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When I was a young child, I always wanted my sock on perfect an my shoes clean. My family would say I was stubborn an kinda crazy. As I got older I did certain things they way I wanted them, not to abnormal. But when I was about 14 years wow I wanted everything clean an in line an to be organized, well my stuff more. My family said I was crazy or weird. Not to mean just did not understand neither did I myself. It was not to abnormal as I went threw high school. After I was married at age 20 an had a child so I focused on her more, but still had the cleaning an organizing going on more an more. I never ask for help because I just thought I was different an just was that way for reason. My husband did not say much of it to me, maybe he though I was nuts. He did make me nervous at times saying I was always doing pitaly stuff. Never ask about it or said maybe you need help. So after my kids grew up I divorced my husband, should of divorce him a long time ago I just was afraid to leave my kids an go work. I was noticing I had ocd even more now in 2008. I never told a doctor about my problems maybe they put me in that house where people never got help. I say that, when I was in my last 40 years I went to a lady she was a pycoligist, I talk about myself more to her an she really said nothing, about my problem, she did tell me if I lost weight it be good for me. I visit with her about 4 times she was more concerned with my weight. She was a bone an kept smoking an drinking coffee. She told me to take some pills for troubles an I told her I was getting headaches, she was upset with that so I told myself this lady is not for me an I left never ask for that kind of help again. I had free health insurance mercy care , An only allow so much. I am now 62 an count everyday for everything it makes me cry, But I do not let no one see me, might say to me crazy need to be some place. I live with my daughter she 43 years an has M . S she take a pill for her M.S , She has her own big problem. Sometimes I tell her I have ocd very bad today. I just want to be home, sorry if I am this way. She say it okay mom but you need help. Recently in December or 2023 I lost my free health insurance, mercy care, because my ex-husband died in 2023 of February, I was able to receive like widower support. I had never work much at all or had an income. So now in 2024 I have no health insurance. Just now looking for affordable health insurance. Still counting everyday some days good, some days just getting threw a day. I have a cat she makes me feel better, she getting older now. Thanks

i feel like im being crushed by the weight of deadlines and my thoughts. i have so much to do in the next 3 weeks and i feel so distracted by my brain. i just got diagnosed with OCD and it feels good to put a name to all these endless thoughts i have. i think so much and never get a break and on top of it im so overwhelmed by assignments i feel paralyzed (i have adhd, too). even when i do things i enjoy my brain still somehow thinks of something to ruin the moment. 🫠

i hate the way my eyebrows look and i can’t get them to look right. on the tops of both i keep slightly trimming it because i keep seeing one looking higher than the other and i’m trying to get certain pieces of my eyebrows to be the same height. one looks much more shabbier than the other. I have nobody with me right now. I started a little more than an hour ago and i’m scared it’s going to go on all night. This is so stressful and i’m scared i’m going to ruin something in my eyebrows. Everytime i see my eyebrows I feel they’re uneven and ones thicker than the other. for the past few days i’ve been avoiding even looking at them and i even put a headband over my eyebrows while brushing my teeth. The urge was getting to me because i kept feeling them with my hands without looking at them and i felt something to be wrong. additionally i saw them accidentally a few times and i didn’t like how it looked. eventually i gave in and fully saw them bc i couldn’t stand the feeling of walking around with uneven eyebrows. i need help correcting them, i’ve asked family and nobody can help rn. I’m still standing in front of the mirror trying to make them perfect but i’m scared to ruin something. pls help what can i do to make myself feel it’s correct

