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Why do intrusive thoughts feel so real? I sometimes fear it isn't OCD and I actually do feel/think those things and it causes me immense distress.

Hey everyone! I'm VERY new to this app. I'm not sure if I have OCD, but I feel like I do. I had horrible anxiety since I was a child, and I felt like I was crazy because the adults always laughed at my irrational concerns haha. I can't really afford to get diagnosed, and I'm also scared what will happen if I do. Maybe I'll get a peace of mind if I get diagnosed, but I know the OCD stereotypes that most people know. I'm afraid they will tell me I don't have it, since I'm not a super tidy, clean person and stuff. But I need answers to understand how to live myself more. What should I do? (Sorry if I said anything wrong in the post 😔🙏🏻)

I'm wondering if it's better or worse to tell your partner about your ocd thoughts, if you can be specific or if it's better to keep it vague bc it's so distressing to hear the specifics to people who are close or if they're like.. rocd threads. Mostly in the context of when they're strong or compulsions are strong.

I was completely under control of my ocd with medication. I always doubt whether I will commit something wrong that was my ocd but I understand that I need to do it by myself if something bad want to happen. Because of my anxiety when I have obsessive thoughts and that only remain as thoughts. But now a new type of thought occurred for first time which I try to eliminate by using logic but I can't. If someone can help me it would be helpful. The thought is when I move my body any parts for eg. Hand I consciously move it with giving force but the real physiology behind this movement is brain send signals to spinal cord then to muscles to carry out movement .then doubting thought arise .so is my brain controlling the movement . Then AM I not fully controlling my voluntary action.can my obession thought take place into action harm obession if I am not fully controlling my body rather brain control it .kindly give me a reply

am i a bad person for not letting these thoughts get to me anymore? I cringe when i get them, but i dont put any meaning behind them. Or atleast i try not to. Am i getting better? Because i feel like im a bad person and actually a p word for “accepting” these thoughts. How am i ever gonna recover if my brain is always doubting?

Ugh, just ugh. Back story : I’m not in the best relationship. Bf struggles with ADHD and anger issues and I struggle with OCD, PTSD, Anxiety, ptsd from domestic violence and abuse from my father. I feel like because often there are fights that leave me feeling like there’s no hope and I’m always gonna be in these situations; also bc I can never leave bc then I’d have to live with my dad, which is impossible I’d rather seriously expire. It’s just not safe for me, but I’m in this situation now and I live with him and his older brother and his wife. Also, totally afraid regardless if I should be or not that if I ever brought up breaking up ever it would be bad and no one would help me out at all. That’s probably mostly the trauma but I can think any other way honestly. But things get better and I try and I do love him. Anyways, I feel like because of this if any guy treats me with respect and is actually interested in what I say… I like obsess over them or something like definitely a lot of pure o checking in my head and it’s exhausting and I feel gross and I feel evil and I feel awful. I just wish this stuff would stop. I wish I could make better decisions. I wish this wasn’t apart of my life :( ocd is tough af. I’m tough as nails and it’s so exhausting. So mentally tiring. There’s this guy I’ve known since I’ve known my bf and he was interesting and we have common interests anyways. They’re friends ofc and when he comes over it’s just hell for my mind no matter how proactive I try to be. There’s always this chance that “he could be my soul mate” “he could share the same feelings” and then like things go bad between me and my bf and I’ll have dreams about his friend and I’m like wtf which if I have a dream I remember I think it must be a sign. “It must be a sign” should be tatted on my head. Any wise words? Am I awful? How can I stop this? Bc I’m trying, probably not hard enough. I have my boundaries and try to control myself as much as possible but it’s hard too bc I’m very kind and outgoing and we have a lot in common, and my relationship is toxic at times. Idk man I’m tired. I could go on and on about this but yeah just wanted to get it off my chest and feel heard tbh.

