Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Ocd is just so exhausting.. i ahte myself and im just so disgusted by the way i am .

Currently obsessing over me being the only “real” or conscious person in the world, and that everyone I love isn’t actually real. I know deep down that this is ocd, but I feel like by not ruminating I’m just ignoring the fear (which feels so real and scary). Has anyone experienced anything similar and how did you get out of this worry? Trying not to seek reassurance as it’s one of my compulsions, but I’m very distressed.

a little bit about me, i have dealt with mental health issues for my whole life. i went undiagnosed for many years, being because my family (at the time) didn’t believe in mental illness, it was believed that everything could be fixed with a little “talk with Jesus” that being said, for as long as i can remember i have had the intrusive thoughts, the obsessive thoughts. i can remember being a little kid trying to pray to god and my mind would be telling me over and over again that i hated god, that i loved the devil, that i wanted to go to hell. i also believed that if i didn’t pray for every single family member that they would die. i still to this day have trouble sleeping because im convinced that the rapture will happen, and i will be left behind. well as the years have progressed, these intrusive thoughts and obsessions have become worse, resulting in me thinking about harming myself and others when i have no intentions to do so. i also have been struggling with and obsessing over people dying, and mourning people that are still alive and well.

Since I was 16, I have experienced deep depression and anxiety. I fought through it without understanding it for years. Despite these struggles, I managed to find a career, get married, and have kids. At age 23, the weight of my depression became too much to bear, so I finally decided to see a counselor. Going to counseling really changed my life; I found a counselor I truly connected with and saw regularly for the next five years. Mentally, I was doing well until... I didn’t realize I had OCD until my first Pure OCD experience four years ago. It was one of the scariest moments of my life because I analyzed the situation, and every solution I came up with pointed back to me as the problem. I felt like I was the bad guy, the one who was dangerous to this world. I didn’t understand what was happening until I described the experience to my counselor. She explained how my OCD brain perceived intrusive thoughts and what intrusive thoughts actually are. Understanding OCD and recognizing that the intrusive thoughts I was having were NOT real made a big difference. I ended up trying different types of medications for a couple of years and eventually found two that really helped. Once I felt like I had it under control, I stopped taking the medication. A year ago, I had a really bad OCD experience that led me to develop a daily ritual that has become a burden on my life. I fully understand that the obsession isn’t real, yet I still feed into it. I’m at a strange stage in my life right now. I feel like I understand how OCD works and how I should react to it, but I still have bad days when I let it defeat me. My counselor retired last year, and I’m currently in the process of finding a new one. I feel like I’m back at stage one again, and I’m okay with that. Reading these posts reminds me that I’m not alone and that we can find serenity in all of this. We can live the life we desperately desire. I’m here to help as well and answer any questions.

I’ve been stressed a lot and not well rested… I’m feeling paranoid about everything and feeling like I’ll die if I don’t get reassurance. Idk if it’s ocd or valid fears, I know the patterns are the same as all my other OCD obsessions but these ones don’t fit into exact categories. Like, paranoid I’ll loose my job and be homeless, paranoid I’m doing a bad job and all my friends aren’t my friends and actually can’t stand me. I’m alone, I can’t talk to my sisters. Even if you can’t get reassurance, everyone needs someone in their life to talk to and to be there for them when they’re going through something hard. I feel like I do so long as what I’m struggling with isn’t to hard or too extreme, when I feel I need someone the most, that’s when I feel I can’t turn to anyone. And experience has taught me that, not just my own fears. So I isolate and the thoughts I’m having lately, I know the patterns of OCD, they hit all the sudden like a ton of bricks and it’s immense anxiety and thoughts that I should kms. Or that that is the only way out of the terror my life brings me. I am also AUDHD and have a very hard time functioning and holding down a job, much less getting a new job!!! I feel like I’m drowning and everything is overwhelming to the point of not actually being able to handle it. I’ve been sober for 10 days and don’t want to mess it up!!! I know reassurance won’t help in the long run, but if someone here could help me see I’m not alone, that would help in the long run. Thankyou.

I asked my child for reassurance and I feel horrible about it. I didn’t specifically ask what I was worried about but I asked in a roundabout generic way and it probably sounded strange. I’ve done this before and told myself I would not do it again each time but when I do my feeling is that it’s better to ask and get some peace of mind then to not ask. Even though I know that’s the wrong way to look at it. How do I move on from this guilt and disgust with myself? Can anyone relate to this??? I feel so alone being a parent with OCD.

