Hey I was wondering if anyone knows what the causes could be for ocd. If it’s a trauma response or just something your born with. I keep trying to think back on to when my behaviors started but I can’t tell if it was compulsive behaviors or me just being a kid . I’m 14 and I don’t really know how it progressed or when it started.
Personally I found that trying to figure this out myself became a compulsion (I.e if I figured out what caused it then I could stop it). It could be a whole host of things or no explanation/completely random. If you know you have certain trauma then it could be helpful to work on that but don’t worry too much about what caused it and try to work on where you are now
I think it is largely genetic
I don’t believe the exact “cause” of OCD is known. You may not ever known the “when” or “how” reasons for your OCD. Looking back at when your behaviors started may help you in therapy, as a starting off point, but as someone else said, I wouldn’t suggest looking for the exact reasons or timeline. It is hard to not do, but with ocd it’s very common to want answers you may never find.
Can be genetic factors and in some cases its related to illness/infection you have as a child (PANDAS). But the cause doesn't really matter, to be honest. It's like if you're in a boat that has sprung leaks... you could take time to figure out how it happened while the boat is sinking and find yourself treading water indefinitely, but your time is much better spent addressing the more urgent situation of getting yourself to shore.
I.e., doing ERP instead of spending time figuring out why we have it
Anyone else develop it in their 30s? I’m 33 and just started showing symptoms in October 2024. So far have only been diagnosed with GAD , PD and depression.I started having intrusive thoughts after a series of panic attacks . My compulsions would be googling. I have made an effort to stop though because it only makes me feel worse. My intrusive thoughts have been around fear of going crazy
Trying not to seek reassurance, but rather connect the dots on my OCD and possible reasons as to why I am the way I am. I have severe OCD (or at least I hope I do) mainly surrounding POCD. I've had symptoms of OCD the majority of my life but this theme has come up more recently. When I was a kid, and i'm talking 6-7, I was first exposed to some really gross adult content online. It was introduced to me by a friend of mine around the same age of me. I saw some really disgusting things that a 6-7 year old should definitely not see. This was not a one time occurrence, as I had been exposed to taboo topics online years to come after that, such as the same friend introducing me to Omegle... And i'm sure you can imagine how that went, theres a lot of genuinely disgusting human beings on there. Coming back to the reason for making this post; is it possible to early exposure to this content could be one of the reasons I struggle with POCD? It genuinely scares me to death because you hear that real p*dos dealt with simular situations when they were kids, so thats kind of making me feel that this could be more than OCD, and I could be a genuinely bad person. My POCD feels so real, that at times i'm fully convinced its not OCD. Sometimes I can't even distinguish the feelings of attraction between a younger person and an older person, except for the feeling of anxiety and fear. Its really hard to explain without going into detail, but it just feels so real. Some feedback on this would be great, thank you all.
(20f) I have been dealing with severe OCD symptoms for as long as I can remember. I recently got diagnosed about a year ago, and even though I know that these thoughts are probably my ocd, I still cant shake them. Growing up I was always very sexually curious. I was sheltered from a lot of things, as I went to a private school and things like sexuality and sex were never talked about. I remember doing some weird sexual things growing up (never affecting another person), looking up taboo sexual things, etc. I always seemed to become aroused no matter what the situation was, even if I just saw someone getting changed. I have no recollection of being SA'd, so i'm wondering where this all came from? Was I just curious and wanted to experiment and try different things? Or am I really a pervert, pedophile, etc. I have all these thoughts racing through my head and it's killing me. Everything I did as a kid I look back on and am disgusted, as those don't align with my views at all today. I never thought growing up thinking these things were wrong, or actually realize what they were until I got older. I'd like to think it was just my curiosity, but i'm not sure. What if i'm in denial and actually do like these things? I just need to know if theres something wrong w me, I cant keep going on like this. Could really use some advice.
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