Welcome to
the NOCD Community

I know it’s not me I know it’s not real and I don’t want to do anything but I feel like I’m going to 🫠😔

This is a newer and more recent thing for me and i’m wondering if anyone else has had this experience and can explain why. I have been having ocd dreams like intrusive dreams. My ocd is telling me it’s because I want these horrible things but I don’t at all and it’s upsetting that I can’t even get away from ocd when I sleep. This is so draining.

Hello all! Just joined the app and this is my first post, was diagnosed in 2021 and have made some good progress in self managing. One of the manifestations of my OCD that is the most pervasive and confounding is getting locked in on the feeling and meaning of very minor things, usually in video games or other interests. For example, with Pokemon Go I have certain Pokemon with a very high CP value (combat power, in case you don’t know the game). There’s a select few where I can’t help but rack my brain trying to recapture some feeling or sense of childlike wonder. Like I try to put myself in the shoes of me or my friends playing this game in 2016 and how amazing it would be to have one with such a high value. I obviously used to have much more extreme reactions to these things as a kid, and for some reason it makes me hella uncomfortable when I can’t understand that anymore. I can’t replicate the feeling and I try to relate it to Pokemon of lower values, and what the implication of it being better than others or being so high may be and how it could look to others. An example I can more clearly describe college sports. As a kid, I would feel genuine apprehension and intimidation when I in a video game played against a team who was ranked in the top 25. Number one team, man I was pacing around the house hyping myself up to play them. But now when I play those games or watch the real thing, any top 25 team I’m instantly having to imagine them in a newscast or sports game with that ranking, what that would mean compared to traditional power balances, what announcers would say, and how intimidating the logo and ranking combo should feel to go against. Of course I can’t capture these feelings and it leads to my head getting tight and many muscles clench until it feels like I’m going to cramp and my head is going to explode. Has anybody else experienced something like this? Clearly, I have no clue how to put this into a concise summary and that’s really hard to deal with when I need to communicate it to therapists. Hopefully someone else can come up with better descriptors

So I’ve been dealing with severe ocd for the past 3 years.. I’ve dealt with it all my life but had up and downs and thought I was finally getting my life back and now over the weekend I got a huge trigger. It revolves around being intoxicated and having holes In my memories of that night. I was fine the next day and hangin out and then started to look back on the night and that’s when my brain picked the blank in my memory. It got really dark with the what ifs and the anxiety went thru the roof but now it has stuck and I can’t stop trying to figure what happened in those blank moments. Everyone I was with said nothing bad happened but I just keep having false memories. Anyone have these moments?😣😣😣

I have intrusive thoughts in my mind practically every minute of my life. I exhaust myself fighting them. I dread the night. I cannot sleep . Most evenings I lay awake trying to distract my mind until the sun comes up. I am so very tired. I had OCD since I was a child. But back then I didn't think anything of it because I didn't know that something was wrong. I went to a doctor once. He prescribed medication that made me feel like a walking zombie and even that didn't work 100%.

How can you tell if a thought pops into your head or if you are conjuring it? And does it matter that I can't tell? I am tying my brain in knots trying to work out if the thoughts I have are simply there or if I am creating them/bringing intrusive thoughts and images to mind. It's like I can never truly relax my brain and see it for what it is. It feels like there are a million thoughts in my head at the same time that haven't even materialised into thoughts, but then by being aware of that I am thinking about those thoughts. It is also like my brain is constantly scanning for intrusive thoughts and then inevitably thinking them. Do I need to just accept not knowing/fully understanding my brain?

this is going to be a strange post but bear with me!!!!!!!! a therapist i had once suggested looking at my ocd/intrusive thoughts as being in a car with some weird guy in the back who says all the upsetting ocd stuff. theyre back there and are annoying or offputting BUT ultimately you are driving and can just ignore the weird guy and remind yourself YOURE the one driving, basically. does anyone else personify their ocd thoughts/impulses/fears/etc? if you do, do you get along with this personified guy? or do you argue, or ignore, or shame it? i am currently in the camp of "i hate that guy and he scares me so i dont want to socialize with him" hahahaha. but i wonder, would being curious or empathetic towards the guy maybe help him chill out? i wanna know if anyone else has a personified relationship with their ocd too, and how you treat this personification. :) much love ☺️🌈✨🌷

my boyfriend is perfect. i cant believe how happy i am. but my ocd has this image of his ex gf and doesn’t drop it. Even tho she went insane at the end, they dated for 4+years. it just makes me feel like our experiences even cute aren’t original. i just want to let myself be happy but her face and etc is stuck inside my brain. i even stopped stalking but it didn’t really help. help.

does anyone else find that when you start to get used to the thoughts/they stop becoming so distressing that it becomes difficult to decipher whether you want them or not? i know the fact im posting about it probably shows that i don’t but just out of curiosity do other people relate to that also?

Had a really good day today in which I didn’t engage with many of my worries and didn’t ruminate, but of course that’s left me feeling like I’m just missing something to worry about or I need to look harder because I can’t just feel okay. Any tips?

