OCD suffering tropers, assemble!

Hope it gets better, man.

Today is pretty stressful for me too, I have a lot going on on top of the very real possibility of a madman taking the White House.

One thing I hate about OCD is traveling. Before I was diagnosed I always had that little feeling at the back of my head telling me that I forgot something, prompting me to check, but ever since I got diagnosed I've had that urge increase tenfold. Now I pretty much have to check four times before I'm even kinda comfortable leaving, and even then I can feel it pulsing at the back of my mind.

Sorry to jump in.

Can getting diagnosed make it worse?

Not even remotely. Getting diagnosed is putting yourself on the path to getting actual help, both in the form of medication and - more importantly - therapy that will help you cope with or even defeat some of your OCD-related anxieties. It can only get better from there. What I meant when I said "before I was diagnosed" was more appropriately "before I had OCD." That was my fault for misspeaking.

And I am also talking about getting diagnosed by a practicing medical professional, not a counselor or, God forbid, diagnosing yourself. It's very important that you seek out someone who's studied for years of their life about the brain and how it works.

I've seen a resurgence over the weekend and it's been nasty.

It's amazing how easily the thoughts can masquerade as genuine concern and your rational side can sound like denial. The criteria I tend to use are "Is this ever a concern to you unless you are directly thinking about it?" and "Do you ever feel anything other than distressed when thinking about it?", and if the answer to both those questions is "no" I should try to calm down and move on. Of course, actually doing it is the hard part.

I hate to constantly pester this coven but I'm having a well beyond miserable week.

Lifelong sufferer here. My case is pretty severe and no medication seems to work. I feel so helpless...

I'm so glad I found this thread. I have OCD and at times it gets pretty bad (thankfully not too often, but enough for it to be disruptive).

My biggest Thing has to do with perpendicular lines and acute angles. Something about them really messes me up. This is going to sound really weird and specific, but sometimes I can't stand the letter W. The fact that it's nothing but awkward lines and angles bugs me. Sometimes when I'm typing, especially in certain fonts like Courier New (the correct font for writers!), I find myself avoiding words with the letter W in them.

Funnily enough, I don't have the same problem with V, X, or Y.

Welcome, Thrice Charming.

I haven't used this thread in over a year, but I noticed that you posted. That might inspire others to start posting, again.

Hey, thanks. I think this thread could make a nice support group.

I'm thinking about giving up on getting treatment altogether.

Don't give up. It takes some time, but treatment does help significantly. It'll be hard, but going without it is much much harder.

I've been trying for over four years now, so it's hard not to lose hope. Medication doesn't improve my condition at all and I can't bring myself to go to therapy. The thought of talking to someone about what I feel, and especially doing ERP, terrifies me.

How does yours work, if you don't mind my asking? Are you classic, or pure-O?

Classic. Compulsions are mainly related to cleanliness, symmetry, and order, and they affect everything from the way I type on my computer to the way I press a light switch. Objects have to be perfectly aligned, I can't step between two tiles on tiled floors, and the list goes on and on.

Obsessions vary over time, such as fear of having been infected by something after touching an object many people come into contact with (a doorknob, a bus seat, etc.), fear of computer malware, fear that I may have missed a deadline for an assignment or overlooked a detail on something I was writing and so on. They never stop.

I even had kidney stones last year because my fear of public restrooms would sometimes cause me to go 10+ hours at a time without using a bathroom.

Edited by Bluethorn on Aug 19th 2018 at 7:52:15 AM

Would you guys be willing to help me write a Useful Notes page for OCD? It makes me sad that TV Tropes doesn't have one, especially since lots of other disorders have them.

Not saying that it has to be done now, but just throwing it out there, I guess.

Edit: Oh, never mind... it looks like there's already a draft on the TLP, but it hasn't been edited since 2014.

Edited by Bluethorn on Sep 2nd 2018 at 8:27:16 AM

It'd be helpful since actual OCD is so unlike the Super OCD trope.

Anyway, I'm sorta-kinda self-DX (but both my mom and one of my one-time psychs thought I had OCD, I just didn't consider it much cuz I blamed autism and other possible disorders that I likely don't have, and only realized "oh shit this is me" during my psych class last year after doing subsequent research). I've suffered intrusive thoughts since I was at least 13 and I have very bad moral scrupulosity that I try to quell with various rituals, mostly asking for reassurance. Mostly cuz of Tumblr and Twitter and the weird discourse I got onto there. Everything became a Big Deal so I internalized it and sought validation from everything. Anybody else feel like social media makes intrusive thoughts way worse?

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 26th 2021 at 5:26:58 AM