Welcome to
the NOCD Community

the thoughts are only getting stronger😭 im scared im gonna give in… i need help😭

Treatment - ERP Hey so basically I'm just soooo scared to do ERP. I started doing erp with one service and I couldn't cope with our first exposure which was just sitting alone for 20 minutes and accepting intrusive thoughts with no compulsions'. I found this so distressing and hard. I've been moved services and probably will be doing ERP with them but I really don't want to do it. I know it's the gold standard treatment for OCD but it scares me so much knowing I have to do it. I'm scared it will make me way more sick and at this point in my life I cannot afford to be more sick (I'm starting year 13 next month and doing my A-level exams in may) I want to trust that this will work but I'm just very scared. I'm scared that this service will be just as bad as the other one. One of my big fears that we did my hierarchy for with service 1 was around science practicals as that was the only fear that therapist 1. I'm scared that therapist 2 will focus on the same scenario (which is a scenario that I struggle A LOT with) but I can't do that, I'm not sure what my hierarchy will be this time. I can't think of any harm exposures at all but I'm sure she will be able to.

does anyone else feel like their life is ran by OCD right now? Can’t have “me time” , can’t simply change my kid , can’t play with my kid without feeling like something is gonna happen. i’m crying right now about it and sometimes I just wanna give my daughter up for adoption just so I know it’s not gonna happen. but that’s gonna hurt me too so I won’t be entirely free , WHAT DO I DO??? help ….

Hey guys, I have taken just 1 pill of lexapro yesterday and I cannot sleep a lick. Is this Normal? Obviously not being able to sleep is causing me some anxiety of course. Still struggling to determine whether I am dealing with harm ocd or suicidal thoughts. Hopefully the meds and therapy can help.

Im actually confused is this an intrusive thoughts? when im doing something it feels like my brain is monitoring how i think how i feel or what i say. it would say things like these and i would fall into problem solving, trying to fix or clear any doubts my brain has or clearing out my intention. “ Did you feel anything when you looked at that kid?” “Why did you have that thought? you probably liked it” “Why did you accidentally say that? even though you said you didnt mean to say it, you still said it” (not verbally, still mental) “When you said the person is cute does that mean you see a kid in them? youre probably a pedo because of that” “what do you feel about their younger version?” “what did you think or feel during the interaction?” Sometimes these thoughts would come up to question me and would result into mentally checking what i thought or what i feel when something happend. Or like sometimes a feeling would come or a thought would come, this would make me question myself as to why i had that thought or feeling. Again this would result in me mentally checking or trying to fix or prove that i didnt even mean anything bad or trying to convince myself that its just ocd. I know i should but i feel like i really should clear it up, but at the same time i feel like im doing a compulsion. these are thoughts that questions my intention or why im having a thought at a certain moment which sometimes would come with feelings and make it look like its real which is why i fall in mental compulsions

Is there a point to living anymore

Hi everyone. I am currently on Luvox after being on Prozac (20-40mg) for the last 5 years. Prozac was no longer working for me so my doctor/therapist and I decided to switch SSRIs. With help from my primary care doctor, I tapered off of Prozac while tapering on to Luvox over the course of a few weeks. I am now off of Prozac and on 150mg of Luvox. I had a couple good weeks where there were more good days than bad, but recently I have felt more depressed, anxious, and in my head on 150mg of Luvox. The anxiety/Harm/Suicidal/Relationship/Pure OCD has been ramping up and it makes me feel a bit hopeless that I won’t get better. The mornings are hard when you feel like it’s just another day suffering through the ups and downs. If anyone can share their ideal Luvox dosage/medicine combo where they finally felt consistent relief from intrusive thoughts and rumination, I would be so appreciative. I know switching medicine and doing ERP is a long process, and I’ve only been in the thick of it for 5 weeks (6/29-8/2), but as I’m sure you can all understand, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this disorder. Any positivity, encouragement, advice, coping mechanisms/tools and success stories are appreciated!

