- Date posted
- 5y
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- 5y
You're an adult. I'm glad they care about you but you are able to make your own adult decisions and they need to be respectful of that.
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- 5y
Well as another 29 year old NYC resident who is at their parents right now, it’s tough to also not get sucked back into feeling like a child-mode. My boyfriend agreed that when you go home for a long-ish period of time, both you AND your parents revert back to your younger self. It’s pretty annoying but it’s kind of a two way street. Just need to set boundaries for yourself and your parents. It will come with time. They love you and care.
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- 5y
Are you staying at your parents for the next few months? Or plan on going back to nyc?
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- 5y
@jmr So my boyfriend just went back to the city today (his parents have a vacation home outside the city so that’s where they are). My dad offered to drive me back but honestly, I’m enjoying having the space by my parents. I think this has been a good experience challenging my rOCD because last week I was ruminating 24/7 about “why don’t I miss him?” “Why am I happier here?”...Blah blah blah but after my brain settled I said, nope. I miss him but I can function without him. We are individuals and it’s ok. I still love him. But this is somethinf that makes me happy. Forcing myself back to the city to prove to my ocd thoughts that I do still love him is just giving in. I’m practicing sitting with the discomfort.
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- 5y
@d126 (Side note: my parents are oky with me going back but they are of course a little nervous)
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- 5y
@d126 Of course!! I’m so glad you are enjoying the time at home- and sounds like you are exactly where you should be! I’m not sure why I feel such an urgency to be in my apartment... I think my need for independence and ocd getting worse out here is why but I also just found out my dad has had MS for 20 years and never told me. I think I’m feeling overwhelmed and need some space to think about. It’s not heredity but they say you have a higher chance at developing it if a parent has it. I also got ocd from him and two other autoimmune diseases that my siblings did not get so I am definitely worried that i will get it too. Just a lot to process during an already stressful time. But I know I am lucky that they care about me so much. We are so close so I feel it should be okay when I do need some space
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- 5y
@d126 I saw his medication in a drawer in the fridge and immediately googled the medicine. It’s for ms and without thinking I said “who has MS in this house???”
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- 5y
@jmr It’s 1000% okay to need space. You’re an adult. I mean think about your parents, I’m guessing they probably already had kids by your age. I can’t even count how many times after a weekend home wanting to run back to the city. I say this as a joke but it’s so true...sometimes its better to love your family from a distance. Lol
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- 5y
@d126 So true!!!!! Thank youuu I really needed to talk to someone about it. Can’t thank you enough for taking the time to let me vent - always here if you need anything also!
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- 5y
@jmr So sorry. Just seeing this. You’re very welcome!
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@jmr Hey girl! Hope you’re doing well. I’m back in the city and wish it was doing something positive for my mental health lol
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- 5y
@d126 Hey!! I’m heading back next week- sorry it’s not helping. I hope you are doing okay. I’m hoping going back will help a little bit not sure. Here if you need to talk!
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- 5y
@jmr All good! Funny enough I’m back home for Mother’s Day. But tried to power through being at my boyfriends and handling the ocd last week.
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- 5y
@d126 Ha so funny! Does your boyfriend know about the OCD? I was dating someone long term and I told him and he freaked out. We broke up within the week. I think I’m going to feel better once I’m back in my apt- hopefully!
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- 5y
Hey there! I just had the same issue with my dad! I got SCREAMED at when I didn’t come home- mind you, my apartment is 3 hours from my dads house. But, just like you said, this is the mentally healthy choice for me. I need to be in my own safe space that I’ve created. We obviously love our families- that does not have to be at odds with the fact that we need our own homes and routines (that we’ve made through hardships) to stay mentally healthy. Parents have such a keen skill at making us feel guilty for things haha, love em! But there’s a certain point where we need to do what we think is best for us.
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- 5y
Thank you so much Leah. I was feeling so alone and guilty- paralyzed with this guilt and now questioning what’s right when I really do know what I need. Thank you for responding. Feeling such a mix of guilt, ocd building up in all aspects of my day, and also struggling with what I know as an adult I need.
