Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Has anyone ever had an accepting response when telling a partner? I don’t feel like I can be honest because I’m afraid they’ll leave me for being a monster or just never see me the same

Any success stories with ROCD and ERP? Would love some encouragement❤️

Hi all. I'm not sure who will see this or what will come of it, but I am just so tired. I'm someone who struggles with too many things and keeps myself in continuous distress for god knows what reason. I've convinced myself that the distress fuels me, but I know it's tearing me down. While I don't particularly enjoy my normal ocd symptoms of worry, doubt, failure, and needing balance, my relationship ocd has been much worse. For me, my rocd takes on the form of friendships, not partnerships. My one friend has been my rock for nearly 2 years and it's been a great friendship until someone else showed up. In my head, there's not enough room for both of us and I'm convinced my friend will realize this new person is better than me and I will just end up thrown aside. I've talked about it with my friend and she understands where I'm coming from and why I feel threatened, but that she feels this new person as an addition. I don't have any negative thoughts about her close friends before me because we are all separated, but this new one and I are in the same area (in grad school) which feels like a direct threat. I've told her I don't want to talk about this new person and what I need out of our friendship. She's fine at reassuring me when I bring it up to her, but I'm afraid I'm going to drive her away. I can hardly talk to her or look at her right now because I feel like I'm going to scream every time I hear this new person's name or know that they're together. And she hasn't said anything, but I know she has been taking her space recently. I hate feeling this way and I hate how much space in my mind this is taking up, but I care for her and our friendship so much and feel that I am at a loss and don't know what to do.

Please

*not really writing this for advice or anything just venting and seeing who can relate* Hi everyone. I am someone who has both borderline personality and ocd. As you can imagine these things do not really interact super well with each other. I have been really self aware when it comes to my bpd for the last few years, which is so important. self awareness is so key to healing and living with bpd. Especially when it comes to splitting in my relationship/towards my long time partner. I have suffered from ocd since I was young, my earliest intrusive thought being in elementary school. It didn’t get bad though until high school, when I had an intrusive thought towards my nephew at the time and proceeded to spiral about it for 8 years. Now I know that was ocd, and I am not a bad person. Just providing this for context. Currently, I don’t struggle from pocd anymore and I am so glad because that (in my experience) was the worst subtype I dealt with. Now I have awful sexuality ocd and rocd, along with borderline! I am bisexual, but my attraction towards men is small and particular. I am just picky due to severe sexual trauma and life trauma in general with men, and I think a lot of people can understand that. However I have been with my partner (a man) for the last few years and he is unlike any man I’ve met before. I feel so safe around him. I came out as trans masc to him when he’s only been with woman before and he was so extremely supportive, and has been continuously supportive since. I have never had a bad day around this man. We own a car together, live alone together, have a fur baby, it’s so great! I am very happy, but ROCD is so whack and hits at the worst times. Sexuality ocd has been bothering me too as I am someone who consumes a lot of queer content. Sometimes if it’s lesbian-specific content my brain goes “if you enjoy this more than anything else you don’t love ur bf!!” Like what? (I have watched the movie Bottoms like 5 times, iykyk) Obviously these things aren’t linked, but ocd tells me they are. For context I was a lesbian for basically my entire teenage years up until 18 when I met the only other guy I’ve been romantically involved with besides my bf, so sexuality has always been iffy for me. Now for the ROCD, splitting whenever I’m upset towards my bf over minor things has been mostly manageable, but my sexuality ocd turned into rocd and it’s been rough lately. When I’m upset I question how much I value him / our relationship, I question if I love him, “would a woman do this to me?” (yes I’ve been in abusive relationships with woman lol), etc and it’s so awful. I am able to identify that it’s ocd though. Especially when I go “what if this isn’t ocd and I actually feel this way?” ITS OCD. My therapist always reminds me that ocd attacks what I care about the most, and that if I didn’t care about him I wouldn’t feel this way. She’s right and that is key to getting me to calm down when my anxiety really spikes because of ocd. It’s just hard. I think if I was living with just ocd it would be a little easier. Not that ocd is easy at all, but never knowing how to gauge my anger/emotions as someone with borderline is so hard. After it’s over I can realize what went wrong, and I can be self aware, but in the moment it can be so hard. I love my boyfriend, he is someone i If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be bothered. I am okay with the uncertainty of intrusive thoughts, I know that’s the common goal of erp/therapy for ocd, I just struggle with living this way. It feels so unfair to myself and my partner, but it comes and goes in waves for me. Hopefully this big wave will be over soon. Let me know if you relate in the comments. 🫶🏻

