Anyone willing to share how debilitating their OCD has been? 1. Able to work? 2. Consider yourself miserable? I haven’t been able to work three years and have been occasionally suicidal many many years
I'm on leave for my job cause of it and I feel like I might never be able to go back or function normally and it causes me even more stress, I really do feel miserable and like my life is forever going to be focused on this thought
It also triggers my suicidal/harm ocd, where I feel like I'm going to accidentally or subconsciously harm myself or worse cause of the thoughts even though I don't want to:(
@Anonymous You’re not alone. It sounds fucking crazy but please look up Chris Palmer Keto diet. Harvard and Stanford in these few months is researching keto and finding for some reason it’s healing bipolar and schizophrenia often. Trying it for OCD, some small benefit but it’s not even been two weeks yet. But I can feel a trajectory. I really mean it. I hate quack science and fad diets but take a look. If it’s between suicide or trying it, like my situation, I decided to do it. I can live without sugar and without bread and brains. I can’t stand OCD at this level anymore
@Anonymous I'm not fully understanding the Chris Palmer thing. Is it a diet that's supposed to help OCD? Sorry, but I'm having a hard time focusing lately
Unfortunately, OCD can definitely be a very crippling depressive disorder. I’ve been working on treating my OCD and I’m doing a lot better but I definitely am still struggling but ,I highly recommend looking up how to treat your OCD and as you slowly get relief from your OCD , I cannot tell you the relief that you will feel. OCD is treatable, but alot of work and takes time. I’m sorry you feel this way. OCD truly is terrible. At one point I had harm OCD and thought I was a horrible monster that was going to try to kill my family. I was able to treat it and get better and so can you. Please keep trying to push through don’t let OCD get the best of you. 
Do you think it's treatable with every theme? I have the worst 😔
1. I am able to hold a job, yes. 2. Yes I am miserable
I am disabled with OCD. Can't work and hardly function on a daily basis. I have no idea how I'm going to start working again. It seems impossible, but the funds are running low and my marriage is suffering bc of all this. It's become a hell like no other! I'm so scared and don't know how to fix my life right now
@Speckles So sorry.. had a note about keto above. Not the fad diet. Sounds wild but it’s slightly helping me a week and a half in. Last ditch effort. But lots of people online saying it helped their OCD and new research at Harvard and Stanford recently , take a look
@Anonymous I will look into that. Thank you!! I can use all the help that's out there.
@Speckles Good luck, hope it might be a fit for you.
Yes I do think all ocd regardless or theme or obsession or amount is treatable . there are a lot of studies that show that OCD is very treatable but it will take a lot of work and  time and patience and  and dedication to treat it.  As you continue to learn how to properly manage OCD and treat it you will find it easier to work on different themes of ocd . I do not have as many things as you, but I have a couple.  You’d be surprised how much all of OCD has in common, regardless of what the obsession or theme is. Please continue to treat it and you will get better but it’s gonna take time and you might go a little backwards in the process. It’s not a linear process but it is a very doable. you have to keep trying until you get better. I’m rooting for you :)
Thank you... I'm so desperate now. I really am hoping to get help soon, so I can beat this thing!
@Speckles Ocd is hard but you will get better just keep going.
For many years I’ve had contamination OCD. I wear many layers of plastic gloves when awake. Take off a layer when needing to do things. Early last year it started getting worse when I began ERP. Much worse. Showering took 1 hour before, now 3-4h or longer. I always have to shower before bed because the bed is a clean safe place. But showering didnt feel clean enough anymore and took so long. I would get stuck repeating things over and over. The humidity was ruining my walls and ceiling. I’d stay awake up to 40 hours avoiding showering and sleeping. So one day I started wearing clothes covering all skin, plastic gloves, sleeves taped, hoodie on. That way I could easily just sleep still on my back on the couch. No more awake 40 hours or stuck in the shower up to 4h + bedtime rituals. But then slowly I found myself unable to do… anything. Stopped going outside, stopped talking to people, can’t even get up some days so I just lay on the couch. Fall last year was very stressful I think it broke something in my head. I don’t change clothes and I make sure the gloves last many days. My hands are suffering. The skin blisters and comes off. I think my nails are now separating from the nail beds, for real. I’ve also spent so many years holding pee when outside the home that now the pelvic muscles are weak and I’m becoming urge incontinent. Can’t do physical exams at the doctors. Can’t seek help. Can’t get out of the couch. OCD is ruining my physical health. ERP did not work. Has this happened to anyone else? What did you do if so?
