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the NOCD Community

Hello! Over the past few weeks I have learned more about what OCD is and questioned if I had it. I didn't think I had obsessions/compulsions enough for it to be OCD (rather than anxiety) or for it to be worth pursuing anything. However last night was what really solidified things for me. I had convinced myself that homemade pickled okra my mom gave me that I ate was going to give me botulism. There was nothing to make me think anything was wrong with it but the thought just popped in my head and I spiraled. The whole time I knew it was probably fine and I was being irrational but I couldn't get the "well what if this is the weird case where it does happen?" I was obsessing over it for a few hours (I've now learned is ruminating I think), googling things about it (compulsion), and seeking reassurance multiple times from my partner. It even got so bad I texted my mom seeking reassurance that it was safe to eat. Today is her birthday and I woke up from a text from her telling me she follows all the proper techniques but if I'm worried just throw it out. I felt so bad and started crying. The first text she sees from me on her birthday is me questioning if her food is safe to eat. This led me to download this app. I don't have a diagnosis but this and many other things I experience have really pointed to OCD. Already, hearing that other people go through similar things has really helped me. I have felt so silly and irrational for so long and it's so reassuring to see I'm not alone in these things.

I am new, I seen this on fb and thought well this could be good! Anyways, I have suffered with health anxiety and ocd for YEARS! I’ve seen many therapists and they just dismiss me because I get so hooked on stuff I can’t seem to function. My biggest episode yet was about 4yrs ago, I was utterly convinced I had leukemia. I had become manic, I couldn’t function. I stopped eating and thus began to lose weight. It lasted about 3mo. I was supposed to be medicated but my insurance wouldn’t cover my medication so I just stopped taking it. Anyways, fast forward, my husband ended up paying for my medication out of pocket and making me drink smoothies which in turn I was able to eat and got myself out of the manic state. Now I still worry about every ache or pain, I panic about everything health wise. I have never been able to overcome it. I am hoping that maybe, just maybe someone on here could relate and together we could get some comfort. It feels very lonely. I’m a 41yr old mom of 3. All 3 of my kids have anxiety. My oldest son has health anxiety just like me, I was young when I had him so sadly he got the brunt of my problems. My middle son has social anxiety (I do too but can control it some) he is the only one medicated because he’s in school and he can’t control it; he does see a therapist and she seems to be helping him, my youngest has anxiety in small spaces. He can’t feel trapped he also sees a therapist and they have worked wonders with him. Thank you for taking the time to read this ❤️

I have been going through a really hard time lately in regard to my existential ocd. Not only that but my health anxiety has been horrible. What I wanted to bring up to see if a conversation could be had was my derealization. I have been having severe random bouts of derealization that are genuinely starting to feel debilitating. The best way I can describe it is I get sick to my stomach when I think about life, being alive, I convince myself im in a dream, that im stuck in a time loop and nothing around me is real and that ive been making up my entire life. With this also comes the intense feeling that everything has already happened before, its like deja vu but almost worse. I will be in moments lately and every single thing feels like it already happened, then that spirals into me believing nothing is real and im stuck in some kind of dream. Everything feels familiar, everything had already happened, sometimes stuff feels so familiar it genuinely will make me start to throw up because im so scared. Can someone please have a discussion with me and just let me know if theyve felt this way, what I should do, and if itll ever get better? Im genuinely convinced life will feel this way forever and im never going to be okay with being alive again and it genuinely makes me feel insane and so terrified. Thank you.

Does anyone else get fired from doctors because you get upset when they won’t listen? Or you have explained that the treatment option offered is one you have tried and didn’t work?

I always post then delete my posts on heee but I’m going to try not to this time. Does the holidays cause your OCD to flare? My OCD has been so bad can’t rememebr the last time it was this bad. It started with digestive issues like constipation, which I went to the doctor for three days in a row (probably a compulsion) and been on a healthy gut kick since which has been slowly improving my symptoms. I thought once the constipation went away I would stop obsessing. But now, any little sensation or symptom in my body causes me to freak out and start crying paranoid that I’m dy*ng. I woke up this morning with a stomachache and got paranoid about that and had the desire to go to the Dr. But I’d be embarrassed to go to the doctors four days in a row. This is also the first Xmas without my grandma, and the seventh year without my dad. Anyone relate?

