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the NOCD Community

Hey guys. Just a reminder that regardless of the subtype, our need for certainty is the enemy. I hope you guys are doing okay today. Any victories or grievances that need to be shared?

i literally cannot do anything bc of this ocd. i want to watch tiktok but i can’t bc i’m so paranoid that i will repost something by accident, especially something that could be inappropriate. i’m also scared if i like something on tiktok by accident or if i liked it and now i need to check it 100x. i just want to watch tiktok. it’s also on instagram too, i’m so paranoid that i will like a post or like a story. i’m so tired i just wanna be a teenage girl who can use social media normally.

A good life, success, healing, beautiful things? ⚠️ Important: please don’t read if this is triggering. No one should think this way about themselves, of course you deserve it all. I struggle with real events and harm OCD. My worst fear is being a bad person, causing harm or doing the wrong thing. These thoughts haunt me all the time and cause me to essentially throw my life away. I don’t go out, pursue opportunities, etc. because what if I don’t deserve them? I think of the worst things I’ve ever done all the time. The things that I’m most ashamed of. Like a broken record that’s all I replay in my head. Doesn’t matter if it was 5 or 10 years ago. And I beat myself up for not doing better. And I just don’t know how to move past it. I’ve read a lot of quotes and books about self help and love and acceptance (e.g. once you know better, do better). But for me I feel like I have to hate myself forever. I won’t ever get a clean slate, there’s a permanent stain on my record. I just can’t forgive myself, whether other people know it or not, I can’t allow myself to move forward. It’s about integrity for me. Does anyone relate? How do you do it? I’m so sorry if you’re also struggling. I don’t wish this for anyone. Please keep fighting, you’re not alone. ❤️

I have really bad social anxiety. I’m very shy. To the point where I get so anxious at work it’s hard for me to think. I will be honest I do care what others think of me, and this is probably a huge part of the problem. I know everyone cares about others opinions up to a point. But if there was a way to reduce social anxiety so that I can focus. Like when I walk into work I’m thinking about what everyone else thinks of me. When I try to focus it’s hard to because I’m thinking I probably look so stupid, or that person probably thinks I’m weird. And I do feel like I’m somewhat odd. I have ocd and don’t have many friends. One thing that has reduced my care of what others think of me is this-focusing so much on my own goals that I don’t have time to worry about the opinions of others. But even then, even when I was grinding to the max at times in my life and extremely focused I still was self conscience and I still cared what others thought of me. I think up to a point everyone will care what others think. I think there are some pains and difficulties in life that will never go completely away. But maybe can be reduced with certain frames of thought. Any thoughts on this?

One of the hardest parts of my day is seeing all the people around me doing all the things I can’t with ease. I hope they know how lucky they are.

Its been like 3 weeks of school and its just been really difficult and stressful 😭 ive had two tests and i havent gotten them back yet but i have a feeling i didnt do as well as i wanted to on either of them and that scares me because i usually score perfectly and well. And my classmates are so good at everything 😭 and ik this is kinda bad but i hate seeing people do better in things im supposed to be good at… like math is one of my strongest subjects but i messed up on a few questions so bad and i feel so stupid and now im scared that im gonna be like this for the rest of the semester 😞 it scares me. Plus all my classmates talk to me sometimes and all and i be as nice as possible but i still feel invisible- even with friends i just feel like im bothering them and i feel like im just alone and have no one to talk to bc either no one cares or i feel like burden and annoying and unlovable 💀

