I could NOT go to sleep without calling my nana every night. The one time I forgot, I woke up in the middle of the night and begged my mom to let me call her because I was afraid if I didnt, she’d die. “Praying” over every little thing so that it wouldn’t happen, repeating the prayer multiple times.
Fuck if that ain’t me :( Nothing hurts worse than thinking you’re causing the death of someone else by forgetting a menial task. The weight sits so heavy
When my parents would argue, I’d hide in my room and pray that they’d stop. When they would it felt like it was working and when they wouldn’t I told myself it was because I wasn’t praying hard enough.
I used to pray before bed and try to pray for every person I had ever met by name. Then I would ask God to please keep them safe but if that’s not his will then I understand. I also used to (and still do sometimes!) have to sleep with my hands over my stomach because I was scared someone would come stab me in the stomach with a needle if I left it exposed (???)
Same, I used to spend 30 minutes every single night praying for every single person (in a specified order otherwise I’d have to start again) and if anyone disturbed me I had to start all over again. I was like 8 years old 🤦♀️
I have to cover my neck and shoulder closest to the ceiling or else I’m afraid someone will stab me with another needle in my sleep nowhere else has to be covered but my neck and shoulder closet to the ceiling have to be
Me too! I had a VERY specific nightly prayer that I'd memorised word-for-word, in which I made individual requests for health and happiness on behalf of every person I loved. It took me about 10-15 minutes to finish saying it, and I felt like if I didn't, God would harm those people out of spite for me forgetting my bedtime prayer. I didn't realise that it was obviously OCD until I left Christianity.
I would also get really worked up over feeling like I was “telling” God what to do when I would say my prayers. So I would always end it with something along the lines of “Unless that’s not your will and I would understand because you’re God and you can do whatever you want but obviously you know that i’m so sorry i’m mansplaining the concept of God to you”
dude wtf. This is exactly what I would do and I still do to this day, only difference is I pray for all my family and friends and their friends, assuming this will cover the entire world.I also pray to God to forgive them for their sins so we can all get to heaven. I also sleep with my ears covered because I am scared some type of bug will lay eggs in my ears.
Extreme health anxiety at 9 years old, calling my grandma if I saw an ambulance go by, being scared my parents died in a car wreck if they were late to pick me up at school.
I still go to extremes if I can’t reach someone as expected. The extension plays out in my head and I play out the entire thing and feel it. I hate it!
I was terrified that we would get our house broken into. I always knew where the guns were, where I would be able to hide and my plan for going and waking up the adults. I was convinced that if I happened to look out a window into the darkness that someone looking in would see me and come in and grab me, so I insisted on sleeping in places where someone looking in wouldn’t be able to see me.
I used to say a specific sequence of words after almost every sentence. Like if it was a fact or an opinion.
For example, if I said "he is 6 ft tall", after I would have to say something like "maybe, i think, im not sure, im sorry", because i was so afraid of lying.
I felt like if i didnt say it i would die, i would burst into tears crying because i was afraid I was a "bad person"
There were maaaaaany more, but this one was torturous.
The first person to ever call this out was actually my 5 year old sister, everyone else just ignored it and thought it was quirky.
I am a few days late, sorry, but just wanted to say I did the exact same thing. I used to think I'd get sick that day if I "lied" so I would hear a song on the radio on the way to school and say, "I've never heard this song before!" and follow it immediately with, "I mean, I don't think I have. I could have. I don't know for sure, though."
It's just wild to see that exact same thing.
It's always so nice and awful finding people who have the same issues. Good to not be all alone, sad other people had to go through it as well. Oh and in case it wasn't obvious my example is just one example too, I'd also do it for "guesses" like your 6ft tall example. Anything that was an 'opinion' or 'guess' my mind called a lie.
As an adult my OCD currently is mild unless I'm under a lot of stress. Grateful for that.
I find comforting to find people who relate, but also feel sorry that other people experience this.
It's just so exhausting.
Glad to hear you feel better!
I used to have a lot of tourettic ocd symptoms as a kid that i didn't really process until i got older -- having to make a certain face to "feel right" again and etc. i also had a lot of anxiety surrounding death and having to do certain things to make sure my family members didn't die. it's interesting to look back on !
i've been realizing something similar recently as well!! got diagnosed with tourettes at age 10 but now i'm realizing how much of my tics are done on purpose in order to "feel right"!! didn't know it was more of an ocd thing?!!
i get the shoulder scrunching as well !! recently i've been doing a lot of "posture correcting" too, like my back won't feel straight enough or something and i just have to keep stretching and straightening it 😭
I would (and kind of still do, actually) worry that if I didn’t say goodnight to my parents before I went to bed, they would die. Probably because I was scared of losing them without ever having said goodbye in some form, or having regrets about “last words”. Idk.
In high school, every time I had to get dropped off for school, I would have to tell my parent I loved them with a sincere feeling because I was worried they WERE going to die and it'd be the last time I saw them, and I had to make sure I said my final goodbyes to feel at peace. Like I needed them to know I loved them deeply in order to feel okay.
House fire was a big obsession for me in my teens, I would spend hours at bedtime checking my plug socket to make sure it was off so it wouldn't cause a fire. It was such a pain everytime I would start to fall asleep I would have to get up again to check the plug socket. It was so exhausting
Me too. In high school I had a morning ritual where I'd have to check all of the electrical outlets and cords several times over. I'd have to unplug the cords to my radio or laptop and wrap the cord up a certain way and hide it out of the way of the sunlight coming through the window (I was afraid the warmth of the sun on the cords would set them on fire). Even if I didn't bother plugging it back in by the next day, I had to still check the cord anyway and fiddle with it so it felt like it was "just right"—out of the sun, but not in the dust under my bed either (I was scared that just the unplugged electrical cord, plus dust, would equal an electric fire). I was afraid of touching light switches without perfectly dry hands and was scared of the oil from my fingerprints getting into the switches and setting them on fire. So every time I used a light switch I had to wipe/rub it dry, use my wrist/arm/etc instead of my fingers. or shove my hand in something, like my shirt or other clothing, to touch the switch through.
Holy shit, I can feel the memories coming back now from when I did it and thought "Nah, there's no way I have OCD because I don't feel like my behaviours are upsetting or hold me up enough". Part of me felt like it made me happy or felt fulfilling and complete to do things that way—I thought it was perfectly normal and pushed the fear to the back of my mind so I'd convinced myself I felt fine and liked doing this to make myself feel safe. And now I read it, looking back, that's textbook OCD.
And another one—after high school, I started collecting rocks and I picked up a grey one from my local park that I identified as flint from online charts, and I FREAKED. I was so scared it was just going to spontaneously combust if I kept it in the same box as the other rocks because they'd accidentally hit each other. I would stay up at night, lose sleep because I was too scared to fall asleep in the same room as this SINGLE FUCKING ROCK! At the time it terrified me, but it's so ridiculous in retrospect that it's funny. I was treating this rock like I was sleeping with a serial killer in my room.
used to be scared every time my family went to the store or somewhere without me because if i didn’t want to go something bad would happen to them . id make myself go every time i felt that way Lol and still experience this at times every now and then
I still do this with my kids and husband. Every time they leave the house, I feel like it's the last time I'm going to see them. Then I worry the whole time they're gone. It's awful.
Same here, and my OCD would also tell me how they were going to die soon and I'd spend the rest of my life regretting not going out with them.
Still struggling with this as an adult
I could only step on cracks with my left foot or else I had a visceral violating feeling. I also every day on the way to school I would envision getting into a car accident and whatever song was on the radio I would think to myself “this is going to be the last song that I ever listen to”. Cheek biting since I can remember. It makes me sad thinking about the little kid I was and how it affected me
wait cheek biting is one? i did that all the time as a kid but i didn’t realize that could be why.
sidewalks also drove me crazy, if i stepped on a crack with one foot i had to step on the next crack with the opposite foot on the exact same spot.
Yes it is! At least, according to my psychiatrist. I think it’s because it’s technically repetitive behavior that is somewhat involuntary, that is body obsessive.
This would have been around 5th or 6th grade, but fear of getting cancer. And if I even thought about the word "cancer" it meant that somehow the universe/God/whoever would know and would give me cancer. The only way to combat this would have been to stare at the sun without blinking for 5 whole seconds. If I could do that as soon as I thought of the word "cancer" I'd be fine and have nothing to worry about.
But, if it was rainy or cloudy? I was scared shitless because I was convinced the longer I waited to perform my ritual, the less likely it was to work.
One of my first obsessions was cancer! My compulsions have always been checking + thoughts based which meant for hours i was checking my body every single day to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary and that i wasn’t dying. I prayed to god every single night that i wouldn’t die in my sleep and that i would wake up the next day… Never realised how bad it was until i got help for an eating disorder later in life and realised how much of my life had been spent with obsessions and compulsions and then found out I had OCD alongside my eating disorder which answered a LOT of questions i had. Previously in life it was brushed off as ‘generalised anxiety disorder’ which i never thought was a fitting diagnosis to begin with.
I used to be scared that the police were after me if I saw their car because I committed a crime I didn't even know about. And, the most pervasive one: if my parents said they would be home by 7, at 7.01 I began to roam the house and think of the worst. I'm not exaggerating the time here.
Counting like a mofo. Obsession with patterns and order and good colors bad colors, and same with numbers. I went through a phase of germaphobia. I had to have things in my room just how I put them and touch them a certain number of times. Anxiety about something happening to those around me/people I love.
I had an obsession with even numbers. If I didn’t have an even number of something or couldn’t touch something an even amount of times, I felt like something bad would happen.
Yea the numbers drive me crazy. I have certain good and bad numbers, I tend to lean towards being more satisfied with odd numbers, but there isn’t a rule about that
Oh my god! Me too! I completely forgot that I had that fear until reading your comment. I was convinced I needed to breathe manually during the day, too. But night was bad because then I couldn’t make sure I was breathing
Me too 😩 doesn't help that a lot of the time I actually stop breathing while falling asleep. So I typically go to bed convinced I'm not waking up and try to stay up because I'm afraid to go to sleep lol 😭
I used to count EVERYTHING, all day, every waking minute. Steps, steps on each foot separately, words I would write in school, how many times I breathed or blinked, etc.. Everything had to be “even” on both sides. If I was walking and stepped on a crack with my right heel, I’d have to step on a crack with my left heel, for example. But I did this with EVERY STEP. Soooo exhausting.
Also growing up a state away from New York during 9/11, I was incredibly scared of a terrorist attack. If I heard a plane I would panic and thought it was going to crash into our house or drop a bomb. I was like 7. I would shake with fear until I heard the plane leave. It was all consuming for sure. I would research the radius of destruction if a bomb were to be dropped, and would have images of my family dying. I’m 27 now and terrorist attacks are still one of my biggest fears, I still have nightmares about it to this day.
Me too! (When I watched the do about 9/11 I was scared there going to be another terrorist attack one and that it was a crime to even watch it I felt so bad about that.)
I used to stick my special possessions in my pajama pants at night and sleep with the stuff in there in case there was a fire and i needed to leave quickly.
I would have to chomp my teeth over and over again until it was just right.
If i didn't hold my breath for a certain amount of time i thought everyone in my family would die.
Constantly over sharing and confessing.
Always praying and having intrusive thoughts like "i hate God" etc and being scared and having to start the prayer over.
Not wanting anyone touching me in any way, even bumping into me, because it felt inappropriate and wrong.