To start off, yes I have a therapist, yes I have a psychiatrist and so far I am only diagnosed with ptsd, ocd, gad, hypochondriasis, and panic disorder. So for the past 5 months I’ve been dealing with a terrible ocd/hypochondria theme where I have COMPLETELY convinced myself I am in the beginning stages of schizophrenia or some other related horrific psychotic disorder. Ive read way too much on common delusions, symptoms, hallucinations, personal stories, Reddit stories etc. Anyway, for some reason my ocd has really latched on to the common symptom schizophrenics have which are religious delusions, at least I hope it’s just my ocd and not actually schizophrenia. Everyday I get these terrible existential/demonic “delusional thoughts”. Like “what if my wife is a demon” “what if my cat is a demon” “this song has demonic energy” “the face that person made was demonic” “this house has negative demonic energy” “what if you are possessed” “what if these ugly brown mushrooms growing in your yard are a sign of demonic energy”, shit like that. Literally everything I look at now has some sort of “negative energy” or feels eerie or “demonic”, everything I look at always has to have some sort of malicious intent or negative undertone, I can’t watch anything on YouTube anymore, I can’t listen to my favorite bands anymore like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc, these thoughts have made me become so avoidant of dark things and even normal light hearted things! Now first off, I am a literal atheist, I am a complete skeptic, I have never ever been superstitious. I was a huge Marilyn Manson fan in my teens, I’m a horror movie junkie( or at least I used to be before this theme took over), i literally have shirts with pentagrams and upside down crosses etc. why has my ocd suddenly branched off into this religious ocd/delusional thinking? Is this maybe a dp/dr thing too? It literally feels like I am in a horror movie, when I’m really REALLY spiraling and ruminating hard, it feels like I’m in another world filled with pure DREAD and horror.I know for sure that every single one of these thoughts and feelings are untrue and very unlikely when I’m not as panicked but when I’m in deep rumination/obsession it seriously makes me question what I believe. I do not believe any of these thoughts at all when I’m calm! Yet the fear they create and the vibes that accompany them make it feel real. When I’m in full blown panic and start to spiral really bad sometimes I feel like I almost believe these thoughts, and feel paranoid almost, when the anxiety and fear passes though I can have a brief moment of clarity where I can laugh these thoughts off and almost be myself again, but it’s very short lived before these thoughts start creeping back up. The content of the thoughts is scaring me but the fact that I’m even having these types of thoughts and fears in the first place is scaring me even more because it is reinforcing my fears that I am becoming schizophrenic/psychotic. Why have I suddenly become like this? I can’t enjoy anything anymore without getting these awful awful thoughts. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?

To start off, yes I have a therapist, yes I have a psychiatrist and so far I am only diagnosed with ptsd, ocd, gad, hypochondriasis, and panic disorder. So for the past 5 months I’ve been dealing with a terrible ocd/hypochondria theme where I have COMPLETELY convinced myself I am in the beginning stages of schizophrenia or some other related horrific psychotic disorder. Ive read way too much on common delusions, symptoms, hallucinations, personal stories, Reddit stories etc. Anyway, for some reason my ocd has really latched on to the common symptom schizophrenics have which are religious delusions, at least I hope it’s just my ocd and not actually schizophrenia. Everyday I get these terrible existential/demonic “delusional thoughts”. Like “what if my wife is a demon” “what if my cat is a demon” “this song has demonic energy” “the face that person made was demonic” “this house has negative demonic energy” “what if you are possessed” “what if these ugly brown mushrooms growing in your yard are a sign of demonic energy”, shit like that. Literally everything I look at now has some sort of “negative energy” or feels eerie or “demonic”, everything I look at always has to have some sort of malicious intent or negative undertone, I can’t watch anything on YouTube anymore, I can’t listen to my favorite bands anymore like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc, these thoughts have made me become so avoidant of dark things and even normal light hearted things! Now first off, I am a literal atheist, I am a complete skeptic, I have never ever been superstitious. I was a huge Marilyn Manson fan in my teens, I’m a horror movie junkie( or at least I used to be before this theme took over), i literally have shirts with pentagrams and upside down crosses etc. why has my ocd suddenly branched off into this religious ocd/delusional thinking? Is this maybe a dp/dr thing too? It literally feels like I am in a horror movie, when I’m really REALLY spiraling and ruminating hard, it feels like I’m in another world filled with pure DREAD and horror.I know for sure that every single one of these thoughts and feelings are untrue and very unlikely. I do not believe any of these thoughts at all, yet the fear they create and the vibes that accompany them make it feel almost real. When I’m in full blown panic and start to spiral really bad sometimes I feel like I almost believe these thoughts, and feel paranoid almost, when the anxiety and fear passes though I can have a brief moment of clarity where I can laugh these thoughts off and almost be myself again, but it’s very short lived before these thoughts start creeping back up. The content of the thoughts is scaring me but the fact that I’m even having these types of thoughts and fears in the first place is scaring me even more because it is reinforcing my fears that I am becoming schizophrenic/psychotic. Why have I suddenly become like this? I can’t enjoy anything anymore without getting these awful awful thoughts. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?

