Hearing these stories makes me sad because it's often times when everything starts to get dark for people - but I also feel happy for them in those moments because I hope these individuals know that they actually have a name for their struggles, that they're not alone, and that there is help out there for them.

In August. I started having intrusive thoughts at age 8. OCD was never even on my radar. I heard a postcast (not even mental health focused) where I heard a woman share her story about living with OCD. I was beyond shocked to realized I had experienced a lot of the same things.Prior to that, I had no idea what I was experiencing wasn't normal. I thought everyone struggled the way I did. I started researching OCD and things clicked. I started treatment through NOCD shortly after and was diagnosed with OCD at age 45.

My mom noticed I had OCD when I was 4 years old 😉 Mother knows best!

Realized 3 years after starting to pick myself, quite early and I'm grateful for that

I was seven when I first developed OCD. My first theme was death—I saw part of 9/11 happen live on TV that year, and it seems to have flipped some sort of ‘OCD on’ switch. I knew something was up for years before I was diagnosed at 17, but I thought I was just evil or broken (or both, depending on what themes were active at the time).