Hi I’m getting my masters in clinical mental health counseling and have a research project to do. I myself have OCD. I wanted to get some input from others on what they believe is the reason for their ocd. Such as; 1)Trauma -physical -emotional -sexual 2)Genetics 3)other Also what age did you see symptoms/ get diagnosed? Thank you!
I was never physically, emotionally, sexually abused. I honestly think poor diet, poor thinking patterns when younger plus the fear of covid when it first started. (My onset started after covid)
@ME&3noOCD That’s very interesting thank you for replying! I think this is important to include that it’s not always trauma based it can just be a random onset
Genetics 🧬 My great grandmother and grandmother and grandfather, all on my dad’s side, had OCD. Then it got worse when I went through childhood trauma.
@Nica That’s interesting to look at this having all the way back to your great grandmother, hope you are healing!
I feel it’s both genetic and environmental. I noticed my first episodes at around 8 years old. I finally got diagnosed at 54. I basically was misdiagnosed for most of my life.
@EarlyCat That must have been so hard.
I don’t know where it came from all I know is that I honestly don’t know if I had it as a kid or not but when I believe it started was I heard something awful on the news and couldn’t get it out my head and was like why can’t you stop thinking shout this and it spiralled so bad to the point I wanted to die and ended up quitting my job. I found through research that it was ocd. I did have some childhood trauma but nothing major was physically abused but not often from what I can remember as well as been shouted at a lot etc. I don’t know if this has anything to do with it or not. But when I think I first had ocd when it was debilitating is when I was around 20 I think.
@em24# Throughout my life always reacted emotionally to hearing bad things. Observed others. Even as a child would think the worse and be scared something bad was going happen. But these weren’t usually stuck thoughts like when I first suffered from ocd
@em24# Thank you for helping! Im sorry about that. I support you and hope you heal
@Morgan Thank you 🙏
Trauma (physical injury required 3 surgeries, over a year of physical therapy, being off work and stuck at home, etc.) and genetics.
Diagnosed at 33 years old but had subclinical OCD as a teen. OCD was better with treatment and completely spun out at 42 with perimenopause, pregnancy and then post partum depression.
@Erin P Try bluebird botanicals CBD capsules and expose response therapy!
@Morgan Doing ERP. Thanks for the CBD recommendation.
@Erin P Hi Erin, are you through to menopause now. I’m struggling at this moment going through the change too band has worse symptoms at pregnancy and post partum
@Schoolie93 It’s hard. Estradiol has helped me.
Hi! I started with OCD as young as 6/7. No physical trauma here, but emotional. My mother is a narcissist, and I was bullied a lot growing up. I honestly think growing up Catholic messed with me too. Hope this helps!
@Lolo1017 Thank you so much! I’m sorry you had to deal with all that. It’s interesting to me because I also started showing symptoms at 7 years old but have sexual trauma
Why do some people develop OCD?
So basically I didn’t know till my hocd started. But looking back at my life I had ocd since I was a kid. Like 6-7 years old. First time happening I remember that when I was doing stuff many times I had to say something like a little poem in my head to stop it. Then I had this thing were if I felt my left foot touch the floor 5 times I had to do the touch the floor with my right foot too. Then I had something I guess contamination??? Basically after washing my hands I had a sensation on my hand like I could still “feel” the germs and I had to wash them again. Then I started having thoughts of my family members getting hurt. I had intrusive thoughts about me hurting my dog. Then I had this obsession that a guy who used to be in my school is looking for me to beat me up. And how it’s this obsession about my sexuality even tho I never doubted or questioned it before. Is that possible??? Like can you be born with it? I’m pretty sure both my parents have it too. At least at some level. Take my father for example he had an obsession that he was going to die the moment he turned 30.
So I have been trying to work out over the past 5 years where my OCD come from and have began to realise that ruminating on where it comes from is actually a compulsion in itself. I believe mine come from having a low self esteem and a lot of stress in my life at that time. I then attended talking therapy to try and understand my feelings and intrusive thoughts and all this did was fuel the OCD further because trying to assign meaning to the thoughts is actually the opposite of what we should do. Does anyone else feel like they know what triggered there OCD?
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