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My mom just told me she doesn’t really believe that I have ocd because I don’t have enough “repetitive actions” and I just have bad anxiety. I feel so beaten down that someone so close to me doesn’t believe my struggles :(

Can anyone tell me usually why or when ocd first occurs? Is it trauma from childhood? Or do people randomly wake up one day and have developed it?…. I can’t remember the first time I started/developed it, but I must’ve been like in 5th grade… I come from a Hispanic household where unfortunately a lot of these households don’t “believe” in therapy or a counselor or mental illness’. I knew something was wrong with myself but I never knew how to express it. I just thought I was actually a crazy person & wasnt “normal” as others. Until this year I started seeing a therapist & he really made me feel like I was not alone. Due to insurance purposes I had to stop seeing him. I don’t think I’ve gotten better I’ve just gotten heard…but the only positive thing about it is that I can hide it very well now, a lot of ppl wouldn’t know vs in the past I had people catch me doing “weird” things. (Very repetitive stuff, fixing things, the list goes on & on). I had to learn to manage & “hide” what I was doing because my kiddos were catching on & would ask me what or why I was doing it, for example “repetitive stuff” lol . I really want it to go away, although I have managed my ticks & triggers, it’s still always in my mind, it stops me from having fun family time, stops me from doing my work at work or doing things or even speaking in a “normal” speed way. For example telling a story or when talking, I have the need to say every single detail, I get side tracked a lot & have to explain those details then it just goes & goes I take forever to say what ima say , it takes me a long time to get to the point like this whole post here it started with a question & now idk what my point was no more 😂 ps. I love making jokes about it to myself to keep myself positive, my close family knows and they’re supportive, it’s all love. I just wish it can actually go away I am concerned it will always be with me…

I put so much pressure on myself to be positive and happy. I hold myself to higher standards then I do others because I wanna be perfect, then break down at my every mistake. I'm horrible at setting boundaries but in a way I've dug myself a grave. At this point it feels like people assume I'm happy all the time and don't bother to ask if I'm okay. Or if I seem quiet they leave me be. At first I liked this now I do not. Any time I try to set a boundary with ANYONE, I'll be like hey when ya talk about that it makes me anxious or could you no do this it hurts my feelings or just plain please stop, people say okay and their sorry but it never seems to stick. The most I've done is say it again but it's frustrating. Feels like people just walk all over me and or barely listen Slash hear a word I say. I'm tired of some things I have made very clear not to do when I'm really anxious. They try to help and they will do certain things that make it worse, and I express this then they do it again. I find people belittle what I got through saying the thoughts I experience are clearly OCD, and easy to differentiate from typical worries or average thoughts. But they don't realize how stuck I feel bo matter how much I tell them. My brain doesn't have an off switch, I can't turn it off just like that and feel at easy. And even if the thought seems stupid and illogical, to them or even me it still hurts and bothers me deeply. There have been times where I do compulsions and people get mad and say it's excuses and I gotta stop and I try to explain and or try not to do it and end up feeling guilty. I want people to listen and actually care. I don't like the feeling I get when I'm worried. A weird tingle in my chest that grows and stretches throughout my body depending on how bad of a worry. Those "silly, stupid, ridiculous, crazy, nonsense" worries I get, wheather or not I know those claims are true, cut deep and it feels like I can't escape. My chest feeling gets stronger, I get alot of energy in my arms and legs and or they feel shakey, it feels like I can't breathe, I wanna burst out crying but depending on where I am that may not be an option, I'm tired of staying quiet due to the fear of upsetting someone without intention, and I hate hyperventilating or tossing and turning when trying to sleep and these thoughts hit me like a ton of bricks over and over. OCD is not my fault I know that. But part of me wonders why me of all people have to have it, although I don't wish it on anyone. If it meant nobody else would ever have to experience my OCD or OCD in general I would take all the power of everyone's OCD and take it myself. I like to think OCD gave me empathy, the one perk it came with in my eyes. One day I hope to be a therapist who can help people. And the little kids with OCD who wanna understand and get help, like I once was. I wanna be taken seriously, I don't wanna be a doormat, I don't wanna be a puppet on my OCD's strings, I want people to understand more then they do or atleast listen to me more then they do. I wanna be calm for more then minutes, and without intense stress when I realize how long I've been relaxed and how odd that is. I feel bad for my younger self. Ik she wanted to grow up and be okay. But I'm not. I have made progress. When I was little I constantly thought I was dying. And then I said in middle school that I'd be dead by highschool. But I'm about to start grade 12

Hey guys have you ever said something you regret so much that it traumatizes you for the fact of even saying that, wondering what was going on in your mind?

