Welcome to
the NOCD Community

Everyone talks about the physical sensations that come with reacting to sexual content, even if it’s something you do not agree with (like bestiality, pedophilia, or incest). But what about the mental feeling, like when it feels like you liked the thought? I think I might have asked this before, but does anyone else relate? It stresses me out that I have a mental reaction to something of sexual content more than groinals. Anyone else?

I feel like I shouldn’t be with my partner anymore, but I have no clear reason why. I feel sad every single day, I have a constant heaviness in my chest, I cry often, and I start arguments with him. I can’t remember the good memories. Everything feels distant, fake, or tainted. I don’t know why I love him — and all my thoughts tell me that I never truly did, that I only wanted to feel something, and now I finally see the truth. The worst part is that it all feels so real. I feel lost. I feel numb. I feel guilty. I can’t feel love right now, but some part of me still wants to hold on, still wants help. I don’t want to make any decisions right now. I just want to know I’m not alone. Has anyone else gone through this?

Do you perhaps experience things like being so frustrated and numb because of how much your ocd drains you ? Then you are naturally caught up in a compulsion where you’re “physically testing” yourself to lets say something you watched years ago that is usually against your orientation?? If you know what I mean ? Even though you know you are (your own sexuality) and are in a very loving relationship and you really love your partner but does anyone experience this ?? And then they’re faced with more thoughts about how they’ve betrayed their partner and how their partner will leave and if you also struggle with scrupulosity ocd you feel like you’ve committed a huge sin and betrayed your faith ? Again I get all of this goes against values and that the human body may still react to things we naturally may be against but anyone still falls for the testing and then has this awful reaction afterwards? And does that really mean I betrayed my partner ?? Thank you so much for your time and I would really love your insights as this is something that popped up with me out of the blue …

I was at a house party a month ago and everyone was taking photos of silly moments. I took two photos that had an attractive person in them. I deleted the photos a few days later because I felt guilty and anxious that I had taken them. I keep ruminating and thinking about my intentions. I do believe I took them because they had an attractive person in them. I worry that this makes it count as cheating. I am very very open with my partner and I tend to constantly confess things like this to him. I have confessed so many things to him, and he always holds the same stance: he believes that fantasizing and crushing is okay. He said he has had his own crushes and he said “fantasizing is nice as long as it stays a fantasy.” I agreed. I told him about my crush and how anxious I was about it and how I was afraid that it was emotional cheating. He told me that it really doesn’t matter and that it’s only wrong if it’s physical cheating. I should note that I have taken VERY VERY good care to never even attempt to become friends with this person. I’ve seen them a handful of times at group gatherings but I never ever message them on my own, I ignore all their messages in a group chat because I don’t want to give them special attention, I never even speak to them in person unless they speak to me first. We are barely even friends. He said he doesn’t need to know what goes on in my head and as long as an action seems innocent to an outsider, it’s not cheating and he doesn’t need to know about it. One time I confessed an action where I also felt like my intentions were wrong, and he told me “Who cares about intentions? It’s outcome that matters.” My therapist also told me not to worry about these actions. He said that if I keep ruminating on whether an action is right or wrong, I should just try to sit with the discomfort and not confess. He told me that if an action were really wrong, I would KNOW it intuitively and “my body would push me to confess.” I’m just so worried sick about this. Do I confess or not?

I’ve been in this storm for over a year and a half now. It started with doubts like: “What if I don’t love him?” and slowly turned into: “You never did. You just loved the idea. You just wanted to feel something.” And now… it feels like that’s the truth. I feel disconnected, numb, and ashamed. I look back at our relationship — the good moments, the laughter, the affection — and instead of warmth, I feel doubt. I feel sick. I feel like I tricked myself. I keep thinking: “You never loved him, you just wanted to be loved.” “You were never in it for him — just the safety, the comfort, the idea of being in love.” We’ve been fighting more lately — mostly because of me. I feel like I’m cold, irritable, distant. I can’t connect. And that makes me believe, more and more, that this thought is right. That maybe I stayed because I wanted to feel, not because I truly felt something for him. But at the same time, I’m suffering. Crying. Panicking. Spiraling. If I truly didn’t love him — why does this hurt so much? It’s terrifying, because I don’t know if this is ROCD or a “truth” I’ve been avoiding. I just want peace. I just want to feel again — or at least stop punishing myself every day. Has anyone else gone through this exact thing? Feeling like the thought “I never loved him, just the idea” became your “truth”? Did it ever pass? How do you keep going when your mind turns love into guilt? Please tell me I’m not alone. 💔 This feels unbearable.

