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the NOCD Community

Do y’all ever forget basic needs sometimes? I have been going through a phase where I don’t drink water all day until night time and I drink so much that I hold my pee throughout the night until morning. I notice sometimes I even hold my breathe and get light headed or a headache and think something is medically wrong with me 😭or is this my ocd?

I’ve been struggling with this for the part year and it’s been horrible I hate my life and I feel like nothing works , please help or feel free to share tips or your own story

recently i have had a huge problem with picking my skin so it's smooth. i was up all night last night picking my skin and everytime i tried to stop i felt extremely uncomfortable and nauseous. i cut my nails to like nothing and bandaged my problem spots but im still picking at my skin. i simply don't have enough bandages to cover my whole body lmao. i would love some advice on how y'all deal with that.

I feel like I wanna throw up I feel shivers It feels like you’re going to be sick I can’t sleep at all I stayed up all night because of this (not the first time) I physically feel sick

I wanna talk about psychosomatic symptoms. How powerful are they for you? Because sometimes symptoms start for me before I even know it’s linked to a disease—but then I Google it and it intensifies. I kind of wanna hear about the power of y’all’s psychosomatic symptoms bc I think it may make me feel better.

recently i’ve been really struggling with agoraphobia. i’ve never really struggled with it before and it’s awful. one of my favorite things ever is going to concerts. i haven’t been to one in a few months and i have a few coming up but instead of being happy about them i’m more anxious than anything. back in may i had the stomach bug and got sick in public (i have terrible emetophobia) and ever since then my anxiety has been AWFUL. every time i’m in public (stores, restaurants, etc) all i can think about it what to do if i start feeling sick or if i’m going have a panic attack. it’s been hell. some days are better than others but it’s greatly affecting my day to day life. and i don’t want to let it take away from one of my favorite things to do. does anyone have any tips? thank you :)

Anyone else start to feel stomach pain/a churning in their stomach when their OCD starts worsening a bit? (TMI) sometimes it even causes the worst gas pain. I’m so sick of it. Not only am I aware of the thoughts but then I’ve also got physical symptoms to deal with too.

I’m tired guys. I’m tired of thinking something is always wrong with my health, tired of letting random symptoms/ sensations take over my brain and make me think something is horribly wrong. Tired of thinking I need to go to the doctors to get X & Y looked at. I’m tired of always assuming worst case scenario. I’m tired of constantly thinking if something is unethical/ immoral if I don’t do something, tired of always thinking I’m offending a religious higher being, tired of thinking I’m a bad/ disgusting person for my thoughts. I’ve had OCD ruin so many things for me that should have been fun. It’s ruined intercourse/ intimacy because of religious thoughts, or I keep thinking about STDs/ infections. I’ve been having panic attacks lately, something I’ve never experienced, because of life changes and it’s all gotten in the way of my structured life and it’s been very uncomfortable. Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m in danger, or nothing is real. Right now I’m fearing the most that I’m losing my mind, who I am, and I’m just so scared of my mental health getting worse and going manic or developing a dangerous mental illness. My mental health has NEVER been this bad. This is all new and it’s so scary. I was just fine a few months ago, sure I was dealing with other OCD stuff, the intrusive thoughts, the fears, the repetitive actions just to make sure something is the way I want it/ brings me comfort. But ever since my structure was changed/ ruined, it’s all been downhill. I just finished an EMT program, and that messed with me. Saw/ experienced things I’ve never done before and man, it’s really messed with me. Working on getting a new job in healthcare but still don’t have insurance so getting a new OCD specialized therapist has been difficult. Can someone relate just so I don’t feel like I’m crazy?..

Does anyone struggle with their breathing, I have been obsessing over it for a couple days now and every time I breathe I feel like I am not taking in enough air and when I try to take deep breaths it makes me panic even more because I feel like I can’t take one. It’s scaring me because it makes me obsess about my health and my heart , like maybe I’m breathing this way because of a heart condition that’s undiagnosed. It makes me feel so winded and I get scared to do anything that could possibly make me out of breath. It happens after the smallest of things too which is why my brain goes straight to heart condition. Does anyone have any advice?