I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts about pedophilia, I was highly addicted to porn for 2 years or more, I even masturbated a couple times to someone younger but when I did that my ocd didn’t trigger or nothing till months after thinking what if I am a pedophile, after that is when I decided to quit porn indefinitely I realized I was going too far,I always thought I was a decent person, I have never hurt anyone, I always had this idea that I could become someone people can look up to or just become someone everyone respected, I’ve always loved sports, my family and video games, but lately I haven’t been able to enjoy any of that it’s like my ocd is making me think I’ve always been like this and all my actual beliefs weren’t real that I’ve always been this horrible person, at first I would get panic attacks and disgust but now I feel kinda numb and I don’t want to feel like that cause it’s making me think that maybe I am one and my mind is getting used to it, I even feel uncomfortable talking about kids or just being around them and I have never been like that . I am a heavy nicotine and weed smoker (I’ve tried to stop since it seems to make them worse). Now it feels like I am a completely different person, I also have a girlfriend who before this i would love with everything in me, and would be afraid to lose her every time we would argue, I would even think about a child with her in the future, but now I don’t even feel love or any attraction or any of the previous feelings I would feel towards my future and I just feel it makes it even worse cause if I’m not attracted to her and all my previous beliefs feel like lies then what can I believe in? Any advice or tips? I’ll be starting therapy this week so I pray there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

I feel as though no matter what, I am going to feel like I am a p or a z00phile for the rest of my life. My ocd is terrible. When I do better in life, such as now, these things are always in the back of my head. As if im tainted, and no longer have the ability to be a good person. When I was a kid, I was very hyper sexual, I don’t know why, I don’t remember much. but I watched and did some pretty strange things. I am 18 now, obviously do not do those strange things, but I struggle with m-sturbstion ALOT.(it being a compulsion for my ocd, which is terrible) i have been in situations where this compulsion happened and it was inappropriate (either where I was, who I was with, or what was next to me, NEVER A KID, but sometimes my cat was next to me or very close) I try everyday to just move past all of this, but I feel as though I can’t, sometimes I do, then the rumination starts again. I really do not want to hear anything about turning to God. I believe in God but I am not very religious. I just would like to know a logical way how to feel like I can be a better person and not be tainted? Or am I even a good person at all or have a chance? Im not trying to reassurance seek, im just genuinely confused

I’ll have a huge wave of thoughts rushing to me all at the same time, leaving me panicked and drained, and I can’t even tell if I like these thoughts or not which scares me even more. Then i’ll come to the conclusion that maybe I don’t have OCD and everything is real, but I don’t want it to be real. I don’t want to be a monster like that. I don’t want to cheat on my partner, be a zphile, a pdphile, a psychopath, all those crazy immoral things. I just want to be a girl living a normal happy life but I feel like i’m being punished by this OCD monster because of past events I regret. Man i’m just so tired, I don’t even know whats real or not anymore, I just want to be set free from this guilt and torment. I feel like a fault in the system, a cog that doesn’t function properly and deserves to be removed from the gift of life incase I hurt any more people around me. Im sorry if this has gotten really depressing, I just needed to rant. I saw a post online differentiating GAD and OCD, and it said that people with OCD preform constant compulsions whereas people with GAD do not, but because i’m actively trying not to engage in compulsions (like searching things up) it made me feel like I don’t actually have OCD which was a big trigger for me and I went into a spiral of feeling like an imposter. Sorry if this is a bit much to read.

i'm going to lose my life one day to this illness i never asked for. it could've been beautiful.