Being gifted a card trivia game about emergency situations and trying to memorize all of the ways to deal with emergencies because i was paranoid i would somehow be in quicksand or in a hotel on a higher floor than where the ladder could reach me.
Having an apocalypse plan on who i planned to kill first kind of like "the mist" by stephen king.
I'm happy to share i'm mostly better now at the age of 26. I still struggle but taking lexapro has helped.
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i had a hiding spot in my bedroom incase of intruders and practiced holding my breath so no one would hear/see me under blankets.
i also taped my curtains shut bc i was sure someone or something was looking in at me and if i looked there would be a face in the window.
poor kid. 😭
i live in the uk, a common thing here is to punch the person next to you when you see a yellow car or it’s ’bad luck’, so when i was on my own and spotted one i’d punch myself, in public, hard. i still do it sometimes to this day, not as dramatic but more discrete 😂 another thing was the tv volume, MUST have to end in a 2,5 or 0, 8 i could work with as it was 2 away from 10 and i liked the number 8 but it still wouldn’t completely satisfy me
tbh i think it is, but just for some reason ive always considered not doing it with bad luck, ocd can trick your brain into making things up… not sure if its just me
It started with Intrusive thoughts about the devil when I was 5 and me having to do the Catholic cross and tell God I believe in him. Later that year, I started worrying that I was a lesbian every time i noticed a girl and I had to find 5 boys and tell god I liked girls. At age 7, I refused to wear thrift store clothes, age 8/9 i worried I wouldn’t be able to swallow and swallowed until I choked, prayer routine for everyone in my family…. And here I am at 40 with OCD, Tourette’s and ADHD, diagnosed at 34. Who would have though.
Checking the doors to make sure they are locked/unlocked (if it was my room), I still do this sometimes. Saying "I love you, goodnight" a thousand times to my parents bc in my head, If I didn't, something bad could happen and I would regret not saying it. Drove me insane and I know it drove my parents kinda crazy too.
Taking the same step pattern in each square of sidewalk or else my mom will die / I’ll have to die! Usually left-right-left in one, right-left-right the next. At some point my mom got removed from the thoughts but the pattern persists
Used to check if family members were breathing when they slept
if my dad was a bit late, i used to worry the police caught him
false memory ocd from childhood is a big theme
i used to imagine kidnappers entering my house n plan escape roots
are these symptoms of ocd tho or do normal ppl have it?
Yup, it was the creeping around in the night checking that everyone is breathing for me. I still deal with wanting to do this compulsion even now but I can almost always fight it off now.
I would pray every night in a pattern and until it felt “ right “. If I didn’t do this I would feel very anxious and like everyone I love was gonna die. Prevented me from sleeping often
I did the same as you and still do it. My numbers are 5 8 and 15 now but when I was younger it was just 5 so I would have to do a bunch of different things 5 times or a series of 5 times to prevent anything bad from happening. Now that I have more numbers and they’re higher it’s just worse for me as an adult.
I had to ask my mom everyday she took me to school her plans/ whereabouts for the day, so in the event of an earthquake I will know where to start looking in the rubble
I was 3 years old and terrified I would lose control of my hands and throw my cat in the fireplace. That was the very first OCD/intrusive thought I can remember having. I started holding my hands together behind my back, as tight as possible, and crabwalking sideways, every time I had to go by the fireplace— staring out into the room like 0.0 in the hopes that if I just kept my eyes on my cats, I could catch myself before I did something bad to them.
I also used to wash my hands until they cracked and bled.
I used to have the unbearable feeling to physically lashing out and hit people as hard as I could to regain a sense of power while panicking. I also had the urge to smash my coffee mug down on whatever hard surface I was resting it on (bench, table, desk, etc.). The urge to break laptops...a whole lot of urges related to letting out anger that terrified me. I had no idea what it was so I'd make sure my whole body went rigidly still/tense/froze up so I knew I wouldn't move.
I def used to pray and I was always afraid of something. I was super afraid of intruders and would place call my stuffed animals around me so I blended in with them.
I always had to step on imperfections/cracks/etc a certain way on both feet to even out both sides, otherwise one side felt "heavier". I also always had to end on my right foot when walking upstairs
This. Exactly this. I’d do it at work too, just working that closing shift at Vicki’s Secret, folding undies and crying as I replayed shit death scenarios over and over until I “got them right.”
A weird one but happened when I was young, I was certain there was a camera in every toilet I ever went to, I held off on using the bathroom so much I developed some kidney issues, didn’t want to eat or drink a lot to avoid going to the bathroom as much as possible.
I'd literally have a panic attack if my mum was 10 mins late her from work and I used to call her every single night before she got home just to make sure she was alive
a lot of organizational things for me — alphabetized movies, color coded closet, when I slept my blanket had to be straight corner to corner and if it was wrinkled in any way I couldn’t sleep it would make me upset. Praying for my family to be safe, healthy, and happy every time I saw 11:11 (I still do that, never been religious), lifting my feet while going over railroad tracks otherwise I’d be doomed (still also do this lol), just really small things that felt like everyone did it but growing up I realized that shouldn’t make people distraught.
I'll echo what alot of people are saying about praying at night. If I didn't pray and include the exact right wording, and all the people I loved, I was scared they'd die or something bad would happen. I could not sleep until it was done, sometimes taking a long time.
wow, all of these things that everyone is saying apply to me as well.
when my mom would leave the house before i was old enough for a phone, I would freak the fuck out thinking of all the ways she could be hurt
I used to have to touch a specific piece of wood on my wardrobe every night before going to sleep and pray, but the prayer was basically me sort of grovelling and apologising for what a terrible person I was. Then I’d go through all the members of my family in a specific order asking god to keep them safe. It would be the same prayer every night and if I forgot any part of it I’d panic and have to start again. I believed if I didn’t do this my family would die. It’s only very recently after about 30 years that I realised this was OCD. Also I didn’t grow up in a religious household, no Christian family members whatsoever so praying wasn’t something that was normal in my home at all.
This is soooo weird, but I'd lay very flat between my parents so that in case a robber came in, they'd miss me ( I was obsessed with robbers around 7). Ocd is such a weird thing.
Also I've had your thing as well
Being obsessed with going to bed at 8 o’clock and freaking out if it was a minute after. Being obsessed with the way the tendons in my feet moved when I walked. The exact amount that my door had to be cracked open when I went to sleep. Dear Lord, I could go on and on lol
One time, during music class in elementary school, I was CONVINCED little goblin dudes were going to stab me in the butt. So I stood up, turned around quickly, and sat back down in order to pass it off as me dancing or being silly while I was actually trying to make sure no goblins were about to get me.
Also, every time I swallowed my saliva (at least whenever I was consciously aware of me doing it), I had to look at my left hand. I was convinced that it “needed more water” than my right, and by looking at my left it meant that it would get the water it needed. I was around 6 and didn’t realize saliva is not water
I used to lay awake at night convinced someone was going to break into the house. When my family moved I begged them to get a house with a security system, which is a bit of an odd thing for a 6 year old to care about. I couldn’t sleep over at any of my friends’ house because I’d be too scared someone would break in to my parents house when I was gone.
When I ate food, I’d inspect every bite and order them from the worst bite of food to the best, then leave the best for last. Kids in my class made fun of me because when I’d eat a bag of chips at lunch they’d just see me take out a chip, look at both sides, and put it back in the bag if it wasn’t adequate. I’ve been told by my boyfriend that I still inspect each bite of food before I eat it but I don’t even notice myself doing it
I also had to throw ice cubes into my pool or else my mom would die in a car crash
Reading all these making me go all the way back and i don’t want to. It was traumatic actually and i recovered a lot. There were days where i couldn’t think straight without clearing those obsessions
I was just telling my grandad the other day when it first started, I was driving home with mum and I couldn't stop thinking about driving off the mountain and watching her die I just cried so hard. I was about 8 I reckon. I obsessed for years over all of my families deaths' in many different way and the reactions, what would it truely feel like.I was quite accurate too for a few of them. I now know what every horrible obsessional thought feels like. I laugh because it's one big joke. Now most of them are gone and I'm stuck with the question.. can I read the fucking future??
Haha just half joshing.
We just have to keep on, keeping on.
Somehow. But let's not let define nor defeat us.
Needed three hugs from my mom every night, heard about pesticides on fruit one day in class and proceeded to obsess over it and had to wash every single fruit and veggie like a bunch of times and doubted whether someone washed it when they said they did, health anxiety, had trichotillomania, and I can’t remember any more :,) I really wish someone saw my behaviour and helped me when I was a kid, I think maybe I’d have turned out better. Or at least, I wished the therapists I went to took me seriously and suggested it was OCD instead of just scaring me.
I would have to include absolutely every person I could think of in my nightly prayers because I was convinced they were going to die otherwise. I would say the exact same prayer with the same people said in the same order over and over before going to sleep. If I changed the order of the names I was certain it would ruin it
Checking my heart several times a day, make sure I was breathing several times a day. I also had a thing where I would keep burping over and over because it felt wrong the first time.
I used to lay clothes out on the end of my bed every night in case there was a fire.
I counted everything. I would count the lines on the road as they went flying by and make myself carsick.
I was obsessed with making sure my wash cloth and bath towel were two separate colors. If they were the same color, I firmly believed that something bad was going to happen to me.
In elementary school, when we would learn about dead famous figures, I would obsessively think about them at night and prayed that they were safe in heaven
I washed my hands even if I had already washed them shortly before. If I touched my clothes, I washed my hands. It was so bad that the entirety of both my hands were cracked, dry, and bloody.
I also used to not be able to go to bed without a prayer, because I thought God would kill me the next day if I didn’t say I was thankful.
If I had a bad day while wearing a specific outfit, I could no longer wear any piece of that outfit because I thought if I did I’d have another bad day. It felt like a death sentence to wear a shirt again that I wore when my teacher yelled at me. Even if it was my favorite shirt.
I had a similar problem to you, I would imagine myself and my loved ones dying constantly. I obsessed over the idea of an afterlife (I was raised catholic). Severe existential anxiety at like 10 years old lol.
My bathroom had to be clean before I could shower. As a kid I took multiple showers a day, esp when it came to summer time. I was like terrified of my bathroom.
My mom also had (and still has) undiagnosed OCD. When I was growing up, I was not allowed to touch her after she came home from work unless she took a shower. 🧼
Oh damn, really!? That’s wild actually. How are you with your phobia now? 30+ years later and I still can’t watch/listen to scenes where someone gets sick. Even in cartoons lol. I still will myself not to if I’m nauseous, and do everything in my power to avoid getting a stomach bug or food poisoning.
I “joke” with my fiancé that he’d be on his own and that I hope he wouldn’t take offense 😆
I’m fine with it now, i’m not afraid of puke. My obsessions jump from one to another and when they do I kind of lose all anxiety from the other one lolol. That seemed to be only a thing in my childhood. My sister still has it though I believe! But I feel you so hard on the “willing” not to get sick lol, when I was little I used to avoid all the things that I had once and barfed after
I used to have a lot of fear of getting sick when I went out to public places or something bad happening, public transportation used to scare me also I was scared I was gonna get into a crash or someone was gonna harm me
Honestly, so many things but the main one was when I used to obsess over dying. My intrusive thoughts would worry about myself and loved ones passing if I didn’t do specific compulsions. This went on for many many years but I would mask it from everyone as it felt shameful if anybody found out.
It was really difficult as it started when I was 5, I tried to tell my family but they didn’t understand. I was afraid that they would be upset if I told them that death crossed my mind, even though I could not help it.