So I have episodes at night where I can’t sleep. Like it’ll feel like hours have passed and that I slept fully through the might. When in reality maybe an hour has passed. And most of these nights I have bad dreams. My bad dreams are bad lucid dreams… They’re not uncontrollable…because I have a conscious and am aware. But they’re bad because of the situations I’m in. It’s like living in an alternate world Anyways, In my dream I was up north. It was a school night. Actually Sunday, like it was when I went to bed. In my dream all these animals were walking to this side on the street near the woods and dying. In my dream I concluded they had a disease that made them all travel there. But then my dog started to walk over there. Across the street at night. I was sobbing because this dog means more than anything ever could to me. I would do anything for this dog. I mean it. And she was what I concluded as “infected” I had to go to her because it was a school night. And I walked into this house that was the place I was staying. It was a friend of my mom’s boyfriends. But when I walked inside my room in the hours was destroyed like people were trashing it and rearranging it. Which is horrible….. like I irl, panic over people Rearranging small things of mine…. But this was crazy. My stuff was ruined and everywhere. And there were like ten people in there just chilling after doing this. When this happens irl I do compulsions, and I did. I found a sink. I washed my hands a lot. But then I had to eat dinner and as I was eating my sandwich I remembered how all those animals were dying of a brainwashing diessease. So I started panicking and sobbing that I was now infected and was going to die. Like eating my sandwich was going to cause me death. I started counting yo my safe numbers like I usually do. But it wouldn’t help. So I ran to the bathroom in my dream and started to vomit up everything I could and LITERALLY wash the inside of my mouth. I woke up thinking I was about to get ready for school, but maybe an hour had passed…. I can’t fall asleep again, It’s 00:48 I went to bed at 11:30-something Or tried It took me so long of feeling out of place. I can’t do this anymore. The worst part was - actually two. My compulsions weren’t working in my dream which was very upsetting because I needed something to calm me down…. And two, WHY DID MY DOG GET INFECTED- The nerve wracking thing is, my dog is up north with my grandma right now. My brain keeps telling me to text my grandma and ask how my dog is…. But what if I text her and that CAUSES something bad to happen….. I don’t know what to do- I need sleep- I wake up at four.. (4:00 am) I can’t- Sleep- I don’t want to dream again, being tapped in my own head. Sorry for any typos, or if this makes no sense. I’m half asleep. Very tired. Scared and just got done crying.

hey:) My name is mai, i‘m 18 years old. I think I‘ve been struggling with OCD almost all my life - eventhough i‘ve only realized it lately, thanks to a friend that made me aware of the fact that the horrifying thoughts and impulses i sometimes experience, are not „just a little stress and insecurity“. When i was a little kid i had very long hair. People always commented on it, sometimes they said things that triggered an unproportional huge amount of anxiety in me. I Never wanted to cut my hair. Someday my sister and a friend told me that if i wasn‘t going to cut it soon, they’d come at night and do it for me when i sleep. I was always a sensible and fragile person that thinks too much and doesn‘t know where to put these thoughts. At that time i didn‘t realize how much these words and fears affected me, but unconsciously i started controlling if my hair was still there every 40-60 seconds. I could not sleep if my hair was not hanging over my right shoulder where i could see and feel it. I always wore it on the right, and checked it - constantly, until one day a doctor told me that my neck was suffering due to the weight and the tense position that my head was always in. Then i decided to end this fear and cut it, so that the pain and fears would stop, reminding myself that i could always regrow it. The fear disappeared, and for some years, in which i struggled with other disorders, the OCD symptoms seemed to be somewhere in the back of my mind. I just finished school, and now i‘m preparing for the TMS (a test in Germany that increases your chances of getting into med school). Since the structure and safety of going to school regularly is missing, and since i don‘t know if I’ll be accepted for one of the subjects i‘d like to study, i feel very much out of control. I feel helpless, at the mercy of strangers and i‘m so afraid of failing the expectations i have for myself. Since this phase of „being out of control and safety“ has started, i suddenly experienced a lot of different anxieties, some of them causing panic attacks on a regular basis. I obsess about my health, i find new symptoms and proofs I could be dead or very Sick in the next few days - every week. I‘ve been to my doctor so often i think he‘s really annoyed because of my ideas. Sometimes i also have psychological fears, like what if i‘m losing my mind.? What if i‘m having a psychosis? What if nothing is even real and everything is just an illusion? Thinking about life and existence frightens me a lot. I can‘t drink alcohol of caffeine anymore because i‘m convinced it will change my perception of reality in a way i couldn‘t handle. Some days i wake up and think that the colour of the socks i choose to wear will determine what kind of day This will become. I often worry that i bother people too much, that i‘m annoying and Just hopeless and that eventually people will realize how exhausting i am, and leave. It’s especially bad in romantic relationships, and it makes everything hard to enjoy. I have now chosen to work on myself, on my real fears - that lay beneath the things i think to fear. I want to educate myself on this disease and get my life back. I‘ll make a list of things that i used to love, and am now too afraid to do. I want my life back from my anxiety and OCD.