I’m an OCD newbie & I’m having a lot of difficulty being able to distinguish what are OCD symptoms that may be atypical or if it’s due to another diagnosis/not something to be worried about. For context, I also have PTSD & suspected Autism- so excuse any excessively literal interpretations. All of my knowledge of OCD is watching Monk when I was child, so give me some grace. 1. “Harm OCD”- I have for as long as I can remember summed up my life purpose as “least amount of harm, most amount of good”. I am constantly thinking about how my actions & inaction may be impacting others. My career is in psych & public health because of that. I noticed I personalized things bc I assumed people thought about this just as much as me- only to find out they don’t. But I only hear examples of harm OCD as being thoughts of like personal persecution or images of hurting others. This is more of a mental analysis of the potential impacts. 2. “Contamination OCD”- Does this need to be literal with germs? I have what I call “emotional contamination”, where if something bad/negative happens, I worry that it’s “ruined”. Like if my partner & I have an argument in bed, I feel like I need to replace the sheets because our argument is “on” the sheets. I’m aware that that is illogical, but I’ll still do it. Every time I’ve had a major trauma, I’ve redecorated my home because I felt like all the negative is “stuck” on my old stuff & it needs to be replaced or I won’t feel better. I’ve ended relationships bc “there’s no getting this off”. 3. “Magical thinking OCD” I like to say that I think a lot of things I don’t believe. I have lots of random thoughts about needing to do something or something bad will happen. The things I need to do are usually really silly- like moving a large rock that’s by itself to a spot with another large rock so it isn’t alone & doesn’t feel lonely. I don’t have the thought that something specifically bad will happen or think I have magical powers. I know it’s nonsense, but I usually do it to stop thinking about it unless it’ll cause harm. Sometimes I also will come up with “tests”, like telling myself if I say XYZ to my partner & they respond in ABC way, then that means they love me. But the thing I’m asking them about could be literally anything. I am frequently *afraid* to ask because they might respond wrong and “ruin” it. 4. “Order & Symmetry OCD” & “Perfection OCD” & “Just Right OCD”- these terms seem to be used kind of interchangeably? I am VERY specific about my stuff. My home is color-coded by room & I won’t buy things that don’t match. I am intensely uncomfortable & can’t stop thinking about it if something doesn’t match. I am STILL thinking about the pink version of my laptop that I didn’t buy 7 years ago & it bothers me that I bought the silver one. I hate when people buy me stuff bc my style is very specific & hard to understand the nuance. There’s a “correct” image in my head & it’s really upsetting when it’s wrong. I flipped out a lot as a child when my stuff was moved and when my parents made design choices for me. I group things in weird ways- there’s an order, but it might be ordered based on how much I like them, how much they remind me of someone, or even more abstract like “if these objects were to run for president, this is the order I think they would be in from liberal to conservative on their view of defunding the police”. I have weird things with numbers, and will buy things based on how “cute” the price is. I would rather pay $440 for something than $399 because it’s a “better” number. I couldn’t tell you anything beyond “vibe”. I’m not sure if these are actually symptoms or just tangentially related & I’m conflating. I may have mis-grouped something. It’s hard to know where to start when nothing seems to have the direct examples of what I experience. Thanks in advance!

So I was playing roblox at my big age im 24. I got into sort of an arugment with a player bc she was making comments about peoples outfits and saying they were basic. So i commented on their outfit and called it basic. She told me to get a life. Then the arguing got worse she got a friend in on it with her. They started calling me crusty bc my username is crispy. I really tried not to engage bc I know a lot of children play on roblox. I just don’t like bullying or people being mean. Then I got last place and the player was like everyone is a queen here except crusty. I wanted to stand up for myself and said yall are just bullies. Now im worried that everyone in the server thought I called them bullies and are going to kill themselves. I was only referring to the two girls. I let them get the best of me I shouldn’t have responded like that because it was funny the back and forth. I acted immaturely but I think my justice complex kicked in. Now Im scared they killed themselves and I will never know.

Hello everyone! I’m new to this app and I am just looking for some help or any advice. I am 20 years old and female. I constantly think about the past and what has happened to me and my boyfriend. (Mostly about him and his ex and if he liked her more). No matter how hard I try these thoughts just flood my mind and nothing that I do helps me avoid them. I have always had issues with constant thoughts about the past and things that are stressing me out, and they just don’t go away. I thought that the thoughts about my boyfriend’s ex would fade but i’ve been with him for 2 years now and they are still constant everyday. I feel like I have to know what she’s up to and check her social media daily, if not multiple times in a day. I also check my ex’s social media daily. I don’t want to do this but I feel like I have to, and If I try not to it just makes me feel anxious. My ex was verbally and physically abusive, I was 15-17 and we were together for those two years. I have gone to PTSD therapy and I still have thoughts over and over about what happened and I wonder if it was even real. Or if I’m even remembering what happened correctly. I have constant thoughts about him and what happened between us. I also have issues such as kind of twitching when i’m really stressed out or something isn’t “right” to me. I constantly have to clean and put things in their place. I have a routine that I do everyday, such as showering in a certain order, doing my skincare in a certain order, and doing things at work in a certain order. Is this normal? And how do I help these thoughts go away… Because they have gotten so bad that it distracts me all day and is interfering with having a future with my boyfriend.

