How did you come to realise that you have OCD? Did you find out through a therapist or did you discover it yourself? And what were your early signs of it?

Kea

Date posted: 5y

Figured it out myself. After hours of research I stumbled upon it and I even discovered all the other themes I had that were causing me distress that I never even knew were ocd. I’m still not diagnosed but I know it has to be this, there’s no other explanation to it.

c444tmommy

Date posted: 5y

after about a day or two of having intrusive thoughts about my sexuality i decided to look up “how to get rid of thoughts u don’t want” lmfaooo and i stumbled across a bunch of articles talking about intrusive thoughts and ocd and the more i researched ocd the more i was like holy shit this is exactly what i’m going through

Jshyg12

Date posted: 5y

That’s amazing to hear. I found out through talking to a therapist but now looking back I can see how ocd has affected me for a lot of my life, I just didn’t have the will to search anything up because I didn’t exactly know what was going on

sunflower123

Date posted: 5y

Discovered it myself after hours of research. My first signs of it were when I was as young as 10/11 and I’m now 23

Jshyg12

Date posted: 5y

Interesting, did u proceed to a therapist straight after that?

sunflower123

Date posted: 5y

@Jshyg12 Nope. Therapists I went to didn’t really understand it and I didn’t wanna tell anyone really exactly what I was feeling. I sort of pushed it away by myself It still comes back now and again but I’ve got strategies to manage it and not let it take hold of my life (for the meantime) :)

Jshyg12

Date posted: 5y

@sunflower123 Do you recommend any strategies? It must be hard to push it away, maybe try again with a therapist?

sunflower123

Date posted: 5y

@Jshyg12 Yeah you’re prob right it’s not good to push something and ignore it but it’s working for me in the meantime. My strategies really are watching videos by people going through the same thing. It reminds me I’m not crazy and alone!! Chrissie is hodges videos are good

Jshyg12

Date posted: 5y

@sunflower123 Yeah I’m definitely going to watch some, people are always suggesting them

sunflower123

Date posted: 5y

@Jshyg12 Hope everything goes well! Just remember you’re not alone in how you’re feeling!

Jshyg12

Date posted: 5y

@sunflower123 Thank you, u too

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

Well I'd been told by my ex and a psychiatrist who diagnosed my PTSD, and also by I think both of my autism support mentors. I just didn't understand what it is at all. I had realised when I was around 14 that I had had harm OCD as a child from discovering Maria Bamford, but I suppose if forgotten about it or figured that it was just a blip in the past. It took seeing a Chrissie Hodges video on false memory/real event OCD and confession compulsions and ruminating as a mental compulsion before I put 2 and 2 together. From there I was able to quickly realise I'd had whole other ones (health, obsessive fear others will come to harm, zoophilia, a pretty unique one about plagiarism) and minor episodes of other ones (POCD and just-right). It was a bit of a revelation. There really needs to be more public awareness about the realities of OCD.

Jshyg12

Date posted: 5y

Yeah same I didn’t understand the diagnosis at all which really scared me but very interesting story I should watch one of her videos, I see her being advocated all the time but have never got around to it, do u recommend any?

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@Jshyg12 Hmm, not really, I suppose it really depends on your theme. I haven't watched a lot of her videos, I was just very relieved to finally have an answer to my false memory/real event OCD, as although I had done a good job of processing guilt and moving on from the theme, which had given me a more realistic perspective on the situation and my actions, I still had a lot of confusion about how I managed to get so sucked into the delusional ideas I had in the first place, and wasn't sure where it came from.

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