I'm a bit confused on ERP. I understand not doing a compulsion in response to an instruive thought, but the planned, on purpose exposures confuse me. For example, I'm ordering a new phone and I had an instruive thought that said "When the phone arrives, you're going to take, soap, toothpaste, olive oil, etc. and put it on your phone before you put the screen protector on." A weird thought, I know. So now for exposure, I need to do what the intrusive thought says? I imagine I'll worry that I've smeared something on my phone before I put the screen protector on. I don't actually want to smear anything on my phone, I think that could damage it. But, for exposure, are you supposed to do this? It's confusing. What makes sense to me, and what I come back to is just letting the intrusive thought be a thought, and not doing a compulsion. That makes sense to me. It's the extra, planned exposure part that confuses me, and honestly gets me stuck in a worry cycle about ERP/CBT therapy itself.

I took my license picture at the DMV yesterday. And since I was a child, I’ve prided myself on having a nice ID picture since I know people say it’s rare and I like to be annoyingly special. Well, the last time I was at the DMV, the clerk was obviously floating with me so he allowed me to retake my picture like 3 times. That was over 5 years ago so when I went to get my picture renewed, I was thinking about how I got to retake it a bunch last time. I just knew I wanted it to look good. When it came time to take the photo, they didn’t even have my look into the camera but at a sticky note that had a smiley face on it. Already, I started to feel uncomfortable because I wasn’t looking at a camera so how could my picture, eyes, smile, and head all be centered in the box??? It couldn’t be possible. As these thoughts spiraled through my mind, I tried my best to smile and it was all over in 3 seconds. I should have just left it at that. But as I was leaving, I turned to look at the monitor and I saw my picture. My head was NOT centered. And my face was turned at a weird angle that I was NOT intending. The only good thing I noticed were that my cheekbones look nice. And now I have to have this picture on my license for 5 years… I know that I’ll eventually be able to look at it, and even accept it. But right now, it feels like an itchy caving hole in my chest. Like the world is going to end because my license picture isn’t formatted perfectly. I’m sad that the picture is off and also shaming myself for feeling this way. UGH

Help! If you can’t picture yours or your partners body parts and bodies perfectly in your head does that mean you’re picturing someone else’s body or body parts or that you’re turned on over someone else? Please let me know I worry because I would never get off or feel turned on by anyone else but I feel confused when I haven’t pictured something perfectly 100% does it mean what I’m worried about??

