I want to enjoy my life and I won't be able to have this life again but this OCD is stopping me from feeling real I am literally crying right now I am just 17 and I have rest of my life left how will I spend it
I started experiencing my OCD issues very young. I’m about to turn 30 this year. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it will all disappear some day, because it won’t. But you will get stronger, your symptoms will subside, new ones will appear, and you learn to cope with them as they come. My advice to you is to start therapy and psychiatry while you are young. If I could go back in time and change things I would have done it when I was your age instead of saying I didn’t need it back then. Because I really did. You will be ok my friend. This is where you push.
My exams are going to be over after 9 days so will it be ok if I start therapy after 9 days?
@happiness._.123 It’s never too late to start therapy, when you are able I urge you to look into it :)
Actually I'll tell you a story about one of my students. She was one of my proudest achievements in my career. It shows how much someone can change. So I'm a driving instructor and have done this job for a few years now. When I first started my effectively boss used to give me all the anxious ones in our driving school (she did this without my knowing. Only found out later). So I get this girl, 17, anxious AF, cuts all up and down her arms, legs are shaking and she can't stop touching her face with her left hand. It took 2 lessons to make progress because she was terrified. I thought this was made as she rides a motorbike. One lesson, when I felt like she was more confident, I told her I'd push her limits a bit and try and get her out her comfort zone. I stressed her out so much I genuinely thought she was going to self harm after. So I was messaging her to calm her down and trying to contact her parents at the same time. I got the dads number via the mum and we had a long phone call and he really appreciated me going to this length to make sure his daughter was fine. He gave me a few tips to deal with her and her quirks. Over time things got better and she started being more comfortable and Jesus she was weird, but it was really funny. I remember her scared to change gears on bends so I took us someehere quiet with roundabouts and changed into a gear so high on each of them that she was forced to change it or we would stall on the roundabout (which she was scared of more). After the was able to change gears no issues. Was like a game and kind of like ERP for her. Cut forward to the future and she needed me to pick her up from her boyfriends address which is fine by me. I some how put my phone on silent, including the alarm and slept I'm which is extremely rare for me. I woke up to several missed calls and extremely concerned messages from her. She was freaking out and thinking I had been in an accident or got lost because she changed the pick up address. A day later she asked for a refund for the lessons prepaid for and I could tell she was going to find another instructor. I didn't think it was that bad of an error. I felt guilty and apologised and wished her luck. Cut forward a month and a half, I'm on holiday and she calls me out of the blue to ask for me back as her other instructor was awful and her mum was going full Karen on that one to get them fired. I took her back np. I could hear the mum in the back saying she shouldn't have left me in the first place jokingly and this girl had the sense of humour to laugh about it. Turns out what happened when I didn't turn up because of the alarm.. She was having a huge melt down and her neighbour had a gf that was a new instructor and they were trying to poach her anyway because she needed the work. The bf didn't know how to calm her down so he came up with that as a solution because he was distressed. She was so distressed about the whole thing that she started peeing the bed which is crazy bless her. She looks like the twin of jenna ortega so you wouldn't expect it. With more progress she felt comfortable to do 60mph around bends at night on Country roads with no street lights (and doing it well). She also tried launching my car and "racing" a car next to me. I let her but once we hit the speed limit I slowed her down. If you told me she'd be anything like that when I first got her, I'd tell you to f off. 2 months roughly down the line and she passes with the strictest examiner who I think has ocd too. She didn't cut her wrists anymore, she was confident and extremely talkative and believed in herself. This wasn't all on me. This change was something she was working for and her bf helped her mentally behind the scenes. Last year she wanted to catch up and I agreed. I found she has ocd (I never knew. I thought it was severe anxiety) and I only just got diagnosed at that point and just discovered how ERP worked. We were really close by to a place that triggered a phobia of mine that I've had for over 15 years and she came with me while I did erp for it. I was there for about 4 minutes, thinking I'd die but I told her not to intervene, comfort me or reassure me in any way as I knew how this worked in theory. It worked and it was a eureka moment. I took that skill and used it on almost every opportunity I had, I'd even go out my way to do it. Even on stuff that wasn't ocd related. My phobia of 15+ years disappeared after 4 self erp exercises. Anyway.. She is now living with her bf and his family in a street full of mansions and she works at a bar. Has a nice motorbike and decent enough car and is more confident and level headed than I've ever seen her before by far. So yeh, ocd may be with you the rest of your life but that does not mean things can't get better. She is living proof. Think of ocd like a shadow. Follow the light and your ocd will be behind you. Follow the darkness and ocd will be leading you. It's all about where your focus is and the intention behind the focus.
Everyone okay? I have A healing affect
I work with people your age and people do change. You need to know your stuff though and out the work in. It's scarier when you don't what you're doing and everything will feel bleak
Put the work in*
I thought this was weird *
I feel like there’s no way out of this. everyday i’m anxious and depressed from these thoughts. i feel like i have to constantly question if it’s OCD or not. the panic attacks are insane and i freak out. and a compulsion i have is looking eveything up on the internet when im stressing to know that it’s just my OCD and im not in danger. but looking things up add on to my thoughts and i start thinking “what if” actual suidcal people think. do others with this theme whenever they do something like if im taking a picture it’ll be like “yeah you look happy people will wonder what happened when your gone” LIKE i DO NOT want to end my life. or even as simple as cleaning my room, “yup keep it clean so when your family goes through your stuff” then i panic and can’t even do anything. those thoughts distress me so bad. i’ll sit there and think how good my life is or when im having a good day my thoughts will be like “NOPEEE what if your just saying that to convince yourself” it never shuts up and genuinely makes me think i have SI or something. i hope this reaches the right people just to know im not alone. Even when i do get better in the back of my mind it’s always “people who want to are the same a day before too” im genuinely scared and im scared one day im going to just snap and do it because its “too much” do i need to go to a mental hospital! i feel insane.
I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.
I can't live with OCD anymore. It's ruining my life. I feel like I'm being constantly bullied in my own mind all day everyday. I don't know if what I think and feel is ever real or normal or okay, what is me and what is the OCD thoughts. I don't know if any of my experiences are normal. I'm exhausted from picking apart every single conversation I ever have with anyone until I'm strung out by a vague and ambiguous feeling of guilt. I'm tired of feeling like I'm a bad person and feeling scared all the time and not knowing why and having my brain spin me out on an endless spiralling train of thoughts that never goes anywhere and just makes me feel disconnected from everything and everyone around me. I don't know what I feel and if what I feel is normal or if anything I am doing is real and actually me or if I'm 'losing my mind.' I don't even know if this makes any sense. I get into these states of mind where every thought in my head and everything I feel and perceive makes me question my own sanity. I don't know if anyone likes me because I have absolutely no concept of what I am actually like. I feel completely lost and confused CONSTANTLY.
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond
