I told my close friends about my OCD a few months ago and they were really supportive at first however there is this one girl who is really horrible about it. She tells me regularly that I should ‘just stop’ and that if she had OCD, she would just find a way to turn it off which makes it seem as though I am making my problems up! As well as this, she will often laugh at me for doing my compulsions even though I have explained to her on numerous occasions what they are and why I need to do them. Does anyone have any ideas about how to explain to her why I am like this? I feel like I have tried everything! Any advice would be greatly appreciated ☺️

I am wanting to go to therapy to hopefully lower my OCD symptoms but I am terrified to tell anyone else, like a therapist, about my intrusive thoughts. Has anyone else had this experience and if so how did you get over it?

My therapist isn’t specialized in OCD. I’m her first OCD client. She told me she’s taking courses in ERP and specifically sexual OCD since a lot of my themes are sexual in nature. I want help, I need help. It feels like every time I meet with her I get set back. I make progress a lot on my own. Sitting with discomfort, trying to accept the thoughts and uncertainty. But every single time I meet with her, it feels like I’m explaining OCD to her. She even went as far as to suggest that some of my thoughts that bring me distress are mine. I am not a cheater. They are not mine. Why on earth would they not be intrusive if I was in tears about having this thought? I feel bad. I really do because I can see that even though I can very much see her mistakes, I can also see that she’s trying to help me. I’m just so scared of getting worse. I’ve been in therapy for 5 weeks now. I feel like had it been with a specialist, I would be doing so much better. Instead it takes me days to come backs to whatever progress I’ve made alone after meeting with her. She’s a great person, she tells me she experiences intrusive thoughts too and she doesn’t have OCD which helps me feel less alone but I don’t think that’s enough for me. She’s always available for a call whenever I’m in extreme panic. I just don’t think this is working. I trust her and I tell her everything, but it feels like she’s just listening to me talk the whole time. We’re doing a workbook but she gives me absolutely 0 input. I just read my replies and she just sits there. I don’t understand the point in that. I feel so anxious right now. She wants me to get properly evaluated for anything that may be going on because on top of the severe OCD, I was also diagnosed with PMDD, GAD, and MDD by my primary care doctor but I guess she doesn’t trust those diagnoses? My psychiatrist also told me I have ADHD, which I’ve suspected my whole life but it sounds like my therapist doesn’t know how to handle OCD much less OCD, MDD, GAD, PMDD, and ADHD. She’s questioning the validity of my diagnoses instead of helping me figure out how to deal with all of it. This is so suffocatingly difficult. I’m also a huge people pleaser so how on earth do I end this thing?

So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.