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the NOCD Community

How old was you when you got your ocd. Is it even possible to get it at 34? Someone I knew was involved with something that seemingly triggered me. I am a dad and was normal in September, how can your life feel like it’s been stolen from you. I can’t enjoy anything anymore. Please can we have a discussion of how you best deal with it. People that have beaten it? I don’t want this ever.

I’ve been struggling and recovering from sexual orientation and harm ocd since 2012 on my own. Over the past couples years, my libido has gonna down so much that I don’t even think about dating anymore; I feel indifferent towards guys and dating. The indifference makes me think that I must be a lesbian since I’m not interested in any guys right now and then it’s the same never ending cycle of thoughts and wondering if that what’s my whole family thinks of me too. ::sigh:: this cycle gets exhausting. Hoping therapy helps

I feel like I wanna do stuff with my brother like once we were play fighting and his head was near my neck and his lips touched my neck it felt kinda good but I don’t want but my brain was like it feels good and maybe 10 mins ago I had thoughts of my brother and also urges wtf is wrong with me

I don’t know what to do. I’ve taken so many tests that have always come out as me being heterosexual; I’ve made a list of reasons why I am and why I’m not gay, and the reasons why I’m gay list has three points that are just that I find girls pretty and I liked the way my friend smelled when the reasons why I’m not gay list has so many points that literally proves I’m not gay; I’ve only ever been interested in sex with men and relationships with men; I’ve always fantasised about men and have always wanted to date and have sex with men, and I still can’t seem to prove I’m straight. I seem to be having a lot of groinal responses at the moment and I can’t help but think that I get turned on by girls when I don’t feel like this when I’m with my boyfriend. Although when I’m alone and am turned on, the only person I want to be with me is my boyfriend, and he’s the only person I think about. I don’t want to be gay, I don’t want to be bisexual. I don’t want it. I don’t want to like girls and yet I feel like I have to because I’m getting these responses when I don’t seem to get them with men. It’s ruining my Christmas and I’m fed up with it. I want to be straight, be happy knowing I’m straight, and enjoy my life with my boyfriend who I love very, very much. But I feel like I’m in denial and that I lie when I answer those sexual orientation questionnaires. I feel like I’m just lying to myself. I’m terrified that I’d like kissing a girl if I ever did it and I don’t want to ever like it because I don’t want that.

does anyone else’s SO-OCD start with sexual thoughts and then once you kinda habituated with those ones and came to a conclusion, they switched to romantic thoughts??? i’ve never thought ab actually dating a girl until now and it feels like i want too even thought i’ve only ever been sexually/romantically attracted to guys and love men

Having a really down day today. My ex girlfriend broke up with me in October and we planned so much to do for Christmas and now I’m spending it alone. She has already moved onto someone now and it just really irritates me because she told me she wanted to be single for awhile and was dating 3 weeks after we finished.

tmi warning last night I was having sex with my bf and a thought popped into my head that I'd rather be with a girl, I didnt get anxiety but I did feel uncomfortable, I'm bi so it makes it hard to deal with soocd. when I think about it I dont feel really anxious and panicky I feel okay with it, but I do feel uncomfortable at the thought of breaking up with him to be with a girl, any advice?

Hey guys can i talk to someone? I need some encouragement and advice

I'm turning 23 today, and it's almost 4am. I can't sleep and I'm ruminating about the last 4 or 5 years of my life. They've been filled with unemployment since I left school at 18. I'm studying online to get the qualifications I need to go to university to study law, but I cant stop obsessing that nobody is going to even take a look at me in the future. I've been technically unemployed since 18. In the eyes of world I am an absolute failure, in my eyes I've failed too. I am going to put in a good fight to achieve better, but I don't know if I'll ever be the person I dream of being. I keep having thoughts like "what if I just get sweeped away in the system?" "What if nobody ever employs me?" "Will these last 4 years hang over me for the rest of my life even if I get a law degree?" I'm going to work hard, harder than ever to pull myself out of all this darkness but in scared I'll find nothing on the other end. I'm scared in just another youth unemployment statistic. That I'll amount to nothing in the end.

recently broke up with a boyfriend who months ago i thought i could see myself marrying. while we did have a honeymoon phase where i was very happy, i'd had doubts about us the whole time. near the end it got so bad i never texted him first, didn't talk to him when we hung out in groups, and constantly made up excuses to not see him. eventually he saw through everything, and i ended up finding out i have ocd a couple weeks before we ended it for good. we had many long talks figuring out why i felt the way i did, and i recognized that most of my doubts were probably caused by my rocd. but i couldn't help myself from feeling like my doubts were my own conscious feelings, and were just right for me despite knowing it was technically a symptom of my disorder. i haven't even cried over him because i feel so relieved now, it makes me feel like a bad person. i've ended 3 other relationships due to these mysterious doubts before knowing i had ocd, and i can always feel it starting: i start getting anxious around them, dreading hanging out, getting annoyed by little things they do, thinking i'd be exponentially happier single, feeling the urge to end things and run away, etc. i hate hurting people i once liked or loved but i can't stop myself. has anyone with rocd successfully stopped these harmful thoughts and stayed in a long-term relationship, and ended up happy? i can't afford therapy as a 19-year-old, and i'm worried i may not ever find the "one right person" my brain makes me believe in. any tips for breaking the cycle of break ups and being hopeful for the future?

