was losing my mind. I was sure I was going to have to throw my whole career away because It felt like I’d never be able to handle it. I immediately went to my doctor. She prescribed some SSRIs. I learned quickly that my body cannot handle SSRIs and I was unable to sleep, eat, or calm down for over 72 hours each time I tried a new one (I tried 3). It was horrible. I’ve never felt worse in my entire life. I even considered having myself hospitalized. I was terrified to take another drug so I tried to do without. I started therapy, meditation, eating healthier, and daily exercise. These things helped but when I hit a low, it was bad. I was still struggling to go to work. So I finally took my doctors advice and started buspar. I know different medications work for different people, but this drug saved me. Since I’ve been taking it, most days my anxiety is down to a 3 from basically a 10. I still have bad days but they’re much fewer. This week has been hell though. In one day, three huge situations in my life hit me hard. Including my husband having a mass removed that we’re waiting to find out if it’s cancerous. Things I can’t control and I just feel like I can’t take anymore of it. I haven’t eaten and I’ve barely slept in days. I made it through one shift yesterday and then spent my entire day thinking “what if I made a mistake”. I couldn’t sleep and ended up with a severe migraine so I had to call off work today. I’m trying really hard to avoid the compulsions but I just feel like I’m at my breaking point. Im severely depressed and overwhelmed. And I just don’t know how I’m going to keep pulling myself out of these spirals I end up in.

Just curious, how young were you when your OCD began? I remember being in middle school! I thought I was going to end up crazy as an adult because I didn’t understand what was going on in my head. On top of that, I was going through puberty so the combination of the two were horrible.

Is OCD a spectrum because I cannot relate to people on this app telling their stories

Made the mistake yesterday of searching out other people’s experiences with suicidal OCD on reddit which many of them questioned whether they were actually suicidal or just having the OCD, as well as looking up on Twitter the hashtag #facesofOCD to see that many people also had depression with their OCD. This obviously made me more scared. I don’t think I’m depressed but the intrusive thoughts lately have been telling and making me feel like a lost cause, which scares me since I mostly struggle with harm/suicidal OCD. I know it isn’t true but the thoughts are still attacking me. Today I was very close to looking up quizzes on whether I did have depression or not since that’s what the thoughts were telling me I could be but I’m resisting that urge and letting it be instead! Not gonna get me!

Anyone else get anxious when they get dressed up because they’re afraid they elicit responses from same sex and that it will be like”Bam! You’re gay!”

What are you feeling right now? Is it a feeling that is pleasant or unpleasant? How large or small is it? - I'm feeling pretty disenchanted with everything today. Very blah. Like "what's the point". It's unpleasant, but not real intense. It does feel big though, like a cloud filling my whole room

Is there anyone here diagnosed with ocd and bpd that can talk?

trying not to analyze and look into things rn. so i have hocd. i’ve never had a bf or even really been in the talking stage with a guy. i’ve had many crushes though just never confident enough to tell them. i have very low self esteem and confidence. so right now i’m talking to this guy who i met through a friend. and he’s only seen me in person a couple years back. and he really likes me and he’s nice. but i’m just not attracted to him. this may sound bad but for me i have to be somewhat physically attracted to a guy in order to like him. but i continue talking to this guy because (again sounds really bad i know) i like the attention. but the fact that i don’t want to go out with him or actually date him or anything makes my hocd question everything. but then i feel like i’ll never have anyone that likes me that’s cute because my confidence and self esteem is low. so to be honest i think this is one of those “you have to love yourself before you love anyone else” type things but hocd still makes me question it

Having a difficult time talking to my mom about my OCD diagnosis. She thinks that’s not what I have and that I’m probably just searching for something to call it. She associates OCD with the hand-washing and cleanliness, however I deal with harm and religious OCD. Explained I thought it was general anxiety but with the obsessive intrusive thoughts and mental compulsions I’ve been experiencing I suspected it could be OCD and had that confirmed by my therapist. Anyone else have a hard time talking with their families on the subject?

So I have Ms(an autoimmune disease) and I’m only 15. I was reading this thing about the corona virus and it said more people are likely to die with a weak immune system or a autoimmune disease. And I bawled. I don’t want to die, I’m so young and this is one of my worst fears. I have a friend who’s 18 with Ms too but she’s not as anxious about it. Despite it being in our state. Today in my health class we were learning about a different type of medical job that I really like, I thought to myself that I want to do that and I just had the thought that said “you won’t be alive to do it.” Or if I tell my mom or grama I love you it’ll be like “these are the last few times you’ll say that to them.” And it’s freaking me out. I have no idea what’s gonna happen to me but I’m so scared I’m going to die. Also I’m moving soon and the thoughts are like “you won’t be in your new house for long.” I just need someone to tell me that this will all be okay. I’m not expecting it to end but I just want someone to cry to rn. My mom is understanding but Ik she’s tired of hearing about me being worried about this. And my friend, I can’t bother her about this bc she has college and work to worry about. And my close friends, they don’t know I have ocd. So it’d be complicated to try to confide in. I tried to call the mental health hotline and of course they’re closed. I tried praying but all it does is make me feel less safe and THERE IS NO WAY OUT OF THIS. IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL AND THERE IS NONE. ITS NO WAY OUT and I feel hopeless and scared

Is it possible to have POCD and be a pedophile at the same time? I have fought with many highly skilled OCD clinicians about this and I still don’t know what to do. I don’t hang around kids of course, but it seems to be due to the attraction instead of the OCD type rumination with some of my other thought content (extreme violence, etc). I’m aware that OCD can affect every area of thinking so there may be some cross-pollination going on. It’s just that I keep getting directed to these communities when I feel like I don’t fully belong because I genuinely have pedophilic fantasies. What do? Thanks!

Hobbies! It's important to have things in our lives other than OCD, which bring us joy, calm us down and can provide a good way to redirect our attention away from obsessions and compulsions. I'm curious about your hobbies and interests! I enjoy painting and learning languages- I reached B2 in Swedish and am starting on Korean. I love to follow artists on YouTube who show their methods step by step and try them out. I also decided to learn more Python (programming language) and brush up my C++ in order to work in software development and eventually data science, so I am making a plan to write some code every day. I find that redirecting my attention to these hobbies when I'm anxious makes my OCD symptoms reduce and ensures that life isn't entirely passing me by even though I struggle to be social.

I'm really tripping on schizophrenia right no, I'm worried that I'm going to hear voices but I don't, also think I'm going to go insane, it's very scary right now for me

Im having a panic attack . ;(

And last night a thought came to me about my sister and I was stupid or paralyzed two seconds before taking out the thought, it's as if I wanted it there It is as if I had been watching the thought, I feel it is real and I want to die because this is horrible

How can a single thought ruin your whole day. I opened my eyes to anxiety and constant thoughts. Spent the morning searching the internet for answers. I can’t seem to get myself out of this state of panic. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I don’t even feel like I’m living. I’m just trying to survive

I need some advice from someone with pocd

My POCD is back and therefore so is my feeling of complete loss of attraction to guys my own age. In fact I would say that the latter is what I’m obsessed with the most, the loss of attraction. Also just the weeks proceeding this I was so attracted to a certain guy that I had OCD that I might lose control and give in to sexual urges for him, I also know he’s not in to me. I’ve had this before where I’ve completely lost my normal attractions, and it’s freaky to say the least, so I know I can get through this. However, the last time I had this the loss of attraction lasted for months and it really made me feel like a pedo because I lost them completely. I miss my attractions so bad because it felt so good and now they’re gone and I really hate that. How do I get them back without it taking months? Even when I try to except the thoughts I still get pissed off because I don’t feel like the attractions are back.