I'm very glad I found this site. For years I have been dealing with ocd-ish thoughts and tendencies. Especially when I was a teenager the secrecy aspect was HUGE! Only in the last year or so was I able to tell my mother that for much of high school, I went to school each day feeling like I was going to die (ebola, bird-flue, etc.). Now in my mid-20s, ocd has taken other forms but mostly involve checking or contamination.
I am a fairly functional adult but recently I took a really honest evaluation of my life and have realized how much I have held myself back. I have had to move in with family, I have been unable to independently support myself. I am self-employed at cleaning houses. One day recently I was alone in a client's house (as usual) and I just started sobbing. I realized "This is not normal. I WANT HELP." Of all the negative internal dialogue lately (are you honest enough with your business? Do you do things right? Oh No, is the clients gas stove really off? Check the door to see if its locked, and check it again….) this was the first time I had really told myself so very honestly: You dont just have a problem-You want help for it. It was just such an overwhelming moment, the realization how much this has impacted my life, my success. It was as thoughI finally gave myself permission to get help. No more "this really isn't that serious" or "it's not that bad, you've never been diagnosed" or "its gotten better". For so long I thought it would just come and go in various forms and intensity and I could deal with it in day to day life. But I do not want to accept this any more. I want better, it is time to do something about this.
It is time to be real: I am not living up to my potential, not entirely due to OCD, but it certainly has played a role. I have OCD and I want help.
Welcome to the site. We all understand what's it's like to live with this condition. It sounds like you've reached a very important point in your life; let that feeling motivate you to keep moving forward. I hope this site is useful to you and, even more, that you're able to find a therapist to work with individually. Also, as you probably know, medication helps a lot of people and, if you don't have/can't find a psychiatrist, your family doctor can prescribe something.
Thanks, I know I'm gonna need a nudge to actually go to a doctor and talk about this stuff. I am not open to taking pharmaceuticals (I am trying some dietary supplements though, b vitamins, magnesium, and inositol). I am on Medi-Cal health care but have yet to set up my first appointment with a doctor(and if I do set up an appointment there wont be any openings for maybe months). I'm sorta scared that if I say I feel this is not severe enough to take meds, they'll say I dont need to be referred to a therapist or anything. I have lived this long without major meds I'd like to keep it that way. Scared I wont be taken seriously, since I am able to function in daily life (although not without some weird behaviors).
I hope that you will be able to find help here. I believe we can understand of feeling of minimizing what OCD had done early on in our lives, as in, looking at it as something that we could ultimately deal with ourselves.
Once you do go, give them your feelings and your intrusive thoughts, and allow them to help diagnose what needs to occur. That might be for the best.
Peace, and take care.