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?

Eden, I worry about the same thing all the time. I don’t have an easy answer except that only a person with OCD would worry about not having OCD.

I think this is pretty normal. Although the conscious act of faking other mental illnesses for attention is, ironically, a sort of mental illness in itself - almost like Munchausen Syndrome, just with mental health - it sounds like you have legitimate OCD. And many people without the above desire for mental illness may experience temporary or long-term desires to be diagnosed with mental illnesses for their own reasons (this can be unconscious within the mind as well). My point is, of course, that yes, it sounds like you have OCD, and a professional diagnosis will most likely help to prove it. And not only that, but wanting a mental illness can be pretty normal, particularly within the OCD community. It’s great that you’re wanting to raise awareness for this community, and I wish you the best of luck in your diagnosis and treatment plan!

Thanks guys! My my issue is that, even though I think about it a lot and it pisses me off, the idea that I’m faking it doesn’t cause me much anxiety at the moment. I guess that’s because my obsessions have been pretty minimal lately and I’m doing okay (because this time a month ago, it definitely did cause me stress). Djdhhsjsh idk I just feel like it has to get bad again for me to get properly diagnosed!

For example, the other day I got diagnosed with TMJ (it’s a weird bone thing -physical not mental) and I wasn’t even upset about it. In fact I was pretty happy because it made me feel unique and I wanted to tell people. My TMJ isn’t all that bad, and if it was worse or if it was a different, more dangerous condition, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way. But it’s so attention seeking to be HAPPY about a disorder and I hate that I am. So what if this is what I’m doing with OCD?