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the NOCD Community

I'm going to take up drawing again so when I can't do anything else, I have that to distress. I struggle with down time 😬 Are there any artists you like and can recommend to me? I want some references to go off to help me get better.

I’m 17F and have always had a huge problem biting my nails, ever since I was young from my anxiety and OCD. Ive been becoming very insecure of how my nails look and It’s extremely difficult not to chew my nails though I know it’s unhygienic and in healthy. Is there any advice on how to stop this?

hello, my ocd turns me into an extreme perfectionist. i can’t take criticism well and noticed it gives me so much anxiety when anticipating it. i’m trying to learn a new language (swedish) and i even have a pen pal who’s willing to help me. i could tell in his text to me in swedish that he is providing some sort of criticism tho i’ve been so afraid to translate it cuz i get so scared that i’m being judged or thought of as stupid when really i know he’s just trying to help me. tips for dealing with this? i hate feeling like people think i’m ‘stupid’ i know it’s rooted in past experiences of bullying and social rejection etc etc

Anyone else experience this? I recently got a pair of really nice and really expensive headphones, I’m a major audiophile and passionate about music. The headphones are well built but I find that I keep inspecting them to see if there are any minor imperfections, I keep putting light pressure on different parts of the headphone to see what they can withstand, then when I do this I start to worry that I damaged them, despite no evidence of damage. Even when I’m away from them I fear that they’re just sitting there broken. It’s mildly annoying because something like that shouldn’t occupy my mind so much. I don’t want them to be broken and I like using them. Then I worry about using them because I fear even if I just touch them I’ll do something to break them. There’s nothing to indicate that something is wrong but I’m constantly worried that every time I use them the more I’m damaging them.