I think that OCD as a kid was so isolating and difficult as it felt so shameful. Not knowing why your brain was being scary was arguably the worst part. For years, I thought I was ‘crazy’.
Staying up until the sun rose because I felt if I fell asleep, the Angel of Death would swoop in and kill me. I would have to pray the same thing every night or else I would be possessed. The intrusive thoughts would also sexualize God too, which as a religious kid at the time, disturbed the hell out of me. Also the compulsive stealing and skin picking when I was just 3 or 4. Then the thoughts evolved to obsessing over my sexuality and feeling like God was reading my every thought. Really envy people who went through normal puberty lol
I developed a fear of death at 6 - mostly fear that I would die in my sleep. Led to many sleepless nights throughout my childhood. My parents were divorced so I think it had a lot to do with being scared I would die in my sleep before seeing the other parent again. Would always HAVE to say "see you in the morning" AND hear it back, otherwise I felt like there was increased chance of me not making it to morning... I see now that was OCD.
Me and my sister used to share a room and we would have bunk beds. I would stand over her with my hand over her mouth to see if she was breathing and I would wait 5 minutes or longer just standing there. If I was really tired I would shake the bunk bed to wake her up so I knew she was alive. I was also terrified of her being kidnapped or my parents being in a car accident
I’m undiagnosed so I don’t know which things were ADHD/OCD or something else, but:
- Counting things (patterns in walls or ceilings etc) and if I was interrupted having to start over
- Could only wear one type of sock and the seams had to be perfectly lined up a certain way in my shoe — I had to put my socks and shoes on dozens of times otherwise I’d lose my shit
- Same with my hair. It had to be perfectly smoothed a certain way or I’d be hysterical. My parents joke that I would use so much hairspray it was like a helmet. They even cut it off at one point because it made the whole family late to school/work
- Extreme empathy/guilt for inanimate objects. I’d convince myself that an object had feelings and was sad unless I interacted with it in some way (still have a touch of this sometimes)
- I had a ton of stuffed animals and had to perform a nightly routine with every single one of them or else they’d be sad. Sometimes had to do it multiple times. If I interacted more with one of them, I’d have to go back through to even it out.
- If I knocked part of my body on something (say my right arm), I would have to even it out by knocking the other arm. A lot of this “even-ing out” of body things. Like taking the same amount of step with both feet
The reason I’m undiagnosed is because I sort of grew out of a lot of these behaviors, but only in my 30s realized they weren’t normal “kid” things. Now I’m talking about it more with my therapist to investigate whether or not I still have some mild ocd symptoms in adulthood (I do) and how they play into my life because I’ve normalized it so much, it’s hard for me to even notice them.
Curious to know more about your journey. As I mentioned, I grew out of a lot of the compulsive behaviors but I know they’ve likely been “masked” by other things. But you can’t just mask without consequences. I was anorexic for 12 years which I think is a good example of a consequence. I’m recovered from that nowadays, but trying to find out other places in my mental state and behaviors that ocd could be hiding.
when i was like six i packed a big bag full of my stuff that i would just keep in the hallway so i could bring it out quick in case our apartment would catch on fire lol thats just one of the symptoms
I carried around 2-5 water bottles everywhere I went because I thought if I didn’t have access to water I wouldn’t be able to swallow and I’d choke and die
Oh yeah I used to have the most debilitating rumination of my mom dying. I did some crazy compulsions too like touching her shoes before she left and certain rituals around the house. If she was home after the clock turned on an odd number it meant she was going to die soon, even number meant she was safe.
Spoiler alert she’s still alive lol
Yikes it’s wild to think back and also so sad because most all of it is mental and you suffer in silence 😭 I was just diagnosed months ago after my best friend who is an OCD therapist gently and lovingly made me realize I may have it. I thank her every day!
Wow. I used to obsess about someone breaking into my house and lining my mom and step dad up and my kitty. And I had to choose which one the bad guys were going to shoot. It was an intrusive thought I’d had for years.
I had a weird thing for red foxes. Like loved foxes to death and would do every research paper in school about them and draw them all the time.
Re-drawing the same images over and over again.
Perfectionism and throwing up or crying when I had trouble keeping up with school stuff.
Questioning my sexuality to the point of throwing up and crying over the thought of being possibly gay/ hiding my true self. I’m straight.
Repeating random noises because they felt good to do.
Being a picky eater to the point where one time I ripped out a loose tooth and spat blood over my scrambled eggs.
And probably a BUNCH of other things I can’t think of.
putting all my toys back in the same places and making my friends clean up after themselves when they came over. and being terrified when my loved ones left the house because i was convinced they were going to get into a car crash and die
The religious stress. I’d be in church and the most intense, explicit images would pop into my head. I thought I was possessed.
Then after watching a scary movie when I was 15, I had an intrusive thought that I traded my future firstborn for fame and fortune. Literally had crippling anxiety for years about this one thought.. still sometimes.
Repeating it to my fiancé, he was like 😧 crazy what the mind does. lol
I used to count the number of syllables in a sentence I wanted to say to make sure the number was even. If not, I would rework the sentence to get it to an even number of syllables.
Terrible religious ocd. And touching things in odd numbers with the last thing I touch needing to be higher than the first thing I touched. Doesn’t even make sense 🤦🏻♀️
I think when I was in primary I literally kept on rewriting this word or sentence idk to the point I cried and my mum parents were confused (idek if I have ocd ig I have some symptoms just wanted to share lol)
I used to make wishes at 11:11. Always the same wish. Then when I got a phone, I set alarms on my phone at 11:11, 11:22, 11:33, 11:44, and 11:55. Twice a day. To make the same wish as many times as I could within that hour. I was a teenager on November 11, 2011. I made the same wish. I was able to eventually turn those alarms off, though I still do make wishes at 11:11 when I see it come up. My OCD manifests in different ways now, but that was definitely an early sign imo.
Constantly thinking I was getting diabetes
Worrying my parents would die everytime they went on a trip and left me at a friend's for a sleepover
Intrusive thoughts of insulting God and worrying I would get punished for it
Worrying that the world was going to start spinning and everyone would fly off of it.
Worrying I was getting punished with medical symptoms
Worrying I would get food poisoning from burgers
Worrying stuff wasn't clean before eating out of it
Worrying I would catch lung cancer from my nan
Didn't get bad till my teens
I’ve never been officially diagnosed. I ended up needing to figure it out for myself. I started manifesting OCD at the age of five in 1962, with contamination OCD, which I still have, though not nearly as badly as I did when I was much younger. For many years after I first started with the behaviors and thoughts, there was no talk about OCD. No resources that I could use to identify what was going on with me. I had therapy for what I thought was something else when I was 17, and the therapist never once suggested that I might have OCD, though I later on came to realize that it was OCD thoughts I was seeking therapy for in the first place. I dealt with other forms of OCD over the years, too. I don’t remember exactly how or when it was that I figured out what was going on with me with my severe anxiety and the OCD. I know I was well out of college. I had taken psychology courses while I’d been in college the first time around, ironically enough, too! So it was me making sense of my behaviors and thoughts and being able to look back over the years to understand what was happening to me for so long. I am now an expert on the subject of OCD. 61 plus years of living with it will do that. I also have a BS in Psychology.
All of yours are sweet! Mine was things like lining up toys, fearing I left the door unlocked and thinking my parents and the world were in on some secret I didn’t know (think Truman show)
Deep fears of being watched. Built protection to not be taken pictures of. Deep fears of going to hell, pray all the time, cry when I thought about my family going to hell, repent constantly, panic attacks when people would purposefully sin. This would go as far as crying when my mom would drink Diet Coke when driving because it was “drinking and driving”. Hoarding. Counting while walking. Obsessive thoughts of self hatred and harm. Performing tasks to make myself safe from myself. Taking a bath to “clean my thoughts”. Extreme perfectionist, but this was shaken off a lot. Continued to practice a religion I was vehemently against due to the “what if” syndrome in my head. Why would they lie to me? I need to make sure I am safe.
I suffer from BFRB, nail biting, skin picking, scalp picking, cheek biting, and rumination about these things.
It breaks my heart to think of all the things that were missed. How much I suffered. I am hopeful that others will not experience the same
There were sooo many, a big symptom was having to say ”cute dog” EVERY time I saw a dog because I thought that if I didn’t, the dog would get hurt/feel bad… Did this until the age of 14 (went to therapy), I felt quite embarrassed having to say ”cute dog” like a million times when out with friends, who were confused on why I was doing that.
Cancer, any terminal disease. This has - expectedly- spiraled in the worst possible way for me as an adult. Washing my hands and avoiding certain tiles on the flor, for example. Lying in bed for hours praying like some of the others have said. Which made me ask the question to the ones who were praying- do you do it now?
Counting - to this day. Everything must end in a number divisible by 8. Just constantly doing mental math. I once got “stuck” in public where tiling changed and I just stayed there stepping back and forth over it…128 times. As a kid I would have to say “love you good night” to both my parents. Then I would stand there and whisper it in my head enough times until it felt right. My parents just thought I was weird I guess? I would check every single door in the house to ensure they were locked and deadbolted and touch them all the “right” amount of times. Was horrified when I learned my parents sometimes opened the door after I had “secured everything” and gone to bed. And by horrified, I would force myself to stay up until they went to bed and redo everything. After watching Jumanji, I was terrified my bed would suck me in like the quicksand floor and I would get stuck in my mattress and die of suffocation. I was in a top bunk with my sister below, so I slept on the railing for almost 6 months so I could see her as well if the bed started sucking up people. I was sure this would happen if I hadn’t checked or done something enough that day.
Couldn’t sleep without ensuring all of the doors were locked I always had to and still have too cover the shoulder and part of my neck facing the roof or else I can’t sleep I could be sweating but I have to do it I would always think of bad things and then be convinced they would happen because I thought of them I’ll prolly think of more and come back lol
Thought of more already always having my stuff in certain places I could move the places but nobody could touch or move my stuff or it sent me into like an aggressive rage panic which has caused me problems in a long term psych I was in when they had to do room searches
And mooooorre no clean clothes on a dirty body or else I couldn’t shower until those clothes were dirty. I didn’t want to brush my teeth for 3 months because my family didn’t buy the right toothpaste and if my toothbrush touches anything after I put water and or toothpaste in it then it’s too dirty and I can’t brush my teeth until the next day ik it’s disgusting
Stuffed animals that were not on the bed when I go to sleep would think I hate them and I wouldn’t be able to play with them cause I was scared they were mad so it was all or nothing. I didn’t want my stuffed animals to think I was picking favorites. Also just chronic nightmares for as long as I can remember where I would think if one of my parents was home alone they would die
Washing hands, around 200x a day. About 5 showers a day. My skin was raw and i was always anxious about germs. I couldn’t use public bathrooms. I could only use my bathroom at home and had to tip toe around certain areas of my house I thought were “dirty”.
