does anyone know how to deal with parents who don't believe you have OCD? My therapist has talked to them, and I often try to explain to them what OCD is and how stressful it is, but they still think that I'm ""faking"" it. Could they be in denial or something?

Seriously though- boundary setting and enforcing is really important. If people are calling you a liar and treating you badly, the healthy response isn't to try to convince them, even when it's your parents. The right response is to get support elsewhere and to *teach people how to treat you*- not by lecturing or begging them, but by showing through your actions what happens if they do not treat you well. There's lots to google about this subject and I strongly recommend anyone reading this comment does so. If someone treats me badly, I used to go to great lengths to try to get them to understand the impact and change their behaviour. It doesn't work. So now I walk away. If someone shows they aren't trustworthy, I trust them with less. If someone shows they're mean, I deprive them of the opportunity for their cruelty to have an impact. If someone is very clingy or needy, I enforce limits on the amounts of time and energy I make available to them. I don't give people everything they want, I don't try to change them or convince them to see the harm they're doing. Most people change their behaviour for the better when I enforce healthy boundaries anyway. If your parents weren't your parents but a friend or partner, it would be healthy boundary-setting to deprive them of the time and opportunity to continue to treat you badly- i.e. by having them in your life less, which may or may not prompt them to reflect on their behaviour. In your situation, assuming you live at home, I think that you trying to change them only gives them more opportunity to be cruel. If I were you (and obviously you and I wouldn't make the exact same decisions), I would respond to their lack of support by relying on others instead, and to the damage they are doing to your trust in them by trusting them less. Possibly in very noticeable ways so that it's more difficult for them to ignore the fact that the relationship is being damaged. E.g. if my mother called me a liar on Tuesday and on Saturday she wants us to do a "bonding time" shopping trip together, I'd not go. When she asks why not, I'd say because she called me a liar. After that it doesn't matter how she responds (e.g. downplaying what she said or doubling down on her judgment or trying to guilt trip me or bribe me etc). I'd stick firmly to the boundary I set. If she is damaging my trust in her and even how much I *like* her, then no matter how much in reality I crave her affection and attention and for her to just be nice to me and see me positively, I'm not going to get those things via having no boundaries and going on that trip with her. Doing so would only erode my self-esteem. I have to advocate for myself by refusing to have our relationship on just her terms and validating her right to treat me however she wants. If there aren't consequences then nothing will change. It's just a sad fact.

@Scoggy It can be useful to communicate by talking about how you feel rather than with blaming statements. I.e. I'd say to my mother "when you repeatedly called me a liar, it made me feel upset and unsupported and it made me trust you less. I feel uncomfortable about going on a trip with you while I still feel hurt and upset by what you said. It's made me want to spend less time with you, not more", rather than saying "you were so cruel and judgmental, you're horrible and unsupportive and I don't want to be anywhere near you right now". And sticking to the boundaries you set is extremely important. Unless they apologise and promise to listen and do better and stop pre-judging you (at which point you can request that they demonstrate that with actions), you have to stick to the boundaries you pick.

@Scoggy Boundary setting will make you feel guilty. It's *extremely important* that you do it anyway.

Thank you for your comment. I agree with everything you said. It's really hard for me to not try to convince them that I have OCD, because I really wanted them to understand me and I really wanted them to support me. My therapist doesn't try to convince them a lot, she just approchs my obsessions and compulsions to them, but never talks about my OCD in a deep way, so I guess they don't think it's that important. I feel like I'm often pissed off and mad at them 'cause they often say things about OCD to imply that I don't have it, like "I've never seen you making a compulsion, so I guess they're not real" or when I try to tell them about a compulsion I have, they would say "that's not OCD" because they think OCD is only about being organized or being obsessed with cleaning. I know they are being negligent parents but I have tried everything I could to make them believe me. I have showed them tones of youtube videos about it, I have tried to explain to them calmly and patiently. Nothing worked. I guess I'll have to stop trying to convince them, and let them see by themselves that their behavior in unacceptable. The problem is that I would really appreciate their support and I hate being mad at them.