Hello, does anyone else have health anxiety/OCD with physical symptoms? I have had depression and OCD since my sister passed away when I was 16 YO. It has been on and off with flare ups here and there. The last 18 months I have had a lot of trauma in my life and started developing anxiety. With all this trauma developed physical symptoms of tingling in limbs, an increased startle reflex, muscle twitching, brain fog, tremors in hands and neck. I have had a brain MRI and countless other tests and the doctors said its all from stress but I am worried they could be missing something. My compulsions are to have symptoms and then google them and then what I see on the internet really worries me and its an ongoing cycle. Has anyone else experienced this? The Drs think I have a disregulated nervous system from trauma and repeated stress. Can anyone relate?

I’ve had OCD since I can remember. I don’t know if there’s an argument about being born with OCD vs developing it. I can assure you, I was born with it. Some of my earliest memories are checking my mom’s tires after we had a flat, and worrying that I had ingested a harmful chemical. My first big manifestation was when my mom bought toilet bowl fresheners when I was about 5 that had the California cancer warning. I had a baby brother and I was obsessed with thinking he would eat them, get cancer, and die. I remember the anguish. I remember the not being able to sleep. It got so bad, and I was so worried, my mom threw them away and never got them again. I still shudder when I see that kind in the store. I also started, around the same time, checking if everyone was breathing. My mom, my dad, my brother, my grandma when I stayed with her. One night, I kept her awake all night because any time she went to sleep I was afraid she would stop breathing and die. On into my youth and adolescence, I began to experience panic attacks that came with episodes of derealization. I didn’t learn until later, in my 20s, that derealization was a form of OCD. My parents finally sought treatment for the panic attacks, but only from my pediatrician. I was put on medication at an early age. I don’t think therapy was even discussed. This was the late 90s and early 2000s. Most of the OCD themes in my adolescence were health or socially focused. I stopped always going to my mom for reassurance, and dealt with a lot of themes on my own. Things my family to this day still doesn’t know about. Nuclear war fears, HIV when I learned about it in school, fear I would curse while singing in church. All themes I dealt with on my own until they “ran out of steam”. The internet wasn’t what it is now. I didn’t even think of Googling what was going on. I thought it was something only I dealt with. A lot of times I was ashamed to tell my mom unless the anxiety got so bad and I had to. I felt like the things I “worried” about were embarrassing. I wasn’t told that (my mom was and still is so supportive) but I just compulsively felt it. In my early 20s, I had a panic attack that led to agoraphobia and being homebound, due to months of derealization. I quit college and my part time job. I was hopeless. This is where I first discovered Google and entertained the possibility of OCD. But because my family was low income at the time, and also treatment for OCD is nonexistent in my area, I visited my primary doctor for medication and rode it out at home. I coped by my wonderful now ex-boyfriend and my mom easing me back into life little by little. Slowly I was able to get a job again and even go back to school. Sadly, my troubles weren’t over. I had multiple episodes over various themes. Some getting me back into agoraphobic states for shorter periods. Some coming with derealization and some without. Most notably, relationship OCD with my boyfriend at the time and my mom (do I love them enough?), religious OCD (unforgivable sin due to deconstructing Baptist faith from childhood), somatic, and schizophrenia. I remember being in complete agony on a beach trip with my boyfriend because I couldn’t stop noticing my blinking. I faked it through the best I could, but I was a nervous wreck. This whole time, I still hadn’t been to therapy, because I was too afraid to tell anyone what I was experience due to how weird it was. Fast forward, the boyfriend leaves me. I have a breakdown the following fall, mostly derealization and some harm OCD for the first time, that I check myself into a crisis unit. I went to therapy for the first time there, and got set up with my local community mental health center. They were kind to me, but knew nothing about OCD. Wouldn’t even diagnose me. Meds were changed and I was diagnosed with anxiety. Another fast forward to 2018, I was dealing with another breakup and had a bad episode that resulted in me going to the ER. I was treated very poorly there. After that, I went back to the community mental health center (I had stopped as it wasn’t helping) and began taking medication seriously. The therapist still didn’t know anything about OCD, but I stayed consistent and tried to just talk to her about my issues. I also watched OCD content on YouTube at home and decided I’d self treat that part and go to therapy for support. Finally, in summer of 2019, I decided to private pay for therapy. I found a great therapist who was trauma focused. But, we connected and I trusted her. She really did help me a lot because I did have some trauma. This leads us to today. With 5 years of trauma therapy, and also a med combo that works for me (she referred me to a good psych NP), I am functional, haven’t had derealization longer than a normal panic attack (and that’s extremely rare) in 5 years. I learned coping skills and DBT which I do think have helped me in some aspects. I also did EMDR for my traumas. I genuinely don’t regret it. However, I’m outgrowing her. She does know I have OCD but isn’t well trained. She thinks it’s all due to trauma (I don’t have all that much) and I think I was born with it. I feel my trauma is resolved and I’m still not getting the relief I need. I have found myself at NOCD to connect with my next therapist and move away from my beloved trauma therapist. It’s just time. With my traumas resolved and in a place where I am functional, I see more nonjudgmentally how OCD is ingrained in my habits and everyday brain function, and is contributing to my baseline level of anxiety. It’s time to conquer the final boss. If you read this far, thank you, and I hope to be a help to you on your journey as well.

