Apologies in advance for the babbling. I'm kind of scared to have therapy. I mean, I've had it twice before (not for OCD, just for general stuff) but I never really felt an impact from it. It may have been because both instances were child therapists that would report back to my mom. I've never been comfortable with indulging information about mental illness with my parents, because they'd react quite badly. For example, when I was ~13 I had suspected that I had Autism SD, specifically Asperger's, since I fit the bill. I told my mom, and she told me that I did have Autism, as I had a Speech Therapist when I was a baby who informally diagnosed me with it. But of course, I was "cured" from it. She didn't really believe in me until years later my sister got a PWD card for her own mental illnesses. Then, she let me go to my sister's therapist in hopes of getting a second discount-I mean diagnosis. I didn't really want to go to that specific therapist because he may already have an impression of me before I even met him, but every other therapist nearby was booked. I hated talking to him. I felt like I had to put on a nice girl show because most of his questions revolved around my school and other patients he'd talk about. I prefer taking my time to explain, but he just kept cutting to the chase and saying "That's normal" befote I could finish explaining. The first two sessions were unsuccessful, and the therapist just said I was normal. I decided to just spill all the beans on the third session, but the pandemic stopped me. I was supposed to continue online, but my mom asked if she could have the therapy instead because she was so stressed. Context: Separated parents, dad paying for most things, including therapy. I caved in. Now, my dad thinks that I still have therapy, so I literally can't pay for a session anywhere. I can't use insurance either, because I'm from another country and I don't have medical. I barely have any money saved up because my mom takes it too. On top of that, I'm terrified of having online therapy at home because I don't want any of my family members hearing me. I share a bedroom with my nuclear family (excluding dad) and the walls are extremely thin. The closest thing I have to privacy is my phone passwords. None of them know that I suspect myself to have OCD, and my mom literally told me (not in English so it's not verbatim), "I can't have two children with mental illness," so I guess my slot's been taken. I've been telling myself to wait until college so I can utilize services in school, but don't know how much longer I can stay sane. If anyone has any suggestions that are hopefully free, please help a gal out! I guess I'll be posting more often?

I’ve come to a point in my life where I can be very happy. I have a safe environment, a loving community. Yknow I’ve really healed through or moved on from a traumatic past and as I say to my boyfriend from time to time like a broken record: I feel like nowadays the only thing bringing me stress or at times misery is myself. I am a fairly joyful person, when I’m comfortable I’m very goofy and like to sing dance and have fun. I find that I relate to so many amazing people I meet that are the nicest, most fun, elevating individuals, who also struggle with the hardest sometime debilitating things. It truly sucks because when I find those moments of peace I see the power of what an ocd mind could be as a person. We are people who may over analyze, but I myself also always find the good in people. And aye if in a moment I don’t think anything is doomly wrong and if I don’t try to understand it I may parish 😅 then that moment feels like the best one in the world. But on the other side of that when I’m not in a quiet mind moment and I’m left with myself to take control of what life in front of me looks like in or around me. I almost have been crumbling. Like I said at the beginning of this story here, the life around me is not so situationally stressful. And it’s also fairly simple. My boyfriend and I live together in a small cozy trailer with our two cats, he works full time very hard and I work part time where I spend as much time as I can working and then have a few days around the house. We’re saving for a home and are quite content with our lifestyle at the moment with work and being “lazy”, or resting and going out for fun now an then on our time off together. Most times though I do have day or two off during the week by myself, which usually goes one of only two ways. Like I said before I do like to work hard, especially now that I have a part time job that’s fairly easier than others I’ve had in the past. So I work 6-7 hours then drive home, air up my tires and wash my car sometimes because I like doing something after work while I still have energy.Or I go to the store. Come home make food, prolly nap and not really worry about too much because I’ve worked all day. But on my days off. I find myself waking up with a lot of anxiety. I usually fight it off by going back to sleep. But my OCD is heavily circled around shame. Even though I only sleep in till 10-11, 12-1 at the latest. I find myself thinking about how wrong (in nice terms) it is to do that. And the funny thing is the older I get (I’m a 21F). I’m not as pressured by this thought, even though it’s still stressful it literally just feels like a thought I can’t escape from. To put things in simple terms. I truly psycho analyze my actions breath by breath and my intrusive thoughts are critiquing those actions bit by bit. I’ve recently have started medication and it was a tremendous difference in the beginning and it helped me cope with the acceptance and letting go (f it or just care less) of those thoughts. But let’s say I forget to take it, or I wake up one morning by myself all day and I’m super tired or unmotivated. That day will feel truly debilitated. And now I’m definitely to the point where I’m battling that, but also have a thin vale behind that where I now know what is going on. And the thoughts are shameful for “not trying to get better or be better” Because I do Like I write a lot, and it truly is one of the best coping mechanisms for working through intrusive or obsessive compulsions. I could also write all day, and if I don’t listen to that ease of the anxiety from writing. And try to keep going the writing will turn into a compulsion itself I feel like I should not stop or critique it as well. But luckily I’ll hopefully find my place in explaining the cycle of what I do when my brain is very loud about things. The next time it’s too loud:)

I really do want to go to therapy or psychiatrist to diagnosed my OCD and give me a treatment but it costs a lot. OCD ruins my life and consumes my mind I wish I can take a break from my own brain. Having OCD but undiagnosed feels like I’m crazy because people think I made that up but they don’t know how I’m struggling since I was a kid. So anyone have an advice for treat OCD especially checking OCD that doesn’t cost money? because I don’t work yet..🥲

Hi everyone, I'm in a bit of a difficult situation and I wanted to ask for some advice. I recently finished my studies and I am living from my savings while I look for a job. However this process has turned out to be a lot more difficult and tedious than I expected. I suspect I have OCD as I relate to a lot of the experiences described here, in particular those corresponding to pure OCD. I have continuous intrusive thoughts about how what I'm currently doing is not enough, I constantly need to reassured that what I'm doing is right, with some magical thinking and concerns about my relationship sprinkled in. These intrusive thoughts have made it very difficult to make any significant progress in looking for something. Added to this I'm not even sure I have OCD as I don't have the money to afford therapy right now (my mind keeps telling me that it's silly to write this message because there's no way I have OCD). I live in Switzerland so as far as I understand my insurance won't cover sessions with NOCD. In conclusion I'm a bit stuck, therapy would help with finding a job but I need a job to get therapy. If any of you have had any similar experience and have some piece of advice it would be very welcome.