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the NOCD Community

Have any of you experimented with drugs and it made your ocd worse? I’ve had anxiety since I was very little. I remember being in 3rd grade and having intrusive thoughts, (though I didn’t realize that’s what they were until learning more about OCD more recently.) I would go to my mom crying/panicking that I didn’t know if I was gay or questioning whether I had sexual feelings for my dad or brother. I always thought of OCD as compulsive hand washing and the more stereotypical OCD symptoms. So, now I’m starting to realize that I thought I had just generalized anxiety but it’s actually ocd. I’m 25 and felt like for the most part I had gotten my anxiety under control or more manageable at least, it didn’t consume my life like it did when I was in high school. Then one day with my friends I tried ecstasy. It’s not even like I had a bad time on it or anything but literally a week after doing it, I started obsessing over how I felt while on it and how intense it was. I couldn’t stop obsessing and eventually told myself that the ecstasy forever messed me up and my brain will never go back to normal and of course went to google where I read some very scary things. I guess it was just panic attacks I was having. My doctor said that while she can’t diagnose me after one visit, this did sound like ocd and that my obsessions most likely aren’t a result of the drug and it was already a part of me, but the drugs brought it out in me. I am doing so much better than I was a year ago right after I took the drug but still some days I question if ecstasy made me go crazy and how would I know if it made me crazy

Toxic relationship. I met a guy at work and developed a codependent, toxic, abusive relationship for three years . It’s been 8 weeks since I told him, I could not talk to him since I needed to focus on my mental health and I needed to get better . He made me feel guilty and does not understand OCD. He just made me feel guilt, told me I never loved him and accused me of seeing someone . I feel HORRIBLE. During the relationship it was a rolercoaster . Yes, he has good qualities but everyone has good qualities. I been told by a high source that he displayed psychotic tendencies . Ever since we met at work , he became very controlling and possessive . He didn’t want me to have a conversation with any guy at work . Just a hello was enough . I didn’t have the courage to leave and got resentful . I made the mistake to tell him that he can not talk to any females there . That was a mistake on my part because I think we had no business to tell each other who to talk too . To defend myself , I guess I was so miserable in the relationship that I just reacted . During work, every time I went to the bathroom I prayed that no male would get up . If a guy got up even 15 min after me , he would assume I was talking to that guy . Every time I got up , I got a text message asking if I saw this person. It was too much and I would respond with meanness. I’m not proud of myself . He even accused me of getting a guy’s attention by bending over to get water . There is a rational part of me that knows he was wrong but I still stayed . Again, I reacted with meanness every time he questioned me which was multiple times a day . He was an alcoholic and I helped him get 100 percent sober . He even said I was the only person that helped him . He tolerated my ocd but my ocd got worse , every year I stayed with him . Last March , Covid hit and we are still working remotely . He really started to show his crazy and cruelty. I had to put my cat to sleep and my cat was only three years old with a severe case of pancreatitis. I was heart broken and with the death of my cat, his cruelty and controlling ways , and Covid my ocd flared up . I called him a lot and he was mean . He could not tolerate that my ocd was high and dealt with it by abusing me . Why do I miss him? He would mock my ocd and told me I needed mental help and that I called him like a fool. What really hurts is that I miss him still . I’m crying right now . Here I helped him get sober and he got worse with his abuse. I still check his social media but I know I should not even care . Can someone help ?

Do you ever just get a thought in your head and you’re like “wow if i thought this then it must be true/it must’ve happened etc” “i thought about it for a reason”

Does anyone else's OCD make them feel like they want the intrusive thoughts?

Ive had 4 diffefemt themes. so-ocd seems to be the one that always comes back, just as convincing everytime. Any advice for this (handling the backdoor spike/old themes to not fall into rumination, etc.)

God help me why has this happened to me i have 2 kids a gf i love and i feel like my world has fallen apart. I dont know what to do ?😞