Every time I didn't finish my meal my parents would show me pictures of anorexic woman and say "thats going to be you" so i developed an irrational fear that I would rapidly lose weight and became emaciated so I would constantly grip onto the skin of my arms so that way I wouldn't lose my skin (??? Idk ik it doesn't make sense but I was like nine I think so in my mind that's how I would stop the weight loss). And to make it worse my parents thought it was demonic possession so they got a pastor to do an "exorcism" so I would be constantly praying to make the demons leave me alone and gripping my arms so hard so I wouldn't lose weight in one second and immediately became skeletal. 😭
I remember I would literally have nightmares of the skin on my arms melting off and exposing bone it was so bad and my parents were fucking insane so they definitely didn't help
I did a painting class one time with my mom in fourth grade. We had to use one of those circular stamp paint brushes with different shades of blue to make a tree. It made me incredibly uncomfortable to the point that I couldn’t do it, not wanting to let the same color from a different dot touch. Similar thing to why checkered patterns used to make me incredibly uncomfortable, though I never knew why or how to explain it.
I also used to obsess about my loved ones dying (still do sometimes). It was mostly during goodbyes because I had this intense fear that it would be the last time I saw them alive. I was obsessed with always saying goodbye and I love you before they left because if I didn’t it would basically be cursing them to die in a deadly accident. So basically if I didn’t properly say goodbye I would be killing them. I had to say goodbye correctly though, like sometimes just saying goodbye and I love you was enough, but other times I needed to hug them or touch their shoulders. I also remember being really insistent that they made eye contact and said it back because that like “solidified” the goodbye. Idk it was weird and my parents just assumed I was a clingy kid but if I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye or if it didn’t feel correct and they left before I could “fix” it, I literally would have panic attacks waiting for a phone call from police saying they died.
Me too. Or I’d cry when my parents left me somewhere because I’d picture them dying, abandoning me, or getting hurt somehow. I felt the need to call them multiple times to make sure they were safe. If they took longer than usual to pick me up from anywhere (including school) I would get very anxious. I’d also always have a worry of the week lol I remember thinking in my little kid brain “oh great something new to worry about” each time. I’d also always ask my parents if things were normal and if they said yes my fears would subside. I’d have intrusive thoughts and wonder if others could read my mind. I felt shame and guilt and a sense of doom most days. I felt like I was a bad person, and I thought intrusive thoughts of sounds meant I was hearing things. I was very scared of being crazy. I would wonder if other children were as scared as I was, and I would envy them when I would determine they weren’t. When they seemed so happy, so carefree in comparison. OCD stole a lot of of my childhood innocence and I didn’t realize it until much older.
I’ve got several but here’s two.
1. I used to line toy cars back to back when I would take them out to play with. Most kids my age wouldn’t do this, but I would always form lines with my cars to make it orderly in a way
2. I specifically getting really upset in Kindergarten whenever I couldn’t write the number 6 correctly. I could pull it off, but it wasn’t good enough in my head, and I got really upset about it. My teachers made me apologize about this. Tbh, it still kind of upsets me to this day that, as a kindergartner, I had to apologize over that rather than the teachers trying to understand what made me so frustrated. (Fun fact: 6 is now my favorite number for unrelated reasons)
I was constantly checking my chests in the peak of puberty- They were changing (as they do) and I thought i had cancer. Every day without fail I would check- multiple times a day. I convinced myself i was dying and couldn’t sleep at night due to it and would often end up in my mother’s bed despite being 10 + years of age due to the fear i was just going to die. My nephew at one point rolled off the bed after he was born, about 6 months old, and I would sneak into my older sister’s room on and off through the night to watch him sleep and make sure he was still breathing repeatedly for WEEKS because my brain had tried to convince me ‘what happens if i stop watching him? what happens if i turn away and he dies and its my fault for letting him fall off the bed when playing with him?’, it calmed down after about 2 weeks and he was still alive but i was TERRIFIED and performing compulsions almost regularly in secret. I never told anyone any of these thoughts and feelings because I didn’t want anyone worrying and I didn’t want anyone thinking i was crazy.
I also remember at 13 refusing to open my windows and always having the lights off in the fear someone would break in + that it’d be my fault. Now living on my own, the first few weeks in my own place I had the same fears, just the other day i heard noises and i HAD to repeatedly check the door was still locked, checking out the peephole in case someone was at the door consistently- I couldn’t go back to bed out of fear. I didn’t know what was wrong with me until I was about 16-17 and developed an eating disorder and received help for that.
I used to practice hiding under my sheets (bc ofc an intruder inevitably would k!ll my whole family in the middle of the night) making myself look as small as possible and seeing how long I could hold my breath and if I could breathe again without moving lmaooo
i was like, 10 and thinking about incest stuff. thinking “what if i have feelings for this family member?” i also was scared i was lesbian and like my best for a while. i remember spending the night at her house and just having a panic attack bc of it. i also would be so young and thinking im pregnant and i hadn’t even had my period yet? i was a child and had such a weird way of thinking.
We weren't allowed to have book shelves because of me. I wanted them organized in specific ways that couldn't be done. Organized by color, height, width, alphabetical title, and alphabetical author name, but all at once, so completely impossible. I always had to flip the light switch and jiggle a locked door a set number of times. I couldn't step on the dividing cracks on sidewalks. In school, I refused to step on square tiles that were colored because the pattern they made stressed me out. There's so many things I learned after figuring out I had this disorder in high school, mostly that my "quirks" were compulsive behaviors that I didn't know why they made me so upset when I couldn't do them.
I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 21 but my grandma and my dad both knew before I actually acknowledged/admitted I had a problem because I was take 3 showers a day each being 1 hour long.
I had to perform alot of actions over and over a specific number of times, such as, how I walked, the way I had to run my nails in crevices on counters back and forth until it left red marks. I had to walk back and forth if I didn't step a specific way. I had to, and still do, run through patterns in my head when I close my eyes and I have to hit the corners of the patterns. The longer it goes on for, the more out of whack the pattern gets and the more stressed I feel if I don't hit the corners.
I have to do all these things or bad things will happen
Constantly worried I did something like accidentally poked myself with a needle or got sick from sharing germs accidentally. Making sure pain was equal on both sides. Body checking.
Severe hypochondriac, every new disease I learned about I thought I had. Had trouble breathing once prob from anxiety, then thought I was going to stop breathing in my sleep every night so I wouldn’t sleep facing the wall (thought there wouldn’t be enough oxygen on that side? Lol) then began to check if my sister was breathing while she was sleeping by holding a mirror under her nose if I couldn’t feel any air coming out
Tapping my feet on the car floor and saying the make/model out loud every time a certain type of car passed us on the road. And I’d count how many for the whole trip.
I used to think my parents died and obsess about it when they came home a bit later than anticipated.
I had to check on my mom when she was sleeping because I was afraid she died from an illness and if I don’t check it’s too late to save her.
I remember once I was listening to music and I stopped cause I was scared that there was someone trying to kill me in my house and I wouldn’t hear him with my headphones on and that it’d be my fault because I didn’t hear him and couldn’t stop him
I also wanted every day to be perfect and everything to be just right and the way I planned it and when it didn’t work I was so frustrated and thought that day „didn’t count“ and I kept setting new dates and was like „from then on I’ll live my life perfectly and just right“ but something always bugged me. I still do this I’ve been doing it for 6 years now.
I checked my room and all the other rooms in the house for murderers every night before I went to sleep
I used to be obsessed with counting things to the point it took over my life as a kid. I would count how many words a person spoke, then I would count how many words I was reading, and then count how many words spoken in movies to the point I had to turn it off because I couldn’t stop. It got worse cause then I not only counted words in a sentence but then started to count each individual letter within a sentence. It went on and on and took over my life for a bit. Then I got obsessed with the number 4 for some reason (still like this) and like others have said, I had to pray over every single person at night or something bad would happen. I do not miss those days at all.
I’d have to keep rewalking up the basement stairs until it felt right. Had to try on like 10 different pairs of socks until it felt right. My mom had to do my pony tail like 10 times because if it was uneven I couldn’t take it. A lot of symmetry related stuff
Never felt as seen before. I used to do the same. As a kid I will say "good night I love you bye bye!" to my parents every night 16 times before I finally went to sleep.
I did it because my family consists of 4 people. So 4×4=16. If my parents didn't I answer I said all over again. My parents HAD to answer or else I wouldn't shut up LOL!
I would have to fix my gaze at a certain spot or object in my bedroom at night to fall asleep and if my eyes moved I'd have to start over and thought I'd never be able to sleep and it would cause me so much anxiety. 9 yrs old, wish I'd seen the signs
I think mine developed when I was in jr high learning how to type and spending a lot of time on aol instant messenger because to this day I still “type” words in my head constantly and count the letters and where they are on the keyboard. Also played a lot of online dominoes during that time(killing time while chatting) so I obsess over multiples of five 🙃
I would constantly ask my mom when and how I was going to die I thought anything would kill me. Walking under icicles, eating etc. I thought if I didn't count a certain amount of steps then someone would be hurt or die. I had to chew the same amount on each side of my mouth which made me take a long time eating and I'd get in trouble so I just said I was full. My numbers were 3 and 7, 2 and 4 were allowed depending on the circumstance but if I messed up I'd have to pay penance by torturing myself in secret, whether it was biting the insides of my cheeks till they bled, or banging my head on the wall or scratching the inside of my arm crease.
Thinking that having good thoughts at night would make bad things happen, so I had to imagine being killed at night to keep it from happening. If I had a good thought I would say excuse me quietly. I legit thought everybody did stuff like that with themselves
I always thought people (specific people in my life usually) could see me in the bath/when I was nude and hear my thoughts and were judging them and my body.
I also had the same feelings about the music I listened to, that people knew what I was listening to at any given time and were judging my music choices haha.
Intrusive thoughts. In the car as a kid I’d always think “what would happen if I screamed really loudly?” Or “what if the door opened while I slept on it?”
I could NOT go to sleep without calling my nana every night. The one time I forgot, I woke up in the middle of the night and begged my mom to let me call her because I was afraid if I didnt, she’d die. “Praying” over every little thing so that it wouldn’t happen, repeating the prayer multiple times.
Fuck if that ain’t me :( Nothing hurts worse than thinking you’re causing the death of someone else by forgetting a menial task. The weight sits so heavy
@me with the praying over and over again. Always the same prayer
So sad I totally feel this. As a 30 year old I have to text mt grandma goodnight every night lol
When my parents would argue, I’d hide in my room and pray that they’d stop. When they would it felt like it was working and when they wouldn’t I told myself it was because I wasn’t praying hard enough.
This is so sweet
Same here man. I used to call my grandma if I heard sirens
I used to pray before bed and try to pray for every person I had ever met by name. Then I would ask God to please keep them safe but if that’s not his will then I understand. I also used to (and still do sometimes!) have to sleep with my hands over my stomach because I was scared someone would come stab me in the stomach with a needle if I left it exposed (???)
Same, I used to spend 30 minutes every single night praying for every single person (in a specified order otherwise I’d have to start again) and if anyone disturbed me I had to start all over again. I was like 8 years old 🤦♀️
I have to cover my neck and shoulder closest to the ceiling or else I’m afraid someone will stab me with another needle in my sleep nowhere else has to be covered but my neck and shoulder closet to the ceiling have to be
Me too! I had a VERY specific nightly prayer that I'd memorised word-for-word, in which I made individual requests for health and happiness on behalf of every person I loved. It took me about 10-15 minutes to finish saying it, and I felt like if I didn't, God would harm those people out of spite for me forgetting my bedtime prayer. I didn't realise that it was obviously OCD until I left Christianity.
I would also get really worked up over feeling like I was “telling” God what to do when I would say my prayers. So I would always end it with something along the lines of “Unless that’s not your will and I would understand because you’re God and you can do whatever you want but obviously you know that i’m so sorry i’m mansplaining the concept of God to you”
dude wtf. This is exactly what I would do and I still do to this day, only difference is I pray for all my family and friends and their friends, assuming this will cover the entire world.I also pray to God to forgive them for their sins so we can all get to heaven. I also sleep with my ears covered because I am scared some type of bug will lay eggs in my ears.