Hi my name is Audrey and this app was recommended to me to join a community with others who have OCD. I want to share my story and I think the best way to do that would be to share my college application essay. I wrote about my OCD journey and I think it sums it up well. Here it is: One of the main debates in grammar is the use of the Oxford comma. Some people strongly believe that you must use the Oxford comma when completing a list, and some people question its very existence. Where do I stand? I love the Oxford comma. But not because I am some big grammar-police, but because I have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and I feel a need for symmetry in my life. My whole life I have always loved when things were symmetrical. If I scratched my right arm, I scratched my left arm too; if I stubbed my left toe, I would purposely stub the right one too; I would line all of my pencils up in a perfect row. I felt a deep need to keep everything symmetrical. So when the debate over the Oxford comma first came to my attention, I, of course, was in support of it. Two commas between three items, nothing seemed more perfect to me. I could not fathom why anyone would not love the Oxford comma. I just always thought everyone's brain worked like mine. That was until I was diagnosed with OCD. I never knew other people didn't think and process information like I did. I never knew how my brain was "faulty" and different from others. When I first received my diagnosis, I felt like the odd pencil out of the row. I had spent my whole life making sure everything was equal and symmetrical, and it turned out that my brain was the unequal one. After my diagnosis, I started exposure therapy. And what did I do to work on my OCD? Well, I would move one pencil out of its row and stare at it until I physically couldn't anymore. I would only stub my right toe and wait while my brain practically screamed at me to stub the left toe. These exercises were hard and uncomfortable, but through therapy I learned to sit with discomfort and unevenness. Before therapy, one thing I struggled with was note-taking. I would write one word and then go back and “fix” the letters until my brain was satisfied, then do the same for the next word. It took twice as long and I would fall behind. I became stressed because I was missing half the notes and felt too embarrassed to ask the teacher to repeat. When I started therapy, this was one of my main issues I wanted to tackle. So, in our sessions, I would have my therapist talk about random topics and I would take notes. In the beginning, I would still go back and fix how I wrote each letter. But the more I practiced continuing writing no matter how uncomfortable my brain made me feel, the more I could write without going back and fixing my handwriting. In the past year, I have been able to take better notes faster than before. Now, I am confident that I will be able to follow along during lectures, and even understand concepts on a deeper level. As I’ve worked to confront my issues head-on, my cognitive flexibility has grown and the disruptive urgency that OCD creates has slowly diminished. My new ability to sit in discomfort has not only been useful with my OCD, but it has been useful in my day-to-day life. I am now able to live with unanswered questions, deal with the possibility that things will not always go my way, and tolerate my anxieties. I feel that these new qualities will serve me well in college and in life. OCD does not make my life better or make me perfectly organized, but it has taught me how to prepare for all of life’s challenges and adversities. But I must admit, despite learning how to tolerate things not being symmetrical, I still do love the Oxford comma. Maybe I am the grammar-police after all.

I haven't changed my underwear in about a week and a half because I don't have any clean underwear, it's all dirty and for some reason I just can't suck it up and do the laundry this time so I've just been wallowing away in my bed feeling and smelling gross, when I think about doing the laundry I get exhausted at the thought and then I think I'm a disgusting failure and then I just don't try at all and I just lay down and sleep to escape it all I don't understand why it's so hard for me to function like other people, my room is a disaster and idk where to start, I'm spiraling so badly, I have a pile of trash in my room that I'm for some reason just waiting for the "perfect moment" to throw away, I can't do this anymore, and I never say anything to my therapist because it's so fucking embarrassing even though I KNOW that she's there to help me through this, I can't bring myself to show anyone the state I let myself live in, I feel guilty and lazy and dumb. I need to ask for help but idk how, I've had help so many times with this and my room always gets worse, I hate my room, I want my old room back, I think I do this to show that I need my old room back? But I can't have it for reasons I don't feel like explaining rn because it's complicated, I miss my childhood room, it was perfect and it had everything I wanted and it was just taken away from me, I didn't mind it being taken, a room is a room, but I'm so possessive of my things and I like to have my things exactly as they are so I don't change anything ever. Even if that means cleaning my room, this is what I know now and I refuse to change it. I wanna fix this so badly

Ever since I was a teen I wondered what my purpose in life is. I constantly wonder when my next long term relationship would end and mentally prepare myself for it so I don’t feel as lost and to have my own closure. No one’s ever proud of me. I don’t understand complexity. I need constant reassurance. I need to check and double check and triple check everything I touch for 5 seconds, especially if I’m locking it. I need to check and be reassured that the dog is in the house. I need to know everything that’s going on, and if there’s a change in plans then count me out. If I park a car I have to pull on locked door handles and make sure the gear shift is in park. I constantly google to try and make sense of my mind and feel somewhat normal or fit in somewhere, but normal is a dream. When I shower I must wash my body and then my hair and then my body again or else I’m not clean because my hair would be dirty from my body or my body would be dirty from my hair, there’s no medium. I cry because I just want to be normal. I’m tired.. Thanks for reading.

