What helped you seek OCD treatment? It's been over a year and half since extensive online research helped me conclude that it's very likely I have moderate/severe OCD. Despite the fact that it severally impacts my daily life, I'm struggling with reaching out for professional help. Held back by mounting fear, anxiety, and doubt I'm having a very difficult time getting help. So I'm just wondering what helped others take that first and speak to a professional.

I'm writing today as a concerned sibling. I respect you all for your hard work, sharing and the guidance everyone provides. I've been reading comments about how helpful OCD therapy is, but have yet to convince my sibling that it can help. They respond that they probably wont learn more than what they've already realized and that they can't actually stop the OCD behaviors for them.. I say that there are professionals with tips and would help to consult on ways to battle OCD. My sibling has realized that they cant give into the thoughts, but from that realization to action, is hard, as folks know. I've been taking note of people's reviews of getting better and plan to share those with my sibling, but does anyone else have other advice how to help them get more help? It seems the issue may be Contamination OCD and general (heavy) anxieties and depression (which has been around for most of their life). Thank you in advance for any more guidance.

Some background: I’m a woman in my 30s who’s been struggling to find the right diagnosis for years. Since 2022, I’ve had multiple psych hospital stays, and with each stay came a different diagnosis and different sets of medications: Bipolar II, CPTSD, MDD with psychotic features, “high functioning BPD,” and most recently, Schizoaffective Disorder (depressive type). Before all of that happened, I had been seeing a therapist for CPTSD and AuDHD traits for 2 years, but after they left the practice, I struggled to find someone I trusted again. Most of my breakdowns happened during my last relationship. Looking back, I was in survival mode with them, leaving who *I* am behind. I got to the point where I started doubting my own reality from the abuse. This eventually added up and landed me in my first episode of psychosis. That combined with my attempts is what got me my schizoaffective diagnosis. After finally leaving that relationship 1.5 years ago, I’ve slowly rebuilt my life: new town, new job, new friends. Many of my old symptoms (major ones) haven’t returned, which makes me believe I may have been misdiagnosed due to reliving past childhood trauma and stress responses from the abuse. Through all of this, I’ve felt like nothing ever truly fit. I journal, I reflect, I replay the recordings and I’ve even watched old vlogs –the puzzle pieces still don’t come together. It’s left me feeling like I’ll never really know what’s going on, and I’ve started to fear that my diagnoses will just keep stacking up without ever leading to effective treatment. Recently, I opened up to a friend about this. She mentioned that her neighbor went through something similar not exactly like me but she thought it would give me a starting point—multiple diagnoses that never felt right—until a new doctor finally identified it as OCD. That one diagnosis changed everything for her. It made me realize I really don’t know much about OCD beyond the stereotypes. I didn’t know OCD could involve intrusive thoughts, rumination, or mental compulsions. My friend encouraged me to look into it, especially as I start searching for a new therapist. Facebook and Google lead me here… So now I’m wondering: could OCD be a better explanation for what I’ve been experiencing all these years? Questions for the community: 1. What steps did you take to find out if OCD was what you were dealing with? 2. If you had a long history of misdiagnoses, how did you finally find a clinician who got it right? 3. How did you advocate for yourself when people dismissed your concerns? 4. Is there anything you wish you had done earlier in your OCD journey? Thank you so much if you made it this far. I’m really grateful for this space and just want to start finding answers and the right kind of help.

I've started struggled with debilitating anxiety for so long it's hard to pinpoint where it stared. I've racked up a laundry list of diagnoses but always felt like nothing has really helped treatmentwise. In my recent spiral I was watching a YouTuber I've followed for years who has been very open about their experience with OCD. In the beginning of watching this person. While I had related to some things they said like specifically about anxiety, nothing ever made me think 'oh maybe I have OCD.' in fact in a way it reassur d me I didn't because my struggles seemed very different to theirs. Then they spoke about 'bad thoughts'' and the compulsion to turn them into 'good thoughts.' when they said that I felt so seen, and figured maybe I have some OCD tendencies. So I decided I would do some research into OCD and getting diagnostic criteria/ common obsessions and compulsions, and the second one on the first list was "worried about getting HIV and transmitting it to others" and it was like a switch went of in my brain and I remembered how I spent 2 years convinced a low risk sexual encounter in which protection was used definitely have me HIV, and how I constantly was looking up information about HIV, tests, prevention, clinical presentations. I got multiple STD tests and even when I started to logically understand it wasn't a real risk for me, I couldn't break the anxious cycle. The only thing that stopped I was after the time period passed where infections are detectable (2 years). And then I started putting everything in that context, months on end I spent unbelievably anxious about climate change and obsessively searching up statistics, the multiple times and admittedly stressful event occurs (job insecurity, visa applications, COVID forcing me and my partner into long distance) that would be so all consuming that every other aspect of my life feels on back burner to this one thought. How no logic, no explanation, no amount of time telling myself it is okay, it will be okay and that the outcomes of my stressors do have options/ ways forward, would stop the anxious spiral. I'm also thinking about how often, when I shared my anxiety, it was met with such response as "everyone is anxious about some things" or "well that is a stressful event so some anxiety is normal." I know that no one meant anything bad but this, but it also contributed to the shame and doubt to a degree, I didn't know how to explain how I felt, that is wasn't just anxious thoughts every so often, that is was a constant barrage from the moment I'm awake to the point I exhausted myself enough to sleep. Sharing this felt especially hard considering that it wasn't logical to feel how I was feeling. I don't know what I want to achieve with this post but the more i heard about people's specific experiences and personal obsessions and compulsions helped me to recognise those patterns in my own life so maybe just talking about it is helpful