Ive had ocd for years they keep changing i used to do numbers even numbers then odd numbers then washing my hands now its harm ocd (and unplugging plugs but i didnt know that was a sign of ocd but when i do unplugg and plug in things i have to do it loads of times) i think about harming people and myself that i DO NOT want to do and i hate it it tortures me i have to think "f*** off (my name) no your not no you dont shut up (my name) no your not no you dont" i have to walk over or past things alot of times becsuse it "slits my wrists" or "slits my neck" and i dont want that to happen so i do the things and i even dont do school work because if i write things wrong i have to cross and cross things out and write them loads of times just to cross them out again and put loads of dots and underline things loads of times and sometimes i cant even put my hand on the paper because its "slitting my wrists" or "slitting my neck" and i dont want to put my self under that much stress so sometimes i just dont do it so i dont get stressed but sometimes i get stressed and carry on and then takes ages to stop and when i stop i dont want to start again incase it starts again and i get shouted at by my teachers for not doing any work most of the time the teachers dont notice that ive done none or not much but then they dont notice me crying over it anyway the worse part is mental health day or when they talk about mental health because all they talk about is depression i know depression is bad but why cant you talk about other things like ocd like eating disorders why cant you just talk about the problems im facing and what other people are facing instead of depression all the time ive told teachers about this my old head of year i told her more than ive told any other teacher more than ive told any one i think actually but theyre no help ive never been to a therapist or whatever you have for things like this i really want to go to one because i think i need one but i feel really awkward talking about things like normal things like underwear and puberty and mental health I feel like ill never be normal i feel like i cant have a normal life like bring up a kid and that breaks my heart all the time and that if i ever have a kid i cant bring it up properly or it'll look at me weird or that ill pass it onto them I hate what happens to me in my mind everyday it tortures me everyday I hate that i look at myself abit differently learning its a disability Now that i think of it and i really dont want to say this but a few times i have thought about people sexually any ages normally not even my own i DONT want to think like this I sometimes think about suicide but i dont know if thats an instrusive thought because i DO NOT want to commit suicide AT ALL I hate how my life has come to me not being able to tell my parents or anyone my problems i hate hate HATE IT i dont know what to do...

Once again the thoughts want to start right when I wake up dam and yesterday ended so well.

This isn't relating to my OCD and i know I should probably been seeking help from a different app but idk any other apps where you can write comments abt how you feel so this is the only place I know that people can write back and give advice on so sorry for not talking about something that is OCD related. This is going to be very lengthy though! So basically i have been seeking help from a psychologist but she hasn't been helping me at all and I'm thinking of changing and I feel bad, even though I shouldn't but i also most likely suffer from social anxiety. I hate self diagnosing and I've been having phone sessions with my psychologist but it hasn't been as interactive as it could be. Basically, she told me that I do have anxiety but I always feel like I can't label it as social anxiety unless I properly get diagnosed by a psychiatrist. She told me that it sounds like generalised anxiety in different situations but I only feel extremely anxious in social situations and relate more to the symptoms of social anxiety then generalised anxiety but it has been really tough at school because i get mild panic attacks often. Triggers for me include, going to parade(I often experience physical symptoms, such as: heart palpitations, nausea, hot flashes and just feelings of panic) so I usually skip. Also things like volunteering or speaking in class 🤢, doing things while others watch or observe me(eating infront of classmates that I'm not close with etc), getting to class where there's alot of people, confirming I'm here for attendance(especially when my teachers are away), getting called on etc. I feel so anxious and i wish anxiety wasn't a thing but I have amazing friends who support me. I couldn't even go to school today because two of my teachers said they were going to be away and i spent yesterday panicking for today because I feel extremely anxious when it comes to saying "here" on the attendance roll because I am self conscious of my voice and I think everyone will judge me. My psychologist just recommended me breathing exercises. Any one got any other tips?? I appreciate anyone who took the time to read my rant, sorry. I wish everyone on this app will get the treatment they need to feel better asap !!

Anybody here on medication for their OCD? I know everyone’s experience is different, and different medications work differently for different people, but I’m just trying to get a pulse on what to expect. I’m seeing a psychiatrist soon and I’m hoping to get some meds going.

Is anyone else a severe germaphobe and worries constantly about what they might have touched/feels the constant need to wash their hands? Since the pandemic hit my ocd has gotten a lot worse and now all I think about is what dirty things I may have touched and if I’m contaminated. It occupies my whole day. Even when I know I haven’t touched anything, I can’t stop thinking that I have and that I need to wash or sanitize my hands again. It takes over my whole life and I’m wondering if anyone else can relate.

any HOCD women sufferers? has anyone read the lesbian master doc? if so can you tell me how it made you feel! i'm putting off reading it because i'm afraid my brain will trick me.

hey sorry im back for one question. I need help stopping the horrihle distressing urge to confess everything to my mom. i need help with stopping confessions

I feel like this is a ridiculous question, but Ive thought quite a bit about it so here goes. I have a hard time having hobbies or knowing what I want. Whenever there is time off I spend most of my time with OCD (sad). But I also spend quite a bit of time wondering about what Im gonna do, what I want to, what my dreams are. For the longest time I figured out what I wanted by reading about what others do and feeling like I should do the same. And mostly I do passive things because I never seem to figure out what I should do. Or what I "really want". Can this be an obsession about spending my time right? I had a hard time wording this the way I wanted to. But just putting it out there in case anyone relates and knows how to pin point it better. It is as is thinking about this eludes me.