I had an intense discomfort in my upper abdomen/lower chest (couldn’t really tell) for most of the day, and I have spent hours thinking I’m going to have a heart attack (despite being a decently healthy 18 yo) because of my moderate maybe chest pain combined with back/neck soreness and a headache (which I think was caused by the stress). I took some antiacids + neutralizers and the pain mostly went away, but everytime my head hurts or I breathe in too deep and feel a crook in my chest I immediately jump to heart attack. I’m scared to fall asleep because I think I’ll die in my sleep. I might go waste money at urgent care just because I need to hear from a professional that it’ll be okay. This similar feeling happened 3 weeks when I thought I had a brain aneurysm, I feel so scared

I’m having major health ocd right now. I’m on vacation and since the day we left I’ve been having heart palpitations. It’s getting to the point that I’m afraid my heart is gonna stop beating or something. Or that I’m like gonna go into cardiac arrest. I’ve had heart palpitations before but I feel like these are happening more often. I have had major anxiety leading up to this vacation anyways… but now the palpitations have made me absolutely miserable and I just want to go home and go to the ER (I go to the ER often). Anybody else get heart palpitations frequently? And I’m also like hyper aware of my heart beat in general Feels like it’s beating so hard.

I keep a digital journal, and this is one of my entries. Does anyone relate to this? I’d like to know your thoughts. 🩷 “A video on Instagram heavily triggered my OCD today, and honestly my instinct was to skip it which I did initially, but then I thought “You know what? No. I need do an exposure.” So, I went back, and I rewatched it, and I sat with the (horrible) feelings that came along with watching this video. It has been really hard for me to sit with anxiety, guilt, and uncertainty. My heart rate has been extra high today, which has been frustrating and annoying because I have POTS so my heart rate is already chronically high majority of the time, and it being high due to anxiety when I’m laying down and trying to relax too is just frustrating. I’m very tired today, but also very anxious, so I feel like I haven’t been able to unwind enough to sleep. I laid down for a few hours but probably only stayed asleep for one hour total. My OCD is also making me feel as though I not only deserve the physical symptoms of my mental disorder(s), but that I also deserve to suffer with chronic health issues too. I have realized this is how I subconsciously deal with my physical health issues, mentally. I tell myself it’s okay because I deserve to bear these physical burdens and I deserve this suffering. All in all, today has been rough. But I’m surviving.”

Having OCD gives me so much shame because how of my compulsions affect those closest to me. I constantly update my parents and my boyfriend on my health while throwing in my worries and telling them how afraid I am. They are exhausted. I worry that one day if I really do have a medical emergency I won’t be taken seriously because of my history of health anxiety over problems that are not really emergencies. This causes more OCD with whatever symptom I’m experiencing in the moment like- “this is it. What if this is the one time I really need help and they won’t believe me?” And then I freak out about people not believing me or taking me seriously. I feel like such a burden and I feel like I ruined my reputation with my parents and my boyfriend. There’s no going back from how they see me when my OCD is at its worst. It’s so frustrating that I’ve done this to myself. I feel so ashamed and broken.

