Hi I am new to this app and didnt know what else to turn to. My parents dont understand me at all.. my ocd or anything I go thru. I have almost 2 years clean from drugs, have extreme anxiety, and pretty severe OCD and trich. I am just having a really hard and traumatizing week. Two nights ago my freezer caught on fire( which I didnt even realize was a thing) and there was no one there to help me. I was frozen in shock and I just switched the breakers off until my apartment maintenece could help in the morning. Of course I didnt sleep bc I just kept thinking it was still going to catch fire. The power has gone off 3 times this week.. once while I had a cleaning service here to help me clean my apartment( which is a hard enough exposure for me anyway, to let other people in touching all my things especially during covid). The last thing is I have been worried for a while that there is something physically wrong with me (my dad is a physician and I have physical symptoms to back up this theory). I wont share my symptoms cuz that could take a while but as someone with Ocd you think are all of these symptoms real/fake and related/ unrelated issues that I should or shouldnt worry about. Well my concierge doctor called me with intensive lab results they did as a result of my worrying and it turns out my ANA is pretty high and she wants to refer me to a rheumatologist. ANA being high is the first sign of an autoimmune disease. She was trying to write my fatigue off as sleep apnea but they did find something pretty significant in my bloodwork. Im just really scared. This is too much for me to deal with and worry about. I just feel like shutting down, I cant deal with this all by myself. Any advice or just support? I do have an Ocd therapist, have been thru exposure therapy, and currently take meds for it.

hi everyone, i’ve been using this app for about 2 weeks now, maybe a little more or less than that, i can’t remember exactly when i downloaded it because these past 3 weeks have all been a blur. ive mostly just been lurking and observing other people’s posts and conversations. i’m currently suffering from some bad existential ocd. i haven’t been getting a lot of sleep since lockdown started. i’ve known i’ve had ocd for awhile now but i’ve never gotten any kind of help for it. i don’t talk about my problems to anyone and keep all my thoughts bottled up until i get over things on my own. but every time i go through a phase like this it gets worse each time it comes back. i haven’t felt like this in over 3 years and i thought i was done a finally free but now it feels like my life is over. i had a doctor’s appointment this past Tuesday and i’m going to be getting counseling (i’m not sure if there’s a difference between counseling and therapy, the word my doctor used specifically was counseling. she might have just said that but meant therapy or maybe there is a difference im not sure) but i don’t see the point. everyone tells me to ‘embrace the uncertainty’ but i don’t know how i can go on living happily with the possibility of my worst fears being true. i won’t say what they are in this post but if you’re curious I’ll tell you. i put a trigger warning just in case i get into the conversation of what exactly my worst fears are with anyone and i don’t want to trigger anyone who’s also dealing with the same problems as me. i just thought, in case im wrong-which i hope i am-that it wouldn’t hurt to talk it out right now. my mom and dad don’t fully understand and i don’t want to scare them and it might be a few more weeks before i start counseling.

Hello everyone! I have been through a whirlwind of mental health struggles but OCD feels like it might be “running the show” and I didn’t know if anyone else could relate The first time I got told I was struggling with ocd was by a therapist only a few months ago who said I “fall under the cloud of harm ocd” This lead me to a downward spiral because I had never had a mental health diagnosis before and I was so scared right away that nobody would believe me or help me. I feel like my life has been so out of control over the last few months. I’m dealing with some other things such as big life changes and identity crisis (fresh out of college, no longer a student athlete, came out to my family). I had to leave my first job as an icu nurse for the immense distress it caused me as i was working day/night rotating shifts and being triggered unknowingly to some trauma that I didn’t even know I was holding onto. I now experience heavy mood swings and dissociation at times related to ptsd and I feel like life just isn’t the same. I’m in such a tough spot because I seem to have a fear of being misdiagnosed/improperly treated, a fear of taking meds, a fear of unintentionally harming myself, and my needs for safety reassurance are so strong that I’m back home with my parents and scared to do anything. I’m a nurse as well so I know way too much about the meds and side effects. At the end of the day, the logical part of my brain wants meds to help me , but the fear or starting meds, the side effects, and the trial and error of them not knowing what will work leaves me stuck and feeling hopeless. I always end up thinking that I could just feel better if I jumped back into my normal busy life, but when I do so and get triggered (ocd or ptsd) I am left hopeless and begging my parents to get me on meds. Each appointment though leads to significant anxiety and like I have to say every single detail , which ends in me getting frustrated and confused not wanting to take meds after all because i don’t think they have the full picture. I had a bad experience with Zoloft bringing out manic symptoms when I first started it. It was terrifying. I’ve been switching provider to provider trying to find someone I trust, but in the mean time my anxiety is worsening and I feel more confused of what my symptoms really are in the first place. I have Xanax that I can take 3x daily but I don’t like feeling like I’m going to get addicted to it if I keep taking it and avoid getting on long term meds. I don’t trust any doctors and I feel the need to tell them every single little detail which I feel like leads to further frustration and maybe even impaired treatment plans. I’m sorry if this is a lot but I’m really struggling and needing some support and guidance 😭

Hello! I am new here and I'm not sure what to do or say. I honestly was diagnosed with ocd almost 30 years ago. I do believe I had a lot of anxiety and some ocd before hand. In the years that I was diagnosed I was in an abusive relationship that I finally was able to get out of in 1999. During those years my contamination ocd was off the charts. Upon leaving that relationship ( safely.. at least physically for the most part) my ocd calmed down. But I'm not sure if that is because of my leaving or the fact that I was then on pills. Afterwards I was a sleeping pill addict for almost a decade. I finally left the pills behind and I started running marathons. I feel better than I had in decades I've continued running but after a few traumatic experiences with hearing domestic situations in my apartment complex and being robbed twice I find my ocd symptoms coming up with a vengeance. It's more than just contamination now. I'm constantly worried about accidentally hurting someone. I'm always worried that there is an animal in need that I didn't see and/or couldn't help. I feel I can't do enough good in the world. I'm paralyzed. I find myself putting off normal chores and organizational tons that drive me crazy because my ocd wants them so so badly I don't know how else to describe what I'm experiencing. I am also concerned that I have some mild form of Tourette's. I'm so embarrassed and I want to feel normal again. But every trigger seems to prolong my agony. Sorry for the long post and for any writing errors. I can't see very well with my new bifocals. lol