Happy OCD Awareness Week, everyone! What's one thing you wish people understood about OCD? We'll compile your answers (they'll be anonymous) and share them on social media to teach more people about what it's really like to liv with OCD!

That ocd is a huge illness and if more people were aware of how broad this illness was more people would be willing to seek help instead of ending their life!

I would just want people to know what an intrusive thought is. Having that terminology helped me figure out I had OCD and kept the already very frightened me from having to read articles about psychosis and serial killers and other pathological things. Saying “I’m having an intrusive thought” is much less scary than saying “I’m having disturbing thoughts” and helped me get appropriate treatment rapidly. I felt much more safe confiding in my therapist about some of my scarier obsessions once I had this terminology to use.

THAT JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT SOMETHING TO BE STRAIGHT OR THE SAME COLOUR, DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU HAVE OCD. HONESTLY! GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT BEFORE SELF DIAGNOSING YOURSELF WITH SOMETHING THAT YOU CLEARLY DONT HAVE AND KNOW NOTHING ABOUT!!!

That it isn’t just a habit to be broken, like stopping smoking....in my opinion it is much deeper than that

When people do don’t have the illness say I’m really OCD about this..I’m really OCD about that’ THIS ISNT COOL.

OCD isn’t just about hand washing and organizing things; there’s a lot more to it.

Even if you don’t see it, it’s still there. Just because I haven’t talked about it in a while does not mean the thoughts aren’t there anymore. I just don’t want to complain about too often because people will get annoyed

Ocd isn't a joke it's absolutely real. It causes excessive worry fear and doubt about yourself. No matter how much reassurance you try to seek you will never satisfy it. That is where accepting the uncertainty and knowing that seeking reassurance itself is all part of the ocd cycle.

That having OCD isn’t a choice, it is an illness. I cannot stop performing a compulsion or stop obsessing over something just because someone asks me to. It isn’t as simple as that.

OCD isn’t just needing things to be “perfect”. I feel like a lot of people don’t know about the intrusive thoughts that people with OCD deal with on a daily basis. There’s such a stereotype around it that people have no idea they may have OCD, and they just think they are going crazy or that there is something wrong with them, and that keeps people from seeking treatment. I wish more people knew about the debilitating thoughts that drive our compulsions.

If you like straightening things, or color coding them, you’re organized not OCD. The people who have to do that as a compulsion do not enjoy it.

I wish people would understand I do a lot of irrational things bc of anxiety, and that I don’t mean to

Intrusive thoughts can involve anything and anyone

I have lost all control of my brain. I feel evil. It sucks.

It tortures people and people who are a little OCD are lucky they don't have OCD