Hey! A little about myself my names Jacob, I’m 23 years old, I’ve been a firefighter since I was fresh out of high school and I’ve been dealing with OCD symptoms since around my Senior year of high school. When I was 17 I vividly remember being at home one day and all of a sudden having a full on anxiety attack with no trigger whatsoever. From then on it developed into me having no idea what was going on for weeks-months until I was able to do the right research and figured out I was dealing with OCD, more specifically Pure OCD. It mainly was made up of intrusive thoughts of harming myself or others, for example thinking of crashing my car into oncoming traffic or randomly attacking someone for no reason. It terrified me because the thoughts never reflected my character at all. In fact I’ve never even been in a car accident before thank god and I’ve never been in a fight! As I’ve gotten older and learned how to deal with OCD I was put on to a prescription called Fluvoxamine around the time I was 18-19 and noticed it helped significantly in reducing my intrusive thoughts and when I would have them there would be no anxiety or rumination following them. I’m now 23 and I work a steady job at my local fire station and I absolutely love it. OCD sometimes makes it challenging to go about my day especially when I have “flare ups” which don’t happen all that often but when they do it can be pretty overwhelming. I’m currently going through a flare up that is as challenging as all the other ones and it relates yet again to harm OCD. One thing I’ve been able to do very successfully is being able to recognize when it is a problem and I’m able to rely on my mom to sit and chat with me about what’s going on and help get everything off my chest. Flare ups usually only last a few weeks maybe a couple months usually, sometimes getting better and sometimes getting worse but I always remember im able to get through it and this too shall pass cause I’ve done it before and I will always continue to do it again. One thing I’ve been researching recently is Ketamine therapy for OCD/anxiety and was curious if anyone had any input on the idea of it. I’ve read some good things and some bad and would like to know too if anyone has tried it for themselves. Thank you if you took the time to read this😁

This morning I woke up and all of a sudden had terrible harm related intrusive thoughts regarding other people. It has made me feel terrible all day long as I had a huge panic attack as I woke up. I have this horrible feeling throughout my body and in my head and it’s just so so hard to describe. I feel so scared like so worried because i am having these intrusive thoughts and its like bringing up other intrusive thoughts to “what if it doesn’t really matter” “what if I don’t care about doing it and just snap” “What if I actually did that” “What if im like a crime documentary” or news story. I am so worried its actually really debilitated me today, I feel terrible and am just crying. Please is this okay to experience and have is this like harm ocd. Sorry x

I woke up this morning so unexpectedly with the worst harm ocd thoughts with urges and sensations, i had such a bad panic attack and literally cried for an hour. I think this harm icd was triggered by an article and its made me so worried. Has anyone ever got the intrusive thought that if you acted on thought that it wouldn’t even matter bc nothing does as i had that and it really scared me because i never would want anything like that and care about it deeply.

I keep spiraling into these “what if” thoughts, particularly about things I might have done to family members in the past ( like what if i s@’d them), which I honestly don’t remember. Out of concern, I asked a friend to check in with my little brother about whether I'd ever made him uncomfortable (they asked him over text), but the response wasn’t what I hoped for (he told me my friend was asking some questions and how they thought i was a bad person). I also left my brother a note, but he never answered. I feel completely lost. I genuinely want to talk to a therapist about these feelings and the guilt that’s consuming me, but my parents are hesitant due to a previous therapy session where I shared too much about our family dynamics. Right now, I’m feeling isolated and worried about what I might have done in the past, and these thoughts are affecting my daily life and with school coming back i dont think i can honestly do it anymore.  I’m even having some dark thoughts and contemplating overdosing. Idk how to cope or honestly if i want to if my “what if” thoughts are real i know noone would want me alive its honestly disgusting My parents told me they would’ve known if I did or my baby cousins parents but I can’t stop thinking like what if I just did it in secret and they didn’t know or what if I did it and I forgot and they forgot idk what to do I feel at a loss.