To start off, yes I have a therapist, yes I have a psychiatrist and so far I am only diagnosed with ptsd, ocd, gad, hypochondriasis, and panic disorder. So for the past 5 months I’ve been dealing with a terrible ocd/hypochondria theme where I have COMPLETELY convinced myself I am in the beginning stages of schizophrenia or some other related horrific psychotic disorder. Ive read way too much on common delusions, symptoms, hallucinations, personal stories, Reddit stories etc. Anyway, for some reason my ocd has really latched on to the common symptom schizophrenics have which are religious delusions, at least I hope it’s just my ocd and not actually schizophrenia. Everyday I get these terrible existential/demonic “delusional thoughts”. Like “what if my wife is a demon” “what if my cat is a demon” “this song has demonic energy” “the face that person made was demonic” “this house has negative demonic energy” “what if you are possessed” “what if these ugly brown mushrooms growing in your yard are a sign of demonic energy”, shit like that. Literally everything I look at now has some sort of “negative energy” or feels eerie or “demonic”, everything I look at always has to have some sort of malicious intent or negative undertone, I can’t watch anything on YouTube anymore, I can’t listen to my favorite bands anymore like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc, these thoughts have made me become so avoidant of dark things and even normal light hearted things! Now first off, I am a literal atheist, I am a complete skeptic, I have never ever been superstitious. I was a huge Marilyn Manson fan in my teens, I’m a horror movie junkie( or at least I used to be before this theme took over), i literally have shirts with pentagrams and upside down crosses etc. why has my ocd suddenly branched off into this religious ocd/delusional thinking? Is this maybe a dp/dr thing too? It literally feels like I am in a horror movie, when I’m really REALLY spiraling and ruminating hard, it feels like I’m in another world filled with pure DREAD and horror.I know for sure that every single one of these thoughts and feelings are untrue and very unlikely. I do not believe any of these thoughts at all, yet the fear they create and the vibes that accompany them make it feel almost real. When I’m in full blown panic and start to spiral really bad sometimes I feel like I almost believe these thoughts, and feel paranoid almost, when the anxiety and fear passes though I can have a brief moment of clarity where I can laugh these thoughts off and almost be myself again, but it’s very short lived before these thoughts start creeping back up. The content of the thoughts is scaring me but the fact that I’m even having these types of thoughts and fears in the first place is scaring me even more because it is reinforcing my fears that I am becoming schizophrenic/psychotic. Why have I suddenly become like this? I can’t enjoy anything anymore without getting these awful awful thoughts. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?

Hi I’m new to the group here and I look forward to getting into therapy here as I believe this is OCD again cuz I can’t stop obsessing & thinking the same thing over and over again. Let me back up a bit cuz I have been having these horrible thoughts & feelings for over a month now. So Since my dog has died at the end of October I’ve been having horrible feelings that I’m going to die at the end of the year… I’m so scared and worried. I feel like I have so much to accomplish and do in life, but my brains telling me I’ll be dead by for sure by the end of this year, like i don’t want to die. Like is this OCD or something else? I want to hear if any of you guys have suffered with something similar. I don’t want to die now! I have never had obsessive thoughts about this before so it feels so real and scary. But I’m so anxious constantly, I have barely eaten much, and just feeling so disturbed by my thoughts I can’t focus or do anything it feels! 😞 So obviously I made it past the last two nights cuz I have been having consistent thoughts thinking I was going to die by Friday the 15th, but here I am still alive!… but last night I really screwed myself when I gave into searching up more of “why am I still thinking I’m going to die, etc etc” I went to Qurora where people put there thoughts & opinions on a certain question. A certain word really stuck with me and I searched it up, it was “premonition” I started researching what is the difference between horrible anxiety & premonition and I started reading articles… since last night it’s been freaking me out!!! Like what if this is a true premonition feeling compared to me just having anxiety? 😥 There was some people who posted in the comments on quora saying “I knew something bad was going to happen, etc etc and it did, or I had a feeling my dad was going to die and a few months later he did, etc etc…”. I’m constantly thinking I’m gonna die for sure now… it’s gut wrenching to think this. I know we all die but I don’t want to die now. It wouldn’t make sense for me to die now, I have a little 3 year old boy I wanna be here for the rest of my life! I’m a single mom, I don’t want him to be without any parents. Ugh I’m so sad, anxious, on edge I can’t function. I can’t stop crying sometimes. I have therapy this week but it’s gotten so bad where now I feel like I CANT distinguish the difference between a gut feeling and just my thoughts as intrusive/OCD. Can anyone of you really relate to this?? I just wanna feel at peace again with myself…. And I certainly don’t wanna die young. 😭 But also my thoughts have switched up on me like “well you lived past this Friday, but you’re for sure gonna die in the next few weeks etc etc.” like a gut thought. There’s moments I feel like I need to go to a mental hospital cuz idk anymore…