Hello, this is my first time posting! I just want to reflect on how cruel and unfair OCD is. It’s so hard to tell where OCD ends and where you begin, and vice versa. Anything and everything can become a compulsion, and there’s no real way to know without falling into a trap. I honestly thought I was just being responsible and aware before finding out it’s all been ruminating and mental compulsions my entire life. Breaking away from the pattern of Pure-OCD is brutal, but necessary to get my life back. Anyone else feel this way?

Hi all! Any tips for riding out an OCD episode? Trying not to use safety behaviours/compulsions or ruminate etc.

I’m trying to get past the thought in my head that “this is not ocd”. Mainly because I’m not doing compulsions that much anymore it’s just the constant thoughts and still some anxiety from them. The idea that I haven’t figured this out puts a pit in my stomach and brings me to tears. I just know if I do compulsions it’ll feel like the cycle will never stop and it’s exhausting. I already think about this every second of the day and I feel like I can’t enjoy anything so my mind says “well you’re not doing compulsions you’re just anxious about the fact that your life is gonna change and you don’t want it to”. This is so hard I don’t know what to do

i obsess over extremely negative unwanted thoughts and no matter how hard i try to convince myself they’re just thoughts and i don’t actually want that they continue to almost consume me in a way? it’s like a constant battle with myself and there’s been many times where it physically makes me ill and distressed and like i need to tell someone even if it also affects them. i have some decent days where i can fight them but ive noticed when im stressed i can only fight them for so long. i seriously feel crazy 99% of the time and like nobody understands me. everyone always tells me they get bad thoughts too and it’s human which i understand but not everyone gets them to the extent of some others. its to a point where i just want to give up sometimes so i won’t have to deal with the thoughts. of course i never would but my mind does go there.

how to treat intrusive groinal responses? any advice?

I jumped at the opportunity to share my story when NOCD told me about their advocacy program so today I’m going to tell you all about my OCD journey to help those not feel so alone! I want to start this by saying just because my story may not look like yours doesn’t mean your story isn’t valid! Everyone is different! The first time I remember having an intrusive thought was when I was around the age of 6-7 I remember I was making sandwiches with my father and as I held the knife I had the thought “stab him, you need to stab him” I was so scared at the thought, I thought it meant I was a bad person or that I wanted my father dead. I was terrified. Years later different thoughts and themes would be more prominent and by the time I was in my early 20s was when I read in depth about OCD. I dealt with POCD for YEARS before I got help, I remember doing compulsions like googling to find answers to what I was thinking and feeling or any form of reassurance I could get! While I was googling (and never finding any peace) I came across an article saying “do you have POCD?” I remember thinking “I don’t have OCD, I’ve never been diagnosed and I’m not clean!” It’s crazy what the stigma can make you believe about an illness. I however read the article anyway and I’m so glad I did because that’s how I found NOCD. I realized I had been struggling with POCD as a main theme from the age of 16 (I am now 27) I went to my doctor to get a professional diagnosis and started therapy after a few months of saying “I don’t need therapy, it doesn’t work for me!” I realized my ways of “making things better” AKA compulsions!! Weren’t working and I needed a professional. I was scared, I remember thinking my therapist will think I’m an awful person with awful thoughts and call the police, I can’t tell her the truth about what’s going on in my head! But when I met my therapist I exploded with emotions, crying, telling her everything about what I was thinking and how I was feeling. I desperately needed help and NOCD and my therapist Lourdes were the life line that I needed to get better. My therapist was my rock, constantly cheering me on, telling me “I could do hard things” that simple saying has stuck with me since the first day she said it. I learned how OCD attaches to what you value most, that the reassurance seeking and constant googling I had been doing for my entire life was not helping but hurting my recovery and we worked together to craft the perfect ERP exercises so I could heal. I was doing well for so many months until OCD decided to attach onto another thing that I love and value most, something I wasn’t expecting, my relationship. I had a horrible run of intrusive thoughts about my partner. These thoughts lasted for about 8 months when I realized that I needed an extra boost of help. That medication and therapy would be my best shot at fighting this and that taking medication is nothing to be ashamed of. I started Luvox and continued ERP exercises I am so happy to say that my OCD is very manageable now! I still have intrusive thoughts but they no longer have that intense chokehold on me. I can sit with the uncomfortable feelings and let them pass, I do still catch myself doing compulsions which is a very normal part of recovery and will be something I will most likely catch myself doing for the rest of my life! However it is so important to recognize it and try in the future to resist! I am so happy to say that I have been going on a few months now of minimal intrusive thoughts and anxiety and I am beyond happy in my life and relationship. If you take anything away from this I hope you take away that you are NOT alone, ERP therapy saves lives, it will get better, medication is nothing to be ashamed of and you can do hard things!! You may feel like when you have another tough patch that you’re “right back to where you started” as I have felt in the past, but I promise you that isn’t the case. You can and will get through this and I know that my OCD may get worse again but I know with the support of my therapist, my inner circle and the support of this community I can and will make it through. We can do this and I know it may be scary at first and may feel impossible to get better or that somehow you’re the exception and that nothing will help you get better but I promise you that’s not the case. I felt the exact same way before I started therapy. You will get better, I believe in you and you aren’t alone ❤️

