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the NOCD Community

Hi guys what theaprist do you recommend for rocd on here?

Hey guys - So I just had a pretty significant setback in my OCD journey, and in the attempt to make light of it I’m going to share what I learned, in the hopes that it will help some of you. OCD is theorized to have something to do with a serotonin deficiency in the brain. So, naturally, I started doing a few different things to help with that naturally. I’d say the biggest thing that impacted my OCD spiral was stopping my gratitude journal practice. This has the BIGGEST effect on my journey. Being able to take stock of the things that were going well allowed me to break out of the endless loop that is OCD. If you think about OCD in terms of an endless, cyclical train track of anxiety and fear, well the best thing to do is to get off of that train track by CREATING another one - one of gratitude, love, and peace. What helped me was making a list every day of all of the good things in my life, and really feeling the implications of my blessings, believing that I was worthy of those things. The OCD will always be there, wanting to grab you, at least right now. It’s worth shifting your focus to something else. Maintaining healthy attachment - This is very important to OCD recovery. As Michael Greenberg talks about in his articles, oftentimes obsessions are a result of a person not being able to express a healthy and natural feeling, one that their psyche has deemed unsafe. For example, worrying you might want to harm a loved one might be indicative of an underlying anger you have towards them, a healthy anger that we may feel even towards those we love - but for some reason, you’re not letting yourself feel that anger because maybe you were shamed for expressing emotions like that as a child. I’ll attach the article here - it’s so good. He’s got all of these worksheets on there too that really help you find your core fear. Anyways, I know this sounds crazy right? Why would attachment have anything to do with my OCD? Healthy attachment to others allows us to express emotions in a safe way - and not having that can cause things to become repressed, or our brains to try and distract us from them, with an anxiety spiral. Making sure you are setting boundaries, expressing your needs, crying when you need to, expressing your need for love when you can - are all ways to reinforce YOU. Not the obsessional, OCD part of you - but the beautiful person underneath all of that with needs and desires and a need for connection. Look at your life - How much love are you experiencing on a daily basis? Love is crucial for the chemical of serotonin in our brains - and feeling connected to people actually increases those chemicals in your brain - which you need, especially with OCD. How many heartfelt conversations have you had recently? Is there a way you could have one? Is there someone you could ask for a hug right now, or an animal you can pet? Are you making yourself feel loved? Are you around people that make you anxious, because you can tell they are repressing their emotions and you feel like you need to take care of their emotions? Are you able to be honest and truthful about your feelings and needs? Meditation is also a really good one - it’s going to help mentally train you to watch thoughts go by, and be able to direct your attention to what YOU want to. I’m going to attach all of the articles that have helped me from Michael Greenberg - especially the ones on rumination. Think about what ruminating does to your brain - constantly going in that cycle of anxiety and trying to figure something out - in the past or future - think about what that would do to your brain chemistry. Our ruminations are not often ones of how much we are loved or how grateful we are - they are a fear loop, over and over again. No wonder your brain is devoid of serotonin! Now it’s just about rebalancing that - and to conclude, here’s a list to help: Increase the presence of love in your life, as possible Daily gratitude practice to start rewiring your brain to focus on that instead Reduce rumination and eliminate it as possible Work on your attachment style - Personal Development School has great videos on this, read the book “Attached”. Here are the articles: https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/articles/ There’s some great articles about rumination, the psychodynamics underlying your OCD - I’d recommend reading all of those he has listed. Hope this helps at all! Stay strong guys. :)

Ok, community. I’m really scared about this one. Does anyone know if OCD can be triggered by a life altering event such as a death or a move? I have always had relationship anxiety in this way: “Is he going to text me/call me back?” “He did such and such. What if he doesn’t like me anymore?” “Maybe he doesn’t even like spending time with you anymore but doesn’t want to say it.” I had these thoughts at the beginning of my relationship with my current partner. But ever since my relationship became more serious, the thoughts and physical symptoms became extremely intense and sounded more like this: “What if I don’t actually love him?” “Am I/was I ever even attracted to him in the first place?” “What if we’re not compatible?” Obviously, I don’t want to ask for reassurance since that won’t help me. I’m wondering if anyone else’s ROCD experience has been like this.

