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the NOCD Community

Hello my name is Caeleb and I came across your account on Instagram and I feel like you can be really helpful. I first came across what I believe to be OCD when I had my first serious relationship around a year ago. Everything seemed to be going great for around 6 months until the random thought of my not loving her came across my mind. Normally thoughts like this would usually just come and go (never to do with OCD or anything), this time it was different though. Instantly thoughts kept racing to me and my anxiety levels began to go crazy. Even though she was amazing looking at her made me feel sick to my stomach and full of guilt for feeling like this. I eventually told her I was feeling this way and she definitely didn’t take the idea of me potentially “not loving her anymore” well. At the time I had no idea it was OCD and whenever I was away from her I felt I needed to see her and just hold her to reassure myself. Eventually once she moved into college these feelings made me begin to abuse alcohol to cope and I ended up cheating on her and feeling immediate guilt and regret. I told her and that split things off for sure. It was rough and I missed her for months and couldn’t wrap my head around the fact she was no longer in my life. From that point on I continued abusing alcohol and marijuana at times to deal with that void that I lost. My college roommate and the rest of my friends hung out with females all the time and I hooked up with one girl right once I got to college. We continued to have sex around eight more times or so. Several other girls I also hooked up with but not as far as intercourse as well. I’m not exactly sure how the HOCD thoughts began but I remember having this one thought while i was in the shower and my roommate was on the one on the other side of me and I had the thought of him naked or being able to have sexual intercourse with him if I wanted to. This really freaked me out and I laid in bed for a whole two days straight afterwards and anything gay scared me. I felt like I was losing my identity that I’ve known my whole life. I was so hesitant of looking up how to know if your gay because I was so terrified it was going to point in that direction and I still struggle with having to know certainty. Eventually I came across HOCD and it gave me relief for a day or so. Then all the intrusive thoughts continued and I wasn’t able to depict what was real from what wasn’t. I spend a lot of my time searching the web constantly looking for reassurance and watching straight pornography to show I can still get it up if you know what I mean. This gives me closure for brief periods of time but in the end I still am deep in my thoughts. At times they will begin to get better and I’ll sort of feel relief only to worsen again. Last night was the worst experience of all that I’ve had. I went to a buddy of mines house along with my other friend and his girlfriend. I was planning on only drinking but I ended up indulging in marijuana as well which was very potent considering it was straight oil. My friend who’s house it was has always been a close friend of mine and I’ve never thought of him in a sexual way and couldn’t have seen myself ever thinking of him in a sexual way. For a male he is far below the average male with his poor grooming, very under the average height of a male and also in poor shape. At times he can seem very fruity and since he was very intoxicated this was for sure one of these times. Me sitting on his bed very under the influence of marijuana was a little anxious from the marijuana in general but it was nothing out of the ordinary. I always start off a little anxious and get better from there. My friend jumped onto the bed and put both his arms around me and was holding the phone up like he was going to take a selfie with me even though he was actually secreting taking a picture of my other friend. The whole mannerism of it all seemed rather gay and made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and my anxiety began to rise. While this was happening I questioned to myself I maybe I potentially liked it and maybe I was just in denial all along. My heart started racing faster than it ever has and I went into a complete panic attack. I was unable to think properly, remember my last train of thought, or realize what was reality and what wasn’t. All these gay thoughts about him began coming to my mind and they wouldn’t stop no matter how much I tried. Eventually my other two friends left so then it was just me and my other friend who had triggered these feelings. All these thoughts continued to persist with me asking myself whether or not I liked it, I felt sick to my stomach and began feeling nauseous. I felt uncomfortable being around him and had to leave unexpectedly. I had to just be by myself and sit in my car and try not to continue freaking out since it felt like i was going to have a heart attack. I sat in my car for like 15 minutes since I felt I was in no condition to drive and then continued to drive home still freaking out and paranoid about cops following me. I ended up laying in my bed freaking out about this whole thing and even felt tingling sensation throughout my whole body including my genitalia area along with my butt. I kept checking to see if I was forming an erection which I wasn’t, it was just tingling. I can’t get the idea out of my head that something about that moment had a significant feeling to me even though I’m almost positive that I don’t think it did. I spent all of today since 8 am up until 8 pm looking for reassurance, looking at coming out stories, gay people and their experiences, symptoms of denial, and constantly going back and forth between whether or not this may be in denial or HOCD. That experience is almost like a trauma to me and it’s hard to not think about it without my whole body beginning to go numb and my thoughts racing along with this massive headache I’ve had all day. I checked gay pornography several times throughout the day to see if it would have a reaction on me and it did absolutely nothing other than produce anxiety. All of this has been putting way more stress on myself than I can handle and making me socially isolate myself which I have been doing for months now and it sucks because I miss the connections I’ve had with my friends and family but they wouldn’t understand and even if they did it still feels very shameful because I could never even have ever pictured myself as a homosexual. I constantly reminisce about that one ex girlfriend I had an the amazing times we’ve had together with the hope that one day I can go back to being that person I once was. Someone who was a very popular kid in school who cared deeply about females and sexual behavior with only them. I want to start going to CBT therapy although it is very expensive, and I’m sure my insurance may cover it although it may not. The thing about the insurance part of it is that means i have to inform my grandparents about my mental health and the last thing they need right now is to worry about me and my problems. I’m willing to do anything it takes to feel the way I once did before I felt like I was going insane in my mind and sometimes even felt disassociated. I was hoping you might have some advice for me about that and your experiences with it along with if you think this may be a situation of denial or OCD. It seems too hard to distinguish the two at times.

