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the NOCD Community

I’ve dealt with ocd themes for as long as I can remember, POCD, HOCD, false memory, the feelings of having to confess something, washing certain body parts a specific amount of times, all of it I am still pretty young and I just got into my first relationship. I always knew ROCD existed I just never had the chance to have an experience with it 😭 and here I am. I really do think I have an anxious attachment style. But it’s also like I constantly worry if I’m too much or if i should not be in a relationship or if I rlly love my partner like I tell him. I am sensitive and very communicative so when things bother me I like to communicate them but then I worry that I do too much or I worry that it isn’t normal to find this many things wrong so early in a relationship. I also worry if he doesn’t like me or if he Will get tired of me, but those thoughts are easier to get by. The hard thoughts r the ones where I doubt my feelings for him. My mind feels like a MESS! And it’s harder because we only see eachother once a week. This may be heaven compared to other ppl who struggle with real long distance but for me the time in between gives me a lot of time to nitpick things that aren’t even real problems and create a sense of a toxic relationship that isn’t even real! The only times where I feel like maybe it’s all in my head are when. I see him and the days after, but when it gets long it gets rlly hard. I rlly do love him and he gives me reassurance when needed but I can’t help but focus on the negatives when little things bother me, especially when we are apart from eachother and jsut texting. Texting is hard because then there is the obsession over waiting to see how long he will take, not knowing the tone of texts, and being able to over analyze every conversation we’ve had. I also do mental checks to help me reassure myself that I love him 😭 like when’s the last time he made me laugh, what are some nice things he’s done that I rlly liked, and jsut trying to actively acknowledge everything he’s done so I can stop panicking abt the fear that I don’t love him. It’s literally only been 2 months of us dating so the fact my ocd is so early onset annoys me so bad because I rlly do feel like I am still in the crucial stages of a relationship where we are learning how to love eachother, so there should be some ups and downs and minor arguments while we get over this phase… but I can’t help but wonder what if these little things just mean I hate him? It’s extreme but I worry and the reels and tik toks I see about people realizing they don’t love their partner make it all bad!

Has anyone's ROCD caused trouble in the relationship in regards to talking about marriage? It's caused a lot of problems for me. And it turn, it causes her to doubt and then that comes back to me as full blown OCD. It's really difficult

hiya, it's been a while because i was finally getting better.im a straight girl and i've been dealing with so-ocd severely for about a year now. i originally used to obsess over this one girl at my school and it was so bad and literally interfered with everything. after lots and lots of patience and avoiding compulsions i got over that false attraction and i felt myself be okay again. this year i have developed another attachment to someone, and im struggling all over again. also i thought id share that i experience friend crushes which is where you just wanna become closer to someone if that makes sense. anyways originally i was experiencing that and then my ocd keeps telling me what if its more and what if i am gay? i've completely forgot what it felt like but the thing is, it feels so real!!! i feel excited to see her and wanna be around her but everytime i freak out and obsess about the thought i could like her as more then a friend. deep down i know i don't because i don't feel any romantic feelings and i shouldn't feel such negative emotions and anxiety if it wasn't my ocd. i am so sorry for the rant but im back to square one. 😭😭

So been trying to do erp with my therapist for a while now, and tis really hard and feels like it's not working. Il get this weird sensation or feeling that makes me feel"gay" or as if I'm attracted to someone, and I know my therapist keeps telling me" you don't have to put meaning into the thoughts or feelings" but that seems impossible to do because and I'm sorry to say, it makes me feel that specific way. And I'll use the Erp quotes, "maybe maybe not" or"the more I struggle, the worse it gets" or"these feelings and thoughts are here, but I'm choosing to let them be" and I'll do nothing and try to let it be here but it's so distracting and feels very real, and it's like this sensation, small or big and it last all day, and even just sitting with it isn't working. And my therapist will tell me"you don't have to believe in it" and I'm sorry I feel like if it were that easy, OCD would have never been a problem in the first place, or live with uncertainty, however it doesn't feel like uncertainty, but feels very truthful or valid. Idk what I'm doing wrong tho

