Does anyone else have a hard time deciphering what is your own desires and wants and what is compulsions? Does anyone have tips for that? (Trigger warning, talk about hair plucking compulsions and a small mention of hair loss. If that's troubling for you to think about due to any hair loss related cercumstances just keep in mind it's mentioned in here. It's not too bad it's just my experience with it.) The best and biggest example I can think of is my picking issues. I have Trichotillomania, which is a common issue for people with OCD. So trichotillomania is compulsive hair plucking. It can be obsessive as well. I had issues for a long time where I felt like I looked like I had been going through chemo but not because I had no eyebrows, no eyelashes, a lot of hair missing on certain patches of my legs and patches of hair missing on my scalp that were small but lots of breakage in my hair where you can see I've plucked it and it's grown back and it's shorter now. So in regards to the original question, I have noticed that my issue with picking sessions isn't that I don't notice them, which I thought might be what the case was until I was doing well enough thanks to medication that I was able to stop myself after a few minutes of picking without any pain from slouching or "defeat" or interruption. It was just me making the active choice to self discipline and say stop. It's not doing any good at all. It's not worth it. And I noticed I still can't do that easily. It's only after a few minutes of picking. So I thought that mean that I wasn't noticing it happening. Which sorta, like there are times I don't notice quite that I'm picking but I know I've plucked a hair... Idk how to explain that. But I noticed that in most cases, I know I've started picking and I'm justifying it. I'm making reasons to follow, I'm saying it's a desire not a compulsion so as long as I can stop it's fine but even then sometimes I can't stop unless there are people in a room to look at me and notice me because if that's the case I'm too shy to do it. My enemy is the bathroom. If I goto the bathroom I could get stuck picking for 20 minutes before I can make an active decision to stop. Because no one can see me, others might think I'm showering, or just busy 🤣 but if I'm in the living room I wont do it more than just a little in a way that doesn't look odd or concerning. Because I know I'll be stopped. It's.. so hard. But I guess, does this happen with other compulsions to others? Are you ever in a spot where you have to be the difference between a compulsion happening or not and you can't decide if it's free will or an ocd compulsion so it's like... Hard to tell yourself that you should stop in a way you'll listen? Especially because compulsions sometimes make me a bit irrational and it's hard to remember my therapy in those moments. Especially if it's a panic attack causing it.