*Before beginning, I just want to clarify that when I describe these sx’s (symptoms) as “weird,” I mean what an average person without OCD would probably consider weird. I don’t judge them, but do still admittedly feel considerable embarrassment if I experience them in public.* In general, most of these triggers during high stress or when things in my life seem out of control. My best guess is that the anxiety relief I feel from fulfilling a compulsion helps me feel like I have a little more “control” and things are okay. This isn’t a thought process I actively have when obsessing, but more like a feeling based on what makes my sx’s worse and when they pop up. Some of these sx’s are associated w/ intrusive thoughts, but sometimes it’s just like everything “feels wrong” if I don’t do the compulsion correctly. I came up with random names for the sx’s: 1) “Reorienting in space” - sometimes I feel the need to say certain things (like if talking to myself) or think certain things facing specific direction. I’d experienced this before, “grew out of it,” and now it’s somewhat back. It used to be like I had to face East, or north, or whatever, but now it’s more based on facing specific objects. So like facing a doorway, facing the front of my house, or even the direction of a specific place in my city, etc. It’s STRANGE but yeah so there’s that. 2) “Overcoming imagined barriers” - so this isn’t really something that bothers me much at all anymore, but it still stands out as one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever had with OCD. This trigger is similar to the last one, except in addition to facing a certain way, I would imagine a literal barrier that exists like somewhere up ahead of me, and I would have to convince myself I’m physically moving past that barrier in order to feel like I’m “in the clear” and like I have “control.” Often the first barrier I imagined wouldn’t suffice. It wasn’t far enough away, it wasn’t “strong enough,” etc. It would often take me upwards of 10 attempts or more every time this would occur in order to move on. After typing this out I understand my brain 10 times less. 3) “Desire for control of others’ behaviors, events, & objects” - so this isn’t as extreme as it might sound, I don’t like try to control people. It’s more like I’ll have to wait until someone stops coughing to put my phone down, waiting until someone stops speaking to proceed with whatever I was doing. Or waiting for train noises to stop, cars to stop going by, to mentally “move on.” Though I’ve found it’s been getting more out of control lately, and I’m not helping things by reinforcing the symptoms ever time I complete the compulsion. I’m sure there are other odd ones I can think of, but these 3, especially the first 2, take the cake 🎂 for me. If ANYONE can relate to ANY of this I’d be cool to know I’m not the single weirdest homo sapien there ever was, but I’ll be happier for you if you can’t relate.

I feel really stupud righting this right now. I can't tell you how many times I've written something and then back spacr everything I wrote. But I guess this is my way of trying to i dont know, better myself. I read everybodys stories and I feel for each and every one of you. What you all go through, is something nobody should have to do. But I know we can't all share our complete thoughts, becausr idk about you guys. But I'm ashamed and scared. I'm scared that my thoughts will make me dangerous or violent. I often compare myself to Jeffrey Dahmer because of what I think. And it's exhausting, but no matter who tells me their story or who shares somethung similar it doesnt feel right. Nothing really feels right to me, and not in a perfect order type of way. More in a my organs are in the wrong spots, my skin feels unevenly placed on my body, and I just want to rip everything off of me. I won't go into details of course, I don't want to trigger anybody on here. But having ocd, or maybe even getting diagnosed or helping yourself through medicine and therapy just seems so pointless to me. When I look in the mirror or imagine myself I'm nothing, I'm just a sack of flesh and everything I think and feel is a chemical reaction. It's alive but not real, I'm alive, but I'm not real. When I look around and I feel my skin, there is no possibly way I can be real, there is no way my life is real. I feel crazy because I constantly think I'm crazy, and the really sad thing is I want to get worse. I don't want ti get better. But at the same time I really really do, and maybe thats why i've never healed or "gotten better" is because something deep inside my head didn't want to and it never did. I am sorry for this being a long rant/vent, I don't know what I wanted this to be, but i'm typing so here we are if your still reading this. But have a good night you know, and thanks for reading this.

