Welcome to
the NOCD Community

My mental health is at its lowest and I'm sick of existing

I’m so confused right now. I know that no one is ever perfect, and I really want to grow and deepen my relationship with my bf, I don’t want anyone else. I care so much about him and I feel safe with him. But Im worried because there are certain things he does that are very cringy and sometimes embarrassing or annoying, and he can also be very hyper. I guess it’s hard for me to pinpoint what exactly I feel when he acts cringy or hyper or embarrassing, I think I just start to feel judgy towards him and annoyed and maybe even embarrassed sometimes. It can just be a turn off. But I don’t want to be judgy towards him for those things, I don’t want to feel that way about him, it can just be tough sometimes. I’m also good friends with his sister and she is definitely extremely hyper and weird sometimes too but I don’t feel judgy towards her, she’s great, and she’s super friendly, she just has her moments where you start to question her sanity, but she’s really genuine and just a beautiful person. I guess it’s just different when you’re dating someone, because it can be a bit of a turn off. And I worry that it’s bad to feel that way, to feel turned off by that behaviour. And I want to do everything in my power to fix it. I feel terrible, because he is literally such an amazing person and I want to plan a future with him, but I’ve been fighting so hard for months, trying to work through all my feelings and being scared of what I think and feel. I’m so tired. What if it’s not ROCD, but I still want to make it work. It feels like the minute it’s not OCD, these become real reasons to leave, but I don’t want to leave. I want to make it work, and I’m worried it’s not OCD, but even if it wasn’t I’d want to fix it and make it work.

I work with kids so as to be expected my contamination ocd (surrounding getting sick, especially throwing up) gets triggered a lot. Which is hard, but usually worth it for me as I’m really passionate about my work. But sometimes it feels like I don’t know how I will be able to manage my contamination ocd while working with kids the rest of my life (teaching). It makes me really sad when I think about how my other coworkers don’t have these same worries of getting sick and can then focus more on their meaning fully work. Like today, a kid told me she threw up last night after her water bottle had previously sprayed water on my face and I couldn’t focus fully on the class for the rest of my shift 😭 which isn’t fair to the kids either but I did my best, considering I’m still reeling from that and struggling to refrain from rumination and other compulsions. Just trying to tell myself that I’ll survive regardless of if I get sick or not, even though my ocd brain equates throwing up to death haha. Anyways I’m not looking for reassurance, but more so just wanted to vent and see if anyone can relate at all.

Hey there! My name is Jazmin, and my first remembrance of OCD symptoms was at the age of 6. For many years I didn't know what was going on. It wasn't until 2 years ago, when I was doing some googling (which I now know is a cumpulsion) about anxiety that I came across OCD. I had never really heard of it before, but I felt as though I was reading about my whole life in that article. My subtypes have shifted throughout my life, everything from harm OCD to religious OCD that made my life an anxiety filled nightmare at times. From here I started to look into options for therapy, etc. I ended up, unfortunately, having a horrible experience. I was "diagnosed" with OCD and generalized anxiety by a mental health NP last year, but she wasn't very nice (very demeaning, pretty much treated me like a freak, told me that I had issues, called me a germaphobe, and acted like I was doing everything wrong) and didn't listen to me in regards to what I was actually going through (none of which has anything to do with a contamination subtype), so I didn't go back after that. It's taken me a whole year to recover from that encounter. It's been a struggle and the idea of trying to talk to someone about this again scared me half to death. But now I'm finally trying to get to a good place again. I went to my GP a week ago, explained to her what I was going through, and she was so amazing, understanding, and supportive. She prescribed prozac. So far things have been pretty good but not perfect, and I'm okay with that. I'm just making the next steps forward. I'm hoping that by joining the NOCD community and seeking therapy here that I can start to improve and continue to live my best life.

Four months ago, I began taking 25mg of Zoloft, and my dosage has since been increased to 100mg. This increase has significantly alleviated the anxiety and heart palpitations caused by my OCD. However, it hasn't been as effective in treating my depression. Alongside medication, I'm currently undergoing ERP therapy. Given the mixed results, I'm considering either switching medications or augmenting my current regimen. I have a consultation with my doctor tomorrow to explore my options. I've heard from others that finding the right combination of medications can make a huge difference. Does anyone have experience with a multi-medication approach that has been beneficial for them?

