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the NOCD Community

Feel like everyone I get on the ladder to recovery I slip back off and it’s gets harder and harder to pick myself up again:( I am simply exhausted:(

If anyone here has ROCD, can you tell me about your experiences?

I need help. Does anyone else with mental compulsions get confused about which thoughts are obsessions and which are compulsions? Sometimes thoughts I’d considered compulsive start to feel intrusive. Then I don’t know which thoughts I’m supposed to try to stop (mental compulsions) and which I’m supposed to allow (intrusive thoughts/obsessions). I get so confused and overwhelmed about what I’m supposed to do when this happens and it feels horrible. The confused feeling gets so strong my head feels like it’s buzzing and spinning. Does anyone have any advice?

Someone please respond. Let me preface by saying that both my therapists and my mom don’t think I’m what I think I am. I have known I have OCD since I was 14, and I’m 22 now. (I had other forms of it in the past—perfectionism OCD, reverse HOCD (thought I was straight,) etc. But POCD is literally making me feel like trash and so scared and worthless. I can remember sooo many times when I had these thoughts and they weren’t “intrusive” because I didn’t know they were bad. Like so many times. So how does that make me any diff from an actual p********?! Now that I know they’re bad, we’re just going to call them intrusive?! I don’t want to hurt a child ever!! I want to have a relationship with someone my age! (But this can be true for real p********s too!!) I’m so scared, how can I just call these “false attractions” now?? Also, my type is young looking (people my age!) but does that mean I like them because they look child-like?! Please help, I want my happiness back. I’m not a bad person ?

Ive doing a lot of reassurance seeking these days, specially today. My mom cant cope anymore my infinite questions and doubts about everything. My mind is out of control, sometimes is about pocd, other time is about religious ocd and now is work/job ocd. I think I am useless and worthless and that no one would ever hire me and at the same time when my family says that I need to work/get a job, I feel like I really dont want to work at all, but I need to survive and earn money and this really mess my brain up

My mind is telling me now more than ever that I’m gay But when I chat with girls and phone sex I get boners and I still enjoy sex with the opposite sex but I have these mouth sensations where I’d feel like I’m blushing but when I look I’m not and it makes things worse

Does anybody else feel like their mom just doesnt understand the extent to which u are suffering with ocd and it makes u so upset. Like i told my mom i was cleaning bc nobody else in the house does. She got so upset and said she always cleans. She meant like vacumming and dishes and stuff, but i meant disinfecting bc i have contamination ocd. But she didnt underatmd me and started saying how she always cleans but im just sleeping in too late to see. She was really upset w me. Then i said that she is thinking the worst of me the while time. Then she said that im the one being so judgy.. what?? Like does she even understand this occupies my life. I literally have dreams about it, my whole life revolves around it. Its the only thing i think about.

How can I know if I am saved? If God will save me? This is a reassurance and I just dont want to do it. I am tired from feeling this way, for fearing apocalypse/end of days

Hello, friends with contamination obsessions. I had some thoughts today about the experience that I hope you’ll find helpful. Hopefully it’s not too rambling or irrelevant! To elaborate a bit on your experience. So you’re engaging in compulsions (hand washing) because of some obsessional content. From current research, we know compulsions work for alleviating anxiety, at least for some time. But because compulsions are a form of suppression—trying to eliminate, reduce, or avoid the thoughts—they tend to come back with more intensity. So, paradoxically, compulsions actually feed your obsession rather than alleviate it. So where does that leave you? Well, exposure is about reconditioning your mind to respond differently. Assuming this is a contamination obsession, you may touch something “dirty” while not engaging in a compulsion like handwashing. You may start small, with something that doesn’t trigger you as much, while working your way up to whatever is most triggering for you. A couple notes here: this is going to be extremely difficult and distressing. Which is totally normal, because your brain is so habituated to a certain response (compulsion) that when you do ERP it actually, at least temporarily, feels worse. The compulsion has been your “safety net” in a sense, and your OCD may respond intensely in their absence. It may not feel like anything is happening. It’s going to take willingness and courage on your part to continue on in spite of how it feels. That’s the real and messy work of recovery. Do an exposure for at minimum 30 minutes. Most therapists recommend an hour if you can. Give the exposure your full attention. The idea is once you’re bored with that exposure, you move up the hierarchy. But as you may be noticing, your compulsions are only escalating. OCD cannot be satisfied by a compulsion. It will always crave more, and you will watch your world become smaller and smaller. This is where ACT or acceptance/commitment approaches are so helpful. We spend so much of our life avoiding any uncomfortable feeling. This works in our external world. Say if you touch a hot stove, then avoiding the stove or moving away from it helps you. This is not the case for your internal world. Humans have the ability to connect things via association. So if an animal, say a cat, touches a stove it will get burned and learn to avoid that stove. It won’t reflect on the experience, avoid anything that’s hot even if it’s not a stove, and wonder if something is wrong with it for touching the stove. Your brain goes, “This thing is dirty. What else is dirty? Are people dirty? Is the outside world dirty? I’m noticing dirty things all the time, so maybe everything is dirty. I washed my hands, ok, good. Did I wash them enough? Ok, I’ll do it again. That feels better. Maybe it didn’t work. I saw something that someone got contaminated from their food. Why am I doing this? I don’t want to do this? Please, I don’t want to think about this? If I use bleach, I know that’s clean that’ll work. Yes! Thankfully, I can rest. Wait, maybe I didn’t get all my hands, I’ll do it again. Why can’t I stop? I need someone to help. Just anyone. Let me get online. I’ll ask if anyone else has this, they do! But maybe I’m not like them. How did they stop? Why can’t I do what they did? Maybe I’m broken? Someone please help. Okay, I have to wash again.” That one experience can associate and morph and grow. Unlike the cat, the hot stove follows you everywhere. ACT, or acceptance, isn’t accepting that every thing is contaminated. It’s watching that war in your mind, laying down your weapon, and letting the battle rage while you’re off the field. The fighting may or may not end, but it’s immaterial to your life.

