I was excited bout getting help when I went to Vanderbilt behavioral health I called them twice to make sure I could come down me get admitted i had a hard time packing cause my apartment feels contaminated to me cause bug spray was sprayed on majority of my carpet and cause I can’t let me stuff touch and it has to be packed individually so I decided not to pack I always have a hard time going threw admissions cause they gotta touch my clothes and they gotta go threw my stuff and it tramatizes me cause there touching everything and all my stuffs touching and then I can’t tell them wat I’m going threw cause they don’t understand ocd they suggest putting gloves on to touch my stuff if it was that fucking simple I wouldn’t need help ocd is irrational there is no logical way of doing stuff if gloves helped I’d be fucking wearing them and I would’ve suggested it anyone wit ocd understands that if they’ve tried to find ways of doing stuff easier they always try to find a way to make there ocd habits easier they think of everything but I came to the psychiatric hospital at 10 30 they closed at 11 and noone was there so they told us to go to the emergency room there and I’d be admitted threw there so I go in and get everything done I’m waiting we get into a room and round 3 I do my over the computer meeting wit the psychiatrist ppl and get told they don’t have any beds that they’d move me upstairs into my own room so I could rest instead of being in the loud emergency room so I staid up while my bf laid down then round 4 o’clock noone came so I laid down and woke up at 8 still nothing I asked when I’d be moved upstairs so I could rest they told me they don’t take ppl upstairs they don’t even no wat someone would tell me that for so I’m tired and hungry and decide to leave freaking out that all I wanted was help I even maid sure I called and asked every question so I new I could get this done but my bf decides to drive me back to the psychiatrist part and tlk to them to tell them I need help that we’ve been in the emergency room since 10 yesterday they told him to bring me in that I could lay down I just had to tlk to some ppl and that my bf could stay wit me then the nurse comes tells me they have no beds I won’t be able to go to bed there and my bf come back wit me to tlk to the doctor wit me they maid it almost impossible for me to leave but we finally were able to and our in a hotel I’m glad we’ve came to Nashville previously and new a nice cheap hotel and they allowed us to check in early im so greatfull for the ppl here that let us check in early I had to go in the negative for this room but I’m on a wierd schedule I’m up till 4 in the morning trying to stay up late to hang on to every less frustrating moment of the day that I deal wit ocd I wanna stay up and be on my phone and have parts of the day we’re I’m not cleaning and doing rituals and I don’t get up till round 3 so I’ve had 4 hours of rest if that I already have problems at nite and now that this guy sprayed bug spray in my apartment I have extreme nite terrors I literally thought I had a seizure the other nite cause I woke up and I swear my hole entire body was shakeing when I googled it it had that it could’ve been extreme nite terrors and I did all this to go to a hospital that doesn’t specialize in ocd that I new wouldn’t be able to actually help that but atleast could’ve got me on medicine and helped me relax in the hospital to feel better for a few days and maybe help call places for me that help wit ocd so I could go there cause I’ve been calling everywere the past 2 weeks to get someone who specializes in ocd and there’s none in Tennessee and nowere takes my insurance I’ve always tried getting help I’ve been to hospitals I’ve seen therapists I’ve seen doctors noones ever understood the severity of my ocd noone was ever treating my ocd I go threw admissions traumatized and the nurses don’t get it I’m left in a room dealing wit the repercussions of wat I went threw like cleaning off everything they touched and when they strip search me I have to take my clothes off and on like a normal person and take my hair down and put it back up like a normal person but I have rituals and certain ways of dressing and undressing and takeing down and putting my hair up so I sit in my room redoing those Actions the way I want to cause I’ve been doing this for 15 years it’s hard to just stop doing all these things all at once but do you think anyone checked up on me do you think anyone cared that I was panicking to wear they gave me kolonopins as soon as I wlk in the door they didn’t care cause I seem normal but I have ocd and the stuff ppl wit ocd go threw is real and when we can’t do a certain thing we feel we need to do it feels like we’re slowly dieing takeing everything from you and expecting you to just stop all these things all at once should be illegal but they don’t understand the pain it causes cause they don’t understand ocd but fuck you to any place that doesn’t accept medicaid fuck everyone who has looked at me and tlk shit to me cause of my ocd bothering them my ocd is fucking real I’ve been doing this for 15 years by myself not told a ducking sole till a couple weeks ago and I try confideing to them and tell them my ocd so they can understand if I tell them I can’t do something I really can’t do they can stop being so mean to me when I tell them I stay up late to hold onto every minute of not so much ocd cause as soon as I open my eyes it’s ocd and all the rituals I have to get done today i also have anxiety and depression and if I’m tired my ocd is way worse I need rest so I can be focused when I trying to focus washing my hands and not touching the sink my eyes need to be sharp I’m done though I’ve got 15 years begging for help trying to tlk to my bf and family trying to help them understand me trying to get the care I need trying to get better so I can love a better life but fuck it I’m gonna get some rest and spend some time alone I’m done wit this though.