I Recently diagnosed with ocd. The onset of my symptoms started a month ago today. I just moved back in with my parents because I am in the process of transferring colleges. I was doing great. I took a vacation about 2 weeks after I moved back on and planned on relaxing then coming back home to prepare myself for the upcoming semester at the local college (I am going into nursing school). The vacation started out great. The first day made me drowsy because of how long of a flight I had and also switching time zones. The second day was full of fun activities. I really enjoyed that day and what there was to do not knowing what was coming that night. Fast forward to that night I was pretty worn out from the day and started to settle down the way I usually do before bed. I love scrolling through YouTube and used to love watching content such as crime network as this was something me and my bf routinely watched and talked about. The video just happened to be about a kid who had done something absolutely horrific. I was pretty invested in the video at first but then all of a sudden got a thought about me doing something horrible to my family. I was so shaken by this thought and felt a physical shock to my body. My heart started to pound out of my chest and I didn’t know what was going on and how to react to something like this. My only reaction was to go take a long bath. That bath somewhat helped and I somehow was able to go to sleep afterward. I woke up the next morning and began remembering what happened a few hours prior and just thought that it was “just a weird thought” and tried to push it off. I had a full agenda that day and didn’t wanna dwell on it. At first that day started out ok. I went and ate lunch at a great restaurant in the area. Though I didn’t feel the distress, the thought of what I experienced the night prior was still there and kept popping up. Suddenly the violent thoughts of me harming my family hit me again. I was out doing stuff with my family at the time and remember being so panicked and confused but yet I couldn’t show any of what I was feeling. The rest of that day was ruined. I remember watching my family enjoying the activities but I just kinda sat there and pretended. The thoughts turned into some kind of voice or command. All I heard was “you’re going to enjoy the rest of the day but this is your family’s last time alive together” and things of that nature. I felt so sick and confused. This ultimately went on throughout the vacation and ruined it. It would come and go and sometimes I thought it had gone away only to return again. It’s been a month now since this started and it has snowballed into crazy obsessions. Sometimes they are still about my family but it has morphed into obsessions of being the next serial killer or mass murderer. I keep thinking back to my childhood and all of my mistakes and taking that as proof that I’m a psychopath and have every mental illness ever despite every dr I’ve compulsively seen telling me that I’m not. I ruminate over shows about crime that I’ve seen in the past and envision myself following in the same footsteps of these killers. I can’t do anything without relating to what Ive heard about those people. 2 weeks ago it got so bad that I literally slept all day and was up all night researching all of this stuff. I’ve become almost emotionally blunt to things and even the thoughts which in turn gives me anxiety. For the past 3 days now I have been productive for the first time and actually eating somewhat normally again. Even though I feel better than I have I still have something nagging at me in my mind that makes me feel guilty for doing anything other than googling or doing my compulsions. I don’t feel the anxiety I have been and that alone is freaking me out. I’m in doubt that I have ocd even though I’ve been diagnosed by 3 professionals including a therapist. I am scheduled to start erp this week with NOCD. I feel like I’m living life behind a glass wall. I see everyone going on with life and wanna be able to engage and enjoy the things that I used for without the worry. I feel like I have a bully in the back of my mind constantly shouting at me when I’m trying to live life and it always calls me back. I catch myself looking a pictures taken prior to the start of this and feel like I’m looking at a different person. I often think about stuff like what if I never watched that video, what if I had known a day or even an hour before it started and had some warning sign about how my life was about to change. My ocd makes me feel like a narcissist or horrible person for posting this because I always doubt this diagnosis and say that I manipulated myself into it even though this has really been my experience. If this really is ocd then I don’t wish this on my worst enemy. I wanted to share this so maybe someone going through this similar manifestation of the disorder can relate and won’t feel as alone as I do.

