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the NOCD Community

I'm really trying to be less obsessive... wish me luck... This illness sucks 🤦‍♂️

I feel like my neighbors have been taught what to do smh haha. Go from having the wife looking at me to then the husband to create the illusion of gay thoughts coming in after thinking about sex with a chick and vice versa. They’ve probably looked at me at the same time too. Like no thought I get while chilling in my bed isn’t anything new I haven’t seen. I wouldn’t even know how to check for anything afterwards. All these thoughts are thoughts.

I don’t know how to battle this. I don’t feel like I’m having “intrusive thoughts” like everyone else. I definitely have normal intrusive thoughts like with harm ocd and sexually intrusive thoughts, but with what I’m struggling with right now, it feels like I’m just always thinking about this stuff and it’s always there and when I’m “triggered” (which is by almost everything), I don’t have an intrusive thought I just get a bad feeling and then that leads me to look for the fears. I don’t know how to stop compulsions when I can’t identify an intrusive thought. Cause it’s like I just keep it there all the time and when I become aware of the absence of anxiety, I feel uneasy so I think I have to bring it back. And I’m always afraid I don’t have compulsions. I’m always afraid this isn’t OCD. My biggest obsession is that I don’t have OCD and if I don’t have OCD and I don’t have compulsions and I don’t feel anxious, then I am in denial and what I fear is going to come true. There is evidence that it’s just me. That I really do want it or even if I don’t want it, I’m just denying it because I’m afraid even though I have to do it. I hate when things say “your ocd isn’t aligned with your morals” or something like that. Cause I don’t know how to interpret that when it comes to what I’m afraid of. My primary doctor asked me “when you think of these things, do you think it’s rational or irrational?” and I want it to be completely irrational, but I know there’s a lot of people who would say it’s rational. I remember the first time the fear became real to me, it was a combination of two different fears and the one fear was probably an intrusive thought and maybe that’s what set everything off. But I got over that fear because the other fear seemed more realistic and plausible. But I can’t remember if that was an intrusive thought??? I know I’d been angry before and when my mom had asked me “what are you going to disown us?” and I had shouted back “maybe I will!”, but I didn’t mean it. Or maybe I did. I don’t know. Maybe I did mean it. My mind is always thinking of reasons why this is going to happen or why I have to do it and some of these reasons seem rational or valid idk anymore. I just don’t know how to fight this when I can’t tell what’s a compulsion or if I’m even doing compulsions. I can’t tell when an intrusive thought is intrusive or it’s just me bringing it up. I can’t tell anything anymore because it doesn’t feel like I’m having intrusive thoughts or that I even have OCD. I feel so alone cause no one’s thoughts are like this. I feel so alone cause no one really knows what’s going on in my head and how do I stop compulsions if everything and nothing feels like a compulsion?

This isnt exactly OCD related, but you guys are the best with advice so if someone could help me with this itd be much appreciated! I've been with my bf for a year, and I dont wanna be with him anymore. He doesnt help me with my OCD much, he doesnt have similar morals to me, and he acts like one of "the boys 🥶‼." Its getting exhausting, he's not what I want anymore. It feels like he's holding me back from what I want, not that he is, I would just feel more free being single. Hes nice, but not what I want anymore. I've been feeling like this since March, and I've attempted to break up with him but he wont accept that I want to. I've told him what I get offended by of what he does and he argues with me about it. I told him about my OCD and he said it happens to everyone. I dread talking to him, and calling him gets really tiring. Almost always after I talk to him I have a new worry. I just want to leave him but it's like he wont let me. I want to be free you know. Hes sweet, but he doesnt take into account how I feel. It makes me feel stupid for saying this because I imagined a whole life with him, but now I just wanna be single again. If we could stay friends it would be so much better, I hate feeling tied to him you know. Any advice? I dont want to hurt him, I just wanna be myself again.

Does anyone else’s hocd make you feel like your sad your not with the same gender? Im the only single one in my friend group cause the one guy i love and want doesn’t want me and im sad about it And im scared im convincing myself ti be sad about it and like him And now im just saying im sad because i cant be with a girl but i dont wanna be with a girl And i feel like i wanna and am just repressing it but i truly dont :(

I cant carry on with my life until this is gone

How do I know when it’s time to call a crisis line? Or seek help? Has anybody actually been hospitalized for OCD? I’ve been crying everyday and I can’t stop worrying about everything and looking up stuff online and reading for hours a day about everything I think about. When I read things that confirm my suspicions I freak out and start shaking a little or jerking. But if I read things that confirm that I’m going to be okay, I start thinking of every single reason why it’s not going to be okay, and how could you ever think it’s going to be okay. I am not managing my life very well. I feel guilty about everything. I keep telling myself that I don’t deserve happiness and I don’t deserve food or nice things and I feel incredibly guilty every time I do something for myself like make food and I convince myself that it means I am the worst person and eating food when others can’t or don’t have food. And then I get sick and nauseous and anxious. I constantly have worries about my health and I’m constantly reading stuff online. I think I have schizophrenia sometimes cause of the voices I hear something when I’m stressed. So I spend so much time on forums looking for people who have disorder and comparing my experiences to theirs and then I keep thinking I’m faking symptoms for attention and can just stop doing things but then I do them again and I hate it. I am having a ton of false memories about what is real. I feel like the world is floaty and unreal. I just want this to stop.

