I live with my mom, and I've had major compulsions from OCD for a little over a year now.  And she has just never been supportive of me, and it really hurts.

Last year, back when I was doing really bad, and I had no idea that what I was doing had a name to it, she just kept yelling at me to pull myself out of it.  I remember there was one time where I was out somewhere, and this older woman touched my face in a totally benign way but in a way that made my mind think that my face was now contaminated.  So I went home and, crying, ran into the bathroom to begin my decontamination rituals which I knew would last about 5-7 hours.  I kept yelling, "I don't want to do this!  I don't want to do this!".  My mom's only response was, "Then don't!".  She just shook her head at me without any type of sympathy.

Well, I am doing a lot better now with my compulsions than I was back then, I'm happy to say.  I ended up reading a book on how to do exposure therapy, and I followed it, and I'm about 90% better with rituals.  I used to spend on average 10-12 hours a day doing rituals, and now I do about 3 hours.  Do you think my mother would be happy?  Do you think she'd say something like, "Great job, Amber"?  No.  She's never told me anything like that.  All she can do is complain about the rituals that are still remaining.  I've tried to tell her how far I've come and how great that is, but her response is, "But you're still doing such-and-such, and you're still washing your hands more often than most people."

She honestly expects me to just WILL myself to not have OCD at all anymore.  She won't be satisfied until I have no symptoms whatsoever.  Isn't that just unrealistic?  From what I've read about OCD, even if you get your compulsions under control, the obsessive thoughts will pretty much always be there, you just have to learn to deal with them and not let them mushroom into compulsions, and that's pretty much the best you can do.  I'm under the impression that OCD is not something that can be cured, just managed; correct me if I'm wrong.

When she says these things, she just makes me want to give up trying because it'll just never be enough for her.  She makes me want to just stop fighting the OCD.  But thankfully, I'm not that type of person who gives up even if they have no support.  So I won't give up.  But man, I have enough to contend with inside my own mind, I don't need external contentions too!  I cannot WAIT to move out.  I'm trying SO HARD.