This is about OCD but also I just want to rant, I feel very lonely at times. My dad died when I was very young & as the oldest daughter I feel like I’ve had to be strong my entire life. My friends & family love and support me but for some reason I’ve never felt comfortable being vulnerable or discussing my feelings. Everyone tells me I’m the person they go to for advice/support but I have never once opened up to anyone, it almost feels impossible to do so. I mask so well that none of my friends or family know I struggle. No one has ever seen me cry. Also, as a college student with a small group of friends who go out of state, I don’t have many friends in my area so that contributes to feeling isolated. I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, anxiety, & ADHD. As long as I can remember I’ve felt like a bad person and undeserving of love unless i prove myself by being good or useful. I try to keep myself working, volunteering & double majoring in school to feel worthy of love. I genuinely do love life & am so thankful because I feel very blessed. I have good friends & family. But I also feel isolated. (Ik I isolate myself but at the same time I don’t know how to stop). Anyways back in December I broke up with my bf who I had dated for yearsss. He really violated my trust & cheated on me after making me feel crazy for so long & swearing he would never betray me again. It hurt deeply. But ofc I handled it the only way I know how. By being strong. I self isolated. I didn’t tell any of my friends for weeks that we broke up and when I did, I didn’t tell them why (to preserve his image). No one saw how badly it hurt me. To everyone else I seemed fine. I started coping with it in embarrassing ways. I had casual sex with multiple people very quickly that clearly only wanted that from me & didn’t care about me as a person. I am ashamed of this. I’ve stopped meeting new people and decided that’s not the way I want to be and I want to put my energy into healthy outlets. But sometimes in moments of weakness I have had relations with past people (wanting to feel loved & desired & wanted). Anyways my recent theme of OCD has been health + morality related, specifically the fear that I have an STD. I started having some bodily sensations (that i’ve had in the past & aren’t STD related) and started worrying that I may have an STD. When I get health anxiety, I sometimes avoid doctors. I did that for about a month but finally scheduled an appt for Monday. But now the guilt is eating at me and saying “what if you had an STD this whole time & knowingly gave it to others bc you avoided doctors?” That causes me a lot of guilt & shame. I know this is OCD so I’m trying not to ask for reassurance. Sorry that was so long, this is the first time I’ve ranted in a very long time. I just want someone to see me.

I stated dating my boyfriend about 3 months ago. This is my first boyfriend ever. He’s been in 2 serious relationships in the past and multiple sexual partners. I’ve had neither. When we first started dating/ at one point were just friends, he told me a lot about the last girl he was in a relationship including their sex life. Fast forward to us dating for about a month and I found out he had been texting her. We almost broke up. But also for context she broke up with him because she figured out she was a lesbian. But still… anyways we moved past it. And now… I’m sure we can all see this coming… I have this theme! I think about his ex gf all the time. I stalk her on social media and try to find hints and clues about their relationship. I compare myself to her. It really impacts my relationship because I’ll get mad at him for no reason. For example we went thrifting recently and he picked out stuff that completely wasn’t my style, but was hers. Which made me spiral. Is he purposely dressing me like her? Does he want me to be someone else, someone like her? The whole texting her thing was put in the past. I’ve forgiven him. But I can’t help but have resentment towards him and think/ visualize all these thoughts about them together and how I’ll never measure up to that. It makes me think I shouldn’t have got into a relationship. That maybe I’m better off by myself. But like all of us. I wish I didn’t have these thoughts. I wish I could believe he liked me for me. But sometimes it’s really hard.

i haven’t talked to anyone about this, not my therapist, not my girlfriend, not my parents, but these days i find myself thinking about just ending it all. i wouldn’t actually do it, i’m too scared to, but sometimes it feels like that’s the only way out, the only solution. i feel so wrong, like everything about me is wrong, and i can’t find it in myself to believe i’m worth living. i need to know if it gets better. i’m 20 years old and have spent the vast majority of my teenage years in therapy. i can’t stop feeling like i need to confess everything, especially to my girlfriend. obviously i try to resist the urge to but the mental battles are exhausting. every time something is even slightly wrong, i feel like i can’t i breathe. whenever i’m trying to distract myself, whenever i’m busy, all i can think about is everything i’m doing wrong. how can i possibly live life to the fullest if this is how i am?

My therapy has really helped. But… I am still finding new ways to make myself feel horrible. It’s like there is a little part of my mind that is afraid to let go. I ask myself why this is and I am still looking for the answer. I fear that this is just my burden in life. I wish my wife had saved herself for me. Now I just worry and compare myself to ghosts. It’s pathetic and frustrating. It is soul crushing because I let it be. I wish I could crush it instead. I’m sorry if this is discouraging, I just needed to vent.