Do some of you sometimes think of ending your life due to ocd?

When I was 6-8 I kissed my niece, and around 10 I (almost) had intercourse with my nephew (THANK GOD I didnt, otherwise I wouldve killes myself by now.) I cant help but feel guilty for the things ive done, What makes it worst is my niece remembers, I know for a fact she remembers because when we kissed I was like "Do you want to play gta" and about 2 years ago she was like "Do you remember when we played gta?" I was like "Huh we never played gta together its 1 player (offine). And she was like "Not that" My guilt has started ever since that. When I was 11, I played a game called "Fix" with her and gave her a message, to touch her "BUTT" (sorry silly word). I cant think of any other route than suicide. Not to mention, When I was 10-11 I had sex with my cat and dog, (once again THANK GOD I didnt put my genital in then or anything because one again, i wouldve commited suicide by now) I did play with my male dogs genitals though. Im also feeling guilty about this, I wish I could go back and time and not do it, I would never do it now. And once again, I cant think of any other route than suicide. Lastly, When I was 13, I catfished a girl, I used to be a pretty big person and was scared. ( I uses to date online.) I broke up with her though, not because I catfished her, though thats part of it. Sensitive -- When she was younger, she was sadly, molested by her (Close person), thats not the reason though, the reason is because she always talked about suicide, she cut herself, etc. It was killing me, I was already dealing with alot of stress. I wanted to tell her that I was lying to her before we broke up, but not just that I didnt have the heart, though thats most of it, because I couldnt handle the stress anymore. That was the second person ive been in a relationship with that cuts. My long ago ex, I broke up with because she was practically cheating on me, talked to her ex more than me, STILL LIKE HER EX, etc, and her ex told me she cheated on me, but she said he lied, anyways, thats not the point. When me and this girl broke up (I broke up with her) she sent pictures of cuts on her wrist, with a caption saying, "you did this". I dont think I can do life anymore, I was 11 when my long ago ex did that, (Yes I know I was young, online dated alot though.) I want to kill myself