My ocd and depression are already beating me down this morning. I’m so tired of feeling anxious, extremely sad, guilty, and going through all of my memories to make sure I didn’t sleep with someone else since being with my husband. I’ve never once in our entire relationship questioned if I’ve done that. Ever since that first thought appeared it’s making me wonder if I actually did it and can’t remember. It literally makes me sick to my stomach and freak out. All I wanna do is give up, because I can’t keep feeling like this😔

Anyone else scared that they don’t actually have OCD, and their relationship is doomed?

Hi everyone, I decided to join this app because I believe I need more support when it comes to being open about intrusive thoughts and how scary it can be to share them. Yesterday I had a therapy appointment and I decided to open up with her about a recent panic attack I had that followed with intrusive thoughts. I rarely experience them now or can mitigate the anxiety that comes from them because I am on medication, but I thought I wouldn’t be judged and felt comfortable opening up about them to my therapist. Following after that, she began to ask mandated reporter questions and I became scared because she seemed to think I would act on the thoughts I’ve had. So despite me opening up with her about them I feel like I can no longer share because people who have never experienced them think i would act on the intrusive thoughts, when in reality I know I would never and have avoided people, places, and things because of them. Intrusive thoughts are debilitating and cause people to question who they are and go into complete panic! And I guess I’m just frustrated because though there are people who understand it’s still very weird for others and it just saddens me.

Does anyone else’s intrusive thoughts just repeat over and over and over again? I have harm ocd and sometimes the thoughts will just be like “K!ll him” over and over and over again. It freaks me out so bad. 😭 maybe I’m just actually horrible and this isn’t ocd. This makes me feel like it’s probably not ocd because this probably doesn’t happen to anybody else.

I get scared when this happens cause last time it was the start of my mental break so I guess you can say I’m digging my way out and making progress. Basically when I think of my SO he doesn’t feel real if that makes sense? It’s so weird and I’m getting scared again but it feels like I don’t know him. I hate this because I’ve spent over a year with him making memories and I love him so why does this happen again?

I think i have a problem. I need responses plz. I (M20) think there is something wrong with me and I’m mentally obsessing. So first, let’s go way back to high school. I was in this relationship with this girl (I’ll use fake names) her name was Jenna from a different school when i was around 16-17 years old for about a little over a year. It was good but i found myself way too attached, (which i guess that’s how i naturally am in a relationship) and everything was literally perfect in that relationship except for the fact she would get mad at me for calling and texting her literally 24/7. And looking back on it rightfully so i was being annoying. She broke up with me after about 15 months and i think she just lost feelings and the whole calling stuff too and we were young. I was upset of course but obviously now I’m over it that was years ago. So after that relationship i was single for about almost 4 years. I had dating apps in the past & I wanted a girlfriend pretty badly so i found one that liked me her name was Sophia (again, using fake names) and we were like in this crazy honeymoon phase for about 8 weeks but it felt like the realest thing ever. And we started officially dating.Then i kind of started suffering from ROCD, i was scared i was loosing feelings, i was getting thoughts that i wasn’t attracted to her even though i was. This resulted in alot of panic attacks , with and without her present. And the list goes on, it was a really confusing time. So, going into this relationship i had thought about my ‘obsession with calling’ before hand and i figured I’m more mature now that i would not do that and I’ll be able to handle it better. Boy was I wrong. After weeks of dealing with ROCD, all i do is keep calling and calling and calling and calling, sometimes i just want to be annoying for no reason and my OCD would get to me thinking I’m some maniac. So we try our best in this relationship for a couple more months but it was mentally wearing on her because i would just be crying with her a lot and dealing with a lot of stuff. So she broke up with me a couple days after New Years and i was devastated, because all in the all i was still in love with her, it was just that cloud of ROCD that was getting in the way. After she broke up with me, i found myself obsessing more, and to add to it, she kind of just broke up with me and blocked me on everything without really an explanation. (even though i kind of know why she broke up with me) So i found myself calling and calling and calling and calling. I would call from No Called ID, i would buy fake phone numbers from the App Store to call her, i would venmo her saying sorry and all this. This all sounds really bad but it’s all the truth. She ended up threatening me with the police so i stopped. I feel like such an idiot and a weirdo. Now, I’m back on this dating app, and this girl named Jessica (again fake names) tells me to add her phone number, so I’m texting her we had a good convo and then out of no where she blocks me and i try calling her from no caller ID a few times but nothing. I woke up with her saying this. “I’m not sure if that was you calling me from No Caller ID last night, but do not do that again. That is harassment.” Is there something wrong with me? I do suffer from OCD and i take meds for it by the way. But other than this terrible attribute, i feel like I’m a really good guy and I’m good in a relationship if you take that complete away. I feel like any girl that somewhat shows interest in me, i have this obsessive feeling and it sucks i just want to be normal. What can i do to change this? I feel so obsessed i don’t want to feel this way.

