Am I the only person who feels as tho OCD is like one of the topics you don’t speak of like when your around people who genuinely do not understand or suffer with OCD you can’t mention it.I also suffer with anxiety and although when people are around me enough they can notice behaviour I feel as tho I’d be highly judged for it.Like I shouldn’t feel the way I do because it makes me seem insane to people who can not understand it.No one around me ever truly understands its.

Exactly. I’ve even had people at work notice my compulsions and ask if I’m alright...it gets annoying being so misunderstood..They look at me with dirty looks. Like you, if I don’t engage in my compulsion after I have an anxiety provoking spike I feel that anxiety for several minutes and sometimes several hours. Over the past year and a half I feel like I’ve had ups and downs, but recently it feels like I’m getting more spikes than usual. However, I feel that I have gained some insight into solving some of the anxiety through techniques I’ve developed myself. They’re not perfect, but I feel they are a start.

I also feel like sometimes it is taboo to mention it. I think it is largely because it is generally poorly understood.

Absolutely Ella1701. I feel like I can’t speak of it around my own family because they simply don’t understand OCD...they always tell me “Just think good thoughts”...lol if it were only that easy I would. I understand you. I also agree that OCD is a taboo that seems to be only understood by those actually suffering from clinical OCD, and not just someone who throws around “ohh it must be my OCD!” Like it’s some joke. I understand you well.

Wow is all I can say. My experience with the spikes then having to endulge in a compulsion to lessen their negative anxiety inducing effect is something I deal with on a daily basis. I’ve tried my best to explain my experience to friends and family alike and it never seems to cross their understanding. What I have been thinking of recently Ella is that there must be some kind of link between all of the subtypes of OCD. I feel if we can discover what that is then we can treat it much better if not eliminate OCD period. I say this because I was thinking one day on this: I was thinking OCD is like digging a hole in the ground. Before you start digging is before you have or start experiencing OCD, it’s when we felt the best in our lives..then at some point we started digging a hole in our self awareness and happiness...and the more we dug the bigger the hole got. So through this thought process I thought that at some point we can’t dig any deeper without jumping in the hole...so all that dirt we dug behind us can just as easily be shoveled back into that massive hole and doing so would return us back to mental wellness, as we were before we started digging. I know how you feel trapped during a compulsion because I’ve had that happen to me so many times I’ve lost count.

I feel lost for words honestly that theory is in my eyes is spot on.As a child under the age of 6 I showed no signs of OCD or anxiety I was as happy as day and then in my eyes I feel my anxiety was triggered due to insecurities and bullying and may have stemmed my OCD as it came out during my worse time and then from there on seemed to only progress over the past year or so I’ve been trying to focus on decreasing my OCD but I’m yet to find away which I feel would work for me.

I am in the exact same process Ella. I’m 32 and my OCD started when I turned 30. I have experienced many different subtypes over these past 2 years. It seems to me that when one obsession runs its course, the next obsession is lurking just around the corner and the horrible part is I never could personally anticipate the next obsession. It just seems like I’ll be in one place and then I’ll have a random thought that’s encouraged by my surroundings. It could be a random person then I might have harm OCD towards them or something completely different. Once I see that person and formulate that harmful thought about them my spike occurs and I get hit with immense anxiety like I’ve actually done to them what I thought. Then to decrease my anxiety I will have to perform my compulsion and immediately turn around and look at them to make sure they are Ok. Once I visually see that they’re ok my anxiety goes from a 10 down to about a 2....everything seems ok... then a half hour later I have another obsession “what if when you turned around to see the ok person, that was really in your mind and that person is not ok....and on and on. I would happy to keep in contact with you Ella so we can discuss OCD further. I really like your input. Thanks

Due to my anxiety and depression my ocd went from more of a contamination ocd and BDD to a constantly obsessing over if I would harm my self.After just leaving therapy for Self harm related issues I though a battle with my stop but all my obsessions at the time where over if I would cause harm to my self.In some ways I feel that my ocd adapts to the situations I’m going through stress etc.In some ways most of my mental health/health issues seem to link in each other. To add to this my ocd seems to have risen over the last couple of days with Christmas coming and I’m on edge about how other members of my family who will be around me will view me.I too would be happy to keep in contact.I hope you have a lovely Christmas.

Absolutely, you have a Merry Christmas as well.