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the NOCD Community

It’s unfortunate but I can’t enjoy one of my main passions anymore, music. I just feel like I focus more on the outcomes than the process and love of it and wanting to share that with other people. I have this idea of success and I’m obsessed with it, almost like it’s a sense of approval. I wish I could push it out of my mind because I just want to enjoy what I love. At this point, I don’t even know if I really do love it or not. I don’t like who I become when I play music, at least alone, I just overthink until it’s not enjoyable anymore. I play guitar, bass, drums, and I write my own music often. I did however just join a band as a drummer and think maybe being in a band with multiple people, especially not my own material, will be helpful to just be in the moment. It’s just really unfortunate that I’m obsessed with this idea of success and that being the only thing I want. It wouldn’t make me happy. I can’t tell if this is an obsessive, intrusive thought getting in the way or not, or if this is how I truly feel ?

I had a good day today but as soon as I was alone in bed I kept going over and over my main moral obsession at the moment and got to the point where I was ready to admit it was all true. Does this mean it is? Also if you obsess over one main intrusive thought for a long time, does that still make it OCD? Then I spiralled into a hole of “my family will disown me, I have to break up with my boyfriend, I’ll have nothing” Writing this I SHOULD KNOW it’s OCD but part of me can’t stop thinking it’s all true and I’m a sick person... (Btw my ocd thought follows a sexual dream I had about my half brother a while back - which disgusted me - and now I have convinced myself he is attracted to me and I desire him even though I’m 99% sure this isn’t real... looking back we have always been close and I’ve always looked up to him so WHAT IF IT’S TRUE?!)

I woke up to a dream about people calling me crazy and that I needed to be locked up because they were scared of me for being dangerous. It really hurts even though it was just a dream. Unfortunately a lot of people associate sufferers of mental illnesses as crazy, dangerous people.

Plz zoloft experience for pure o

I think I’ve washed my hands around 13 times today, and it’s not even that many compared to what I usually end up doing :(

I’m not sure if I’m coming to the right place, but I need some advice. Basically, I’m 16 and I started college (U.K.) in September. I’m taking psychology, English language and sociology. My psychology teacher is the head of my college, and she’s lovely. I have ocd and I’m not sure if she knows or not, and I don’t know if I should tell her. I won’t go into great detail, but something that I have to do is when my work isn’t neat enough, I re write it over and over again until it’s “just right / perfect”. I’ve also started washing my hands A LOT, like I put 5 pumps of soap on, and then wash them & repeat that 5 times (the germ side of ocd never affected me until I started college). This isn’t everything, something’s related to my ocd I can’t ever speak aloud, but I don’t know if I should tell her and speak to her about it? I’m not sure if she’ll be able to do anything and I’m sure she’s really busy. Plus, because she teaches me I don’t want her to judge me or think of me any differently. Any advice is welcome, Thank you!

Any parents out there? Did you end up having ocd post partum? Or for guys after your kid was born?

I’m a gay guy and I always felt different, but in a gay way, you know. I’ve never questioned my gender identity and I always felt in the right body. But since I saw the instagram profile of a trans girl, I can’t stop thinking “what if I’m trans?”. Literally I think about this the HOLE DAY and I always look for evidence that I’m or not trans. And the worse thing is that as a gay guy I’ve done things or liked things which are stereotypically for girls. This thought gave me panic attacks, anxiety and stress during all the day. I’m scared and confused because my mind keeps telling me that there’s should be something and for some reason I thought about it. It’s like my brain has been replaced during this month. I just want to go back in time and be the happy guy that I was before, I miss my life.

Anyone else struggle with confession as a compulsion ? If so how do you manage and/or fight urge to confess?

Just curious as to how many of you feel OCD started in your life due to extremely stressful circumstances. Also, how do you feel your overall health is, especially your gut health?