Hi, I'm Ali. Nice to meet you. I just randomly today started searching about OCD because I related to so many of these experiences on this app (which I don't want to mention) and I wonder if I really have an OCD. For example, yesterday my brother gave me his iPad since he hasn't used it in a while and there's a scratch on it, and I'm really scared if I did or he did it because wouldn't that show I'm careless with it, and he's had it for so long, so I don't know if he scratched it or I have, and the buttons are so clicky, and I don't know if they are meant to be like that. I really want to tell my dad, but I don't know if I'm just seeking attention because I've already told him about other experiences in the past and he has sorted them (I love my dad).  But if I ask him that I have an OCD, I don't think he would believe me. Please guys, I need your advice. Thank you for reading this much. Have a good day.

i can’t stop obsessing over how i look and thinking about how ugly i look i feel like i’m going insane i keep looking at pictures of myself and i just feel so disgusting my lips are so small and without makeup i literally look like a man and i just compare myself to my friends and people i see online all day i literally cant take it anymore like i just feel so worthless all the time bc of my appearance i would literally do anything to feel beautiful

I have had so many different types of unpleasant and unwanted thoughts and I believe the worst of them all started in 2019, I'm only 16 and I know a lot of people on here are adults, but I was around 10 or 11 when I started getting my first fears in my brain or like the worst of them, because even when I was around 5-8 and and maybe even beyond that I used to question if bad things were going ti happen to me because I saw bad things happening to other people on the TV. Anyways, 2019 I remember coming home from a place and it was fine when I was there but when I came home I had the thought of "what if I was still there" I shouldn't really bring it up because if I've feared it before I feel I'll trigger myself to fear it again 😭 but yeah, I'm not fully sure how long it lasted but I believe it was months and had the thought about different places I had been, basiy my mind was trying to make me think and feel these unpleasant thoughts, and even thinking of them as of right now isn't the best lol, but I just wanted to talk about all the different intrusive thoughts I have had are. After that one went, I believe I was okay, at the end of 2020, literally on the new year, I started spiralling so bad, I was 12 I believe, and I was putting on all my social media stories "happy new year" even like days after because I felt the need to keep doing it, or my brain would tell me "it's not 2021 if you don't do this" like blah blah blah, and it all started first because I was anxious and that "I had to" post "happy new year everywhere" unless it wasn't the new year, I basically went crazy with it, and it lasted a while, until the 21st because I was like yeah 21 is now a lucky number because of 2021, but I literally went to the extreme of messaging everybody it basically everywhere even days after, probably the worst one I've had but yeah 😭 After that I was fine for the whole year, 2021 was really good for me, and then maybe around the start of the next year I started a new obsession and anxiety literally based off of anxiety and I had no idea why it was sticking around, and I'm glad I know now. In 2022 some girl was rude to me or something and I probably cried 2 hours straight afterwards because of it and she wasn't aware, but teachers helped but yeah whatever, few days after or soon I was fine and didn't think about it much or at all, and then one day when I'm in the car coming home from somewhere aswell my brother starts talking to me about school and how somebody else said "they don't associate with me" like I honestly had no idea why they all turned 2 faced to me because I never did or said anything wrong but yeah 😭 but that brought up that other memory of what a different girl had said to me and I started worrying about that because I was like "oohhhh I just forgot about that" and then I'm not sure if it picked up slowly or fast, but regardless, that person's name was stuck in my mind and ruminating around my mind for months, I was anxious whenever I thought about it so it kept coming back, I genuinely think my brain got so tired and annoyed it just gave up in the end, but that's just proof that your mind can worrying about literally anything, like anything. After that was over, 2023, last year now I only had mild usual OCD unless I actually