I wish I were exceptional and it affects me. By exceptional I mean popular, or standing out from the crowd, being celebrated. Idk if this is perfectionism ocd but I want to lay my triggers out. I’ve noticed that people who go to Ivy League schools get famous more easily. They even accidentally make popular memes and Twitters. It’s like they know how to capture the public. They’re exceptional. In high school, I didn’t get into any Ivy League I applied to. Now, I noticed two recent triggers. In the tv show The Crown, Prince Charles (who is a jackass in it, I know) is super jealous of Diana for how much people love her. And everyone says how he should be happy and proud of her. That is healthy, but I would be mortified in his position. Imagine everyone telling you you need to be a country’s leader, but someone else is doing so much better than you at it. And the whole world sees it. I know that’s egostical, but bare with me. Another is Victoria Justice and Ariana Grande. There’s viral memes of Victoria going “i think we all sing” while people are saying Ariana loves to sing. Both of them come across as bitter, but I understand them both. I’m a writer, and I feel this mentality affecting how I share my writing. I don’t want to share it because I feel like no one will care, or they’ll cringe at it and then say someone else’s is so much better. I know this is unhealthy and that it probably has to do with high school trauma (was bullied). I also know that not everyone is good at every role. Maybe Prince Charles would be a bad king but a great actor, or something. But I don’t know how to fix this in myself. I feel very inadequate if most people don’t talk about me like that. There’s also a reddit thread I read about how people will treat an ugly and pretty person differently to their face. Their description crushed me. I have friends in my life. I also do have hobbies and plans for the future. But I don’t know how to respond to this feeling. I could be mindful of it, but I don’t want to just ignore it. I want to genuinely remove this jealousy and know how to enjoy myself and like what I do.

I need to vent. I am really trying my hardest to not give in to my compulsions but it’s very hard. I was doing good just a few days ago. Now I’m back to square one. I’m not feeling well, I feel emotionally and mentally sick. My distress is so real. For these past few months I haven’t even been sleeping correctly. I go to bed at like 2/3 am. 😭 and That’s not like me. It’s just so crazy how this has affected my life. No I’m currently not in therapy, but if I’m being honest, with the current climate we are in, I’m not interested in phone therapy. I need to be in a nice calm room, talking to someone face to face. The environment is very important to me. And as far as meds, I can’t get them without being prescribed them first. the fact that’s it practically December and I literally saw myself struggle with this the entire year & no improvement to my life makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. I wouldn’t wish this mental disorder on my worst enemy.

“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice - you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they’ve got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. ...It’s a big club, and YOU AIN’T IN IT! They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you, at all! At all! And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.” —George Carlin Hey, “progressives”? Instead of burning down and looting small businesses and attacking random people, and/or calling anyone who has a problem with that a bigot, take your outrage to Capital Hill (going on vacation without passing a stimulus) or Wall Street or Silicon Valley or Bezos’ estate. And stop cheering when your own people do the exact same shit (blatant corruption, bombing civilians including American citizens, spying on you, censorship, persecution of whistleblowers, mass incarceration, austerity, further cuts to all social services while they increase defense spending, which they already spend way more on than all other government spending put together, even more) that you rightly criticized Trump for. “Biden and Harris are like my mom and dad!” “A return of decency to the White House!” “YAS KWEEN, GIRL BOSS, MORE 👋 BIPOC👋LATINZXZ👋WOMXZYXN👋 TORTURERS!!!!!” All of Biden’s appointees are monstrous war criminals from the Bush administration, but the corporate “progressive” media with the memory of a goldfish is acting like they’re awesome people. Our one-party government has never been more obviously so. People are so brainwashed. Republicans refused to appoint Obama’s Supreme Court nominee because “too close to the election” (a year away), but then they appoint ACB a month before the election, and Republicans are fine with that. Democrats continue to parrot the unfounded accusation that “Russian bots” got Trump elected, and for the past four years have called for simply ignoring the Electoral College and staging a Coup against Trump, but now “how dare anyone even suggest the notion of impropriety with the election results?” I know it’s not people’s fault, they’re brainwashed by the media, but as a result they’ve become so shockingly unprincipled that they’re completely willing without hesitation to support or oppose almost anything based solely on which of the “two parties” the politician belongs to (in reality, we have only one party in the US. Kamala Harris and Lindsey Graham fist-bumped because off-camera they’re all friends and “partisan gridlock” is political theatre to provide a flimsy excuse for why all of them continue to fuck you over). Possibly, some politicians are mildly less terrible than others, but at the same time maybe that’s not true? Bernie is definitely a sellout, and most likely was always a fraud and a sheepdog (even if his sheepdogging might have unintentionally had the opposite effect). AOC was groomed/manufactured to be appealing to a certain subset of the voting base (young coastal city-dwelling upper-middle-class and-above liberal voters), she’s a career politician from a rich family not a “normal person”, and as soon as she was elected she voted the same way as Pelosi Antoinette and everyone else in Congress. “Oh, we can totally pressure Biden to do shit for us,” you couldn’t even pressure him to lie that he would before an incredibly-close election (and the fact that Trump even stood a chance in hell of winning just shows how pathetically terrible the Democrat ticket is). Once he gets elected it’ll just be more excuse-making (“he needs to not do shit for us or the Democrats will lose in the midterms”.) Americans put up with too much shit. They’re grown used to it. If European politicians fucked over their citizens even close to as badly as US politicians constantly do, their citizens would overthrow them. Not that there isn’t shit wrong with Europe (arresting people for offensive tweets, etc), but overall it sucks a lot less than life in the US.

