The day I get officially diagnosed, I almost can’t WAIT to let certain people know and post things about it and raise awareness for it etc. I’m excited to explore OCD. But I feel like I’m just doing this for attention / for pity and sympathy. It’s bad, and I know that, but I’ve always loved it. And this often makes me think that I don’t have OCD, I’m just telling myself I do so I can be unique and special. Personally, I found out about OCD through reading an article about a harm ocd sufferer and then telling myself that I too wanted to kill my family. It was distressing. However I can identify traces of OCD prior to that. I frantically worried that I had HIV (health) & I frantically worried that life was all just a simulation (existential). I also suffered with confessions and the need to tell people the bad things I’d done. But I still wonder if I really am just putting it on, because this excitement to tell people isn’t exactly conventional. Nobody WANTS OCD, so why do I?

I was super recently diagnosed with OCD and nervous to share my diagnosis with my family. I’m a somewhat messy person and don’t have germophobic tendencies, so since I don’t have the stereotypical OCD presentation I was terrified that nobody would believe me. I ended up talking to my mom and making a silly TikTok post about it, which my grandma saw. Not only did they believe and support me–I learned that my grandma has it too! Funny to look back on, but really cool to see that the worst outcome doesn’t always happen. (:

TLDR: The title. I often feel rush or excitement and curiosity about my OCD thoughts, and I am not shy of it. Do you have experience like this? I think I often feel a lot of excitement when I start to engage with some obsesive thoughts and when obsesive episode starts for me. Like I often find the idea or image very interesting and I am curious about it. But often there is a neat line between excitement and anxiety. Also often it may at first start with excitement but after a while I may feel anxious or traped of being in the loop and then also being anxious about the idea itself and possibilities or ruining things I care about or loosing them. And those aspects can come in various successions or sometimes multiple at once. I encountered some materials about people enjoying their obsesive thoughts but it was usually something else. They had this obsesive fear of possibly enjoying those obsesive thoughts. But I have it different. I know I do have this excitement, rush and curiosity. I know I may somewhat like them. And I do not shy away from that. Also sometimes enjoy compulsions, even lone compulsions without link to obssesions. Like I very rarely need to organize stuff or order them or place them perfectly, but sometimes I just get into it and it is more like I find it fascinating and funny that I can try for the impossible precision and I can feel urge to do it for nonsensical amount of effort. (But I am usually very messy, disorganized and careless about organizing physical stuff) The ocd is still very debilitating and taking a lot of time. And the OCD is still very anxious and sometimes desprate-like experience. The excitement about the ideas might be a good thing because maybe I might accept them better or perform some kind of exposure through it but it may also reinforce a loop. But it is fact that I sometimes enjoy my OCD thoughts, invite them, await them at smallest glimpse. It is just mostly matter of fact. And I am curious what this might mean for me and my OCD and for how I can work I'm with it and interact with it's what changes and options it gives. I am 30 year old and I struggle with OCD from at least 15 years old. I got myself officially diagnosed quite recently and I am on waiting list for a therapy. I have mostly pure or predominantly obsesive OCD but I still go through many mental compulsions and compulsive behaviors. I experienced many subtypes of OCD although not so much of the more traditional ones. My first subtype of OCD was a kind of meta-ocd. I remember how I like the character of detective Adrienne Monk. I liked the character. I did not have it formulated for myself at that age but he was so sensitive, fragile, perceptive, clever and a sort of inventive. The ocd seemed fascinating. Although his neuroticism regarding his environment would be total pain for me, since I was and I am a very messy and disorganized person. But I still vibed with him and sympathized with him. I felt interest and curiosity in being possibly sort of like him. But I felt fear of it as well. I feared I was like him or that I would have ocd. I feared performing rituals and I would sometimes perform them,.sometimes as the relief of confirmation sometimes as examination, sometimes as a sort of exposure therapy before knowing what exposure therapy was. I just had this conflicting fears, obsessions and compulsions about the prospect of having ocd. That was when I was around 15 years old. But through my whole childhood before that, I was already focused a lot on managing and controlling my own emotions to keep away from disappointments. And I was very socially and romantically anxious and had sort of low confidence or fear of low confidence. So those were childhood experiences that were not yet obsessive-compulsive like but which were on the way there. Also know that it is very probable I have some form of ADHD. My mother and siblings have it diagnosed. And I exhibit almost all classical symptoms despite being conflict-averse and diplomatic and therefore considered well behaved child. But doing some less serious and shalower testing with one psychology consultant, I scored way higher and clearer on ADHD test than on OCD test. I also just love novelty, and experimentation and exploration. And I may sometimes engage with obsessions and compulsions out of procrastination. Also my obsessions and compulsions are often chaotic, I often encounter dilema where I don't know what course of action would be compulsive and what would not. Or I am not sure If I am exposing myself and getting familiar with unwanted thought or if I am actually just fulfilling some other compulsions. Like if I am not turning exposure into another obsession. Like anything can become anything. And honestly? I probably do. And why not. Yes I am sometimes perfectionist in the most nonsensical ways. Thanks for reading through this whole thing and paying attention to what I had to say.

I’ve had the feeling I had ocd ever since I found out about it at the age of eleven, I don’t want to self diagnose thought but I want to find out and I would ask a professional but I am a minor and live with my parents, my family is not from America and any disorder even stuff like depression or anxiety means crazy to them so I’m scared to talk abt it to anybody. Ever since I was like 7 I noticed that if something happens or I feel something in one part of my body I immediately have to do it to the other cause it just won’t feel right, as a kid I even explained it to my parents in the car once and asked if they feel like that sometimes too. I used the example of me accidentally touching water on one foot and then having to do it to the other or else it just isn’t fair to the other foot and I’m like evil. It’s also like that for me if I like hit my arm then I have to do it to the other too. I have many other symptoms of OCD but idk if I actually have it. For example every-time somebody leaves me on read or something I feel like they hate me and don’t wanna be friends with me anymore. Idk it just feels so weird sometimes. Also sometimes when I’m writing something maybe for school or anywhere I always have to reconsider every single sentence because what if somebody takes it the wrong way or it makes somebody mad. And sometimes I feel like the rudest and meanest person in the world. I actually don’t know if that’s an ocd thing idk at this point. edit: after thinking some other things that could be a sign of ocd might be when I was about ten or nine, for about a year I had the biggest fear of losing my mom, it came out of nowhere and I would cry begging not to go to school because my mom won’t be there bc what if she dies. I cried at tennis practice once even tho I toke it with my mom because she went to the bathroom. I was genuinely so scared idk what made it go away tho. Like whenever I had a thought of her it would immediately make me think she’s dying and I would just sob. tysm for reading!! 💕💕