I can’t say if you have OCD or not. Though clearly you have a problem with anxiety that is inappropriate. I’m just a guy with OCD but my best advice would be to get checked out by a doctor/therapist that is knowledgeable about OCD.

The thought patterns you describe could easily be OCD. But OCD is “normal” anxiety/thought patterns that get way out of control. The attempts to relive the anxiety is where we OCD folks get into trouble as these become our compulsions. Which for many are more problematic then the obsessions.

As you have already identified your anxiety as being unrealistic that’s a great first step. So seeking help would be of great benefit to you. All forms of anxiety can be treated, even OCD, if you are willing to put in the work. Which can be difficult. But living free is certainly worth the effort

This past summer I began chatting with my boisterous, ill mannered, albeit friendly african american neighbor lady. She was easy going and always bummed smokes off me. She was unemployed and had three kids so I figured I’d help a sister out right? Turns out she died at the end of the summer in her sleep to pneumonia. My best friend and neighbor (best friend before moving in), who is more outspoken and witty than I had endured many a long conversation with her, told me after she had died that our neighbor lady had been afflicted with HIV and Hep C!

On the one note I was scared because I had interacted with her so naturally without precautions. And I was going through it in my head to visualize all the times we were together, how much physical contact had I ended up exchanging with her. But I was also outraged that my best friend of 3 years had failed to give me a critical health detail about this woman. I was and am still so so mad at her because of this and various other things.

Well it’s February now and I decided it’s been six months so I’ll get tested. I went through the same process at the testing place, “What if the nurse used an infected needle”, “All healthcare places need sick people to make money right?”, “What if I see other people with it and they are in the waiting room?” I can’t bare to think of it all, now I need to wait a week ‘or two’ for the results.

By the way I have OCD that’s been on and off since I was 16 (I’m 20 now). One of my biggest fears when I got my liscence was that I would definately run over someone and not notice, killing the pedestrian only to find a warrant for my arrest and life sentence in jail. It’s taken years of denying these thoughts to come and bother me. With the rising cost of gas I couldn’t afford to drive around and check anymore. So I think now I needed something to focus my attentions on. But that isn’t saying much, those tests are expensive too.

I started suffering from panic disorder on a disabilitating level two and a half years ago. It started with a panic of loosing all my money, not being able to support the one that I loved, failing her. Then, it eventually formed into thoughts of that very person who I loved not loving me anymore. Not wanting me. These thoughts trumped my fear of loosing money. Then I convinced myself so well that she didn’t want me anymore that it did in fact eventually lead to her not wanting me anymore. For the last two years I have blamed myself and this disorder for the demise of a relationship with someone that I loved more than anything in the world. In seeps the deep depression that I now suffer with.

All these thoughts that circle in my head became a reality because I forced them to be. I made my thoughts be real because that is how I controlled them.

The straw that broke the camel’s back finally came a month ago when I convinced myself that I could have contracted AIDs. It wasn’t until then that I knew that this disorder went far beyond freudian theories of a damaged childhood that caused my panic disorder. For the last two years I have spent hours in a psychiatrists office picking apart every misfortune that may have contributed to this constant state of panic. I knew in my heart, in my head, with all of my logic… that I hadn’t contracted AIDs. But logic alone couldn’t fight this overwhelming fear that I had to hide behind a facade of normalcy. It was eating me alive from the inside out. I knew it was just my mind creating these fears! But I couldn’t fight them. I lost over 10lbs in two weeks just being scared. I ate normally, but couldn’t retain any weight. I had finally hit absolute rock bottom. I was loosing my will to live! Am I going to generate a fear of every possible thing that could bring happiness to my life? Can I no longer spend money, find love, enjoy sex? There was no way I was going to live life like this. I became a hermit, hiding myself from infecting others. Not hugging my family. I was absolutely miserable. All in the period of two weeks I had removed myself from society, only functioning at work out of necessity to maintain some sort of routine. I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts, but I couldn’t be around anyone that I could potentially harm. I had never been so miserable in my life. I feared getting an AIDs test because I didn’t want to go in a place where people potentially had AIDs. But, in a complete panic, 10 minutes before the clinic closed, I walked into the clinic with my shoulders sunk down and my head pointed at the floor and asked for a test. Then I asked how long it would take to get the results, hoping deep down inside that they would have the quick test. Nope, it would take two weeks. The people behind the counter immediately saw the fear in my face as all the blood drained leaving me a pail white. They asked if it would be ok. The only thing I could say is that I have sever panic disorder and don’t think I could live with not knowing for that long, fearing that I would self distruct even further into a empty shell of the extroverted person I had once been. They said to me,”don’t worry, we will help you through this.” They didn’t even know who I was, nor I them. But I felt security in this. I trusted them. They took me back and went through a questionaire. Do I use intravenous drugs? No…. Do I have homosexual sex? No…. Etc… The clinician looked at me with all sincerity and said, “If I were your friend and you told me you would be coming here to get a test, I would tell you that you are crazy.” For an instance I felt a release. Then he told me the statistics of AIDs in my area and how I was merely in a 0.01% risk group.