Hey everyone, I'm hoping to share my story in hopes of finding some understanding and maybe some advice. When I was around 8-10 years old, my older brother showed me something explicit that impacted me deeply. Fast forward to ages 13-14, and I started having some confusing feelings and impulses related to smelling and licking underwear belonging to my brother and dad. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I can't seem to shake off those thoughts or these behaviors. Things took a turn for the worse when I made a mistake involving some inappropriate photos from a friend. I sent pictures of my friend's behind because I was trying to impress someone and wanted photos from a 17-year-old I was interested in (i would also beg for photos from him). Unfortunately, He  later told me that he had manipulated me the whole time, keeping me in a "loop of mystery." Honestly my overtly sexual behavior over text caused rifts in my friendships (even though I'm so shy in person), and while some people managed to forgive me, there’s still one friend who's upset and won’t let it go (rightfully so honestly) Since then, I’ve struggled to connect with people at school, as I’ve been overly flirtatious and it seems to have made others uncomfortable. The guilt from these moments is overwhelming, and I think it might have triggered something like obsessive-compulsive disorder (though I haven’t seen a doctor yet). I keep spiraling into these “what if” thoughts, particularly about things I might have done to family members in the past ( like what if i s@’d them), which I honestly don’t remember. Out of concern, I asked a friend to check in with my little brother about whether I'd ever made him uncomfortable (they asked him over text), but the response wasn’t what I hoped for (he told me my friend was asking some questions and how they thought i was a bad person). I also left my brother a note, but he never answered. I feel completely lost. I genuinely want to talk to a therapist about these feelings and the guilt that’s consuming me, but my parents are hesitant due to a previous therapy session where I shared too much about our family dynamics. Right now, I’m feeling isolated and worried about what I might have done in the past, and these thoughts are affecting my daily life and with school coming back i dont think i can honestly do it anymore.  I’m even having some dark thoughts and contemplating overdosing. Idk how to cope or honestly if i want to if my “what if” thoughts are real i know noone would want me alive its honestly disgusting My parents told me they would’ve known if I did or my baby cousins parents but I can’t stop thinking like what if I just did it in secret and they didn’t know or what if I did it and I forgot and they forgot idk what to do I feel at a loss.

Any mamas or dads out there that have had intrusive thoughts about your children or false memories whether recent or long ago memories that you’ve done horrible things to them? How do you cope with the upsetting intrusive thoughts thoughts and the uncertainty of the false memories?

Just wanting to put this out there to see if anyone else relates. I’ve always tried to pinpoint the root cause of my most frequent “themes” for my intrusive thoughts. I experience Sexual Orientation OCD, Gender OCD, Relationship OCD, Pedo OCD, Harm OCD, and few others that I feel I’ve gotten better with like Germ OCD. I think my OCD really began when I was a teenager and the more I think back and think on my themes and their impact on my mood when they happen, makes me try to relate them to some trauma I experienced as a child that causes me to question my reality and beliefs. Like being called a lesbian slur in school because I was self conscious of my weight and so I wore boy clothes because they were more comfortable and not form fitting. And I also think I may be autistic due to many reasons (like the sensory issue of clothes being too tight) but one being that I mirrored people I wanted to befriend or be liked by and this was a problem in school growing up because I tried skateboarding and sports and such to impress boys because I thought to be liked by them, I had to relate to them and it happened again in high school when I tried to be “country” and like hunting and trucks and all that to fit in more with my new school that was in a small southern town. All of this to say my whole childhood, all I’ve wanted was to be liked, loved, and to fit in and I WANTED to be feminine but femininity didn’t fit with my body size/shape and all the girly things just made me too seen and like everyone could see every flaw I had in bright neon colors. Thankfully as I’ve grown up I’ve found my own style and way of expression and embracing my femininity and curves. I’ve let loose on my personality to be my authentic self but my thoughts throw me back to when I dressed and acted more boyish to fit in and get boyfriends saying “you’re not feminine, you’re masculine, you’re just acting feminine” amongst other thoughts and it makes it hard to enjoy being happy with ACTUALLY being myself because my mind keeps telling me I’m faking. I also had trauma with being groomed growing up by older men and my older sister practicing kissing with me even though I didn’t want to (we are 2.5 years apart) and that gives me intrusive thoughts about finding younger people attractive (like teens much younger than me) and gives me anxiety when I’m trying to change my nieces diaper giving me intrusive thoughts like “don’t touch her there, don’t look there, you’re violating her” when in reality, I’m just trying to make sure she doesn’t get a UTI from not being wiped all the way clean after pooping. This was a much longer post than intended and I could keep going with more examples but I just want to see if anyone else can relate to this and what has helped them.

Idk if I have ocd or not I just want to know about 4 months ago I started getting harmful thoughts to loved ones im very scared because I would never hurt anyone. These thoughts scare me so much because they are so vivid and I have like these urges as if I’m going to do it. What is this? Am I ok? Am I going crazy please someone help it feels like I can’t take it anymore living this way with these thoughts haunting me day and night.

