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Can I please talk with a NOCD advocate right now? I am in a terrible place.

Why are some themes more "sticky" than others? I've struggled with HOCD for months now, but for about two weeks it shifted to TOCD. For me, I think TOCD was the most debilitating but HOCD sticks to my brain the most. I'm able to talk about my TOCD theme & my experience and can almost laugh at it now because it's so far from anything I would ever believe about myself. But now I'm even doubting if I ever felt anxiety from my HOCD because it wasn't as intense as my panic attacks from TOCD. Has anyone experienced this?

please someone help me, i’m so close to the edge. i’m in a happy relationship, a straight relationship. and i’m so scared of being mainly lesbian or bi, i don’t want to be but my thoughts are questioning if i am. i don’t want to be with a woman. but what if i do? i’m terrified i don’t want to do this anymore

Hi! My name is Mikhail. I have been diagnosed with OCD for a couple years now, and this year I started ERP therapy at NOCD. I first found out about Pure O from downloading NOCD's app and seeing other people post about their experiences with overthinking, fear, and shame. While I had been diagnosed with OCD before, I had never heard about Pure O, where the compulsions manifest themselves more internally. I was at a point in my life where I was isolating myself and afraid of the thoughts I was having all day every day. This eroded away my self-esteem and identity but the skills I learned doing ERP have helped me feel like myself again. I recommend doing ERP to anyone afflicted with OCD, as it has helped me train the mental muscles I needed to get back to my life again. NOCD specialists meet you where you are at and help you get better on your own terms. I have taken the opportunity to be an advocate because once I found out I wasn't alone with Pure OCD, it reignited the faith I had in ever recovering. Learning about other people's experiences and sharing my own has helped me live more authentically. I want to do anything I can to encourage others to recover as well, because I know it is possible and that this condition is manageable. Going through NOCD treatment invoked genuine compassion in me not just for others, but for myself, which is something I never truly felt before. If you have any questions at all, please reach out to me. I feel purpose in connecting with people about OCD and getting better together. Believe me, you are not the only one who has thought that crazy thing and then thought about thinking about it 17 more times until it impacted your behavior!

This is immediate. I am having severe anxiety and am not sure I’m going to make it through the night. I am wondering whether or not to go to the emergency room. What happens and will I be admitted to a facility against my will if I’m not suicidal and I’m not a danger to myself or others? Can they give me medication to at least calm down the panic?

Well I know the thoughts are still. They tell me you know you don’t love him or attracted to him anymore right? 😞😞

lately i’ve been having scary thoughts about a time where i was watching lesbian porn and how it caused me to have girl on girl fantasies of the porn videos like replaying in my head whenever i wanted to masturbate and how i even think i might’ve fantasized about a friend who i never saw as more than a friend, it’s using that against me as proof i’m bi, but we all know that fantasies say nothing about who you are and for me this all happened after i got addicted to porn, before i started watching porn, men would be what i constantly thought about. anyone else going through this? i know how silly it is that it’s trying to use that as proof but it won’t leave my mind. and recently i’ve been doing pretty well, like barely any anxiety or thoughts. yesterday and today their getting kinda bad.

ACTUAL HOCD TRIGGER ********** I worry because I see some posts on here or on reddit and I feel like they don’t have HOCD and are actually gay, which then makes me feel like I’m probably the same. I used to be able to see that other people were clearly suffering from OCD, but now I can’t. Now i suspect other people that are suffering are gay and in denial and I feel terrible because I think they feel the same about me.

I ✨hate✨ my life.

I feel like the ocd faded... I feel like a lier... I feel like I am truly not in love with my partner when deep down I know I am... I wanna be like how I was with him before not like I know I truly don’t love him... 😞😞😭

Has anyone ever struggled with the fact that you did something unintentional but horribly racist in the past? I’m talking about a real event (i.e made a micro aggression without realizing how offensive it was) rather than just having an intrusive thought. Is it a compulsion if you want to apologize to the person you think you hurt even if this was years ago?

i just don’t think i can have lesbian fantasies and still call myself straight. even tho i cry a lot about thinking i’m bi and i usually feel bad after i fantasize about that stuff.

Can ocd make me lose interest in things. And sometimes not make me hungry and feel like eating?

I have no idea if these thoughts and feelings are real ? 😞

Does anyone else do this: like I’ll reassure myself (I know, a compulsion, yikes!) and then immediately after I’ll go “well what if that’s wrong” or disagree with whatever reassured me. Or even if someone else is reassuring me the doubt is still there saying like, “well you’re hiding being bad from them so obviously they’d say that” or “they don’t know the real you” etc?? Anyone else discount reassurance even tho it helps??