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- 5y
Also - I live 20 minutes outside of New York so if they really needed me I can be to them in 20 mins. They are acting like I’m leaving the country. I’m just trying to keep my ocd in check and it undo the progrss I’ve made over a decade. I feel it quickly unraveling
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- 5y
Of course!!! I SO deeply understand the layers of guilt that occur with and outside of OCD. I have a really hard relationship with guilt and shame haha so I get you. 20 min!! Oh jeez. You are FINE in either place!! They’re capacity to make you feel guilty about it, is NOT how wrong you are. Those don’t correlate. Ocd is known for co-occurring with feelings of guilt so often. But most cases are misplaced guilt- you can feel it, see it, and then remind yourself that even though it’s there, it’s misplaced and that you are ALLOWED to do what you know your mind and soul need. I mean cmon, 20 min haha?:)
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- 5y
They’re still gonna try to make you feel guilty for it after you tell them what you are doing. They’re probably gonna throw a lot at you like “this is irresponsible” “why don’t you just stay with us where it’s safer” etc etc, but at that point, it’s a lot more what THEY need from you, and not necessarily what YOU need. THEY feel safer with you at home- that doesn’t mean that’s the only place where you are safe, and that doesn’t mean you need to bend over backward so they feel better. We love our parents, but we also have to respect ourselves?❤️
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- 5y
Thank you all- feeling less lonely and more confident to stand up for what I need. I know it won’t be easy but I’m going to try and talk with them and eventually make my decision based on what I need. Thank you all for the support
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- 5y
?❤️
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Yesss I feel 14 again. I am working on setting boundaries but they cry every time I talk about it ??♀️ but I know I need to stay strong and continue setting boundaries that are completely normal and healthy. The ocd of course makes everything feel so out of control and paralyzing.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w
i’ve unfortunately fallen into the cycle of trying to figure out my thoughts and find answers as to why i feel so distressed. this still pertains to the situation regarding changing my room for those reading who have seen my multiple posts over the last few days. i’ve been so distressed and in so much panic about it. i’m also panicking over my other room looking so different from when i left it. it’s been making me feel crazy because to me there’s no reason for my anxiety to latch so hard onto something that seems so minuscule. i was thinking i was having anxiety over change, but it’s like symptoms of ocd too that’s making it really hard for me to let go. SO i started thinking maybe it was perfectionism ocd? i’ve realized over time that i do compulsions to where things have to feel “just right”, but i also do that with any environment i’m in. like it HAS to feel cozy to me and provide me comfort in order for me to feel at ease. and this change is causing me to panic because there’s something wrong that i can’t find an answer to. maybe the different colored carpet? but it’s also more than that it feels like. however, now it’s spreading into other areas of my house where i’ve always been fine in and possibly to just any area i’m in at all. hence why it’s making me feel crazy because there’s no reason for me to be THIS distressed over that as i’ve never really had this problem before. and when i did it would last maybe an hour to a couple of days at most, but this has been going for over 2 weeks with my really bad anxiety being this week. i’m doing a little better, but it’s still hard when i can feel that panic waiting for me to acknowledge and just engulf me in the ocd cycle. i’m also analyzing basically any feeling i have so i just feel off in general and like i’m going insane. i’ve been so hyper focused on how i feel and that will send me spiraling too. multiple themes then start coming in like existential ocd and fear of solipsism. not to mention my harm and contamination ocd that just adds on when i’m this vulnerable. then i worry if no one is real, then no one feels the way i do. or just in general that what if no one feels the way i do. honestly, i think being out of college and in my house with nothing to do is causing me too much time with my thoughts. which is why i’m so distressed about everything that pops into my brain.
- Date posted
- 22w
LONG VENT POST: This is my second post of the day. Seriously, I am SO sorry. I have therapy tomorrow, I promise I will shut up after this lmao. Anyway, for Memorial Day weekend, I spent it at my aunt/uncles vacation house. Fortunately it wasn’t a big crowd - just my mom, grandmother, aunt, uncle and I. For context, I come from a pretty big family, and I am the youngest of 7 cousins and a younger sister to two brothers. All my cousins are in their early to mid 20’s, each very successful in school and their careers. My half brother is 29, and absolutely crushing it. My full brother is turning 23, he’s also doing amazing with school. I just turned 20 in April, I feel very lost. I know I want to be a forensic psychiatrist one day, and that I want my PhD. I want to be the best therapist I can be, but the fact that I barely get by with ocd/adhd has been discouraging me, so I currently feel like a flop. Anyway though, spending time with my aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents triggers my ocd the most, as majority of them can be on the judgmental side. ESPECIALLY my aunt, she’s on my moms side, and she and my mom are total opposites. My aunts a very calculated, straightforward, logical, stern, sassy buisnesswoman. She’s successful, but lacks a lot of understanding and can be so cold and just mean. My moms a kindergarten teacher in a struggling community, and she’s always thinking about others before herself, extremely