- Date posted
- 2y
What is life like without OCD
Many times I wonder about this: what is life like without OCD? How would my life be if I wasn't dealing/struggling/suffering from OCD
Many times I wonder about this: what is life like without OCD? How would my life be if I wasn't dealing/struggling/suffering from OCD
well i can say with what i know before i had ocd, because i only started suffering when i turned 16 and was pretty much normal before that. itās basically SO MUCH more peaceful hahah, i remember i would think so much less and used to imagine up lots of funny scenarios in my head about people i knew and i was very creative, thinking about different concepts or daydreaming, not obsessively. i didnāt have to worry about thinking about anything cos i could make it stop at any time. i thoight about my future and what i wanted to do and did a lot more stuff because i had a lot more general ideas about things i wanted to do in the day like baking or making silly videos or trying something knew. now a lot of the time i kinda sit doing nothing ruminating haha- im trying to stop. itās also like i never thought if i was a bad person or had guilt or anything, i thought i was a pretty good person and i liked myself a lot more. i also wasnāt at all paranoid, i had some social anxiety that made me overthink but that was the only time i would overthink without being able to stop. and yeh it was pretty chill and i just kinda did whatever i wanted without being scared and never thought bad stuff would happen.
I think it's going to be really freeing. This is why I hope everyone struggling gets the help they need. Things will get better
I never doubted who I was and how I would act. I was very grounded in being me. I really donāt remember have many intrusive thoughts, I know they say everyone has them but mine were very few and far between. If one did come up I think āyuck that was a bad thoughtā and go about my day. When ocd happened it was like a light switch, it even mysteriously went away a few days later but then returned. That was ages ago before much was know about ocd. At least now we have more understanding.
I wonder this often
I hate the way ocd has completely messed up my brain, I struggle to tell the difference between an intrusive though and a regular one, I have really bad issues with morality and I feel as if my brain can no longer tell what is and isn't right and I can't tell if I'm over reacting about situations and I end up feeling stuck in a loop of wondering if I'm a bad person and trying to look at a situation rationally and not knowing if that's even possible with the state of my mind, I feel like none of my thoughts are actually mine. I hate it and I wish I could feel in control of my thoughts even for just a day, just to know what it's like. I've had ocd symptoms since I was about 9-10 so i feel like I've never really know a life without it. I just wish I could live out my teenage years like anyone else my age. I can hardly engage with my hobbies and passions and I don't know what to do about it. I can't go to therapy or get medication because I'm not even diagnosed, I just feel trapped. I'm only a teenager, like I said, I don't want to live my entire life like this.
I feel like my life isn't my own anymore. I live by OCD's rules. I can't ever switch it off. I spend most of my day mentally reviewing and constantly checking myself. I have to do things in a certain way or i dont feel safe. All this time that i've lost and for what? Idk how I let thoughts have so much power over my life and yet here I am. Every day. I can't even get away from it in sleep because i have dreams about it and I wake up anxious if i manage to get any sleep at all. I'm so over it all.
(Long post warning) Hi, Iāve been struggling with severe OCD for six years now. it started in 2019 with my theme being getting sick/emetophobia. it devastated my life. I almost didnāt graduate high school from it. I remember washing my hands for three hours one day until they were nearly bloody while crying and asking why I could not stop doing it. I remember id have to write and rewrite sentences when I did my English homework and thatās why I nearly failed that class. I remember how I would spend up to thirty minutes to an hour pacing the halls of my apartment while my mom was asleep until I neutralized the thoughts about throwing up and I could finally go to bed. I donāt know when it happened, but my theme switched. Sometimes in late 2020 or early 2021, it switched to POCD. It started with a single thought, and I focused on it and itās been my theme since then for four years. It has been absolutely destroying me. I feel so disgusted and lost and just tired. My compulsions are severe now. I thought they were bad before, but now theyāre ten times worse. I canāt eat, drink, change my clothes, walk, or even do things on my phone normally. Iāve developed so many mental compulsions that itās so intricate and complicated yet at the same time Iāve done them so much that theyāve become normal. An example I have is if im putting on a shirt and I have a ābadā thought, I have to take it off and put it back on two more times (thatāll make it 3 times I put the shirt back on - odd numbers are my safe number). I have to have a good thought on the third time otherwise I have to take it off and put it on two more times to make it five times I put on that shirt. If not that then I just put on a different shirt because the original is now tainted with my bad thought. I canāt open apps on my phone. Itās with the numbers again. If I open TikTok once while having a bad thought - I have to close it and open it two more times and so on. Sometimes I do it up to 30 times. So I just donāt do things usually. I donāt turn on the TV because I know Iāll redo it. I donāt open a book or grab it off my shelf because Iāll have to repeat the action. I canāt even lay in bed without getting up and redoing it even if im exhausted. I just feel so helpless. I donāt know what to do. I feel disgusting and even now my minds screaming at me that I am dirty and what I think is true. I just wish I was free of this, I wish I could just live my life. Iāve wasted hours and days because of my compulsions. I mask it so well around my friends. I donāt do them in front of anyone or Iāve learned to hide it well. But when im back home alone, it goes haywire. I just want to live again.
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