My girlfriend and I have been together for 3 years. She’s currently out of town visiting family and friends. Everything was fine until she told me she went on Tinder. About a week after she left, I told her I’d been feeling anxious and having intrusive thoughts about her cheating (something i have been feeling for a while). Two days later, she admitted she’d gone on Tinder “out of curiosity” because her friends were talking about how bad the dating scene is where she’s visiting. I might have been able to accept that if she’d just browsed out of curiosity — but she actually messaged an old match. That really bothers me. If she was only curious about what Tinder is like in that area, why reach out to someone? I trie to push her to tell me the truth but she either says « no i promise you i didn’t do anything wrong » or she starts pointing out stuff i did. I’m i crazy or is this behaviour of someone lying? I’m trying to figure out how to feel about this and would really appreciate any advice or if anyone’s been in a similar situation. Does this seem like an innocent mistake or a red flag?

Hello. I joined this app because I realised my experiences might be due to OCD. I often have these really disgusting and terrible pictures of me becoming someone horrible, doing horrible things to others. These ideas really disturb me, and often in my mind, and physically sometimes, I literally scream quitely to myself, "Shut up!" Over and over until the image goes away, but unless I distract myself with something else immediately after, it comes back and gets worse. I also end up looking back on these thoughts, and being terrified that maybe I am thinking of this because it is what I truly want, so I end up desperately trying to filter my thoughts, and this ends up carrying into something like SO-OCD, even though I am confident that I am a straight male, and there is no evidence that I am not, I keep trying to prove to myself that I am straight to make the thought go away. I also get the fear that after I maybe do something and say something I know I maybe shouldn't have to someone, that when they leave, or I can't find them for a bit, they have gone to commit suicide. Likewise, I also get intrusive thoughts of me killing myself, even though I have no desire to, and this scares me a lot as well. I used to occasionally get these thoughts in chunks like maybe for 2 weeks and then I wouldn't for another few weeks, but they have gotten worse and more frequent this past semester. They are still not bad enough to actively effect my daily life and routine, but they definitely come frequently enough to distract me, disrupt what I'm doing and make me take a break, and it has dramatically effected my mood and mental state lately. Do you guys recommend any ways to deal with this, is this really severe enough to even call OCD? Would love to hear, thanks! ❤️

Has anyone had horrific experiences with seeing a psychiatrist? This past week I had my initial appointment with a new psychiatrist. When we approached the topic of my prior OCD diagnosis, she asked me what it looks like. I told her all about my ROCD and harm OCD. At the end when we went over what she was diagnosing me with, she said that all of the OCD examples I gave her but one just sounded like generalized anxiety. The one she agreed on she said was “classic OCD behavior”. I talked the whole interaction over with my therapist and we approached the situation of if I should switch or if I could use this opportunity to push this psychiatrist to learn more about OCD and that compulsions aren’t just strictly external. After some deep thought I came to the conclusion that if I can help advocate for myself and potentially help someone not experience the same dismissal it would be worth it. Has anyone else had a situation where they felt dismissed or not seen by a psychiatrist? Did you stay with that provider and advocate for yourself? I would love to hear others experiences and any advice you may have when advocating for myself. PS I don’t believe her bc she didn’t do any sort of assessment on me and just made that assumption based off “what my OCD looks like”.

How do people with ROCD deal with the guilt? I recently started ERP but feel so guilty sometimes when I talk to him or think about him knowing I’m stuck dealing with these thoughts. It hurts me so bad because I love him more than anything in the world but my OCD keeps trying to make me think of leaving him or hurting him.

I haven’t posted here in a while but I just wanted to ask a question. While having ocd is it normal to have days when you don’t feel like talking to anyone even if you wanted to? I have felt this for a while and I can’t figure out why do I feel like that. Usually I’m a very talkative person and even when I don’t feel like talking to anyone I always talk to my boyfriend but now even talking to him feels like a burden and I just don’t understand why. This situation has also made my intrusive thoughts even worse:( Idk what to do and what to feel like, I’m feeling kind of empty and emotionless. I was diagnosed with ocd some months ago so I’m kind of new to all this stuff and that’s why I’m asking. I don’t want to ask questions in a compulsive way and I try very hard to avoid it if that makes any sense. I would be very grateful if someone could answer me:)

