- Date posted
- 3y ago
- Date posted
- 3y ago
It’s totally & completely up to you if you want to tell others about your OCD or not. Personally, I wanted to tell my best friend, boyfriend, and others close to me bc I felt like it helped them better understand me and my habits. However, that doesn’t mean that’s the best option for everyone! If you’d rather keep it to yourself, that’s totally fine.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@qtwr Try not to think of it as a secret and more so as privacy. You are entitled to your own privacy and don’t have to tell anything you don’t want to. If you feel it would help them to understand you or you’d like to speak about past events and that this has made you who you are today, then that’s ok. If you want to keep it private and put the past in the past, then that’s ok too.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
asking if you're a bad person for this is reassurance seeking, and i don't want to enable that. instead, i'm gonna tell you this: while your medical diagnosis is your business and only your business, you don't have to decide who you do or don't want to tell today. you havent even met this supposed significant other yet, so don't sit here and be anxious about whether or not youre going to tell them. accept the fact that you don't know what you're going to do when the conversation comes up and move on
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@qtwr i can't answer that for you. if your best friend had a mental illness and decided to never tell you, would you think they were a bad person?
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@qtwr so if you dont think they'd be a bad person, why would you be a bad person?
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Congratulations on feeling better! I don’t have any experience yet because I am still struggling pretty bad with ocd but I think about this a lot. I worry that I’ll never find a SO because I won’t want to tell him about the horrible things I have thought. Perhaps just letting them know we have ocd and aren’t really comfortable going into it further is enough? 🤷🏼♀️ I don’t think there is anything wrong with not wanting to share something so personal but I do think not revealing something that is such a big part of our life might be complicated and you might be stressed about not accidentally revealing it. It’s a tough decision to make. Honestly, right now I can’t imagine finding a man that could ever accept my issues and thoughts so I am battling with the notion of being alone forever. Sorry I couldn’t give any personal advice. Do you mind me asking if you have any advice on how you stopped ruminating and got your ocd to a manageable level?
- Date posted
- 3y ago
It would say I stopped caring about my OCD. Whenever I get a thought I breath in and breath out, then I would say maybe maybe not, and let the thought be uncertain and try to not figure it out. It feels hard at first but later it gets better. Just forget everything so far , think today as a new beginning and you are only what you do and what your intentions are. A thought is just a thought you wouldn't want to do it so why bother finding it out if it's true or not, so why bother ruminating about it. Also be mindful, meditate daily, journal, eat your meals (atleast 3 meals a day) , have a consistent sleep pattern, read something daily.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@qtwr Thanks for the advice!
- Date posted
- 3y ago
You are allowed to do whatever you want. Sharing it or keeping it to yourself is not good or bad. It’s your personal day preference. People don’t need to know every single thing about us.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w ago
I remembered something I did a couple of months ago that has changed me completely from trusting myself it was a conversation I had with my cousin and something they said unrelated made me remember this happening, I went into a full blown identity crisis i couldn’t walk out of my room or get out of my bed for months paranoid and scared of everything I’m still scared and feel like I don’t even deserve to shower I’m working on it slowly each day but I knew I had to get a therapist and I was diagnosed with ocd because of this event I remembered, and I just don’t know what to do…. I read online that it doesn’t matter how little or bad the event is it’s still ocd regardless when diagnosed but I know I have a compulsion to see others real events and it is nothing compared to mine which I shouldn’t compare but it’s difficult because no matter what I have to come to terms that it’s undeniably bad legally and morally what I did and it’s just so confusing how it’s something I JUST learned about months ago I’m literally in my mid 20s, and I went years without even realizing how troubled my childhood was and yes my real event happened during that time but I was still a teen and old enough to know better but I didn’t understand the magnitude of what I did at the time still no excuse though, this is where I don’t know what To do because 1. I already know what I