OCD

[spiritedawai]

I have OCD. Never had a proper assessment but my doctor suspects it and I am 100% certain.

Things I do:

• obsessive skin picking.
• obsessive counting when anxious (will count the corners of things until I get to huge numbers and it's incredibly stressful when I lose my place or am interrupted.
• obsessive cleaning/tidying when anxious.
• obsessive checking.
• when I turn the lights off at night, I give myself 10 seconds to get in to bed or on my mind something bad will happen.

There are many more behaviours but I don't want to list them all.

Does anyone else suffer in this way? It can be crippling at times. Is there a treatment or solution?

I was visiting my GP for anxiety and put on sertraline. The OCD tendencies were swept under the rug a little.

for you OP.

I have OCD too, like you mine isn't diagnosed but I was basically told I have OCD but they didn't want to label me in case it disadvantaged me in the future.

It's hard, especially when people throw around phrases like 'I'm so OCD' and think it always means being tidy and obsessive hand washing. I am most definitely not a tidy person!

For me I make endless lists, I get intrusive thoughts and if I see the time change on my phone that means it'll come true, and I completely understand the being interrupted thing! It means I have to start all over again doing something that's distressing.

CBT is supposed to help although honestly I haven't had much luck with it myself. Sertraline is good for OCD though. I came off it because I thought it wasn't helping but have noticed things get worse since I stopped, so it must've been helping in some way. Can your GP refer you for CBT?

Sorry I don't have much advice, just a handhold as I understand what it's like. I hope you are able to find some treatment that works for you

I have it, I get intrusive thoughts and do rituals to prevent bad things happening. I was diagnosed in my late teens as my parents noticed my strange behaviour I had to do everything in even numbers, switching on light switches, turning off taps so tight i would break the washers.

I hate it when people thrown the term around slightly, saying they're OCD about this and that and how they'd love someone with OCD to clean their house.

I have it and hate it! I do rituals to stop bad things happening all the time! I've had it since I was 8 is the earliest I can remember. I was prescribed sertaline but never took it as I didn't want to deal with the side effects. I've read books on it that say you can learn to deal with it better through behaviour changes without medication. I'm really embarrassed about it! I've spoke to my parents about it and both or them have suffered with it too