My fiancé and I are getting married in just 42 days and my ROCD hasn’t spiked this hard in a long time. So many triggers, so much stress around planning makes it difficult not to fall into back on compulsions. I’m trying hard not to confess exact thoughts here nor am I looking for any reassurance. Just needed somewhere to put down that this is damn hard!!

I saw a video that said “he’s not playing hard to get, you’re playing hard to get rid of” and now I’m sat here thinking I’m being a burden to a guy and how I’ve been wanting to leave for weeks now but need the closure to make that step, and how im probably pissing him off and he probably hates me and I’ve ruined any chance of “right perosn wrong time” happening and how we’ll never ever be together ever again is my fault and I’m not in a massive fucking depressive episode wanting to just stop thinking

I don’t like who I am, I don’t like being a nervous obsessive wreck all the time. Breakups happen and this has destroyed me, this isn’t normal, this level of I can’t move on isn’t normal. Not only that but I feel vile in myself, who I am I hate it. I don’t wanna feel like this

How normal is it to want to fix a relationship, even thought the guy says he can’t meet up because he’s busy you both still talk to one another every day and you try to move on but you’re just i love with him and you can’t see yourself with anyone else? So you try to get closure to move on by meeting up and I can’t see any other way. It’s been 4 weeks on Sunday that we stopped seeing one another and a day hasn’t gone by that I’m not in so much pain in my head shouting at myself that I’m a freak, that I’m crazy, that I drove him away and I’m starting to believe it’s true. I’m asking him every week when I feel he’s free if he can see me and he’s always feeling really bad that he can’t, but in my head he’s saying no because he really hates me. That he actually doesn’t want to see me. But he’s messaging me so it’s a confusing thought. I just rang a helpline because I’ve been feeling rotten about myself and they didn’t help so now I’m like what do I do what’s next I’m stuck

(sorry for the long post lol i'm just trying to make as much sense as possible) hi everyone, i'm not diagnosed OCD, but i recently came across some info about the ROCD theme, and a lot of the symptoms really resonated with me. in every relationship i've had so far, as the relationship progresses, i'm faced with unrelenting thoughts of "what if this person isn't actually right for me?", "we don't have xyz in common so we should probably break up", "they'd probably prefer to be with someone different than me", etc. and it makes relationships almost unbearable to stay in. my last partner broke up with me because i couldn't confidently say i was love with them. i never considered OCD, because i didn't have any noticeable compulsions, but then i learned rumination can be a compulsion, and i do that almost constantly. i may also have other compulsions that i just never considered unusual, i'm not sure. after looking into ROCD, i noticed a lot of other behaviors i've exhibited throughout my life could be attributed to OCD, like extreme perfectionism in all areas of my life, excessive googling of symptoms, and occasional phases of intense existential anxiety, among other things. i'm late diagnosed autistic, so i figured that was the cause behind all of this, but now i'm not so sure. also, i have tried CBT several times, but it has never been helpful for me. one therapist encouraged me to break up with my boyfriend when i was experiencing lots of uncertain intrusive thoughts, similar to ROCD, which was upsetting and didn't feel right. i say this because i know ERP, which i haven't tried, tends to be more effective for OCD specific therapy. i tend to fixate on mental disorders, trying to find an answer for what exactly is "wrong" with me, so that might be all that's happening now. but i just wanted to see if the community here thinks i have good reason to go get evaluated. i'm afraid that i will get dismissed by the psychiatrist, and still be lost, not understanding what's going on in my head or how to fix it. i guess i'm just here to see if anyone else thinks my symptoms are obvious enough for a diagnosis. please be nice to me lol i'm shaking writing this bc i know some people can be pretty mean when it comes to "self diagnosing" (which is not at all what i'm trying to do, i just need some guidance) thank you !!!