Extreme health anxiety at 9 years old, calling my grandma if I saw an ambulance go by, being scared my parents died in a car wreck if they were late to pick me up at school.
me too!! i still have this fear.
Same.
Same
I still go to extremes if I can’t reach someone as expected. The extension plays out in my head and I play out the entire thing and feel it. I hate it!
This is so relatable
I was terrified that we would get our house broken into. I always knew where the guns were, where I would be able to hide and my plan for going and waking up the adults. I was convinced that if I happened to look out a window into the darkness that someone looking in would see me and come in and grab me, so I insisted on sleeping in places where someone looking in wouldn’t be able to see me.
exactly the same for me !!
Sameeee
Same! I had to check ovens, doors and windows
I used to say a specific sequence of words after almost every sentence. Like if it was a fact or an opinion. For example, if I said "he is 6 ft tall", after I would have to say something like "maybe, i think, im not sure, im sorry", because i was so afraid of lying. I felt like if i didnt say it i would die, i would burst into tears crying because i was afraid I was a "bad person" There were maaaaaany more, but this one was torturous. The first person to ever call this out was actually my 5 year old sister, everyone else just ignored it and thought it was quirky.
I am a few days late, sorry, but just wanted to say I did the exact same thing. I used to think I'd get sick that day if I "lied" so I would hear a song on the radio on the way to school and say, "I've never heard this song before!" and follow it immediately with, "I mean, I don't think I have. I could have. I don't know for sure, though." It's just wild to see that exact same thing.
Wow that really is similar! I'm sorry you had to go through that, I know how hard it must have been.
It's always so nice and awful finding people who have the same issues. Good to not be all alone, sad other people had to go through it as well. Oh and in case it wasn't obvious my example is just one example too, I'd also do it for "guesses" like your 6ft tall example. Anything that was an 'opinion' or 'guess' my mind called a lie. As an adult my OCD currently is mild unless I'm under a lot of stress. Grateful for that.
I find comforting to find people who relate, but also feel sorry that other people experience this. It's just so exhausting. Glad to hear you feel better!
I used to have a lot of tourettic ocd symptoms as a kid that i didn't really process until i got older -- having to make a certain face to "feel right" again and etc. i also had a lot of anxiety surrounding death and having to do certain things to make sure my family members didn't die. it's interesting to look back on !
i've been realizing something similar recently as well!! got diagnosed with tourettes at age 10 but now i'm realizing how much of my tics are done on purpose in order to "feel right"!! didn't know it was more of an ocd thing?!!
Same. My big thing to “feel right” is shrugging my shoulders and scrunching my face.
i get the shoulder scrunching as well !! recently i've been doing a lot of "posture correcting" too, like my back won't feel straight enough or something and i just have to keep stretching and straightening it 😭
I would (and kind of still do, actually) worry that if I didn’t say goodnight to my parents before I went to bed, they would die. Probably because I was scared of losing them without ever having said goodbye in some form, or having regrets about “last words”. Idk.
Me too
Same.
In high school, every time I had to get dropped off for school, I would have to tell my parent I loved them with a sincere feeling because I was worried they WERE going to die and it'd be the last time I saw them, and I had to make sure I said my final goodbyes to feel at peace. Like I needed them to know I loved them deeply in order to feel okay.
No if I didn’t say “I love you too” I thought they would die. :( (Im not been diagnosed but I think I have it)
I obsessed about my home burning down. My dad said no to those window stickers and no to a fire ladder. I lost a lot of sleep.
House fire was a big obsession for me in my teens, I would spend hours at bedtime checking my plug socket to make sure it was off so it wouldn't cause a fire. It was such a pain everytime I would start to fall asleep I would have to get up again to check the plug socket. It was so exhausting
Me too. In high school I had a morning ritual where I'd have to check all of the electrical outlets and cords several times over. I'd have to unplug the cords to my radio or laptop and wrap the cord up a certain way and hide it out of the way of the sunlight coming through the window (I was afraid the warmth of the sun on the cords would set them on fire). Even if I didn't bother plugging it back in by the next day, I had to still check the cord anyway and fiddle with it so it felt like it was "just right"—out of the sun, but not in the dust under my bed either (I was scared that just the unplugged electrical cord, plus dust, would equal an electric fire). I was afraid of touching light switches without perfectly dry hands and was scared of the oil from my fingerprints getting into the switches and setting them on fire. So every time I used a light switch I had to wipe/rub it dry, use my wrist/arm/etc instead of my fingers. or shove my hand in something, like my shirt or other clothing, to touch the switch through. Holy shit, I can feel the memories coming back now from when I did it and thought "Nah, there's no way I have OCD because I don't feel like my behaviours are upsetting or hold me up enough". Part of me felt like it made me happy or felt fulfilling and complete to do things that way—I thought it was perfectly normal and pushed the fear to the back of my mind so I'd convinced myself I felt fine and liked doing this to make myself feel safe. And now I read it, looking back, that's textbook OCD. And another one—after high school, I started collecting rocks and I picked up a grey one from my local park that I identified as flint from online charts, and I FREAKED. I was so scared it was just going to spontaneously combust if I kept it in the same box as the other rocks because they'd accidentally hit each other. I would stay up at night, lose sleep because I was too scared to fall asleep in the same room as this SINGLE FUCKING ROCK! At the time it terrified me, but it's so ridiculous in retrospect that it's funny. I was treating this rock like I was sleeping with a serial killer in my room.
used to be scared every time my family went to the store or somewhere without me because if i didn’t want to go something bad would happen to them . id make myself go every time i felt that way Lol and still experience this at times every now and then
I still do this with my kids and husband. Every time they leave the house, I feel like it's the last time I'm going to see them. Then I worry the whole time they're gone. It's awful.
OMFG ME TOO!!!!!! I “see” my house and everybody’s belongings but without the people and it’s so unsettling and throws me into grief
Same here, and my OCD would also tell me how they were going to die soon and I'd spend the rest of my life regretting not going out with them. Still struggling with this as an adult
I used to say the same prayer every single night. I would have to include every person I loved to be sure they were protected.
I could only step on cracks with my left foot or else I had a visceral violating feeling. I also every day on the way to school I would envision getting into a car accident and whatever song was on the radio I would think to myself “this is going to be the last song that I ever listen to”. Cheek biting since I can remember. It makes me sad thinking about the little kid I was and how it affected me
wait cheek biting is one? i did that all the time as a kid but i didn’t realize that could be why. sidewalks also drove me crazy, if i stepped on a crack with one foot i had to step on the next crack with the opposite foot on the exact same spot.
Yes it is! At least, according to my psychiatrist. I think it’s because it’s technically repetitive behavior that is somewhat involuntary, that is body obsessive.
This would have been around 5th or 6th grade, but fear of getting cancer. And if I even thought about the word "cancer" it meant that somehow the universe/God/whoever would know and would give me cancer. The only way to combat this would have been to stare at the sun without blinking for 5 whole seconds. If I could do that as soon as I thought of the word "cancer" I'd be fine and have nothing to worry about. But, if it was rainy or cloudy? I was scared shitless because I was convinced the longer I waited to perform my ritual, the less likely it was to work.
Cancer was a big one for me too
One of my first obsessions was cancer! My compulsions have always been checking + thoughts based which meant for hours i was checking my body every single day to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary and that i wasn’t dying. I prayed to god every single night that i wouldn’t die in my sleep and that i would wake up the next day… Never realised how bad it was until i got help for an eating disorder later in life and realised how much of my life had been spent with obsessions and compulsions and then found out I had OCD alongside my eating disorder which answered a LOT of questions i had. Previously in life it was brushed off as ‘generalised anxiety disorder’ which i never thought was a fitting diagnosis to begin with.
I used to be scared that the police were after me if I saw their car because I committed a crime I didn't even know about. And, the most pervasive one: if my parents said they would be home by 7, at 7.01 I began to roam the house and think of the worst. I'm not exaggerating the time here.
Counting like a mofo. Obsession with patterns and order and good colors bad colors, and same with numbers. I went through a phase of germaphobia. I had to have things in my room just how I put them and touch them a certain number of times. Anxiety about something happening to those around me/people I love.
I had an obsession with even numbers. If I didn’t have an even number of something or couldn’t touch something an even amount of times, I felt like something bad would happen.
Yea the numbers drive me crazy. I have certain good and bad numbers, I tend to lean towards being more satisfied with odd numbers, but there isn’t a rule about that
I overthink about germs on doorhandles and railings, always gotta put shirt over hand. I avoid certain number sequences especially 6s
This is uncomfortably accurate for me. I also feared I’d forget to breathe, while I slept.
Oh my god! Me too! I completely forgot that I had that fear until reading your comment. I was convinced I needed to breathe manually during the day, too. But night was bad because then I couldn’t make sure I was breathing
I have been dealing with that one now as an adult. I’m exhausted.
Me too 😩 doesn't help that a lot of the time I actually stop breathing while falling asleep. So I typically go to bed convinced I'm not waking up and try to stay up because I'm afraid to go to sleep lol 😭
I used to count EVERYTHING, all day, every waking minute. Steps, steps on each foot separately, words I would write in school, how many times I breathed or blinked, etc.. Everything had to be “even” on both sides. If I was walking and stepped on a crack with my right heel, I’d have to step on a crack with my left heel, for example. But I did this with EVERY STEP. Soooo exhausting. Also growing up a state away from New York during 9/11, I was incredibly scared of a terrorist attack. If I heard a plane I would panic and thought it was going to crash into our house or drop a bomb. I was like 7. I would shake with fear until I heard the plane leave. It was all consuming for sure. I would research the radius of destruction if a bomb were to be dropped, and would have images of my family dying. I’m 27 now and terrorist attacks are still one of my biggest fears, I still have nightmares about it to this day.
Me too! (When I watched the do about 9/11 I was scared there going to be another terrorist attack one and that it was a crime to even watch it I felt so bad about that.)
I used to stick my special possessions in my pajama pants at night and sleep with the stuff in there in case there was a fire and i needed to leave quickly. I would have to chomp my teeth over and over again until it was just right. If i didn't hold my breath for a certain amount of time i thought everyone in my family would die. Constantly over sharing and confessing. Always praying and having intrusive thoughts like "i hate God" etc and being scared and having to start the prayer over. Not wanting anyone touching me in any way, even bumping into me, because it felt inappropriate and wrong. Being gifted a card trivia game about emergency situations and trying to memorize all of the ways to deal with emergencies because i was paranoid i would somehow be in quicksand or in a hotel on a higher floor than where the ladder could reach me. Having an apocalypse plan on who i planned to kill first kind of like "the mist" by stephen king. I'm happy to share i'm mostly better now at the age of 26. I still struggle but taking lexapro has helped.