I am uncertain where to start, as I’ve only self-diagnosed myself with having OCD tendencies. I can look back into my childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and now, and I see pockets of when OCD was alive and well. I have been learning about somatic healing the last few years because I’ve been wanting to connect with my body to understand. I want to feel more grounded. During this process of wellness, I’ve learned that I have OCD and ADHD qualities that I’ve lived with my entire life. Could that be true? Was I good at hiding it all, or making it appear as part of my personality? Was I masking? I think that’s a term that’s used these days. Here’s a story that involves what may be OCD. My sister and I, aged 14 and 16 at the time, just took our first flight together to visit our aunt and uncle in Seattle. While there, intrusive thoughts kept popping into my head that something was going to happen to my dad. Where were these thoughts randomly come from? Was I thinking them, did they magically appear, was it my intuition? It was an unsettling feeling and I had frequent thoughts that my dad was going to die. At that time, my life felt so beautiful. It felt so full of love and happiness. I loved my family. I had my very first boyfriend. It was summertime and as I was taking a walk down the ocean shore, I wondered if life is supposed to feel that happy. I just genuinely felt full of light and love and all the good stuff. And thoughts kept coming about what I could possibly learn in this lifetime if I haven’t experienced pain. Why was I having such an existential crisis at age 14, on a summer vacation with my sister? It was just two days later when we tried calling our dad and he wasn’t answering. I had a gut feeling that something happened. It wasn’t until my dad’s sister answered my home phone that I knew. My sister and I held hands and collapsed to the floor in pure shock. My dad died of a heart attack. It was such a blur of a time, as my developing brain couldn’t process it at all. Anyway, fast forward to me being 36 years old, I still fear that my thoughts could have caused his death. It plays in my head when I get to thinking about that summer vacation. So now, as a mother of three beautiful children, I get intrusive thoughts and worries about anything happening to them. My heart starts to race, my eyes fill up with tears and I just can’t imagine it. Is it OCD? Is the fear causing these OCD thoughts? I have nightmares sometimes of these terrible things happening to my loved ones. I guess what I’m asking is, could this be OCD. What type of OCD? I also have this repetitive string of things I say in my head when I get intrusive worries. It’s along the lines of “God please protect my loved ones. Keep them safe. Surround them with love, protection, health.” And the ADHD symptoms are a whole other part of my life. I have felt this thing inside of me forever thinking something is wrong with me, not knowing what. But seeing peers living their lives so freely and doing things that feel harder for me have left me feeling crippled. And nobody would know this about me. If you saw me from the outside you’d think I have it all together- a husband, three kids, etc. But truly I have felt so alone and unable to fully live at my core. And I just need to know why or what or how. I just want answers so I can truly heal.

people here say that their ocd isn’t completely gone but it’s not ruling them and it’s in the back of their mind still but not ruling them. but i don’t want it on the back of my mind. i want clarity about what i believe and who i am again. i don’t want a shred of doubt. i want to be freed. i feel like this is impossible.. like the ocd doubts are apart of me now.. i don’t understand why this happened to me.

I’m literally shaking panicking that I’m paychosis, sometimes I feel so weird very weird feeling and ugh I know it’s ocd but I’m scared of not remembering who my husband is or like acting crazy or having to go to a mental hospital like I don’t want that and like psychosis and ocd have very similar symptoms. I was diagnosed with OCD but I’m scared I have that and I don’t want to I’m like ugh sometimes I feel so out of myself I wake up feeling weird I feel very weird symptoms in my body I wanna be fucking normal I thought I was okay but ugh I feel so horrible right now and it also doesn’t help that I’m on my period but I just saw the word psychosis and decided to search it up and now I’m scared I have it.

Hi there, I’ve recently been diagnosed with OCD after seeking help because of worsening performance at work. I’m a nurse practitioner and work in a busy clinic. Throughout the past few years I’ve become slower and slower as a clinician because I’m so scared of making a mistake. I constantly recheck things that I know I know, recheck my charting and make it as perfect as possible, re-review medical history, obsessively follow patient’s charts, consult the on-calls even though I know the answer, and call patients outside of working hours to check in on them. I’m wondering if there any other healthcare providers who have OCD on this platform? I feel like my OCD symptoms have in someway made me a great provider but it’s getting to a point now where I’m afraid I’ll lose my job because I’m not meeting my patient numbers. Since I can’t see as many patients my coworkers have to pick up the slack and I feel horrible about that. Curious if anyone has similar experiences. Thanks so much for reading :)

Hi! I'm Kelly. I'm new to this. I am posting this...after having written it five different times because I would read it and think "I'm such a faker" and then I'd exit out and think "oh. Well actually, that's the OCD talking, let's try again." I had no idea I had OCD though someone probably should have noticed at some point. I have known I have had depression since I was 19, and had been on medication for ten years before I finally decided to do TMS therapy. And it worked so well! It calmed that depression down in that part of the brain. However, with the depression finally quiet, OCD really took the spotlight and I lost 60 pounds over the course of 6 months because I couldn't eat from a deep fear of contamination. For a while we thought I had somehow developed an eating disorder at age 30, but after some serious investigating, my doctors and I finally settled on OCD. Now my husband says "it makes so much more sense now, you always saying your mean thoughts out loud so it won't hurt you." So that's fun. Anyway, I can't trust my own brain and it's frustrating and I hope maybe I can find a friend to talk about stuff like this with.

