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the NOCD Community

Does anyone mind sharing their experience with Zoloft? I’m interested to try it, but unsure about side effects. Thanks!

I want to share some hope with all of you experiencing ROCD. I have been through absolute HELL this year with ROCD. Honestly, it was been the most difficult year of my life. But after many months of hard work, ERP, trying to reprogram my ways of thinking, failing, trying again, taking two steps forward and one step back, starting medication, I am happy to say that I am feeling like my usual self and feeling so lucky to have my partner. There have been times when I was repulsed by him and that has been extremely hard on our relationship, but he has stuck by me and I am just so grateful for him and for myself for choosing not to trust the intrusive thoughts that plagued me for so long. I don't feel absolutely infatuated with him, but I have realised that feeling infatuated is not a good indication of love or of being a good fit. My partner is amazing and supportive and loving, and having those things helps so much to build love. It's hard to let go of wanting that feeling, I completely understand, but please know that even though you may not be feeling how you want to right now, that it is possible for that to change and that you can have a happy relationship. ROCD doesn't have to define you and you can do this. I did it and so can you XXX ❤️

For those who have anxiety attacks associated with OCD, do they seem to come from nowhere? I used to be able to clearly identify my triggers, but, with this most recent onset, it’s as if they are appearing out of thin air w/out environmental stressors. Or perhaps the triggers are subtle and they fly underneath the radar…

I’d love some encouragement from anyone who is willing to send it my way. I’m having a hard time really leaning into uncertainty and my exposures. I know I need to take a leap if I’m going to get better, but I just don’t want to! I struggle to stop myself from ritualizing and I put off doing my exposure tasks too. Any support would be greatly welcomed. Thanks everyone.

OMG IM SO SCARED I DID SOMETHING ILLEGAL . I was on Instagram and went on this anime account and from what I remember I saw a picture of a girls underwear and thighs like a cartoon picture . I was weirded out and scared and shocked and while on the page I noticed a picture of a guy touching shirks chest and backed out . Then I went back to report the pictures . Now I’m not sure exactly what happened . I saw the picture again and I’m not sure if I just reported it or if I performed a checking compulsion of looking at it to determine whether it’s child porn. That would be illegal since drawn cp is illegal here . Or whether I just saw it as a shock response . Then I reported the other image . Im so scared o committed a crime . Did I commit a crime ???

Hi. I am new here ,I was just wondering would you be able to help me and shine any light on what I am suffering with. It all started when I was working at a warehouse long hours 12 hour shifts nearly every day,I was fine before all this one night the guys were joking around saying gay guys are happy because they don’t have women in their life’s and bang it was stuck. Started asking myself am I gay or not and fighting with my self running to the toilet every 5 minutes to avoid the people I was working with,I lost my job because of it,2 years later still stuck with the same thoughts in my head I have seen a therapist she said it isn’t ocd it is od obsessive disorder not sure it is a night mare every day it is so repetitive as well. I just want my life back, I have a family and it’s causing problems in my relationship because I keep asking my partner if she think am gay or have shown any signs, she says no all the time to me but only gives a little bit of relief and then it’s back again with but am I straight and then looking back at my past for some kind of evidence, I am not an expert on all this but to me it Doesn’t feel like I’m me at all. It feels like my mind has been hijacked and trying to take over am so down because of this,I also have Aspergers which might not help the fixation. So I was just wondering would you be able to give me any advise or help on how to conquer this.

Fighting compulsions is soooooo hard. I find myself constantly and aimlessly posting on Reddit to get reassurance on a situation when I already know the answer. A lot of things im realizing is literally my own imagination that I’m making into a reality when it’s not real and I HATE it. 😭

I’m in a long distance relationship and I remember I use to daydream about kissing my boyfriend once he comes back. I can even remember what it felt like. But now it’s like I can’t even do it anymore and I’m worried about how I’ll feel once he comes back.

My big challenge is that I am making small victories but I notice I’m anxious to get back to my life fully. And when I notice setbacks, it makes me feel really discouraged. Even when I feel like I understand the ins and outs of this disease, the feeling itself can be so overwhelming, especially when the trigger is really high. It’s nice to have support here, because I feel like even if I fail, I know there are people here who understand the ups and downs of this disease. And it gives me an anchor to know that I have this place to feeling connected and understood.

Can someone tell me if I'm doing what's right please. I've been trying to acknowledge my anxiety without giving it much attention. As I do this it keeps screaming at me louder and louder. Should I continue to try and not give it attention no matter how loud it screams at me to pay attention to it? I've asked my therapist from this app but she hasn't responded.

