Health OCD

I’m 19 and struggle with health anxiety, contamination, harm, and magical thinking OCD and would love to meet people with similar experiences and hardships because I have never had an opportunity for such a supportive community!

Hi everyone! I’m feeling better today. I had a really bad flare yesterday, my husband really helped me calm down and fall asleep. However, if you have health OCD I feel like you probably shouldn’t read this post unless you are in a good head space. I do not have health OCD. So, I’ve been dealing with a lot of symptoms and health issues that have led me to alot of doctors visits, I have several different doctors that specialize in specific things and now go to an internal medicine doctor. My doctor thinks I have an autoimmune disease, so I’m running alot of tests for several different autoimmune conditions. My OCD has been dormant for a while. I would still deal with it sometimes, but it was way easier to manage. I’m not medicated for OCD. However, I do use arthritis cream and was prescribed muscle relaxers, I have not yet taken the muscle relaxers. So I had a really bad OCD flare last night, specifically Relationship OCD. My husband has just seen parole and I’m super excited for him to come home, but my OCD was trying to convince me otherwise. I also have a new nephew that was born on the 22nd. So I am out of state and was watching my niece for my sister in law. A lot of exciting things happening at once. I’m assuming that triggered my OCD. But I’ve been swelling in my face and dealing with a little bit of body pain as well. Autoimmune diseases come in flares like OCD. I have done some research on autoimmune diseases so I can know what I need to do in order to keep it under control if that’s what I do get diagnosed with. I learned that some autoimmune diseases are linked to OCD, or can even cause OCD because of inflammation in the brain. & It gave me a glimmer of hope honestly. Could my OCD have started because of an autoimmune disease? Could I get better by treating it? My OCD didn’t kick start until I was about 19. I am now 23. I did have symptoms of OCD at 17 though, I went through a period of time where I was compulsively praying and in a cycle of intense anxiety. So I probably had it since I was 17, but I don’t know. My symptoms of autoimmune disease didn’t start until about a year ago, but it could’ve been longer. I couldn’t get rid of a UTI I had for MONTHS & didn’t know why. I had to see a urologist, I was 21 when I kept getting UTI’s. I had to get a procedure done, I had pus build up in my urethra that was almost completely blocking off my urethra. I do not know how the infection got that severe.. especially because I took antibiotic after antibiotic. I felt like I’d get better for a few days, then boom…UTI symptoms once again. So.. that could’ve been the start of autoimmune symptoms. With an autoimmune disease, your immune system is pretty trash. You don’t fight off infections or illness as easy as others. I remember how I’d get sick after everyone else in the house would get sick, but I’d get it so much worse and have the illness for much longer than everyone else. Surprisingly enough, I never got COVID. My whole family had it & I didn’t get it. Unless I did and just didn’t have symptoms. Anyways, I never thought I would say this.. but I hope I do have an autoimmune disease that caused OCD so that I can treat the autoimmune disease and keep my OCD dormant for as long as possible. I forgot what it was like to deal with OCD.. it was so bad lastnight, I remember feeling that type of anxiety and it’s the worst.. 💔 If you took the time to read, thank you! I seem like a charity case lol.. I never thought by 23 years old I’d be like this.

Hello everyone! This is my first post since downloading the NOCD app and wanted to share a little about my life with OCD. I was first diagnosed when I was 17 but truly started noticing there was something going on with me as early as 10. To summarize: I have the repetitive ritualistic type of OCD. Basically, I have a fear of becoming other people. I believe that if I perform an action, like turning off the sink or closing a door, or even breathing in and out while thinking about somebody, especially someone that I dislike, that eventually I will become just like that person or experience something they've been through that is negative; like health issues, personality issues, or social status decline. Simple example: I know this one dude named Richard, I worked with him in retail, and he told me about how his brother died at a young age. Now, it’s nighttime, and with that new information known about Richard, I believe, that If I take my contact out while thinking of Richard, or an image of him appears in my head while I’m taking out my contact, I believe that MY brother is going to eventually die too. What’s the solution?: I worked with another kid in retail. His name is Mikey, he was decently put together, and his brother didn’t die. So that means: Now with my contact still on my finger, I put it to my eyeball, and keep tapping at my eyeball with my contact while trying to get an image of Mikey perfectly timed, so that I can cancel out the image of Richard and save my brothers life. This is a challenge because the image of Richard, or I should say, the fear that my brother could die from this thought, is strong, and often times I have to think of other people (from other life experiences) along with Mikey just to feel confident that I got the image cancelled enough to move forward. Every day, I complete many actions and with every action comes a thought or image of some person I’ve encountered in my life that I’m either afraid of becoming or obtaining the same negative life experiences, which therefore means I also have all the othet people in my mind, at the ready, that cancel them out too. Every day I cancel people out and repeat actions disguised to the public. Sometimes it’s noticeable, but knowing how to cover your ugly side while making sure you don’t mess up your future with the wrong thought is just what I call life. I’m a man with a thousand people in his head and its been an EXHAUSTING journey. But through therapy and acceptance of myself, I have found a way to love with it. Like anything else, there are horrible days and okay days, but this is apart of me forever and im lucky to share it all with you! Can anyone relate?? Feel free to comment or reach out! - Matt