All of these facts, all of this logic, should have set my heart at ease. If my mind could only not rationalize every possible scenario. Even after all of the clarification of facts and the reassurance to all my ruminations there was no way of beating down this fear. I spent the two weeks in near complete isolation. Didn’t touch anyone. Aching inside to feel normal again.

After two weeks of pure torture, the results came. I was clear! The clinician gave me the ‘I told you so’s’. And I went on my way.

I went to a therapist, for a different view on my thoughts. She took spent ten minutes with me and said, “How long have you had OCD”. I don’t have OCD I thought…. Then I went home and thought about all of the weird things that I have worried about since I was a child. All of which I won’t share, as I find it easy to take on other’s fears when i read about them.

Seeking out an expert in my area, I found one of the best doctors I have ever encountered. He immediately educated me on how this process would work, gave no false promises, blew no smoke up my ass. But the thing that he said to me that brought me to tears was,” All of what you are feeling must be so painfull.” Yes, yes, yes! I had never thought about it that way. My mind was able to fabricate such fears that it made my life painful to live.

Long story short, behavioral therapy has been a godsend to me in the very very short time that I have had it. I can begin to seperate my fears from my realities. Yes, I’m taking medication. But only Wellbutrin. Why is that? Wellbutrin offset the depression that was being caused by my anxiety, and gave me energy to function again. But medicine is an individual decision. I have read to many of these forums looking for the short answer to a long term problem, the secret that will clear me of all of this torture. Well, it isn’t there. The only answer is to commit yourself to making it better. Whether it be the combination of medicine and therapy, the reorganization of how you function on a daily basis, or the admission to yourself that this problem is one that you can learn to live with… I believe that once I am given the tools to combat this problem I will only gain strength far beyond people who don’t deal with it. I will be able to live a more normal life than someone who has never had to come face to face with a fear of the unknown.

Knowing that others deal with this only gives me strength, these forums help. But the only true answer to recovery is admitting that there is no quick solution to this problem and with work and time we can all live normal lives again.

Hell, this disorder has given both blessings and misfortune. I am successful in my life, work hard, and have a loving family. I strive to make others feel good. Still single at 30, but hope to have someone I could one day love. But what I want is the healthy balance of being a outwardly good person as well as one who looks after myself. OCD gives us a heightened sense of the world around us, a concious view of our coexistence. If the whole world worried about hurting others as much as we do there would certainly be a lot more peace!
(I’ve even heard that people with OCD exceed in intelligence far beyond the norm… maybe not in spelling, but that was never my strong suit). You are all held in my prayers.

on a lighter note, maybe OCD is the true antivirus to AIDs anyway :)

I was diagnosed with OCD when I was about 11. I’m 20 now, and doctors say that my OCD is probably the most severe case they’ve seen in awhile. My HIV/AIDS obsession started may 7, 2007 (sad I remember the exact date, isn’t it?) when my friend and I went to a nail salon. The lady ended up cutting my cuticle with the trimmer and I bled pretty badly. All hell broke loose at that point and it’s been a downwards spiral since. I’ve always had OCD and been very weird about germs and contamination and diseases, but never like this. It’s really intense. I was also diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, so I always think that the universe or something is going to set up situations where I could possibly contract it because I think about it 24/7 and these bad/strange feelings that go along with it, even though I don’t have sex or do drugs or anything. Then I start seeing “coincidences” occur about things that I’ve thought of and thought I made those things happen.

Anyway, I went and had a test done after I got cut, and it was negative. But since then, I think I’ve become infected again. I went to have my blood drawn at a different place (a doctor’s office, not a lab). And I’m so used to needles being in packaging. But this needle was just capped and sitting in these little colorful boxes, I had a strange or bad feeling about the nurse and thought that she had a disliking for me, so I thought that she purposely used a dirty needle on me. I watched her get everything out, and even throw it away when she was done. I also asked her if the needles were clean, she and another nurse laughed and she made some sarcastic comment like, “Yeah, I stick everyone else, then I stick myself”. Anytime someone bleeds and they accidentally touch me or bump into me, I freak out and obsess over whether they got blood on me. I’m paranoid that people who know about my fear will purposely try and harm me and infect me. Even when I go out to eat, I have to disinfect the silverware, I never send anything back for fear they might do something to it, I only get clear sodas incase there might be some blood in it, so I can see it and stop myself from drinking it. I even hate the word positive. I hate it, I have this thing where I have to say the word negative over and over again. I have the most horrible thoughts that go through my mind every minute of every day. Germex and I are attached at the hip. I’m never without disinfectant. People in my class may joke about my OCD and I will too (they’re not mean about it or anything) but I don’t think they realize how hard it is living with something like this.