I went in to a psychiatric hospital 2 days ago for help with OCD and the anxiety relating to it. I did this voluntarily because the anxiety was a lot. I ended up being bunked with drug addicts who talked about violent topics all day and it just made my OCD worse because the staff didn't care at all about anything but the people on drugs. I went in to get help and I feel like I was just treated like a prisoner and none of the people there were knowledgeable of OCD like their website claimed... I just needed to vent. It's been a long 2 days and I'm sick of "professionals" knowing absolutely nothing about OCD and how painful it can be...

My ocd has been at an extreme all time high the past 2 weeks and I am in dire need of some relief. I’m not sleeping right anymore. for context: I live in the south and found a springtail on my sheets about 2 weeks ago. This was like 2 days before our bug guy came and sprayed (it’s a normal maintenance thing here) so it’s a common bug down here and I’ve found them all over different areas of the house before. Finding it in my bed sent me on a bit of a spiral bc I started to doubt if it even was a springtail and that i was wrong and that it was a bed bug, not trusting my brain. It was a bad, sleepless night and carried over continuing feelings. Typical ocd stuff. Well two days later, I’m a nurse and I had a patient that actually had bed bugs. This wasn’t the first day they were here and I did not see any myself but it still freaked me out. There had one 2 founds after visitors came the day before. Of course I wore PPE in the room (coveralls shoe covers and hair net) going in and took everything off before exiting the room. When I came home I stripped in my garage and bagged everything down to my shoes. Threw everything in the wash and did multiple cycles. There were no other steps I could take but I still had a terrible night. Hours of ruminating and going back and forth about tracing my tracks, thinking of new ways I could’ve taken one home with me. Just checking everything. I was already on a spiral from the springtail. Having two such back to back triggering events for me so closely related has made me deteriorate significantly. I was already doing bad with my normal OCD and starting therapy here. I obsess over the thought of having bedbugs constantly and haven’t been able to sleep. I am constantly checking my bed while in it and can’t settle down. My bed is heavy too and I keep hurting myself lifting my mattress to check. But I need to check. I’ve become obsessed. I check everything and go down Reddit rabbit holes looking for new things. And of course, I talk myself into it every time. I can’t take it anymore, it’s bleeding off into other parts of my life like friendship and marriage because I am so high anxiety right now. I need relief so bad. I’ve never felt this unstable to be honest. I feel like even someone without ocd would be really struggling with this topic, nevermind me, with ocd to a point where I just started treatment. These aren’t even my normal intrusive thoughts and compulsive acts. It’s just taken on a life in the last week and I can’t find any sign that it’s going to slow down. when I think rationally I know I did everything right to prevent but I can’t shake it. 💔

this is the most i will ever go into depth about my mental health, all in one post; all in one sitting. this will be draining. to start this off, yes, i have OCD—but i also have several other disorders as well. some of my diagnoses that will come to light in this have a strong correlation to comorbidity and so instead of this being a story simply about my OCD, i will cover all areas of my mental health. for readers, i want it to be clear; this is for me. i’m doing this to put my story out. i hope you find some interest in what i have to say, but in the end, my intentions are strictly to make my damage good. symptoms of my mental issues were present frequently in my childhood experience. for years i avoided any truth to how i thought or felt. thinking, feeling, acting—all 3 were never in cohesion. i had a very anti-social attitude towards life for most of my pubescent years. i got use to faking and manipulating to appear a certain way when i knew i was at risk of punishment; it allowed me to get away with a lot of immoral behaviors for a long time before i eventually was forced into counseling from a school fight i had initiated. i was roughly 14 at this time. counseling was my initial therapy for a while. i have since seen 5 therapists. i can’t say any of those therapists knew a single truth about me, really—with a mixture of pathological lying and a bad masking habit, I was stopping myself from getting any real treatment. i don’t know why, but for a long time i was content with this truth. a part of me never really felt the need to address it. my manipulative behaviors were often unintentional and not once had i sought a need to be callous, even when doing the things i was doing. with every new therapist, i had tuned my personality specifically to fit them—a concept that i don’t have a name for but now can dissect in immense detail. i would take parts of my personality and accentuate them to fit the attitudes and interests of particular people. in my head it was always about admiring the story. nobody was real; everyone was a character, everyone was a unique, self-manifested character. i just made my character with greater intents. i was a good listener, i think understanding that made me get more comfortable with my destructive and manipulative tendencies. when someone believes your listening, like really, actively listening—they’ll eventually tell you everything about themselves. now for a slight addressing of the obvious, i want it to be clear, i’m not describing ASPD—aka, the real life equivalence of sociopathy. i do think i show strong signs of it