Ever since I was a teen I wondered what my purpose in life is. I constantly wonder when my next long term relationship would end and mentally prepare myself for it so I don’t feel as lost and to have my own closure. No one’s ever proud of me. I don’t understand complexity. I need constant reassurance. I need to check and double check and triple check everything I touch for 5 seconds, especially if I’m locking it. I need to check and be reassured that the dog is in the house. I need to know everything that’s going on, and if there’s a change in plans then count me out. If I park a car I have to pull on locked door handles and make sure the gear shift is in park. I constantly google to try and make sense of my mind and feel somewhat normal or fit in somewhere, but normal is a dream. When I shower I must wash my body and then my hair and then my body again or else I’m not clean because my hair would be dirty from my body or my body would be dirty from my hair, there’s no medium. I cry because I just want to be normal. I’m tired.. Thanks for reading.

God I wanna ask my (15f) sister if I’ve ever hurt her -so badly. I wanna know if I’ve ever m worded her… she still likes me though- is around me, likes my attention when we are alone and is not troubled by my presence at all. Sometimes she squabbles with me, says hurtful things but she’s a teenager first and foremost. (Also likely bullied :( which is my non ocd fear.) She’s my sister, I love her more than anything and she doesn’t even know it. I’d move mountains for her if I had to and when I found out she was being bullied I wanted to personally put the fear of god into those pathetic wimps. She was born so I wouldn’t grow up alone if anything happened to our parents. She was the best gift and if I ever hurt her that way I would unalive myself The reason this thought came up was that I had a memory where me and her were playing as kids. We hid under the covers (idk why or the context) and she said “like sex?” And I panicked, got out from under the covers so quickly and said “what?! No- no nothing like that.” Or something along those lines. (I was molested as a kid by my cousin so I knew what sex was way too early- I think I was mostly disturbed by her knowing too.) My ocd is trying to find meaning- to find some part of this memory to twist. I can feel it bubbling in the back of my head sometimes. Conjuring up stuff. I know asked for reassurance from her is the worst thing I could do. Not only cause it’ll worsen symptoms if just ocd- but also it could possibly traumatize my sister cause she doesn’t know I have ocd and wouldn’t understand intrusive thoughts. :( Sometimes I just wish she also had ocd that she didn’t tell me about and we could both just ride it out as a pair again. Instead of being separated by my mental illness.

My therapist says i have ocd but i have a hard time believing it ive never heard of my ocd themes before,my themes is not being loved and not being worthy and also that im not my own person i obsess over these but i have trouble think this is something thats considered ocd,is anyone going through the same experience?

I’ve been with my boyfriend for two years and now we’re talking about getting married. Except now my ocd is telling me that our differences in religion makes us not compatible. This hasn’t bothered me the entire time we’ve been dating and I’m so upset that it’s causing me to have doubts when I just want to be excited about getting engaged. I know religion can be a big deal in relationships but I feel like my ocd is convincing me this is a deal breaker. Does anyone have any advice?

Hi everyone, my anxiety level is at an all time high today so I am questioning everything. I was invited to a bonfire tonight with friends from school but I’m feeling so anxious, I’m talking myself out of going. It’s mostly because of one my friends will be there…we hung out last night and he always ends up treating me like shit. I need the companionship so I hang out with the same few guys and they don’t appreciate me as a friend. They know my issues and tease me about them, exclude me from stuff, and when we do hang out, I end up feeling worse by the time they leave. The bonfire is with a different group and I really should go to start hanging out with other people but since the one guy will be there, I feel stuck. I start obsessing about all the things he could say and do in front of others and it makes me want to stay in bed. Thanks for letting me vent.

I was on tiktok there was this video about a girl saying "I Always have obsessive crushes but Then when they like me back I realize I don't like Them, I just created an idea of Them in my mind" and I related and everyone in the comments were saying "this Is Just comphet", "I used to have crushes like this and I'm a lesbian", "She Will come out soon". I'm going Crazy.