I'm so afraid that I've harmed my best friend because I'm 2 years older and I turned 18 before him. We met online when we were in middle school and we're strictly platonic, no romantic feelings there, we've helped each other get through so much together and I'm just so afraid that while I was 18/19 I managed to fuck everything up because I was legally an adult before him even though I was still just a stupid teenager. I've asked him several times if I've ever hurt him and he's said no but the thought persists.

What do you do when nothing feel right. Like for example I feel like everything triggers me, everything feels weird, sounds, actions, my room. I feel like i will go insane any second and I cant enjoy anything, I cant be happy about my upcoming new job or events. I have OCD about me having shizhophrenia and omg it has ruined my life, it has only been about 3 weeks, but it has got me complitely. I want my old self back and I am scared that my loved one will leave me bc i am not getting better. I really want a new theme as funny it sounds, because even 2 years ago harm OCD was't this hard. I feel like something in me is changing, but i dont want it 😭 I will start therapy in the end of August and I just started taking medication. But for now I cant imagine this stopping and I fear that it will go downhill from this, i cant see me doing better, because if i have a good day I rember how i felt yesterday or when I had a panic attack and I cant get enough of it, i always remember those feelings and I start to worry about it over and over again.

Hi! Okay so everyday I wake up and freak out that I am dying or going to die soon and then because I think that, I feel like I am manifesting it but I cannot stop getting intrusive thoughts about myself or someone I love dying. I also can’t get in my car and drive without thinking I hit someone and somehow just didn’t know? And then I will just wait anxiously and think police will show up at my door. And lastly, I live in the past and always think about all of my mistakes and I can’t forgive myself and keep thinking my past will come back to haunt me. Does anyone relate to anything I said? I think it would just help to know I am not alone.

Hey, I am a gymnast and I'm pretty sure that I've had OCD since my childhood. It all started with small things like keeping my water bottle in a certain spot with me or keeping my shoes nice, aligned, and straight but nothing too serious or concerning to my parents. Now, I have all of these ongoing thoughts, especially as a level 9 gymnast. These thoughts are like "I'm going to miss my hands off the beam or injure myself," and other thoughts just like that. I have also started to have some more self-conscious thoughts about my image or having bad luck and a bad future. Now don't get me wrong I love gymnastics with all my heart but sometimes it's just hard especially since it is already a sport that puts a lot of stress both mentally and physically. I have just recently started therapy at NOCD. It is especially hard as a girl just starting to go through the stages of growing up as I am just about to turn 14. But anyway thanks for making me feel pretty welcome NOCD.

Huge trigger warning related to porn and pedophilia. Please don't read if it makes you uncomfortable. Thank you if you get to read this long post. Something awful happened recently. I was watching porn, I won't say what page because idk if it is allowed, but it is the most famous porn page there is, so you'd think you wouldn't find something so horrifying there. The problem is that one of the automatic pop ups that appeared really terrified me because the girl looked way too young. I'm not sure if she truly was underage, but she looked it, and I can't express how horrifying it is considering if she could have been. I feel like my mind is playing games with me. I can't tell if it was paranoia or reality. My memories are really fuzzy, as I was on a state of shock when I saw it. I remember feeling scared right away and trying to look up how to report it, but the page refreshed on it's own and I never saw the pop up again. I felt so gross for seeing that, and guilty for not reporting it. It was an accident, but I can't help but think that I enjoyed it and that it is my fault for watching porn at all. I am a monster. If this had happened to someone else I wouldn't question it so much, as I know that I didn't look at it on purpose and tried to do the right thing when I saw it. But I already hate myself because years back, when I was 16, I discovered loli. Which is really wrong drawings of young characters. And since then I've been obsessed with the topic and developed pocd. I never looked for those drawings again after that, I dont enjoy them. But I've accidentally found them again on the internet and it's made me feel disgusting and evil; but at least I had the certainty that it wasn't real, until now. I think that this is recent event is further proof of the monster that I already thought I was. After what happened, I immediately contacted a therapist, but tbh, I don't think that I'll ever move on from that. Life isn't looking good right now.