@tessayoung I think you have every right to tell your therapist about the ways your parents are misunderstanding and ask her to communicate them to her, including about what OCD and pure O are at more fundamental levels. I know it sucks and I feel really really bad for you being in this position, you deserve to have supportive parents who make the effort to understand and help you. Try the boundary enforcing and see how it goes. You never know, even with just a few weeks of quitting trying to convince them and instead showing with your boundaries that you're losing trust in them and are beginning to write them off, may spark a reality-check in them. No parents want their kids to write them off, and they know full well that as you become an adult it'll be well within your power to potentially do so. That's the power I didn't know I had when I was a child. But they know it, so you may not even have to do it for very long before they become more flexible all of a sudden. You'll just have to also not give in to the ways they try to erode those boundaries you set (like with guilt tripping or being even more judgmental). If they see that those tactics don't work and their choice is between losing you or changing their attitudes, I think you can fully expect them to come around.

@Scoggy I always try to set boundaries. I spent almost one week without talking to them and I would only do so if they accepted to listen what I had to say about my OCD, since they feel very uncomfortable when I try to talk to them about it, for some reason. Now I am already talking to them, but I don't feel like a lot has changed. My mom wanted to watch a movie with me, and I just told her I wouldn't due to some mean things she said earlier about my OCD. Sometimes I feel really guilty for setting boundaries because I feel like I will regret on future for not spending this time with them.

@tessayoung It's really normal to feel guilty when you're setting boundaries and I think you're doing the right thing, it's more important to have a good long term relationship with them and yourself than it is to give in now and develop really bad self esteem from it and just build up resentment. How did it go before when you tried to enforce your boundaries by not talking to them?

@Scoggy They didn't seem to be happy with it. In the moment they say they believe I have some "problem" but they refuse to say the word "OCD". And they still say some mean things to imply that I don't have OCD and that I am faking it.

@tessayoung Maybe need to continue to stick with the boundary. It's still shitty behaviour to keep implying you're faking it and refuse to accept your diagnosis. I still do feel pretty confident that if you maintain your boundaries for long enough, they'll realise that they're not going to have a good relationship with you while they're behaving that way. I suspect that once you go back to before with trying to convince them and not having consequences for it, it makes it a lot easier for them to act like they're not doing something wrong. For their own comfort, they don't want to see that they're being shitty to you and are wrong about your illness. They've certainly had the opportunity to listen and learn and have been resistant to accepting reality, so you pretty much have to find a way to make them doing what they're doing even more uncomfortable for them than the prospect of accepting you have OCD is, whatever their reasons why that's uncomfortable are. They'll survive not being happy about their behaviour having consequences, everybody is capable of self reflection, they just may have to be essentially pushed into it. You can kind of think of it as avoidance behaviours on their part- whatever the issues are which make it difficult for them to acknowledge it and be supportive, those are really driving them to deny and pretend it doesn't exist- clearly for their own benefit, as it isn't for yours. And at this point they don't want to admit they're wrong and have been stubborn. Just like with us, facing the emotions that come with an idea we find scary or involves admitting we aren't perfect is difficult and painful, and what would really be best for all of us is being forced to process those emotions through exposure. If you don't let them off the hook of having to face the fact that there is a problem which isn't going away (and an additional problem that they're damaging their relationship with you), they're eventually not going to have any choice but to face it. They need to really have that option to avoid it, taken away from them, so then they can look at their options (learn & listen, or essentially lose you and certainly lose your trust and loyalty). As you said, they're being negligent parents, but it doesn't mean they don't love you. It's not fair on you to have to go through the pain of enforcing boundaries alone, but it seems like the alternative is that you're still alone (because they have put you in this position) and just build up hurt and sadness and resentment. I'll be here for you and so will everyone else while you're going through it, I totally believe you have the power to get the job done.

@tessayoung Inconveniencing or annoying them is a lot less bad a consequence than the potential damage to your relationships with your parents- we all only get one set of parents, and even though it feels like being horrible now, they're likely to ultimately see that it's the best course of action you can take. I've also found with my own parents that modeling healthy boundaries by refusing to accept abuse, which ultimately demands that relationships be built on respect, has woken them up to the concept that they have the right to set boundaries with people in their lives too. They were resistant at first just like yours, but they did eventually get it and realise that the way they parented wasn't acceptable. I never thought as a child or teen that I'd actually get the apologies I've gotten.