Whenever I talk with my boyfriend I’m extremely sensitive about anything he says or jokes about our relationship as I have RA/ROCD. He doesn’t know the full extent to how this goes cause I’d like to make sure he doesn’t get worried about what I think about. He made a joke about how he always matches my energy and that I don’t but it’s okay. He’s always a bit more hyper than I am and his libido is higher so sometimes they just don’t match up. This joke caused me to become so quiet and over think like cause in some ways this is true but I don’t think he would joke about it if it really bothered him. I confirmed this with him on the phone and he said he would tell me if this is an actual issue. I’m just scared that a joke like this is like an early warning sign that it’s a bad relationship but I’ve made jokes like that too but when he does it I get super sensitive. I fear I’m getting toxic and I’m never going to let him say anything that isn’t ‘right’ without me making it into a moment where we need to discuss something. I’m just tired and want this to stop.

My OCD is like being forced into a theme park haunted house. On one hand, I know that all the scary things are actors and props and machines. On the other, I'd like to avoid getting scared. Soon enough, I'm convinced that everything inside the haunted house is real and I barely remember that I'm in a theme park and I'm supposed to be having fun. I've lost sight of my life. And it's even more unsettling to be in a haunted house waiting for a jumpscare. If I go somewhere in the haunted house, an actor could come out and scare me. If I touch an unlucky object in my room, there's a possibility of something bad happening. In both instances, I feel stupid for getting scared in the first place. I'm living in a constant state of suspense. I know it's fake, but my body and my brain aren't lined up because I get a physical anxiety response. I just have to remember that haunted houses have exits!

How does one move on from having intrusive thoughts and feelings?

Sometimes I find it crazy how I used to be so unbothered before ROCD. I wonder since it was triggered so quickly if one day I’ll be able to feel how I did before all of this. Now everything that I think or do has to relate back to my relationship. Every Instagram post or thing I say or tiktok I see I wonder, what would he think if I liked this? Do I like this? Does he like this? Is it morally right for us to like this? What if he likes this and it’s not right, what will people think? I’m honestly tired of caring so much and my brain numbs out. It feels so weird to me since I lived most of my life happy and with free. I really want to try and get back to those calm times where I could love him freely. I get scared that I’m stuck this way forever.

How do you practice overcoming these thoughts? I read that accepting, allowing it to exist without interaction can help, but I don’t know how to apply it or how long it can last

Ok so for a little but of background before my ROCD started I had bad health anxiety/ocd, I was super worried I was going to die, but as well, thought my partner was going to die, and was insistent on them getting checked by the doctor, I was so scared to lose them. Once I got answers for my health concerns, it flipped pretty much over night to feelings of him being a stranger to me, our memories didn't feel real and I was very numbed out. 6 months later I'm still dealing with this, and I'm honestly still in shock about it. My question is, now, the relationship doubts are there, but also I'm starting to notice the "worried about him dying thoughts" pop in, which confuses me, because I never ever want to lose him so I understand being worried about his health but then it immediately flips back to, "why do you even care anyway" Is this normal? Maybe the ROCD started because I was scared to lose him in the first place? Has anyone else experienced this weird flip flop in between being scared to lose them one moment, and then back to numbness the next?

I just recently got diagnosed with OCD. Things are making more sense, but I’m so scared. I don’t know what to do. I have always had horrific intrusive thoughts and compulsions, but I kind of just assumed it was normal and that everyone experienced them. Now that I know for sure that’s not true, I feel so isolated and gross. I feel like I can’t tell anyone. Does it even get better?

