Welcome to
the NOCD Community

I may get a lot of hate for this but this is just my opinion: ERP is not for everyone and it is not the only solution to combating OCD. Exposure therapies for certain individuals such as myself is not the proper therapy. I recently did an exposure therapy and it only made things worse. I see a lot of stuff on here saying that it gets worse before it gets better but I’ve tried multiple times and it doesn’t work for me. I use talk therapy and CBT. I’ve had severe OCD, anxiety, ADD, and ADHD since I was 4 years old and have been on medication since the age of 4. My opinion is that why would I try and put myself in a situation that is uncomfortable if I’m not even thinking about the intrusive thought? It only makes it worse and brings underlying thoughts I never knew I had to the surface. I guess what I’m trying to say to everyone on here is that ERP isn’t the only way. People are treated successfully without ERP, so if you aren’t comfortable doing ERP don’t lose hope. There are other therapies and solutions out there. Medication and therapy does wonders even if it is ERP or not. You know what’s best for you and your mental health so don’t feel pressured into doing something you aren’t comfortable doing. It’s not the only way. You will get better you just gotta hang in there and keep your head up❤️

I curious to know an opinion who knows many cases of OCD or has experience in working with it. So, a couple of years ago I became strangely obsessed with my appearance. I found that something was wrong with me but it wasn't a specific feature, I didn't know what it was. I felt really uncomfortable in public and this lead to me avoing society. I just felt really awkward and like something was wrong with me. I googled 'How to know if you're beautiful/ugly' like million of times. Did tests. Asked my partner at the time a lot. Overviewed myself in every mirror. I tried to shoot a video of myself, where I moved my head so I can see myself in different angles. I tried to understand HOW I looked. And I couldn't. Also have had derealization at time I believe. Is this connected to OCD?

So i have harm OCD and my non ocd therapist was talking about paranoia and now it’s stuck in my head that maybe I am paranoid. Like having a sticky mind sucks. Because my intrusive thoughts are already harmful. Now I’m having this fabricated story that my wife is a spy...., I think I’m slowly going off the deep end

Every time I think I’m getting better, my ocd starts bringing up certain things that haven’t bothered me as much as other things. Then I feel like I have to find the answer to something or I can’t get better. Because then I’m only focused on figuring one thing out, and then after I figure it out, I can start getting better. It’s like I’m telling myself I need reassurance, or I won’t be able to recover.

I had 2 really good days where my OCD was practically non existent... now I’m back to spiraling. I hate this. I want to be normal.

Does anyone else have relationship ocd about everything their partner does? Like maybe if they talk too much you get annoyed and you think your not meant for each other? Or maybe after sex you feel down and then think it’s about your partner? Am I just crazy or does anyone else have thoughts like these. It never stops. Once I get over one, another one comes up. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with relationship ocd with erp?

Has anyone got tips for depression?

What do you guys think of Ali Greymond? I’ve watched some of her videos on YouTube but I don’t know if it’s evidence based or trustworthy. I’m just wondering what others opinions are.

Anyone else feel like there’s no hope left? Like with ROCD you don’t love them it’s just you’re having an unhealthy attachment rooted from childhood? Anyone else feel this way? :(

What do I do if I don't feel as triggered as my ERP was meant to be? I wrote everything that would trigger me. My real events, my false memories, the shame, the guilt, and images of my related obsession. Why didn't it work? What's wrong with me?

Last night I completely broke down. I was sobbing in the car for a straight hour. I feel like OCD is taking everything away from me. It’s so debilitating and I can’t even do basic things such as make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because it involves using a butter knife. I couldn’t drive me and my husband home because I had intrusive thoughts. And I can’t do any hobbies or watch my shows because I never know what will trigger me. I’m so sad and angry because I don’t know what I did to deserve this illness and it’s not fair. I just want to be normal and think normal and act normal. I’m just really mentally exhausted and need a break 😞

Anybody else start to feel less anxious but still very uncertain and confused about a theme?

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE RESPOND :’( I’m getting really strange unwanted thoughts. Is this normal. Whenever I want too draw I get thought about I can’t look at colours it bothers me. When I’m stressed about money I get weird thoughts about what if I steal something and that everything is free in the world so I don’t need to work. I get thoughts about harming my self or others. If I want to save my money I get thrn weird thoughts about what if i give it to someone to harm someone else. what if I overdosed a lot and end up dying cause i have tried to end my life 7 times by overdosing already and now I have this fear. I Really hate this how do I get rid of itt

