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.

My mom will sit and listen to me for quite a while, but she interrupts a lot and gets angry/upset. While I appreciate her passion, it's often stressful. Every time I come to her, if I even *mention* OCD, she gets frustrated and says, "Everyone deals with these issues, you know. It doesn't mean it's OCD." And I repeat, "I'm not saying my issues are unique — I'm saying the way I respond to them is a problem." But she just shakes her head and says, "Okay, I need to get back to my day." Full context, I'm an adult, and I live with my boyfriend, but I'm staying at my mom's for the next month. After living away from home for years, I went back to living with her during the pandemic, and I only recently left to live with him. Honestly, I think living with her for so long in my adulthood really messed with me and made me feel like a teenager all over again. I feel like my mental growth is stunted, and that's part of why my OCD is so bad lately. Not blaming, just noticing. She doesn't seem to understand how relieving the OCD diagnosis has been for me, because it explains so so so many things I've struggled with for years, and it's exciting to have more resources that can help me. But I think she sees it as me finding an excuse to *not* work on myself, which is just untrue. I'm not going to let OCD hold me back or use it as an excuse, but I'm also not going to pretend it's not a problem when I know it is — I was even diagnosed through NOCD. The whole point being to fix it, not use it as a crutch. When I have an issue, it's unbearable. Any issue, big or small, feels just the same. I feel a sinking feeling, my mind races, my heart beats out of my chest. I end up running to my support systems, crying, ruminating for days on end. Then, months later, the same exact issue can feel like nothing anymore, because it's no longer an obsession. I'm sure everyone deals with issues in a similar way, but I *know* there is something specific and debilitating going on with me. This is reassurance seeking, but in the face of being told I'm making a big deal out of nothing, can someone diagnosed with OCD tell me if they relate to the specific intensity of these feelings??

Having ocd is so incredibly exhausting and depressing- my mom and dad argued with me for over an hour talking about how im a pain to be around, go in too many loops, and ruin everything and everyones mood… this conversation started with me saying im stressed out because of school and that i dont want to go because im exhausted- and idk if this is like ocd directly but it takes me like 2 hours to get ready in the morning because i need to look PERFECT and the same everyday literally 😭 and that process feels so exhausting every morning at 6am but i will NOT go to school without going through with it- i will literally be crying and shaking and wanting to go home the minute i get to school if even a single strand of my hair is not perfectly straightened or any blemishes or flaws are showing- and i cant even walk to school or anything bc im scared the humidity will mess with my hair and everything- and it just really affects my life? And yeah its freaking exhausting. And i have two more years of highschool and I dont know if im going to make it 😭i get super stressed over grades too because i need them to be extraordinary otherwise its a fail. Nothing below 95%. And thats also tiring! 😁 and my mom told me today “medication IS NOTTTT AND OPTION!!!” Like oh okay so im just cooked 😭 and therapy isnt really helping me at all- i feel like what im being told is so basic and generic and it doesn’t help me when im in a huge ocd episode- which is often… and what i hate most is like my mom says “don’t come to me with your problems after 6pm…” im sorry i cant schedule my feelings 😭 im so tired

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?