When I get really stressed I obsessed about that I never vill sleep again. I'm so fucking tired of it. It's hard because I have a lot of autoimmune diseases so logically I also know that I need sleep. Which making it worse because that tells OCD that I'm right. I do all the classics things, telling my self that I can go one night without sleep, that I can cancel the important thing tomorrow etc. But it doesn't not help. It makes it worse. It's not about sleep it's about me worrying about a lot of real stuff I don't want to think about so I think about that I will never sleep again. Any ideas? I know I will feel stressed and it will be a lot for me to handle tonight. But I don't want to give in to my compulsions. That's all. I want to take the fight. I just needed to tell some one and know I'm not alone. I've done it before with OCD so I know I can do it. It's just so hard when it's all in my head.

i read some things about ocd and the different types of it and symptoms and I can honestly relate to them (im not trying to diagnose myself with ocd but I think I have a type of ocd) lemme explain: so like this been happening since the summer. me and my best friend did something sexually together and me and her afterwards wasn’t okay after that and she told me how she felt afterwards and after that I felt totally disgusted and sick about myself and that’s when all the intrusive thoughts started. I keep having the urge to kill myself everyday I keep thinking about death and it’s getting to the point that I can’t eat because after I eat something I immediately think I’m gonna die because I ate something. When I’m at school or in public I have bad anxiety and thoughts about me dying. And after the situation happened with my friend (I’m Christian) I just feel like God is so disappointed in me because what I did. Nobody knows this situation. Nobody knows what’s REALLY going on with me. Im trying to stay strong but it’s getting really hard to im at my breaking point the thoughts are getting worse and worse everyday I wake up with these intrusive intense thoughts. I want help. But idk how to help myself. I try to go to my mom for help she doesn’t understand me nobody understands but me.

I cannot seem to stop the cycle and I’m questioning how much longer I can manage like this. I keep having a symptom, or so I think. It’s not super consistent, and when I’ve gone to the doctor to explain it, I feel like a crazy person. Its sharpish, tingling pains in my stomach that do seem to be more present when I’m stressing and hyper fixating on them. But sometimes just pop up on their own. I won’t notice it for a few days, and then I’ll feel a twinge in my stomach and absolutely have a freak out over it thinking it’s some stage 4 something. I’ve stopped wearing certain clothes and working out because I’m afraid of “triggering” it. I feel like I can’t even distinguish between what’s real and what’s not anymore. How will I ever know when to actually go to the doctor for something if i don’t know that what I’m feeling is even real? Has this happened to anyone else?

Because is controlling my life

Yesterday was one of the most challenging days since I was 15. I fell into a rabbit hole and did all the mental compulsions and sought reassurance in various forms. I completely broke down and cried and showered two times and felt alone. I talked to my sister yesterday and shared all my thoughts and what if’s. I needed comfort to know I’m not alone. At the end I asked her one of the greatest ways she can support me is to not reassure me. I was crying when I asked her, afraid that I wouldn’t be a reassured from a loved one anymore. I have dealt with SO-OCD since 15, it was through ERP and medication it became tolerable. Since then I’ve dealt with different themes from POCD, Health, Harm, Death and others. But SO-OCD is always the strongest. The days feel long and the nighttime feels like a battle. But last night I chose to practice mindfulness and to breathe. To not be afraid of my thoughts and what if’s and let them pass by. SO-OCD can feel so isolating, it feels like I’m denying or lying to myself even though I don’t see myself growing old with a woman. My mind twists that I have internalized homophobia or biphobia. And it’s just so tricky. Two weeks ago I was obsessing over a guy crush. And it feels like all my experiences with guys are false and has distorted normal interactions with women as signs. Not seeking reassurance in this section. I even went a long period without using NOCD. I know I’m not alone in this, we will get through this. We need to take it one day at a time. We will get through this. Sending strength and courage to all of you.

