- Username
- NOCD
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 2y ago
Dealt with intrusive thoughts and mental compulsions since I was 5 or 6. I remember breaking down crying in first grade cause of it. Family wasn't sure what was going on and didn't know where to look so fealt all we could really do is pray about it. The symptoms went away after awhile, occasionally manifesting itself to a lesser extent but it recently flared up again this past few weeks and that's when I started researching and asking questions cause I was panicked and confused. Turns out my dad had experienced OCD as a young adult. At the same time, I started looking at therapy. Just got diagnosed last week. It's definitely waxed and waned so I'm hoping I get the help, and medication if necessary, to finally overcome this.
Researching about intrusive thoughts, finding out about OCD UK and then feeling very seen when I saw all my obsessions and compulsions listed. I wasn't diagnosed until a few months later but it helped give a name to what I was dealing with. I just knew it wasn't normal (no one around me seemed to be dealing with the same) and my usual coping mechanisms weren't working
my regular therapist suggested I see a psychiatrist to prescribe me medication for my “anxiety”. After my consultation she wanted to prescribe me Prozac and diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder. However, she said she was prescribing me Prozac because it was one of the medications used to treat OCD and said my anxiety was on the OCD spectrum… I started googling OCD symptoms (which took a lot of courage) because I was terrified of finding out I had schizophrenia or something and yeah turns out I had OCD.
I had severe contamination OCD when I was 10, but I truly thought I was normal and everyone else was just gross😅my mom kind of forced me to see a psychiatrist and I was diagnosed with OCD. But I think I’ve had it all my life. As far back as I can remember, I had “just right” OCD before the contamination. It really wasn’t until I had my son a few months ago that I started to realize I’ve had ocd all along; I thought when I stopped being so worried about contamination that the ocd went away but it didn’t. It just switched themes.
Mine started as a joke in Middle school when all my books needed to be stacked a certain way or I couldn’t focus so my peers just kept saying I was OCD but I later realized other behaviors that were consistent with that as well. Needless to say, I’ve since been diagnosed
Mine was when I kept diagnosing and swearing up and down I had a terminal illness. I ended up leaving work to get a full blown blood test. The entire 3-4 months I was freaking I started compulsively praying more than usual and I had to finish “rituals/challenges” or I would get terminally sick. I’ve always had this problem but the only reason I got diagnosed was because I thought to myself “this is so weird, normal people don’t think this way, normal people don’t freak out like this” I got checked for “anxiety” and got diagnosed for “OCD.”
Diagnosing myself ***
I saw an article in a magazine which mentioned the book, “The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing.” I think that’s the first time I heard about obsessive compulsive disorder. I knew I had problems with getting disturbing thoughts in my head that I couldn’t get rid of. I felt that’s what I probably had.
I always had intrusive thoughts and did compulsions in order to feel good, but i nevel gave it any attention until my ocd thoughts turned into a taboo theme of incest. I knew that i wasn't that type of person yet i still couldn't shake those thoughts. I searched on the internet (i was really young too, around 10) and i found other people with the exact same problem, and eventually i found out that this behavior was ocd.
I was diagnosed at 17 with anxiety with obsessive tendencies but I didn't know that until about a month ago. I recently looked it up and realized it's also called OCD and that explains the intrusive thoughts I've had since I was 5
Found out I had the condition 3 months ago. 28 years I struggled alone.
27 for me. I feel your pain
@Fighting_OCD We got it brother!
I did when my mum said to me that my behaviours like ocd she was a bit missinformed but ironically I thfeel no she was correct I haven’t been diagnosed so I’m not sure but my nan deff has ocd she hasn’t been diagnosed but I wouldn’t skip over that I then looked it up and I was like oh yeah some of this matches me
When and how did you first discover you may have OCD? I'm beginning to think OCD is one of the most understudied, misunderstood mental health issues ever. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder about 6 years ago after I started suffering from panic attacks, but only just recently discovered my condition could be much more specific than that. I've been suffering from intrusive thoughts and complusions since I was a teenager with a variety of themes. And honestly this app and amazing community has opened my eyes to it. I'm curious if anyone else has had an experience like mine where they were just thrown into the general diagnosis category of just having anxiety and/or depression and is only just now coming to terms with having OCD? What has been your experience with the therapists on this app? I'm using another popular, pricey app for talk therapy at the moment, but so far 4 therapists have ghosted me on it so my confidence is feeling pretty shot. Has talk therapy and working with a therapist on here been successful for you?
What was it like when you got to know what you’re experiencing is OCD? especially those of us who thought OCD was just about excessive organisation or contamination? i specifically remember reading about different mental illnesses out of curiosity when i was 12 and reading about ocd, my reaction was “hm sounds weird i definitely don’t have it” and i moved on. When i was 15, and I googled about my intrusive thoughts and it showed me what i’m experiencing is ocd i was so shocked? *this* is ocd? I was so astound.
I'm curious if anyone else thought they had a different illness or has even been formally misdiagnosed. For me, OCD *always* came up in Google search results when I was looking up my symptoms. But I always dismissed it thinking "there's no way I have that!" because of my false preconception of OCD being purely about cleanliness and counting. My symptoms involving mood swings and my obsessions/insecurities with how other people perceive me made me believe I had BPD for several years. Even then, it didn't feel right. I felt sort of bad discussing the possibility with my friends because I still thought "but it doesn't feel as severe as they describe it..." It wasn't until my recent (and so far worst) flare up that I specifically searched for intrusive suicidal thoughts that I discovered suicide OCD is exactly everything I had been experiencing. I cried with relief, knowing I wasn't simply going crazy.
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