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the NOCD Community

Three months ago I tried to quit my career because of my OCD. I was under a huge amount of stress and it broke me. I work in healthcare and I began to get extreme anxiety and ocd about my job. I became terrified of making a mistake that could possibly harm a patient. I’m great at my job, but my OCD convinced me that I would make a mistake and someone would die because of me. It got so bad that I would redo things and check things 6 or 7 times and still feel like I did them wrong. There were many times that I called into work and had someone check something again for me. A few times, I even drove back to work to check something again. It was insane and debilitating. It became impossible to do my job. I tried to quit because I felt that I hit a point where I was actually causing patient harm by delaying care due to my obsessive checking. I basically had a mental breakdown in my supervisors office when I gave her my notice. Luckily She is amazing and talked me into taking a leave instead of quitting. My therapist had suggested it too, but I was in such a dark place that I felt like giving up completely. Luckily I listened and I took the leave. It ended up being three months. It was the worst three months of my life. For those three months, I adjusted medications with a psychiatrist and I went to therapy weekly. I have a horrible sensitivity to SSRIs. They make me manic. Every time I tried one before, I’d not sleep for three straight days, be physically unable eat, and be severely agitated until it wore off. So I started a medication to prevent that first, then started on a tiny dose of Zoloft. I increased the Zoloft weekly until I hit max dose. Even with the tiny increases, I still had 3 days of severe anxiety and agitation each time, but I knew if I just got through those days, eventually my body would get used to it and I’d feel better. It was hard. So hard. But I was desperate for anything to make me feel better. I was so severely depressed because I felt like my life was falling apart and that I was throwing away a career that I worked so hard for. I also had a lot of other really hard things going on in my life too. There were a lot of days where I wanted to give up. Some days I’d be just so damn tired of fighting. It felt like I’d never feel okay again. I had days where I was definitely suicidal. But I pushed through it. I went to therapy. I did everything I was told. Finally after three months and LOTS of medication adjustments (including a last minute addition of Abilify which I swear changed my life) and therapy, I feel okay. Good even. I’m even back at my job. I still occasionally have OCD thoughts and anxiety over making mistakes but it’s definitely more manageable now. I’m happy and smiling again (I swear I didn’t smile for like 7 months). Life is better. It can get better. You just have to keep fighting. I know it’s hard. Believe me. But i promise it’s possible.

hi so I’m getting a job and I’ve never had a job and I want to be soooo excited but I’m worried I’m going to jail for something I did a year ago and I can’t be happy for anything because I’m obsessing over it. I think I blackmailed and posted pics of someone on the internet without consent. I was involved in findom where men like to be humiliated and blackmailed but I’m worried I went too far and actually blackmailed/post embarrassing things of someone who didn’t want it and I will be reported. This was 4 months ago I haven’t done it since.

Hello everyone. Is it OK to ask for some love? I know it's super weird but I need a bit of motivation right now. I'm going through heartaches again and I feel so bad. Today/tomorrow is a semi important day to me and I'm suffering from the break up. I'm so sorry. I know this is the wrong place to do this but I feel so lonely right now. I havent forgotten to take my meds but they aren't taking away this mess inside my brain. I feel so selfish... I'm so afraid that this heart break is just not wanting to be alone instead of missing the person itself. But I'm almost sure it isn't.... I don't mind being alone... It's selfish, when I know she deserves someone so much better than me. I'm so sorry. I just want to talk with someone. To feel less alone... This loneliness I feel comes from abandonement. No matter how much I understand her reasons to break up, I still feel abandoned. It's feelings vs logic all the time. I keep telling myself she deserves better. Someone kinder and smarter and beautiful. Something I don't feel like I am. I'm so sorry for asking for this. I don't want reassurence. I don't want compliments. I just want a comment for me to feel less lonely. I will never be able to love and trust again... For many reasons. And no one will love me either. I'm too awful for that. I'm ugly and gross. And because of my former gf, I lost trust on people. How can I believe in someone that tells me they will never give up? She said it and left me. Am I so worthless? Maybe I am. The only thing that keeps me sane is telling myself she deserves better.

I keep getting strong urges whenever I think of something bad happening ( example: my ocd getting intense again ) like I want it to happen but I don’t, I don’t really know how to use erp for it either since it’s a mental thing :-(

Question: 1 in how many people in America have ocd? And 1 in how many teens have ocd in America?

I posted in a legal advice subreddit about what I did and these people are like yea you’re probably going to jail even tho I did it like a little less than a year ago I’m so scared I’m so scared I wish I never posted there I’m so flipping Nd scared I think I blackmailed someone through findom and I’m so worried about jail my life is ruined

I was having such a good day these past three days! Tonight my mother in law stopped by unexpectedly (I'm already bad with that) and we had a brief, distanced visit out doors. But what threw me was she had this awful smoker's cough and I cant calm down now. No one was in a mask and I think my hubby was JUST 6 feet from her. I'm trying to remember Cdc guidelines and nothing more but I'm having obsessions and could not deny my compulsion to hold my breath while she coughed and then come in and shower and ask my husband to shower. I dont think my husband held his breath. I know she isnt sick right now but my brain is losing it because like also what if shes asymptomatic? Ugh today was the first day I was relaced enough to ACTUALLY yawn and stretch and when it happened I was like "wow, I actually cant remember the last time I yawned and stretched!" And I thought it was such an accomplishment. Especially since we did groceries last night and that's usually a trigger too. Now my stomach is in knots and my shoulders are up to my ears and im so scared.