Hi everyone ! I have been diagnosed with pure, somatic and harm OCD since last year as well as dermatillomania. Oh ! And to top it off I have diagnosed ADHD as well. I wanted to just come on here and share some experience that I’ve had. I’m 23 years old and ever since I was a child I have memories of my dermatillomania as a way to cope with my anxiety. I have struggled with my mental health since being a child, my undiagnosed ADHD made me very self aware that I wasn’t “fast enough”, “smart enough”, or “cool enough”. My psychiatrist even says that this undiagnosed ADHD until my 20s probably exacerbated my ocd as a way to compensate. Now I still rely on my parents as they help me out while I finish my studies. One parent is very religious and believes that “disease does not exist” (only a projection in peoples minds), and is very against meds and my other parent seems to always want to change the subject and has refused to come into therapy with me to meet my doctors and understand what I live through. My religious parent, I refuse to tell them I am on medication and I know that they will disapprove and try to gaslight me into believing something that will “make it all go away”. So I’ve given up. My other parent although they appear to pay attention always changes the subject and makes me feel invalid, and no matter how many times I try to explain I feel like I am talking to a wall. I just feel sad because.. well you would want your parents to want to understand and help you. In my case I am fortunate that financially they back me but I feel like I need to be a different person around them, and when it comes to my mental health I have no support. I look at mostly white families (not all) online and they seem to want to understand and be a part of a healing process, or at least believe that OCD is a valid diagnosis. I just want to ask if any of you have had unsupportive family members, have felt alone on your journey, and if it’s okay to never really let go of that hope that one day they may understand you. And honestly advice is great but just knowing I’m not alone in this will already comfort me, knowing that we are all in this together.

Hello all, I was hoping to get some advice. I am recovering from surgery and I suffer from health/somatic OCD so it's very difficult to not think every ache and pain is something dangerous and life-threatening. I was hoping I could get some advice about how to deal with intrusive thoughts triggered by bodily pain as I heal. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Hi, I’m new here. I’ve been dealing with OCD since I was 9 or 10 but only got diagnosed at 19, and started actual treatment a few weeks ago. I’m 21 now. I have severe emetophobia that fuels my health ocd and my intrusive thoughts have been so bad lately that I can hardly eat or leave my house. I don’t go anywhere except my bedroom and work. I even get anxious thinking about going to my living room. I started ERP with a new therapist, and I want to get better, but the therapy is so scary and overwhelming. I’ve lived this way for so long that confronting my fears feels impossible and I’m so scared to do it. I do everything I can to avoid anxiety attacks. I feel so unsafe in my own body because of the way I can’t stop fixating on certain actions and sensations. Does anyone who’s gone through something similar have any advice, or encouragement? I’m doing my best, but I don’t know anyone else with my ocd themes. Thanks y’all <3

My life is falling apart. I've been dealing with a really bad OCD flare up for over a month now and it's been really bad. I'm absolutely terrified of rabies and schizophrenia. But honestly absolutely any random "symptom" I notice scares me. Like rn I have a runny nose and I've just convinced myself it's my spinal fluid and that I'm gonna die and I'm freaking out. Also I've been dealing with personal issues. My two best friends one of which I was/am in love with completely abandoned me. Another toxic person is trying to come back to my life. I feel so lost. I'm so anxious, so terrified, so exhausted. Why can't something good happen for once? I just want to feel okay. I hate thinking I'm dying all day every day:(

I’m wondering if anyone has tips for practicing self love. I feel like I’ve hit a wall because of my ocd, where I’m upset because I was born with a brain that doesn’t allow me to trust myself, and even though my traumas and trials weren’t my fault, it’s still entirely my responsibility to fix the damage that’s been done, a task made extremely difficult because of ocd. I have to trust myself to put in the work to be better, I’ve made so much progress too, but it’s not enough, and it’s not coming fast enough. For example, I have a skin picking problem. I keep making progress and then stress or other factored cause me to relapse. I stare at myself in the mirror and ask myself why I can’t just be normal, why I can’t just stop, leave it alone and let my skin heal. I hate myself for struggling with this, but the more I shit in myself the worse my condition becomes. I want to practice self love, I want to learn to trust myself, but I have no idea where to start. I don’t want to feed into the ocd by googling possible solutions and whatnot, I figured asking members of the community would be a safer choice. If you have any tips to share please do, thanks 💪