@emily_mcintyre - Licensed professionals are specifically trained to recognise and diagnose. Try to get an assessment from a Doctor or Psychiatrist if you can, as this can help with getting supports you need, maybe help with insurance in your country, and will make it easier for you to understand your experiences. The details of getting a diagnosis depend on where you live. I'm living outside the US, in a country with an okay-but-not-great healthcare landscape, and I had to go through a very long and frustrating process of trying to get seen by a professional for an assessment and diagnosis. All very expensive. While I believe that NOCD doesn't provide diagnoses, they can assess whether you show the criteria for OCD, and whether treatment may help.
With all that being said, I would say (in my capacity as a non-trained layman, just an OCD sufferer - NOT MEDICAL ADVICE) that while you rightly don't want to self-diagnose, there would be little harm to gently following the idea that you do have it, until you get confirmation.
It can be hard and time consuming to get a diagnosis. Plus, mental health disorders like OCD, anxiety, depression, etc... are at the end of the day just the best labels we have for different presentations of symptoms and experiences. They aren't essential neat categories. Many symptom dimensions (e.g., rumination) can exist for multiple mental illnesses (depressed people also suffer from excessive rumination). Or, on the other hand, someone with, say, schizophrenia (a more extreme example), can have entirely different symptom presentations to another person (they share no common symptoms!!). OCD also doesn't simply present one way - obsessions and compulsions both vary so much from person-to-person (e.g., one person washing hands compulsively vs another person performing constant mental ruminations). This is the cruel paradox of OCD, as these blurred lines cause many OCD patients to doubt whether they even have it - their brain will tell them that it's different for them! (it's not)
The existing mental health disorder categories are still by far the best models we have. If you're suffering because of what you're going through, you deserve help ASAP. I took ages to accept that I have OCD and to start therapy. I'm so glad I did, cos I definitely have it lol. So in the meantime, look into Response Prevention Messaging techniques (part of ERP therapy), and treat yourself with the love, care, and patience you deserve - be proud of yourself for recognising that you have OCD, and be hopeful that you can start managing it and thriving!
Big love