Anyone else feel angry at their OCD? Like why do I have to accept a disorder that makes me miserable? I see people talk about their neurodivergence, and I see people openly accept that depression and anxiety is part of them. But no one I know accepts that OCD is a part of them. Cause it’s not who we are. It’s the last thing I’d want. Sorry for the rant but I miss who I was before OCD. I remember how happy and carefree everything about me was. Idk I’m tired.

I wish so bad that I could go back to being how I was before the anxiety and OCD had taken over my life, and the subsequent medications and their side effects . It’s mostly bodily sensations now. Tension headaches daily. Fast pounding heart rate. Feeling like I’m constantly out of breath. Feeling like I’m going to pass out. My eyes moving involuntarily. Feeling intense anxiety for no apparent reason. Feeling like the ground is moving under me. I’ve tried so many things. Many different meds, many different therapys, and I only seem to be getting worse as the years go on. I’m loosing hope that I’ll get better than I am now.

Just wondering if anyone else has fears about the world ending, or dooms day type stuff that would in all honesty probably never happen; like asteroids, alien invasion, nuclear war, government take over, science fiction stuff. These are constant intrusive thoughts of mine after I heard about conspiracy theories about aliens and other science fiction stuff earlier this year.

Can someone help? My POCD is taking over and I'm terrified to even look at children and everytime I see one I'm afraid I'll feel something and everytime I do I completely shut down I dont want to hurt a child not do I want to be with one, it disgusts me so bad but I'm scared that I'm actually attracted to children and I'm hiding it and I'll eventually enjoy it but just the thought of that makes my anxiety go out the roof I just want it to go away.

I need help and comfort ASAP. I’m bipolar and had a one year manic episode / psychotic break. During which I acted totally inappropriately and set fire to my reputation. I mean I really did terrible things that I can’t forgive myself for. I keep thinking I can’t continue to live and some days I throw up over how disgusting and bad I feel. Please could anyone give me advice? 😔

Has anyone here recovered from ROCD? What helped you and what do you recommend? Was there any truth to your obsessive thoughts?

Success Story Sunday! Let’s here it, guys, what success did you have this week? And if you struggled, what’s your plan for the week ahead? My success story is I got back in the gym after two weeks off with an injury. I listened to exposure scripts during my workout.

Does anyone ever worry that doing the opposite of what our mind tells us to do slowly becomes another obsession. For example, on my way to work I have the exact same routine, and sometimes I will do something not in routine as exposure but then I start to do that thing every time...like let's say I always start walking down the stairs with my right foot first but then I step out of my comfort zone and step with my left foot instead BUT then that becomes what I do every time and my obsession of how I walk down the stairs is still there😫

Omg my ocd is baddd I wish I was normal

Question for those struggling that are also Christian? I was wondering what you guys think when it comes to OCD and spiritual attacks. As Christians we know the enemy tries to steal, kill, and destroy. We live in a fallen world so the enemy is all around. However I’ve also heard we shouldn’t give the devil credit for every bad thing that’s happened to us. Just because our car broke down on the way to work or we burned the popcorn in the microwave doesn’t mean it’s the devil screwing with us. So when it comes to OCD, I know it’s a mental illness and it seems like it attacks us with the thoughts/feelings/urges it presents, but sometimes I get frustrated and think is this really OCD going at it or is it the enemy filling my head with these horrid thoughts? For example, one of my main themes is suicidal OCD, so everything about suicide. I know I don’t want to kill myself and enjoy life, yet OCD being OCD, it fills us with doubt, confusion, intrusive thoughts saying otherwise. So I try to look at this as OCD messing with me with intrusive thoughts, but at times as well I think what if this is the devil playing his fittest by trying to fill my head with this and hoping I’ll do it. This can go for any theme I believe. This worries me more because I ask whether I’m on the right track of dealing with this: both/either as a mental health issue or a spiritual attack. When my OCD first appeared, I truly believed it was a complete spiritual attack. I threw away many of the things I enjoyed for fear they were not of God, dedicated myself to only listening to worship music, reading only my Bible, throwing myself completely in the church - in hopes God would miraculously heal my mind of this attack of the enemy. It wasn’t until I ultimately decided to go to therapy where I learned I had OCD and started ERP for it which has helped a ton. However I still wonder otherwise. What are your guys opinions on the matter? It makes me feel torn.