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the NOCD Community

Hi, I’m new to NOCD. I am a mom of 3 and currently pregnant with my fourth child, due in June. I’ve had OCD has long as I can remember. I was not formally diagnosed until I was in my 20s. I’ve taken Zoloft on and off for decades. I normally quit the meds because I go a period of time feeling “normal” and “human” and feel like I’m fully recovered until it strikes again unexpectedly. Most recently, it’s hit hard with my current pregnancy. I fear “contamination” even though I know no one will be harmed. Touching dirty things, inadvertently smelling things in the air (ie. Gasoline at a station), tracking things inside on shoes (although we take our shoes off at the door), seeing pesticides being applied etc all cause me to get anxious and feel contaminated. I get trapped in my own mind and feel like I miss many times with my children for lack of being present. I have a difficult time believing this is OCD and not a rational thought. I would love to meet others who have similar stories and/or suffered during pregnancy as well. Thank you for letting me share my story. I don’t normally open up for fear of judgement.

Rant (I'm feeling frustrated and having a hard time with the ocd community, so if you don't want to read, just keep scrolling) When people talk about soocd, they always talk about straight or gay people having this obsession, but never bisexual people. So then when people explain it simply as ego dystonic when you get thoughts about being attracted to a certain sex, that simply doesn't apply for bisexual people (because obviously bisexuality is being attracted to multiple genders, therefore telling a bisexual person with soocd that they are NOT actually attracted to a certain gender is incorrect, because what a bisexual person with soocd actually fears is typically that they are only attracted to on gender, as opposed to multiple like they always thought), So the thing is, I immediately feel left out and like I am the exception. It feels like no one ever explains what it's like to have been comfortably attracted to multiple genders, only for ocd to suddenly make you doubt whether you are attracted to one of those genders at all. (Example: I was a bisexual woman when my soocd first got triggered, dating my boyfriend, and the ocd makes me obsessively doubt whether I like men at all/wonder what if I'm fully gay.) Why does nobody talk about this? It's incredibly isolating and frustrating and leaves me feeling like soocd resources do not apply to me or my situation and simply spiral me into more despair that I am the exception. I don't know if it's rooted in biphobia or simply a lack of awareness of bisexuality in the mental health community, but it's incredibly difficult feeling like I don't even belong among other soocd sufferers either. I'm sorry if this makes people uncomfortable who have soocd and obsess about being bisexual, I know it can be a trigger. However, I will not say the reasons that I knew I was bisexual when I found out, I'm tired of getting asked that compulsive question and being expected to answer, which only makes ocd worse for the person asking as well as making my ocd worse.

I first sought help for SO-OCD in 2017 after a sudden onset of the thought, "what if I'm gay?" I had been reading an online college fiction story that included a sex scene with two women, and that idea sent me into a spiral of sleepless weeks (literally), constantly checking my level of attraction to women, comparing it to my attraction to men, reevaluating past events, checking to see if my physical behaviors were "straight." It was awful. Fortunately I found help online when I realized that I wasn't alone and that countless others found themselves obsessing over a "sudden change" in their orientation. I was able to get therapy, though out of network and very expensive, and worked through CBT/ERP to overcome my most significant challenges. After about a year, through therapy and eventually on my own (costs, again smh) I felt I'd successfully managed my SO-OCD and experienced no distress on the rare occasion a thought did come to pass. Now, 5 years later, I've found myself back in familiar territory. I can't figure out what the trigger was here, and I've been experiencing immense distress as my brain constantly throws doubtful thoughts my way, and I unfortunately do my mental checks of reviewing memories, seeking online reassurance, and trying to "prove" to myself what is true by constantly thinking about proof one way or the other. Has anyone else experienced a spike after a long time of having managed their SO-OCD? And if so, was it difficult to get back on the recovery track? Is it normal to backslide like this?

I'm flipping out!!! So much anxiety today. I honestly have it almost every waking hour. I'm not exaggerating. Many of you can relate. Isn't this so hard. Even with ERP and this app I still have some horrible days. Like today. I guess it would help to not focus so much on how difficult it can be. I wish I could get this to logically go away, but no logic will help. Even when I tell myself that normal people can let go of intrusive thoughts and not wallow in them. OCD hates logic. Sorry. I'm just venting. This gets so fucking old!!!!!!