Hey friends! I was on this app for a year before I finally got the courage to start therapy, something that I am so grateful for now. Isn’t that crazy? Now I want to help you. If you haven’t yet, what is holding you back from starting?

false memory ocd is such a bitch

I really want somewhere to vent so this might take some time to read, sorry. I’ve had an awful morning. It feels like I’ve gone back a step in recovery because I’m feeling the same way I felt a couple months ago when my hocd was at its worst. I had completely convinced myself that I’d be better for Christmas (which I know is wrong to do but I couldn’t help it- I got through some difficult times by telling myself that). I’ve got family coming round tomorrow so we can celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I’m scared I’ll wake up tomorrow and feel the same as I do today. This times last year I was perfectly fine and it’s depressing knowing that I’ll never be free of this again (I’m only 15 so having to face the rest of my life with ocd, especially hocd, horrifies me). I feel utterly trapped and hopeless as well as being convinced my intrusive thoughts are true because my ocd doesn’t seem as bad as everyone else’s. Yesterday I was doing so much better and now I’m a mess but for some reason it still doesn’t feel like I have ocd and this is all one big denial. I’m not sure what I expect anyone to say but I just felt the need to tell someone since nobody in my life knows what I’m going through right now. I just want to be ok for Christmas because I haven’t seen my family in a while. This is all so overwhelmingly isolating:(

There is this one thing that has been eating my head since morning, back when I didn't know that there is something like HOCD, I had tried CBT after watching videos about anxiety treatment cuz I could put a hand on it and tell that it was anxiety so during that time I used to everyday repeat it's okay if I am bisexual, even if its 2% it's okay. One of my bisexual friend told me that even if you are attracted to same sex like 2% then you are busexual but what I didn't get at that time was that busexual don't freak out if they find someone attractivee or even thought that someone was beautiful,where as I freaked the holy out of myself. So I did this exercise for a month and then when my bisexual guy friend asked me "Did you figure out what your SO is" I replied "I think I am bisexual but I don't want to do anything sexual or romantic with women" and my friendwent like then just go and check on internet weather there is some sort of another sexual orientation but there was no results and that totally meant then I was still obseessing over other what if I like my best friends and I started to avoid her and then when I saw this women on morning walk I got a strong groin and I freaked out and I got really confused and that was when i just googled and found that there is something known as HOCD. I know it was all the fault of the lack of information I had but mind is going like that you accepted that you are Bi this must mean that you are. If I was actually bi then I wouldn't have freaked put by the thought what if I like my best friend and I wouldn have freaked out and cried for hours and I wouldn't have freaked out after looking at the woman on the morning walk. But my mind is like bullying me and constantly saying that you accepted it you accepted it, but bisexuals want to date same sex and want to be physical with them and that is why my bisexual guy friend told me search web for some other sort of sexuality. Because busexuals want to be with both sexes but I didn't want that and not do I want it now and bisexuals don't get triggered after looking at girl and thinking they are pretty. My mind is constantly going like what if I am in denial, what if I just tricked myself into thinking that this is ocd. But if it wasn't OCD I wouldn't have related to it, and I would have not freaked out and searched google for phobia of being bisexual. This is eating my head off.

My TOCD is acting up again... Please note: I'm a gay man, and I'm perfectly fine with it. But for whatever reason my brain takes the trans OCD theme. I was triggered by a video on TikTok where a transgender girl had a "question" for gay men (which is me) if they walked into a club who they would be most attracted to in a "ranked" order. Since she is MTF, she still has male genitalia and was wondering if gay men were attracted to her. The video then showed pictures of Shawn Mendes, Ronaldo, among other men. And then showed the transgender girl. Naturally, I would just buzz this off as another random thing. My OCD has switched themes multiple times, but this theme seems to be coming back after a couple months without it. I thought to myself if I was attracted to this trans girl, and naturally I reasoned with "oh well, who cares, so what if I am attracted to her" until my OCD stepped in. For whatever reason, my brain thinks this means I actually want to be a girl? Maybe it's just reminding me of the thought that caused me to spiral in the first place. It's not nearly as bad as other TOCD thoughts because it's clearly irrational and my brain is kind of being stupid for it, and I can realize that it can't be reasoned with. But I can't really seem to just buzz it off. Does anyone else get thoughts that don't cause end-of-the-world anxiety but are still kind of annoying and might have a deeper root than you thought they would?

I have a question

Success share: I discovered that I have ROCD just over 3 weeks ago and immediately went HAM on self treatment and guided ERP therapy. Today was the first time that I saw my #1 over zoom since that day, when she acknowledged that we had come close to a breaking point in our relationship, and when I first started ERP the thought of her NAME would electrocute me, let alone photos. I started with flooding and did kind of an all over the map hierarchy including minor and catastrophic things, and it was agonizing, but now... Today we had our zoom call, and I felt mostly calm and not triggered during it, and could manage my anxiety leading up to it. I have resisted my compulsions to ruminate on the call afterwards, though it's still a little tough, and I feel... Okay. And capable. And unconcerned about whether things will ultimately be alright, not because I feel reassured, but because I feel comfortable enough with uncertainty to let things be unclear. Do the work. It's so hard, but do the work. I did ERP for 1 to 4 hours per day, every day, for 3 weeks, and my triggers have dropped exponentially. I'm solving problems with somatic ocd as well, and I'm spending time with people I love without all of my mental energy being devoted to obsessing all day. Word to the wise: part of the exposure needs to be internalizing the possibility that you will fail, and that this won't work, and that you'll be stuck like this forever. Handle the fear of fear at the same time that you handle the fear of the thing. Godspeed yall

I’m scared to get on anxiety meds because of the very high possibility of ED

Fighting every ounce of me to not test by watching lesbian porn. I saw some picture of girls hugging in a bikini and I kept thinking if they’re naked would I like that? Could I hug my friends in a bikini! And I got a super strong groinal and ick. I just feel like such crap. I do not want to get with women, but what if I did it and loved it and left my husband bc our sex life isn’t great? I hate this so much.

Does anyone else feel insecure and bad about themselves whenever they see something many other people commonly have that they don't or have never gotten to begin with?