For those with SO OCD, is it possible for OCD to manifest a crush on someone of the opposite sex? I feel like I have a crush on this girl when I’ve always identified as straight. Weirdly the crush intrusive thoughts happened after I started questioning my sexuality. I just looked at her one day and thought she was cute and then suddenly I felt like my mind took over like a domino effect. Like, I had all these thoughts about her that I aligned to having a crush. Every time I’m around her or think of her I get extreme anxiety. Also, I feel like when I’m around her I have these feelings of romance/attraction for her? I’ll have intrusive thoughts about anything romantic and sometimes sexual. Mostly, what gets me is feeling like I’d want to kiss her and I get these feelings of attraction which really throws me off. I know I’d never do that or really would see myself doing that, but I hate that the “romantic” feeling is there. I never get any groinal feelings though. I don’t want to have these feelings. I’ve never seen myself as being Bi. I’m Demisexual mainly, but have always identified as straight. It’s only until I started having all these SO OCD thoughts that I’ve started to question me sexuality. I’ve always been romantically and sexually attracted to men. I’m even dating a guy now who I really love. Can anyone relate to this? How do you get through your days? I feel so weird and confused. Mostly, guilty though because I love my BF and now I feel like I’m being unfaithful or I’m not being myself in some way. I really don’t know who I am anymore.

Something is always bugging me about my bf, it’s getting so annoying. I just want to be happy, but something always starts to bug me, and it makes me worry that I should leave or that I should try to change how I feel about the things that bug me. For example, right now it’s the fact that my bf is crazy hyper sometimes when he’s with our friends, and it comes out in the way he acts and the way he talks, and I could be over analyzing it which makes it feel worse than it is, but it can be cringy and even annoying sometimes. Part of these feelings could be coming from the fact that I was probably that way when I was younger, and it probably got bullied out of me, and now I’m always worried of being judged or disliked. But in general I would say that my bf acts “differently” than most sometimes, especially when he’s hyper. I want this relationship to work so so so badly, I want to have a future with him, I’m just trying desperately to work through all the little things that bug me, because I know they mean so little in the grand scheme of things, and yet I can’t stop being bugged by them. I feel a sense of urgency to do something, to change the way I feel and think about it. It’s so frustrating. I just want to live him. He is so amazing, I just want to plan a future with him. But I worry because in those moments when he’s being crazy and hyper and cringy, I start to feel like maybe I don’t actually like him enough, because if I did I feel like I shouldn’t be put off by his weirdness.

How can I respond to some of these intrusive thoughts without feeling like I need to fight, resist, and etc?? They’re extremely distressing and make me question myself, my reality and my health/brain. I’ve tried just distracting myself, ignoring it, and letting it scream at me. But then it comes back with scarier ones and I’m just struggling . I’d been doing good with them lately but suddenly they’re awfully intense and hard to ignore Help😞

I have been skin picking since I was 5 yrs old, and I am currently 22. The only explaination my therapist and I have for it is either an intense autism stim, or OCD. My hands were an absolute warzone during the pandemic, and at my old job, it was causing me so much distress, I'd walk out at the end of the night covered in bandaids on my hands. It's always made me look "crazy" and unsocailized. My therapist isn't trained to deal with OCD so that's why I'm here. They gave me a pop-it bracelet and that's helped a lot, but it's still very isolating. All my friends pick at their acne or fingers, but I haven't met anyone who has used their hands as chew toys, to be blunt :/ I just want to feel normal.

Is it wrong to be here if I don't have an OCD diagnosis? I know for a fact I have really horrible intrusive thoughts I can't deal with and I don't feel comfortable talking about it with a regular therapist because they may not be equipped to deal with it and I already feel like a bad person. So I thought using an app where the diagnosis directly works with that would be a lot more comfortable for me.

I’ve felt like I’m in danger all day long and that something bad is about to happen to me 🙃🙃I realize this is probably just a compulsion to think about it. I ruminated and obsessed basically all day. However In therapy today I played with a food that I’m terrified that I’m allergic to! So that’s a win 😊

This is a huge step for me!!! I am very fearful of medication and am finally taking the step for myself to try it. I am starting a low dose of Prozac today. This is huge!! If anyone has encouraging words, that would be greatly appreciated. I am not allowed to look up side affects or stories, but just looking for encouragement❤️

So my SO OCD has been crazy today. I’m in a very committed relationship with a boy I love but now I think that I may have a crush on a girl I see in rehearsals for this play I’m in. Funny, but I didn’t think of her that way before I started ruminating. I feel like I sort of willed this “crush” into happening as a sort of way to figure out my sexuality. She is very pretty and there are aspects I like about her, but there are also things about her personality I don’t like. Granted, I’ve never felt romantic or sexual attraction to women. All my crushes have been men and I’m 27. Has anyone ever felt this way? I feel a tremendous amount of fear and guilt. “What if I like this person?” “What if I’m Bi or Bi-curious?” “Should I leave my partner?” I don’t feel like I align with dating women and I don’t feel comfortable having romantic feelings for a woman, but I feel like I do. I certainly don’t want to have a crush on someone while in a committed relationship. Any advice or well wishes would be nice….

