obsessive compulsive DISORDER

from the moment i wake up to the time i fall back asleep, my thoughts will not go a second without thinking about the same few topics. every second of every day for the past year i cannot stop thinking about my boyfriend. and no, not like "la dee da he's so cute!" no. it's the same thoughts of debating my feelings for him, convincing myself that im a lesbian but won't admit it to myself, convincing myself that i don't actually love him i just love the idea of a relationship with him. im disgusted with him but im passing it off as just i dont like that single flaw and thats fine. i can't stop. it's a broken record. my head is just a broken record. and for MULTIPLE YEARS pretty much since my ADHD diagnosis in middle school (i'm graduating this year) i haven't stopped thinking about mental health. relating every single thing in my life to the fact im neurodivergent. asking myself over and over if a thought i had or an action i made means im this personality, i have this mental disorder, because i have this traumatic memory that's influencing my choice. all day, every day, every second, multiple years. these thoughts are just constantly in my head. i want it to stop. i'm so tired of it. so absolutely exhausted. it's not even the compulsions or the anxiety, i just want the thoughts to end. all i could ask for, the thing i would give the world for, is to go a day without obsessively thinking these thoughts. to be able to experience a trigger but not be triggered. to be able to kiss my boyfriend goodbye and have my head move on to another topic for thought completely. to be able to hear a mental health topic be mentioned and not have the urge to explain every aspect of that topic, nor think about it for hours on end. be able to see random people on the street and accidentally make eye contact with them but not have to obsessively think of what their life is like, what they think of me, that they know i'm obsessively thinking about them and they hate me for that. i want to be able to see my ex friend around school whom im upset at the way things ended but not obsessively think about her and be disgusted and scared about those thoughts and her every move. i sound like a freak, i sound like i belong in a straitjacket, i know. i hate it too. so fucking much. i'm freaked out by myself, i know that if i were to share these thoughts at a podium i would be reported on the news and likely arrested because everyone around is terrified and will assume i will ever act. but i just want this to stop. i'm so desperately waiting for my next doctors appointment to ask for an up dose on my lexapro.

I’ve come to a point in my life where I can be very happy. I have a safe environment, a loving community. Yknow I’ve really healed through or moved on from a traumatic past and as I say to my boyfriend from time to time like a broken record: I feel like nowadays the only thing bringing me stress or at times misery is myself. I am a fairly joyful person, when I’m comfortable I’m very goofy and like to sing dance and have fun. I find that I relate to so many amazing people I meet that are the nicest, most fun, elevating individuals, who also struggle with the hardest sometime debilitating things. It truly sucks because when I find those moments of peace I see the power of what an ocd mind could be as a person. We are people who may over analyze, but I myself also always find the good in people. And aye if in a moment I don’t think anything is doomly wrong and if I don’t try to understand it I may parish 😅 then that moment feels like the best one in the world. But on the other side of that when I’m not in a quiet mind moment and I’m left with myself to take control of what life in front of me looks like in or around me. I almost have been crumbling. Like I said at the beginning of this story here, the life around me is not so situationally stressful. And it’s also fairly simple. My boyfriend and I live together in a small cozy trailer with our two cats, he works full time very hard and I work part time where I spend as much time as I can working and then have a few days around the house. We’re saving for a home and are quite content with our lifestyle at the moment with work and being “lazy”, or resting and going out for fun now an then on our time off together. Most times though I do have day or two off during the week by myself, which usually goes one of only two ways. Like I said before I do like to work hard, especially now that I have a part time job that’s fairly easier than others I’ve had in the past. So I work 6-7 hours then drive home, air up my tires and wash my car sometimes because I like doing something after work while I still have energy.Or I go to the store. Come home make food, prolly nap and not really worry about too much because I’ve worked all day. But on my days off. I find myself waking up with a lot of anxiety. I usually fight it off by going back to sleep. But my OCD is heavily circled around shame. Even though I only sleep in till 10-11, 12-1 at the latest. I find myself thinking about how wrong (in nice terms) it is to do that. And the funny thing is the older I get (I’m a 21F). I’m not as pressured by this thought, even though it’s still stressful it literally just feels like a thought I can’t escape from. To put things in simple terms. I truly psycho analyze my actions breath by breath and my intrusive thoughts are critiquing those actions bit by bit. I’ve recently have started medication and it was a tremendous difference in the beginning and it helped me cope with the acceptance and letting go (f it or just care less) of those thoughts. But let’s say I forget to take it, or I wake up one morning by myself all day and I’m super tired or unmotivated. That day will feel truly debilitated. And now I’m definitely to the point where I’m battling that, but also have a thin vale behind that where I now know what is going on. And the thoughts are shameful for “not trying to get better or be better” Because I do Like I write a lot, and it truly is one of the best coping mechanisms for working through intrusive or obsessive compulsions. I could also write all day, and if I don’t listen to that ease of the anxiety from writing. And try to keep going the writing will turn into a compulsion itself I feel like I should not stop or critique it as well. But luckily I’ll hopefully find my place in explaining the cycle of what I do when my brain is very loud about things. The next time it’s too loud:)

i want to get this out of the way; i’m not suicidal. i’m a 17 y/o guy whose been living with OCD for what i assume is most of my life despite only getting the diagnoses last year. i’ve been hustling on despite my mental health really consuming my life to moments in time where i question my sanity and self control. it’s the lack of control that really kills me with this disorder. each day i wake up, it’s the same persistent reminders; it’s the same meaningless conversations replaying; it’s the same small rituals that just barely let me breathe before the thoughts return. nothing i do is gonna stop that unbearable monogamy where i have to sit back and let my eyes be peeled open; i don’t know how to live with that. no pill has worked on me, and any response i give the thoughts just make them worse. right now i’m trying to just sit through it and not care. don’t let it effect me emotionally; try not to feel the discomfort. then it starts to manifest into physical pain where i feel the bones of my chest have this pressure—like staples entering them at the rhythm of a heart beat. i’m getting though this, but i’m not enjoying my life when doing so. i don’t know if i have a future where it isn’t just this repeating through the process of each day. i don’t want to spend the rest of my life avoiding the one thing i’m supposed to have control over. i also don’t want to drown my days in self medicating or get addicted doing so—like i already am. i don’t see the way to make this life of mine work, especially given how much i don’t have to do deal with at my age. of course that will come to. look, i’m not at risk; i really don’t want in anyway to die despite being basically hopeless. i’m numb to the pain of it, i don’t feel anything in my desire to escape these cycles, i just need an out. i’m not seeing a way to move forward. i’m willing to hear anything.