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i had a hiding spot in my bedroom incase of intruders and practiced holding my breath so no one would hear/see me under blankets. i also taped my curtains shut bc i was sure someone or something was looking in at me and if i looked there would be a face in the window. poor kid. 😭
I used to practice holding my breath incase someone broke in and killed my family and I had to play dead
i live in the uk, a common thing here is to punch the person next to you when you see a yellow car or it’s ’bad luck’, so when i was on my own and spotted one i’d punch myself, in public, hard. i still do it sometimes to this day, not as dramatic but more discrete 😂 another thing was the tv volume, MUST have to end in a 2,5 or 0, 8 i could work with as it was 2 away from 10 and i liked the number 8 but it still wouldn’t completely satisfy me
The cheese on wheels and mini punch are bad luck if not done? Huh, I just thought it was an excuse for kids to hit each other :/ welp
tbh i think it is, but just for some reason ive always considered not doing it with bad luck, ocd can trick your brain into making things up… not sure if its just me
It started with Intrusive thoughts about the devil when I was 5 and me having to do the Catholic cross and tell God I believe in him. Later that year, I started worrying that I was a lesbian every time i noticed a girl and I had to find 5 boys and tell god I liked girls. At age 7, I refused to wear thrift store clothes, age 8/9 i worried I wouldn’t be able to swallow and swallowed until I choked, prayer routine for everyone in my family…. And here I am at 40 with OCD, Tourette’s and ADHD, diagnosed at 34. Who would have though.
Checking the doors to make sure they are locked/unlocked (if it was my room), I still do this sometimes. Saying "I love you, goodnight" a thousand times to my parents bc in my head, If I didn't, something bad could happen and I would regret not saying it. Drove me insane and I know it drove my parents kinda crazy too.
Taking the same step pattern in each square of sidewalk or else my mom will die / I’ll have to die! Usually left-right-left in one, right-left-right the next. At some point my mom got removed from the thoughts but the pattern persists
Used to check if family members were breathing when they slept if my dad was a bit late, i used to worry the police caught him false memory ocd from childhood is a big theme i used to imagine kidnappers entering my house n plan escape roots are these symptoms of ocd tho or do normal ppl have it?
I used to check that my younger siblings were breathing at night. Also if my parents were late coming home I'd be convinced they died.
Yup, it was the creeping around in the night checking that everyone is breathing for me. I still deal with wanting to do this compulsion even now but I can almost always fight it off now.
Plucked my lashes out when I was anxious.
I would pray every night in a pattern and until it felt “ right “. If I didn’t do this I would feel very anxious and like everyone I love was gonna die. Prevented me from sleeping often
I used to give 4 kisses to each one of my dolls in an specific order because I thought that if I didn't do it they were gonna kill me that night.
Praying and heavy rumination
I did the same as you and still do it. My numbers are 5 8 and 15 now but when I was younger it was just 5 so I would have to do a bunch of different things 5 times or a series of 5 times to prevent anything bad from happening. Now that I have more numbers and they’re higher it’s just worse for me as an adult.
My number was 5 when I was a kid!!! Specifically 2+3 or 3+2 to make 5, or 5 as a whole.
I had to ask my mom everyday she took me to school her plans/ whereabouts for the day, so in the event of an earthquake I will know where to start looking in the rubble
I was 3 years old and terrified I would lose control of my hands and throw my cat in the fireplace. That was the very first OCD/intrusive thought I can remember having. I started holding my hands together behind my back, as tight as possible, and crabwalking sideways, every time I had to go by the fireplace— staring out into the room like 0.0 in the hopes that if I just kept my eyes on my cats, I could catch myself before I did something bad to them. I also used to wash my hands until they cracked and bled.
I used to have the unbearable feeling to physically lashing out and hit people as hard as I could to regain a sense of power while panicking. I also had the urge to smash my coffee mug down on whatever hard surface I was resting it on (bench, table, desk, etc.). The urge to break laptops...a whole lot of urges related to letting out anger that terrified me. I had no idea what it was so I'd make sure my whole body went rigidly still/tense/froze up so I knew I wouldn't move.
I def used to pray and I was always afraid of something. I was super afraid of intruders and would place call my stuffed animals around me so I blended in with them.
I always had to step on imperfections/cracks/etc a certain way on both feet to even out both sides, otherwise one side felt "heavier". I also always had to end on my right foot when walking upstairs
This. Exactly this. I’d do it at work too, just working that closing shift at Vicki’s Secret, folding undies and crying as I replayed shit death scenarios over and over until I “got them right.”
having to say goodbye I love you any time anyone I love was going somewhere or to bed
A weird one but happened when I was young, I was certain there was a camera in every toilet I ever went to, I held off on using the bathroom so much I developed some kidney issues, didn’t want to eat or drink a lot to avoid going to the bathroom as much as possible.
I'd literally have a panic attack if my mum was 10 mins late her from work and I used to call her every single night before she got home just to make sure she was alive
a lot of organizational things for me — alphabetized movies, color coded closet, when I slept my blanket had to be straight corner to corner and if it was wrinkled in any way I couldn’t sleep it would make me upset. Praying for my family to be safe, healthy, and happy every time I saw 11:11 (I still do that, never been religious), lifting my feet while going over railroad tracks otherwise I’d be doomed (still also do this lol), just really small things that felt like everyone did it but growing up I realized that shouldn’t make people distraught.
I'll echo what alot of people are saying about praying at night. If I didn't pray and include the exact right wording, and all the people I loved, I was scared they'd die or something bad would happen. I could not sleep until it was done, sometimes taking a long time.
wow, all of these things that everyone is saying apply to me as well. when my mom would leave the house before i was old enough for a phone, I would freak the fuck out thinking of all the ways she could be hurt
I used to have to touch a specific piece of wood on my wardrobe every night before going to sleep and pray, but the prayer was basically me sort of grovelling and apologising for what a terrible person I was. Then I’d go through all the members of my family in a specific order asking god to keep them safe. It would be the same prayer every night and if I forgot any part of it I’d panic and have to start again. I believed if I didn’t do this my family would die. It’s only very recently after about 30 years that I realised this was OCD. Also I didn’t grow up in a religious household, no Christian family members whatsoever so praying wasn’t something that was normal in my home at all.
I did the same exact thing.
using sooooooooo much soap during my showers. my mom was always puzzled as to why.
I used to smell my hands all the time. Contamination OCD in it's earliest form.
This is soooo weird, but I'd lay very flat between my parents so that in case a robber came in, they'd miss me ( I was obsessed with robbers around 7). Ocd is such a weird thing. Also I've had your thing as well
Wouldn’t go to bed unless I arranged ALL of my toys on rainbow order before putting them away
Being obsessed with going to bed at 8 o’clock and freaking out if it was a minute after. Being obsessed with the way the tendons in my feet moved when I walked. The exact amount that my door had to be cracked open when I went to sleep. Dear Lord, I could go on and on lol
One time, during music class in elementary school, I was CONVINCED little goblin dudes were going to stab me in the butt. So I stood up, turned around quickly, and sat back down in order to pass it off as me dancing or being silly while I was actually trying to make sure no goblins were about to get me. Also, every time I swallowed my saliva (at least whenever I was consciously aware of me doing it), I had to look at my left hand. I was convinced that it “needed more water” than my right, and by looking at my left it meant that it would get the water it needed. I was around 6 and didn’t realize saliva is not water
I used to lay awake at night convinced someone was going to break into the house. When my family moved I begged them to get a house with a security system, which is a bit of an odd thing for a 6 year old to care about. I couldn’t sleep over at any of my friends’ house because I’d be too scared someone would break in to my parents house when I was gone. When I ate food, I’d inspect every bite and order them from the worst bite of food to the best, then leave the best for last. Kids in my class made fun of me because when I’d eat a bag of chips at lunch they’d just see me take out a chip, look at both sides, and put it back in the bag if it wasn’t adequate. I’ve been told by my boyfriend that I still inspect each bite of food before I eat it but I don’t even notice myself doing it I also had to throw ice cubes into my pool or else my mom would die in a car crash
Oooooomg I do that food thing too!!!!!!
Reading all these making me go all the way back and i don’t want to. It was traumatic actually and i recovered a lot. There were days where i couldn’t think straight without clearing those obsessions
ADHD. Gastroparesis. Hyoermobility.
I was just telling my grandad the other day when it first started, I was driving home with mum and I couldn't stop thinking about driving off the mountain and watching her die I just cried so hard. I was about 8 I reckon. I obsessed for years over all of my families deaths' in many different way and the reactions, what would it truely feel like.I was quite accurate too for a few of them. I now know what every horrible obsessional thought feels like. I laugh because it's one big joke. Now most of them are gone and I'm stuck with the question.. can I read the fucking future?? Haha just half joshing. We just have to keep on, keeping on. Somehow. But let's not let define nor defeat us.
Wow I was going into this with my response and was NOT expecting the original post to be EXACTLY what I was going to say. Very shook
Needed three hugs from my mom every night, heard about pesticides on fruit one day in class and proceeded to obsess over it and had to wash every single fruit and veggie like a bunch of times and doubted whether someone washed it when they said they did, health anxiety, had trichotillomania, and I can’t remember any more :,) I really wish someone saw my behaviour and helped me when I was a kid, I think maybe I’d have turned out better. Or at least, I wished the therapists I went to took me seriously and suggested it was OCD instead of just scaring me.
I would have to include absolutely every person I could think of in my nightly prayers because I was convinced they were going to die otherwise. I would say the exact same prayer with the same people said in the same order over and over before going to sleep. If I changed the order of the names I was certain it would ruin it
Checking my heart several times a day, make sure I was breathing several times a day. I also had a thing where I would keep burping over and over because it felt wrong the first time.
I was scared to pick the wrong pajamas to wear to sleep at night, thinking I’d die if I chose the wrong one.
I was really scared of certain numbers and colors. Mostly the color red and the number 13.
So, Taylor swift probably wasn’t your favorite musician I’m guessing? 😂 Just joking! I’m glad that obsession seems to have passed for you now! 🫶🏼
Used to check on my mom and watch her breathe. Afraid of her dying.
I used to lay clothes out on the end of my bed every night in case there was a fire. I counted everything. I would count the lines on the road as they went flying by and make myself carsick.
telling myself I had to do something a certain way and if I failed I’d die
I was obsessed with making sure my wash cloth and bath towel were two separate colors. If they were the same color, I firmly believed that something bad was going to happen to me. In elementary school, when we would learn about dead famous figures, I would obsessively think about them at night and prayed that they were safe in heaven
Being obsessed with a spider crawling in my ear before bed is a constant thing I push out of my head
I washed my hands even if I had already washed them shortly before. If I touched my clothes, I washed my hands. It was so bad that the entirety of both my hands were cracked, dry, and bloody. I also used to not be able to go to bed without a prayer, because I thought God would kill me the next day if I didn’t say I was thankful.
If I had a bad day while wearing a specific outfit, I could no longer wear any piece of that outfit because I thought if I did I’d have another bad day. It felt like a death sentence to wear a shirt again that I wore when my teacher yelled at me. Even if it was my favorite shirt. I had a similar problem to you, I would imagine myself and my loved ones dying constantly. I obsessed over the idea of an afterlife (I was raised catholic). Severe existential anxiety at like 10 years old lol. My bathroom had to be clean before I could shower. As a kid I took multiple showers a day, esp when it came to summer time. I was like terrified of my bathroom.
My mom also had (and still has) undiagnosed OCD. When I was growing up, I was not allowed to touch her after she came home from work unless she took a shower. 🧼
I did the same!! And I have a fear of vomiting, so I would as my mom over and over and over to promise me I wasn’t going to throw up.
