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the NOCD Community

What was your first signs of ocd as a child. I think mine was confessing but I haven’t heard of many other people with that ..

Does anybody else experience delusional intrusive thoughts? I have a very big fear of developing schizophrenia or becoming delusional. And it seems that a lot of my intrusive thoughts are delusional intrusive thoughts that I fight.

I need help!!!!!!! My daughter continues to come to me at all hours of the talking about her obsessions. It is destroying our family😢. Please help!

Hey guys. I’ve been dealing with Harm OCD for around 3 and 1/2 months now, and it’s been extremely difficult to experience. I’ve had OCD my whole life and some of my family members do as well, one of my cousins actually has the same main subtype as me, but he was diagnosed almost a year ago when I didn’t have it myself. I’ve been going to an OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center the past week and I’m really struggling with the exposures we do there, as well as the ones we do at home. I constantly feel like I’m judging myself and I genuinely feel worthless, like I’m a horrible person to have unwanted intrusive thoughts like these. I feel like it’s so difficult to stay mindful and to not judge any of the thoughts that surface. Those with Harm OCD, have any of you here gone from debilitating OCD to living fulfilling lives? If so, what was the process like for you, if you’d like to share? Thanks and I hope you’re all doing well, or are continuing to improve.

I haven’t google disease’s in a while… but today my oh my I’ve spend the last few hours googling & googling. It just sucks being so paranoid all the time. I wish I was normal. I miss who I use to be. I never use to worry & I just lived my life. Now I pay attention to every little detail & have to replay every single thing in my head… Even if I have a ok day with low anxiety my brain feels like it’s forgetting something & will scan my whole day to find something to be paranoid about. I’m sooo tired of this.

It feels like I’m just in denial. Like I just need to accept it. I don’t want to. I want to have a husband and a babies. I don’t want this. I’m scared. It feels so. Real.

Does anyone else experience perfectionism around their hair? I have dysmorphia about it and am obsessive over the placement of each hair. This seems tied to an obsession with being attractive- or not being "ugly" I guess. I feel shitty saying that out loud, but I'm curious if anyone else has had their vanity be a theme their OCD latches onto? It feels like a big fear. Like I'm afraid I wont be able to look at myself if I percieve myself as "unattractive". I feel like I've heard a lot people emphasize that OCD has nothing to do with vanity and I'm struggling to identify this as OCD because of that.

Does anyone deal with superstitious ocd ? Kinda hard to explain but the past few years I’ve been dealing with it. I went to a psychic and she told me I was going to get married and be with a certain guy by the age I am now. I started dating him and things around working out and I feel like if we break up my ocd makes me think I’m dying. ( I’ve had health issue the last year and my health ocd has been so bad) whenever I hear about the same illness on the tv or someone talking about it it also makes me feel like the universe is sending me a message to confirm it. Anyway me and this guy broke up yesterday now my ocd is triggered making me believe it didn’t work out because I’m. “ dying”

Basically. I’m scared that at some point I will feel no anxiety and ‘give in’ and accept it. I have a really hard time believing I have ocd (because I can’t get diagnosed because of my age) sometimes I feel like I do because I remember the days where I was crying on the floor with how real it felt and I DIDNT want it to be real. I worry that I am in denial and I’m just not accept it. Or that it’s suppressed. Or internalised homophobia. Anything really that means it’s all real. I have my moments where I feel normal again but they don’t last long. I wish I knew if it was hocd/ocd but then again I know I’d doubt it if I was told it was. But then again I feel like hearing a professional say ‘you have ocd’ would mean a lot to me. If anyone feels the same or similar I would love to know (btw reassurance very rarely helps me anymore. I just love knowing if I’m not alone and not going crazy) Maybe maybe not doesnt help. I always spiral more with that but I often use ‘I don’t need to know right now’ and that brings me some relief (not sure if it should but it does)

maybe it's just anxiety, I don't know but for years I've had a horrible worry that I'm still not financially independent and still live with my mum though technically it's normal because I was a student (uhhhh I feel so much shame writing about it...like, what if you all will think that I'm just not mature and simply did not want to come out of my comfort zone for all these college years) so yeah the thing is I'm 23 and working and currently living in a different country alone (!) so seems like the issue is kinda solved right?? )) now I keep getting thoughts like "but it's still too late to become independent!!!!! I should have done it earlier!!!!! it's still wrong that I haven't started working/moved out earlier!!!" and I feel very guilty bc of this sorry if it sounds chaotic, I hope I made myself clear I suffer from perfectionism, and this is one of its manifestations idk if it's OCD or not, maybe just trauma but it sure has been nagging my brain for years and felt like a nightmare bc of guilt and shame I've always thought that going to work and moving out would not change anything because, well.. you know why)) but my brain kept saying that I'm just lazy, immature and irresponsible (even though I've worked on and off since I was 18, mum always welcomed me home, I lived in a dorm since I was 17 and in fact came home for a long period of time bc of covid) fast forward five years - I'm working thousands of kilometers from home (refugee), taking care of myself and ready to send money home any minute and yet here we are)) guilt is still present because I haven't started earlier??????? I'm so tired it's only one of many thoughts

