This could trigger schizo ocd, so please be mindful of this post. Just now I read a post talking about the fear of being schizophrenic, and for these past week I've been obsessing that I'd be arrested for a mistake and my life would be ruined. After reading the post, I was like: was this a delusion? Delusions and paranoia are symptoms of this terrible mental illness (schizophrenia), and I got so scared of losing my touch with reality and being dependent of someone's care for the rest of my life.. what if I start hallucinating about bringing harm to people? What if my family gives up on me? And then it hit me, could this be another delusion? I started crying and wondering if I could have it, and what it'd mean for my future self. I feel like both have something to do with my life being ruined, as I'm still very young and just now am orientating myself towards my adulthood. It just got too much, and I asked my mom to set an appointment with a psychologist. The professional I have in mind isn't an ocd specialist, though, so I'm so scared about being misdiagnosed.. anyone got any advice?

Thank you for your answer. I'm scared of going to a psychologist who will do more harm than good, as I had a bad experience with "therapy" before. The things that made me consider a non specialist was that I haven't found a specialist in my country, and because my mom wouldn't want to pay for a foreign therapist (also, the dollar is expensive). Back in 2019, when I was dealing with obsessive thoughts over my sexuality, I decided to wait until I lived alone and could afford it on my own. I pushed through the intrusive thoughts over and over again, alone, and I can do it again this time. Hopefully this is just another theme, because the anxiety attached to it has been clouding my thinking. I considered the psychologist now because I'm afraid that if it's schizo, I'm gonna get worse and lose touch with reality. But this could be an intrusive thought too.

@Lavander You deserve better than to simply have to push through this kind of mental torture. I know it’s expensive, but I can’t emphasize enough how important seeing a specialist is when it comes to ocd.

@pureolife Also: if you get a proper diagnosis, you could go the route of using an online course like CBT School or a workbook like The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD.

@pureolife A resource for finding specialists: https://iocdf.org/find-help/

@pureolife Thank you for your help! I still couldn't find any specialists in my country through the tool you provided. OCD and mental health overall are extremely underfunded and understated here. Thank God I know how to speak English, otherwise I'd be completely isolated. I think I'll contact the nocd team and see what I can do. Also, thank you for the recomendations of online courses, I'm sure that they'll be of great help :)