- Date posted
- 7h
OCD Newb - health/somatic
Hi I’m new to this and honestly scared to post but I just feel exhausted with feeling this way every single day and need advice on how to manage my thoughts. I’m just going to preface this by admitting that I’m not even diagnosed, I’m just 99.9% certain I have it. Posting here without saying that first just feels wrong because if I pretend that I’m diagnosed, that would make me a liar (which I also understand is an OCD thought)🥲 anyway. I’ve struggled with specifically health/somatic ocd for a while, but the past like 6 months have just been a living h*ll for me with it. I’ve had persistent hiccups for about 8 months and ofc did extensive google searching, which was obviously a terrible idea. I’ve gone to a few doctors but none seem to care since I’m 18 and healthy. In addition to the hiccups, I’ve begun getting this abdominal pain under my left rib cage. I’ve had it for about 3 months and it’s persistent. What it seems to be is a hiatal hernia, which is also what a nurse said it sounded like it was. But everyday I am convinced it is something terrible. Every time I hiccup (pretty much every 5-10 minutes) I am just reminded that I have this unresolved issue. I try distracting myself but it doesn’t help much. No matter how much I am enjoying myself, I am quickly brought back down as I am hit with a hiccup and reminded. It just feels like I cannot continue living or be happy until I know for certain whats causing this and that it’s NOT serious or life-threatening. The frequent concerns of something being really wrong have also given me the frequent thoughts of “well if I keep thinking about it then it’s gonna happen” or “what if I’m manifesting it by constantly thinking about it” etc. Since this downward spiral for the past 6 months, the somatic aspect of it has also worsened. All day every single day I am overly aware of every function in my body and am constantly checking to make sure nothing is wrong. It has given me so many thoughts and other health concerns that I know are logically just not happening. But that little chance of “what if” just fuels it every single day, no matter how unlikely, irrational, or illogical. It’s to a point where I think about the future and my immediate thought is “if I make it there” or “if I’m still alive by then” because of how unable I am to separate rational thoughts from ocd thoughts. I don’t even workout anymore because I’m scared to get my heart rate up or to be unable to catch my breath, and I can’t do anything by myself because I worry that something bad will happen to me and nobody will be there to save me or reassure me. I’ve tried adopting mechanisms I’ve heard other people suggest like acknowledging that these thoughts are OCD and simply letting it exist, but they just feel SO real that even when I do that, I can’t help but think “but what if it’s not my OCD? What if this time it’s actually urgent and you’re ignoring it by pushing it off as OCD?” And it just doesn’t help. And these are just the primary thoughts I have. It seeps into EVERYTHING I do and it’s just so complex and hard to explain, but I know you guys get it. I just really feel stuck in a loop and unable to just enjoy my life. I haven’t really talked to anybody about it because I know I’ll just sound like I’m attention seeking since I have no real diagnosis, and honestly I really struggle to talk about my mental health. I just need advice if anybody has it!!!