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 OCD has been attacking my Dad lately. For whatever reason my ODC says “what if u r face gets red around him or while you’re talking to him and ppl think u like him or what if I have a panic attack around him and ppl think that he must’ve done something to me to make me afraid of him and HE DIDNT! He’s never been anything but a loving great Dad. It makes me feel like such a horrible person. It causes me at times to avoid him and I don’t want to. I just want these horrible thoughts about my Dad to go away. Has anyone else experienced this? And if so how did you cope? I HATE myself for this😭

My family literally is always against me and doesn’t understand my ocd at all. They are all so stubborn and don’t make an effort to even empathize with me and always make me the bad guy. I’m just so tired of no one being on my side and my family saying all these derogatory things to me. Even if I make a small mistake, it is the end of the world for them and they all gang up and won’t speak to me properly for days as a result. 😔

I have been with my SO going in 13 years now. We met in college and have been together ever since. We got married in 2021 and welcomed a baby girl in the world last year. I had a severe mental breakdown in 2013 that landed me in the hospital because I was contemplating suicide. That breakdown nearly destroyed our relationship. I had severe intrusive thoughts and felt the need to tell him all of them. I felt like if I didn’t tell him, I was lying. I destroyed his self esteem, telling him all of the mean thoughts I had about him. I would feel the need to tell him anytime I saw an attractive guy in public, I questioned our relationship and told him I wasn’t sure if I loved him anymore. It was bad and very dark. Fast forward to now and I feel like I’m letting him down in different ways. I don’t feel the need to tell him every thought I have now but since having my daughter my OCD and depression seem to be getting worse. I just feel like I’m no longer happy and my daughter should’ve had a mom that wasn’t damaged like me. Didn’t have the abusive childhood like me. Wasn’t broken like me. I feel so much guilt. It’s putting such a strain on our relationship and I feel like my husband deserves someone better. Someone whose happier.