i came across this thing on twitter with this checklist of things you think/say/do if you’re a closeted lesbian and I read through it and I’m freaking out. my hocd hasn’t been bad recently but that just made me go insane somebody PLEASE PLEASE help me I’m going to cry I don’t know what to do

Im in a tough spot. I have pocd and ive had hocd i havent been diagnosed by anyone but im positive im right. Im also not trying to type this out for reassurance but i dont know if this is,on top of that i had a disgusting addiction to transgender pornography. It didnt feel good after i watched it but i couldnt stop, i always told myself this is it no more but would always do it again. After This i questioned my sexuality i knew i wasnt attracted to the same sex but why was i watching this then. I really felt the affects of this january this year when one night my mind just kept repeating to me you are a pedophile, this really destroyed me i couldnt sleep and at times almost threw up because of this fear of becoming one. I started remembering moments in my life when i would watch hentai and looking back on it now i could consider it cp even though many people wouldnt to me it still feels like it. I know im not attracted to any of this stuff but i feel so broken and disconnected, i dont feel like i can tell anyone but i feel like i should i just dont know how. Sometimes i get urges to watch transgender porn again to prove that im not a pedo but i dont think any porn is good for anyone. Recently i became a christian and i keep praying that these thoughts will go away, going to church really helped me and theres a girl that i have a crush on there but now that im in isolation and my church isnt on things are really tough. I hope i can get through this time and come out stronger and mentaly better. I hope this is ocd. I am currently doing nofap which i feel is really helping me and im on a very long streak. However i really dont want to watch transgender porn again but i keep feeling like if i do the thoughts will go away. I know i must not give up and fight through these thoughts to become the best possible me. Im sorry about this jumbled up mess but i needed to get this out there to someone.

I literally feel like OCD is the worst mental illness someone could have. I thought OCD was something that only weird people had. Now I am starting to realize That's Not true. I am trying to figure out how to get better. I saw a therapist for the first time last Monday. Of course it was virtual. I don't know what to ask him.I also smoke and I feel that that just reinforces my obsession to do compulsions. I am not trying to seek reassurance. I realize I do a lot of checking. I just need someone to tell me that I will be okay Because This is hurting every relationship I've ever had with the people closest to me.I just want to get better. Is there anybody know What I should do? I am open to any suggestion. Please be kind though

I really don't feel good right now. It's always something with me

Does anyone here struggle with substance abuse like drinking alcohol?

So.. I’m scared. I think I’m going to start blocking covid and corona on twitter. I think I may have corona but I’m not sure. I have a very small cough and I’ve had other issues from diarrhea to being tired all the time to even having some trouble breathing at times. But most of the time I’ve been ok. My doctor simply recommended to me just isolating myself in my room for a few days. Which I’ve been doing. But I keep seeing on twitter people who say they just lost someone to corona and everytime I read it I can feel my breathing get bad again. I also have health ocd. So I don’t know. I do know I haven’t felt well this last week and I’m under a lot of stress. I think it’s possibly plausible for me to have corona. But the recovered cases numbers don’t do it for me when I keep hearing about all the bodies in hospitals and all the deaths on twitter. I’m scared of like... dying. Alone. And I keep seeing people talk about others dying alone on twitter and that’s what triggers this health ocd. I don’t know what is and isn’t real.