I have been dating my boyfriend for 5 years. Since we were 17. We study at the same university in the same specialty. We think that we started dating on October 30, 2019, on that day I asked him to help me with my studies, and it happened that we got drunk and kissed. And so we consider that day as the beginning of our relationship, because after that we did not part and were always together. A week later we had sex. A week later, on November 12, 2019, my ex-boyfriend wrote to me that he was in town and asked if I wanted to meet him. We broke up a long time ago, but we talked and sometimes even kissed. I told my boyfriend that I was going out with a friend because I was afraid to say that he was my ex. We went out, walked, drank beer, talked while sitting on a bench, and he leaned in to kiss me. I leaned back and we kissed. The kiss was not long, a few seconds. kiss wasn't with passion or something. and at that moment I thought I was doing something wrong, because I seem to have a relationship with my boyfriend, and I stopped. After that, we talked some more, he went home, and I went back to the hostel for students(my boyfriend and I lived in the same hostel). I came to my boyfriend, and did not tell about the kiss, because at that moment I did not feel guilty at all. I don't know, maybe I wasn't sure about relationships, because I've never had a serious relationship before, only some flings, and that's why I thought that my current boyfriend would be the same. And really this kiss mean nothing to me. We continued to relationship with my boyfriend, everything was fine. Then I remembered this incident and felt guilty. 6-7 months after we started dating, I told him about it, I told him in the summer of 2020 when we met, because we hadn't seen each other for 4 months due to the coronavirus and quarantine. I cried a lot and asked for forgiveness, said that this kiss mean nothing. My boyfriend calmed me down and forgave me, we didn't even have an argument, we just continued dating as if nothing had happened. Everything was fine, but after 3 years, in August 2022, I remembered this incident and began to blame myself very much. I considered myself a cheater, unworthy of my boyfriend. I just hated myself. My boyfriend didn't understand, because he didn't think about it at all and didn't understand why I was so worried about it. But the anxiety didn't leave me, later I started having false memories and my OCD. I was thinking "what if there was more than a kiss? what if I forgot something? what if I kissed someone else and my brain erased it from my memory?" and billions of such thoughts. I couldn't eat or sleep, I constantly read about betrayals, I read other people's stories, but I didn't get any better. I went to a psychiatrist and he prescribed me a course of antidepressants, which I took for 9 months, but it didn't help. Later, I started remembering all the bad things I did in the relationship. I remembered the case when my boyfriend, with whom I had sex (he is not the one with whom I kissed at the beginning of the relationship) (I have only two sexual partners - this guy, let's call him M and my current boyfriend). And this M texted me in the first month of my relationship with my boyfriend, and started mentioning our sex. I don't remember exactly what I wrote back, because I deleted messages a long time ago. But I definitely remember that he mentioned our sex, said how cool it was. I probably also wrote something in this spirit, but only so as not to offend him. I don't know why I didn't send him "f\*ck you", probably because I was 17 years old and I didn't know how to defend my own borders. I started to blame myself for it. Later I remembered that I was sitting on Tinder with my friend and we were having fun. My boyfriend knew about it, I told him and did not hide anything. I didn't texted with anyone, we just have fun and trolling people. But I remember I had the thought "what if my boyfriend is not the love of my life and I find love here". I am also very ashamed of this opinion now. I never hid anything from my boyfriend and told him everything honestly, but now I am ashamed of my stupid actions. Later, I started blaming myself for the fact that I had many boyfriends in the past, and my boyfriend only had one girlfriend, and he still didn't have sex with her. And I had sex before we started date with my bf and I felt very ashamed because of it, I considered myself a wh*re and unworthy of him. I am infinitely ashamed of all the bad deeds and thoughts I had about my boyfriend. I love him infinitely, and I want to spend my whole life with him. But my past stupid actions haunt me and I feel extremely guilty about them. Because of all these thoughts, I went to a psychologist and a psychiatrist for a very long time, I was diagnosed with OCD, because I was constantly worried that I had cheated, that I had done something bad in the relationship, I was constantly looking for some kind of betrayal, I looked in the Google timeline where I was every day, did I definitely not cheat anywhere. It seemed to me that I could not trust myself. I considered myself the worst girl in the world. I constantly confessed to my boyfriend for my every thought and every action, I had to be crystal clear in front of him. My boyfriend asked me to stop it, he said that he doesn't care what I thought and what I did, he knows that I love him and he loves me. And I really never hid anything from him, not a single thought or action. But I am ashamed of it now. I also had a period when I doubted whether I loved my boyfriend. I also told him about it, because I was afraid that I don't love him, so why should he be with me? But he said that he knew that these were only foolish thoughts, and so they really were. I think I don't deserve my boyfriend, because he is the most perfect person in this world. He is responsive, kind, intelligent, cheerful, loving, understanding. And I am constantly in doubt, constantly on the negative side, and I feel that I will constantly blame myself for those actions for the rest of my life. Later everything was good and i thought i don't have OCD at all. But no... Now I've been working at my first serious job for 2.5 months. I have a mentor who helps me with my work. I always had thoughts when I sit close to a person "what if we kiss and if something happens" but I didn't attach importance to them, I just tried to avoid situations where I can sit close to a man. and one day my mentor sat next to me and we tried to solve the problem (I work in IT). I started having very strong obsessive thoughts. "what if we kiss? what if he gets close to me now and it happens? it will definitely happen. i think i want it too. i want him to kiss me. what about my boyfriend? can i cheat on him right now? if he the kissed me I wouldn't push him away. now I'm going to kiss him myself. What if I put my hand on his and it will be like in the movie. Wtf? would I betray him if the mentor himself kissed me? I think I want him to kiss me. if there were all the circumstances, would I cheat? and the answer was yes" . This thoughts very scary me. Thought that i might cheat on my bf. And now, I can't get over it. I don't communicate with my mentor except for work. the truth is that I really like the look of it. I have never had such thoughts before that I CAN CHEAT. I was always 100% confident in myself. and when this thought came and I asked myself "could I cheat if he kissed me, would I kiss him back?" and the answer was yes and it just drives me crazy. This thoughts was 5 seconds. now I'm afraid that I could betray at that moment. I don't know what should i do. I really could betray my boyfriend? Or it is just intrusive thoughts? I feel like i already kiss him. I am tired of this thoughts. I know that I don't love my colleague, this is intrusive but it makes me feel like a cheater. I said about this thoughts to my partner. He said to me that i should calm down and it is just a thoughts. For almost 2 years now, my life revolves around the word "cheating". me and my boyfriend, who knows all about it, can't stand all my thoughts anymore. it is really very hard, and I know how hard it is for him to be with me, a person who is always negative and feels a constant sense of guilt. i have been scrolling through this situation for 3 weeks now. I can't shake the feeling that I might betray. I feel like I already did. I don't know if I would do it. I feel like a cheater because I thought I could do this. Please, help me, is it ocd or i just cheater and might to cheat? Sorry for my bad english and thanks for your opinion

Just obsessing because I’m worried I damaged my retinas because I didn’t realize the sun could cause damage throughout a span of a couple of hours and I thought it was just during the peak of the eclipse. I should have been more prepared. I was walking out to my car to head home probably like 15 mins before the peak of the eclipse and the sun reflected off my car into my eye for a second. And then I was in my car worried and I have a sun roof and i glanced up and saw it for a split second again. So I just feel like I should have better prepared and wish I could go back and not been careless. I keep trying to look things up but idk.