did was awful and there’s no excuse for it 2. I can’t apologize in my situation that I don’t feel comfortable sharing specifics yet3. Yes I know I changed so much obviously I’m a grown adult now I know what’s appropriate and what’s not that’s why I’m so troubled over this and I never did anything like that again, I’m literally in the happiest relationship and seeing a therapist to also help me understand all this trauma, this event involved my cousin but even they are cool with me and very close as well hasn’t said anything I don’t know if they remember or not but it’s not something I can talk about with them at least not yet (again just don’t want to go in to specifics) but this is why is so confusing and has caused me to have intrusive thoughts about everything EVERYTHING the what ifs what if they remember what if I go to jail what if they hate me what if I’m denying who I have been and I’m this horrible person this whole time without even realizing and everything is a lie my relationship my joy for things what if I’m a ped, what if I can’t love or care what if I’m a person who just harms others manipulates I even spiraled thinking I was going to physically harm someone… it’s very bizarre to me because before my OCD my biggest anxiety was just having to learn how to drive…I’m in my 20s just to mention that again😭 I have probably almost all intrusive ocd categories, These thoughts never existed in my head until I remembered my event it has completely traumatized me but do I even deserve to feel better do I deserve to get help if I did something unforgivable do I move on or don’t? Should I even be living life I just feel guilty even breathing stepping outside I know for a fact if people knew they would never trust me they would feel like I probably should go to jail but do I go on to what others feel or myself? I know I wouldn’t harm anyone regardless of what my ocd tells me I never did anything like that again and wouldn’t but if it’s something that even legally I could be punished for does all of that not matter? I’m sorry I’m just trying to figure out what the right thing to do is , I’m continuing therapy and getting the help but obviously my therapist cannot say if I should be punished legally but even my boyfriend said that if I turned myself in they wouldn’t even take me seriously because I don’t even remember everything fully it was so long ago, but from what I do remember it’s still bad enough mainly just of me being a teen, I don’t want to make that event my identity but I just am so freaked out I feel awful what if I caused trauma to another person and all these years I didn’t even know, this event only happened once that I remember, there were things that happened to me as a child that would explain why it happened but it’s still not an excuse, I did a compulsion and googled what would it be called or the charges for it and the words that popped up triggered me to my core as anyone would feel if they were as stupid as me those words I googled are what monsters are so it’s hard not to think of myself as that it’s hard to not make that my identity if that IS what happened, is living with this guilt my punishment?I don’t want to give up on life I want to love and care and just love life I know this is complicated and a lot not much I can do but I’m just so lost.
- Date posted
- 16w ago
Feel guilty for not giving into compulsions like rumination and confessing? I feel guilt for having an intrusive thought, trying to shrug it off or just giving it a few seconds of thought and moving along. This sounds like improvement but I still struggle with the anxiety and the guilt. The shame. I’ll be okay and then I’ll remember I have OCD and my stomach will drop and I just want to curl up and cry.
- Mid-life adults with OCD
- Somatic OCD
- Young adults with OCD
- Older adults with OCD
- Harm OCD
- NOCD Therapy Alumni
- POCD
- Relationship OCD
- Date posted
- 8w ago
Last year I used and app to talk about my POCD and people called me a pedo and told me to kill myself. It has been months and I had even forgotten about it, but I talked about my mom yesterday and I feel a sense of doom now. Like, I could have lived my life normally, but this happened. I feel overhelmed, and don't know exactly what to do, cuz when I stop to think about it, it is something awful, but I spend months just not caring, I don't know what to do, it was not even close to the worst thing that has ever happened to me, but it still feels terrible, it keeps echoing in my mind, and It won't go away, and yes I know it is OCD, I just want to let It go. And I lied somethings to my mom cuz if I told the whole truth she would be even more heartbroken (I just didn't say what app it was and I said it was recently, and not months ago) And I feel bad, but now I can't go back, but if I told her the whole truth, she would've just broke down. Basically she thinks it was yesterday and in another app, and I told her I just commented on something. But I feel so bad! I don't want to tell the truth to her, but also, I don't know...
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond