“I am scared that people will think badly of me or not understand how intrusive thoughts work.”

I have Sexual Orientation OCD, Harm OCD, and others I haven’t pinned down yet. My main symptoms with OCD are obsessing and ruminating over intrusive thoughts. I do have some compulsions but they are mainly mental compulsions. I have intrusive thoughts about harm and self-harm, which cause me a lot of distress. I often ruminate on these thoughts and mentally try to get them to go away. Sometimes I have to leave a room or walk away from someone if the thoughts are too distressing.

I also have Sexual Orientation OCD, which means I obsess about my sexual orientation (and gender sometimes) which causes me a lot of identity issues and distress. I often think about if I’m sexually attracted to people I’ve just met or see on the street, to verify what my sexual orientation is. Focusing on groin response is something that I do as well with my SO OCD.

These symptoms of obsessing, ruminating, and having mental compulsions gives me a lot of anxiety and social phobia. Sometimes in order to get the thoughts to go away I engage in self-harm. This has affected my life severely and causes me a lot of panic when I get intrusive thoughts about hurting myself.

It’s difficult for me to be around children for too long, which has caused me to quit my job as a teacher’s assistant. A job I loved doing. But due to OCD and depression, I couldn’t continue that job. OCD has affected me in a lot of ways and it affects my anxiety on a day to day basis.

I don’t feel like I’ve been able to talk about my OCD with my family or friends very much. I don’t like to talk about my OCD unless it’s with a therapist, so I don’t disclose what my intrusive thoughts actually are to most people. I’ve told some of my close family members and friends that I have OCD, and they have been somewhat understanding.

A lot of people laugh when I tell them because they assume I’m talking about ‘cleaning, organizing, and germs OCD’ which is the stereotype of OCD. They assume I’m not actually telling the truth, or that I’m simply saying I’m organized, or that if I do have OCD it’s ‘not that serious’. It’s frustrating trying to tell people the severity of my condition without being too open about it. I did not tell my employer and unless there’s a really good reason why I should tell them, I don’t plan on ever telling my employer about my OCD if it’s not relevant to my job.

I have a therapist but they aren’t specialized with OCD. I’m working on finding a group or therapist for OCD to help manage my symptoms. It’s difficult to find someone specialized though. I take medication for my anxiety and depression, but it doesn’t alleviate any OCD symptoms. I have medication that helps with panic attacks which can arise when my OCD is really bad, but it doesn’t do anything for the thoughts or compulsions- just the physical anxiety symptoms.

I find that certain grounding or coping skills can help manage my symptoms of anxiety when intrusive thoughts are really bad. I am new to OCD recovery and treatment though, so I haven’t done a lot of work with a professional for my OCD specifically.

Ive joined a few discord servers for people with OCD, and that’s been helpful to connect with people and talk about my struggles. I’ve never met anyone with OCD in real life though. I find that sharing my experiences online with others is really helpful.

I think that what holds me back from talking to others about OCD is fear about how I might be perceived. Besides my OCD, I have a social phobia, autism, and BPD. It’s hard for me to talk about my OCD because of the types of intrusive thoughts I have, and I am scared that people will think badly of me or not understand how intrusive thoughts work. If I knew that people would understand I would definitely talk more about it.

I would say that to society, OCD is viewed really incorrectly. BPD is viewed as a scary disorder or that people with BPD are bad people. I think that autism is viewed in different ways but for me I’ve been infantilized due to my autism a lot. I think that since OCD is used in popular culture to mean ‘organized, type A, clean-freak’, it’s not taken as seriously as BPD or autism. I definitely feel like popular culture has made OCD into something different. It’s frustrating hearing people say they’re, “So OCD” when I’m struggling so much with it.

I wish people knew more about the different types of OCD and that we aren’t all ‘germaphobes’ or super organized. I wish people in my life knew that sometimes when I’m irritable it might mean I’m having trouble with mental compulsions or intrusive thoughts and it’s not personal.