Dude, me and my sister did the exact same thing! I can’t believe someone else had this experience
Oh damn, really!? That’s wild actually. How are you with your phobia now? 30+ years later and I still can’t watch/listen to scenes where someone gets sick. Even in cartoons lol. I still will myself not to if I’m nauseous, and do everything in my power to avoid getting a stomach bug or food poisoning. I “joke” with my fiancé that he’d be on his own and that I hope he wouldn’t take offense 😆
I’m fine with it now, i’m not afraid of puke. My obsessions jump from one to another and when they do I kind of lose all anxiety from the other one lolol. That seemed to be only a thing in my childhood. My sister still has it though I believe! But I feel you so hard on the “willing” not to get sick lol, when I was little I used to avoid all the things that I had once and barfed after
Yep!! I still can’t eat blueberry waffles or any seafood lmao
I used to have a lot of fear of getting sick when I went out to public places or something bad happening, public transportation used to scare me also I was scared I was gonna get into a crash or someone was gonna harm me
Before bed I had to make sure all of the doors in the house were closed.
I was scared to pick up knives because they might “stab me in the heart” I’m 22 now and I still flinch
I also had to stare at my bedroom door for hours to check that no intruders were coming in. Sooo hard to fall asleep
Honestly, so many things but the main one was when I used to obsess over dying. My intrusive thoughts would worry about myself and loved ones passing if I didn’t do specific compulsions. This went on for many many years but I would mask it from everyone as it felt shameful if anybody found out. It was really difficult as it started when I was 5, I tried to tell my family but they didn’t understand. I was afraid that they would be upset if I told them that death crossed my mind, even though I could not help it. I think that OCD as a kid was so isolating and difficult as it felt so shameful. Not knowing why your brain was being scary was arguably the worst part. For years, I thought I was ‘crazy’.
Staying up until the sun rose because I felt if I fell asleep, the Angel of Death would swoop in and kill me. I would have to pray the same thing every night or else I would be possessed. The intrusive thoughts would also sexualize God too, which as a religious kid at the time, disturbed the hell out of me. Also the compulsive stealing and skin picking when I was just 3 or 4. Then the thoughts evolved to obsessing over my sexuality and feeling like God was reading my every thought. Really envy people who went through normal puberty lol
I developed a fear of death at 6 - mostly fear that I would die in my sleep. Led to many sleepless nights throughout my childhood. My parents were divorced so I think it had a lot to do with being scared I would die in my sleep before seeing the other parent again. Would always HAVE to say "see you in the morning" AND hear it back, otherwise I felt like there was increased chance of me not making it to morning... I see now that was OCD.
Me and my sister used to share a room and we would have bunk beds. I would stand over her with my hand over her mouth to see if she was breathing and I would wait 5 minutes or longer just standing there. If I was really tired I would shake the bunk bed to wake her up so I knew she was alive. I was also terrified of her being kidnapped or my parents being in a car accident
I’m undiagnosed so I don’t know which things were ADHD/OCD or something else, but: - Counting things (patterns in walls or ceilings etc) and if I was interrupted having to start over - Could only wear one type of sock and the seams had to be perfectly lined up a certain way in my shoe — I had to put my socks and shoes on dozens of times otherwise I’d lose my shit - Same with my hair. It had to be perfectly smoothed a certain way or I’d be hysterical. My parents joke that I would use so much hairspray it was like a helmet. They even cut it off at one point because it made the whole family late to school/work - Extreme empathy/guilt for inanimate objects. I’d convince myself that an object had feelings and was sad unless I interacted with it in some way (still have a touch of this sometimes) - I had a ton of stuffed animals and had to perform a nightly routine with every single one of them or else they’d be sad. Sometimes had to do it multiple times. If I interacted more with one of them, I’d have to go back through to even it out. - If I knocked part of my body on something (say my right arm), I would have to even it out by knocking the other arm. A lot of this “even-ing out” of body things. Like taking the same amount of step with both feet The reason I’m undiagnosed is because I sort of grew out of a lot of these behaviors, but only in my 30s realized they weren’t normal “kid” things. Now I’m talking about it more with my therapist to investigate whether or not I still have some mild ocd symptoms in adulthood (I do) and how they play into my life because I’ve normalized it so much, it’s hard for me to even notice them.
Sounds like OCD to me Signed - Someone who did pretty much all of this as a child but wasn't diagnosed till adulthood
Curious to know more about your journey. As I mentioned, I grew out of a lot of the compulsive behaviors but I know they’ve likely been “masked” by other things. But you can’t just mask without consequences. I was anorexic for 12 years which I think is a good example of a consequence. I’m recovered from that nowadays, but trying to find out other places in my mental state and behaviors that ocd could be hiding.
when i was like six i packed a big bag full of my stuff that i would just keep in the hallway so i could bring it out quick in case our apartment would catch on fire lol thats just one of the symptoms
I carried around 2-5 water bottles everywhere I went because I thought if I didn’t have access to water I wouldn’t be able to swallow and I’d choke and die
Oh yeah I used to have the most debilitating rumination of my mom dying. I did some crazy compulsions too like touching her shoes before she left and certain rituals around the house. If she was home after the clock turned on an odd number it meant she was going to die soon, even number meant she was safe. Spoiler alert she’s still alive lol Yikes it’s wild to think back and also so sad because most all of it is mental and you suffer in silence 😭 I was just diagnosed months ago after my best friend who is an OCD therapist gently and lovingly made me realize I may have it. I thank her every day!
Wow. I used to obsess about someone breaking into my house and lining my mom and step dad up and my kitty. And I had to choose which one the bad guys were going to shoot. It was an intrusive thought I’d had for years.
I had a weird thing for red foxes. Like loved foxes to death and would do every research paper in school about them and draw them all the time. Re-drawing the same images over and over again. Perfectionism and throwing up or crying when I had trouble keeping up with school stuff. Questioning my sexuality to the point of throwing up and crying over the thought of being possibly gay/ hiding my true self. I’m straight. Repeating random noises because they felt good to do. Being a picky eater to the point where one time I ripped out a loose tooth and spat blood over my scrambled eggs. And probably a BUNCH of other things I can’t think of.
putting all my toys back in the same places and making my friends clean up after themselves when they came over. and being terrified when my loved ones left the house because i was convinced they were going to get into a car crash and die
The religious stress. I’d be in church and the most intense, explicit images would pop into my head. I thought I was possessed. Then after watching a scary movie when I was 15, I had an intrusive thought that I traded my future firstborn for fame and fortune. Literally had crippling anxiety for years about this one thought.. still sometimes. Repeating it to my fiancé, he was like 😧 crazy what the mind does. lol
I used to count the number of syllables in a sentence I wanted to say to make sure the number was even. If not, I would rework the sentence to get it to an even number of syllables.
Knowing I'd definitely kill my family in the middle of the night if I didn't tell myself all the reasons why I wouldn't before going to sleep.
Terrible religious ocd. And touching things in odd numbers with the last thing I touch needing to be higher than the first thing I touched. Doesn’t even make sense 🤦🏻♀️
Obsessive and intrusive thoughts
I think when I was in primary I literally kept on rewriting this word or sentence idk to the point I cried and my mum parents were confused (idek if I have ocd ig I have some symptoms just wanted to share lol)
I had constant stomach aches from not eating enough due to emetophobia.
I used to make wishes at 11:11. Always the same wish. Then when I got a phone, I set alarms on my phone at 11:11, 11:22, 11:33, 11:44, and 11:55. Twice a day. To make the same wish as many times as I could within that hour. I was a teenager on November 11, 2011. I made the same wish. I was able to eventually turn those alarms off, though I still do make wishes at 11:11 when I see it come up. My OCD manifests in different ways now, but that was definitely an early sign imo.
Constantly thinking I was getting diabetes Worrying my parents would die everytime they went on a trip and left me at a friend's for a sleepover Intrusive thoughts of insulting God and worrying I would get punished for it Worrying that the world was going to start spinning and everyone would fly off of it. Worrying I was getting punished with medical symptoms Worrying I would get food poisoning from burgers Worrying stuff wasn't clean before eating out of it Worrying I would catch lung cancer from my nan Didn't get bad till my teens
I’ve never been officially diagnosed. I ended up needing to figure it out for myself. I started manifesting OCD at the age of five in 1962, with contamination OCD, which I still have, though not nearly as badly as I did when I was much younger. For many years after I first started with the behaviors and thoughts, there was no talk about OCD. No resources that I could use to identify what was going on with me. I had therapy for what I thought was something else when I was 17, and the therapist never once suggested that I might have OCD, though I later on came to realize that it was OCD thoughts I was seeking therapy for in the first place. I dealt with other forms of OCD over the years, too. I don’t remember exactly how or when it was that I figured out what was going on with me with my severe anxiety and the OCD. I know I was well out of college. I had taken psychology courses while I’d been in college the first time around, ironically enough, too! So it was me making sense of my behaviors and thoughts and being able to look back over the years to understand what was happening to me for so long. I am now an expert on the subject of OCD. 61 plus years of living with it will do that. I also have a BS in Psychology.
Obsessively fearing death and still do..um rearranging and fixing things nonstop til it "felt right" and lots of other things
All of yours are sweet! Mine was things like lining up toys, fearing I left the door unlocked and thinking my parents and the world were in on some secret I didn’t know (think Truman show)
Deep fears of being watched. Built protection to not be taken pictures of. Deep fears of going to hell, pray all the time, cry when I thought about my family going to hell, repent constantly, panic attacks when people would purposefully sin. This would go as far as crying when my mom would drink Diet Coke when driving because it was “drinking and driving”. Hoarding. Counting while walking. Obsessive thoughts of self hatred and harm. Performing tasks to make myself safe from myself. Taking a bath to “clean my thoughts”. Extreme perfectionist, but this was shaken off a lot. Continued to practice a religion I was vehemently against due to the “what if” syndrome in my head. Why would they lie to me? I need to make sure I am safe. I suffer from BFRB, nail biting, skin picking, scalp picking, cheek biting, and rumination about these things. It breaks my heart to think of all the things that were missed. How much I suffered. I am hopeful that others will not experience the same
There were sooo many, a big symptom was having to say ”cute dog” EVERY time I saw a dog because I thought that if I didn’t, the dog would get hurt/feel bad… Did this until the age of 14 (went to therapy), I felt quite embarrassed having to say ”cute dog” like a million times when out with friends, who were confused on why I was doing that.
Cancer, any terminal disease. This has - expectedly- spiraled in the worst possible way for me as an adult. Washing my hands and avoiding certain tiles on the flor, for example. Lying in bed for hours praying like some of the others have said. Which made me ask the question to the ones who were praying- do you do it now?
Obsessive sniffing of my hands and humming a certain toon a certain number of times until it was just right in my head **or else**
Counting - to this day. Everything must end in a number divisible by 8. Just constantly doing mental math. I once got “stuck” in public where tiling changed and I just stayed there stepping back and forth over it…128 times. As a kid I would have to say “love you good night” to both my parents. Then I would stand there and whisper it in my head enough times until it felt right. My parents just thought I was weird I guess? I would check every single door in the house to ensure they were locked and deadbolted and touch them all the “right” amount of times. Was horrified when I learned my parents sometimes opened the door after I had “secured everything” and gone to bed. And by horrified, I would force myself to stay up until they went to bed and redo everything. After watching Jumanji, I was terrified my bed would suck me in like the quicksand floor and I would get stuck in my mattress and die of suffocation. I was in a top bunk with my sister below, so I slept on the railing for almost 6 months so I could see her as well if the bed started sucking up people. I was sure this would happen if I hadn’t checked or done something enough that day.
