is it normal to have OCD? I’ve never told anyone i have it before. will my friends judge me for it? am I going to lose them? ):

i’ve been dealing with this “thing” since i was 15. (i’m 23 now) if i have a bad memory that i have done when i was really young or just an intrusive thought i feel like i need to tell my mom or boyfriend. it’s been on and off ever since but since January hit it’s been an everyday thing about the littlest things. mostly about my relationship. an example is i was talking to someone random at my job and we were talking about taxes and when im in deep thought or just thinking i do a thing where i bite my lip (not in the sexual way) and i had a thought when it happened “was that sexual?” and i felt like i did something wrong and i went for a while thinking that until i told my boyfriend about it. or like my ex’s face has popped up in my head in the most inappropriate times and i feel the need that i have to tell him. (my ex was not a good person) i feel like im a prisoner in my head everyday, trying to justify thoughts or remind myself that its just a thought. i didnt know that this was or could be a form of ocd. it runs in my family but i’ve just never considered it being this. i always called it anxiety or depression but i always felt like it is more than that.

Has anyone experienced their reputation affected or misunderstood because of a societally taboo OCD theme? Others catching wind of your obsessions and misinterpreting it, assuming the worst? I’m intentionally keeping it vague because I don’t want my specific situation to get reassured, but it’s been a real tough pill to swallow knowing that people close to me (and anyone else they might talk to) think of me differently. I’m unwilling to share about my OCD because I feel pretty confident it will be taken as an excuse or denial, and feels compulsive and reassurance seeking. Let me know if anyone here has experienced anything like it, how they handled it, exposures you did.

Hi all, I’m brand new to this app. I’ve never had any mental disorders. I’ve never been diagnosed or even suspected that I had some kind of issue going on. But recently my partner gently pointed out to me that I’ve developed some weird tendencies that are progressively getting worse. I’m getting overly anxious about the smallest of things. Every time he leaves for work, I stare at the tracker on my phone until he gets through his 25 minute commute because I’m convinced there will be a wreck. I’m terrified that someone is constantly taking pictures of me through my windows and even feel like people can see through my (solid) blinds at night. Every time I hear someone in the hallway of my apartment complex I stare out the peephole because I’m convinced they’re going to break in, even if it’s a neighbor that I recognize. I check myself for lumps in my body every morning and every night, and my partner too, even though neither of us have any scary medical history. I unplug everything with a cord every night before I go to bed because I’m terrified that something is faulty and my apartment will catch on fire. I am constantly afraid of being sued by people I don’t know even though the worst thing I’ve ever done is gotten a speeding ticket. I have dreams that people are sending me threatening mail and it stops me from opening my actual mail. There are so many more, I could go on forever. Writing it all down, I know it’s stupid. I just don’t know if feeling this way is normal. There are people out there that have actual stressors and here I am working myself up a million times a day over nothing. Do normal people feel like this? I thought it was normal.