Hi... alright it's taken me a lot of thought and guts to ask this so I'm just going to say it right away. I'm 17 and I'm struggling with perfectionism ocd and maladaptive daydreaming. Apparently the ocd started when I was about 8 or 9 but I just recently put a name to it and discovered that this is acc what's been going on-a whole lot of things make sense now. The problem is,no one knows. And having been in this community for a while,I know a lot of you understand how hard this is. I don't want my parents to know cause,their part of what caused this in the first place and they'll just think I'm being dramatic. And even if they DID know,we can't afford ERP. I am however trying self care and even though it's really frustrating and slow,I just really want to get better. However,I really think I need to talk to someone. And the person who keeps coming to mind is my boyfriend. He's also 17, but he's just... wonderful. And really mature for his age. He recently came close to dicovering my ocd(he saw this app) but I stopped it. We've been together for a little over a year now and we're really happy. What's stopping me from telling him is,he has his own problems. That and I keep doubting myself about whether this is the right step. Knowing him, he's going to be supportive in the way he can,but I just keep doubting myself and asking"what if".... I know some of you might have been through something similar so pls advise me,am I self sabotaging by telling him or is it a step in the right direction??

i have been dealing with anxiety and ocd like symptoms for the my whole life but they’ve gotten worse the past 2-3 years. im not diagnosed nor on any medications. my boyfriends has been with me nearly every step of the way of this anxiety and is a great help to me. i was raised in a family where anxiety is “just part of life” and everytime i try to talk to my parents about it they shut me down saying things like “i get anxious too” or “you need to work out more”. while i’ve tried to do the things they recommend, eating healthy, working out, staying off my phone, my anxiety is very much still there. i experience obsessions and compulsions frequently but have just learned to deal with them because i had to. they’re also not always constant anymore, i do have days without anxiety. my boyfriend has recently started lexapro and is on 5 milligrams for his own anxiety and he said that he feels so much better even after just two weeks and he thinks it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try to get on it myself. i agreed at first but after talking to my parents they again made me feel like my anxiety wasn’t bad enough or that i was making it up and that i didn’t need medication, i just needed to learn how to manage. yesterday i had another conversation with my boyfriend about this and he said he felt really bad about all the stuff i go through. (this anxiety and also some physical issues which is either EDS or POTS) but to me, and how my parents think of the whole situation, i think im fine “because its just part of life” now im afraid that im shutting out my own emotions bc thats how my parents think i should be. i just don’t know what to do. i know my bf is right and that im not a liar and everything i experience is real but i’ve gotten so good at living with it and its not as often that its debilitating that i don’t think i deserve medication. i don’t even know if its actually ocd because im not diagnosed but i talk to my brother and one of my friends (who are diagnosed) and we go through the same things. idk what to do or how to feel. i know my bf is worried about me but i don’t want to be dramatic or let my anxiety control my life

I am very new to this app and to accepting that I likely have OCD. I am not diagnosed yet, but I have suspected that I have it for years now. I think ignoring it/feeding the reassurance loop led to my first really bad panic attack a few days ago that put me in the hospital and essentially forced me to stop hiding my struggle from my loved ones. I had another one last night, and out of habit I’m already hiding my feelings from my loved ones. I’m having thoughts that I know are OCD but they’re very hard to get past because they feel so logical? Some examples: -I shouldn’t tell anyone because it wasn’t as bad as the one that hospitalized me -my loved ones are already tired of hearing me talking about it and I feel bad burdening them -I just had the last one and if I tell people about this one I’ll look like I’m attention seeking -I don’t want people to ask what the trigger was so I shouldn’t bring it up if I don’t want to have to answer that question I’m naming them here not for reassurance, but to help myself hopefully label these things as OCD per usual trying to keep me from getting help. The hardest part of this journey so far has been accepting that there are so many things that feel like normal, rational thoughts and feelings that having been hurting me and feeding a vicious cycle for years on end. It feels unreal because these things have become such subtle integrated parts of my life and my routine, and telling myself those things are harmful just feels wrong. It’s like what I have considered my “gut feeling” for years isn’t actually my intuition looking out for me, but is an overactive fear response that has been isolating me from everything and I’ve never questioned it because the isolation, the reassurance, feels good and like the right thing to do. How do I push past these thoughts and be honest with my loved ones about my struggling? How do I rewire my brain to stop the reassurance seeking and compulsions when it’s the only thing that’s made me feel better all these years?

I'm a minor, and I'm embarassed to talk with my parents about this. I have always has intrusive thoughts. Disturbing ones. Since i am a child. Sometimes I ruminated about them, but I usually forgot about them after a while. Now, I've been in this amazing 1 year relationship and I felt real love for the first time. I felt new, loved, I felt ready to marry and have his kids in the momment we had economical stability and could live together. Since march, I've been a mess. In march, I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep (i would have horrible nightmares where I cheated on my boyfriend, most of the times with women), and I would find myself in the same tracksuit 7 days a week, incapable of taking a bath, even tho I am obsessed with my visual image (I am goth, and I love to style my clothes, treat my hair and everything). I talked with him about this, and I cried so much, I asked him "what if we need to take a break?" And ge calmly said he would wait for me all the time i needed, while giving me cookies on the mouth because i was not able to pick them myself. "Depression, erection, whatever, I'll always be here" he said joking. God I love him. We agreed to make a break but we couldn't handle it. We got back later that day. I felt reliefed and that night, I was able to eat and sleep, but next day it was all over again. And with this "you don't love him" thought, these came too: "you are a lesbian", "maybe you like your ex", "look at that guy there, you like him", "you dont give your man attention enough", "you're getting bored", "just by having these thoughts you are already cheating on him", "you don't care anymore if he cheats on you", "HE IS CHEATING ON YOU, YOU ARE TRASH, HE WANTS HIS EX", "your relation will end just like your last one". And this sensation too, that I consider to be the worse: Sometimes I feel like my boyfriend and my ex are mixed up. Context- I broke up with my ex last year, cause he would not give me personal space, and I couldn't take it anymore. I knew what I felt. But now, sometimes my mind tells me that I'm still with my ex, that my pictures with my boyfriend are false, and it's my ex there, my mind tells me I like to think about this but I don't. What if I do?? I'm going crazy. When I look ate the plushies my boyfriend gave me my mind tells me "It was your ex who gave them to you". When I'm watching a serie "that character looks like your ex". And this was the worst situation: once, I was with my boyfriend and we were having sex. Suddenly my mind told me I was having sex with my ex and not with my boyfriend. (My boyfriend is the first and only one who ever saw me and touched me that way.) I panicked. I pushed him away, telling to get off of me, crying, almost yelling, I couldn't see my beautiful boy there, and it hurted so much. I beggined to pull my own hair, scratch my own legs and punch my own face. But my boyfriend was there. He huged me, and for the first time, I felt uncomfortable with him because I couldn't tell who he really was. I stayed in that mood for like 2 weeks in july, and now it started again. Please, someone help me. Kind words, but mostly advices are needed