Hi, I’m Cede. I am 15 years old and I’m greatly concerned if I have OCD. I do so many things that relate to others with OCD, and find myself constantly matching symptoms of it. But I feel like if I bring this up to my mother she will tell me I’m making it all up in my head, or say something stupid like “it’s because of that darn phone” I was hoping to find people here who do have OCD and see what their thoughts are. And hopefully find my answer. These things have been happening as long as I can remember. They started out as a few things but now they’re building and getting worse. Stuff I do that I believe is OCD related: -When I was younger and believed in good and praying, I would have to triple check I prayed for all my family and friends. Or I thought they would die. I would panic every night. (Age 4-9?) -When praying I would also pray that specific things wouldn’t happen to me. Ex: “dear god, please don’t let me get kidnapped tomorrow” -I got into a car crash when I was younger while I was asleep, ever ever since then I wouldn’t allow myself to fall asleep because I thought me sleeping caused us to crash -I would (still do) see the spray paint on cement and imagine if the line extended. I would have to avoid those spots or I’d feel panicked or think a bad thing was soon to come -I skip count by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s when anxious, or something like it. -I have to hold my breath while crossing the street because I think something bad will happen if I breathe before I’m across -I have to run half way across a street before a certain light changes otherwise I’m convinced Doom is released upon me -I will randomly feel dirty in my body. Typically my hands. I will wash and wash them till the “bad” is gone. -I have the habit of over showering because I feel like when I sleep “bad” is layered all over me and showering will get it off -when making a timer for something it needs to only be “good” numbers (minutes) with a “good”number for the seconds. Ex: 11 min and 44 seconds -Numbers, Colors, Letters, and shapes all are split into feeling “good” or “bad” ex: 6 is very bad. It’s like a dirty feeling almost -I refuse to go into stores that feel “bad” or “dirty”. Like the AIR feels dirty to me, even if I know it’s clean -If I push my bedroom door shut before it closes I need to run to a carpet and stand on only my right leg or get to my stairs or I feel like something bad will happen -I will rewrite a letter or something till it feels it’s done “just right” -when walking on tiles I can’t step on lines. But also I don’t like how they’re spaced. My right foot is always stepping on one part of them and my left on another. It’s not fairly balanced. And that causes me to rewalk or step there again. And it causes me to panic and sometimes tear up. -if I only get one hand wet I need to get the other just as wet before drying them off or I can’t leave the place I’m in. -if one nail breaks on one hand ex:pointer on right, I need to cut the other one down to that length as well. Or I can’t function -when I’m sick I convince myself I’m going to die in my sleep (I’m literally sick rn and refusing to go to bed because I’m convinced my family will find me dead) -I have asthma and I sometimes think it gets so bad I’ll want to write “I love you” notes to my family because I’m going to die from not breathing in my sleep -I think I forgot something so I have to check it a few times to make sure I have it or done something -I won’t take medication unless my mother gets it for me, because I think I’ll accidentally over dose. And sometimes I’ll be worried to take it even from her (Tw for these because they’re intrusive thoughts) -I’ll be looking at my dog or a little kid and have the most vivid and violent visions of them. Ex: I will see myself bashing my dogs brain with my foot -I will have intrusive thoughts if me specializing myself to older adults, even family. Like guys. I don’t even want to give an example because it’s disgusting.. -I’ll get intrusive thoughts of me unaliving myself and writing su’cide letters to people -I will get an intrusive thought of me taking too much medication There’s still so much, but I’m sick and tired. If anyone who has OCD can let me know if it sounds like I have it please tell me. I want to figure this out. Have a good day! -Cd