had an OCD that I never knew I had to do with relationships. I'll keep it brief because I know this has already been long, but I like my friend who was a boy and let's just say he didn't like me back, I would gaslight and convince myself that he did even when he was just being friendly, even tho sometimes I felt like his other friends wouldn't be doing certain things we do, but yeah, I used to worry about what he was doing with who and would get so jealous to the point where I was literally thinking or unaliving the other people who he would talk to or hang out with, and I had lost people who were my friends before because I got too jealous, I stopped talking to him tho because it was getting absolutely nowhere and he started acting weird and hanging out with people who don't like me because I wasn't speaking to the other people, so I basically just left, but I don't have to see him anymore anyways, we had good times tho, but yeah if someone has got this far and you know, tell me if you think or know that that's an OCD too, like relationship OCD or something. Now 2024, I would say it's kinda been everywhere, but the start of the year has been good and only recently it's been affecting me bad again, since June, after I had finished my exams, I thought to myself on the night of me finishing my exams "ahhh~ I don't have to worry about anything anymore" and it was like 3 and a half months break aswell, so I was like over the moon, and guess what, my brain starts to think and worry again. There has been so many topics this year but I'll express the main ones. It's basically been my brain to worry about anything I can, anything that is possible. So the first one that made me loose my mind and panic for days and also make me loose sleep was one about a person again, also a person that I have never associated myself with I had literally just seen them and thought that I didn't want to think about that and then I did basically and spiralled bad, anyways next one after that was about just being super or hyper aware like "think everytime to see a colour or a shape or focus on your breathing or blinking" stuff like that, stuff I couldn't avoid basically, they didn't get too bad but you get what I mean hopefully lol, and now this one that has been new, about numbers and rituals, they were more manageable and quick to "end" aswell, but the one I have of current is long because it's like worry that I keep doing more, like to be real, I simply do not care for any of the thoughts I have but I just feel I do, it's seriously just the anxiety tho, because earlier my mind cleared for a brief moment and I was looking and thinking about the situation with no judgement and being like, yup, kind of like thinking about it as it happened ages ago and that I wouldn't go back to it kind of feeling, but yeah I think it wants to stay maybe a little longer, but no panic attacks today, that's all I can say. Also anyone who has read the whole thing, my heart goes out to you, if you are panicking right now, I've been there, it sucks I know, but you will find peace eventually. If anyone relates or has anything similar to share that would be great to hear, and any advice too, even tho I'm fully aware of all techniques my brain isn't getting the hint 😭 But yes thank you for reading it all if you have gotten this far, here is a cookie ->🍪 Byyeeee I love youuu, remember you are capable of doing so much and I am here for you 🫶🏻🩷

Does anyone have any coping mechanisms for helping to relieve guilt from things I have done in my past that I don’t like that I did?

I was doing so good, but over the past few months, the OCD has returned with a vengenace. I try to explain what I'm experiencing to my family, but they don't understand. I just need to hear that people get it and know that I can make it out the other end alive and in one piece I've had many themes over the years, but right now, scrupulocity is taking over my life. It takes the normal day-to-day things I do, and twists them into compulsions to feed the insatiable monster that tells me if I don't do enough, be perfect enough, that I'm not a good partner-- not a good person. I'm not working hard because it feels satisfying; I'm doing it because I feel lazy and worthless if I don't. Everything has been taken to an extreme. It's making getting in the way of eating and sleeping. I'm suffering, but I feel like I need to try and pretend that I'm fine (even though I'm terrible at hiding it) because I feel like my husband will think I'm crazy, whiny, and dramatic, and eventually, get tired of it and leave. I'm not asking for reassurance. I just want to not feel so alone.

