Mental Health Awareness Group discussion

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) "...is a mental health condition characterized by unwanted, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors or mental acts (compulsions) aimed at reducing the anxiety caused by the obsessions." (simplypsychology.org)

Another description from the MayoClinic, "Ultimately, you feel driven to do compulsive acts to ease your stress. Even if you try to ignore or get rid of bothersome thoughts or urges, they keep coming back. This leads you to act based on ritual. This is the vicious cycle of OCD.

OCD often centers around certain themes, such as being overly fearful of getting contaminated by germs. To ease contamination fears, you may wash your hands over and over again until they're sore and chapped.

If you have OCD, you may be ashamed, embarrassed and frustrated about the condition. But treatment can be effective."

OCD cannot be self-diagnosed - diagnosis must be done by a licensed psychiatrist or other medical/mental health professional. If you suspect you have OCD, please reach out to an adult in your life about getting a diagnosis. Treatment and therapy can really help, so don't be afraid to ask them.

There's a lot of misconceptions about OCD, and it's often confused with ADHD or not seen as a serious condition. But OCD can severely affect people's lives and cause a lot of stress and disruption in daily life. If you have OCD, you are not weird or crazy, and you are valid in your condition and deserve support. In this topic, discuss OCD symptoms and coping mechanisms, support each other, and help others learn about what OCD is and support friends or family that have it.

Ok so I’m like 99% sure I have ocd. But for me, it’s not just being organized and being a germaphobe. This may not make sense to anyone, but I’m just sharing my experiences in case it helps someone! I do everything in even numbers. There’s too many examples, but here are a few

- if I clap my hands, I have to end on an even number
- If I am walking, before I step over a crack in a sidewalk I have to end one my right foot
- If I itch a spot on my left arm, I have to do the same on my right
- i do everything in sets of fours, and always do something four or eight times

This may make no sense, but if it does, or you have similar experiences, lmk! Or questions lol

༻gemma༺(jacks’s version) ఌ· ° . wrote: "Ok so I’m like 99% sure I have ocd. But for me, it’s not just being organized and being a germaphobe. This may not make sense to anyone, but I’m just sharing my experiences in case it helps someone..."

OMG I do so many similar things. I actually do have OCD and I have this thing where when I drive past streetlights I have to blink as soon as they go past the side of the car.

Rose wrote: "༻gemma༺(jacks’s version) ఌ· ° . wrote: "Ok so I’m like 99% sure I have ocd. But for me, it’s not just being organized and being a germaphobe. This may not make sense to anyone, but I’m just sharing..."

Wait I have that too (idk if I have ocd but randomly I have to do things like blink whenever I go past things)

i dont know if this ocd but i would fix things if they were out of order, but my rooms a mess?!

Luna wrote: "i dont know if this ocd but i would fix things if they were out of order, but my rooms a mess?!"

That could just be your personality, many people just enjoy organizing things or feel the need to keep things in order, but if you think you have OCD you should research the symptoms and maybe ask a family member or your doctor!

i do have ocd but i was saying that to see if it was apart of my ocd

Luna wrote: "i do have ocd but i was saying that to see if it was apart of my ocd"

Ohh my bad!

ur fine!!!!

Rose wrote: "༻gemma༺(jacks’s version) ఌ· ° . wrote: "Ok so I’m like 99% sure I have ocd. But for me, it’s not just being organized and being a germaphobe. This may not make sense to anyone, but I’m just sharing..."

yesss I do that too!

Luna wrote: "i dont know if this ocd but i would fix things if they were out of order, but my rooms a mess?!"

I get that too

Khadijah wrote: "I don't have OCD but I strongly loathe it when Christalynn is like, 'oh my god, my OCD makes me clean up every little thing.' She doesn't have OCD and I'm sick and tired of her using that term all ..."

That's SO frustrating, I hate when people who don't even have the condition use it to describe stuff in their life and to excuse behavior

i have dermatiliomania, which is a type of OCD where you pick at imperfections on your skin, and it is triggered but boredom, sadness, stress, anger, or just lonlieness

Hey! I'm not diagnosed with OCD but my therapist today mentioned I have some tics/traits similar to OCD (but not the actual disorder) and I wanted to know that you all think.

- I have to have certain things in a specific order/very neat, such as my Pinterest boards and groups here on Goodreads - they have to be organized and have correct grammar in the titles and have a pattern/'aesthetic' (idk what the word I'm looking for is) or it's really irritating

- I wash my hands constantly, every 20-40 minutes because they feel sticky and gross and I'm usually extremely anxious/irritable if they don't get clean right away + sometimes have a panic attack. I also must be certain my hands are clean before eating something. I don't obsessively scrub my hands though, it's usually just a quick rinse to wash off the sticky feeling

- I hyperfocus on certain details so much I start panicking, like there was one time I was having a breakdown in the bathroom and on the opposite wall there was this tiny speck of paint that was messed up and I just kept staring at it and couldn't take my eyes off and there was just this feeling of loss of control because it was wrong and I just started spiraling

- I hyperfocus on imperfections in my skin like acne - blackheads and sebaceous filaments mostly. I pick at them obsessively and squeeze them and I recently bought professional tweezers to help with that because I just can't focus on anything except the imperfections - even if I don't have a mirror I can feel them on my face and it's like they're itching and I spend literal hours in front of the mirror every week trying to get rid of them