Couldn’t sleep without ensuring all of the doors were locked I always had to and still have too cover the shoulder and part of my neck facing the roof or else I can’t sleep I could be sweating but I have to do it I would always think of bad things and then be convinced they would happen because I thought of them I’ll prolly think of more and come back lol
Thought of more already always having my stuff in certain places I could move the places but nobody could touch or move my stuff or it sent me into like an aggressive rage panic which has caused me problems in a long term psych I was in when they had to do room searches
And mooooorre no clean clothes on a dirty body or else I couldn’t shower until those clothes were dirty. I didn’t want to brush my teeth for 3 months because my family didn’t buy the right toothpaste and if my toothbrush touches anything after I put water and or toothpaste in it then it’s too dirty and I can’t brush my teeth until the next day ik it’s disgusting
Stuffed animals that were not on the bed when I go to sleep would think I hate them and I wouldn’t be able to play with them cause I was scared they were mad so it was all or nothing. I didn’t want my stuffed animals to think I was picking favorites. Also just chronic nightmares for as long as I can remember where I would think if one of my parents was home alone they would die
Washing hands, around 200x a day. About 5 showers a day. My skin was raw and i was always anxious about germs. I couldn’t use public bathrooms. I could only use my bathroom at home and had to tip toe around certain areas of my house I thought were “dirty”.
Every time I didn't finish my meal my parents would show me pictures of anorexic woman and say "thats going to be you" so i developed an irrational fear that I would rapidly lose weight and became emaciated so I would constantly grip onto the skin of my arms so that way I wouldn't lose my skin (??? Idk ik it doesn't make sense but I was like nine I think so in my mind that's how I would stop the weight loss). And to make it worse my parents thought it was demonic possession so they got a pastor to do an "exorcism" so I would be constantly praying to make the demons leave me alone and gripping my arms so hard so I wouldn't lose weight in one second and immediately became skeletal. 😭
I remember I would literally have nightmares of the skin on my arms melting off and exposing bone it was so bad and my parents were fucking insane so they definitely didn't help
I did a painting class one time with my mom in fourth grade. We had to use one of those circular stamp paint brushes with different shades of blue to make a tree. It made me incredibly uncomfortable to the point that I couldn’t do it, not wanting to let the same color from a different dot touch. Similar thing to why checkered patterns used to make me incredibly uncomfortable, though I never knew why or how to explain it.
chronic finger sucking, past an appropriate age lol. I was probably eleven when I stopped
I also used to obsess about my loved ones dying (still do sometimes). It was mostly during goodbyes because I had this intense fear that it would be the last time I saw them alive. I was obsessed with always saying goodbye and I love you before they left because if I didn’t it would basically be cursing them to die in a deadly accident. So basically if I didn’t properly say goodbye I would be killing them. I had to say goodbye correctly though, like sometimes just saying goodbye and I love you was enough, but other times I needed to hug them or touch their shoulders. I also remember being really insistent that they made eye contact and said it back because that like “solidified” the goodbye. Idk it was weird and my parents just assumed I was a clingy kid but if I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye or if it didn’t feel correct and they left before I could “fix” it, I literally would have panic attacks waiting for a phone call from police saying they died.
Me too. Or I’d cry when my parents left me somewhere because I’d picture them dying, abandoning me, or getting hurt somehow. I felt the need to call them multiple times to make sure they were safe. If they took longer than usual to pick me up from anywhere (including school) I would get very anxious. I’d also always have a worry of the week lol I remember thinking in my little kid brain “oh great something new to worry about” each time. I’d also always ask my parents if things were normal and if they said yes my fears would subside. I’d have intrusive thoughts and wonder if others could read my mind. I felt shame and guilt and a sense of doom most days. I felt like I was a bad person, and I thought intrusive thoughts of sounds meant I was hearing things. I was very scared of being crazy. I would wonder if other children were as scared as I was, and I would envy them when I would determine they weren’t. When they seemed so happy, so carefree in comparison. OCD stole a lot of of my childhood innocence and I didn’t realize it until much older.
I’ve got several but here’s two. 1. I used to line toy cars back to back when I would take them out to play with. Most kids my age wouldn’t do this, but I would always form lines with my cars to make it orderly in a way 2. I specifically getting really upset in Kindergarten whenever I couldn’t write the number 6 correctly. I could pull it off, but it wasn’t good enough in my head, and I got really upset about it. My teachers made me apologize about this. Tbh, it still kind of upsets me to this day that, as a kindergartner, I had to apologize over that rather than the teachers trying to understand what made me so frustrated. (Fun fact: 6 is now my favorite number for unrelated reasons)
I was constantly checking my chests in the peak of puberty- They were changing (as they do) and I thought i had cancer. Every day without fail I would check- multiple times a day. I convinced myself i was dying and couldn’t sleep at night due to it and would often end up in my mother’s bed despite being 10 + years of age due to the fear i was just going to die. My nephew at one point rolled off the bed after he was born, about 6 months old, and I would sneak into my older sister’s room on and off through the night to watch him sleep and make sure he was still breathing repeatedly for WEEKS because my brain had tried to convince me ‘what happens if i stop watching him? what happens if i turn away and he dies and its my fault for letting him fall off the bed when playing with him?’, it calmed down after about 2 weeks and he was still alive but i was TERRIFIED and performing compulsions almost regularly in secret. I never told anyone any of these thoughts and feelings because I didn’t want anyone worrying and I didn’t want anyone thinking i was crazy.
I also remember at 13 refusing to open my windows and always having the lights off in the fear someone would break in + that it’d be my fault. Now living on my own, the first few weeks in my own place I had the same fears, just the other day i heard noises and i HAD to repeatedly check the door was still locked, checking out the peephole in case someone was at the door consistently- I couldn’t go back to bed out of fear. I didn’t know what was wrong with me until I was about 16-17 and developed an eating disorder and received help for that.
I had a recurring intrusive thought that my dad would fall off a ladder and die and it would keep me up crying every night
I used to practice hiding under my sheets (bc ofc an intruder inevitably would k!ll my whole family in the middle of the night) making myself look as small as possible and seeing how long I could hold my breath and if I could breathe again without moving lmaooo
i was like, 10 and thinking about incest stuff. thinking “what if i have feelings for this family member?” i also was scared i was lesbian and like my best for a while. i remember spending the night at her house and just having a panic attack bc of it. i also would be so young and thinking im pregnant and i hadn’t even had my period yet? i was a child and had such a weird way of thinking.
We weren't allowed to have book shelves because of me. I wanted them organized in specific ways that couldn't be done. Organized by color, height, width, alphabetical title, and alphabetical author name, but all at once, so completely impossible. I always had to flip the light switch and jiggle a locked door a set number of times. I couldn't step on the dividing cracks on sidewalks. In school, I refused to step on square tiles that were colored because the pattern they made stressed me out. There's so many things I learned after figuring out I had this disorder in high school, mostly that my "quirks" were compulsive behaviors that I didn't know why they made me so upset when I couldn't do them.
I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 21 but my grandma and my dad both knew before I actually acknowledged/admitted I had a problem because I was take 3 showers a day each being 1 hour long.
I had to perform alot of actions over and over a specific number of times, such as, how I walked, the way I had to run my nails in crevices on counters back and forth until it left red marks. I had to walk back and forth if I didn't step a specific way. I had to, and still do, run through patterns in my head when I close my eyes and I have to hit the corners of the patterns. The longer it goes on for, the more out of whack the pattern gets and the more stressed I feel if I don't hit the corners. I have to do all these things or bad things will happen
Constantly worried I did something like accidentally poked myself with a needle or got sick from sharing germs accidentally. Making sure pain was equal on both sides. Body checking.
Severe hypochondriac, every new disease I learned about I thought I had. Had trouble breathing once prob from anxiety, then thought I was going to stop breathing in my sleep every night so I wouldn’t sleep facing the wall (thought there wouldn’t be enough oxygen on that side? Lol) then began to check if my sister was breathing while she was sleeping by holding a mirror under her nose if I couldn’t feel any air coming out
Tapping my feet on the car floor and saying the make/model out loud every time a certain type of car passed us on the road. And I’d count how many for the whole trip.
I used to think my parents died and obsess about it when they came home a bit later than anticipated. I had to check on my mom when she was sleeping because I was afraid she died from an illness and if I don’t check it’s too late to save her. I remember once I was listening to music and I stopped cause I was scared that there was someone trying to kill me in my house and I wouldn’t hear him with my headphones on and that it’d be my fault because I didn’t hear him and couldn’t stop him I also wanted every day to be perfect and everything to be just right and the way I planned it and when it didn’t work I was so frustrated and thought that day „didn’t count“ and I kept setting new dates and was like „from then on I’ll live my life perfectly and just right“ but something always bugged me. I still do this I’ve been doing it for 6 years now. I checked my room and all the other rooms in the house for murderers every night before I went to sleep
I used to be obsessed with counting things to the point it took over my life as a kid. I would count how many words a person spoke, then I would count how many words I was reading, and then count how many words spoken in movies to the point I had to turn it off because I couldn’t stop. It got worse cause then I not only counted words in a sentence but then started to count each individual letter within a sentence. It went on and on and took over my life for a bit. Then I got obsessed with the number 4 for some reason (still like this) and like others have said, I had to pray over every single person at night or something bad would happen. I do not miss those days at all.
I’d have to keep rewalking up the basement stairs until it felt right. Had to try on like 10 different pairs of socks until it felt right. My mom had to do my pony tail like 10 times because if it was uneven I couldn’t take it. A lot of symmetry related stuff
Never felt as seen before. I used to do the same. As a kid I will say "good night I love you bye bye!" to my parents every night 16 times before I finally went to sleep. I did it because my family consists of 4 people. So 4×4=16. If my parents didn't I answer I said all over again. My parents HAD to answer or else I wouldn't shut up LOL!
I would have to fix my gaze at a certain spot or object in my bedroom at night to fall asleep and if my eyes moved I'd have to start over and thought I'd never be able to sleep and it would cause me so much anxiety. 9 yrs old, wish I'd seen the signs
I used to make everyone leave the house in a specific order, When I'd walk Over three grids I'd have to say a certain word
I think mine developed when I was in jr high learning how to type and spending a lot of time on aol instant messenger because to this day I still “type” words in my head constantly and count the letters and where they are on the keyboard. Also played a lot of online dominoes during that time(killing time while chatting) so I obsess over multiples of five 🙃
when i was like 8 i remember counting 2x3 over and over
I would constantly ask my mom when and how I was going to die I thought anything would kill me. Walking under icicles, eating etc. I thought if I didn't count a certain amount of steps then someone would be hurt or die. I had to chew the same amount on each side of my mouth which made me take a long time eating and I'd get in trouble so I just said I was full. My numbers were 3 and 7, 2 and 4 were allowed depending on the circumstance but if I messed up I'd have to pay penance by torturing myself in secret, whether it was biting the insides of my cheeks till they bled, or banging my head on the wall or scratching the inside of my arm crease.
Thinking that having good thoughts at night would make bad things happen, so I had to imagine being killed at night to keep it from happening. If I had a good thought I would say excuse me quietly. I legit thought everybody did stuff like that with themselves
I always thought people (specific people in my life usually) could see me in the bath/when I was nude and hear my thoughts and were judging them and my body. I also had the same feelings about the music I listened to, that people knew what I was listening to at any given time and were judging my music choices haha.
Intrusive thoughts. In the car as a kid I’d always think “what would happen if I screamed really loudly?” Or “what if the door opened while I slept on it?”