I am currently unemployed, living with my parents and sister again as an adult and my father was abusive and volatile growing up. My sister took a bunch of pills two years ago and was admitted to a hospital for a while. She lived with me for a year, then lived abroad for a year and now we are both back with our parents. I don't think I ever fully recovered from her suicide attempt or from my childhood. I always felt it was my role to be the peace maker and keep the family together even though I am the youngest one in the family and that was a false responsibility I gave myself. My mom has compulsions and my dad is a hoarder so I think my heightened sense of responsibility and genetics could be factors with my ocd. I first showed signs of ocd when I was younger but didn't know that was what it was. I have used smoking weed as a form of stress relief however I never thought of it as self medicating because I would go several months without smoking and then when I was stressed I would smoke on and off for a month or so. I always thought that was due to external factors in my life and never habit forming or addictive. I never even started smoking weed until I was 22 and I am now in my late 20s. When having a stressful time the other week I started smoking again and the next morning it's like it set off this huge panic attack inside of me. All of my ptsd and fears/ obsessions came up to the surface like when you have food poisoning and your body is trying to expell toxins from your body. My death ocd, sexual thoughts ocd, and real ocd and then ptsd have been swirling around in my head nonstop since. Eventually my mom took me to patient first to get something to help me get through the day. They prescribed me attarax and I am taking 2-4 a day as need be since Monday. I also immediately started listening to the ocd stories podcast after googling intrusive thoughts and realized what was going on with me in terms of my fears and obsessions being heightened. My ocd has always bubbled under the surface but I've never had panic attacks and depression like this before. That's when I decided to try NOCD. I am still waiting to have my first session and I am trying to do things every day to give me hope and I am looking forward to my appointment. I feel like this house and my family are a big trigger for me, but I feel stuck and scared especially during covid-19 on how to get out of my situation. I guess I was hoping if anyone could provide me with some words of hope and encourangement in terms of the recovery process and battling multiple problems on top of ocd.

Never feels like I can fully put my mind to rest. The problem with OCD for me is once I'm over one worry there's another buried deep into my mind that I'm not fully over. The two events I'm not completely over is when I tried to help a 17 year old with POCD when I was 19 and the topics unfortunately were detailed and even then I explained to them I wasn't comfortable with talking to them. I guess I just had a hard time saying no to someone needing help but it eventually made me so uncomfortable that I stopped talking with them altogether at some point. Then the other thing is being so worried that I committed a crime because my elbow touched someone's behind when I didn't want that to happen at all. I didn't want to listen to my OCD by saying move my arm or something horrible is going to happen so I didn't and then something bad actually did happen. I thought it would just be a light touch while zipping a bag up but then it was worse than I ever wanted it to be and it was so awkward and I hated it. I feel like I just won't be able to get back to the way I was before OCD started all of this. Aside from that I've just had extreme health anxiety but am too afraid to reach out to a PCP even though I need to. Something deep down is telling me I should do this but I'm just so anxious and embarrassed about sharing things to them. I can't even enjoy the things I used to do because this is constantly just messing up my life. I'm hoping I get a start of positivity next time I see my therapist. This just sucks. Feels like others around me are doing so much better than I am and I'm just kind of stuck on these same problems and feeling absolute shame and guilt from the past over and over again. I'm just so sick of dealing with this every single day so I just use escape whenever I can. Even that doesn't really work. I just wish I could go back in time.

So I’m 16 years old, currently going through my sophomore year of highschool. I’ve recently quit nicotine and weed after chronic use for about 4 years (has affected my development extremely). I quit because I wanted a better life for myself because I knew that I was using nicotine and weed for short term happiness and long term made me very depressed about this life. I was also experiencing trouble concentrating on simple tasks and what I wanted to do currently in my life. Which was learning about life and having more knowledge about life in general so i could feel more comfortable and happy in the future. So I quit nicotine I thought I was going to be able to overcome it and be more comfortable with myself knowing that I’m not in a constant loop of short term happiness, long term making me less happy overall. Although I have quit nicotine and haven’t touched it in about 3 weeks I expected to have some major withdrawals because I’m still in adolescence and used nicotine about everyday for 4 years. Sorry I’m rambling about this but through those years of always suppressing my anxiety with nicotine when anything came up that triggered it. I started noticing that on vacation in very stressful moments like at the airport and there were people around me when using the bathroom I felt as though it was nearly impossible to go but after sometime I eventually went and shrugged it off. Now that I’ve quit though I’m my 4th week it’s almost like my brain really latched onto that fear of not being able to go around people publicly (paruresis shy bladder syndrome) and that’s also what addiction does to you I’ve acknowledged. But when I started coming home from school I started thinking about not being able to pee more and more to the point i haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since which now every time i feel a slight trigger of having to use the bathroom i start obsessing over it like everything I would try and do that i usually do my brain would draw me away from it and go back to the fear of not being able to go which created a lot of anxiety and thoughts like “would if im not able to stop going” which made me think about it more and more I would just wake up with that thought in my head each day to the point where i was really thinking about killing my self because I thought i would have such a better life without nicotine and weed but ultimately made me feel like i was going crazy and I really wanted to go back to vaping and weed but i knew that this was the cycle of addiction and that i may have a more underlying problem here i need to overcome somatic ocd. I haven’t been diagnosed with it yet and I know a lot of people go through a cycle of self diagnosing. But as I’ve slowly started to mentally figure out ways to get through this obsession over peeing and fight it, it’s like my brain is now trying to look for a new bodily sensation to obsess over. My breathing. I noticed this as well while using that sometimes I would think about my breathing a little bit to much for example saying to myself am I breathing right should I breath this certain way would if I can’t stop thinking about it. But as I was thinking about that I just hit my vape talked to my brother about it and just slept it off. Now that I don’t have a vape I’ve had to go through these expierences but with it feeling more real and not really having something to run to, to suppress like my vape. I’m writing this today as I feel better to myself talking about it and opening up about it as I’m trying to not respond to this fear with anxiety and go throughout my days ignoring these obsessive thoughts leading to extreme anxiety that I don’t have anything to suppress it with anymore besides my own mental. Maybe someone here will have some more knowledge about it than I do and can give me some advice to try to keep me more motivated to deal with this ocd I feel as though I’m having so I don’t end up in a dark place. Thank you.

What is a common family joke. OCD is hereditary on my father's side. However I also live with complex PTSD, and ADHD. I didn't learn till recently how severe my OCD is and the intensity gets amplified if the though goes to either of the other two. It's a loop I've identified recently... just little too late. I've lived with OCD for years not really addressing it till I see that's the very reason I cause damage to loved ones. I'm married, 33, a vet. My marriage is not in the best place now. I have a son who's 4 and already showing signs of OCD. Currently my marriage is at a point where we are working on ourselves. It's discovered that my wife's issues are reflections of my own. I understand fully now that I am the center of the issues but also the solution. I need help for me. What happens with my relationships depends on me showing that I am better and able to process thoughts and emotions better. Journaling helps alot. Trying to do hobbies or this that and 3rd but. I'm willing to try anything. Things are on a line. I'm open to any and all POV and ideas. I'm not out crying. I'm taking a big step for me. Something 25 years over due. Thank you for reading this. As I tell myself now. You'll best this and be better