It feels so hard to live in a body. I’m always scared I’m going to get blood clots or have a stroke or a heart attack. I’m always checking my ankles for swelling, my skin for changes in tone (like if I turn yellow etc), my pulse, my veins. I just pulled my boyfriend into the bathroom to “check my veins” on my thighs because they looked bigger than they should to me…. My mind was saying they were dilated because of a clot because my left leg and arm have felt weaker off and on the past few weeks. But I feel like I get a lot of physical symptoms along with ocd and anxiety? Maybe? I don’t even know. Maybe it is real? But he showed me the veins on his thighs too and he compared them to mine and told me they looked fine. I feel so lost in this journey because I know I’m not supposed to give into compulsions and seek reassurance and he wants to help me so he will reassure me when I ask him questions to calm my compulsions. I have no idea what I should ask of him if he wants to help instead of reassurance. I try my best and every day I maybe ask him for reassurance once or twice out of the millions of times I want to ask but get through it myself. So I guess that’s something? I’m just sort of rambling and sharing now… I just feel like it’s so hard living and my head always feels spacey and I’m not sure what to ask of my loved ones to help. When I told my mother I had ocd she seemed understanding. Then just the other day I was sick and staying with her and she laughed and said “you know I’m a little ocd too, I hate germs!” And both of my parents have a very “it’s something wrong with you that you need to change” attitude my whole life and have never understood how I struggle. If I try to explain that ocd isn’t just “hating germs”, she dismissed it and gets angry and either would say something like “it was just a joke. You’re so sensitive!” Or “well how do you even really know you have ocd? Everyone is a little ocd!” So I can’t go to them. I feel like I have nobody sometimes just my boyfriend and he does an amazing job but I feel like I shouldn’t be asking him for reassurance. Just unpacking here. Not really sure how or if I’m expecting any responses I just needed to get this out to a community I know understands. If you read all this…. Thanks haha

My mom will sit and listen to me for quite a while, but she interrupts a lot and gets angry/upset. While I appreciate her passion, it's often stressful. Every time I come to her, if I even *mention* OCD, she gets frustrated and says, "Everyone deals with these issues, you know. It doesn't mean it's OCD." And I repeat, "I'm not saying my issues are unique — I'm saying the way I respond to them is a problem." But she just shakes her head and says, "Okay, I need to get back to my day." Full context, I'm an adult, and I live with my boyfriend, but I'm staying at my mom's for the next month. After living away from home for years, I went back to living with her during the pandemic, and I only recently left to live with him. Honestly, I think living with her for so long in my adulthood really messed with me and made me feel like a teenager all over again. I feel like my mental growth is stunted, and that's part of why my OCD is so bad lately. Not blaming, just noticing. She doesn't seem to understand how relieving the OCD diagnosis has been for me, because it explains so so so many things I've struggled with for years, and it's exciting to have more resources that can help me. But I think she sees it as me finding an excuse to *not* work on myself, which is just untrue. I'm not going to let OCD hold me back or use it as an excuse, but I'm also not going to pretend it's not a problem when I know it is — I was even diagnosed through NOCD. The whole point being to fix it, not use it as a crutch. When I have an issue, it's unbearable. Any issue, big or small, feels just the same. I feel a sinking feeling, my mind races, my heart beats out of my chest. I end up running to my support systems, crying, ruminating for days on end. Then, months later, the same exact issue can feel like nothing anymore, because it's no longer an obsession. I'm sure everyone deals with issues in a similar way, but I *know* there is something specific and debilitating going on with me. This is reassurance seeking, but in the face of being told I'm making a big deal out of nothing, can someone diagnosed with OCD tell me if they relate to the specific intensity of these feelings??

It’s getting so bad I think I’ve been dealing with scrupulosity but I’m always doubting if it’s actually ocd or if I’m just telling myself that as a excuse for being a “bad Christian”. It’s not only that, it’s everything I have had ocd thought loops in the past but they’ve been so unbearable lately and once one goes away another one starts. It’s been really focused on making me feel liek everything is my fault and I don’t know how to stop that when it actually could be. Then there’s this guy we were talking and he was telling me what he needed out of a relationship and asked me to tell him the same and now I’m so scared I’m gonna ruin something he said trust is really important to him. I was taking to one of our shared friends about us and I’m scared I said something he wouldn’t wanted me to say and that he’s not going to trust me now and I keep thinking about how I really should not have talked to her and it’s killing me. I’m also scared that I’m not gonna tell him something that happened in the past because I don’t think it’s important and he’s going to find out and be mad I feel like rocd is ruining my relationship that’s not even a relationship yet. I just keep thinking through all the different scenarios how I could ruin us up or it could work and I promise myself it will be the last time I think about it and it never is and it’s just constant from the moment I wake up to the moment I sleep and then I think maybe Gods just trying to warn me but I’m so exhausted or being this anxious because that doesn’t seem like Him but then maybe it is and I’m just trying to get what I want. I want to ask for help so bad but every time I do it feels like there really isn’t anything wrong and I don’t actually have any ocd. I don’t want to talk to my family about it, when it’s come up before they either make rude comments or make fun of me for it they really just don’t understand and I don’t know what to do anymore. sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it’s worth getting better tbh. Thank you for reading it all if you did :)

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