17f There is a chanse I will get prescribed medication but it's implied that I will go to therapy too. But therapy in my country is very shitty. I'm absolutely not comfortable talking about my POCD there. I have other ocd themes, like checking, symmetry, moral ocd, troubles reading because of ocd and some other themes, but they are not that severe and they don't make me sui🔪idal (please don't flag my post, you will make it worse). Like I can deal with them, but real even ocd and pocd are absolutely insane and I need help, but I know I won't get it there. I'm thinking of moving to another country in the future if I will make it. But to function and stay alive I need meds, cause a lot fo times its extremely bad. So idk is it possible to just be on meds with no therapy

17f So basically I went to a psychiatrist to get diagnosed cause I've been struggling with ocd since I was 4, I went through almost every theme and now my worst ones are real event ocd and POCD they made my life a living hell for the past 1.5 years, destroyed my life basically. I come in and my mother for some reason went with me even though I asked her not to. And the first thing the psychiatrist does is asks my mother "Do you have a full family or are you divorced and who is she living with?" Like the first question, and then spent 10 minutes talking to my mother, I couldn't say anything and my mother said enough of weird stuff because of which I wasn't gonna be taken seriously, I almost started crying then i said that I don't want to continue the visit and left. Idk maybe I'm dramatic but it's the second time therapist/psychiatrist asks random questions about my family like "are your parents alcoholics?" when I haven't even mentioned my parents (spme therapists i went to a year ago), and this time the first ever question was about my parents marriage situation? Like I wanted to talk about my ocd I had since I was 4 it has fucking nothing to do with my parents divorce so I just got nervous and left So I'm wondering like is this a normal first question to ask or is it weird...?

Hello!! I haven't been on here much because I have begun therapy with someone in network with my insurance thankfully, and its been really nice. Of course its still difficult, but having this support is life changing. I wanted to share a project I worked on after a session this week! The goal is to identify the Feared Possible Self (the core fear that most of your ocd fears stem from), and then remind myself of my core values, beliefs, what I care about most, my hobbies/interests, and more. AKA My Real Self. I'm really proud of this and wanted to share to encourage others to do the same! It can be so helpful to reconnect with yourself and remember that your ocd is not what defines you. 🫂 Everything was created in Canva using the premium free trial for anyone who wants to do the same :) (swipe through to see all images)

I’ve recovered from HOCD before and got my attraction and my usual actual identity back. I was recovered from end 2022- start 2025 until I got triggered UGHHH😭 My HOCD is REALLY trying to convince me and it’s SO annoying cause I genuinely don’t want these thoughts. I know I naturally like men and always have done so. I can’t wait for my first therapy session in two days Omg! I need your advice, not necessarily reassurance, but more advice? My HOCD is throwing random “proof” I did/ saw as a child in my face, which back then had no meaning in my life and I continued to live a perfectly heterosexual life. I’ve educated myself about arousal non concordance / child’s play, but it still doesn’t remove the HOCD. I’ve read therapists great explanations on how it’s not a sexuality issue, BUT ITS AN OCD BRAIN ISSUE. So basically I’ve been straight and i will die as straight. But my ocd is still continuing with the intrusive thoughts/flashbacks. I’ve had some moments where I haven’t done as many compulsions and had less anxiety but still had those damn thoughts and I DO NOT want those damn thoughts. I have so much proof and factual/logical explanations but HOCD is still continuing to thrive. I absolutely hate this and I feel so alone. I wish there was a reset button cause I don’t want these thoughts to happen. I want a man and I stand by that. How do y’all deal with these situations? Cause sitting with the thoughts is clearly not helping.

