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.

What should I do? I already talked to my mom and we worked it out, but OCD won't leave it alone. Here is the situation: OCD is ruining my relationship with my family. Along with my porn addiction, I can't see innocent interactions without malice or wondering if it's appropriate. My mom and sister always had this game of slapping each other's butts, and I always found it funny, but these days I have been feeling uncomfortable about it and asked them to stop. My OCD is trying to convince me that my mom has said me, because one time she said that if she were a boy, she would date me and one time she just blurted out "marry me" I told her I hated that, she apologized and said she didn't mean it and never did it again. A lot of the things she said these days I wonder if they're appropriate, like commenting on my body, it was things like "Your butt is smaller", because I lost a lot of weight. And these days she was talking to my sister and she said that her breasts are growing and my sister was like "I know😝😝" and she poked the side of her breasts and they just laughed. I asked them about it and my sister says that she sees no problem at all. I remember that when I started puberty, my mom would ask to touch my breasts, she never actually touched, but she was afraid cuz when she was in puberty she said her breasts hurt a lot, and she was always like "You are growing so much, they are cute." And I would get sad cuz mine's weren't big as hers. I am spiraling and my mom is the most sweet person in the world, she supports me in EVERYTHING and has always taught me to set boundaries and stand up for myself, she always respected my boundaries and talked to me about delicate things and I always felt comfortable to walk around naked or ask her ANYTHING. But remembering these things are making me question her behavior, when I know she did not mean harm and I notice that 89% of every mom I met, are like her, she is probably like that because that's how she was created, and Honestly, if she did not mean any harm then everything is fine. As I said I didn't felt uncomfortable, but OCD is like "You should feel uncomfortable because that is inappropriate behavior." It's just that I didn't care for those things I even once asked to touch my mother's breasts when I was younger cuz hers were so different and I was like "What?!?!? why are we different?" and she was like "ok" and I stopped to think that I literally used to breastfeed on them and I was " 😮😮" like, I feel bad nowdays but I was curious, and my mom just said "It's okay, but If you did it out of malice then it would be wrong and I would be uncomfy." Now OCD is making me not want to be near my mom when she literally respects my boundaries, I said I didn't want her to do these things again and she agreed without even a second thought.

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.