I go back and forth every day convinced I am gay or convinced I am straight. I wonder if I’ll ever be happy in my relationship and I wonder if sex will ever be good since I’ve had HOCD since I’ve been sexually active. This is all a mess and I’m hitting low points more and more often.

guys im literally stressing my self out so much, my brain keeps on being negative and is making me convince my self something that isn't true, it's like " what if you're secretly thinking of this when thinking of this "

Does anyone else have problems of where reality slips in to your OCD thoughts and they mix together and you don’t even know how to feel. And you feel worse. And you feel more guilty. And just like a horrible person.

Americans: I am from New York and want to make a new start somewhere else. At first I moved to Dubai for a year to escape some ocd and PTSD/bad genera memories from New York. Now despite that New York is becoming way too expensive to live in and the crime rate has shot up because of pandemic. Where are nice places to relocate to in the US for a 27 year old woman?

I literally feel an ‘exclamation mark’ in my stomach every time a pretty girl does something funny. It’s something I’d be attracted to in a guy but now I feel attracted to it in girls. I hope it’s false attraction.

I’m having an extreme anxiety attack help. I was on the iPad which is connected to my moms phone and I went on to my Spotify (web player) I wanted to listen to the moana sound track so I looked it up and accidentally pressed the result under it which was a podcast titled something like “daddy’s baby girl moaning” or some shit and now that is BOOKMARKED ON MY MOMS PHONE. And she has it blocked so you can’t delete history and it pops up as a tab anytime you look anything up and I’m so worried she’s going to see it and think I’m weird or something like how am I supposed to explain that story and I’m doing compulsions and she’s going to hate me I’m so scared. And then I looked up aton of stuff to make it go farther down in the history but of course it’s still there and still pops up when you look up certain stuff and Now it looks more suspicious even tho I didn’t even mean to look it up in the first place what do I do.

vent below- so i’m going to be as transparent as possible ever since this started about 3 months ago in may. i felt tortured sometimes i still do. one thought sent me into a spiral of questioning everything. a thought so disgusting it made me stop eating. i didn’t want to wake up and i couldn’t go to sleep i would drink some nyquil for nights on end to try to sleep and i didn’t care what it was doing to me because i just wanted to sleep and do nothing but sleep. i didn’t even want to wake up and sometimes i still don’t. i couldn’t understand why all this was just happening to me everything that i was so sure of and felt safe with became a blur. from one day to the next to months. and i would isolate myself from days on end and keep my distance from family members because i was just so scared of myself and i would cry about it and no one understood what i was going through and they still don’t. i don’t have a diagnosis but i know that something is definitely going wrong up there and lately i’m trying to cope with it better and do the best i can and eat and wake up and try to sleep earlier and be the best person that i can be and i know that it’s super scary feeling like you aren’t you and suddenly it’s like you’re a monster on the inside that no one sees but i promise you that you aren’t. day by day i believe in all of you that the sun will shine a little brighter and the pain will numb bit by bit. crying for days on end was living hell and living was what i didn’t want anymore and sometimes i still don’t but it’s a working progress. find the strength in yourself. treat yourself with kindness and love because you’re the only one who understands at the end of the day the hell that your mind might put you through. try to overcome it. i know it hurts and you want to feel the way you did before all this happened and maybe somehow you can feel the way you once did and not obsess over the things you’re feeling or thinking. to just feeling peace with yourself. some families or your family might not understand but i believe in all of you and what you’re going through and what you’re fearing is valid. you’re valid and you can handle all this. take it day by day. no matter how much anxiety you might feel. even if it feels like fear is consuming you sometimes. you’ll survive this and overcome many more things because you’re strong. so be you and be brave. you don’t have to talk to your demons alright.

hi! so I have ocd (I thinks never been diagnosed). I keep thinking about something I might have/ might not have done in the past and Im worried I will go to jail in the future for it. I cannot do anything now because im obsessed with the thought of “why should he be happy if im just going to go to jail”I basically cannot watch any YouTube anymore, hang out with friends, do well in classes because im like “what’s the point if im just going to end up in jail and lose all of my riends anyway” Backstory: I was involved in findom which is where men feel submissive and decide to give money to others in return to be hurt, humiliated, blackmailed..etc. I also sold lots of feet pics. I stopped doing this 3 months ago. I was worried at first about hurting them even tho they’re the ones that hurt themselves. Then I got worried about blackmailing even though it was consensual and they asked for it. I have recently gotten into the scary thing of like “omg what if I blackmailed and it was not consensual” or “what if I threatened someone and they didn’t want it” I’ve been FLIPPING about this and can’t do anything with my life because im sooo flipping afraid. I’m almost positive I blackmailed someone for money and I was like “I’m gonna post ur real name and address if u don’t give me money” and they would give me money