This is really dumb probably, and maybe aimed at people around my age and possibly older. But how many of you are familiar with vocaloid? Basically if your not then maybe you won’t know what I’m talking about but when I was in middle school I got really into vocaloid and like all people at some point I discovered the really popular song “magnet”. It’s a song between the two robot girls “Miku & Luka” the song itself is really dumb but cute it’s about two girls who can’t be in love because-their girls-(it’s dumb Ik) this is their oldest song it’s like 15 yrs old. And because of this song so many more spawned of these two girls being in love. And I liked them a lot when I was a kid and into early high school and lowkey discovered my sexuality through them? (One of many reasons) Point is a lot of ppl in this community ship them together because of this song and many others. When i was like 16 I uploaded a lot of ship art of them on my Pinterest and saved them so I can look at them. I’m not really into vocaloid all that much anymore but today I saw a comment on one of the pictures I uploaded saying that “but luka is 20..” and that’s when I remembered that ppl don’t like this ship because miku is said to be 16 and Luka 20 years old. When I was younger I never really thought about it because the community loves them together and even still today like millions of ppl have watched their songs- and now as I got older and lost interest I realize that maybe it is really bad that I liked them? And what if that person that uploaded that comment thinks I support P’s or worse that IAM one. I’m in a lot of destress because of it I don’t support P’s I’m not a P I don’t ever want to be one I’m so scared that this person will spread around that I’m a P or worse and I’m not. I want to delete all the pictures I uploaded because I’m scared. I don’t really know what to do. I never really thought about them like that. Sorry if this is a dumb I already spoke to my mom but I’m still freaking out-what do I do? What do I need to do?

I think I have suffered from some forms of pure ‘o’ OCD for a while now, but I am not sure as they come and go and change with time. At the moment I cannot stop obsessing over the thought that I must be a pedophile, despite having no desire to harm children and no attraction to children. Now even the thought of the word ‘children’ or the sight of them makes me feel anxious and on edge that I will for some reason harm them or everyone will know that I am a molester even though I am not and would never want to be. I also cannot stop trying to look into the past to see if I ever behaved inappropriately around children and testing/bargaining with myself when there are children around to prove to myself that I am in fact normal. It is very hard to focus on anything, so sometimes performing weird rituals like counting to 8 and not stepping on the cracks helps to soothe me, but I have resorted to harming myself at worse moments. Also, when I was growing up, I thought I had sexuality based OCD or anxiety because I was terrified of being a lesbian. I would try and bargain and explain myself out of the idea that I could be gay, and try to find evidence that would prove to myself that I was straight. However, I have since accepted that part of myself and dismissed it as denial, but now I am experiencing similar anxiety levels with this suspected POCD. Now I am afraid that this means I am not truly queer, or even worse, that it is not POCD and I am in danger of becoming a pedophile in the future. However, when I was anxious over my sexuality I think I did on some level know that I was attracted to women, whereas I don’t have a clue where these thoughts that I would harm children have come from. However it was a while ago and I can’t stop obsessing that they are the same thing; these thoughts are extremely distressing so I don’t know what to do.

Im turning 21 this year and part of me wants to drink alcohol and enjoy myself (in moderation obviously), but I cant help being afraid of accidentally getting too inebriated and losing control of myself or possibly talking about my ocd. Im not ashamed of having ocd itself, but some of my ocd themes can be classified as disturbing if not explained correctly. Not to mention my experiences are relatively personal and I want to keep between my therapist and I. Im afraid of an instance like this where I start to talk too much and people around me get the wrong idea of my values, which, in turn, might push people away from me. I know the answer is to just drink responsibly, but can anyone share any experiences they have with having a drink while being diagnosed with ocd? How have you coped? Has everything been okay?

