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the NOCD Community

Hello guys👋. I am a newbie here. Hope you are all doing well in the journey with OCD. Currently, I am studying biology stream (Chemistry, Physics & Biology). although I am curious sometimes the complexity of some subjects makes my mind blank. sometimes I am also unable to concentrate for long hours. And stressing too much on little details. I am an Investigative and Artistic type of person. I also value Creativity and independence. Many times I question myself, am I on the right track? I would like to know, What are your college majors or careers? How do these affect the quality of your life?

I’ve always had a feeling of having OCD but I’ve never been sure. I’m a teenager, and I’m hoping people on this app can help me try to figure out if I have OCD or I’m just crazy. Starting off with these terrible thoughts I have all the time. Someone can come home late and I immediately think they got into a car wreck, and check my phone for recent car crashes and other thing etc. etc. number 2, I always have intrusive thoughts, terrible ones ever since I was a kid I can’t control. I immediately feel like thinking these will lead god to hate me, and that he made an imperfection on me. And every time I try to hide these thoughts away, like right now they’re coming out I just can’t stop thinking of them and it’s so hard to do anything. Just thoughts like, “you hate your mom” or, “you hate god” and stuff that scares me like spiders. It’s hard to do anything with these thoughts. I’m also a major perfectionist, if anything is out of order I freak out. Yes, my room is messy. But I feel a sense of incompleteness and anxiety if I don’t empty the dishwasher, or don’t clean dirty dishes around the sink. These are recent and I feel like God will punish me for committing the sin of laziness. I also have a thing with the number 5, when I touch something it needs to be 5 times and if it’s not 5 times I freak out. I’m also terrified of getting sick, every time my friend is sick I freak out and don’t get near them the entire day, constantly washing my hands. Writing this is triggering a lot of my terrible thoughts and I don’t want to continue writing. Please let me know your thoughts, mental illness runs in my family but my mom is constantly telling me there’s nothing wrong with me. Maybe she’s right.

Today my friend was texting me about her sleep disorder and I felt bad because I literally had nothing to say about it, but I didn’t wanna come off as a bitch so I just told her that it’s not her fault that she feels that way and I asked her if there was any medicine that could help. Then because I didn’t have empathy in that moment, I am worried that the only reason why I show people care and try to do nice things for people is because I want to be seen as a good person. Think it was because I’ve been through a lot of stuff and I would never wanna make anyone feel how my mom made me feel but now not so sure.

I used to have big dreams of being a professional dancer in NYC. It didn’t really matter to me what style. I danced for about nine years, ages 9-17 (almost 18). Nearly half of those years were competitive, with around 2-3 classes a day, 4 days a week. I wasn’t the best in my class considering 9-10 is still pretty late to start dance. I had thicker thighs and flat feet, but I worked my absolute ass off to try and make that dream happen. I did ballet, pointe, contemporary/modern, jazz, and hip hop. I think I was too afraid to go all in when it came time to graduate. I didn’t have the best home life, so I was desperate to leave my dad’s house ASAP. Dancing was put aside while I ended up going to cosmetology school and briefly becoming an esthetician as a way to support myself enough to leave home at 18. I always thought I could come back to dance later, that I could still make my dreams come true in some capacity. From 18-20, I worked as an esthetician for 12 hours a day, 4 days a week. I did some ballet classes here and there, but not nearly enough to maintain what I’d learned throughout the years. Even with 3 days off, I was burned out and exhausted. I wanted to do fun young people things. I moved in with my girlfriend. My mental health started suffering. Then Covid hit. From 20-22 got comfortable with the isolation and staying home that Covid brought. I didn’t know about online dance classes or anything then. Then from 22-24, even though lockdowns were lifted, my mental health was at an all time low. Constant obsessing, ruminating, reassurance seeking, finding new reasons to hate myself. Hundreds of days just lost to Google. I wasn’t even thinking about dance. I accepted that I failed. And now I’m 24. I will be 25 in July. I’m employed part time as a pet caretaker, and it has hit me that I threw away the one thing that I was truly passionate about. My childhood dream. It’s been nearly 7 years since I danced on a stage. I live in NYC, just like little me wanted. I have just signed up for some low level ballet classes. But all I ever wanted was to be a professional dancer, and now that will never happen because 24 is “too old” to start as a professional. Even though I have about 9 years of experience, I wasn’t the best in my class. I was always behind. But I put my entire heart and soul into it because I knew in my heart it’s what I wanted. I know I can still dance for fun, but that isn’t really what I want. I want to perform onstage. I want people to see me. I want to be talented and recognized. But I threw that all away for the chance to get away from my parents and stew in my mental illness. I have been ruminating all day. I wish I could make my dream come true. But I feel like I just need to accept that it won’t happen no matter how hard I try. I’m nearly retirement age in dance years. There is really no other career I want. I just want to cry. Sorry for the rant. Don’t give up on your dreams please. Don’t be like me.

I mean like we believe in the devil and demons, then you hear that others on social media talks about ocd being a demon possession, or any mental illness being a demon, and if you believe that and it helps you, do it, but this makes me more paranoid. I just let my tiktok algoritm become more christian but then it ended up being this "we call everything a sin and a demon" type of videos which made me question if im really a good person and saved, and now im even afraid of demons, that they are attacking me and thats why im dealing with fear, and it just scares me, it became so bad that i start to get paranoid like im sure you experienced that when you think youve seen something in the corner of your eye, like something moved, and this just worsenes the fear... i know im dealing with fear but you know my mind still makes up shit... As a christian its really hard to deal with ocd, cause we do believe in demons but we cant view mental illness as possession, it just doesnt help, and i got to a point where i started questioning everything i hear about the bible and then i realized maybe its not a good thing tho, so i started to learn about things and now im back at fearing demons and that i have a demon or i can be posessed in the future. Same with sins, legalist people made me angry so i just ignored everything they said but then i realized maybe its egoistic to think everything they say its just legalism, and i went back learning about it and now im having this legalist/is this a sin or not problem. It feels like im on a spiral, i always come back to fear demons and fear that what i do is actually a sin and i live a sinful life

My current therapist doesn't do erp and my syntoms aren't getting better, so I would like to change. I live in Italy and I struggle finding somebody who does erp. I've found a therapist but I'm scared she will not do erp properly and it will lead to nothing even this time. A part of me would love to try therapy with NOCD, however: - I don't know if therapy in a foreign language would be very effective - it's kinda expensive without insurance If somebody has tried it, would you like to share your experience with me? Thanks!! P.S: I'm really struggling making a decision but at the same time I'm afraid this could be part of "obsessing about obssesing"🫠 Like maybe I'm compulsively seeking therapy... but I just want to get better ugh

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.

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.

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

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?

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?

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

'Just right' OCD is an OCD theme that tends to revolve around feelings of 'completeness' and things feeling 'just right'. With just right OCD, you might not experience intrusive, unwanted thoughts. Instead you may just feel like you can't concentrate or move on without making things feel 'right' or 'complete'. Others may still experience these thoughts and have feared consequences to not engaging with the compulsion. The compulsions often present as redoing tasks over and over again, or doing things very slowly due to wanting things to be perfect, symmetrical, or feel right. Have you ever experienced this?