early on in my youth, and i bring these behaviors up because i think the issues that i do have developed from my anti-social behaviors—however, i was a child; i didn’t know the consequences of my behavior like i do now. if anything is needed to be said here, it’s best to address the following events like this: i understand now, i didn’t understand then. turning 15, i had started off 2023 in a relationship that meant a lot to me—a lot more to me than anything in my life leading up to this point. it’s best to address this now as well—i don’t feel a lot, but when i do, it’s usually irrationally intense and feels completely uncontrollable. at this time, i had gotten over a lot of my anti-social tendencies by now and have spent the last year improving myself after the things i had done began hurting the people i valued most. from a long list of lying, manipulating, preying, harassing, even stabbing people with whatever sharp thing was at my disposal—i had come a long way in creating a character that i actually liked. an important thing to keep in mind during this time was the early development of my OCD that had initially come in the form of suicidal ideation. most of the people in here i’m assuming are people that personally have OCD and understand that it’s not a disorder based in the stigmatized-lens of perfectionism but rather an irrational need for certainty. death quickly became my “ultimate form of certainty” in my teenage years as i turned to the concept like a comfort place—a hand on my shoulder saying “it’s okay, you can fuck up however you might, there’s always a way out.” i had not been truthful about that in therapy either, nor did the several medications prescribed in my lifetime ever do something of benefit to what my issues actually were. of course, i blame no one but myself for not benefiting from outside sources. skipping over a lot of meaningless detail—the gist of the year went like this: Jan-April relationship breaks up badly—in my irrational state, i attempted to take my life and was hospitalized, and eventually, institutionalized. i stayed there for 11 days. at the time the only diagnoses they could make of me was MDD and ASD with slight signs of generalized anxiety. May-August i get extremely medicated and start taking 150+ pills a month to maintain what at the time was being treated for bipolar and schizophrenia. i was too young to see my clinical record, and i assume they wouldn’t tell this to a minor, but it seems they believed whatever my issues really were—i was simply too young to get an accurate assessment. September-December the medication makes me completely apathetic and my loss of care for life brought back my irrational gimmicks and self-destructive tendencies. i, in a 4 month period, ruined every single relationship i had kept close to me. 2024. i was alone. i stopped taking my pills due to a loss of interest and excessive weight gaining but it made my intense emotions start to bite me again. this was the year my OCD had fully developed and by April, i was diagnosed after failing a risk-assessment. for a long period of time, i lived a meaningless, uneventful, isolated life. that year, i let my mental health take over all acts of my being. i got deep into philosophy, psychology, pathology, a lot of tv shows built around psychological dynamics—i was desperate to understand this parasite that seemed to destroy my life without any awareness. i never wanted it to take the years it did since i was initially that 13 year old boy, but i write this now with a simple truth—a truth i refused to let myself believe until recently. i can’t fix this. the more i feed into it, obsess over it—the more these issues are going to worsen. for years i wasted my days thinking i was trying everything i could and it just wasn’t working. i couldn’t accept the fact that i don’t control this, and despite being told that again and again—it never got through to me until i spent the last week not feeding into the OCD and emotional dysregulation, and for the first time, i didn’t find myself counting the seconds that passed me by. it might not mean that much for an outsider looking in, but since my OCD had fully developed—i would always be counting the seconds in the back of my head, not like 1231, 1232, 1233… but as a tick of a metronome that made me always aware of the time. the days where this wasn’t annoying, it was boring, which i ultimately hated more. i’m seeing a light i haven’t seen in years, and with it i keep reaching the same notion—i wish i didn’t waste so much of my life being miserable. i’m getting a psychological evaluation within the next month. i’ve been out of therapy for about a year now but i’m going in now looking to help myself. this is specifically for my emotional dysregulation. my current theories revolve around cluster B personality types, 1 of 4 including ASPD as i had mentioned earlier, albeit my bet is actually on BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder.) I crossed off Borderline for a long time because the symptoms list always felt too broad, but the more i understand the disorder—the more i feel connected to it. my theory comes from several factors—my rapidly changing self image, my impulsive/erratic behaviors, my irrational emotions, my long history of unconventional relationships, my fear of abandonment, my chronic emptiness, my history of self harm, etc. this is not confirmed however, and i wish to get an evaluation specifically for the disorder. getting a personality disorder diagnosed in a minor isn’t easy, but i’m doing it half for the certainty of just knowing—and half for potentionally getting a medication that can help me live a healthy-adjacent life. i never thought i would see a life free of obsession since being diagnosed with OCD. now i can enjoy the silence. thanks for reading. any commentary appreciated.