I just need help. I’m in a spiral right now! I feel like I offended God with an intrusive thought. I’m scared. I know it’s not rational. My brain is making me think it’s me, but I don’t want to think that way. I’m scared.

Hello, I am not diagnosed with OCD but started researching it as a child bc I know I had deep mental obsessions. I think I never opened up to anyone about it bc I also have a savior complex and believe I am the only who can help myself (I have been learning this not true (it’s true in a sense but not in a practical sense)) only through the power of Jesus Christ. Anyways, for as long as I’ve had social media I’ve struggled with obsessive updating changing and checking of my profile/posts. I think this stems from a fear of being perceived wrongly by others (whatever that means). I would have a literal fear that something would get posted on my accounts that I did not post and it would be horribly offensive or embarrassing or both, and I would genuinely believe this fear even though that’s impossible. I have gotten better in the sense that I have more confidence now so I worry less about “fitting in”, but I still obsessively check what I post multiple times to make sure it’s “ok” (meaning to make sure what i actually posted is there and not something different). I think this might be somewhat normal as far as ppl viewing their own content repeatedly I just think the reasons why I do it and the compulsive nature of it is a result of ocd. Even when I know rationally there is no reason to keep checking I repeatedly give into the compulsion to do it. I also notice I have an obsession with “starting over” on things and purging. This includes social media as I have a strong tendency to go back and delete things in order to make everything “just right” and this hurts my self esteem bc I feel like I can’t follow through with anything and will never be “sure” about anything. This is a common theme in my life— I purge possessions regularly and then regret it later, I post excessively on social media and then feel satisfied by deleting it later on and the cycle repeats. I want consistency in my life and do feel there is a pervasive need for “just rightness” that overshadows my life and it can be disruptive. I can suddenly feel the need to purge things from my life, even relationships, and sometimes regret it later. I’m honestly not sure anymore how much of it is rational and how much is not, the lines can be blurred. I just know I want a change and I want to feel that I can commit to things, without feeling the overwhelming compulsion to change things in order to feel satisfied. Ik rational changes are a part of life, but I’m afraid my ocd fuels some of these decisions. If you’ve read all of this and have any advice or relate at all I would love any feedback. I’m really desperate at this point. Is this a legit type of ocd?? Is this common?? Thanks.

Does anyone else hate when people use ocd as a characteristic? I’m involved in a community service group that builds things and the supervisor of the group said “I need my ocd people to come check this straight line”. This girl walked over who is a perfectionist and I’ve watched her closely trying to figure out if she does have OCD but I can’t tell so I don’t want to say she doesn’t bc she very well could but the supervisor saying that made me upset. She was using it as a characteristic of someone. It’s like she was saying “I need my artistic people to come paint this for me”. My ocd isn’t a characteristic. Yes it’s a part of me but I don’t want to be defined by it. I really wanted to say to her “hey that isn’t something people who actually struggle with OCD want to be called.” I don’t want to be called the “ocd girl”. Bc yeah I have ocd and yes I’ve been working extremely hard in exposure therapy and yes I take medication for it but do not define me by it. I find it rude and inconsiderate. I’m not sure how any one else feels but it just made me upset the rest of the day and I’m still thinking about it.