Guys I neeed someone to talk to like now it's been about 8 days since I lost my virginity but I'm so fucking paranoid about being pregnant and I don't feel pregnant but I just am so convinced and I don't know it's OCD or if I am but I don't think i can deal with this I don't wanna have an abortion and if I do I'm not gonna be able to tell my parents I'll have to do it alone and my life's a mess

Anyone want to talk about harm ocd?

My therapist brought up the concept of perfectionism. I never had considered this in my ocd but wow was he right. I see it as I reflect. I thought I was strictly pure o (HOCD, SOCD). What’s everyone know about the manifestation of perfectionism in OCD?

hocd tips!! please... sometimes i feel empty, like totally in depression

Thought for the day. We’re all on this website for a reason and it’s because we struggle to keep our thoughts focused in the right direction. We’re all perfectionist, we’re sensitive and analytical. We want what seems like everyone else around us has. We want peace of mind , self love and to just outright get over the mind torture of OCD !! Living with a broken brain is not easy and if your all like me you wanted to be fixed yesterday or in my case 15 years ago. You want to just stop thinking about killing yourselves, or obsessing about hurting the ones that are dearest to your heart. You want to quite thinking your a pedi file or stop counting numbers that don’t mean 2 shits. You wanna stop ruminating and be able to just stay in the precious present moment. Everyone here wants to learn ERP perfectly and master CBT. They wanna go to their therapy sessions and come out after spending hundreds of dollars and just be normal again. We want the pain to go away. We want the anxiety to disappear and the panic attacks to fade away. We want to tell ourselves that if I didn’t have this xxxxx I’d be just fine and life would be good. We want life to just plain and simply be fair because we’ve been through a lot and by god I deserve a break .... Right ??? Well my thoughts are life isn’t perfect, things are never going to be fair and to sit back on the pitty me wagon which we all do only reenforces our already self doubt and fears that we all carry! Time to take the power back. Time to let go and I mean learn to let fucking go. Time to make a commitment and as Tony Robins says until you decide to make a decision, a true resolution and dedicate your every waking moment to change whatever it is in your life that you know will set you free then you will always be stuck in the forever cycle of wondering why your life still has not changed. When I look back at my patterns. At my thoughts and how I have set myself up for failure. When I look back at the 15 plus years of worry. Stress. Depression, anxiety , confusion and felling of hopelessness and lack of self love it is no wonder that at 37 I’m not gaining ground. I knew I had anxiety at 19 I knew something was wrong at 22 and 25. I knew I needed help at 27 and 31. My kids were born in 2013 and 2015. 2 boys Alex and Jack. My first intrusive thought of harm towards my loved ones and my children were over 5 years ago and my OCD has gotten to levels of pure insanity. You wanna talk self doubt with me bring it on! I love the challenge and live for the opportunity. I’ve catastrophically put myself in the grave thousands of times. I’ve diagnosed myself with cancers of every inch of my body every time I feel pain or that I’m unsure why my chest hurts , or my throat or head. I’ve worried for 30 years about family and trying to fix dis function . I’ve wrote hundreds of pages in journals trying to tell myself I’m ok. I’ve ignored Drs when they tell me I’m fine and go as far as second opinions or even specialists. I’ve lied to my family and friends and have always been calm cool collective and the person that everyone wants to be around. I’ve grew up in an alcoholic environment and suffered an entire child hood of guilt shame, fear , insecurities and low self esteem. I’ve told myself all the wrong message my entire life and here is the point . Every single thing I have ever thought or told myself that has created this beast that I now have to live with every single day called OCD has not ever even once proven to be true. I still don’t have cancer , I haven’t killed all my children and family. I haven’t gone crazy and been locked up in a mental institution. I yet to run out of a public place in fear of going crazy or embarrassing myself. I sit here today completely successful in a million ways. I have my health. My beautiful children and a wife that cares for me deeply. I have a job that I have been successful at , and it has made me the kind of money that has enabled me to be very wealthy, and I am one of the top guys in the area of my work. Every single one of us has been lying to ourselves about our entire existence. It’s time to recall the self doubting disease , and re name it self empowering disorder. It’s time to not take in another year with the same old mindset and learn to fight back. It takes years to get this far down the rabbit hole and it’s going to take some time to get out. The true key lies in the ability to accept your broken brain. I still struggle daily but knowing that my broken brain is mine and also knowing that the true key lies in the ability to break free and to declare war on the stigma that is diagnosed or classified in everyone of us. We’re all going to die. That’s a fact and from the date they put on the left side of the tombstone is the day you were born. On the right is the day you die and we all have an obligation to make the most of every day that is in between those two dates. If we chose to live anything less than having the amazing gift of life then that’s on us. Dedication and recovery takes time and a lot of hard fucking work!! If you do what is hard your life will be easy but if you do what is easy your life will be hard. I’m in 100% for the hard life. Fuck OCD and the bullshit horse it rode into my life on. Time to wake up everyday early. Get down on my knees and be greatful. Time to exercise daily no excuse. Time to meditate 2-3 times a day no excuse. Time to eat healthy food and treat your body like a temple and your mind like a jewel. Time to read . Time to write. Time to open up and give back and volunteer. Time to give up the fear and thought about climbing the mountain to recovery and wondering if when I get there that I still won’t be better... it’s just time to climb !! The reason people sit back and complain about their current circumstances is because they are too busy repeating the same patterns that have got them to where they are today. Trust me I’ve done it for years so I must be insane. People will hardly ever take the high road because knowing what it takes to be who we all know that we can, and to accomplish the very thing that keeps us all stuck in the hamster wheel is also the very thing that makes us all stuck in the uncertainty that we can never heal. This my friends is why we are all stuck! We make choices to either work our asses off and dedicate 100% knowing there is no guarantee to succeed. Or we sit back and do what is comfortable and familiar because at least with that we know what tomorrow brings! I know what my path is ... what’s yours ??