I’ve struggled with severe OCD since I was 4 years old. I was the most severe case my well known psychiatrist has ever seen. I currently just found out that I am pregnant and that just sent me for a whirlwind. Me and my husband decided to start trying because I felt like I was in a good place to do so. Well I was definitely wrong. I was in the process of trying to decrease my Seroquel to try and make it healthier for the baby when I did end up getting pregnant. But unfortunately my plan to decrease my Seroquel back fired. I also came off my Klonopin which I’ve been on for ten years. This was also in attempt to make it safer for a baby. Needless to say things didn’t go well and I ended up going through withdrawals and losing 14 pounds in one week. I ended up experiencing some other traumatic events and I still am trying to recover. As I’m sure everyone on here knows, people with OCD do not do well with change. I feel like this is the biggest change in my life that’ll I’ll ever experience. I always was worried that I wouldn’t be able to have kids but I was confident that I could do it at this time in my life. I was definitely not prepared. I currently have two therapy appointments a week and am on quite a bit of meds, which I always have been. I currently am on 700mg of Seroquel, 200mg of Zoloft, 200mg of Lamictal, and 30mg twice a day of Buspar. As I continue to re-engage in my therapy sessions, I am learning CBT techniques that I thought would never help but I was mistaken. I’ve been trying to practice them because for so long I didn’t have any coping mechanism techniques. I always told the thoughts no and to go away but research shows and from personal experience, that it just amplifies them. I used to do so many compulsions such as cleaning, counting, making sure everything was even, you name it. But I’ve recently learned that conducting the compulsion only gives you temporary relief. And it in fact makes the cycle more vicious. I know it’s easier said than done to not do a compulsion Trust me I get it. With being pregnant my hormones and mood are every where. The Seroquel is a mood medication but acts like glue and helps amplify the other medications I’m on. This time of year it’s always hard for me and I feel so hopeless and down in the dumps. I just wanted to share my current situation and experience to this huge life change. As I read all these other posts I just start to cry because so many people out there including myself suffer from this beast of an illness. It’s not fair. No one did anything to deserve this mental illness. But I just want to tell everyone to not give up because things will get better I promise. It’s so easy for me to push my own problems away to help others but truth is I am struggling. I just hope and pray that God brings me peace and joy and the strength and courage to continue to fight and conquer this illness. All the best❤️

I’m scared because I feel like my mind is telling me to hurt others, and it’s trying to convince me. I’m so scared it ends up convincing me, i don’t know how to stop it. It feels like a huge burden on me, bothering me and telling me to consider horrible stuff. I’m so scared, I don’t know how to shut it off, it’s demanding me for an answer. Is this normal for Harm OCD?

Just a PSA for those suffering: Others' opinions of your situation often become a spotlight in your quest of healing from a subtype. Searching for reassurance usually means finding "answers" from others - none of which know you or your disorder personally. With OCD, reading and checking subreddits, quora, Yahoo answers, and chatrooms can become a very unhealthy way to manage your symptoms. It could either go positively and you alleviate the symptoms for a short amount of time, or you find something very damaging to you and makes you doubt your experience even more. Your brain will not let those negative emotions and feedback go. It will use it as proof, or worse yet, you will begin to feel as though you "believe" or "feel" like the people who are sharing their opinions. Please remember that a lot of the world likes to describe their experiences in black or white terms. Reality is much more grey. I've seen too many of us suffer from this particular chain reaction, and so I want you to be reminded that you have a beautiful life to live. Don't let others dictate that for you, regardless of if it is good feedback (reassurance) or negative feedback (compulsivity).

Hocd talk anyone ?

