I’ve been living with this horrible illness officially for 11 of the 20 years I’ve been alive and I feel like the older I get the worse it gets and it’s killing me. I just want some relief I’m in so much pain. This illness has hurt myself, my fiends, my family, and has even caused the man I love who also has ocd to break up with me. I feel like I’m a lost cause and I hate it. I don’t know who I can trust anymore and I just feel so broken. HELP

I’m fairly new to treating my OCD and have felt crazy for most of my life. It didn’t help that no one in my life truly understood OCD and always said I was being dramatic. I very recently (within the past few months) finally got diagnosed with OCD and my whole life started to make sense. However, I recently opened up to someone I really believed I trusted about the intrusive thoughts I have and now feel worse than I ever have before. They essentially called me a psychopath and said they are worried for the people around me. Even though I would and could never hurt anyone. I’ve never felt more alone and broken in my life. I already try very hard to hide my OCD and everything associated with it because no one in my life understands so it’s been easier to deal with it myself than listen to everyone say whatever they have to say about my situation. After what happened today I’m even more inclined to just keep it to myself. I don’t know what I’m expecting from writing this but I figure this is the best place to write what I’m feeling. Going through OCD is hard enough on it’s own. But when people are telling you they think you’re a danger to society and are crazy because of your intrusive thoughts it really hurts. I’m just tired.

I’m 28 years old and I’ve been battling with OCD since I was around 8 years old. However, I didn’t realize it was OCD until a few years ago. I’ve dealt with multiple themes of OCD that are on constant rotation. Currently, I’m struggling with real event OCD, and moral scrupulously OCD. It has made this past week extremely distressing. My husband is aware of all of my thoughts and feelings, however, that’s due to my need to “confess” virtually everything in my life. He is never stressed about the content of what I’m worrying about, but unfortunately, that serves as temporary reassurance for me, and the cycle continues. This week has been one of my HARDEST. I have been stuck in a loop over the same obsession, with barely any relief. I’m self employed, and usually the winter months are slow, so I currently have no distractions to get out of my head. I can barely eat, and I go through multiple waves of panic attacks a day. I’m starting to lose hope that I can figure this out alone. I’ve never seen professional help for my OCD, and to be honest, it terrifies me to have to explain my thoughts and feelings to a stranger. What if I never get better? I guess I’m just looking for guidance, advice, etc. I’m feeling so lost and scared.

I feel like OCD ruins so much. My boyfriend broke up with me because of it. It got to a point where I made him do compulsions (ex: open and close the door a certain amount of times). I have OCD in combination with PTSD so I would get triggers often. He got to a point where he got up and left me while I was at work and cut contact completely. I don’t know how to feel and I feel like a failure. It’s been two months and my OCD has been nonstop telling me I was an abuser or narcissistic and that’s why he left. Everyone tells me I’m a broken record… but they don’t know that this is torture for me, too. I wish I could start over with my ex, but I can’t, and that bothers my OCD, too. Lack of control. I also seem to have memory issues in that relationship, I can’t remember what happened or not, and I’m not sure if that’s part of my OCD.