I need somebody to tell me if I’m a monster or not. Nobody’s replying to my posts and it scares me. Am I too far gone? Why am I so numb? I hate these horrible thoughts, I think. I think. I’m so full of doubt, I don’t know what I want or don’t want anymore. I think I don’t want this. This feels like the end of the road.

at first i started to obsess over if something i did was sa, i came to the conclusion that it isn't for different reasons ( I even talked to a sexual assault hotline who told me that it was a grey area ) but that it was still something inappropriate that could have potentially hurt someone if they saw. and now im starting to obsess on wether that person actually saw or not and if i have hurt her because of it. it's kind of unlikely if she saw, cus she had her back facing me but idk. I saw she liked my posts on Instagram till 2022 ( this thing happened a long time ago ), but even then it's no consolation since now she doesn't follow me anymore ( even if it could have been me that removed her from my followers since we haven't been friends for years and i like privacy ) and since ppl can also realise later on that something that happened to them is assault/harrasment. tho i guess that if she still feels comfortable around my brother and family then it's probably okay? i personally haven't talked to her in a while but she always seemed normal around me after that thing happened. idk, im so ashamed

I forced myself out for a drink with my girlfriend and her friends as my thoughts were being centered around this will happen if you go etc. I said I wasn't going to drink a lot but then the thoughts subsided and I started drinking more and when we were in the last pub I got racing instrusive thoughts of murdering/raping and causing harm to people and myself. These intensified when we got home and the vivid images of the acts I was commuting were so vile and graphic (skinning people/eating there brains and organs to name a few), I tried talking to my girlfriend about the thoughts of killing her family etc and she likes not judged me but couldn't handle the thoughts and that made me spiral to the point of having suicidal thoughts and making an attempt for my own life. I didn't tell her I was feeling suicidal or that I didn't want to act on these thoughts and now I feel terrible. I have been told to sit with the imagery and thoughts but how does one do that when its constant.

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.

Last night I had a weird dream I don’t feel comfortable saying what about but it was definitely a dream against who I am and my beliefs… the dream made me feel so scared and disgusted and worried because why am I dreaming of something so weird and something that doesn’t even correspond to me at all.. can someone help it’s making me feel like a bad person. It’s making me feel so worried like why did I dream such a bad thing what does it mean does it make me a bad person.?? I hate it

Personally ive never wanted to date someone younger then me. Ive always wanted to date someone my exact age or older (not too old) because thats just how ive been. (This post has become triggering and a bit of a vent :( But-since my real event happened. Ive been constantly googling and reading comments on other social medias about age gaps. Specifically two year age gaps. Without going into too much detail i had a a group of online friends and we were in this age range (16-18.) because of the things that happened my pocd is extremely bad and even though i never had any desire to date any of my younger friends or any of my friends in general my ocd has latched onto this specific obsession with age gaps and it makes me sick because of what happened specifically with one of my younger friends, even though i never dated or ever wanted to date them. They were always just a friend. But this obsession is still there and im really struggling with it. And i feel gross and nasty for even being friends in the first place which isn’t right because they and my other younger friends i knew at the time were nice people. Now that im writing it all out i just keep comparing myself to my cocsa event that happened to me when i was a kid. I wont go into detail obviously but the kid that hurt me then was also two years older than me (i was 8 he was 10 :( And maybe this obsession is also because of that? Ik when my real event happened i kept comparing myself to him and how im like him now-my brain is telling me im just asking or sympathy ot worse as excuse as i mention this but i dont want to believe that-i dont even know what im talking about anymore im just very triggered right now. I just feel like what happened lumps me in with that kid now. I feel like a few people on here can relate to this obsession with age gaps? If you do how do you deal with it so you can stop? Because it seems that even telling my brain and reminding myself that i never want to be in that kind of relationship-it still doesn’t matter. Has anyone had experiences like this i hate feeling like im the only one

Hello everyone. As i’m sure some of you have seen i have intrusive thoughts about school shootings and im wondering what i need to do in this particular situation. when i go with my mom to pick up my family members from school i get really anxious and the intrusive thoughts get worse such as how i would do that and where in the schools because i went to these schools as well and its absolutely terrifying. i know that i need to be exposed to going around schools and such to over come this but its really hard, is that what ERP feels like and you just sit with that discomfort? im kind of confused on the concept of ERP and what i need to do in this particular situation. i dont know anything about guns or ever have an intention to act on these thoughts or follow through with them in any way but it seems like they keep popping up and making things 10x worse then the day before.

I (15M) want to get help but I’m scared of punishment. I live in Arizona and I think I have ocd and it’s making me go insane. First off I hurt so many people in my freshman year of highschool I was overly sexual and went too far over texts being way too open with myself and the reason I was probably overly sexual was maybe because when I was 8 or 9 I was shown explicit content by my older brother and I think that gave me compulsive sexual behavior disorder cause I got addicted to it but idk if I deserve sympathy cause my little brother was also shown it at the same time I was and is not a bad person from what I can tell. But yea when I got into highschool idk why I thought I could be so sexual and not see an issue with it and I hurt 3 people because of it 2 of them said they don’t care about it anymore and just found it annoying (I still feel guilty what if they are lying to me to make me feel better) and the third one doesn’t want to talk to me ever again and I deserve it I scarred him for life. And before highschool I begged a 16 yr old for pictures and this is when I was like 13 or 14 and I was so persistent with it and honestly kinda Manipulative (my friend says not to feel bad cause he was grooming her kind of but I still feel bad) and then in highschool I begged a 17 yr old for pictures this was when I was 14 and I gave him my friends ass pics because I wanted pics from him and he agreed ( my friend was 15/14) and I lied saying it was my friends little sisters and my friend told me she could get his pictures for me and I agreed and we later stopped cause she felt uncomfy and we both thought it was honestly gross I think and then he got upset and said he was gonna send her sisters pics to her to make her upset or blackmail her and I got scared and told her what I did and she felt sick and I told the guy what I did and told him I was gonna cut myself and he told my friend what I said and she told me not too and that she forgives me and I feel so bad cause that’s so wrong she felt she had to forgive me. After that the guy said he was manipulating me the whole time so I would feel guilty about what I did later. And now I feel so much guilt from everything and how I hurt so many people I hurt my little brother I was so rude and mean to him and yet he still loves me and I’m having thoughts on what if I’m a child predator or what if I sa’d my baby cousins or sa’d my little brother (besides the time I did cocsa when I was 9 or 8 and he was 6/7) or what if I sa’d someone at my school and these thoughts keep repeating over and over and it feels so real cause I think I’m honestly a monster and it’s not fair how I can keep walking the earth with innocent people