I hate fixating about the past, making things up about myself and fearing the future. Things were going OK I thought. Don't need reassurance but I'm just stressed and can't stop pulling my hair I feel so ugly now. :(

hi can anyone give me words of encouragement? is it possible to get better? i’m having an obsession that i’m going crazy and developing psychosis and it’s scary. and i’m having an obsession that my ocd will be treatment resistant or that i’m too far gone. everyone says to sit with the anxiety and not fight it so that you show your mind it’s nothing to be afraid of but i feel like this is just making me crazier. i feel alone in this. has it gotten better for any of you? does anyone have any tips? thanks :) i hope you all are doing good.

Hi can someone whose part of the lgbtq community talk??

Hey yall, happy monday night!:) today was a whirlwind. I took miss gyppers for a walk but then she escaped out of her pack and into the woods 😬. I just bought some flee meds and put it on her so hopefully that'll rule out fleas! I had a nice dinner beforehand though 😊 How has everyone been today? Lemme know what's up :) As usual, here's my favorite 60 second guided meditation for intrusive thoughts if you're struggling: https://www.pixelthoughts.co/#

Do the thoughts ever fully go away? If this is a reassurence thing then let me know, but even if I feel better the thoughts are still there in the background anyway, meaning they can come to the surface faster too....

Guys, question, can ocd make you like, smell something that is actually not true, for example with Contamination OCD? like simulate Odors that are actually not there?

Hi, so I haven't been properly diagnosed I have tapping and touching compulsions since I was young but never thought it was ocd and have had different topics of obsessions specially health and hocd. I went to therapy because of intrusive thoughts about hocd and they told me I had to seek treatment somewhere else. I'm not able to do it financially right now so I started getting informed an doing ERP and practicing uncertainty and I don't quite struggle anymore with thoughts but I can't stop thinking about if I really have OCD or not and my mind keeps telling me that maybe I just made it up to be interesting or for attention or to manipulate people around me but I haven't even told anyone but 2 friends and I just need to know. And I'm really confused and scared that maybe I just made it up and started convincing myself that I had it and lying so I could be interesting or to play the victim or something. And I'm also scared that If I get diagnosed I will start telling everyone and live my life around it and just use it so people would feel bad for me or something. But I also want to know if I have it so I can look for the right help and feel okay, but I don't know what to do. Please don't think I'm crazy.

Im so scared that my thoughts about my boyfriend is real ..

does anyone else on here worry they histrionic personality disorder ? can that be a theme? personality disorders? i guess ocd can latch onto anything...

I have never heard of a case of someone with OCD about being a pedophile or killer realizing they really were one. However, mental health professionals have encountered individuals with HOCD who have come to the conclusion that they were gay. Reassurance doesn't help in any of these cases. It's common for mental health professionals to try reassuring a patient in some way, especially earlier in treatment, but ultimately the reassurance doesn't treat the OCD. The OCD is treated by eliminating compulsive checking, researching, and analyzing, and tolerating the uncertainty in the process. If I understood your email correctly, what you are struggling with the most is what seems to be a contradiction between (1) how mental health professionals might tell a person with HOCD that they don't think he's gay, and (2) the idea that someone with HOCD could in fact be gay. I think the simplest way to explain this contradiction is that what professionals might say to someone about his sexual orientation would be their impressions of that person, specifically. I can't speak on behalf of other professionals, but I assume this is what would be intended. On the other hand, the information you've read about HOCD is about HOCD in general, for all the different people who have it. Some of these people are gay and some of them are straight and some are in the middle. All of these people are unsure of their sexual orientation, all of them are frantically trying to figure out their sexual orientation, and all of them are terrified of making a mistake in either direction -- by thinking they're gay or thinking they're straight. The problem is that when people have HOCD and they're constantly engaged in compulsions, they can feel so confused that they truly don't know what's real. Nothing anyone tells them will convince them. If someone tells them they are straight, they just worry that that person is wrong, because they are afraid of making a mistake in either direction. OCD can be incredibly, profoundly confusing and torturous. People with HOCD constantly try to figure out their sexual orientation. They analyze and ruminate about every sexual and romantic feeling and thought they've ever had. They even try to have feelings and thoughts on purpose to try to figure out the answer. But what happens is that all of this analysis and rumination just make the person ever more confused and even more scared, and makes it impossible to actually figure out what's real. The more confused and scared they get, the more they analyze and ruminate. It's a horrible, torturous cycle. The way we treat HOCD isn't by trying to answer the question, since trying to answer the question is what fuels this horrible cycle. Instead, the way we treat it is by working on eliminating the analysis, mental tests, research, and reassurance-seeking. Once a person eliminates this, things gradually become clearer, and they can get a picture of what their sexual orientation actually looks like. In other words, in order to eventually gain an answer to the question, the person has to stop trying to figure out the answer. This may sound simple, but it can actually be an incredibly difficult, scary, and complicated process. Hi I have just come across this article online from Reddit from an OCD therapist by the looks of things. Is that a therapist say you can HOCD and realise you are Gay. So confused.