Sex; Fetishes; Anxiety; Sexual OCD This contains a lot of strong sexual vocabulary that not everyone may be comfortable with. If these trigger warnings don't relate to you in any way, you don't have to read. Also, only 18+. Usually I never had to include so much trigger warnings for a post on here before, but I thought I should for this one. It's really personal and specific. I don't know if I should put this under my sexual OCD, but this is really making my head spin. I don't know who else to tell or what to do, so I just want to maybe let this all out. I'm someone that has always worried about their sex life. I'm still fairly young but I stay being anxious about things related to sex. I get anxious before and after masturbating, I get anxious about my porn addiction in the past, I get anxious about my urges, fantasies, thoughts, and even things I'm generally comfortable with. Lately my thoughts have been centered around fetishes, which I do have a few of that I'm okay with. I have a foot fetish and I love feet. I also have fetishes for legs, buttocks, and lips. It may not really be fair to call these fetishes and just regular attractions, but I'm not too sure. I'm just aroused by the things I listed when it comes to attractive women. Unfortunately there have been porn induced fetishes that have came my way that include shemales, exhibitionism, spanking, tickle torture, anal, pooping, deepthroating, etc. All of these porn induced fetishes are pretty much gone. I don't think about any of them on a regular basis whatsoever. And if I do, it's only calling back to the videos I had seen bizarrely on porn sites. I'd prefer not to go back because I don't want to be hooked on something so damaging that really had a negative effect on my life. I'm trying to rewire my brain as best as I can. However, I'm really concerned about a recent fetish I've discovered regarding flatulence/farting. I have a bad feeling that somehow my brain has connected some sort of node that because I find buttocks very attractive, I would also like it if a woman with a large butt were to release loud/heavy farts. I've never made these connections until a few months ago, where I sometimes find myself being strongly aroused by the thought of a woman's butt being shown off but unexpectedly farting. For example: If I'm already aroused due to the presence of a woman's butt twerking or swerving, the thought of her letting out a heavy fart then intrudes, yet it would make me even more horny than before. I don't know if this is because of a taboo factor playing a part of it or because of farting being associated with butts. In the past I've watched videos that follow the example I just gave and masturbated to it. Once it was due to sexual thoughts. But in general terms, hearing farts or smelling them do nothing for me but disgust me and I never think about it in general like I do with feet. I actually enjoy the smell of feet whether sweaty or lotioned. Normally I'm able to seperate fantasies with fetishes I'd see myself realistically experimenting like the fetishes I'm okay with but in contrast of the porn induced listed ones. And I'm also okay with pretty much all fetishes and kinks that don't allow hurting people, carrying out illegal acts, unconsentual behavior, or children. Seriously, is this normal? Is this just a closet fetish or something? I've also heard that it's common for women to pass gas when it comes to sex because of how the penis blocks air that needs to be pushed out some other way. I don't know how true that is. I really don't know what to do about this and it's been a rare reoccurrence I've had when it comes to my sex life. I don't think I would ever want a woman to fart on my face or have this be something I NEED in order to be aroused in the first place. It's just something that comes up rarely when I'm already aroused or already masturbating to buttocks and nothing to do with them farting. Does anyone else get this? Or at least understand?

Does anyone else struggle with seeking help when your OCD is bad? For instance, I mainly struggle with Existential OCD, and do a LOT of ruminating, on a good day 3-4 hours, on a bad day or during a spike, nearly every single second I’m awake, and sometimes in my dreams as well. But because I’m ruminating and trying to disprove my scary intrusive thoughts, I feel scared of seeking help, because I know they’ll make me stop- and then what am I left with? Uncertainty. I know everyone probably says this, but my thoughts feel so torturous sometimes that I don’t know if it’s be worth recovery if I have to be uncertain about these horrible thoughts. I know rationally that’s a bad perspective and my anxiety would likely be reduced, but I’ll never know if my terrifying thoughts are true or not, and I don’t know if I can deal with that forever. I actually doubt that I can. Maybe this is my OCD struggling to stay alive, and a part of me just really wants to be able to shrug off intrusive or disturbing thoughts like a person without OCD, be able to think about conspiracy theories and laugh them off like I was able to before, without panicking and spiraling into a dark, scary place in my mind at their very mention. How do you guys deal with this? Please help, because I’m both afraid of seeking help and afraid I’ll never seek help at the same time.