My ocd is making me think against my boyfriend who is the best man ever. ? At some point he was battling depression and he used to get angry at me but later he regretted for shouting at me and now he is over depression, he told me that my love helped him get through depression. Why can't i do the same. He is giving so much of love to me. Why can't i beat ocd. My mind is telling me that he used to behave like that when he was in depression that's why you developed rocd. I read a post on fb about emotional abuse and now my mind is thinking maybe that was emotional abuse but he is never Abusive to me. Why am i thinking against him. I am very scared I'll ruin my relationship with him. He supports me very much. He is tolerating me and my thoughts from 4 months. He is the guy every girl would want. I literally didn't give a fuck about our pasts when i was normal. Why am i obsessing over our pasts. I want to get out of this i cannot afford therapy please help me. I want to marry him. How can i improve my relationship.

Big TW // bugs & checking this seriously set me off years ago and I don’t want to start an obsession for anyone else on here about this so be warned . . . . I have this SEVERE PHOBIA of bed bugs. 5 years ago I learned about them after seeing bad hotel reviews, and it turned into this severe obsession. I never had them before but (TW!!) I have learned everything there is to know about them and how easily it is to get them / how hard it is to find them and how they are the hardest to get rid of. This beyond terrifies me. 5 years ago I would be up all night for about two months with the lights on compulsively checking my bed seams, and my arms / legs If I ever got an itch, u would only sleep once the sun came up at around 5am and I would need to play a certain type of sleep music so I wouldn’t “hear them” (as if that was possible ?) It took me so long to get past the obsessing, now it’s just a background phobia that only heightens when I go to travel, etc. Fast forward to now. I’m Home and I just found five small bug bites in a perfect LINE on my inner thigh. I haven’t worn shorts outside of the house for a week or more but I do wear shorts only to bed. I know beg bugs are the only known bug that bites in a line!!!!!!!!! I am FREAKING OUT. I don’t know how I’m supposed to sleep tonight. I fear I’m going to fall back into the whole sleep-with-the-light-on until 4 am and keep checking and lately I’ve had enough insomnia as it is, I don’t want to make that worse. I took a melatonin which I hope helps but I normally have pure-o, so I don’t really know what’s helpful to do with this situation. I already checked my bed and couch just to see if there were signs because this is a very unusual bite pattern and I already know it’s the only outcome there is on google?. But other than the bites, there were no other signs thus far. I always have other bumps on my legs from ingrown hairs but these five bites in a line are DEFF bites. I keep thinking maybe the other ones I just brushed off bc I thought they were just itchy from not shaving bc I have sensitive skin. I asked for reassurance already and took a lot of pictures of it and researched images and facts again. Nothing i didn’t already know. I know that it’s time to stop the compulsions with asking and researching. I already checked two places but I didn’t check “fully” or other places I should check but I’m tired and I’m trying to stop myself here from OVER doing the checking. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to sleep without constantly *thinking* about them now. Any distraction methods or tips?

So I scheduled an appointment with my therapist when I was suicidal and now I’m super embarrassed to tell her anything tomorrow

Anyone get super anxious when change happens or making a big decision? (Tattoo specific question) Mine might be minor but I have anxiety about wanting a tattoo (or more) one day. I really like them and would like to get some, but it makes me nervous to do so for a couple of reasons. One is the opinion of my parents. Even though I’m 24, I still live at home (happily I might add) and they (especially my mom) don’t like them at all. I’ve made choices in the past that they didn’t agree with, like color my hair a bunch, but I think maybe because hair can be changed back and a tattoo really can’t that that part gets me? Two is how I’ll react to it. I normally like change but I don’t tend to react to it well which is an interesting predicament. For example I normally have brown hair but I went and got it silver blonde once because it was something I really wanted for awhile, but it was so different that I broke down crying thinking I made a mistake even though this was what I wanted! I got over it eventually and then I liked it! So I’m afraid that if I get a tattoo that it’ll hit me what I did, even if I do like it, and just break down again (so annoying honestly). I’m also indecisive about it, as in the type of image or words I want. I’ll have an idea and just sit on it for months at LEAST to make sure if it’s what I want and I end up changing my mind. Lately I had an idea I wanted for over a year and I still like it, but I’m still nervous I’ll change my mind again and regret it. I also am worried about changing my look so drastically. I see images of people with super cool tattoos on their arms and legs and whatnot and I’m in awe they look awesome! And I’d want some too! But then part of me feels like I’d be someone I’m not, even thought it’s been something I wanted for actual years, if that makes sense. Any thoughts or opinions on this? I feel like once the virus has lightened up and it’s safe to do more things it’d be cool to maybe get one on my birthday, starting off small, but I don’t know!

Any advice on when to disclose my OCD to a new significant other? I don’t view it as defining me but I don’t want to drop this information too late into the dating process. Thanks