hi, i am xian.

hi, i am xian, an 18 years old who is not yet diagnosed with ocd but has been having ocd symptoms for five years now. i started to notice the symptoms when i was in eighth grade, but i didn’t know what it is at that time. back then, i wasn’t taking the symptoms seriously. even after i researched about my situation, i still didn’t think much of it at that time. however, i started to pay a lot more attention to my ocd than ever these past few months and decided that i don’t want to engage with ocd thoughts, do ocd compulsions, and to be at war with my mind all the time anymore. i started researching more about ocd and learned more about it. the more i learned, the more i want to recover. however, what i noticed is that, whenever i try to start my healing journey, my ocd would just worsen. my ocd these past weeks got so bad to the point where i would just spend my entire day doing compulsions, and if i didn’t do any, i would just spend the rest of my day ruminating. ocd affected my mental health badly. whenever i try to analyze my thoughts, i would just get brain fog, and so i do compulsions to regain focus and clarity. however, instead of it removing my brain fog, it would just make it more intense and persistent. at first, the compulsions were like my saviors—giving me relief from the obsessions’ constant attack. but now, whenever i do compulsions, instead of it making me feel better, it would just make me feel worse. an obsession would appear while i am doing compulsions, so it would lead to me doing another compulsion. then again. and again. and again. until the compulsions would just take most of my time. however, i can’t stop myself from doing those because it already became a routine—or a habit—at this point. i know what i should do—to just do nothing and not engage with the obsessions. however, the obsessions seem to know that i am not trying to engage, and thus a new obsession that’s a lot more worse than the last one would appear—making me pay attention to them and do compulsions. it’s like, ocd knows what i am trying to do and it would do its best to prevent me from trying to recover. because of ocd, the friendships i had built with people are either breaking or are already broken by me. i have to avoid those people because they became part of the triggers. i don’t want to go to school too because the people there also became part of the triggers. i don’t want to see and interact with them anymore. i went to the national center for mental health near my area to inquire if they do consultations. unfortunately for me, they don’t give consultations to 18 years olds and below. they referred another branch to me, but the place where it was located is kind of far from my area, so i decided to just wait until i turn 19. to be honest, that was frustrating. i really want to get diagnosed by a professional because even if i know what i am going through, people would not believe me—not that i would tell them anyway, but just in case a situation where i am required to do so occured—and i might not believe myself either. what if i am really a bad person who is having these disgusting thoughts? what if i am just finding excuses to justify why i am having these thoughts? to me, getting diagnosed by a professional that i have ocd is a proof that those disgusting thoughts aren’t mine—but ocd’s. it is the proof that i am just a normal person getting constantly attacked by ocd. i plan to use this platform to start my healing journey, share, vent, and ask advice from people as well. i genuinely want to recover and i want to start doing it now. no matter how hard it is, i want to live happily again. i know i will have ocd for the rest of my life, but i, at least, want to make it manageable. i hope this platform will help me with that. i am a person who values freedom more than anything, so isn’t it torture for me to be trapped in my own mind with thoughts that aren’t even mine? i hope i can recover. i don’t mind if the journey ahead is long, i just want to live normally and happily again.