I'm so OCD.

I am so angry with ocd. I hate that ocd even exists. I wouldn’t necessarily say I wanted to be a mom when I was younger. I grew up without my mom around. But now my sisters are both moms and I see them and I feel like I’m missing out. But having pocd and hocd has definitely made me feel like it’s completely out of the question. I even made sure my fiancé knew that I didn’t want children/ feel like I can’t have them for fear of hurting them or passing on mental health issues. I was abused growing up and one of my old therapists told me that “people who are abused can become abusers”. That is something that I am not willing to risk. And even though I feel set on that choice, my brain still tells me that I’m missing out. So I’m constantly questioning if I truly feel like I don’t want them or if ocd is convincing me I don’t. Ugh. It’s just so frustrating.

Has anyone experienced their reputation affected or misunderstood because of a societally taboo OCD theme? Others catching wind of your obsessions and misinterpreting it, assuming the worst? I’m intentionally keeping it vague because I don’t want my specific situation to get reassured, but it’s been a real tough pill to swallow knowing that people close to me (and anyone else they might talk to) think of me differently. I’m unwilling to share about my OCD because I feel pretty confident it will be taken as an excuse or denial, and feels compulsive and reassurance seeking. Let me know if anyone here has experienced anything like it, how they handled it, exposures you did.

OCD is so much more than just being 'neat' or 'organized'—it’s relentless, exhausting, and often deeply misunderstood. The intrusive thoughts, the compulsions, the anxiety—it can feel like a never-ending cycle that others just don’t seem to get. Many of us have had experiences where even therapists didn’t fully grasp the depth of our struggles. I myself faced difficulty being misdiagnosed and my talk therapist not understanding the full extent of what I was going through until I found NOCD. So many prior therapists wrote off my symptoms as general anxiety, not realizing it was actually OCD all along. If you could sit down with a therapist who truly wanted to understand, what do you wish they knew about OCD?