- Date posted
- 1y
Beginning of what I think is OCD
I am uncertain where to start, as I’ve only self-diagnosed myself with having OCD tendencies. I can look back into my childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and now, and I see pockets of when OCD was alive and well. I have been learning about somatic healing the last few years because I’ve been wanting to connect with my body to understand. I want to feel more grounded. During this process of wellness, I’ve learned that I have OCD and ADHD qualities that I’ve lived with my entire life. Could that be true? Was I good at hiding it all, or making it appear as part of my personality? Was I masking? I think that’s a term that’s used these days. Here’s a story that involves what may be OCD. My sister and I, aged 14 and 16 at the time, just took our first flight together to visit our aunt and uncle in Seattle. While there, intrusive thoughts kept popping into my head that something was going to happen to my dad. Where were these thoughts randomly come from? Was I thinking them, did they magically appear, was it my intuition? It was an unsettling feeling and I had frequent thoughts that my dad was going to die. At that time, my life felt so beautiful. It felt so full of love and happiness. I loved my family. I had my very first boyfriend. It was summertime and as I was taking a walk down the ocean shore, I wondered if life is supposed to feel that happy. I just genuinely felt full of light and love and all the good stuff. And thoughts kept coming about what I could possibly learn in this lifetime if I haven’t experienced pain. Why was I having such an existential crisis at age 14, on a summer vacation with my sister? It was just two days later when we tried calling our dad and he wasn’t answering. I had a gut feeling that something happened. It wasn’t until my dad’s sister answered my home phone that I knew. My sister and I held hands and collapsed to the floor in pure shock. My dad died of a heart attack. It was such a blur of a time, as my developing brain couldn’t process it at all. Anyway, fast forward to me being 36 years old, I still fear that my thoughts could have caused his death. It plays in my head when I get to thinking about that summer vacation. So now, as a mother of three beautiful children, I get intrusive thoughts and worries about anything happening to them. My heart starts to race, my eyes fill up with tears and I just can’t imagine it. Is it OCD? Is the fear causing these OCD thoughts? I have nightmares sometimes of these terrible things happening to my loved ones. I guess what I’m asking is, could this be OCD. What type of OCD? I also have this repetitive string of things I say in my head when I get intrusive worries. It’s along the lines of “God please protect my loved ones. Keep them safe. Surround them with love, protection, health.” And the ADHD symptoms are a whole other part of my life. I have felt this thing inside of me forever thinking something is wrong with me, not knowing what. But seeing peers living their lives so freely and doing things that feel harder for me have left me feeling crippled. And nobody would know this about me. If you saw me from the outside you’d think I have it all together- a husband, three kids, etc. But truly I have felt so alone and unable to fully live at my core. And I just need to know why or what or how. I just want answers so I can truly heal.