very sexy and hot of the most important people in my life to listen to my experiences with ocd and then try to convince me that i don’t have a disorder

This is exactly why I’ve stopped talking about mental health with my family members. Also because no one in my family will understand what POCD is, and when I DO talk to my family about my other obsessions they just say “you’re normal, there’s nothing wrong with you.” Like?? YES THERE IS LMAO

I see. That’s frustrating! I only explain my situation to others if I’m ready to hear back: “that makes no sense.” I realized that when I wanted to get others to really “get it” and they didn’t that it actually became a cause of further doubt and anxiety.

It can help to set a boundary and stick to it. Tell them: I appreciate your concern and I know your questions are coming from a place of caring, but explaining and justifying my diagnosis doesn’t help me, and I would like to stop discussing this with you. I’m happy to let you know how I’m doing, but I’m going to leave the details for my therapist. I hope you can understand and respect that.” If they bring it up again, say “as I told you before, it’s really not helpful for me to go into details with you. Thank you for asking. I am struggling and your support means a lot. But I’d like to leave discussing the details to my therapist.”

Unless your family gets their own training in how to support someone with OCD, stop talking to them about any details. You can share if you’re having a particularly bad day or accept love and support, but don’t discuss the details of your obsessions. It’s not helpful, and actually using your family/friends for therapy isn’t a healthy dynamic to have in the first place — OCD or not. Your relationships in general will improve if you use those around you for love and support rather than problem fixers.

i mean im not even trying to talk with them as a source of therapy—i was just trying to explain what i was going through and why id decided to go back to therapy, so it was really more like a casual discussion. trust me i definitely don’t use my family/friends as therapists—im currently in school to become one myself, so i keep discussions of my mental health to cursory explanations of why i behave the way i do sometimes bc they are nosy and ask haha

which is just to say that i am trying to use them for love and support, but it always ends in an argument with them telling me im not experiencing what im very truly experiencing

oh absolutely :( unfortunately my family is very. Very nosy so it gets hard to dodge even though it’s unhealthy :/ hopefully at some point they’ll respect my privacy!!