What exactly to false attractions feel like? I was doing good today and I pulled up an article of some new elected politicians and looked a picture of one of them and immediately my heart started racing and I was filled with anxiety. I went straight to trying to reassure myself of attractions to women, previous crushes, and other forms of reassurance. Then I tried to go back to the article to prove I wasn’t attracted, I thought like ERP but all thats done is massively increase anxiety and I feel like im tail spinning a bit.

So im getting my wisdom teeth out tommorrow which ive always worried about. My tooth kept getting infected so i was on antibiotics but i just checked and now they all look infected and im scared because i have been feeling super sick over my full body lately and ive never felt this way and im terrified that something is going to go terribly wrong. I just feel it in my gut, but if i dont get them out ill keep getting infections and im worried ill die. Either way im convinced i will die and i just know it by how sick i feel all over. Im getting shakes and sweats and i wish i could get a guarantee before my surgery that nothing is wrong because i bet they will find out im not ok

I am struggling a lot right now with ocd convincing me I want to hurt my partner when I know deep down I don’t. It’s more so a feeling then a thought. I’m just scared that one day I’ll be convinced or give in into the thought. I don’t want to feel like I would hurt my partner anyone else ?

Does anyone else's Harm OCD make you question if you are a psychopath or a sociopath?? I keep thinking it and I'm worrying a lot. This is all so tiring. I just wish it would leave me alone..😔

I’m not too sure how long ago but sometime in the past year i was on snapchat looking through profiles that had p**n videos and images on them. the profiles would have links to other ones so i would keep clicking on them to find more and more. eventually i clicked on one profile in particular that had bite sized photos of animal p**n and child p**n. i realized what it was but didn’t really stop looking immediately( i’m not sure why) but once i did, i was sick to my stomach and couldn’t even think straight. i told my then gf(fiancé now) and she comforted me and told me i probably kept looking at it because i was just curious. i have never once thought of a child as attractive in anyway so this really disturbed me. i had seen something like that once in the last but didn’t give it much thought before but this time was different. and just a few months before this happen my son was born so i don’t know if this could have an affect or not… presently i am still struggling and have intrusive thoughts every now and then about hurting my son and they make me feel like my whole stomach was ripped out of me. i look at younger girls now and question if i think they are attractive and ask myself if i would do anything to them. i have tried thinking of a child in a sexual manner(i get groinal responses but nothing more), watched adult p**n to make myself feel better, try and get reassurance from my fiancé, etc. i have good and bad days, but most are bad. i’ll get thoughts that tell me to watch cp to see if i would enjoy it or i’ll just tell myself i am a P and that i have to deal with it. i don’t want to hurt anyone and i feel like im just an accident waiting to happen. sometimes my brain even tells me that pedophilia isn’t a bad thing even though i know it is. i could just be looking for reassurance but my life has been on a downward slope for some time now and i’m getting miserable.. i have been thinking of leaving the earth more and more. i don’t want to die but i don’t want to keep living like this..

I had never really had OCD symptoms like this a few months ago. I had struggled a little bit with anxiety and had always had a fear of uncertainty but I’ve never felt a 24/7 pain anxiety, guilt and fear like this. I was pretty happy😭 Have others had this experience as well? Did it just show up randomly from one intrusive thought that you couldn’t brush off? Is it possible to get back to how you were before or will I have to “manage” for the rest of my life?