Hey everyone so I’ve been just having a bad day already! I feel so detached from myself that I don’t even know who I am. Feels like someone else is in control of me bad dpdr. Now I’m having bad intrusive thoughts because I don’t feel like myself like I’m out of control. I haven’t been able to eat or get any sleep. I’m so down idk what to do anymore.

I use to argue my thoughs cause I was anxious and didnt want them, but now I get the thoughs and feelings without anxiety, so when I argue them or fight them just feels like something a person in denial would do, like literally just feels like a discusión, not one time I think I had a trigger and be like, o that was just OCD and then let go

It's the middle of the night and I just had a really intense and scary attack of ocd. Not really sure what it was all about, but it was a whole flood of different themes all at once. Only thing that was clear to me is that I was full of such intense fear of myself. Afraid of losing control of my mind and ending up in a psych ward tonight, afraid of thinking of hurting myself and how it might feel good/relieving, afraid of losing control and hurting my pet, afraid of having a full blown panic attack and needing my parents, afraid of losing control and screaming, afraid of giving into the urge to lash out and throw things/throw myself around (lately I've been feeling the need to exert/stim), and afraid of how each and every one of these outcomes would affect others. I'm falling asleep now but I'm still terrified of what just happened. I've never felt anything like it before. I've now been having problems every single day for a month straight (happy anniversary lol). My therapist of four years is not an OCD therapist and I won't be seeing her for two weeks yet. I also just started seeing a psych but I won't be seeing her for over a month yet. I'm wondering if i should get in touch with a NOCD therapist asap because I swear I just keep getting worse and I'm getting more and more paranoid and terrified by the hour. I feel like my behavior has definitely changed. The problem is though I know i'm obsessed with getting help for myself because i'm THAT scared of my own mind. I think having a SECOND therapist would be a bit overkill but i'm also extremely desperate and have been considering this for about a month now. Has anyone else tried a NOCD therapist paired with their normal therapist? Anyways now i'm so scared of what i'm gonna wake up to. These intense mood swings are getting scarier and scarier.

It's been 2 nights in a row that I haven't been able to sleep normally, last night was horrible, I only slept like 4 hours and all night long I kept having bizarre "dreams" and I kept having this kind of mind chatter, where random words, phrases, songs or even images kept popping up in my mind non stop for all the time I was asleep. It got so bad and uncomfortble that I jolted up in a panic and couldn't go back to sleep I was so scared bc as soon as I closed my eyes seconds later I would start getting those random sounds and images in my sleep and it really frightened me. Is this normal or anyone has this? what worries me is that it lasted the whole time I was sleeping, not just for a few minutes.

Hey, I'm new, but but been dealing with OCD for about 3 months. I developed it after a really stressful life period, and I've been trying to treat it myself as I have no access to professional treatment. It's genuinely one of the hardest and most scary things I've ever had to deal with, and I really feel so lost. I tried ERP, but I feel like it made things worse. I'm trying I-CBT now, and I think it's helping a little bit, but I have no idea and honestly, I'm just so scared. The only support I have IRL is my spouse, and it's often not enough. Does anyone have tips or ways to support me so I can get better?

