This is long but I’m hurting and need practical advice on what to do. My OCD is convincing me I’m psychotic. It doesn’t help that I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and had an ill informed therapist tell me for 8 months that my intrusive thoughts were hallucinations and delusions. I just quit lithium a week ago after being on it for 4 months after a psychiatric nurse who I no longer am seeing told me it was safe to do so. I don’t exactly trust her though since she accused me of being a liar, impulsive, having a personality disorder, and told me I had to take antipsychotics or she would walk away, when I had legitimate questions about the bipolar diagnosis (hence no longer being in her care). My anxiety and intrusive thoughts are spiking worse than ever. My main theme is harm so I’m terrified of becoming manic and psychotic and believing my intrusive thoughts are correct, even though my non-OCD self is positive I’m not bipolar. I’m starting to doubt I have OCD and am asking myself what if I am actually delusional and in denial about my situation and am actually a danger to myself and others. I got approved for a PHP in the OCD and anxiety disorder program at Rogers but I don’t start for another 3 weeks. Has anyone been through anything like this (misdiagnosis, wrong medication making you worse, lithium withdrawal, questioning if your OCD is actually psychosis, etc) and has some advice with how to deal with this? I’m feeling so hopeless and dejected after being tossed around the mental health field like this only to find out I have OCD and could have started treatment 8 months ago and not gotten to this point if my doctors were more aware of this condition

I went to talk to a psychiatrist based off my Nocd therapists recommendation. I had a very hard week beforehand where I had anxiety so bad I couldn't leave my bed. It seems like once I get my period my anxiety and everything dissipated some so I talked to the psychiatrist. Anyways, I was immediately put off by her because she told me she didn't have any information on me included in the referral for one reason or another. So I had to basically "fill her in" on my life story. I have anxiety disorder, panic disorder, OCD and PTSD. I told her these things and how hard the last week had been. She started asking questions like I had bipolar disorder, which I don't have. She then wanted me to take buspar and Zoloft TOGETHER daily. I know for a fact you never start two medications daily at once. You don't know which one is causing symptoms if you do. So I immediately didn't like that. I asked her about Zoloft specifically daily because it is an SSRI what I should do if it gave me thoughts of harm for myself. She told me "just go to the hospital".... Now, I don't wanna say that was the worst possible thing she could have said to me, but it was. Because now my OCD is spiraling that just my general harm OCD thoughts are enough to mean I need to go to the hospital. It had been 2 days and I cannot stop obsessing that maybe I'm depressed or suicidal because of this. I know I don't want anything to happen to me. I love my family and my friends. I am scared of death. But the thought is sticky and it's been so, so frustrating. My anxiety has been so frustrating. I feel so lost and like nothing I'm trying to fix my issues is working very well. NOCD therapy has been one of the only things to help in the long term, but I still get terrified of certain obsessions like suicide. I don't really know what to do, if anyone has any advice or any personal experience that may help, anything would be nice right now. I've felt so lost trying to figure it all out.

I’m new to treatment and only realized I have OCD a few months ago. I went through a tough and abusive marriage and ended up getting divorced. I had my first panic attack several years ago and ended up needing to go on Lexapro. This helped me significantly and allowed me to leave my partner. Several years later and I decided to stop Lexapro because I thought I was good to go. I’m in a very healthy relationship, have a great job, friends/family, go to the gym and have a wonderful life. It’s been about a year off the meds and I’ve had some panic, but I’ve been able to manage it. For some reason, the last three weeks has been really difficult for me. I have different spirals and different thought processes: what if I’m schizophrenic? What if I have a deeper mental disorder? What if I hurt someone? What if I need to leave my partner? What if I end up becoming so depressed that I end up hurting myself? My brain just goes from one what if to the next and once I conquer one, the next one pops up with even more intensity. I started taking NAC and inositol and I’m taking saffron during the day because I really don’t wanna go on back on medication but sometimes my thoughts scare me and I’m convinced that I’m not gonna get better and I know that’s just the OCD loop, but I’m wondering if this resonates with anyone else!