Dr has prescribed me Lexapro for ocd until I can get in to see a psych eventually, I’m about to start therapy in January aswell…. Was just wondering if anyone has had positive experiences with Lexapro? I know everyone is different, so maybe I could just ask for anyone who has found a medication that works for them, I just wanted to know a thorough explanation of how it makes you feel & how it has helped with your intrusions/ocd… I am quite nervous to try it because of side affects and fear it’s just another trial error phase…. I have quit smoking pot and going to stick with taking it same time every day where as in the past with 2 previous meds I was still smoking and not having a routine with when I took the meds. So obviously it didn’t work properly… can someone just give me a bit of hope, please?

Does your them cause you so much despair that you get terrified to your bones? Mine is health OCD, and I’m always worried that I’ve missed a symptom and it’s some stage 4 something. The OCD is also really tied to PTSD for me from my mom passing of cancer. Since June, I’ve thought I had breast cancer, colon cancer and now gallbladder cancer. If I feel the slightest twinge by my right rib, I absolutely FREAK out. As I type this, I can see that it’s the OCD latching on to something else, but to me it feels SO REAL. That THIS TIME, it WILL be cancer. The distress makes me physically ill and causes me to constantly have a full bladder. Whenever I start to fall asleep, I wake up in a full panic gasping for air as I remember this fear. I am really having a hard time coping rn and am finding that I’m telling myself I’m safe. I know it’s a compulsion but omg, I’m a 10/10 right now, borderline panic attack and it just wont go down. I don’t know what else to do?

Sometimes I feel absolutely fine, then the next few moments I’m gasping for air and it feels like it won’t fill my lungs no matter how hard I try. Sometimes it comes on so suddenly without me consciously thinking about it so I’m having a really hard time differentiating between what’s physically happening and what’s caused by somatic OCD. I wonder at times if it’s a mix of both, but either way it’s a terrible feeling and makes me feel dizzy, weak and anxious. I want to break this cycle so badly but I don’t know how to tackle it. Breathing should be such an easy, mundane thing but now it takes everything in me just to make it through each episode.

I have severe acid reflux and I haven’t been eating recently due to pseudo-dysphasia. But I had crazy chest pain and burning today at work that radiated to my back. I don’t know what’s a real sensation anymore or something created in my head. I have been is so much pain today that I broke and gave into the compulsion of going to the ER. Well shocker it didn’t make me feel better. Have had hundreds of tears done on my body and to see how my heart is and they say my heart is really healthy. Why can’t I just live and not convince myself that I’m having a heart attack .

So for the past month I’ve been throwing up after eating. As time has gone on I’ve done it more regularly. I’m scared though that I’m just doing it for attention and there’s nothing actually wrong with me. I don’t necessarily binge it’s more so I eat and if I feel any bit full I force myself to be sick. It’s been happening almost every single day. When I feel full I feel like I’m getting fat and I get terrified of gaining weight. My OCD is making me feel like an attention whore. I’ve told my mom and my boyfriend. And my mom is very upset and doing her best to help. Same with my bf. I keep thinking my poor mom I’m just doing this to get extra attention. But I’ve done it for a while and only just recently told her. It’s almost like I feel accomplished when I’m hungry. And I feel good about it. It started last November. I had been excessively working out before a group cruise to be in shape. After the cruise I lost motivation but didn’t want to gain weight so whenever I felt full I would make myself be sick.

I guess I’m really wondering if anyone else is experiencing this or has gone through something similar. I hate feeling high or drunk. I highly dislike the feeling of being out of control of my body. I am constantly scared of eating at my mom’s house because both her and my brothers living there partake in marijuana usage (which is perfectly fine!). But I am scared it somehow gets in my food. That’s how it started around 2 years ago. Since then, this has progressed to concerns with food spoilage or cross contamination. I am a trained food safety expert for over 10 years. I worry I didn’t wash my hands good enough after handling raw chicken and I’m going to give myself food poisoning. I actually rarely handle or eat fresh meat because of this fear. When I do it’s a complete anxiety attack for a good 24 hours. I worry and throughly inspect all fresh produce for signs of mold. Then cook it and wonder if I somehow missed it. So I started taking pictures of it to reassure myself. Also I worry someone will poison me if I get food at a fast food restaurant, either by accidentally drugging me or intentionally. This has progressed to now being scared in public restrooms to set specifically my phone down on the toilet paper holder because maybe somebody put their drugs there. It will get on my phone and I’ll touch it then eat and become high. I wash my hands probably 15 times a day on the low end, they are cracked and bleed frequently. I don’t even know what to do. I’m so sick of living with these irrational fears. Just wish I could live normally.