With real event OCD, I don’t know if any of you feel this way, but do you ever feel that the past event(s) that you ruminate about or constantly obsess about are gonna come up in your future and just absolutely ruin you, that’s how I’ve been feeling for months, it just feels like impending doom, and I hate having to even think that my future would be ruined by what I did as a teenager, and I did some dumb things, that I regret so deeply, I just can’t stop thinking about that.

So this article here it seems this doctor (/therapist or whatever) believes that a core fear is always a form of emotional suffering but I feel like I don’t really relate to that, maybe I do without noticing (I am not officially diagnosed) but can a core fear be something not emotional suffering? Or is this doctor/therapist/etc just talking based off of his experience so I shouldn’t worry about it..?

I’m so tired. I’m so tired. I’ve lost so much weight due to this mental illness. I sleep 18 hours a day to escape these thoughts. I grieve my old self so much. I miss crushing on men, I miss loving men, I miss dressing up nice and get compliments from men, I miss listening to music and daydream about my dream man. I miss wanting to get married and have my own kids with my dream husband. All of those things… I’ve desired them so much and I’ve daydreamed about them so much. My OCD is telling me that it’s all fake. I miss my old desire and love for men. I’m so tired of being alive. I’m so tired of seeing multiple posts where people who apparently suffered from SOOCD became their fears. I’m so tired. Cause y’all probably didn’t even have ocd in the first place idc. I will say it again, has it been someone with pocd or harm ocd and their obsessions/fears became true NONE of y’all would’ve had the same reaction. Stop normalizing soocd obsessions becoming true. It is someone’s worst nightmare. People are out here attempting because of it.

I have so many pocd real events, and false memories that im so tortured by mere existence of life... I genuinely have no one who can comfort me... because giving people reassurance is... unhealthy... and even then my false memory situations cant even be reassured because i dont know if its true or not... im so alone...

Ok, so first of all, I’m undiagnosed. However, I’ve been pretty certain for a while now that what I’ve been struggling with is OCD. My problem though is that it’s not easy to get diagnosed, and in some cases, it would require me to pay money. It frustrates me that I have to pay to deal with my mental health. Is it worth it for me to get diagnosed? I know I don’t need a diagnosis to start healing and working on these things, but I also don’t want to be “self diagnosing” the problem, because that makes me feel like a liar and an imposter. My other problem is that I fear my family doctor won’t properly diagnose me. I came to him about mental health related issues once before, and he read off a very generic list of mental health symptoms. when he got to what sounded like the ‘OCD’ section, we asked one or two very generic questions that had nothing to do with my themes, and since I couldn’t relate, I just answered no to them. He then told me I was fine, that I was just a “type A personality”, and that I was just being too hard on myself. I fear that my doctor might not be very knowledgeable or up to date on current information regarding OCD, and this might make it increasingly difficult for me to get diagnosed. Another problem is my symptoms seem to come and go. I often have an obsessive cycle that can last months at a time, and then it just goes away. Sometimes I won’t experience any symptoms for years. This makes me feel like I don’t actually have OCD or that it’s not ‘bad’ enough to be diagnosable.

I’ve seen so many online posts where people say their SOOCD fears became true. I can’t stop having anxiety over this. And I don’t understand how people are so “supportive” over this? Cause have it been POCD or HARM OCD fears becoming true none of y’all would’ve reacted the same way. - It makes me loose so much hope. How am I supposed to go back to my real old self when I’ve read information like this? It was so comforting knowing that these intrusive thoughts were just OCD, that they were EGO DYSTONIC, that they are unlikely to happen and that erp will fix everything. HELLO? How will I believe this information when I’ve seen people becoming their worst fears (soocd)? I swear I hate this SO much. I just want to love men like I’ve always did. I hate ocd and these people posting shit like that -