I flirted back to my friends bf one time. Maybe this is a confession. The thing is I dont judge myself, but I do feel judged by them. OCD got its grips in me this week. Convinced im the worst person in the world for these crimes. Can't read any of the messages she sent me after calling so many times. He is messaging me too and I cant read it. Its been a week. I dont know what to do. She has his Instagram and phone and was calling me from his phone and his ig too. Part of me wants to block them all to stop the harassment, part of me wants to defend myself, part of me wants to tell her the truth that I dont gaf about him and he was coming onto me not the other way around. But she would never believe it anyway.

agh .. okay .. i’m so so embarrassed to post this, i’m literally crying .. but i need some help and advice. or maybe just a place to vent. i don’t know yet. so .. i was hanging out with three of my cousins today, and a few friends. one of my cousins was driving us around, and it was a pretty long drive, and we all just chatted, had fun, you know, normal teenager shit. but i couldn’t help but shift my focus onto certain things about my cousin driving — “wow, he’s going so fast, he’s so cool,” “i like the way his hands are gripping the wheel. wow his hands. hands hands hands” “his happy trail looks nice” (we went swimming) “i feel jealous of his girlfriend” and all sorts of things. i just feel. so awful. i don’t want these thoughts at all, and i feel just horrible. my ocd mixed with hypersexuality from trauma is just not helping at all, and i just want to get rid of these thoughts. i feel so disgusted with myself, and i’m scared that even though intrusive thoughts are normal, maybe mine are too far and i’m just “unfixable” or “broken.” any advice on what i could do? :( edit: i would like to add that we’re not even blood cousins, since we’re “related” through my step dad, which makes these thoughts worse and makes my head go, “oh, well, it’s okay!!” aghh. so frustrating :(

No need to dig into your subtype if you aren't comfortable with it! I noticed I could have a disorder when I was listening the Jurassic Park audiobook and my brain just went like "WHAT IF YOU CHEATED ON YOUR PARTNER AND YOU DIDN'T KNOW" out of the blue and I was girl wtf 😭 I tried to brush it off and ignore it but we all know that didn't work and without noticing I would still thinking on it

Hi, I was talking to my boyfriend and he went something along the lines of "I don't want to raise a child here in our country" which is understandable. We're in our twenties and don't expect to adopt for at least other 10 years, but that triggered me so much, my first response was "But what if I want to raise our child here?" because I really don't feel like moving right now and I want to stay close to my family. I told him and he, of course, went like "I mean we'll discuss about it when it's time??" but I feel like I want all the answers NOW. It's not just this, every time I am unsure about something that will happen in our future I get so triggered... is this OCD or a genuine concern? I am so confused and I don't wanna bring it up till I'm sure of its nature.

Hi guys! I’ve been suffering with ROCD pretty severely recently. I can already feel ERP working and the thoughts making me far less anxious, but am experiencing a lot of anxiety about my OCD never going away, being sad forever and my OCD coming back. Does anyone have anything that helps them with this anxiety? I was prescribed Prozac but am so nervous about taking it.

Can hocd create mental feelings or things that resemble inclinations Without a physical response?, but such as arousal and mental attraction, for example, I have so ocd and I'm afraid that I might like women.So, in the last period, when I look at photos of girls, especially beautiful ones, I feel something strange or attracted,sometimes their bodies.And I'm confused as to what that might mean, it's like sexual orientation, is this from me or OCD produced by it?'The feeling is like the feeling of discovering new inclinations and this breaks me, I just want to reconcile with myself in any sexual orientation or identity, but I just can't feel comfortable and reconcile with the fact that I may like women or it may happen in the future.And I have these feelings that telling me messing around the girls would be fun, and I feel something like desire, but I never come to terms with this.. I'm going to be 15 years old, I know, I'm not supposed to think like that, I don't have the right to determine who I am now because im young, and I shouldn't continue to dream of marrying a man..My mind keeps reminding me of the fact that I'm a teenager and the likelihood that everything will change is high, but right now, I'm not asking for anything but rest.I want to love myself and reconcile with her.

My arousal levels are just nothing they use to be I love my girl so much but I’m worried I turned gay and gonna have to leave her I don’t know what to do but I feel like she’s gonna notice my lack of arousal and question. I feel like I’m just gonna have to leave her until I get this sorted