(I’m not sure if this has anything triggering but just in case—know that I bring up my OCD but not what it is specifically so I think it’s fine? ) Just really struggling right now and was wondering if anyone had any words of advice or encouragement? I’ve had OCD my entire life but it didn’t start becoming severe until I was around 14/15. It reached the point of extreme where going anywhere or socializing at all caused embarrassment because I had NO idea how to control compulsions and had no idea that’s what they were in the first place. I would also get lost in intrusive thoughts and physically couldn’t communicate. Fast forward and I was isolated throughout the years important to my development. Didn’t go to school, didn’t go to any social events, didn’t get a job (and then 2020 came along and I literally couldn’t.) and just stayed in my room letting my OCD consume me. It was really bad in 2022 and destroyed a very important relationship I had and set me back once again, it hit me extremely strong and a few months later I was once again just -stuck- these were years I was supposed to get ready for college but I couldn’t, and now this year I’m turning 20 and I have nothing to show for it. I’m still stuck and at this point I just feel like there’s no hope for me. The only job I can muster up anything for is creative writing but I feel like such a failure. I’m in such a dark place and I just can’t convince myself it’ll get better. Any words of encouragement would be nice because I just don’t know what to do.

Sometimes i feel like i need the opinion from people online to tell me if im a good person or not. I have thoughts of just posting every single bad thing ive done and let the people decide if i deserve to continue with my life. It sounds morbid but it is. I dont know what to do with myself sometimes especially when it comes to the future. What will people want to happen to me if they found out everything ive done. I put too much thought into these scenarios. Its really just how i feel. Maybe this has turned into more of a vent but- i also think that i should not continue my life myself, so that i dont have to see the “ inevitable” comments on my life later on. I think about it all the time. Its gotten so bad to where i feel like i need to be put away in a mental hospital for a week or two so i can get over myself but i havent and im scared too if it gets bad again. I just feel so unworthy of living sometimes. I want it all to stop but its so hard most days.

my parents don’t understand that a seemingly small and snide comment about my body will ruminate in my brain for months and months and be a never ending source of why i hate myself more and more everyday. I don’t know how to get them to understand as they are not in my shoes. I am overweight, not morbidly obese but I struggle to find the will to work out and improve myself, but i know this isn’t the motivation i need.

Is it ocd or is it denial I don't get what ifs and I wasn't diagnosed with ocd I went to the pych twice and part me just doesn't want to be tru that I'm might be a p and using ocd just for me not to believe it. Im going to go again and if they say I am a p I'm going to end it because that's a scary thought and I'm also worried about my relationship with my boyfriend he is 6 years younger then me and I'm 27 and he's 21 I met him when he was 19 turning 20 and I was 25 turning 26. I'm tired and I don't want sympathy I just needed to type this out it's been getting on my nerves a lot and I think everyday of breaking up with him fear of judgement. He does act very immature I don't know what do with my life myself and the people around me and making friends is not my cup of tea everytime im around new people I feel like I'm hiding a big secret and I don't want to get close to anyone and just makes me feel bitter because people just be normal and not have these intrusive thoughts pop up and lm like why me why why me. And I just push everyone away I can't stand myself either I'm fat and eating is what really what makes me happy no one knows what I go through and I can't talk about it I'm afraid of getting shunned or that I won't get better and actually seek help that I know I need I've feel like I have no control over my life I'm 27 no job I don't have my own place my sisters are doing better then me I probably sound selfish I want to get better and it if is just ocd it would be a sigh of relief and I can work through my issues. I have more I want to say but this part of my truth

Hey guys have you ever just start doing something, either work, practice, or simply just enjoy life with family and friends, but then all of the sudden you just start to want to cry over your thoughts, and every mistake you made, every mental image you feel guilty over.

I am a 22 year old female and have never gotten into a relationship due to the fact that I have OCD and how ugly it can get at times. I also feel like I would be a burden and be too much to handle especially in modern dating when people want to have fun and dont want to deal with anything that's exhausting not saying it's wrong but that's how it is. I have these two mindsets of 'I'll have someone who will accept me someday' Or 'I'll just be on my own cause that's what's good for me'.I don't think anyone will look at me and think they want to settle down with me or stuff. I feel like i will be too much to handle. Even if someone likes me, they will never actually love me enough to spend their life with me. Maybe if I were more pretty maybe people might put up with me idk really. This just saddens me to the core. I don't know how to deal with this. Is there any hope for me P.S my ocd is manageable most of the time but when it flares up it gets ugly and i go non-functional