So last night I wrote this on Facebook to my friends and family: Please don’t describe yourself as “so OCD” if you don’t actually have it and make it seem like less of a struggle than it genuinely is for people who do. OCD for me means my mind is always loud and running at a fast speed. OCD means insomnia and nights with 3-4 hours sleep. OCD means if I don’t want to be late in the morning I need to give myself 3 hours to get ready. OCD means everything around me has to be perfect or I can’t concentrate. OCD means carrying out the simplest task can cause a massive amount of stress. OCD means relief when I arrive at work because I have finally gotten myself out of the house, no matter how long it took! I get to work and my stress levels surprisingly reduce because one of the toughest parts of my day is over! And it’s a heap of other things I deal with! OCD is something most people don’t see. I laugh about it when I can but it sucks 🙄 people understanding it better helps ❤️ I’m just sick of people using it as a phrase and making it sound like no big deal!

Trigger Warning My theme that I struggle with most is that I am developing schizophrenia. I wanted to share this anecdote with everyone in case someone is dealing with family/friends who do not understand what it is like to have OCD. One of the most effective ways for me to manage my OCD is to use humor to deal with it. Often times I will make jokes about it and recently a family member said, “you like having OCD, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t talk about it so much”. What he does not understand is that on the days I am able to laugh at my OCD I am so grateful because on other days all I want to do is lay in bed and worry about having schizophrenia. I didn’t know how to reply to that in the moment, but I want to say to him now is that the reason I make jokes about it is because some days it feels so real and I spend my day: Keeping track of every car in the rear view mirror to make sure that they are actually there and not hallucinations. Plugging my ears with my fingers to make sure that I am not hearing voices. Telling myself that if I have to carry a tray without dropping it to prove I do not have schizophrenia. Going over in my mind overtime I misspeak to try and figure out if it was just a mistake or if it was because I was going crazy and was speaking nonsense. Being very careful while typing because if I make a mistake it might mean I have schizophrenia. Lying in bed until five in the morning reading about schizophrenia. Thinking that if I can’t fall asleep by a certain time it means that my sleep schedule is being affected by schizophrenia. Trying to not look at any buildings where a person with schizophrenia may be treated. Constantly checking my emotions to see if I have them or if I lost them because I might have schizophrenia. Frantically searching for a sound that I heard to make sure it wasn’t a hallucination. Searching for something I may have seen out of the corner of my eye because it might have been a hallucination. Thinking that every time I have an itch it’s actually a tactile hallucination Spending hours thinking about wanting to die if I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Putting my ear on machinery to make sure that I didn’t think that it was talking to me. Everyday looking up percentages and data and calculating them over and over again to calculate the likelihood that I will develop schizophrenia. Spend my day thinking if I actually am enjoying my activates or if I’m faking it because I actually have schizophrenia. Convincing myself that my food is poisoned because that is what a schizophrenic would think. Going over common schizophrenic delusions and checking to see if I believe them too. I am sure that a lot of people in this group struggle with this theme. Even though a lot of people think that OCD is just washing your hands a lot or organizing, know that I know how you feel and I have gotten through the worst of it.

*me preparing to share with loved ones or friends about my mental illness* *taking a deep breath and being brave* me: “So... I wanted to share something deep with you. I have recently been struggling with OCD.” them: “OH MY GOD ME TOO!!!! I hAtE iT wHeN tHiNgS aRe NoT cLeAn!!!!!!!!!”

So I'm kind of fighting this baddle alone in my head, I feel like I'm going crazy now that I actually think about it, let me explain. So I think I have ocd but I'm confused, during the day it barely ever bothers me to the point where I barely notice it , but at night before I go to bed I feel like everything has to be in it's place. Nothing out of place, nothing out of place , nothing out of place. Everything has to be perfectly straight EVERY THING. Certain things I have to do a certain amount of times. Some things I MUST do everyday. I've tried to talk to my parents about it, but they just blow it off saying it's no big deal, they don't understand what I'm going through ,just to go to bed is at times like a warzone. I sometimes walk from my bathroom after brushing my teeth with my eyes closed so I can't see anything out of place because if I do it's like Domino's I see one thing after another that's out of place, some things idk why they look out of place and I spend a lot of time just moving them back and forth and back and forth till my brain finally sais it's fixed. I asked my dad if I could stay in his and mom's room for the night, because I am less urged to stay up all night cleaning when I'm distracted by other people or when I know "Hay if u stay up cleaning their going to be Mad at you". And it sounds wierd coming from your 14 year old daughter to ask such a thing, at this age you should be old enough to manage your own nightmares you know what I mean?? He told me to ask mom , mostly because he was half asleep and ready to go to bed. That eavning when me and Mom were sitting across from each other , I couldn't come up with the courage to ask , it was too wierd , too stupid, too crazy of a consept to even try to explain. So I went outside on the back porch and cried , she came out and asked me what was wrong and I said nothing, after trying to explain to dad I just wanted to be alone. Of course she wouldn't leave she asked again till I finally told her, " I, I think I have OCD and I , don't know how to handle it, I mean" I continued," I stayed up till 3:00 last night fixing things I thought were crooked or out of place" I couldn't talk any more without choking ip so I stopped. She said to me " well OCD isn't bad , it has it's benifits you know" I shrug , wondering how such an annoyance could be helpful in any way. "Well I was just making sure you were ok" she said going back into the house. I wanted desperately for her to stay out there with me talk about it and possibly go over some stuff that could help, bit we didn't. Now don't get me wrong my parents are amazing they love their kids very much and are always there for us, they just don't understand. So after a late night of reaserch , joining an ameno, joining this app ,and of course YouTube , I am already feeling better. It's only been 2 days or less but I realized that giving in isn't helping and am taking it day by day, I feel crazy yes , sometimes I question if I'm just going crazy but. I know I can do it. Please share your tips on this desease?? I don't know what the technical turn for it is. But tips would be greatly appreciated. Also thank you for listening to my rant.