Im going crazy, my brain wants me to be morally perfect. I cant have bad thoughts otherwise im afraid i will send out some bad energy to people I broke up with my boyfriend of 10 years and my ocd is hyperfixating on him, everything I do is connected to him and i’m so afraid Also its solar eclipse and that’s stressing me out because of all the energy Also there are a lot of small things going wrong And im just freaking out, my ocd is going through the roof i cant stop it, im afraid of everything Im punishing myself, i cant say certain words of i cant say thing I want to say, i cant do things i want to do, i want to cry but my tears are not coming

I'm stuck. My compulsions always centered around expelling all anxiety from myself, but now I've found something external that can't be neutralised - completely ego-dystonic centered around the most horrific thing I've encountered in my life and the thought that someone could know I had watched it and thought I was genuinely into it sexually. I always clung to this idea that I could expel enough anxiety that it wasn't bothering me. Wouldn't be perfect, but I could at least get rid of it enough to function well. But this has knocked me down completely: This is a thought that will always cause me anxiety anytime I think it, every social situation, every day at work is a ticking time bomb where I feel I have to avoid it. There's positives. I've learned a lot about my compulsions around perfectionism socially. After the anxiety passes I'm still confident, I'm still funny, it doesn't affect my personality. I know it isn't me. But I can't laugh off the subject matter like I would normally do, and no matter what I do I will always be able to think something that causes me anxiety on this. And when it does, my anxiety slaughters me. It throws me cognitively, if I've eaten anything, I get to taste it twice; that happened yesterday - Thankfully I have a great relationship with my manager and team leader so could convince them to keep it between us and keep working but the moment you feel your stomach go and the saliva starts to come, it's coming up whether you want it or not. The anxiety spike hits me when I wake up in the night, stopping me sleeping. When I'm enjoying myself 'too much, it brings it up to put me in my place. When I go to the gym or out with friends, the fear of the anxiety hits me. It's actually not even the situation anymore, it's the anxiety about the anxiety. But I've watched myself slide backwards from all the incredible progress I've made. I've made mistake after mistake feeding compulsions I never should've done, all the time working towards a different compulsion that I thought would magically fix all this. That's the most insidious thing about OCD. The more you try to fix it, the worse it gets. I've never had this before. Never something external that can't be resolved. I can't sleep much. Can't eat a lot. Watching my muscle mass deteriorate. What if it happens on a date? What if it happens in an interview? Why this? Why did my OCD latch on to something this disgusting (That one probably answers itself actually haha). Either this helps me finally realise that not all thoughts are meant to be resolved, reveals more about the OCD and helps me improve. Or it doesn't. Anyone had anything like this? A period of sustained downhill with the OCD that you pulled out of? Something external that you couldn't ever get confirmation of, but helped you in the end? Maybe didn't, but you still soldiered on anyway. Just looking for a little optimism tbh.

So someone I know has just been through a major life event thats change then massively. They told me personally and I will never ever tell anyone their business if they don’t want anyone to know, that’s our secret. But we broke up and people have asked why, so I’ve never told them what happened in their personal life or what they went through or what the event was, I always said it was just their personal life they went through something and I will always understand why right now isn’t the time for us, but now I’m scared this is me starting rumours! I haven’t told them an event, I haven’t told them what’s happened, I’ve just said it’s their life and personal to them is all. It’s not my stuff to talk about, I can’t share someone’s secrets, that’s not right. But when people wanna know why we’ve broken up it was a mutual decision because they’ve been through a rough time! Is that right to say? Or wrong? Because I’m shouting at myself that’s it’s bad right now, it’s not starting rumours nobody knows expect my closest friends that it’s a personal something for him. No details, no need to share that, it’s not my business yk. But the reason is because he’s not ready, he’s changed, that’s it. I feel wrong for saying that now. Ugh my brain always shouts at me

how do you accept uncertainty I find it impossible and so distressing? It’s ruining my life😔

Has anyone on here have experience with being in a relationship or friendship with a narcissist? Just got out of a relationship with a guy that was emotionally abusive and pretty heartless. Im studying Narcissistic Personality disorder and was wondering if anyone has any experience. He has heightened my OCD a ton in the form of perfectionism OCD because he acted like I was the most imperfect person in the world. Working through it though with ERP

so i used to not give into the compulsions because my therapist told me it would relieve me more then being subject to doing it. I started having these meltdowns and get angry and have an episode, eventually i just gave into my compulsions and tweaking every little thing. I find its so comforting and helps me forget about what im stressing about. Since ive gave in i havent had any episodes, my anger seems to have resided. I’ve also had less intrusive/impulsive thoughts. I dont know really what to do because i find myself giving into them more and more everyday but at the same time im not really upset about it. ??

If I think all things done wrong are personal failures for erp are they going to make me do personal failures?

