So the fact that i haven’t been officially diagnosed kind of makes my ocd worse. I’ve kind of become positive that I have it. Thinking back now, I can think of a few rituals I did as a child that could be seen as warning signs for OCD, but the debilitating stuff happened about 5 months ago in October. I saw a therapist for about a month and a half but she never gave me an official diagnosis and even though I asked, she just said it hasn’t been long enough to tell. It seemed like she wasn’t helping at all and wasn’t doing anything for me I couldn’t hear off of a forum such as this or an informative YouTube video so I quit going. I had problems this entire time but just this past week it has spiked up to the severity it was when it first started and is once again making me desperate for help! I think I want meds this time so I want to go to my regular doctor and ask. I guess my general question is how should I go about seeking help and can I say I have OCD even if it wasn’t officially told to me? This week has been very debilitating and the fact that I’ve been suffering for 5 months makes me believe this isn’t going to just go away.

If you had a college counselor tell you that you have OCD and even said he would play my story on an OCD commercial if he could, would you say I have been diagnosed? He technically can’t diagnose because he works for a college (even though he has a PHD in counseling). I’ve also been prescribed zoloft from my doctor for ocd but she didn’t technically diagnose me either. I always feel slightly ashamed for talking about ocd on social media because I haven’t TECHNICALLY been diagnosed. Can anyone relate to this or can give their opinion on if they think it matters that I haven’t been officially diagnosed? Then again, I’m not even sure what that process looks like.

This is half a vent session, half me asking for advice but: My OCD symptoms started on april 2020, one month after the pandemic. that has led me to constantly question whether it’s OCD or anxiety and of course i can’t really diagnose myself but it behaves very differently from anxiety. i’ve also been doing research and reading about OCD for over a year and i honestly honestly think i have OCD because i fit basically all the symptoms? anyways, I finally brought it up to my therapist a few appointments ago and i felt like they kind of dismissed me? not sure if that’s normal. they told me it’s could be because of heightened anxiety and to practice “thought stopping”. that has made me feel sooo bad about myself because i start spiraling and believing my intrusive thoughts MUST be true because of what they said, and because it makes me feel like I’m just using the OCD label for “attention”. i’m not sure if i should bring it up again in a future appointment? or maybe find a new therapist? or maybe I don’t have OCD at all? I don’t know what to do

How can I go about getting a proper diagnosis if my health care provider isn’t knowledgeable about OCD? Right now I’m going through a lot of “pure” OCD thoughts surrounding things like relationships and I’m worried if I try to get diagnosed my provider would overlook it because my obsessions and compulsions are mental. I also only really have one theme at a time, so it becomes tough when all the question they ask are nothing about the theme I’m struggling with currently. I don’t know what to do. I feel like if I’m not officially diagnosed that I’m lying to myself and to others.