Hello all, I don’t have insurance at the moment (lost eligibility due to me making more money, but not enough to afford medication and visits) and have been struggling a LOT. When I was going to therapy, I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2 Disorder. I never got to expand on other mental health concerns I had and it bothers me that I can’t receive the proper advice that I need. If this is not allowed, I completely understand (and you may delete) but I figured I’d give this app a shot to get some clarification and knowledge on the topic. I experience MANY intrusive thoughts that destabilize my relationships and daily mood. I always pitched it to be my B2D symptoms, but the more I read into OCD or rather, Relationship OCD, I feel connected to others’ experiences. My boyfriend has been cheated on in the past—to such a bad degree, that it can be hard for him to trust me. I have never been cheated on nor have I ever thought cheating was okay, but I experience nearly daily intrusive thoughts that I am a horrible partner. Even worse yet, the intrusive thoughts often include overanalyzing my body language and making myself believe that I am somehow presenting myself in a way that would make men “like” me and therefore convincing my boyfriend that I am or will cheat on him if given the chance. It gets so bad that when my boyfriend questions an interaction I have with a dude, I freeze and become so panicked that I feel as though I am “giving away” that I did something wrong—even though I didn’t do anything at all. I am fiercely loyal to people in my life and could never imagine hurting anyone, so the very thought that I could “potentially” do this gnaws away at my social comfortability and self-confidence. I always feel as though I’m a horrible person and I am constantly trying to “make up” for something I didn’t even do. I’ll cry myself to sleep ruminating on every detail of the moment I had these thoughts or when I spoke to my boyfriend about it. It just haunts my thoughts honestly and makes socializing impossible nearly all the time. Eye contact has been a huge problem for me lately even—as if eye contact seals the deal on me being an “unfaithful” partner. Or laughing! Because if I show any sort of interest in the conversation—no matter how respectful and short it is—I believe it’ll spiral into my boyfriend leaving me (which is completely ridiculous and not true!) It’s almost like imposter syndrome in a way—because I feel as though no amount of reassurance or truth that I am a kind, loyal girlfriend, I will eventually ruin it anyway so I don’t deserve respect or affirmations. And it’s not even just with my boyfriend. Friends I have lost in the past clutter my mind as well. I have constant guilt and regret over potentially being a horrible friend despite how hard I fought/fight to keep that person in my life. Honestly, it gets to a point now where I’m convinced I will mess up any form of relationship I have eventually so I suppress my feelings or thoughts that could potentially upset people or make them question if I am really valuable in their life (often I can feel detached from people while being physically present with them because I get so lost in my head about what-ifs or where to look or if I’m causing someone to feel uncomfortable or that what they are or I’m saying isn’t satisfying the “ideal” friendship) . I let people walk all over me, deal with uncomfortable settings to avoid conflict and struggle to assert myself or have any sense of who I truly am with other people. It has put such a strain on me and my relationships, especially my best friend and my boyfriend and I’s relationships—which hold highest priority in my life at the moment. It can be hard to “let go” of people because it’s just another person who I have failed—including my own family members whom have definitely given reason for me to be not close with them. I also struggle with perfectionism and order during “stressful” situations, to the point where I will put myself into an anxiety episode over the simplest changes, unexpected accidents or things not going to plan. Again, this could very well be a symptom of Bipolar, but it truly causes me to blow situations WAY out of proportion and convince myself that I will never resolve it or make things better unless I can set it exactly how it was supposed to be in my head. The executive dysfunction is real on that one…To some, it could be procrastination. Or even just my cycles rapidly changing. But it affects my outlook on most things—financial matters, relationships, responsibilities, hygiene, cleaning. I can go from having complete confidence in doing something, to being doubtful that I could even get myself to get out of bed because I know I won’t do what I need/want to do. Sometimes I’ll even elaborately plan a course of action the day before and then when the time comes to do it, I lose control of my will to do it due to my intrusive thoughts. I do NOT expect anyone to “diagnose” me and I’m not sway the audience into agreeing with me in any way. I truly only want to hear your experiences, and if you also struggle to differentiate if you’ve been properly diagnosed or have overlapping symptoms that you can relate in some way. I want to better understand OCD and possibly connect with people who have had the same experiences. I appreciate any feedback—as long as it’s beneficial to this discussion and helping anyone else who struggle with the same thoughts—or even struggling to identify yourself or afford treatment! I just am curious, and honestly needed to have a platform to express some deep stuff I haven’t really discussed with anyone else besides my boyfriend. Thank yall for reading/listening regardless!