Wondering if anyone is in the same boat… For a bit of background, I’m 21 now and am away at university and have finally taken the first steps towards getting mental health help, but I can’t help but wonder why none of my many signs of ocd were caught by those around me sooner 😕 Beginning at around the age of 8 years old (maybe even younger to be honest) I had a compulsion to step on cracks just the right way, if I didn’t step on the very middle of the crack I would stop, go back and do it over again. If I turned my head around once, I needed to do it on the other side to be even, same thing with bumping into doors or walls, if I did it to one arm I needed to go back and do it to the other for symmetry. At school during quizzes or assessments I was almost always the last one done as I would double check my answers 10-20 times as a compulsion. My biggest was and still is knocking on wood three times, at my worst I was doing this from 50-100 times a day. Needless to say some of these (plus many many more) were pretty obvious, and looking back now I’m just kind of frustrated that no adults noticed and, if they did, especially during my younger years, that therapy or ERP wasn’t considered or suggested. I’m in a place now where I’m finally able to seek out mental health support myself, however it’s just frustrating there’s a 7 month wait list at my school when this likely could’ve been addressed over a decade earlier 😔

I feel this!! I am 20 but o ooking back I can see my OCD presenting itself all throughout my childhood. I have seen countless amounts of professionals and it wasn’t until last year when I was admitted to a psychiatric facility that I got the OCD diagnosis. I feel your frustration and I’m sending my love x

I’ve had ocd for along time now I went to mental hospitals seems doctors therapists took medications and had an ocd diagnosis but none of them ever mentioned exposure and response therapy I do rituals like the way I get dressed and shower and put on deodorant the way I smoke cigarettes and drink I have rules like I can’t wear certain brands of clothes and wear certain colors I can’t use certain products there’s so many but all these ppl new I was suffering and noone ever mentioned exposure ms response therapy I didn’t even no they had ocd mental hospitals I just recently had a huge trigger to my contamination ocd and have been doing all this research and finally found out bout exposure and response therapy that there’s ocd hospitals and ocd therapists all these years of wondering wat I wasn’t getting better for and it’s cause I had no idea bout the help that’s out there and the help ppl wit ocd need to get better now I’m dealing wit insurance issues noone accepts my insurance I’m on ssi for my ocd and can’t even get help for it.

I took showers for 2 hours cause I was doing rituals and haveing to get them just rite so when I got admitted into the hospital they were mad at me and made me sit in the hallway for 2 weeks all day yelling at me to take a shower if I didn’t take a shower they’d have someone put me in there cause I couldn’t take a normal time shower when I told them I had ocd they acted as if I wanted to shower for 2 hours and was just being uncooperative then finally someone asked if they knocked on the door every few minutes to let me no the amount of time I had been in there if we could cut the time down by a few minutes everyday and I did but I was still doing the rituals just trying to rush when if they would’ve helped me to unlearn the rituals I could’ve showered normal now I’ve been showering the same way for 15 years also dressing the same way doing alot of stuff the same way all they were worried bout was getting all the kids showered on time they didn’t care if I was struggling it’s sad all these years I’ve been made to feel like I should be punished cause of my problems cause of that when realy they shouldn’t of treated me like that they should’ve sent me to an ocd hospital I struggled for years wondering wat I wasn’t getting better for and it’s cause noone was actually helping me I also think who can look at me and think nothings rong but ppl just can’t understand that ocd is hard and trying to stop the thoughts and compulsions is extremely hard even though nothing is physically holding us back but we no it’s real and that’s all that matters ppl get so wrapped up in there life they don’t think bout others possibly struggling.

Okay but the cracks!!! I did the thing where you step over the cracks in order left foot right foot left foot ect and I'd I messed up I too would have to go back. My coping mechanism with this one is to try to look forward or more up because if I'm not looking at the ground it doesn't bother me as much so I walk and tell my self to keep my head up.