One year ago, I came across the concepts of ‘enlightenment’ or ‘awakening’ in Buddhism and since then my life has become horrible as I developed a very huge obsession with reading about what it means to be enlightened and feeling bad and scared about the fact that I am not enlightened and that I am not a good person if I don’t start deep meditation and be on the path to some kind of spiritual awakening that people talk about on the internet. I don’t know if anyone else has gone or is going through this.

Ok so i understand living in uncertainty. But I did ERP as intensively as i could and i had no reaction to my past fears. I was thinking maybe I’m not trying hard enough. Therapist said thats another uncertainty i have to face because Im ruminating. Like i know who i am, beliefs. If i face uncertainty will i then be able to be myself even tho i might be uncertain. Because there can be doubt this and that, but even right now when im trying to be myself sometimes when i argue with my wife for example i feel like i cant have a stance. Or if i have a debate with someone else

My BIGGEST insecurity with my hocd is the fact I’ve always been aroused by lesbians kissing and doing other sexual stuff (in porn, erotica, movies, and fantasy). Now hocd uses it as proof and truly makes me think I want to have sex with a woman and it feels so dang real. I have done erp with this, I wrote out a story about this happening. I got so aroused and just started to feel terrified and hated how it made me feel. Then I instantly feel sad like I will eventually come to terms and leave my boyfriend. Exposures are so hard, not doing the compulsions when it feels too real to be ocd is harder. One positive thing I did notice is that me saying “but I don’t want to be with woman or have sex with a girl” is a compulsion because I often say it to neutralize or reassure myself. So my next step is to stop that during thoughts like this and exposure. (Sorry for the long post)

Hi all... I hope you’re all doing well. I’ve honestly been doing really well lately. Just yesterday I was thinking about how well I was doing but it looks like I spoke too soon haha. In January, my business really picked up and most days, I am so busy that I truly don’t have time to obsess or ruminate or my relationship. It’s been SO nice. I have nearly 0 anxiety. I still get anxious when we’re together sometimes but overall am doing okay. Anyway, I’m struggling with something today because I got myself all worked up about it. I know it’s going to sound stupid for a 31 year old woman to care about this stuff but bear with me... So I guess I’ll just preface this by saying that we have a pretty “open” relationship now. We didn’t always and one of my biggest triggers is being betrayed or abandoned by him. Back to today...so this all started because I intrusively remembered a fight him and I had over a year ago because of Instagram. Long story short, we’ve been together 3.5 years and he’s never posted about me on social media. To be fair, he doesn’t post at all on there anymore and prior to that, would rarely upload. When he did, it was photos of his cars or landscapes. He uploaded MAYBE 2 or 3 photos of his son every year. Anyway, it used to really bother me especially when we first started dating. I thought all the worst things: he was hiding me; he didn’t think I was attractive enough; he wanted to appear single, etc. (Sidenote, I know he flirts with people in his Instagram DM’s. We both do it and it’s never really bothered either of us. We’re just flirty people and it’s never gone further than internet chatting for either of us) But yeah, anyway, we had a few conversations about it in the past, and he always said the same thing: it makes him uncomfortable to post about relationships on social media. And when he got divorced, deleting all of that made it that much harder. Eventually I just gave up and forgot about it. I know logically none of that stuff matters anyway and I just kind of accepted that we weren’t going to be one of those couples and that was okay. But today I got anxious about it again and made the mistake of googling. Of course, it’s all the worst stuff you read: he’s hiding you, he’s embarrassed by you, he’s not serious about you, etc etc. Now I’m in an absolute tornado of anxiety. I know he likes to be flirty and that didn’t really bother me until I start thinking that he’s actively HIDING me. I just feel so awful. Sorry I know most of this isn’t ROCD related- I’m just overwhelmed with anxiety over this and needed to write it out. I don’t want to be bothered by this stuff but everything on Google says I should be and it’s a “huge red flag”. I’m just a mess about it. I’ve met his whole family (except for his mom but they don’t speak), the few friends he has, I’m gym buddies with him ex-wife and I love his son more than anything. I don’t really care if his 400 Instagram followers know who I am as long as he’s not actively hiding me or ashamed of me. Ughhhhhhhh We’re supposed to see each other tomorrow and have a fun day and I can already see my anxiety about this ruining our day or leading to another conversation, even though we’ve already talked about it a few times in the past Okay, sorry that was long and thanks for listening and letting me ramble.