Where I'm getting stuck is that there are two approaches in therapy. And the two contradict each other. 1. Experience the intrusive thought, don't do the compulsion. 2. Do an exposure. I don't believe I can move forward because the two contradict each other. I don't understand how people go through ERP and come out feeling better from OCD. I don't get it. I'm trying to do both #1 and #2, but the two just clash. What am I doing incorrectly?

Just ranting because I need to get it out but it definitely could be a trigger for some so I’m marking it just in case❤️ So I have yet to be professionally diagnosed with OCD (covid makes it difficult to see someone to help, but the appointment has been made and is coming up)... and this very well could not be OCD... but after falling down a rabbithole of googling and searching trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me, I’ve come to the realization that I seem to relate heavily to SOOCD and ROCD. I’ve been diagnosed with GAD by my GP but it is so so much more than that. I moved out of my parents house a few months ago to go to school and start my own life. After a few weeks I felt like I didn’t have any control over anything that was happening and just couldn’t shake the anxiety and was obsessing over the fact that I didn’t have control over things I felt were important. This constant anxiety took a sharp left turn to attack both my sexuality and my (extremely healthy) relationship. I had a very very vivid intrusive thought about cheating on my boyfriend with a girl I was supposed to hang out with later that day. As you can imagine, that sent me spiraling. Trying to analyze and figure out what that thought meant just overtook my life. I’ve never questioned my sexuality before, always considered myself straight.... but that changed everything. That one thought now constantly plays in my mind and starts to try to connect itself to others.... which makes me constantly fear I’m actually gay and not the person I thought I was. Now it’s gotten to the point where I analyze the way I dress because I’m not “feminine” enough or because I do or like things that people have stereotyped with others being gay/bisexual. It’s even gone as far to attack my relationship with my best friend and thinking that I see her as more than that when I never have. Then I get triggered by words like “gay” or “lesbian” or anything that relates. I even get worried that my own family sees something in me that I have just been seemingly ignoring my entire life:( just writing this and seeing it out of my mind makes me so anxious. As you can imagine, this goes hand-in-hand when dealing with (what I believe is) ROCD. I love my boyfriend, I know that I do. We’ve been together for almost a year now and I know that in the part of my brain that is still me, I want a future with him by my side. But having these constant fears about my sexuality, I then started to doubt my relationship with him. I feel like I’m leading him on by telling him I do love him... and even doubting the fact that I ever loved him in the first place :( I hate questioning everything I thought I knew. Because now I can hardly recognize what thoughts are real and what aren’t. Feeling so guilty about having these constant thoughts that I feel like I have to confess all of them to him... which I’ve done multiple times but it doesn’t help much. (Thankfully he is amazing and isn’t willing to give up on me because he knows I’m really struggling with my mental health) I can’t even tell if I’m actually attracted to him anymore or not and that kills me because I know exactly what I want. He’s not someone I’m willing to lose:( These thoughts run CONSTANTLY in my brain and it’s genuinely ruining my life. I feel like I can’t do anything without obsessing and searching for answers and reassuring myself that they’re not my real thoughts. That I’m safe and that I do know who I am. My body and mind are so tired from the anxiety, I can’t get these thoughts to go away even when I try to sleep, and I feel like I’m pushing everyone away because I can’t tell who I am anymore. What scares me more than anything is that the therapists and doctors aren’t going to find anything wrong which is going to prove those thoughts right... or treatment/help isn’t doing to do anything and these thoughts are true. I just want to be back to the person I know that I am. Now I’m not searching for the reassurance because I know (If it really is what I think it is) it’s not helpful, but I definitely needed to get all of that out and off my chest since it feels like it’s eating me up inside... I don’t know where else to do that so... here we are😅 even if you don’t believe this to be OCD, any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you, if you did read thus far... that’s definitely not everything thats going on/that has happened, but it’s as much as my brain can handle spitting out. So sorry for rambling

Has anyone ever gotten the thought “what if I did x and didn’t realize it was wrong”? It started off as “what if I did x and forgot” but it’s kind of shifted into what if I didn’t realize? Anyone else?

i’m at one of the lowest points i’ve ever been at and i don’t know what to do. it’s been 6 months since this started. 6 months of horrendous thoughts every single day. i don’t know what to do. i feel like life is passing by me and i’m wasting my precious time. i don’t know what to do for treatment. i’m still a teenager and what if i’m like this for the rest of my life? i feel so lost.

I have an advice. Never, ever, take things on NoFap seriously. Especially ones about HOCD. Because they are all nonsense. It was a great trigger for me, but now I realize that how silly all those posts about HOCD are. They are not even not HOCD at all, according to some articles. (I also don't believe that they have hocd at all, they just sound as people who have some other issues rather than ocd). So, never take any of them seriously. Never read any posts on internet, even on ocd forums. First of all it is a compulsion, and secondly most of those sufferers are just self diagnosed who talks nonsense and it will trigger your brain. Much Love <3