I can’t help but slightly blame my family for my lack of mental health. I have a mother that is a good person but cares so much about appearances that I now have anxiety over any imperfections. My dad yelled at me and my brother so much that my first reaction to anything is anger. And my dad literally always talks about how amazing my brother is. I was telling him how my boyfriend helped me out a lot by teaching me how to study and he then proceeded to name how much smarter my brother is. None of this pertains to OCD necessarily but it caused me to spiral. Usually that means cleaning but my house is cleaning so I’m just obsessing over how literally everyone but my mother thinks my brother is better. I love him very much. But part of me thinks that if he wasn’t here, my life would be better. My Pure O is more of the problem than OCD. There are no compulsions. Just obsessed with the idea that my brother will always be better than me. No matter what. It’s stupid but I just want to be a priority to someone other than my boyfriend or Jesus. I want someone in my family to understand my struggle with various mental illnesses and with always coming in second to my brother.

I’ve always had OCD, and for most of my life it was little things that seemed manageable at the time or something that would phase out of my head within a couple days/weeks/months. But, the older I got the more severe it became, I’d find myself collapsing deeper and deeper within my own head trying to out think the thoughts that bothered me. About a year ago I had a thought that rattled me to my core. My brothers and I were watching a movie in our mother’s room when my youngest brother turned to me to say something. His close proximity to me triggered a fleeting sexually explicit image in my head and that thought caused me to spiral. Asking questions like, “are you attracted to your minor brother? Are you attracted to minors? Are you gay? Etc.” a couple days went by and my mental stability continued to crumble until I broke down to my mother, she was understanding and we found a a psychiatrist. I got on medication and for a while everything was slowly but surely trending in a positive direction. The thoughts would still pop into my head but they were becoming more manageable. As we all know OCD and mental illness comes in waves. Currently my OCD has been pretty severe. I feel those intrusive thoughts latching on in my head and it’s been very hard to kick them. It’s gotten to the point where I find myself being uncomfortable being in close proximity with my little brother because I feel as though I am capable of harming him in any way. And the more uncomfortable I become being around him the more I find myself lashing out in anger towards the people I care about the most. Those moments of anger cause me to spiral even farther as my head fills with ideas like “what if you are capable of hurting someone or even murdering them?” There’s times where these thoughts rattle me so much that I feel like it would be better to be in prison where I couldn’t harm someone or that even being dead would be a better solution than possibly running the risk of hurting someone in my life I care about. This is about the jist of it, a majority of the OCD I have is centered around the idea that I am capable of harming my little brother physically, mentally, sexually. It’s been exhausting and it feels like there is no end in sight.

This isn’t OCD related so I’m sorry, but I don’t know another platform like this where I can talk to other people and actually get responses. OCD has been a huge fucking setback for me in life. I had to drop classes, wasn’t able to do things, and just felt so shitty all the time because of it. I feel like I blame OCD for everything I’m not. I constantly feel like I’m not good enough. Just today I saw someone I once knew and felt all of those feelings I used to have that made me miserable. Anyways, I tried taking my driver’s test a couple days ago but I wasn’t able to. The DMV only accepted cash. I felt upset but it was whatever. I’m almost 19, and I don’t have a driver’s license. So passing it would mean a lot to me. I compare myself to others my age; they have cars, hobbies, friends, go to college, etc… I don’t have any of that. Maybe comparing myself and all of that is my fault. My family says it’s my fault I’m sad because I just wallow in it. Hearing them say that makes me frustrated and hurt, but maybe they’re right. My mom texted a couple of my siblings in a group chat I wasn’t a part of, “He wants to wallow and be depressed. And woe is me, wah wah wah.” That made me really angry because my siblings were agreeing with her. Maybe they are right. Maybe I am selfish and think the world revolves around me. My sister tells me I need to advocate for myself more, I just don’t want to be a burden. I’ve only been a burden my whole life. My OCD created this whole issue in my family and I hate that. I don’t know what to do anymore. I just want an answer. Am I really a loser? Do I really wallow in it? Am I not trying like my family says? I just want to talk to someone.

LONG VENT POST: This is my second post of the day. Seriously, I am SO sorry. I have therapy tomorrow, I promise I will shut up after this lmao. Anyway, for Memorial Day weekend, I spent it at my aunt/uncles vacation house. Fortunately it wasn’t a big crowd - just my mom, grandmother, aunt, uncle and I. For context, I come from a pretty big family, and I am the youngest of 7 cousins and a younger sister to two brothers. All my cousins are in their early to mid 20’s, each very successful in school and their careers. My half brother is 29, and absolutely crushing it. My full brother is turning 23, he’s also doing amazing with school. I just turned 20 in April, I feel very lost. I know I want to be a forensic psychiatrist one day, and that I want my PhD. I want to be the best therapist I can be, but the fact that I barely get by with ocd/adhd has been discouraging me, so I currently feel like a flop. Anyway though, spending time with my aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents triggers my ocd the most, as majority of them can be on the judgmental side. ESPECIALLY my aunt, she’s on my moms side, and she and my mom are total opposites. My aunts a very calculated, straightforward, logical, stern, sassy buisnesswoman. She’s successful, but lacks a lot of understanding and can be so cold and just mean. My moms a kindergarten teacher in a struggling community, and she’s always thinking about others before herself, extremely emotional, caring, but neglects her own needs a lot. They’re sisters, and they bump heads a ton. My aunt and all of her kids aren’t neurodivergent. They simply don’t understand mental health. My mom does, thank god. My aunt and uncle think that if a kid is having a psychotic break, then that kid should be kicked out of the house and not helped at all. My mom and I entirely disagree with this idea, and that someone clearly mentally suffering NEEDS mental health help asap, and they need to be home. The streets are the last place someone suffering should be. While we were vacationing at the house, my mom argued about this with my uncle. I was asleep, thank god, but I seriously hate having people in my family like this. I can never tell them about me having ocd, they’ll think it’s just an “excuse” for not getting things done, or just me trying to feel special. The reality is, they don’t get it. My full brother went through the worst psychotic break a few years ago. It lasted two years on and off due to bipolar disorder, but thank god he got himself help and he’s doing absolutely amazing now. He’s frustrated and embarassed with himself but now he’s on track, and as I said, crushing it with school. But the entire time he was going through this, my aunt and uncle just didn’t understand. To keep it short, they thought his mental problems were behavioral, and that he’s a “crazy” kid. The reality is, he was coping with the loss of his childhood best friend and our other uncle who was like a second father figure to us. He had manic episodes from the grief and self medicating with drugs and alcohol. This was all the while Covid was happening and he was a freshman at a college states away. He was so vunerable. I’m saying all this because, well, how am I to seriously be forward about my mental struggles when they couldn’t even show the slightest amount of empathy to my brother, who was struggling, so much more intensely than me? I’m quiet at family gatherings when they’re around for this exact reason. I have so much resentment toward them for it. I try to avoid them when I can, because I love them, I just hate their actions/views. What do you guys do with these kinds of people?