So I'm kind of fighting this baddle alone in my head, I feel like I'm going crazy now that I actually think about it, let me explain. So I think I have ocd but I'm confused, during the day it barely ever bothers me to the point where I barely notice it , but at night before I go to bed I feel like everything has to be in it's place. Nothing out of place, nothing out of place , nothing out of place. Everything has to be perfectly straight EVERY THING. Certain things I have to do a certain amount of times. Some things I MUST do everyday. I've tried to talk to my parents about it, but they just blow it off saying it's no big deal, they don't understand what I'm going through ,just to go to bed is at times like a warzone. I sometimes walk from my bathroom after brushing my teeth with my eyes closed so I can't see anything out of place because if I do it's like Domino's I see one thing after another that's out of place, some things idk why they look out of place and I spend a lot of time just moving them back and forth and back and forth till my brain finally sais it's fixed. I asked my dad if I could stay in his and mom's room for the night, because I am less urged to stay up all night cleaning when I'm distracted by other people or when I know "Hay if u stay up cleaning their going to be Mad at you". And it sounds wierd coming from your 14 year old daughter to ask such a thing, at this age you should be old enough to manage your own nightmares you know what I mean?? He told me to ask mom , mostly because he was half asleep and ready to go to bed. That eavning when me and Mom were sitting across from each other , I couldn't come up with the courage to ask , it was too wierd , too stupid, too crazy of a consept to even try to explain. So I went outside on the back porch and cried , she came out and asked me what was wrong and I said nothing, after trying to explain to dad I just wanted to be alone. Of course she wouldn't leave she asked again till I finally told her, " I, I think I have OCD and I , don't know how to handle it, I mean" I continued," I stayed up till 3:00 last night fixing things I thought were crooked or out of place" I couldn't talk any more without choking ip so I stopped. She said to me " well OCD isn't bad , it has it's benifits you know" I shrug , wondering how such an annoyance could be helpful in any way. "Well I was just making sure you were ok" she said going back into the house. I wanted desperately for her to stay out there with me talk about it and possibly go over some stuff that could help, bit we didn't. Now don't get me wrong my parents are amazing they love their kids very much and are always there for us, they just don't understand. So after a late night of reaserch , joining an ameno, joining this app ,and of course YouTube , I am already feeling better. It's only been 2 days or less but I realized that giving in isn't helping and am taking it day by day, I feel crazy yes , sometimes I question if I'm just going crazy but. I know I can do it. Please share your tips on this desease?? I don't know what the technical turn for it is. But tips would be greatly appreciated. Also thank you for listening to my rant.

hii everyone, so, it has been about 2 or 3 years I’d say since I’ve been dealing with this. let’s just get right into it, so first, whatever I have (which might be OCD, I’m not entirely sure what it is) has taken over basically most of my childhood, and what kills me is that I’ll never get it back. one thing I know is that im not normal, i now get sleepless nights. why you may ask? because of my horrifying thoughts, “if you don’t look up you’ll be praying to the devil and you’ll go to hell!” “if you don’t say ‘God bless them’ their condition will happen to you!” “if you don’t say ‘good yetho 2x’ (idek..) ‘your mom will die 5x’ you’ll die and forget how to read. “if you don’t put your arms up, look directly up at the ceiling because if you look down you’ll pray to the devil so you need to look up, and say ‘Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you forgive me for my sins in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.’ you’ll go straight to hell!” or whenever I touch a wall, i need to touch it with my small finger because if I touch it twice with my pointer finger my body will go to hell. it’s an endless cycle, and what’s even worse is that I may never be able to get help. I’ll never get that life back that I wanna live, and it kills me. I’ve named most of the compulsions and obsessions I have and I have 18 compulsions that are physical and about 5 obsessions that I really don’t wanna name right now. anyway, i really don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve done a lot of research regarding around disorders, and it’s safe to say that I may have OCD. Now, do i want ocd? absolutely not. however, there’s a family member in my family who has it. so the chances of me having it are strong, i don’t think I’m able to get better until I’m 18. an adult. I’m 12 years old, my mom has noticed my compulsions and me repeating certain words. but she does nothing, absolutely nothing. instead, she just argues with me over it. if I ever tell my mom to sit down and ask her about getting a test, she would probably call me the R-Slur and tell me I’m crazy. Therefore, I’m all alone in this situation with no one to help me. another obsession I have is about me catching cancer if I don’t do a compulsion or I might get paralyzed and get sleep paralysis. It’s so horrifying, there’s more obsessions and compulsions I have but I really don’t wanna name them right now. I cry almost every day because of how exhausted I am, and how much help i truly want to get but I don’t think I ever will. I’m unsure whether or not I have ocd, people tell me to get a diagnosis. but the situation I am in right now makes it impossible. i have no way of getting tested but I have a good feeling I have ocd, if you’re reading this, please try to give me your thoughts and what I should do, and if I even have OCD. Thanks! :))

So I’ve been struggling to write this down. The truth about OCD is that it sucks. I get weird thoughts and they stick. And because I can’t confirm their weird thoughts i get stuck in a cycle of rumination. That’s my compulsion. I avoid people and situations because I think I’m a bad person. Which ultimately drove me into depression and more. The verdict is this: you can’t make a thought go away. You can accept it as a thought even if you feel doubt about accepting it and letting it be there. Fake it till you make it. I’m faking it everyday and I’ve grown so much since staring my exposure therapies. Don’t avoid your exposures. They become so easy like water. The hardest part is starting. Rumination is a choice - believe it or not. I go, wait a minute wait a minute, I don’t want to keep figuring this out. And I feel the train tracks move and my mind goes else where. This is with therapy. This is with holding on to my last string of hope. And to make this easier for all of you. I’m a mother. My ocd has made my life harder because I have a tiny human who relies on me. I had a horrible childhood with the main billion still in my life. I’ve accepted it. Accept and move on. Work out for 5 min a day. Buy a new gym outfit that makes u feel hot!! Eat something different like a good quality chocolate bar ( a piece ) enjoy it!!!! Chew it slowly. Drink some water. Listen to your heart not your OCD . We don’t need compulsions, you will get there and one day believe it. Live with ocd like you don’t care! You’ve gotten this far. Rewrite your story this year. Start again everyday. And take it day by day… Build your peace and remember, nobody has the motivation to get out of bed, it’s about building good habits and discipline. Start preparing your meals for thanksgiving. Give charity, pray to god once a day. Tell him your letting him take over. Now get up and , 1,2, ready set GO.

Hey everyone! I’m new here and thought that it might help to get my OCD story off my chest. My intrusive thoughts are so bad that I never want to talk about them to anyone so maybe that’s why I’m here. When I was 13 my grandma was in the hospital. She was my best friend in the whole world. I imagined so much life with her. I remember pulling into the hospital one day with my Dad and immediately knocking on “wood” (the car door) to help put me at ease about my grandmas health before going in. I knocked on wood because everyone knows that’s what you do when you don’t want something to happen. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her so bad that all I could think about in that moment was something bad happening. So I knocked on wood. It made me feel better so I kept doing it whenever I had bad thoughts. But then it going confusing. If this was helping ease these thoughts, why was I starting to have these thoughts more frequently? 13 year old me didn’t understand what I was doing or why these bad thoughts started. It had got so bad that I was knocking on wood every second of the day, every surface I came across that felt right, and if I didn’t I would force myself to turn around and touch that surface. I would have to knock on wood 8 times every single time but the 7 would have two knocks because the word 7 have two syllables. But then the 8 times wouldn’t be enough, I still wouldn’t feel satisfied so I would do it again and again and again until my entire day was overpowered by intrusive thoughts or knocking on wood. My family and friends started to notice, asking why I do it. I would always avoid the question or make a joke out of it because I couldn’t tell them these terrible thoughts I was having. I was so deeply afraid of something bad happening to the people I love the most or myself that it was debilitating. A couple years later I noticed how bad it had gotten and wanted a change. So I forced myself to stop knocking. I would tell myself angrily that nothing bad would happen if I don’t knock. It took me a lot of convincing and small steps to realize this, but it worked. I got better. I went to the doctors office at about 15 and told them everything. How I did this but how I solved this. They told me it takes great mental strength to be able to fight something in your brain like that. I have always been so mentally strong but hearing them say that made me feel so much better. And I was better. For years. Yea I went through times when it was bad again but it was so much better. The past couple years it has gotten worse again. I noticed that it gets worse when my anxiety about things is higher. New changes, new people, new things. Now, at 21 I won’t let myself get back to the point I was when I was 13, but recently I can’t seem to keep the intrusive thoughts out. I am so terrified of myself or someone else getting hurt of getting older that I put the whole toll on myself. I am so so so happy with my life right now that I don’t want anything to change. That is why it’s been so bad recently. Life is amazing which is why I only want it to get better and I’m so scared something might get in the way of that. I realized after talking to my friends that I never want to say my intrusive thoughts out-loud because I believe strongly in speaking things into existence so I only speak good things out loud. That’s how I’ve always been. But when I talked with my friend she said she’s the opposite, she says the bad things out loud because then you jinx them and they won’t happen. Her saying that gave me a little peace because it made me realize that it’s okay to get these things off my chest and that saying these things out loud isn’t so serious, it’s not life or death like I thought it was. Honestly, the weight of getting my story off my chest has already helped me feel a little lighter of a load on myself.