I don't understand how to calm down long enough to explain my OCD to those around me, and I don't even feel comfortable enough to open up to those around me. But, I miss my parents/nieces so much but my parents won't let me around my nieces because my bf (I live with) and I have had arguments recently and my mom told me my niece (9) told her therapist about my argument with my ex bf 5 years ago, and my mom said it was traumatic for my niece (I kicked my bf out of my house because he was a compulsive liar and I caught him in another lie). I feel like my parents truly believe I am a terrible person and they aren't willing to make time for me to actually get to know me. I feel uncomfortable like I can't be myself around them and it leads me to feeling like I have no family. My nieces are my favorite people in the world and I love them a lot but it feels like my mom is using my own trauma against me by saying she doesn't want me to traumatize my nieces with my mental illness. My nieces are the only people that treat me like a human being and love me unconditionally. I just feel like somewhere between 18 and leaving for college, and now 23 still in college and living on my own, my parents and I have drifted so much and it feels like they are relieved to see less of me. I don't have anyone that I feel like I can open up to, except for my bf but my ROCD loves to ruin that too (and my bf's parents keep calling him and telling him to leave me because I am a sociopath). I was supposed to go to my nieces' dance recital today but I have been so anxious the past few days because I'm worried everyone will be able to tell I have POCD intrusive thoughts and it feels so wrong to sit in a theatre and watch little girls dance. My brain keeps making it out to be so creepy. On top of that, I started new medication for my PTSD nightmares, and it made me drowsy and oversleep today and I feel horrible. I told my mom I couldn't make it today and I am left sitting with this guilt because she always tells me I let my nieces down and I am so scared I will legitimately have nobody. They almost moved to another state last year and they didn't even consider me when making that decision because they said I never come around anyway but I don't come around because they don't understand my condition and they don't take the time to understand my condition so they just treat me like I'm not worth the energy or empathy and being in their company makes me feel worse but I would do anything in this world to have them love me again. I just feel so consumed by the anxiety and I know if I open up to my parents they are just going to tell me to pray about it and I am no where near ready to even think about religion again and it just feels like when it comes to my family, it triggers every single theme and I end up feeling hopeless and depressed and I don't know how to get better. I keep going back to being a kid and my parents both loving me before I started getting more depressed/anxious because of my brain. I also feel like my family doesn't know how to act around each other unless we are bonding over our trauma together. We don't know how to converse about anything other than that. I feel like I don't have parents anymore and I feel like I am begging strangers to love me and let me into their lives/hearts but they make it seem like they can't be around me too much because I've caused them too much pain and I don't know how to deal with that guilt of hurting them. And I know both of my parents probably have some OCD too and I worry if I open up to them then I will ruin both of their lives even more. I just don't know what to do I just want to feel like I have a mom or dad. Or anyone.

I just need help understanding that not every difference or disagreement needs to end in a horrible relationship with constant arguments or dissatisfaction. My boyfriend is very words of affirmation and enjoys acknowledging that he spoils me. Growing up my household, was very anti-words of affirmation, seeing it as gloating. So I interpret his self appreciation as throwing it in my face that he buys me things or treat me well. These things don’t mix very well but we know this and work on it. Unfortunately my mind thinks that since we’re not perfect with this it’s going to just cause building resentment and cause huge fights and ultimately end our relationship. Obviously this doesn’t have to be the case but how can I internalize this? When I’m triggered I get so fixated and think this will be the end of us (amongst other themes and triggers) it’s just tiring thinking everything ends in failure, or that I’m the only person in a relationship that is trying to work though something like this and that everyone else just finds someone that is able to 100% meet every need all the time. Any advice or support?

It’s been only a day since I received an OCD diagnosis. Several days since the episode that caused me to seek help began. Already I’m so fucking exhausted. This isn’t my first episode—they come and go and I used to think it was just anxiety—but it just feels like my brain isn’t mine. I’ve been super dissociated for several days. I’m so in my head, I have tunnel vision. I’m over-analyzing every single thought. I’m scared I’ll never feel like myself again and I’m scared no one has obsessions as weirdly specific and as shameful as mine. I just want my brain back!!

I have been in therapy since the end of January and I have made so much improvement since then. I would have never thought that in four months I have made as much improvement as I have. Recently I took a medication for a skin condition that messed with my hormones and set me back a bit but with all of the tools and knowledge I have gained I’m so proud that I was able to come back from that. My main themes are about being in the perfect relationship, questioning love, and over all black and white thinking. It’s still hard because the thoughts are still there and I have an anxious gut feeling a lot throughout the day but I know it will only get better from here. Please don’t give up on trying to heal yourself, it is so worth it. ROCD is not about your partner, it’s about you.