I keep having the thoughts to kill myself and I'm scared I actually will or if I actually want too! My mind keeps telling me certain ways too and also hearing the word "suicide" makes me feel weird and scared like I feel it in my chest! I don't know why! And last period teacher said her nice son died to suicide and I wanted to cry and got scared

So I was telling my boyfriend that a yoga teacher hugged me and kissed my cheeks and it was almost on half of my mouth - so I was like you want to beat him up ? And he’s like no they are like that ... I’m spiraling about him cheating

I'm seeing some people struggling, so I just want to offer my support if anyone needs it:) you don't have to take everything on by yourself. Its okay to ask for help. Its BRAVE to ask for help! 😊 Just remember that if you're having a tough moment, it does not mean that your entire life means nothing or that you will never feel better. You might not be able to control your thoughts, but you are able to control how you react to them and how you perceive them :). Buy a journal and some cute pens and write down your thoughts. Or if you can't get to the store, download Youper! Its my favorite mental health app There's some #mondaymotivation for ya ahaha 😊💛

Question: when you guys got diagnosed, did they also tell you the subtypes you had or did you guys come to that on your own? Just wondering 🤷‍♀️

I miss the old me 😔 I miss enjoying my boyfriend without questioning if I'm even attracted to men at all. Just feeling low....

Does anyone have OCD and bipolar disorder?

Does anyone else take the smallest things personally? I feel like my brain tricks me into thinking the littlest things mean something big and terrible. Last night my SO and I called to say goodnight (like we always do) and then I went to bed. He usually stays up a little after me and I wake up before him. This morning when I woke up, I saw he opened a Snapchat from me and left it on opened. I immediately spiraled. I know it was only because he opened it after we said goodnight so in his mind he knows I’m asleep and sees no need to respond cuz I’m not awake to answer. But my brain always convinces me it’s because he doesn’t actually like me or I get scared that I did something wrong or something to offend or upset him. It’s just so exhausting. I’m tired of fighting my brain. I’m tired of the self sabotage and trying to trick myself that he actually doesn’t like me (especially over something as dumb as a Snapchat). I’m tired of feeling like I did something wrong or that I’m broken. I’m tired of fighting those thoughts and having to assure myself we’re okay. I know he’s tired of it, too. It’s not fair to him. Does this happen to anyone else? What do you do?

Let’s be happy & confident in being straight for 25 years and then one night while watching a movie think “Oh she’s really pretty” (like you have many times before) but this time your mind goes “Gasp! Maybe that means your bi!.” That makes absolutely no sense and I am so exhausted from my intrusive thoughts. I just want to go back to before I watched that movie. 😮‍💨🥺😣

Happy monday y'all😊😊 yesterday's road trip to the rock and roll hall of fame was the COOLEST place ever Totally recommend it if you want somewhere awesome to go :) hope everyone is doing good! 💗💗💗

Hi all, I am sharing this information to meet others who have had the same thoughts and discuss about how to treat them. I have just moved in a new apartment and I am living alone for the first time. I have always been scared of horror movies. I have episodes of existential OCD every now and then. But moving in alone has made it worse on so many levels. My existential OCD is triggered by this. All the events feel like they are not real. Feeling disconnected from reality. And to top it off, my OCD is giving me thoughts that I have schizophrenia. It is making me believe that I will hallucinate and hear voices. Therefore I have become sensitive to the random noises around me. I also keep feeling that someone is watching me or someone is behind me. I keep imagining that I will eventually hallucinate a scary person or like a ghost or something in the house and it’ll chase me. I am scared of dark corners and opening doors. My OCD giving me scares that I have another mental disease is nothing new. But I don’t want to actually hallucinate because of these thoughts. If you have experienced something like this, I could really use some help talking about it.

Good Morning everyone! It’s Monday, the most dreadful day of the week, but day after day we keep moving and so do our emotions and our experiences so I hope this Monday lifts you up and helps propel you throughout the week. My little update about yesterday and the one beautiful thing I did, made homemade salsa and I don’t think I have ever did anything as hard as canning before. Kudos to y’all who can things regularly because that was tough! I’m gonna spend my Monday today watching the third Harry Potter movie and maybe do some gardening. I hope y’all have a great day today, I wouldn’t mind if y’all wanted to share some fun things about your day today. Sometimes it’s nice to share your experiences, even if it’s to complete strangers!

