I am new to this group and I look forward to sharing my experiences with you all and look forward to hearing any advice or support you can give me. It seems I have always had OCD, it seems to be at bay for sometime then flare up when I have a lot of stress or stuff going on. When I was younger I would say around 12 (I am currently 22) my doctor recommended that I see a psychiatrist. Luckily at a young age I learned I suffered from OCD. My OCD seems to have taken on many different forms throughout my life. For example when I was younger I was afraid of contamination and I would always wash my hands in fear that I had something on them (E-Coli, germs, aids). That phase had suppressed and seemed to fade away (I still wash my hands and clean more than typical people but not much).

In a rough patch….

Currently I seem to be suffering mainly from obsessive thoughts with little compulsions. I am not sure what triggered this episode of OCD. It seems the more I read the symptoms of a specific illness the more I create those symptoms in my life. For example I began worrying that I had the swine flu and I read the symptoms such as shortness of breath and chest pains, and I started to create those symptoms which of course caused more anxiety. During the beginning of this episode I had a lot of anxiety and panic attacks I even missed some work and school. It seems the anxiety and panic attacks have lessened however I still have obsessive reoccurring thoughts. The thoughts I am stuck on are the fears that I have schizophrenia or multiple personalities. This seemed to all come about after I read about these disorders for school and I have to admit I did more researching then necessary. After reading that some of the "symptoms" for these disorders are hallucinations and delusions I became extremely vigilant about my surroundings noticing everything and anytime I see something or hear something I begin to think was that just a hallucination? Am I going crazy? I also have been asking for reassurance from my mother and girl friend such as did you see that or here that? I also have been testing my memory and try to recall mundane facts and if I can’t remember them I begin to think I am forgetting things. (For example I forgot the name of a movie that I saw a trailer preview about 6 months ago, I started thinking was there actually a movie about that or did I imagine it). I realize that these thoughts are just from cod however they are hard to shake and sometimes they cause much anxiety which makes me second guess myself thinking is this actually "cod" or something worse. I am seeing two psychologists one is more for talk therapy (which he assured me I don’t have schizophrenia or multiple personalities) and another for CBT desensitization through hypnosis.

I also went to my physician and he raised my Prozac to 40mg (formerly taken 20mg) and he also gave me some Ativan to help me relax until the Prozac kicked in. (does anyone know how long that takes?)

Any thoughts, advice or questions is much greatly appreciated and if you have any questions please let me know I have had OCD for some time and have done a lot of reading about it. Thanks!