i feel nothing for my partner and i read coments in reddit r/rocd with people suggesting to remeber the good times with your partner but i cant remeber times i loved him or felt real love because everythibg is drowned in doubt and thoughts and i think many negative things such as “i never loved him i just liked the ideea of an relationship and when the thoughts started (one and a half years ago) i realised i didnt actually loved him but i hust cant accept the truth because i put hight expextesions in this relationship and i just coped all the moments forving myslef ro think i do love him” our relationship has normal wring and hw is a great guy and ny family loves him but i obly think i dont love him and even being next to him does not help. im in the worst flare up ever can someone relate or give me advice on how to get better. i tried thrapy but it made it worse and i cant go so i need to heal ob my own. i talk very much to chat gbt and post here often. people here told me i have rocd but in steal questioning this. ever since i found out about rocd i have been worser and worser. i canr remeber how to love. my memories are blured nothing makes me happy. i feel like i have changed into someone that once i was afraid of becoming. when this started i knew it was all fake but now it feels real. im so scred. my thoughts came in affirmaations making svenarios about me not loving him or explenesions of why i feel how i feel and it feels so real. im just si lost and confused i keep trying to find an answer and someone who is in the same situation but everytime i get a positive or negative response from someone it dosent calm me. i feel like im in denial. if someone tells me somethibg posituve i think its fake and that in lying masking the fact that i dont love him as rocd and if u get a negative response my chest hurts. I know its not the end of the world if i dont end uo with him but all of this does not make sense. its just out of the blue. can you stop liking someone out of the blue?? I feel so many negative emotions towords him and i dont understand why. i lost my spark and its all because of the thoughts. He triea to use logic on me saying that if i didnt cared or liked him i would not be this sad and cry so much but it does not help. My therapist told me “you can care about people but it doaent meab you like them” and last session she was only trying to make me realise i dont love him but it felt wrong. I have been like this 24/7 since september 2023. we are a couple since april 2024 and everything feela fake i doubt everything. i want to be normal. my chest hurts.

What if you did something extremely horrible as a child that you didn’t know how horrible the events were that your POCD and real events OCD targets? Does it make the intrusive thoughts true? I'm getting anxious from my POCD and real event OCD based on real events (3 times) from when I was 13…… I don't ever want to ever be a P at all… I don't ever want to ever be a Chomo at all... i don’t ever want to ever be a rapist at all… I was 13 when these real events happened and now I'm 20... I've asked my mom about this so many times and every time she tells me that it's not serious anymore, that the person is okay and doesnt remember, and that I'm not a rapist or a P or a chomo...  I didn’t realize how horrible the real events actually were… I was 13 at the time… now I’m 23… my POCD and real event OCD call me a P or a chomo because of the real events… while my mom reassures me all the time that it’s all over, that it’s not serious anymore, that the person is okay, and that I’m not a P or a rapist or a chomo, but when I was doing compulsive research, I remember when I saw a post on a non OCD forum about someone’s similar situation to mine and two people said to the person that they m*lested and that they needed  to turn themselves in… I don’t ever want to ever be a P or a chomo in any way shape or form… i didn’t know how horrible the real events were when I was 13… I really didn’t… and after the real events I never did anything like that ever again, and I never once ever thought (before, and after) about doing stuff with kids in any way shape or form... I never once fantasized about kids or wanted to do anything with kids… I was 13 and didn’t realize how horrible the actions were at the time and I never did it ever again… I never once fantasized about kids before or after the real event… I don't ever want to ever harm a child in any way shape or form... I seriously don't ever want to do that to any child in any way shape or form and I seriously don't ever want to do anything like that to any kid now or in the future… I never have had any fantasies about kids and I don't ever want to... I don't ever want to ever be a P or a chomo in any way shape or form... I was 13….. and after the real events I never did anything like that ever again, and I never once ever thought (before, and after) about doing stuff with kids in any way shape or form... I never once fantasized about kids or wanted to do anything with kids…  I was 13 and didn’t realize how horrible the actions were at the time and I never did it ever again… I never once fantasized about kids before or after the real event… And it’s comparing me to actual P’s and chomo’s who did stuff from 12-15 and then did stuff as adults, and making me think I’m a P and a Chomo because of it… I don’t ever want to ever be a P or a chomo in any way… 😭😭😭

