Fomo

This is more for teenagers I guess. So I'm a 17 year old girl and I have harm OCD. And lately I've been feeling really sad that I don't get to enjoy my teenage years. Or I guess not rather enjoy but just experience. Me and my friends were chatting and they were talking about heartbreak and boys and just regular teenage girl stuff. And meanwhile I'm here sitting alone on a Sunday night with intrusive thoughts about what if I'm a murderer or fearing of developing schizophrenia. Like I wanna go out there and date and go to concerts but I'm stuck here with my intrusive thoughts. I started therapy but the fact that I need to put so much work just for my brain to function how it's supposed to function is exhausting. I just want to go have fun and enjoy life. Can anyone relate?

Young adults with OCD

hen7

Date posted: 1y

I got my first major flare up of OCD when I was 16. I felt the exact same way as you. I had just graduated from high school, summer holiday was upon us. Everyone just enjoying themselves, having fun and I was doing a holiday job with friends. But I had major harm OCD, religious OCD and sexual orientation OCD. It felt like my life was over. I was stuck in constant panic. I missed my 16th birthday, a nice relaxing summer where we traveled though the country, and more. I did not have any help and didn’t even know I had OCD. I just thought I was going crazy. I’m happy for you that you’ve discovered you have OCD and started therapy at such a young age. I completely understand the FOMO though. I just want to remind you that the best years of your life are still ahead of you. My life got infinitely better because of therapy (that I started myself when I was 24, then it took until 26 until I was rightly diagnosed with OCD at which my life improved even more) and I’m hoping and praying the same for you. It won’t always feel like you have to work hard. Eventually the thoughts will leave and the fact that you’re working on this now will serve you for the rest of your life. For reference: I had some of the best times of my life around 27 and up. That’s 10 years from now for you. I’m back in ERP therapy now, so I won’t say you can make it go away forever, but I know the time will come again that I live my life normally again. I have been through it a few times now, I know the drill. But since you might not have that experience yet, (of recovery) it may seem like your life is just really hard and that it will stay that way (that’s what I thought back then, that I had ruined my life). But it can get better for sure! Do you have a therapist who specializes in ERP?

Pija

Date posted: 1y

@hen7 I'm glad you finally got diagnosed with ocd and you're doing better. I just started therapy and I was recently diagnosed so no I don't have a therapist who specializes in ERP yet. I'm thinking of seeing my regular therapist for now and discussing my options with them. Even though it's hard sometimes I know I can get better and I can have OCD under control eventually

hen7

Date posted: 1y

@Pija Definitely recommend someone with experience in applying ERP. It’s the best researched treatment that works atm. Therapists really need to know what they’re doing, so they can recognize the patterns of the compulsions and obsessions and they won’t enable you doing compulsions or try and comfort and reassure you. All the best! At least you have help already and they probably know where you can find other therapists.

Allyjade04!

Date posted: 22w

I just want to feel comfortable and content.

I’m a 20 yr old female, I think I’ve always had ocd but the symptoms didn’t become apparent to me until I was about 17. I feel like that’s where life went downhill for me. OCD attacks everything that is important to me, my sexuality, my morals, even my health. Sometimes I wish I could be a kid again and not have this vicious disease in my head constantly bullying me. But I know I will overcome it one day.

J.E

Date posted: 22w

Idk what to do at this point any tips help.

Hi I’m 17. My life since I was born has been full of exploring and tons and tons of hobbies. I have adhd. But about 1 year ago is when it kinda started or at least when I started to notice these thoughts and compulsions. I got in a relationship with my girlfriend. And about 2 weeks into that relationship my I started thinking “what if I don’t love her” and I didn’t even know that that’s what ocd was at the time and it ruined with gut wrenching anxiety for months. Then I started titling it as ocd. After we broke up I started to notice that my ocd was starting to flare up a lot. Like when I was snowboarding and normally when I was having the most fun is when I would ask myself things like “what if I hate this” “what if I’m not having fun” then I would try to feel if I was having fun. I would use chat gpt a lot to try and help it but it didn’t really help. I have lots of other ocd thoughts aswell but at the time this one really caused be anxiety and I just felt numb and I became not social. To this day I’m still not as social and I don’t feel like myself anymore. This is the opposite of who I was a year ago. Then I started questioning everything I do and people I love. So it feels like from the moment I wake up my mind just starts spiraling. I can’t seem to find peace or joy in anything anymore and I just feel like my life is going to continue like this and I’ll never be happy. I’ve accepted it at this point. I would love some help. I haven’t really told anyone I know so any tips would be appreciated. I’d be surprised if you even read this far haha. I’m also Christian and love to approach things from a Christian standpoint. I don’t want to sound like a baby who isn’t experiencing real ocd and it’s hard to put into words how much it affects me I just really hope yall understand and can help.

BigGyro09

Date posted: 20w

Life kinda just sucks right now 18+ only

Never feels like I can fully put my mind to rest. The problem with OCD for me is once I'm over one worry there's another buried deep into my mind that I'm not fully over. The two events I'm not completely over is when I tried to help a 17 year old with POCD when I was 19 and the topics unfortunately were detailed and even then I explained to them I wasn't comfortable with talking to them. I guess I just had a hard time saying no to someone needing help but it eventually made me so uncomfortable that I stopped talking with them altogether at some point. Then the other thing is being so worried that I committed a crime because my elbow touched someone's behind when I didn't want that to happen at all. I didn't want to listen to my OCD by saying move my arm or something horrible is going to happen so I didn't and then something bad actually did happen. I thought it would just be a light touch while zipping a bag up but then it was worse than I ever wanted it to be and it was so awkward and I hated it. I feel like I just won't be able to get back to the way I was before OCD started all of this. Aside from that I've just had extreme health anxiety but am too afraid to reach out to a PCP even though I need to. Something deep down is telling me I should do this but I'm just so anxious and embarrassed about sharing things to them. I can't even enjoy the things I used to do because this is constantly just messing up my life. I'm hoping I get a start of positivity next time I see my therapist. This just sucks. Feels like others around me are doing so much better than I am and I'm just kind of stuck on these same problems and feeling absolute shame and guilt from the past over and over again. I'm just so sick of dealing with this every single day so I just use escape whenever I can. Even that doesn't really work. I just wish I could go back in time.

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