I hope everyone is doing really well today! I’m curious: how does your menstrual cycle affect your OCD spikes? I went off birth control a few months ago, which REALLY helped me mentally, but now in the week or so before my “natural” period and during, all those intense intrusive thoughts come back. Does anyone else struggle with this, and how do y’all deal with it? Thank you in advance - y’all are the best !!!!!!! :-)

Hey guys, I’ve been thinking and have come to a conclusion about my current relationship and I want to see what you think of it. With my previous relationship, I used to get excited about having sex. When I was going to see him in the evening, I would think “I get to have sex tonight!”. He was a bit of a dick and I always questioned whether or not I actually liked him or found him attractive. Although occasionally, I initiated sex and we’d have it quite often. Now, with my current relationship, I’m very happy. He’s absolutely amazing and I’m so lucky to have found him. I don’t question his attractiveness and he has never once caused me to have a panic attack or even made me cry, which happened so often with my last boyfriend. However, I’ve found myself not wanting sex as much. Instead, I feel like I crave just cuddling him and spending time with him and whilst I do like the sex, I often want to just go to sleep, but with him next to me. I don’t quite know why my sex drive is so low, as it could be a multitude of things from my mental health and the medication I’m on to the fact that I’m exhausted all the time at the moment, but I feel like I love my current boyfriend and prefer being with him whereas with my previous boyfriend, I was more in it for the sex, especially since he was my first so it was all new and exciting. Does this sound right? I hope that I’m in a much better relationship now, but I feel like even though I love spending time with my boyfriend, my lowered sex drive is causing some problems and obviously this is making me worry about whether or not I’m actually happy and with the right person. Can I have a little advice?

i have a problem with constantly needing reassurance. i cant make decisions for myself anymore, it makes me really anxious, and i’m not sure why. ive been in bad/abusive relationships in the past where they have hit me or told me that i’m weak and not being myself, and it always happened when i decided to try and make my own decisions. my therapist has tried to help me, telling me to start with just making one decision a day, but i can’t stick to it because i’m afraid. what do i do?

My OCD has latched onto my partner and I can’t stop thinking he’s lying to me. I’m convinced he has had feelings for another girl even thought he says he hasn’t. My therapist believes my ocd has latched onto this but everyday I feel like something’s wrong. We’ve been together for five years and since this episode he’s broken up with me because of the obsessions but got back with me. About a year ago I told him something I was keeping to myself because I felt so guilty We were not doing to good due to recently moving in together and general arguments (not cause of ocd) and I was scared and wanted him to know this thing. I was in the wrong and after a break he forgave me, but because he had become friends with this girl at work over the past few months we were bad, I became obsessed he has something was going on. For context she has a partner and they mainly went out in a group. After what I told him he was very upset and we broke up, we decided to get back together after a short while, having been together for four years we really wanted to make it work. Since then I became obsessed with this girl from work and he has become increasingly annoyed that I was questioning him about this girl, saying it’s unfair and he trusts me and he’s done nothing wrong. Originally after I told him my secret and accused him, he deleted some texts from her to avoid an argument. He apologised and said it was because he was scared of causing another argument. It’s been a year now and he maintains his innocence but my ocd will not stop. I was cheated on in the past and now I’m terrified my partner is lying to me. We had never had any issues before this, never broken up and I’d not been worried about his fidelity. My ocd just won’t let go. I constantly want to ask stuff about last year and analyse specific texts. I feel like I’m fighting myself everyday but ocd is not intuition and I’m so confused. I know him and I know and believe him but another part of me thinks He’s lying and I shouldn’t trust him. It’s tearing my life apart. I’ve asked him for months and he’s even spoken to my therapist

hey guys, PLEASE read this. so i haven’t been on in a while cause i was doing really well. but recently i started talking to this guy and he’s really sweet and a really good guy. but every time we text or anything all he does is compliment me and it’s just kinda getting old and boring. don’t get me wrong it’s sweet. but i’m getting bored of it. and because i’m starting to lose feelings for him it’s making my hocd bad again. i honestly think i’m just not ready for a relationship because i have to work on myself and it’s just not a good time. and also everytime i see a masculine lesbian (mostly on social media) i think i’m attracted to them. and i just keep analyzing and wondering if i’m attracted or not and i hate it. and also last night after realizing all this i found myself thinking what my life would be like if i was bi and then almost as if i was trying to convince myself it wouldn’t be that bad and to stop worrying which made my hocd worse because it made me think once again that i’m bi and i don’t want to admit it. i don’t even know what to do anymore someone comment some tips on how they helped their hocd