Around this time last August, I had a terrible OCD relapse. It got to the point where I didn’t see the point in living anymore. I had everything I had dreamed of a house, a lovely fiancé, a good job and a decent amount of money coming in, so why was i feeling like I didn’t deserve or needed to leave my life? I have suffered from intrusive thoughts all my life but I have particularly struggled since the age of 19 when I started to have sexual intrusive thoughts. I didn’t understand what was happening, the more I tried to make these thoughts go away, the more aggressively they came. I would stay awake Googling all night and not sleeping. I carried on with life but was doing mental compulsions constantly. Every 6 months I’d have a big relapse where I would be so anxious that I couldn’t eat, sleep or take care of myself. I had never been open about my intrusive thoughts with anyone. I had therapy and didn’t tell the therapist the extent of my intrusive thoughts as I thought I would be sectioned or that my thoughts would be confirmed as truth. So I talked about generic things like checking doors, the gas and my hair straighteners. Where really I was worried that my whole life was a lie that I wasn’t attracted to my partner, that I could be gay, that I could be an evil person etc. Anyway, my big relapse happened a year ago, I was trying to plan my wedding but felt like a fraud. It got to a point where I couldn’t keep it in and broke down to my fiancé, I told him all my intrusive thoughts, my worries that I didn’t love him, I gave him permission to leave me when that was the last thing I wanted. I now know what true love is, he was amazing he told me he wouldn’t leave unless that’s really what I wanted. He supported me, I sought out therapy again, although it was hard I opened up, my GP diagnosed me with OCD. It didn’t get better over night, I still struggled for months on end, trying to put in to practice what I had learnt from therapy, there were many dark days. The support system that I had once I opened up was the best thing I could of hoped for my mum was incredible as was my partner. I am getting married next May, I am planning my wedding, I have bought my wedding dress, I feel like me again. I can be at peace alone without constant thoughts running through my head. Today I went for a walk alone and read a book on a bench, something I could never of done a year ago. I’m retraining as a counsellor as I hope to help people in the way I was helped! I want to raise more awareness to ocd as before my diagnosis I had no idea people had the same scary thoughts that I did. It gets better, keep pushing, do your ERP it won’t get better over night but trust the process give it time!

My ROCD got very bad a few weeks ago when my husband had to go the hospital and had lied about drinking alcohol. Right after that, and old colleague of mine started texting and flirting with me. I didn’t stop it right away. I used him as a potential scapegoat in my mind if anything went wrong with my husband. I didn’t cheat, but even after my husband has forgiven me I’m still stuck in a cycle of going over everything that happened and checking if I lied or trying to remember if I lied. Has anything like this happened to you? My anxiety won’t go away when I think about the situation, which has been constant.

I need help I feel so bad I'm thinking about situations with my boyfriend and I don't know what to do and if they were really bad situations or not.

I'm starting to notice that my Intrusive thoughts gets intense in the mornings and I find it really hard to let go. I usually like to meditate before I start my day, but I find it really hard to. In the end, I just won't do it and it throws me off. How do you cope when your Intrusive thoughts is getting loud?

is it sa if he asked a couple times and I didn't want to at first just because I was on my period but then when he asked again, I wanted to after? People keep saying that asking like that is actually sa and that's freaking me out because what do I do if that happened to me??? I feel like my ocd is latching onto a specific scenario that was confusing and now im just reviewing every situation.

I had an issue back as a teen where is constantly be rping smut with friends or daydreaming about it. (I can totally disassociate into my mind, it’s like a go to a different place) I’d get aroused by this stuff but since I was a afab (female at birth) I didn’t see an issue since no one would ever be able to know. Right? I was doing this on walks, on car trips… somewhat around my family. Anyways recalling this all has made me feel as if this was another bit of proof to add onto the huge pile that I’m a degenerate depraved dangerous individual… and I have no where to look to find anyone in the same boat as me. Did I do a bad thing? Was this bad? I wish if it was that there was something that outright said it… like I wasn’t attracted to my family as I did this. Sure they were near me but I never involved them or told them or even made any hint or gesture. Sometimes to me it’s as if they weren’t even there at all when I daydreamed… I really really need advice. Do I let this go? Was this normal behaviour for a teen? Or was I screwed up?