Is anyone awake right now? Just need support 😟😔

I have been doing really well until tonight. I have a terrible relationship with my little sister, ever since we were kids, she would hurt me physically and act out and would always find ways to make me feel horrible whether with words or physically. It hasn’t stopped and I’m 24 and she’s 23. When we were kids, I wanna say 6-7 years old, we were way too involved with stuff on the internet and I remember us doing sexual things and knowing we probably shouldn’t but we did anyway, we may have been to close or I don’t know what it was. It maybe happened 4 times and then never again and we carried on with our lives and never spoke of it. We fight a lot because she has put me in situations where I get beat up by her ex bf’s or she puts our home at risk because of the crowd she’s around. And so I sometimes can’t handle it and I go off and she says anything to hurt me. I’m very angry and distressed because I have tried to process this on my own in my life because I just never want to be close to her again after this, she tells my dad and then she says she’s over it and just wants to be my friend. But I want nothing to do with her. I feel horrible now and searching up on the internet if I am okay in the damn head because of what happened as kids. I know this is A LOT and maybe there is judgement on me and that’s okay, I feel grossed out myself which is why I dug it down into my memories but right now all I can think is if I told my bf or anyone close to me they’d think I’m disgusting and I sexually abused my sister when we were kids.

I came home tonight from hanging out with my boyfriend and I go into my room to see a heart drawing made by my little sister taped up on my wall next to my bed and it makes me feel so sad and guilty. I wish I had never gotten any intrusive thoughts about my sister. I’m such a shitty older sister I hate it. I just wish this never happened. It sucks because she sees me cry because this is all new and it’s hard and she’s always like “big sis are you okay” I don’t deserve her kindness. Tomorrow I start ERP let’s hope it goes well. This is the heart drawing it made me sad :,(

I’m so bothered right now I sure hope it’s just OCD messing with me and not something else 🤦🏻‍♀️😭💔

Hi everyone! I have tried really hard to stop posting as much on this app. I realized that I was using it as a compulsion and posting on here almost everytime I had an anxious thought. It’s so nice to be met with compassion and understanding but I was also using it for reassurance/a crutch. But anyway, I’m REALLY stuck on something and I’ve already wasted my entire afternoon being really anxious about it so I’m just going to post it here as a way to salvage my mental health. My ex and I broke up 3 months ago and I am CONSTANTLY getting super triggered by things that happened in our past. Even things that occurred years ago, I seem to suddenly intrusively remember and then have to “solve them” all over again. What’s so frustrating is that my brain is so fuzzy and my memories are so blurry since it was so long ago, but I can’t seem to rely on my brain to accurately remember or decipher the situation. Today, I’m completely stuck as I remember a situation from one of the times him and I broke up temporarily. I remember being at a friends house and her and I were swiping through my Tinder for fun, when he popped up on my profile. When I went to his profile and checked his latest Instagram posts on his profile, it showed the latest Instagram photos of being from while we were still together. At the time, and now, this has led me down a rabbit hole of anxiety wondering if he was swiping on tinder while we were “madly in love“. I’ve googled everything I could about when Instagram and tinder update themselves. But now, everything I Google or look up about Instagram photos syncing with tinder makes it seem like there’s no way he wasn’t swiping while we were together. I’m pretty sure I confronted him about it at the time, even though him and I were broken up, because I was so upset and anxious. And I obviously worked through it at the time and let it go until now- 2 1/2 years later. Him and I are still great friends at this point, and all of me wants to call him and ask for reassurance but I know that that’s silly because it was so, so long ago. I feel like these things keep coming up because my anxiety is trying to still take this relationship away from me, even though it’s technically already over. In my mind, if I find out that he did bad things in the past, I can’t be friends with him in the present. I’m so tired of having these things come up on a daily basis and giving away my days to anxious thoughts from years ago, but I don’t know how to stop it from happening. Sorry this is so long, but thank you so much for reading. I really appreciate any advice and I’m crying as I write this. Thank you