Hey everyone. Does anyone else struggle with wanting to do things “perfectly”? I always want things to be done a certain way, and if I feel as though I’ve made a mistake, or “messed up” I have the urge to start over. How can I overcome this feeling? Thanks for reading.

Ive spent my entire high school time avoiding EVERYTHING. At the school i was in, i could get out of things pretty easily jsut by not going or crying in front of teachers. (No i didnt make myself cry i genuinely did that a lot) anyway on purpose or not, i got out of stuff. Now im doing online school and none of the teachers know me or anything about me so im failing two classes and barely passing the rest. Now that i cant avoid it im so stressed. i have NEVER been stressed about grades. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH IT?? I try to relax, i fall asleep or forget and then the next day I have an F and am getting lectured. I dont take time to relax and i cant sleep which means i cant focus. According to my step mom i have to spend 15 hours a day working on school. Is that normal?? I have never seen this side of myself before the side that had to have his computer pried out of his hands so he will sleep instead of work or who has to be reminded to take a break instead of reminded to get out of bed. I went from 0-100 and its driving me CRAZY. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS?

Hello people. I have the following problem: I always ruminate how to connect a fuse ( I am am electrician) and I decided how to do it and stay with it and I know that it's right. (It doesn't matter wich way) I watched a video of an electrician and he did it a different way and that triggered me massively. My normal compulsions in the past would be to Google it how to do it right and "forget" it after a while and do it all over again. Now I haven't done that but I had two compulsions: 1. Ruminate wether to look up how to do it or not, without actually doing it 2. Just being distracted while watching the video. I am not actively thinking about it but it's like it all happens in the background and it's still a problem, cause I can't focus while it happens. So my question is, how to stop or what to do about the second point?

Everyday I wake up and I work hard to figure out how I can become a better version of myself, as if myself at this point in time and anything before this was a “worse” version of myself. I didn’t realize this was ocd until I was diagnosed but ever since I was young, I have never felt ok with who I am and it’s the reason why I even persue my dream so ruthlessly, Making music is my passion but ocd completely ruins it for me. Does anyone else feel like their ego is shattered or that they are stuck in their own head and can’t see through their own eyes?

I’ve been struggling the past year with my OCD. I left work for a bit to go to an outpatient program. But I’ve been fighting myself for a promotion. Everytime I turn around I end up “messing something up” or forgetting how something is done. In return get a talk from my supervisor that I am not near a promotion because I’m still not getting to where I need to be. Recently just this week, I was assigned a task I did a bunch of times and literally looked at it like what is this. My brain just forgets how something’s works and 2 years into a job I’m still referring to how to process docs.. I’ve been more forgetful and can’t concentrate on anything. People say something at work and I’m like what just happened. I started ERP therapy just a couple months ago and someone said it gets worse before it gets better. I honestly just wanna quit and take time for myself. The stress of trying to make a living and pay bills is driving me to a place where I’m becoming so unstable. I’m putting so much pressure on myself to be better at work when getting out of bed, taking meds and showering is still a job to me. Has anyone else just struggled with expectations of life. And you wanna just be left alone. I’d love to work part time or something but with todays costs I couldn’t make it. Is this all OCD related or even depression? I don’t feel I was this forgetful or that I “sucked at my job” in my words. It makes me feel incapable of doing any type of job because I’ll probably “mess it up”

Hello! I recovered from my severe religious themed OCD about 3 years ago. I thought my OCD had went away but I'm starting to think it's still impacting my life. Or maybe I just have high anxiety now. I have been told I'm a perfectionist and I have a huge fear that I'm not always "living correctly" which causes me to intensely compare myself to others and other things. This fear got so bad last august that I got into a relationship with an emotionally abusive person just because I thought I was falling behind. He was my first boyfriend and now I'm dealing with the affects of this. Im a baton twirler and although I'm getting better with exposure therapy.. I have anxiety attacks when I don't perform or practice perfectly. Where I can't even twirl in front of my mom right now without just shutting down and panicking because I somehow think she's judging me harshly when she's not at all. I also avoid doing assignments in school or asking questions because I have a huge fear of being considered slow or getting a bad grade. But this also makes my grades worse so it's a terrible endless cycle. I'm out of the relationship and I'm starting to take care of myself but I'm just kind of rusty on OCD knowledge and I'm trying to figure out if these are just new obsessions or if I'm just a perfectionist. Ever since I was little I've had this cronic fear of missing out or not feeling perfect for myself or others. And failure makes me flip the fuck out.

I cut someone off in the middle of what they were saying because at the last minute I knew what they were talking about. I apologized for this and how I worded what I said, and they didn't really acknowledge it but they don't seem mad at me. I feel like a really shitty person though. This is something I want to stop doing through text