I wondering if this is an OCD thing or just anxiety what I experienced yesterday: so I’ve gotten into the habit every night to watch my shows with my brother before bed, like we’ll grab a snack and head to his room to watch about 3 episodes and then we go our separate ways to sleep. I also go to bed very late out of bad habit. So last night I felt like I wanted to try going to bed early and spend some quality alone time so I told him if it’d be alright to skip our usual tv viewing and he said okay. So I went to do my own thing and sat down to play my video game for a bit. But during it I started to feel so guilty and bad for canceling our thing, like I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I kept thinking what if he felt bad and I ruined our night and just having this horrible guilt in my gut until finally I couldn’t take it anymore and went to his room saying I changed my mind and we could watch, to where he was like ...okay if you want to. I was just surprised how guilty I felt about it and felt like I failed myself by instead of sitting with that guilt to try and cancel the horrible feeling. Thoughts?

I started taking Prozac and it has helped me A LOT. A year ago I was a complete mess but I still have bad days. I can relate to a lot of your experiences but haven’t read anything quite like mine. Idk if it’s ocd or if I’m just crazy. I start thinking about how we don’t have a lot of control over our minds. Then start thinking about how I could develop schizophrenia. Then I start panicking whether I already do have schizophrenia and I just don’t know it. Then I start questioning whether anything that I’m thinking is real or normal. I don’t really know how to explain it. Like I’m able to function in life, I go to school, I work, I have a social life, so I know that if I actually had schizophrenia, I probably wouldn’t be able to have all this stuff going on in my life, but it’s like, how can I ever actually know? And then when I have a panic attack, it makes me feel so out of control and I experience almost like derealization and that makes me question if I have schizophrenia even more. Does this make sense?

OCD is making it hard for me to show affection. I have harm OCD and am disturbed by thoughts of hurting the ones closest to me. Recently it has been very hard for me to be affectionate with my significant other, or even contact my family or close friends back home. What’s even worse is I recently moved to a new area and now I really am having a hard time making friends. This thing blows.

Having Social Anxiety with OCD is so annoyingly hard. I have Real Event OCD themed around hurting my partner. So for example every time time I drink I obsess over the thought that I may have flirted or tried to hook up with another girl even though I would never do that, but since alcohol is involved I start freaking out because I ask myself “what if you got a too drunk and you just don’t remember?” and then my social anxiety comes in to double team my ass and says “hell yeah you did that and everyone saw you or she told all your friends about it and now everyone is gossiping and judging you.” Then OCD comes back with compulsions and says “yup you gotta confess before someone else tells her” or “you better fucking think about every second of that moment and make sure you didn’t do it” but since I can’t remember how I spent every single second I was there, my depression makes it’s grand entrance and makes me cry and stay in my bed without eating or drinking water for the rest of the day. I end up sleeping like 13 consecutive hours and then the cycle repeats the next day :) I love it here. It’s kind of impressive that my mind can do all this to me honestly.

I'm 15.I have sexual orientation and hocd.My life is going badly right now. I wonder what will happen in the future if my life goes on like this now.i am scared . Please tell me what to do.

So it's been 7 days since my last post and I'm back. I've been feeling mostly good, little more relaxed compared to before and it felt decent giving myself a break from the usual things my mind ruminates about or any compulsions I might have urges on. There were days where I felt completely okay with my mistake and other days where I kept saying myself for it. Days where I felt I was allowed to make mistakes in order to get better, but other days that make it seem like because I made these mistakes I'm an idiot or an awful person because no one else would possibly make the same mistake I made. Tonight was one of the more bad days. I know you need bad days to have good days to balance out of course, but I'm getting all confused again. It's hard to talk to people about this because they'll quickly realize that I'm repeating myself over my mistakes in the same way my mind thinks of the same think over and over and over and over again. Though I don't blame them. I guess that's the one thing I'm stuck on much like before: The quest for certainty. To be honest, it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't think about it so much because deep down I do feel that my mistakes were mistakes and they aren't things I want to go through again or see someone else go through. I don't wish that kind of thing on anyone at all. Every single time my mind goes back to the mistakes however, I can't help but feel I'm in the wrong and I don't deserve any grace for the things that happened, even though I didn't plan any of the mistakes. I just want to let go of these thoughts and accept that I messed up and made the mistakes I made and move on back to how I used to be before the pandemic.