I'm going to be honest, I'm really hopeless at this point. I'm 16 and I just feel so defeated. I'm dealing with my worst theme ever and it's lived 7 months. I've had trouble with school (Especially when my current theme started), I've had a hard time doing the things I love, and I feel terrible. I'm worried I'm going to drop out of high school. As I write this my grades are, 68, 71, 28, 29, 32, 70. I'm not sure if I can get accomodations by the school. If anyone can help me out and tell me I live in massachusetts. I didn't see anything really last time I checked. I can't live like this anymore.

I’ve been dealing with intrusive violent images/urges/thoughts for months now. Lately it’s gotten worse. Sometimes when I see a person i automatically imagine hurting them, sometimes to see if I enjoy the thought or not, or sometimes it just appears in my head and I try to cut it off immediately. It’s like i just can not interact with people because I can’t tell if I’m a risk or not. If I’m capable of hurting them or not. I hate it because I’m all day trying to get an answer to whether I want to harm people or not. I’m constantly asking myself: have you ever desired the thought? Do you want to do it or not? And all of the above makes me feel anormal and like a psycho. And of course, another doubt comes into my head: do you really don’t want to be a bad person? And it’s a never ending disturbing and frustrating cycle... I can’t stop it, it’s driving me crazy and it makes me desperate. Is all this even normal?

My talk therapist and my psychiatrist both think I don't have ocd. Idk how to feel about that after believing i had it for 2 yrs now.

Why do therapist always ask if you had the thoughts prior to the OCD or not? Which answer are they looking for or what does it mean if you did or didn’t?

I know I am overthinking way too much focusing too much on my partners flaws.... 😞 my partner likes to stay inside most of the time and doesn’t like the idea of being around a lot of people. (Honestly who can blame him) but I get sad when I see my roommate and her husband go out to places.. I am doing WAY too much comparing. Honestly it didn’t bug me as much bc I like being indoors too or at least I think I do... I don’t like being around people being home is comfortable for me. My brain is coming up with more and more reason why I am not in love with my partner... 😞 I am starting to believe it.. I made love to my partner not too long ago and I felt off having all theses weird feelings.... then a couple days ago my body was under so much stress I puked 10 times. Also due to not eating healthy and taking melatonin all the time... then yesterday I had to go to the doctors bc of severe chest pains... throughout the whole time I’ve been dealing with this my partner has been with me every step of the way... he bought me medicine and even went with me to the doctors.... I cried telling him I don’t deserve him at all. He asked why and I said bc of how I’ve been feeling lately... I even talked to a specialist about an ROCD course and I asked her if it’s possible to be going through this without all the thoughts and anxiety. She said yes it is possible.. so that gave me hope. But her course is too expensive... 😞 so I can’t do it... when she first appeared I started crying explaining everything I could that I’ve been going through how deeply depressed I’ve been and how real this feels... 😞 I just don’t believe this is ROCD anymore....

Recently I was telling my cbt therapist (not on NOCD and she’s not an ocd specialist, just deals with it sometimes) about my HOCD thoughts, and she told me I wouldn’t know if it was OCD or not until I got out there and experimented. Obviously this triggered me like mad, and I can’t stop thinking about it! Especially since I often worry I don’t really have ocd and all my thoughts are real. I’m not sure what to do I can’t stop thinking about it.

I'm not diagnosed with anything but I like to daydream a lot and usually my daydreams are with celebrities or fictional characters and sometimes I have sexual fantasies with them but I really want to stop so does anyone here have any advice on how I can stop doing this? I know this is weird and not OCD related but I don't like it anymore and it's become part ofy normal thought process so I would like to stop it