My new OCD theme is hitting me harder than previous themes. I've been obsessing about hearing loss and losing a substantial amount of my hearing that I may go completely deaf in the far future. It is because of a hearing test that tells me that I have ears of a 32 year old and I'm 17 which means I degraded my ears so much that it advanced 15 years past my age. I'm getting fears that I might go deaf at my 30's. I started to obsess on measuring my surroundings and my earphones with decibel meters to make sure it is not "too loud" and I get severe anxiety attacks about it whenever I misheard what other people say because I might have hearing loss. I tested on an audiogram app and I got "normal hearing" but other websites tell me that I have mild hearing loss which makes me more uncertain and anxious. I can't even think straight anymore, I've been missing online classes because my tabs are always on searches about hearing loss, hearing frequencies, headphone settings, etc... I need to stop this before it gets even worse. I've been obsessing on my hearing whether I heard things well or not and if not means "you have hearing loss". I might get full-blown Somatic OCD if I don't get my " Fear of Hearing Loss" obsessions in-check.

I can help you with it. 18 months ago I had was similar situation as that of ypurs but It was that of eyes. I used to get flickers which was actually normal but I someone worried about it so much that I got scared If was going to go blind. When I googled it I found out that it was symtom of future blindness. Then I was completely scared at that moment. It just took off more from there. Then With more research I found out through google that blindness can be aymtom of type 2 diabetes . Then I got frightened even more. Eventually I had to do my tests due to extreme fear . Well guess what I was all well. I stressed about it for about a month. And even today i am all well and fine. This is absolute OCD so do not take it seriously it just comes and goes. Sending my love to youuu.

I saw your post, and I had to respond. I’m 62 years old and my ocd presented similarly to yours-lots of Googling, testing, rumination. I have spent over 37 years doing compulsions related to “health” issues. The thing you need to understand is your inability to “think straight” is due to your compulsions (checking, testing, rumination etc). As my therapist explained to me, life is uncertain, anything can happen. However, in trying to gain certainty we make our ocd worse, we feed the OCD cycle. All the trying to gain certainty never gives you the answers you’re looking for. Believe me, after all these years I can honestly tell you that you will never feel 100% certain. Oh sure, after several years you may feel better if you haven’t lost your hearing, but there will be some other issue you will be trying to gain certainty about. This was what happened to me. Now, 38 years into it, I’m learning to sit with the uncertainty, when fear and doubts arise the urges to check, research, ruminate are intense. I often feel like I cannot move forward with my day until I “figure it out”. I’m learning I must resist these urges. For example, I wanted to ruminate/check about a “medical” issue this morning. I felt afraid, uncertain, irresponsible etc. I know I must live with uncertainty so I chose to exercise, eat a healthy breakfast and hopefully respond/offer some support to someone else dealing with uncertainty 😀. When all of this started for me (early 20’s) I didn’t know what it was, I truly thought I was being conscientious about my health. I know it’s hard to hear, but we live in a world where bad thing can happen. Don’t spend all your time trying to prevent these things. I hope you are working with a therapist. Working with an NOCD therapist has made a world of difference in my life. There is hope and help out there. All the best!