What’s the most ignorant thing you’ve ever heard someone say about mental illness or OCD? Last week I was in a meeting at school with my teachers. We were discussing how bad my OCD is currently and that we need an action plan for school. I told them that, at the moment, I can’t touch pens, which is obviously an issue in a school environment. It seriously took courage to open up to a room full of practical strangers about my OCD. Do you want to know one of the teachers response? Here it is: “Oh I’m sooo OCD about the pens I use, I have like a million in my office because I change my mind all the time.” Yeah, cool. Thanks for completely invalidating my illness. d a i s y

Hey, I’ve been doing some research on OCD and think I may have it. I’m not 100% sure, but I have a lot of the symptoms. I want to get myself diagnosed, but my parents won’t let me. They agree that it’s very likely that I have OCD, but they think that if I try hard enough, I can get over it. I don’t know what to do anymore or if what I have even is OCD, and I want to be somewhat sure before a I do anything. Right now, I’m a junior in high school, but freshman year was when my “OCD” was the most severe. I think I had (and still do) the symmetry/order subtype and “just right” subtype. I was obsessed with writing things neatly to a point in which I kept forcing myself to erase and rewrite things until all the letters were straight and all the graphs were neatly drawn (typing wasn’t safe either because I use Notability and felt the need to align every text box and make them all the same length). Handwriting was especially a problem in calculus A, and it got to a point in which I couldn’t keep up with the notes, and the homework was taking hours a night because I was obsessed with making my work perfect. Needless to say, I didn’t get a good grade in calculus A and didn’t build a good foundation for future math classes. This makes me really sad because I was previously really good at math and had a bright future in the subject. Eventually, I just stopped trying in calculus A, but by then, I felt burnt out, couldn’t concentrate on anything, kept putting things off, and lost the ability to properly manage my time. I think it may have escalated to executive dysfunction at that point, and it carried over to all my other classes. As someone who was previously pretty productive and good at planning, this was a huge hit on my self-esteem. I was also obsessed with symmetry. If I touched one side of my body, I had to touch the other side in the exact same place. If I was coding something, I would have to evenly distribute touch across each key on the keyboard. It felt like everything was a heatmap, and the colors had to be kept in balance at all times. I also avoided odd numbers because they were considered “asymmetrical”. I was obsessed with routine and had to complete tasks in a certain way, a certain order, and a certain amount of time. Even something as small as combing my hair for five minutes instead of six caused me extreme distress. Writing one word that “sounded off” on an English paper left me unable to keep writing until I fixed it. I had to keep the sound of my phone at a certain volume (6 normally, 10 when exercising, and 12 when cleaning, divide everything by 2 when using a computer) and had to walk a round number (any number that ends in 0) of steps a day. I kid you not when I say that some days I woke up and didn’t want to live anymore. Sophomore year, my mental health improved and I probably seemed overly perfectionistic but not to a point of concern. However, this year, the handwriting issue relapsed in all its glory during physics, and I’m not able to keep up with notes or homework. I feel the same way that I did in calculus A, and I don’t want history to repeat itself. I want to ask my teacher to let me do my homework on paper rather than the iPad (it’s easier for me to write on paper due to increased friction), but I’m scared to ask because I don’t have a formal diagnosis. I don’t know what causes my behavior. I feel like if I can’t do things perfectly, no one will like me. I’ll lose all my friends, and no boy will ever want to go out with me. I know it’s irrational. Literally no one cares what my notes look like or how long I spend on each step of my morning routine or whatever, but I constantly feel like people are judging me and will hate me the second I mess up. There are two more times in my life that I can think of when I displayed symptoms of OCD, contamination OCD when I was 9 and pure/religious/magical thinking/health concern OCD (they all just kind morphed together) when I was 11. I can go into more detail if you wish. As of now, I just want to know my behavior sounds like OCD, and if so, how to more forward. If not, I would love to know what I do have and how to treat it. Thank you so much.

My earliest memory of OCD was at five years old. Even short trips away from home made me physically sick with fear. I couldn’t stop thinking, What if something bad happens when I’m not with my mom? In class, I’d get so nervous I’d feel like throwing up. By the time I was ten, my school teacher talked openly about her illnesses, and suddenly I was terrified of cancer and diseases I didn’t even understand. I thought, What if this happens to me? As I got older, my fears shifted, but the cycle stayed the same. I couldn’t stop ruminating about my thoughts: What if I get sick? What if something terrible happens when I’m not home? Then came sexually intrusive thoughts that made me feel ashamed, like something was deeply wrong with me. I would replay scenarios, imagine every “what if,” and subtly ask friends or family for reassurance without ever saying what was really going on. I was drowning in fear and exhaustion. At 13, I was officially diagnosed with OCD. Therapy back then wasn’t what it is now. I only had access to talk therapy and I was able to vent, but I wasn’t given tools. By the time I found out about ERP in 2020, I thought, There’s no way this will work for me. My thoughts are too bad, too different. What if the therapist thinks I’m awful for having them? But my therapist didn’t judge me. She taught me that OCD thoughts aren’t important—they’re just noise. I won’t lie, ERP was terrifying at first. I had to sit with thoughts like, did I ever say or do something in the past that hurt or upset someone? I didn’t want to face my fears, but I knew OCD wasn’t going away on its own. My therapist taught me to sit with uncertainty and let those thoughts pass without reacting. It wasn’t easy—ERP felt like going to the gym for your brain—but slowly, I felt the weight of my thoughts dissipate. Today, I still have intrusive thoughts because OCD isn’t curable—but they don’t control me anymore. ERP wasn’t easy. Facing the fears I’d avoided for years felt impossible at first, but I realized that avoiding them only gave OCD more power. Slowly, I learned to sit with the discomfort and see my thoughts for what they are: just thoughts.

Hi, I’m new to this app and newly diagnosed. Question for you all, What things did you normalize and do without a second thought that when diagnosed, you realized was actually your OCD? Mine was how concerned with germs I am. I hold my breath when I open a door so the rush of wind doesn’t infect my lungs from whatever is in the room. I thought everyone was really careful and concerned like me. But Ive learned it’s not normal the lengths I go to. What was yours?