Life is never what you think, behind closed doors, doing things many hours a day, the feeling that you could lose control again at any minute.

The way my life goes one minute all is great and the next all is scary, horrible and time consuming.

This is the life of OCD the way it makes you feel, the anxiety it causes and the way we are.

I was Diagnosed with OCD at age 12, I had been fighting for a few years and also had depression at this point.

I was 9 when it first developed, my mother had just gone back to work and I had to get up early just to see her. This is the first time I have felt the horrible feeling.

The year I was turning 13 was horrible, at the age of 12 I was clinically depressed and didn’t want to be alive. They tried me on many different medications and finally decided on Zoloft. The world seemed like a strange place and I spent many hours doing rituals in the bathroom and my bedroom. It started with washing rituals, bathing and washing hands a couple of times a day, Then it started washing hands lots and then doing other things like opening and closing computer disk drive, touching the television and running up and down stairs. At the age of 16 I had rituals take over my life and that was all I did, no one could interrupt me or bother me, or I had to start counting over again, doing things as much as 9hrs a day. The world seemed small and I was in special needs classes at school because my attention was not there since I was sometimes tired in the middle of the day. Life began and my mood changed to a frightening, swearing, yelling mood and upset a lot of the time. Noises started to bother me and little interruptions became unbearable, the world changed. my world, I eventually moved out of special needs classes and on to regular school, but still did rituals at night and in the
morning and after school before coming home. It took a lot of my time, I began to go for walks to the school 2times a day, insisting on rides.

The years have progressed, I was on medication that wasn’t monitored until 18, hormones have never been right and life is difficult. Now at 27, I still have a horrible fear that I could lose control again. I am now seeing a psychiatrist and on Prozac and am finally monitored and making sure it never goes to the unbearable, unthinkable, horrible feeling, where your heart beats into your head and out of your chest because of the anxiety.

The world now seems brighter and better, then before and I no longer do things 9hrs a day but am down to 2.

This is my life, This is me.

The troubles and the tribulations, the unknown and the feelings that go along with them. Living with OCD, now and always trying to stay in control and at peace, with god, with myself and with others, and begin, one step at a time to do my best to seem as normal as possible. This is me and this is life with OCD. Never a dull moment.

Up at night, worried and alarmed at times, it may be nothing but it may be something I think I forgot to do or something that happened the day before. I have moved on and lived on, I have done rituals 9hrs a day, been depressed and used six bathrooms a day, at university, sounds horrible and frightening even to me. This is OCD, This is me.

A insistent, independent and dependable individual, a person who doesn’t know how to move on, and forward, the world may be brighter and better, but I still have OCD and still struggle day to day. Keeping positive and trying. Waiting for the world to be at peace. This is life, this is me. This is OCD, the monster within. Able to live and the able to do things but
it is still there, it is still threatening and frightening, scary and unusual, even to me. My life and OCD.

Story submitted by Jay

Hi all. I’m 28 years old, happily married with 2 beautiful boys. My obsessions are many, but my most recurring, and most terrifying, is the one about my husband dying in a car accident. He has a very long commute, an hour there and anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours + back, depending on the traffic. Pure agony. He’s driving back from work as I type this, and I’m checking the California Highway Patrol traffic incident page. I either have to do that until he comes home, or I have to be on the phone with him. I will literally freeze up, hyperventilate, cry, panic, heart racing if I can’t constantly check to make sure he’s okay.

I used to have the same obsessions about my children while they were at daycare when I was working (not a car accident, obviously, but an earthquake, kidnapper, you name it). I’m a SAHM now, so they’re constantly with me, and I’m so afraid to pass this horrible THING off on them. I *think* I’m very careful at hiding it most of the time, though. My husband doesn’t even know a fraction of the extent of it, because most of it goes on in my head, so I guess that I hide it well. But I feel you. It’s agony. And that’s only one of my obsessions. It’s the most frequent and time consuming of them all.

And I’ve noticed that they get worse when ANYTHING positive happens, even if we work hard for it. We found a great deal on an apartment in a really nice area with a really great elementary school, and we got approved. We move on Saturday. I’ve been waiting for the “inevitable” awful thing to happen. Then I’ll try to talk myself down, saying “it’s definitely your OCD. Everything will be fine.” Then my OCD demon will pipe in “Maybe I’m getting a bad feeling for a reason. Maybe I’m sensing
imminent doom.” You get the idea. For hours that can go on in my head. I’ll be up all night, checking to make sure my husband is breathing, checking on my children to make sure they are breathing and
that they haven’t been kidnapped.

As I type this, I realize how crazy it all sounds. But it feels so real. I actually always EXPECT something horrible and catastrophic happening. I’m wasting my life, and it really is such a wonderful life. Beautiful life, with lots of wonderful people in it. Any girl would be lucky to have all that I do. I’m just afraid of losing it all, and I can’t tell anyone about the extent of my mental state, because I fear that I’ll lose my children and husband or end up in a psych ward. I’m really terrified that I’m really really crazy, and that if I tell anyone, or even let on how I truly think a lot of the time (not really all the time. It cycles a lot. Sometimes I’m relatively “normal”) that I’ll get put
into a mental institution and be declared unfit as a mother. My family is my world, and I want my children to have the best of everything. I love them so much. And sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve them. Very very painful.

I have read some of your very harrowing stories about identifying OCD, treating and coping strategies.

My Story is not of me, but my husband, I’ll try to explain myself best I can. When I met him 3 years ago, he told me he use to get very dry skin on his hands and that was caused by keeping them in water all the time, he told me at the time, this was from his building work and mixing cement etc. He did tell me at this time about his obsession with cleaning and having a clutter free room. I was fine with it, didn’t really think any think of it at the time.

Today 3 years on I think it may have altered, He is not the same man I married he has a new obsession about mountain biking downhilling to be precise. He can not go an hour with out seeing a mountain bike, be it either on the lap top downloading videos, watching dvd, riding his own bike, buying parts until he has no money left, he has dreams about downhiling. Its getting between us. We only see each other on weekends due to our jobs, yet he feels im keeping him from doing his biking as I’m there on weekends. (I asked him not to go once, as it was our 1st anniversary) I haven’t heard the end of it since!

I’ve read through the web about the categories it can be put in. yet I’m not sure which one he could be, as its about an object (Bike) or the action (Biking) I don’t know?

I am worried I may be the cause as he brings up petty things I have said 7 months ago, he can’t seem to forgive or forget either? I feel like its me that’s the cause and it’s making me feel like I should let him go if I’m the problem, then he’ll get better right? I have now pointed him in the direction of the doctors, as he feels its all getting too much, hopefully that will start the healing process and get down to the bottom of what the trigger is for him, so we can get on with our marriage and live our lives the way we want to, not the way OCD wants us to.