TW for mental health issues, death, ptsd, ED i guess ill just start off by saying that i have struggled since i was young with severe anxiety and panic attacks since i was about five but an onslaught of CPTSD worsened a lot of things for me. i developed an eating disorder in my teens and was hospitalized for it. i’ve been in and out of therapy since i was ten and while i do my best without medication to live my life to the fullest, i often feel like i don’t deserve the successes and support i’ve received in the last few years b/c i feel like i don’t deserve to be happy at all. i saw a video recently of a girl talking about her obsessive hypochondriac thoughts that i resonated with and when i read the comments, a lot of people pointed out that it might be ocd. it hasn’t ever been a thought that crossed my mind and now im wondering if im twisting that video into some sort of self diagnosis for myself. im wondering if it’s just my high anxiety that’s causing these severely intrusive thoughts. for example, i have had a really hard time sleeping recently because the thought that i or my partner might die in my sleep keeps me up. if i have an aneurysm or a heart attack in the middle of the night and die, or worse, if my partner has an aneurysm or heart attack, is it because i don’t deserve to be happy with him? i don’t deserve a wonderful relationship? another thought i have is when i drive with us both in the car, im going to crash and severely injure both of us or kill us both. i have never once crashed my car or gotten into an accident btw, but for some reason i just get this extremely morbid thought that im going to crash and it’ll be the end. i had a weirdly spiritual experience/revelation in 2020/21 about the multiverse and i keep thinking that every night i actually die or that i get into accidents or something morbid happens and im somehow timeline jumping and going to a different multiverse and that’s been my odd way of coping with these thoughts. i guess im just trying to figure out if this is even remotely similar to OCD or if im just over analyzing it bc of my anxiety/hypochondria i guess?? i dont know i just want help. if this isn’t OCD, please tell me and i will delete this post and app and ill sincerely apologize to everyone who actually suffers. 🙏

Hello yall! So… I keep looking through my girlfriend’s phone. We have been together for almost 2 years. However, she was with someone else for a year. She says it was super toxic, but my OCD doesn’t let it go. I have worked so hard to stop looking through her phone. When we first got together, I started looking a ton. More than once a week trying to catch her in a lie, but all it did was end up in fights. I haven’t looked at her phone in months, probably around 4 months. I literally avoid to take her phone near me. Unfortunately, it got the best of me. I was watching my nephew & I didn’t have my phone anywhere. My gf gave me hers, to turn on our TV so he can fall asleep. But after turning on the television, I couldn’t help myself. I’m so angry, mad, embarrassed, guilty. However, my intrusive thoughts are going wild & I feel a compulsion coming on. What do yall recommend? Should I tell her? I don’t want her to leave me, I know she will not, but I’m scared it’s gonna be a final straw for her & our relationship.

I know it’s pitiful for me asking for help but idk what to do. Ever since I did something bad like a few months ago (check my recent post for backstory!if you want) I felt so much guilt and then started looking back at my past and feeling guilty about that stuff then I started thinking what if I s@d my 4yr old cousin or 2 yr old cousin and it feels real like it actually happened like I actually remember it but I can’t remember it if that makes sense and I’ve never been diagnosed with ocd which makes it scarier I’m starting to think I did do that I mean the thought feels like it’s on the tip of my nose if I keep searching it’ll appear in my memory. I felt so much guilt and fear of what will happen if it turned out true I tried to commit by doing 0v3rd0se but it only made my memory fuzzy of what happened when I was overdosing and it made my guilt worse cause my cousins were over and my thoughts amplified since I barely remember what happened my mind told me I probably s@d them when I was overdosing (this was yesterday) and it sucks cause I can’t ask my baby cousins if I did or not they probably don’t remember at all or even thought it was bad what if I traumatized them what if they commit cocsa because of me I’m a monster.

My brain is obsessed with the idea that my dad could get cancer so I keep praying that he won't. This is what my prayer looks like: - 'finish praying within 15 minutes, or else ur dad will die' (this I think on purpose because it used to twke 3 hours) - then i begin the same prayer I do every night - then I reach the 'god please help my dad not to do develop cancer bit' and I realize I need to go down and pray 60 times that he won't because earlier I did this and got distracted so I need to go down again and did it properly. I ended up doing it like 300 times because I lost my train of thought - then I come back up and all of a sudden I'm convinced that this is the night where God will help my dad to never develop cancer - so I pray well and I go to the symbol of God in my brother's room and my brain thinks 'pray another 4 ti s here, and only 4 times on your dad's life' because otherwiee it would be like 300 again. I get really scared I'm about to do it more than 4 so I rush the last 2 and come back feelinf super guilty that it's rushed and I come back trying to redo it -when I finally come back to my room I tell myself to pray the next 4 slowly so God knows I am devoted to him. My brain starts wondering to a movie I watched- a literal romantic one on purpose and it keeps disrupting my prayer and when I think of what will feel right to fix it, it's another 60 times of doing the prayer slowly- not even rushed like downstairs. I've done it slowly but still got distracted so now I need to do it another 100 times. Even this post my brain convinced me that if I reach for help when they scan my dad on his appointment it will come up with cancer instead of something non life threatening so I better just do everything properly until his appointment. It's flared up so much and I don't know what to do- I don't even know if I have OCD Also this is a really long post so I am sorry if you had to read all of that