I have anxiety about whether I really have OCD. What if I've been misdiagnosed and I'm taking medication for nothing? Thinking about it is also a symptom of OCD, but what if I'm making myself sick?
This runs through my head 24/7
Not to go about the reassurance route, but do you really have OCD if you haven’t had the “am I SURE this is OCD? This could all be real!” thought? :p Look at the first two words of your second sentence. Catch yourself there!
Thank you!
I spent about four months obsessing about this very question to the point where I could no longer function. I’ve had to learn that you can’t know 100% for sure whether you have OCD (I spent so much time worrying I’d somehow lied or misrepresented my experience to loved ones and therapists), but chances are if you’re worrying about it so much then OCD is very likely!
It felt good to know that this questioning is normal, thank you. :)
A few things here- Many regular psychologists don't actually understand OCD. Misdiagnosis seems to be a pretty big issue with it. Regular talk therapy is ineffective for OCD at best, and can actually make OCD worse. ERP therapy (Exposure and Response Prevention) with an OCD expert is the ONLY way forward if you wish to treat your OCD. If you're in regular talk therapy for OCD, you need to switch to ERP to make progress. Many talk therapists claim to treat OCD. They really can't. Far too many therapists don't know that ERP is the only way to progress when OCD is the issue. I am not an expert, but l've never heard of this “four theme“ thing. Here's what I do know for sure: OCD is the doubt disorder and can latch onto and make you doubt things in your life to the point of torturing you. It attaches itself to what you value the most and can cause immense pain, suffering, and debilitation. It has countless subtypes. You could doubt your sexuality, your relationship, contamination, whether or not something really happened, if you're transgender, if you're actually a pedophile, if you're going to lose control and harm yourself/someone, etc. You can research the subtypes for more information and specifics. With these worries comes intense distress, rumination, questioning, endlessly trying to reach answers (“What if’s”), fear, and also compulsions that are designed to provide relief from the fear. This relief is only temporary. In fact, these compulsions actually reinforce the disorder and make it worse over time. Doing what OCD wants you to do actually feeds it and makes it get stronger until you are completely debilitated and under its control. Compulsions will differ depending on the subtype. For instance, with my subtype, Relationship OCD (ROCD), I fear that I don't genuinely love my partner or have the right feelings. Compulsions for me include checking current feelings, mentally reviewing encounters to see how I felt at a certain time, latching onto words or statements and overanalyzing them/comparing them to my values, imagining how I'd feel leaving the relationship, debating if I’d be happier single, asking myself and mentally debating if someone else I know would make me happier, ruminating about how I feel, asking others what they think of my partner, taking relationships quizzes, etc. . . . When I doubt my attraction to my partner, I may scrutinize their appearance, frequently check what I think of their looks, mentally compare their looks to past crushes, research photos of models and compare feelings I have towards them, ask myself if I would be happier with one of them, etc. You get the idea. ERP gives you necessary skills to withstand discomfort, teaches you to identify unhelpful thinking patterns and compulsions, then uses exposures to gradually expose you to discomfort and your fear while not resorting to compulsions. This method of therapy has been shown to give people their lives back. This is not the case with regular talk therapy. If you’re having trouble finding an ERP therapist in your community who specializes in OCD, you could use NOCD therapy, which is what I use. All of their therapists are OCD specialists who use ERP and have at least a Masters-Level certification. All NOCD therapy is via Zoom so you can do it in your own home. They will also make a diagnosis in the first session or two.
From my basic understanding (I've been diagnosed with OCD and GAD).. But I do feel as if I have multiple comorbidties.. Dealing with Trauma and memory issues so I am trying to get a second opinion with a different psychologist
Good luck and take care! I hope you get better as soon as possible.
@dnl-mobius You as well.. I hope for all of us to recover quickly 🙏
@donnocd I hope so! <33
I always get multiple opinions before taking a medication for something I'm diagnosed with. Some psychiatrists said I didn't have OCD while others said I did. It took me two decades to get a correct diagnosis.
Oh my :(
That's too bad. I talked with three doctors and one of my teachers, all said I was correctly diagnosed. But I still don't know, of course.
@Anonymous Is it okay to ask why some of the psychiatrists said that you did not have ocd
@Anna,hi! - Sure. They said that OCD has four themes, and my health obsession didn't fit any of the themes. However, this year I was diagnosed with OCD because a health obsession also has characteristics of a contamination obsession. Contamination is one of the OCD themes. This is the first time a therapist told me this, so hopefully I get the correct treatment now.
Can someone please tell me if there are any other similar diagnosis to OCD I am convinced that I was misdiagnosed or that I miss spoke to the extent that I have made the provider who did my psych evaluation misdiagnose me with OCD. I have intrusive thoughts of suicide constantly. I have intrusive thoughts that cause me intense distress and disgust. I am constantly ruminating for hours on different situations and even crying as I type this because I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I feel like I’m not aligned in a prescriptive way with what OCD is. I am extremely frustrated. I just want to know what is wrong with me And there are so many things that I see within the OCD community that align with my experiences, but I feel like from conversations I’m having maybe I’m just anxious or a flawed person and I’m not saying that for reassurance I really feel that way I don’t know what else to do. This is a recent diagnosis so anyone who has felt this way or has similar diagnosis to OCD it would be great to hear from you. Thanks.
i have been diagnosed with OCD & generalized anxiety disorder. for some reason, i’ve been very hyper aware of everything. like the way i talk, the way i see the world, how certain things sound/look/feel, and it’s very distressing. i feel like the hyper awareness makes me afraid of things? like for some reason, my mind attached to cartoons, and i was hyperfocusing on it, and got extremely scared, like scared of the cartoon for no reason? i’ve done this a lot, and i get scared i have psychosis or schizophrenia, or something that makes you afraid of things for no unknown reason. i feel so scared that this is my new normal…. im heartbroken. so many what if’s. did i just ruin my own life?? 💔
Hey, so I've never actually been diagnosed with OCD. I did a little bit of research, I always thought OCD was organizing things. But I'm not normal, I have this thing where I feel something isn't right. I obsess over it or if I brush my hand over something correctly then it's fixed. Or I have to do this thing on stairs, I'll walk up a few or down them because something isn't right. I read this thing on memories. I know something happened, but then I doubt myself to the point I don't know if it happened. And I think too logically in relationships. I'll put statistics on things and if they might not work out I distance myself, there's other odd things I do. My family always told me I was fine but then said things like I was messed up, and said to just ignore what I felt. Like I was making it up. I don't know what to do, I don't have a doctor currently, I was never diognosed. Is there a way to be sure I have it? Or a way to stop everything? I just want to stop everything, please and thank you. Sorry for the long post. If anyone can help, I would be so thankful.
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