I 25 Female have been dating my boyfriend 26 male for a little over a year and a half (around a year and nine months to be exact) I would call him my first serious boyfriend because I never saw a future with my other boyfriend in high school and didn't seriously date anyone in college. When we met sparks flew and I was insanely in love with him. ROCD started to hit me when the honeymoon phase started to wear off around 10 months into the relationship (Is that too soon for it to end lol?) I was suffering with SO-OCD for literally 3 years before but luckily it began to wear off and I'm having more confidence with my longstanding history and attraction to men without needing to know for sure if I'm also attracted to woman (yay!) It first started when I would be away from my boyfriend and felt kinda numb to him which concerned me. I've always be introverted as he has too and never felt the need to be around someone 24/7...I love my alone time. Then it moved on into me being concerned my boyfriend is motivated enough. He has a job he hates an in January wasn't cleaning up after himself enough and neglecting the gym. I can say though we had a talk where I heard him out and he has gotten a lot better. I would scour the internet listing to relationship anxiety and ROCD podcast that would first give me comfort but then I kept seeing "this does not apply to unhealthy relationships or abusive relationships" I began to worry if my relationship was truly healthy or not when I was so assured before that it was healthy. I'll list some ways below it is very healthy and compare it to some "unhealthy" aspects or flaws in my partner and myself. (Because trust me I do not think i'm perfect but I'm trying!) Healthy Aspects: Consistent communication: absolutely not ghosting or going MIA after disagreements and we frequently check up on each other during the day Loving: Compliments, touch, date nights are all included Disagreements/fights are healthy: No yelling (BTW I'm sure we will have a yelling fight one day as I think couples do and it's normal sometimes -just not for every fight) No name calling, no belittling, no throwing things, slamming doors. We talk in a normal tone and try to get to the bottom of our issues. Their may be disappointed tones but we are able to both admit when we are in the wrong and apologize Effort/Thoughtful: Buys me a coffee when he knows I've had a hard day, will order me lunch, takes interest in the things I like Caring: Really cares about my mental health and how I'm doing We share each others phone passwords and have each other's location: I've not once worried about him cheating or being sketchy behind my back so I've never gone through his phone or felt the need to Has never made any rude comments about my body or put down my appearance -whenever I feel insecure he will tell me I look beautiful Reassuring: Tells me I'm not annoying or crazy whenever I'm going through one of my spirals Will be there for me: If I needed him he would drop whats he's doing to make sure I'm ok..it's so funny If i even stub my toe he will say things like "can I take you to the hospital" which I find extremely cute lol Extremely patient with me: I left NYC for two weeks last year for my mental health as I was having a nervous breakdown (thank you HOCD) and he was so patient with me and even though I wasn't with him made sure I was okay and was rooting for me. Lets me do whatever I want - I can go out with friends without him being jealous, I can go on girls trips, see family etc... Extremely generous with gifts for not just me but also my family and friends and his friends Has long-term friendships (I heard this is a good sign) and is a well liked person. My parents and friends all like him Unhealthy Aspects: This is unhealthy on my side but when I'm drunk I will pick fights with him over the phone which has made him not that thrilled when I say I'm going out drinking with the girls. He will say stuff like "just don't bother me or try to pick a fight with me at 2:00 AM when I'm sleeping. I have also told him that Alcoholism runs in my family so he has addressed his concern with me there. He can sometime make insensitive jokes and they will annoy me but then he apologies after. He's just a bit too jokey sometimes even though one of the reasons I fell for him was his humor He has expressed discomfort with me wearing revealing outfits - This one bothers me the most as their has been times he wanted me to wear biker shorts under my dresses. I told him how I felt and he agreed I can wear whatever I want but worries about my safety since I do live in NYC. He's never gotten mad at me for wearing something. (is this controlling of him?) He gets moody and quiet whenever hes overstimulated (on a hot summer day or in a busy street or store -he hates crowded areas) this annoys me as it reminds me of my dad. I brought it up to him and he agreed it wasn't fair and since then has tried to be more pleasant whenever were somewhere that would typically stress him out (is this not fair though that I'm not letting him express these emotions) I have ADHD and he is very focused so sometimes he finds my clumsiness cute but he has gotten annoyed with me when I'm not watching where I'm going to dropping something Are these issues that can be worked on? I feel like this is a pretty healthy relationship with some flaws but what do you guys think. I feel my partners willingness to hear me out and resolve conflict is truly one of his best qualities but I begin to worry I'm brining up to many minor issues or issues we already resolved because of my ROCD. Do I even have ROCD? I spend all day worrying about my relationship to the point of exhaustion, replaying memories, yo-yoing between my partners "bad" qualities and their "good" qualities. I'm truly exhausted and believe this is a healthy relationship. But can't healthy relationships be on a spectrum where there is a balance between healthy and unhealthy. Why can my brain only focus on the "unhealthy" but ignore all the healthy things. I really want to stay with my partner I think this relationship is good for me but I can't take this mental suffering.