Hi, I have been struggling with OCD for 7 months now. First there were incestuous thoughts related to the mother. I was very bad for two months, I couldn't sleep and I had severe depression. I went to a psychiatrist and started therapy. After two weeks it was as if I woke up from a nightmare. All the obsessive thoughts stopped, the anxiety stopped and I was back to my new life again. I found a girlfriend and it was great. After about 3 months, the thoughts came back again, this time about my girlfriend. I started to wonder if I loved her, if I would be better off with someone else. And that stopped over time. A few days ago I went to the kitchen and saw a knife. I suddenly got scared and thought what if I hurt my girlfriend. I constantly analyzed that thought and asked myself if I could do it, if I wanted to. And it got to the point that I convinced myself that I wanted to hurt her and that I was just lying that I didn't want to. I became very anxious and scared again. My girlfriend has known about my problem from the beginning and is a great support. She even gave me a knife and told me to sit next to her. Of course I didn't do anything, I just threw the knife away and started crying and hugging her. But in my mind I still want to do something bad. Can OCD convince you that you want something, even though deep down I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want everything to be like before and to have a normal life without obsessive thoughts. I really love my girlfriend and I want to have a family with her. Can OCD cause false desire and will it ever stop. I heard that ERP is the best way to fight OCD. How can I do ERP alone without a therapist. I am really afraid that I will hurt someone and become a murderer. Thank you for reading this and I send many greetings and I hope you are well.

I can’t get diagnosed because I’m 16. I feel left in the dark. Not asking anyone to diagnose me. Just If they see a hocd cycle that could indicate I possibly suffer from it. Please When I was 14 nearly 15 I had a random thought ‘am I gay’ and I immediately had discomfort. The next day I asked myself again and this time (I believe I had real event ocd) the event came through as almost ‘proof’ and that’s the beginning. I started taking quizzes to see whether I was gay. I asked friends and family to tell me if they thought I was gay. The idea of being gay worried me and I searched up how I felt and that’s how I found Hocd. I related to some of the symptoms but I didn’t have many compulsions. At the age of 15 it was really bad and I still hated the idea of being gay. A few months later I tried a relationship with someone of the opposite gender and I fell in love. My thoughts of being gay were pretty much gone. I was obsessed with this boy. However I became obsessed with needing reassurance that this boy loved me. Every. Single. Day. When I was 16 It became too much for him and we split up. 4 months after obsessing over the breakup and questioning if I was abusive, if I ever SA him, if I was toxic or a bad girlfriend…I had the ‘am I gay’ thought and that’s how it came Back. The thoughts are constant. I get these: ‘Am I gay’ ‘do you like her’ ‘remember when … that must mean your gay’ *gets groinals* (even after seeing just a girl in a skirt) *head tries to convince me I like my friends* *lost all attraction to the opposite gender. I don’t feel anything whatsoever* ‘is this really hocd because you’re not diagnosed. You just found it’ ‘You don’t do physical compulsions like others. So it’s all real’ I don’t have many compulsions but here’s what I do: * when I have a thought I ask other hocd suffers if they have the same and if they tell me yes I feel happy and completely normal for at least an hour. Then it’s back * If I get a thought sometimes I’ll try and distract myself or possibly even pinch myself to make sure I’m focused on the pinch not the thought. * If I get a groinal I’ll sometimes check to see if it’s a real response * Checking porn to see if I react to lesbian stuff (I have done and I had a meltdown) All of this happens every day. And everyday I manage to find something that gives me that temporary relief. But then it comes back after.

My chest is really heavy. Basically my mind gave me the intrusive memory of when I got a weird feeling in my chest about a female friend when I was like 9. My heads telling me it’s because I liked her. I liked spending time with her and we practiced kissing as experimentation (part of kids games) and my head keeps reminding me of it. It was very intrusive because it came randomly while watching a program. It just popped into my head. I’m so scared And I have a lot of anxiety right now I told myself maybe, maybe not. But it’s made my anxiety worse. I can’t stay uncertain with this atm. I’m so scared. Please help if you can

My OCD and intrusive thoughts always seem to be worse when I have nothing to do all day. When I graduated college I didn’t have an easy time finding work (mainly because I didn’t know what I even wanted to do or how to even find a job). I ended up taking a job in a career I wasn’t even interested in but I enjoyed it because it made me feel so much better just to have SOMETHING and contribute to society. For 2 years at this job I was so happy with my life. Never experienced an OCD episode and lost 50 pounds and felt so good. I ended up leaving that job to chase the money and it was the worst decision I ever made. I switched to a job that basically told me from the beginning they didn’t want me and spent a year being miserable. I gained all my weight back and HATED the work I was doing. I almost switched jobs to another company but it would have been the same work I was doing so I didn’t take it and in turn experienced another OCD episode where I was obsessing over the fact that I may have made the wrong decision. Eventually I got fired and am now once again home doing nothing all day with no idea where my life is going to take me. My Obsessions have now turned towards not being able to raise a family because I can’t figure my mental health/life out. Does anyone have any experience where their OCD tends to be worse when they have extended free time and will the things I worry about now seem insignificant once I have my professional confidence back and feel like I am valuable?