I’m going through what is hopefully just a really bad hypochondria episode where I’ve convinced myself I have schizophrenia. It’s been about 8 months and I’ve been through a range of crazy symptoms but the most prevalent symptom is getting crazy delusional thoughts like “what if my wife is a demon and trying to get to me” “what if NOBODY is real and these are all monsters/demons out to get me” etc etc. the thoughts are absolutely terrifying and they make me look at people differently, i get paralyzed with fear and i have to question myself whether I truly believe the thoughts or not, they feel so real, when they come on I catch myself genuinely feeling paranoid that they are 100% real and having a panic attack, but then the tiny bit of me that’s still rational brings me back to reality. And from then on I have to question myself all day “do I really believe this?” “Well you technically can’t disprove those things” “if it’s not real, then why does it FEEL real?” “This really is schizophrenia” “ what if it’s not schizophrenia but ACTUALLY real?” “who do I go to for help?” “What if I can’t trust anyone” and the scariest of them all…”why would a see a doctor if this is all real” etc, it’s literally hell. I can never give a satisfying “No, I don’t believe this” to these thoughts. I can go days and weeks and be able to confidently shrug them off and tell how ridiculous they are only for them to come back with a vengeance the next day. No amount of evidence can calm these thoughts. I no longer have little breaks where I’m not thinking about this, this obsession has completely consumed me. I feel like nowhere and nobody is safe, I just feel so fucking stuck and isolated. I try so hard and pull myself back to reality and provide myself with evidence for why these thoughts cant be true, but there’s just almost like a gut feeling, and such a sense of urgency and panic that comes with these thoughts that it’s becoming more and more difficult to talk myself out of this thinking. I’m truly at my wits end. This has ruined my life. I could really use some reassurance even though I know it’s bad. I have never been like this before until I started obsessing over schizophrenia. I’ve been like this for 8 months now. I’m at the point where I either believe the thoughts are true or this is ocd or schizophrenia, there is no more fear that I might believe the thoughts, it is now, fear that the thoughts are REAL. Can ocd/anxiety really be this severe?

For a long time, I would have an annoying process when doing things I enjoy. Here is how it was/is: 1. I’m enjoying something like games or music or videos. Anything. 2. Intrusive thought(s) show up 3. Feels like it’s tainted me or what I’m trying to enjoy 4. I stop doing it and get super upset or start over because I’ll feel relief after. Like I’m undoing the effect the thought made me feel by restarting or retracing steps or something. For games, it’s especially annoying because of how much I have accomplished in it already. Sometimes, I gotta keep redoing it until I just give up and don’t play cause…god, it’s so damn time consuming. This made it hard to even like things anymore. It’s annoying and I have a habit of hurting myself physically to cope. Obviously, not good but in a way, it’s punishment/relief. However, after watching the live streams of NOCD, I’ve learned and been practicing how to sit with the thought. A book I read also helped remind myself “Those thoughts aren’t yours, it’s your OCD. Just crazy thoughts made cause of a biochemical problem in your brain, dork.” HELLA uncomfortable in the beginning but I think I’m getting better at it. Trust, it’s still tricky and undoubtedly makes me feel awful sometimes but I make it through and feel lighter after. Now, I can listen to music and play games or watch fun things without letting the thought ruin my day or make me cry or distressed. I get the thought, and let it sit (maybe internally shrug my shoulders at it lol) and then it flows away and I keep enjoying what I’m doing. The thought was just a thought and I’ll treat it as such. And I continue on! I never thought I’d ever get to this point but here we are! I’d think “I wonder what it’s like for other people. They just sit and enjoy things without doing compulsions.” I think I’m finally experiencing that. I still stumble but I’ve been lessening the compulsive urges. Even the compulsive…hurting of myself… has lessened. I don’t stop doing what I like just because of thoughts that much now. I truly believe you can do it too, just practice and it gets a little easier day by day. (Hope this made sense, I’m doing this as I go hehe)