So I’m in a relationship with an amazing guy, like he’s literally so great, and yet there have been a lot of moments of doubt and worry over many different things, some of them I know are small and insignificant, and yet they feel so big. But right now, I’ve been experiencing thoughts and feelings that don’t necessarily worry me, but I still try to understand them and analyze them to no end. For example, I’ve realized that I become a little irritated and weirded out by my bf’s overly hyper and cringy behaviour around his friends. I sometimes think he’s just a little socially awkward and he doesn’t realize it. I can’t quite explain it or put my finger on it, but it’s irritating, and a lot of it has to do with his voice. I don’t want to be irritated by this stuff tho, I don’t want to feel irritated by his voice or his hyper and cringy behaviour, but it can be a bit much sometimes, and I worry that it’s bad for me to feel that way. I just wish I could make that feeling go away. But even with this, I’m not feeling worried as much because I know I really like him and I want to make this relationship work, and yet I still feel the need to analyze his behaviours, trying to make sense of why he acts and sounds the way he does when he’s with friends, trying to understand how I feel about it, and how I would feel if it was done/said differently or by a different person. It’s all just a mess, it’s so confusing, and it’s even more confusing when I’m not feeling anxious or worried, but I’m still finding these quirks bothersome. I really just want this to work out, you have no idea how badly. It’s all just so confusing and I don’t want to let those flaws become dealbreakers. I’ve always been worried, even since the very beginning, that his minor flaws would become dealbreakers, it was like I was fighting a part of myself that felt it should be a dealbreaker, but I don’t want it to be. I just want to stop feeling this way about every little inconvenience, annoyance, or flaw. I feel like I’m constantly fighting myself.

recently, while on a hiking and climbing trip, i came into contact with some poison oak. living in cali, this is normal. when i got home i made sure to use Tecnu, clean all the right stuff, x y z you know the drill. A few days later i start getting a pretty bad rash on my ankle. After a day or two it had spread to large portions of both of my ankles, and even up my legs. This was the beginning of hell. For the past week or so i have been in a constant state of needing to itch, NEEDING. so bad it hurts and i actually physically cannot stop myself from scratching. Which of course makes it worse. I have been dealing with very very bad OCD for my entire life, and for the most part, have been good about my routines, what i need to do, dealing with thoughts and intrusions, but this brought it to a whole new level tonight, when i broke down crying after my father brought my phone into my room. i had left it in the bathroom after my shower, and had gone and done my other stuff, cleaning off surfaces, getting dressed, on this occasion changing my sheets because the old set had been giving me new spots of poison oak on my arms. It was late (for me), i had just had a VERY eventful evening, most of it bad, and i was tired. Thats one thing i didn't realize for a long time is how tired my OCD makes me. It is so draining to worry and to clean and to criticise myself and every last one of these things. I had just put on my new sheets, i was tired but finally okay with everything. Suddenly my dad bangs on the door, pissed. Turns out my alarm to go to bed had been going off and he heard it and it pissed him off. In an attempt to not raise anymore questions i just grabbed it from him and closed the door, apologizing. I stood there for a minute, feeling the germs from my phone seeping into my hands before i tossed it on the ground and furiously covered my hands in hand sanitizer. i sat down on my bed and out of no where started crying. I don't cry often. I am a 17 year old guy. i don't want to play into stereotypes but i really don't cry. even when im sad i just sit with it. i've never been good at it, i cry completely silently, even if its sobs. But i eventually laid back and just cried. i couldn't stop crying. i kept repeating i was so tired and i couldn't do it anymore. After a while i finally got myself up. I went along with my night, and it took so long. I can't describe to you how goddamn tiring it is. I just want to go to bed, but my bedside table is touching my bed, which is where my old sheets were, my charging cable by my bed has touched my old sheets, so it must be cleaning. My feet are disgusting from walking only from my bathroom to my room, i touched one little thing and now i have to coat my hand in hand sanitizer that is rapidly depleting because i use it so much. i can't touch any of my old water cups because i touched them when my hands had been in my old sheets, my phone is absolutely nasty from today, the bottle of calamine lotion i use on my poison oak was touched when my hands were gross, god the list goes on. I am so tired. i just want to sleep. sorry for such a long post, i am just so tired of not talking about it all. Have a good night Dan

Ever since mother’s day i’ve had doubts about my feelings towards my partner of almost 2 years. We don’t have anything problems, i am attracted to him. There are a few things going ti be changing in my life we will be going to different universities and we hadn’t been hanging out as much due to conflicting school and work schedules and he went to washington for mother’s day weekend and it caused me to spiral and doubt my feelings for him. I’m not sure why i’ve had doubts in the past but they were just the usual doubts that would go away but these keep coming in waves and i tell him and i know it hurts him and i feel so guilty about it and I know i love him and i know i want to spend my life with him but at some points i get a twinge that says but what if you don’t and i just don’t understand.

I’m very early in my ERP. I tried being brave and jumping right to eating a food that I was afraid of (fear of allergic reaction or bodily sensation) and I panicked really bad and dissociated. I feel like I made a mistake and it backfired on me😞I feel really ashamed and scared and just exhausted by this stuff.