Often times I find myself spiraling out in the morning about all sorts of things. When I try and catch myself and figure out what I am obsessing over it’s like it goes away. I haven’t moved. I have been sitting frozen on the floor because I can’t go to work because I am behind on work and I hate being late and I hate being messy but I am frequently late and my room is cluttered and full of stuff. I want to be good and move and go to work but I don’t know what is coming today and I hate my job so I know I will get bored and when I have nothing to keep me busy and engaged I like start thinking and taking an inventory of what is going on and then I will feel a sensation and what is the sensation? How did it happen? And I know that I will pick up the bad emotions in the office and get contaminated, I was really worried about things like this as a kid too I cried because I had to touch dirt in kindergarten. I know I am this way and I have been this way for a while but at the same time I think I might just be normal and like I don’t know why I get stuck in thinking like this. Then I begin to doubt that OCD is real because everyone has a brain with wiring and everyone gets stuck in thought sometimes. I feel disabled from whatever this is because I am stuck. I literally cannot move because I don’t know what’s wrong and I know I have to go to work even though I feel like every moment I spend there is making everything worse because other people are so stressed and I get it from them. And I don’t feel ready because I just feel off and something is wrong and I just don’t know what to do because if it’s OCD or not OCD everything anyone knows about me is coming from me and I worry that I am often masking all the thinking I’m doing because thinking all the time is rude and inconsiderate and inconvenient for those around me, but I can’t stop. I just don’t feel right, right now - and I want to know WHY?? Why is everything off all the time? How do I even know that I am not making up the experience of OCD in my head to cover up something really wrong with me and now I am taking on the symptoms of OCD like an actress, because this could be something that I can latch onto as a final hope for explaining why I am stuck. So stuck so deeply and terribly stuck sitting on my floor next to my bed just scrolling to avoid thinking because any time I start thinking I am left with no answers or help or anything just this swirly feeling. I know I am trying, maybe not my best, but as much as I possibly can. I want to be a Special Education Teacher but I have so much so so so much doubt and uncertainty about every decision I make and everything I know that I can’t get there right now. I can’t do anything right now until it feels ok and then I will. It never feels ok. I know I have to be ok not feeling ok about it. I can be unsure and still be ok. I know it’s just my thinking and my body but I just can’t get past this feeling. And then I know that because I can calm myself and be ok even though I spent 2 hours of my life today already feeling stuck and spinning around and around and around in my head - I don’t feel sure about my OCD and I think it’s a bit of a scam made up by people to cultivate pathology around deep human thought because one day I might figure it out and we all think a lot.
Does anyone have OCD regarding always feeling like you are not good enough at your job? I'm 58 years old now I've had OCD since childhood. Every job I've been at I never felt as good as my colleagues. I am a nurse but I worked at that for 15 years I had a breakdown of sorts in 2017 and went on disability. I now work part time as a a swim instructor for kids. I always was afraid of killing someone when I was a nurse. Then I tried dog grooming but I was afraid I would do it wrong and hurt the dogs. At least now the stakes are lower. But my OCD is the same. I work with colleagues who are about 40 years younger than I am . I am afraid of teaching certain classes bc I feel like I wouldn't do as good a job as someone else. I know I can do it but it's like I have a fear of not giving them their money's worth. I've been at my current job for 2 years . I've gotten very positive comments from my managers but I can't seem to believe them. I feel a lot of shame bc I lost a lot of my life to OCD and I am at an age where people are starting to retire after long and successful careers and here I am working at an entry level job. I'm planning on trying to get out of my comfort zone and teaching some of the classes I'm afraid of .it's really hard. I'm always scared what if I lose my benefits and had to work again as a nurse how would I do it.
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond
