- Date posted
- 2d
Is this ocd? My story so far
Over the past 18 years, I have several periods of time when I have anxious and depressed that have lasted from a 1 week to several months. HOCD: when I was 16 years old I randomly started to fixate on my sexuality. I would ruminate for hours and the irrational intrusive thoughts would cause anxiety and depression. I would sleep for hours to try to escape the thoughts. I would compulsively monitor every thought I had to find out the truth that was never there. However, over time I was able to live with the thoughts and eventually the thoughts lost their power over me. From time to time a thought will come through but I typically can handle it. ROCD: when I was 19-20 years old. In the second semester in college, I began fixating on my relationship with my girlfriend (now wife). Thoughts ranged from did “do I actually love her? Is this just lust? Honeymoon phase? I ruminated and internet searched again for hours on the day and my relationship and school life was suffering from it. Same as before I learned to live with the thoughts and they began to loose their power but took months. From time to time they come back especially after we got married. Intrusive thoughts about developing other mental health illness or health related issues: this has been on and off for years. I google symptoms and compulsively check for signs to match those symptoms. These thoughts I usually can handle but sometimes it can be Recent OCD?: my job can be very stressful at times. One of my biggest fears is that I would lose my job from past mistakes or future mistakes. I hear stories about how people lost their jobs and fixate on those scenarios. I seek reassurance from my manager and coworkers to see if I’m doing a good job. I could google and Reddit search a couple hours a day for reassurance and decrease anxiety. I also ruminate every encounter, email and action to keep my myself safe. Lately I’ve haven’t been able to manage these intrusive thoughts very well. My wife and I recently found out that our dog has cancer and it’s been affecting my mental health so I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and haven’t been coping well. I think I should start therapy and I wasn’t sure where to start. I’m anxious about there and want to make sure I find someone that can truly help me.