Late Night Thoughts TW: Obsessions

*Long post so apologies. I just wish someone can understand where I am coming from and share their thoughts / emotions or experiences* I have not been diagnosed by a professional about my mental health, but I am pretty sure I experience OCD and anxiety on a daily basis. It all started from being really sick when I was little .. A bug hit me that I had never dealt with before that had caused me to throw up profusely. After this, from since I can remember I am “scared” of germs. If I knew someone was sick, I would contaminate myself from them and avoid all contact. I used to bring my own cutlery to restaurants. I have to wash my hands and use hand sanitiser most of the time. If I start to feel a little bit ‘icky’ I would be on google search to find out if I had symptoms of the bug. It has become such a strain and I have really bad anxiety about the fact of not wanting to be sick. I avoid eating in low rated hygiene places and I have to double check that certain foods are cooked / prepared (ie: chicken) is cooked properly. ... My other OCD situation is a little bit different and I’m unsure as to why and what. I have intrusive thoughts in my head that range from: not wanting to drive in the fear of a car crash. ??? Or I get worried sick knowing that my family and/or partner are driving long distances in fear that I will lose them to an accident. I make sure that they message me during and after commuting so my mind is at ease. I also have a distressing time processing about my childhood; I was once sexually abused that still makes me feel sick to this day. But because of this ... I have had thoughts of sexual “exploration” with my sibling who has nothing to do with my abusive past????? Nothing has happened between me and my sibling of course .. but my OCD is creating false memories that I can’t seem to get rid off? It makes me feel so sick and that I can not live with myself because of this. I then try to flashback all the memories of my past to see if there is some truth about it but it just ends up making things worse ???? I’m just really struggling in my current relationship because of this as it’s not the most comfortable or normal thing to talk about. Any help would be highly appreciated as I feel like I’m losing my mind over it. Sorry for the long text, there is more to it but I just wanted some of you to get the brief understanding of things.

For me, nearly everything is a repetitive struggle. Flipping light switches, closing doors, pouring milk in my cereal bowl or in a glass to drink, putting on a pair of pants or socks, walking on/past sewer manholes and drains on the street, walking past garbage cans, walking past or near something that is or looks like animal feces (such as bird poop or dog poop etc.) and of course, handwashing. Even typing on this phone right now is a struggle, if at any given moment I "feel" a particular sensation like a wet spot on my lip or a nerve in my foot while I'm typing, I have to back space and retype what I was going to type the first time in hopes that maybe this time I won't "feel" that sensation again otherwise the cycle will repeat itself until finally I do not "feel" a sensation at all and am satisfied enough to continue typing. These are just some of the many examples I suffer from. Ive decided to come on here and share my story with others out of pure desperation in hopes of finding someone who will give me the ASSURANCE I need to escape from this "monster" this "bully" living in my head by providing me with a logical explanation with the support of facts and scientific evidence as to why these repetitive "rituals" and cycles are unnecessary and why the beliefs Ive invented in my mind are in fact false and unrealistic. One of my most extremely irrational beliefs I've invented for example is dripping water from my hands onto a surface where germs are present; by dripping water from my freshly washed hands onto a dirty floor my mind has trained itself to believe the germs from the floor have somehow bounced back up onto my hands, causing me to then have to wash my hands again for relief of anxiety. Same goes with pouring milk in cereal or in a glass; if the milk were to splash on the floor out of my glass or bowl I then feel like the germs have bounced back up into my bowl or glass. Same goes for spitting; whenever I spit on the ground it cannot be on a manhole cover otherwise Ive convinced myself I have sewage in my mouth, I then have to spit again and again and again until finally I have found a surface I believe is "clean" enough to spit on. Same with urinating; It has gotten so bad that I will not urinate in a toilet in fear that the toilet water will splash back up on my penis, instead I would rather go outside and urinate, but even if I do that, say if I were to accidentally urinate on a surface with bird feces, I will then feel like I have bird feces on my penis. I just want to be able to pee in a toilet again like a normal person. This is all so embarassing but I TRULY NEED help. Please someonere, help me get my life back. I just want to be normal again.

I know any reassurance I get does not satisfy, it keeps coming back. Even if I think I have an answer, even if the answer is that I don’t have the answers and that’s okay, it does not last. The ocd will find a way to come back and make me question. But I’ve never been diagnosed with OCD still, I have gone through an eating disorder and severe malnourishment... and chemo. So I wouldn’t be surprised if my brain is just tired, exhausted, and trying to repair itself and my entire body. But even before all of that, I struggled with my brain. Someone would turn on a light switch, and my mind would be thrown completely off and I’d panic, if someone opened a door, my mind was thrown off, the color of the sky didn’t feel right, something didn’t feel right. And I spent hours to full days being thrown off and wondering why. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. And still to this day I don’t understand. I do not know if it’s OCD. My mind feels broken. I can’t concentrate and I can’t seem to focus on anything without feeling like I’m missing something and I have to figure something out and something is wrong. Not sure what the purpose of my writing this is, I guess I’m just processing some. If anyone has any thoughts, I’d love to hear:)