I'll be 31 this year and I'm such a complete failure as a human being. I just had a breakdown over doing dishes. I have four specific cups that I use and normally I try to wash all of them at once, it really reassures me knowing I have three backup cups in case the one I'm using gets "dirty". Lately, though, I've only been able to wash one at a time and that causes a lot of stress only having one usable cup because if it gets dirty I have to spend the next half hour washing it, my hands, etc. Well tonight my cup got "dirty" and I thought everyone was asleep so I thought I'd try to wash them all. I don't like doing it when people are awake because it takes so long, I have to do it in a specific way and I'm embarrassed by it all. So I started and I was really struggling. I kept having to rewash and rewash because the bubbles just wouldn't go away and then my mom came into the kitchen and we were talking. My anxiety spiked because I was afraid she'd mention how long I'm taking or try to rearrange my cups or touch my arm and I just felt like a horrible person thinking these tboughts when all she's doing is talking to me but it just makes an already really stressful situation even more so. Then she left. I got two done, so I was half way through and then I thought the next cup was clean and I put it into the stack of clean ones but then I noticed it still had bubbles and now I had to start all the way over again. I wanted to cry and I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I just wanted to be done and get something to drink and lay down. I tried starting over but my mom came back and I just couldn't deal with it so I quit and she smiled at me and said "finally done?" She knows and tries to understand how much I struggle and tries her best to help me and I love her so much for that and I'm so awful for feeling more anxious around her and having thoughts of just wanting to be left alone. She looked so proud of me, thinking I finally got done with my stupid little task and I just couldn't handle knowing how much of a disappointment I am and I started crying. She hugged me and offered to clean my cups for me and I wish I could let her but I can't. My OCD won't let me. Only I can clean my cups. My OCD isolates me and makes me feel so alone. I need help but I can't have any. And just facing the realization that I'm having a breakdown at 1am in the kitchen over not being able to clean cups properly just made me want to die so bad. Every little victory I have doesn't mean anything because I'll never get better. I lost so much time, I'm old and I don't know how to be an adult or take care of myself and I don't know what to do anymore. I hate myself.

I’ve always had a feeling of having OCD but I’ve never been sure. I’m a teenager, and I’m hoping people on this app can help me try to figure out if I have OCD or I’m just crazy. Starting off with these terrible thoughts I have all the time. Someone can come home late and I immediately think they got into a car wreck, and check my phone for recent car crashes and other thing etc. etc. number 2, I always have intrusive thoughts, terrible ones ever since I was a kid I can’t control. I immediately feel like thinking these will lead god to hate me, and that he made an imperfection on me. And every time I try to hide these thoughts away, like right now they’re coming out I just can’t stop thinking of them and it’s so hard to do anything. Just thoughts like, “you hate your mom” or, “you hate god” and stuff that scares me like spiders. It’s hard to do anything with these thoughts. I’m also a major perfectionist, if anything is out of order I freak out. Yes, my room is messy. But I feel a sense of incompleteness and anxiety if I don’t empty the dishwasher, or don’t clean dirty dishes around the sink. These are recent and I feel like God will punish me for committing the sin of laziness. I also have a thing with the number 5, when I touch something it needs to be 5 times and if it’s not 5 times I freak out. I’m also terrified of getting sick, every time my friend is sick I freak out and don’t get near them the entire day, constantly washing my hands. Writing this is triggering a lot of my terrible thoughts and I don’t want to continue writing. Please let me know your thoughts, mental illness runs in my family but my mom is constantly telling me there’s nothing wrong with me. Maybe she’s right.

Everyday I have my own schedule and it’s to wake up at 4:45 go to school at 7:17-7:22 and go on with my normal school schedule which includes going to lunch with one of my friends and coming back to the table to eat with our other friend. Yesterday the first friend went to San Antonio so she was gone which messed with the schedule but it’s happened before so it wasn’t as bad, but the second friend wasn’t responding or anything to me asking if he was at school but he’s the kind to never check texts so don’t blame him or anything. In lunch I saw him in the distance so I went up to him but he saw me and went into his dads class which I got confused by so I went to my art class for lunch instead and the paranoia and stress from the schedule change built up (more things on my daily schedule were coincidentally broken that day on accident so it was a lot) and I started crying in the back of the class. Then after maybe 2 minutes the friend came into class to get me and I accidentally acted shitty by not talking a lot and I still feel bad about it. How do I stop getting this worked up and horrified by slight changes in my daily schedule 😭😭 I’ve tried breaking things too like when I leave in the mornings and it doesn’t help fix the problem. Freak outs like these have happened a thousand times but I think yesterdays might’ve been the worst freak out from the schedule being disrupted 😓

Hello 👋 I'm new here and wanted to share my story. I'm 27 and struggle daily with OCD. I've had it for many years and got diagnosed 3 years ago. I have intrusive thoughts daily and constantly washing my hands because I feel contaminated. My hands are so sore they crack and bleed. When I get my food shop delivery I have to clean the kitchen floor where items have been and for days after I wash my hands after touching the food items because they are dirty to me. I wear PJ'S when I'm on my sofa but I have to change into different PJ'S when I get in bed, I cannot wear the same ones because I feel the sofa has germs on that I can't put in my bed. I clean my phone everyday when I get home from work because of the work germs. It's very rare if I use the toilets at work because of other colleagues using them. I get behind on jobs at work because I have to re read things a lot. I struggle very much leaving the house by myself. My last job I had to leave due to constantly being late because I had to check all the windows, doors, switches, cooker, ect. Luckily now my husband is at home when I leave for work. But times where I've had to leave by myself I've had panic attacks and cannot stop crying because I cannot leave the house. I think something bad will happen. I freeze at the door, I know I've locked it but the OCD bully in my head is saying I need to keep checking it until it feels right. And a lot of the time it never feels right. I have accidentally broken door/window handles because of checking them so many times. A few years ago I struggled that much to leave the house I had to film myself locking the door and I also wrote on paper "locked" "off" ect. Take a photo/video and send it to my husband who then stopped work to look and reply. A lot of the time it didn't help at all. At night I have to check everything is switched off and locked up, that can take a long time and a lot I ask my husband to do the checks either with me or by himself. This is so difficult. I have been having therapy for about 3 months, it's helped a little so that's something. Some days are ok and other days are horrible. I know I'm not alone but it does feel like that a lot. Thank you for reading :)

For as long as I can remember I’ve always counted the syllables of the words said by myself and others - even just thoughts in my head. For example, is someone says “hell-o-how-are-you?” I use my teeth on either side of my mouth and tap twice on one side, then the other, then back again etc to see if the amount of syllables in the sentence is even. If it isn’t, I would respond with an odd number of syllables such as “good-thank-you”. This habit is so engrained into my life I have no idea how anyone else’s mind works and I am constantly fighting myself to stop it but it’s impossible. I will even admit that I am doing it right now writing this 😭 . Does anyone else have a similar problem? I am still in education and feel like it’s affecting the way I listen to my teachers etc.

so i used to not give into the compulsions because my therapist told me it would relieve me more then being subject to doing it. I started having these meltdowns and get angry and have an episode, eventually i just gave into my compulsions and tweaking every little thing. I find its so comforting and helps me forget about what im stressing about. Since ive gave in i havent had any episodes, my anger seems to have resided. I’ve also had less intrusive/impulsive thoughts. I dont know really what to do because i find myself giving into them more and more everyday but at the same time im not really upset about it. ??