What if you did something extremely horrible as a child that you didn’t know how horrible the events were that your POCD and real events OCD targets? Does it make the intrusive thoughts true? I'm getting anxious from my POCD and real event OCD based on real events (3 times) from when I was 13…… I don't ever want to ever be a P at all… I don't ever want to ever be a Chomo at all... i don’t ever want to ever be a rapist at all… I was 13 when these real events happened and now I'm 20... I've asked my mom about this so many times and every time she tells me that it's not serious anymore, that the person is okay and doesnt remember, and that I'm not a rapist or a P or a chomo...  I didn’t realize how horrible the real events actually were… I was 13 at the time… now I’m 23… my POCD and real event OCD call me a P or a chomo because of the real events… while my mom reassures me all the time that it’s all over, that it’s not serious anymore, that the person is okay, and that I’m not a P or a rapist or a chomo, but when I was doing compulsive research, I remember when I saw a post on a non OCD forum about someone’s similar situation to mine and two people said to the person that they m*lested and that they needed  to turn themselves in… I don’t ever want to ever be a P or a chomo in any way shape or form… i didn’t know how horrible the real events were when I was 13… I really didn’t… and after the real events I never did anything like that ever again, and I never once ever thought (before, and after) about doing stuff with kids in any way shape or form... I never once fantasized about kids or wanted to do anything with kids… I was 13 and didn’t realize how horrible the actions were at the time and I never did it ever again… I never once fantasized about kids before or after the real event… I don't ever want to ever harm a child in any way shape or form... I seriously don't ever want to do that to any child in any way shape or form and I seriously don't ever want to do anything like that to any kid now or in the future… I never have had any fantasies about kids and I don't ever want to... I don't ever want to ever be a P or a chomo in any way shape or form... I was 13….. and after the real events I never did anything like that ever again, and I never once ever thought (before, and after) about doing stuff with kids in any way shape or form... I never once fantasized about kids or wanted to do anything with kids…  I was 13 and didn’t realize how horrible the actions were at the time and I never did it ever again… I never once fantasized about kids before or after the real event… And it’s comparing me to actual P’s and chomo’s who did stuff from 12-15 and then did stuff as adults, and making me think I’m a P and a Chomo because of it… I don’t ever want to ever be a P or a chomo in any way… 😭😭😭

I’ve given up with the confessing. I feel so drained and irredeemable that why even confess anymore? I don’t know if this is a good thing. On paper, it looks great. My bf thinks I’m better, but I feel like I’m dying. The attraction, arousal, urges, compulsions are all getting so much stronger. I feel like I’m embracing a monster. The POCD is driving me mad. I genuinely cannot see kids anymore because it’s immediate checking compulsions and intrusions. I need help. Has anyone gotten to this point and made it back to “normal”? I feel like a pedophile who is simply ashamed of being one.

i have what i think is rocd, at least many people here told me i do. im going through the worst period ever, my thoughts feel real, i feel like i dont have any feelings for my boyfriend, that i am in denial , that i am a liar, i cant remember how it feels like to love him, my memories with him are distorted. I feel like i never loved him and i was just coping , acting like i do because i could not accept the reality. I see many people saying that once they are with their partner they feel better but it dosent help, when i am with him i still have thoughts and horible feelings. i dont know what to do anymore. I have this problem for over a year and a half, and rn it feels the worst ever. Everything feels urgent and terrifyingly real. I keep thinking that maybe when the thoughts first started, I actually realized I didn’t love him — but I kept saying “no, it can’t be, I love him,” just to deny the truth. And now I feel like I’m only holding on to a false idea I created in my head. I don’t feel love, just pressure, panic, and confusion. I told ChatGPT that I feel numb next to him, I can’t imagine a future with him, nothing feels like it used to, and I’m scared I was only ever excited about the idea of love — not him. Please, I just want this pain to stop.