emotional, caring, but neglects her own needs a lot. They’re sisters, and they bump heads a ton. My aunt and all of her kids aren’t neurodivergent. They simply don’t understand mental health. My mom does, thank god. My aunt and uncle think that if a kid is having a psychotic break, then that kid should be kicked out of the house and not helped at all. My mom and I entirely disagree with this idea, and that someone clearly mentally suffering NEEDS mental health help asap, and they need to be home. The streets are the last place someone suffering should be. While we were vacationing at the house, my mom argued about this with my uncle. I was asleep, thank god, but I seriously hate having people in my family like this. I can never tell them about me having ocd, they’ll think it’s just an “excuse” for not getting things done, or just me trying to feel special. The reality is, they don’t get it. My full brother went through the worst psychotic break a few years ago. It lasted two years on and off due to bipolar disorder, but thank god he got himself help and he’s doing absolutely amazing now. He’s frustrated and embarassed with himself but now he’s on track, and as I said, crushing it with school. But the entire time he was going through this, my aunt and uncle just didn’t understand. To keep it short, they thought his mental problems were behavioral, and that he’s a “crazy” kid. The reality is, he was coping with the loss of his childhood best friend and our other uncle who was like a second father figure to us. He had manic episodes from the grief and self medicating with drugs and alcohol. This was all the while Covid was happening and he was a freshman at a college states away. He was so vunerable. I’m saying all this because, well, how am I to seriously be forward about my mental struggles when they couldn’t even show the slightest amount of empathy to my brother, who was struggling, so much more intensely than me? I’m quiet at family gatherings when they’re around for this exact reason. I have so much resentment toward them for it. I try to avoid them when I can, because I love them, I just hate their actions/views. What do you guys do with these kinds of people?
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- 21w
Hey, so idk if I have ocd, I would like to think I’m a very self aware person but I don’t wanna self diagnose at all, lmk what you guys think. So pretty much my whole life since I was young I remember having irrational fears im sure it was all trauma induced but when I was a kid I thought my father was poisoning me until I asked him, he started crying and was so shocked that I could ever even think that, my parents broke up when I was legit fresh out the womb, mom worked two jobs and disciplined me, dad let me do whatever on the weekends and got me snacks so I was obsessed with him so obsessed that it was mandatory for me to kiss his picture 20x everyday before school. Growing up I always felt followed by cameras or like someone out there was recording me waiting for me to do something embarrassing to expose me in front of the whole world and my life was over 🤣🤣 I thought my abusive ex bf was stalking me through my I phone camera after we broke up and it would truly stress me out, it made me believe that it was the reason he never reached out again bc I probably looked ugly in the camera he was stalking me through. If I fall out with a friend Ill over analyze everything to see if I did anything wrong and god forbid while I’m self reflecting I realize I did something wrong I feel like an evil person, verbatim the people I fall out with is bc they’ve done me wrong in some way and it has to b something hurtful or repeated mistakes for me to really stay away for good, so I’ll beat myself up for making mistakes with another person who’s made the same amount of mistakes if not more and in most cases I always fall short, and this when I question if it’s ocd or I’m just to self aware and see the ugly in me bc I’m not perfect and it’s just makes me feel so unsettled but again that’s a normal feeling and the next step is to forgive yourself and do better moving forward, not obsess over it like your trying to convince yourself you’re a good person. I’m also hot tempered and will say hurtful things when I’m mad I’m definitely a crash out in the way, you push my bottoms way too many times and I will shred you, and I’ll say things ik will hurt you and that’s just so low, then the anger goes away and I have to face the guilt, which makes my “ocd” 100x worse, it almost feels like I have to do everything right to not trigger it yet again I don’t have the self control to do it all right, I actually have a lot bpd tendencies again not diagnosing but I’m just trying to understand my brain. I worry about dying, getting a terminal illness. uti turning into kidney infection then into cancer kind of thing, knowing that life in general can b tragic is so scary to me, like what will be my story? What will be my life experience?. I believe that people see right through me and discuss it amongst each other, I always tell myself I am not that important but I can’t seem to shake it off sometimes. When I would break up with my ex I would have pre written paragraphs ready to b send if he ever decided to reach back and I would do this to make sure I didn’t forget a single thought, that every point i felt I need to prove was there, and that bothers me bc do I want win an argument or fix the issue. All of these feelings make me feel so pathetic and embarrassed people move on with their lives and I’m still stuck on something that happened 3 yrs ago. Then I’ll get manic get a tattoo, change my hair, go out clubbing do what I can to b the sexy young girl that I am and it helps in the moment but it worsens my mental after the euphoria is gone. I’m currently staying home, not going out, have only 1 friend so I feel like ocd progressively got worse now, I don’t remember it getting this bad in a while. lmk what you guys think don’t judge or think I’m embarrassing I’m actually so cool and if have to convince you I’m cool I will LMFAOO no but fr help
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