Not every emotion we have is important or say something, i struggle with this alot. Why should i accept an emotion that doesnt help me? If someone hurts me, and i get a feeling that the world is evil, and i feel depressed, its nothing good in that to accept feeling depressed that the world is evil cause this thought is even a lie, its a distortion. Its okay to acknowledge that someone hurted you, but why should i accept feeling depressed cause now i think life is bad. I dont understand this. Then if you try to change that and say no, not everyone is evil, this isnt true, now youre fighting with the thoughts so thats a compulsion. Then all you can do is actually accept the feeling being there, which frustrates me cause its based on a distortion. Not every emotion is useful. For exemple i saw a post on tiktok that roman males had the right in their time to sell, or execute their childrens and because i dont have a good relationship with my dad, i had a thought that he would sell us or kill us, and that made me feel so angry at my dad and depressed, but then i realized this is a huge distortion, my dad its not like that even that we dont get along, but instead of relief i felt like i pushed away the emotions, not numbness, but that feeling that i just pushed away all. But what shouldve i done? Feel the distorted feeling that i made up? Do you know that we have alot of thoughts and a day and letting all their emotion be there would be really tiring. This really bothers me, if i dont have to let myself be controlled by emotions then why i feel like im pushing away and i get worse when im just not letting them control my day, not letting them get fully in the surface to control how i view things

Hey everyone. People don’t post about this much so I thought I’d throw it out there. I have what I call staring ocd. Or visual tourettic ocd. I got concerned at one point about accidentally noticing someone’s breasts and then men’s private areas. And then purposely would try to make sure that didn’t happen. Of course that made it happen all the time. It’s bled into all kinds of things like so ocd , pocd, and being fixated on eye contact and even rocd, because why am I doing this? sigh. It’s tough. But I’m improving so much. Just throwing this out there in case anyone else experiences it :). And to hear your stories. Thanks!

Today is my birthday. A round number. I am alone with my 3 cats. One of them also has birthday today. I am waiting for my husband to come home from quite far away. I have been feeling anxious, worried, sad weeks before this birthday. I have been regretting thing from the past, all the years wasted on OCD and because of OCD. It is horrifying when you realize that half of your life is definitely over and you can barely remember years without OCD. I have been feeling so low that I was thinking of calling my psychiatrist and ask for help. I was scared I might do sth I don't really want to, but was devastated. I managed to get through pre birthday days. Now, I feel so terribly lonely. I have lost my family and relatives as a child because of OCD. Had to run away to save my life. I moved across the country almost two years ago. I have met some people. I got burnt every single times. I was a true friend to 3 women. One of them turned out to be either bipolar or a psycho. The second one with the biggest ego in the world. She would boss around and take advantage even of God him/herself. The third one I lost as a friend yesterday. I have known her for 8 months. I have been by her side through hell and back. She treated me as if I were worth less than all other people in her life. Yesterday I told her how bad she makes me feel, and she got angry and broke up our "friendship". I had often gotten into an argument with my husband over her. He saw through her immediately. He couldn't stand by and look how she manipulated with me. I don't know how to stand up for myself. When I do somehow, I get attacked and thrown away. So today I have been feeling so lonely I can't even describe how lonely. Instead of celebrating, I am alone, nobody except two old acquaintances from far away remembered it's my birthday. I feel worthless. I am driving myself nuts going through all that has ever happened to me over and over again. I still have a few hours till my husband arrives. I was hoping someone here could talk to me,say or post sth funny,... I would appreciate it. It would help me feel less lonely. I hope you are all well and are enjoying such a beautiful sunny day as it is here. I don't know what I would do without the NOCD community. You people here are life saviors. Love to you all guys. All the vest.