There was something else small I was going to add but I think that's all that's important. Lmk what you think, thanks <3

idk if i have ocd if i like tap my left foot i have to tap my right, like if i do smth on one side i have to do it on the other
i can't go to sleep if like a random blanket is on the floor, or smths in the wrong place
i always like pick at my pimples and stuff
idkk pls lmk

oh my gosh okay ive been waiting for a group like this, i think i have ocd or something 😭

1. when im watching TV, the volume can never be an odd number, it just irks me so much

2. when im walking and i see a crack or a split in the footpath, I have a compulsion to jump over it, because if i don’t, my brain tells me something bad is going to happen to me

3. when im scrolling on social media, i open the comment section and i scroll down to another video, i have this really strong urge to go back and check the comment i last read on the video above, and after i check it and scroll back down again, my brain tells me to go back and memorise the full comment, and i keep scrolling up and down until i finally feel like ive read it enough and move onto the next video (IDK ITS REALLY WEIRD)

4. i have to wash my hands 3 times before i can eat something, and whenever im eating, i think about how the spoon has been shared amongst different people and how many mouths it’s been in, and then i lose my appetite. it makes it really hard for me to eat at restaurants because i think of all the tongues that have touched the cutlery

5. when i go to the supermarket and if the boxes of say, flour, aren’t stacked orderly, it makes me really uncomfortable and then i start digging my nails into my arm

6. idk if this is a symptom, but i have this stupid all or nothing mindset, like if my mom won’t let me go out for the 5 hours that i asked her for, but she lets me go out for like 1 or 2 hours, i don’t want to go anymore. same for my kobo. i had this stupid unwillingness to use it for 1 week because i dropped it and there was a scratch on the casing. it has to be perfect or I don’t want it

blair ⋆˙꣑ৎ (stuck in neverland) wrote: "oh my gosh okay ive been waiting for a group like this, i think i have ocd or something 😭

1. when im watching TV, the volume can never be an odd number, it just irks me so much

2. when im walking..."

Is there any medical professional you can talk to about a diagnosis? Those are valid reasons to think you have it imo!

Barnette ⋆˙⟡ (my girlfriend's version) wrote: "Hey! I'm not diagnosed with OCD but my therapist today mentioned I have some tics/traits similar to OCD (but not the actual disorder) and I wanted to know that you all think.

- I have to have cer..."

I spoke to my psychiatrist about this and she said the same - I have many of the traits and symptoms but not the full-blown disorder, so I basically have partial OCD? Anyway the more I think about it and hear others' experiences the more it makes sense 😭

blair ⋆˙꣑ৎ (stuck in neverland) wrote: "oh my gosh okay ive been waiting for a group like this, i think i have ocd or something 😭

1. when im watching TV, the volume can never be an odd number, it just irks me so much

2. when im walking..."

i've been diagnosed with OCD and i have all of those traits as well! i think talking with a professional to get an official diagnosis is the best thing to do, especially if it's affecting your daily life negatively. but those are def very valid reasons to believe you have it!

hi. I've been told i might have OCD, and Idk. I'm not allowed to get treated/diagnose with anything so I don't know what to do.

TW: OCD type behaviours, severe emetophobia, mentions of sh

I feel like I could have ocd mainly related to my emetophobia but yeah idk, here’s some symptoms I have

- I wash my hand any time I leave the house, touch my hair, or literally just very randomly
- I avoid going in public and when I do I wash my hands a ton and try to stay 6 feet away from people and hold my breath when they go near me
- when I start thinking about sickness I have to cancel it out by making myself think other stuff
- I constantly get intrusive thoughts and images in my head about v*miting
- if an online friend is sick I try to avoid them as if I could catch it through the screen
- if I see a photo of a sick person I have to scroll through a bunch of safe photos to cancel it out
- if my anxiety thoughts are worse I convince myself it’s my brain knowing im gonna get sick or something so I panic
- I constantly ask people who make food for me if it’s well cooked but then I don’t trust them, and also obsessively ask if the food is still good
- I purposefully overcook foods and avoid foods like chicken
- I avoid places like planes, hospitals, restaurants, school, and amusement parks
- im terrified of chemicals bevause what if I accidentally eat them, so I avoid using them and when I wash my hair I always wipe my mouth after in case the shampoo got on my mouth which would lead to me swallowing it and getting sick
- I also try to distract from emetophobia thoughts by purposefully triggering myself by thinking about sh
- I obsessively check emetophobia warnings before watching movies and shows
- i get random intrusive thoughts telling me to look up videos of people vomiting even though it would lead to an extreme panic attack

Here are some non emetophobia related things I have:

-im terrified of people hearing my music through my earbuds so I obsessively double check each time a song starts, I ask people, I always have it on the lowest volume etc
- I’ve always had the extreme fear that I’d wake up in the night and not have self control because I wasn’t fully awake and kms, so I’d always ask my parents to check on me because I was so scared I’d do that
- if I think about blinking or breathing suddenly I can’t blink or breathe unless I choose to

oh ml. that's hard. I'm here if you want to talk

tysm <3

yeah ofc. I do a lot of the stuff that you mention so I understand.