My OCD/anxiety gets really bad when I’m alone, but sometimes I can’t prevent being alone. I don’t know how to get my mind off of it without others around me

Really suffering right now. Had to call out of work yesterday. I’m having extreme difficulties with making a decision. Why is it so hard to make decisions?!

I'm so *** TIRED of my anxiety. sometimes I can make it easy with my compulsions, but sometimes I can't. I'm tired of my low concentration during doing tasks, tired of re-reading the same part of the text for 3 times (and even more) not because I don't understand, but because I simply can't REMEMBER what have it even said. tired of always worrying about what will be, what others will think, or how I can fail. and guess what? I'm afraid of healing because I don't know who I am without my anxiety anymore. ugh, sorry...

For almost a year I’ve had terrible SO-OCD and gone through brutal stretches of fearing I’m gay or bi. But now I’m fearing I’m asexual.. is this possible for so-ocd? As a kid my fantasies didn’t involve a ton of sex but they did later on. I remember long ago around when I had just learned what sex was I asked my mom, “why do people even have sex?” And she said something like “at a certain age people think it’s fun.” I remember being confused and not understanding why that would be fun. I definitely want to have sex with girls nowadays (although now it’s impossible to tell of course) and the fact I’m still a virgin makes me depressed. But my biggest piece of “evidence” is that I never got into porn like every other male my age (18) and I think society would be better without that culture. I watch it sometimes, rarely, but I just don’t love it like everyone else. Seeing other people’s genitals (particularly the dicks) up close kind of grossed me out. It also makes me feel bad about my own because mine isn’t 2 feet long like those. I also think vaginas up close look a little gross..? Does this all mean I’m not straight and my whole life has been a lie? I’m really scared because this feels a bit different that HOCD but I notice some of the same thought processes as in the HOCD. So my question is: does the fact that I don’t love porn make me asexual, and can SO-OCD extend to asexuality? Additionally I’ve been pretty depressed and exhausted for a long time and I just never have the energy to masturbate anymore. But I remember it was great back when I did! Someone help!!!

I’m scared to see an OCD professional, advice please? I feel like I need it.