So I’ve been in a pretty rough spiral/ocd spike for about a month now. I used to have this theme of being severely mentally ill or schizophrenic or psychotic and it went away for like 6 months and now it’s back full force. I have never hallucinated but I have this intense fear of what if I do. So with this theme I have these delusional thoughts that are just bizarre and I know how delusional they are but they feel so real and scary like I believe them. My body reacts by my stomach feeling uneasy and I’ll get a chill and just feel like I’m gonna be sick. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a thought per say.. it can just be a weird sensation or feeling and then I’ll become extremely anxious and borderline feel like I could panic. I can usually talk myself down from a full blown panic attack and but it’s just so distressing and I’m wondering if anyone else goes through this? I think it stems from a core fear of losing my family, ending up institutionalized away from my family and my family being devastated and judging me bc I “went crazy” please if anyone else can relate I’d appreciate any advice.

I don't understand what changed, it feels like I genuinely want what my thoughts are telling me to the point anytime I feel disgusted, disturbed, and or scared. It feels like I'm lying to myself, I'm so scared right now. Once before, this was the last thing I wanted to do to the point I swore I'd take my own life and now it feels like a complete 360. I don't know who I am anymore or of this is what I want, please, I just want someone to talk to or advice.

I feel so overwhelmingly lonely. I have been lonely my whole life, and I feel like I can’t talk to anyone about it. I feel like a burden to my family and my friends and I feel like they all secretly hate me. I’ve been through a lot of really traumatic things over the last 18 months (abusive relationship/ stuck living with an ex/ finishing my degree/ family problems/ eating problems and of course having OCD doesnt help) and I felt so alone. I still haven’t been able to talk to people about the extent of it because I don’t know how. I have tried counselling but I just felt like my counsellor was very dismissive. Ive tried talking to one of my friends and she told me it was worrying her/ not to do it again. It was all manageable before I came off my medication, but I just can’t go back on it again because it made me gain so much weight. I really don’t know what to do. I’ve tried reaching out to old friends, making new ones, dating, herbal remedies, therapy, gym, moving house. Nothing is working. I feel like the only option is going back on my medication but I really don’t want to do that. Does anyone have any advice?

I wondered if there’s anyone here with experience of OCD treatment in the UK on the NHS? I’m having no luck at all and feeling quite isolated without an official diagnosis (I am diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder). Their OCD questionnaire was based on very typical OCD symptoms such as excessive handwashing, so my results got brushed off. My symptoms show quite differently, but I am 99.9% sure it’s OCD. Also, I know how much the NHS love CBT (I’ve had about 5 rounds of it - only works for me in the short term) but does anyone have any experience of other therapies on the NHS such as ERP? Thanks and hopefully this reaches some brits :D

Anyone else here have a hard time moving on from conflict? Like you will “resolve” with your partner and decide to move on from it… but then in your moments alone you rehash everything in your mind? We will come to some type of resolution, but then when we are apart, I will think of the fight and analyze what we fought about and how we fought. Then I will bring the issue back up again with my new discoveries and it starts the fight all over again.

Today was not a good day. My anxiety got in the way of hanging out with my friends and I planned to do this but I just couldn't bring myself to go far away from my house because of anxiety. I can't help but feel they're mad at me. I felt so depressed about this that I just ended up relapsing to porn. Then my usual fears of seeing someone underaged in the videos were there so I just click off anything that makes me feel uncomfortable and try to look up the age of models. While doing so, one model was named Daria, so I looked up her username to check, but it had a sexually insinuated word in her name and search results came up for an underaged fictional character. I know I didn't mean to look for this character but it still makes me feel awful. I just feel like garbage overall. I don't know how my anxiety and self esteem will ever get better.

Honestly trying to live every day to “save” people is exhausting. My days are filled with tasks to ultimately “save” somebody from harm. In my rational mind I know it’s OCD but why take a chance. In my mind I suffer so no one else has to. Exhausting….

I come home and my partner is waiting for me asking how my day is watching just general chatting and I’m annoyed, that they’re waiting for me. Probably a trigger from a previous relationship. Why can’t they just get on with something? Why do they need me? Then I start to panic and think oh God now I don’t like them. I’d rather be on my own. Should I tell them how I feel or is that confessing? Start over analyze start to think I can’t be in this relationship. Start to think I’m a bad person start to think I’m never gonna be able to have a relationship if i have thoughts like this. Is this just another OCD moment? If so what ERP can I do?

Sitting here at the tire shop watching people who seem so normal. Just going about there day. Can they tell I have OCD. If they knew what would they say. I feel like everyone can tell how weird I am. I have so much shame and guilt. Anyone else feel this way?

I lost my job after 10 years with the company because they combined our office with another office. My anxiety, depression and panic spiraled out of control. I was so afraid I would never find another job and lose everything I had and have no insurance. I got a new job within 2 weeks and was sure that would solve all my problems, but I continued to get worse. I went to my new job and pushed through one week and ended up in the hospital due to my high anxiety and OCD. I have been so many different drs since trying to get the help I need. I finally found a dr that has me on Prozac and I am working with NOCD. I just can’t seem to get rid of the fear of losing the new job I just got. It’s such a scary and sick feeling.