I have contamination OCD especially related to covid. I’m afraid to touch things other people have touched for fear of being contaminated. This evening we had people over to our house, my wife’s brother and his girlfriend and his son. It’s the first time we’ve had guests or anyone in our home other than workers in over a year. Her brother and his girlfriend have been vaccinated. His son tested negative 2 days ago (we insisted that he get tested before allowing him in the house for the evening). We spent the entire evening (5.5 to 6 hours) with no masks on. I was fine all night in terms of being anxious - I touched things the guests touched and was breathing the same air and I was not anxious because I felt it was safe - they were vaccinated or tested negative. Then at the end of the night, 5.5 hours after he arrived, I found out that the son works part of the day in a big indoor space with tens of other workers and no one wears masks. Now I’m very anxious. Also, they left a short time ago and my son hugged them as they were leaving and then hugged me - this was bad for me OCD-wise - I felt contaminated and washed my hands and face which had touched my son and his shirt after he hugged our guests and he and his shirt were touched by their faces. Finding out at the end of the night that the son has been working around others without a mask totally ruined the night for me and now I’m very anxious. I had a nice evening/night and then it had to be ruined and I had to find out something that made me scared and anxious and feeling contaminated. I want to know why I had to find that out instead of just enjoying the night.

Guys helppp!! I had a very bad day due to Ocd... I have been betrayed by both of my parents, they completely ignored me as their child after they broke up and never ever showed me love or help in anything since then. Then my father suddenly died last year of a serious illness and now I feel more lonely and hurt than ever. Because of these traumatic events i cannot show trust to anyone whether its a friend or my husband. I am having a terrible time in my marriage because i cannot trust my partner, i doubt everything every day i think "what if he is lying?", "what if he doesn't really love me?". It is so awful and i cannot enjoy anything now. No matter how stupid or fake my thoughts are i believe so much in them that it is like i am experiencing these fears. Today i cried and felt extremely bad because of these thoughts...any advice would be helpful! Thank you all!

I read an OCD story about a girl who had OCD and saw demons/possessed family members and in the end got electric convulsion therapy. This is freaked me out since then that I could end up like that. Two things...I’m scared to take any medicine/drink (like upping my antidepressants or sleep aids, anti-anxiety medicine, any alcohol) for fear of all of sudden losing my mind and seeing my infant baby girl be possessed that I’d harm her. Two, I’m afraid I’ll end up like her and need electric convulsion therapy or deep brain stimulation because I could be treatment resistant. I just feel like doing my exposures and trying to accept uncertainty has my brain on stubborn mode and not really accepting the uncertainty. Like it feels like a desert in my brain in that. Have any of you dealt with being afraid medicine would make you lose your mind/get you out of control? Any of you worried you were treatment resistant?

i think ive ruined my life genuinely. im a sexual violator/maybe even a molester and so many other horrible things. im so mad at myself. ive fucked myself up so bad so quickly and i cant even do anything else useful.

Hey ladies I just wanna have a girl talk with y’all. I’m 15 and every girl at my school has boobs and I’m have small boobs. I want body confidence and accept my body ever since I was a kid my mom and her friend would always tell me I should eat more to grow my breast for me to be worthy of guys cause they said “you should get big boobs so guys want you” obviously I know they’re judgemental and have confronted my mom about this. That was in 5th grade ever since that day even when it was hot outside I still wore a jacket cause if I wore a t-shirt I was insecure of how my boobs were mind you I WAS 10 years old worrying about body confidence. “It takes a second to call a girl fat, and years of starvation”- Harry Styles I’m still slowly recovering from this words any tips to wear t-shirts when it’s hot out so I don’t need to cover with a jacket

when you’re on meds does the emotional numbness go away?

I’ve already posted this once but I only got one response so I’d appreciate it if someone could offer some advice :) also possible TW (I mention eating disorders) I’m aware you can get OCD about pretty much anything but I’m wondering if I have OCD about this- I am quite skinny and tbh I’ve not had the best relationship with my body image in the past BUT recently I’ve decided I love my body. I genuinely love how I look and I’m finally happy with my weight and body shape. This is great but I’m also scared that it’s going to change and that I’m going to get fat ( I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being fat, I don’t mean to be hurtful but I guess it’s just an irrational fear of mine). I’m pretty sure I don’t have an eating disorder because I eat all three meals and snacks every day, I don’t want to loose any weight and I rarely restrict but I do weight myself a lot and because I spend a lot of time on tiktok, I’ve become very aware of calories (because it feels like that’s all anyone talks about right now). Basically, I just want to stay at the same weight I am now because I love how I look and I’m scared I’ll randomly gain weight (even though the logical side of me knows this is very unlikely). The reason I think this might be OCD is because I keep getting thoughts telling me that I have an eating disorder or that I’ll get really fat in the future. I try and reason with myself and stay logical but the thoughts don’t stay away for long. If it’s OCD I know it’s pointless trying to reason with it but I’d appreciate it if someone could share their thoughts on whether this might be a theme of OCD so I know how to deal with it instead of answering back to the thoughts. It just feels obsessive and it’s annoying because I love my weight and I want it to stay the same but there’s these thoughts always telling me that I’ve got an ED or I’ll get fat. Thank you for reading all of that, I’m sorry it’s such a long post. I hope it all made sense :)