Like someone said earlier, it’s not that I’m scared of dying from it, I’m scared of living with it. I have a fear of looking repulsive and disgusting and people just leaving me. I always think that if I don’t look at least halfway decent, nobody will ever want to be with/around me. I’m scared of possibly infecting others, I’m scared of losing control of my body (cause of everything that happens when you contract it) and having to have people take care of me and treat me like a baby again. I always feel dirty/infected. And it’s not like the kind of dirty where you can hop in the shower and feel clean again, I feel dirty and disgusting deep inside of me. Like I just want to rip off my skin and tear away my muscles and everything, it’s a horrible feeling. Even though I know I most likely DO NOT have it, I always think “What If?” I get a gut feeling that it’s in me, but then I don’t know if it’s really just my OCD/Paranoia. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see someone disgusting and sick. And it hurts to live like this.

I’m currently going to therapy, but it’s not doing much good. I used to take meds, but they didn’t do anything. Doctors are trying to convince me to go on meds now, but I’m afraid of the side effects. I also have this fear that if I start taking them, and then I get tested, that the meds will screw up my results somehow and give a false reading or something. Every month I say to myself, “Ok, starting next month, I will count down six months until I can go get tested again. I just have to stay clean”. But then something always happens in the next month where I think I became infected. It’s a horrible experience and I truly feel for all of you out there suffering with the same thing. People can say they understand and stuff, but nobody really understands until they’ve walked in our shoes. They don’t know what it’s like to be consumed with a constant fear of illness. I really wish all of us the best of luck, and I hope that one day we can beat this monster known as OCD and live a more happy and free life.

God bless you all!!!

This is what OCD feeds upon, attention and time. So it’s paradoxical, the more effort you put into fighting it and focusing on it, the more time you give it to work.

I’ve had these thoughts for over 2 years now, have been through CBT with a well known OCD author as well as tried some SRI meds. These things helped a little, but for this type of OCD, with fear of HIV contamination, I’ve found that the only way to actually enjoy life is to accept the thought.

My current thought is “I shook hands with a man who had cuts on his hand, I had a cut on my hand, he must have infected me with HIV”. Most of you will probably find this ridiculous, but we all find thoughts like this ridiculous if they are not the ones in the current OCD “limelight”. That’s what I’ve noticed, OCD doesn’t care about the thought, the thought is just there to explain the emotion. You could be obsessing over an incident and convinced you’ve contracted HIV from it, then another incident will occur and you won’t pay any heed to the previous incident, it seems OCD only has time for 1 thought at a time.

So now I just submit to the fact that this OCD will convince me that I am infected with HIV by some never occurred before transmission route, and that I will whole heartedly agree with it.

Once this was established I felt absolutely emancipated from the responsibility of it all, because I realised that if I am infected by HIV by one these never occurred before transmission routes, it isn’t my fault, I’ve done everything humanly possible by having safe sex, and not sharing needles (not that I inject drugs anyway).

I then further explored my worst fear. Okay you’ve made history by getting infected by HIV in this manner, in a few years you’ll start noticing some symptoms and get tested a few times, you’ll know then that you have the disease and will consult a HIV doctor for a schedule of monitoring and treatment, you will most likely live a full life span, albeit with the possible requirement of taking meds each day to sustain it.

After I played it all out in my head, it wasn’t that scary a monster anymore. Then I figured hey, if that’s gonna be the case then I’m sure going to have as much fun as possible before I die.

It’s then that I realised that I was always waiting to be happy, “I’m going to own this car/home, have this family, have this career, etc etc” then I’ll be happy because I’ve succeeded, this is a load of bull that we’ve all be conditioned to believe, “you must put in work and effort in order to be happy” screw that, happiness happens in the present not in the future or the past.

Each morning I wake up and ask myself this:
“What am I going to do today to make myself feel great?”
There may be a few things, but as long as one of those things is accomplished then I’ve succeeded.

I’ll then fill my body with positive chemicals by standing up straight facing the ceiling with a big goofy smile on my face while listening to positive music. This will look silly but trust me it works!

Then I get on with the business of doing things that make me happy, today it is going to be cleaning out the back porch and rearranging my room for a more enjoyable and tranquil environment, schweet!

Each night I ask myself this before I sleep:
“What have I done today that has made be feel satisfied”

I hope this helps someone in need.

I am 39 years old. Have been on Lexapro for 2 years now. This medication had an almost immediate positive effect on my life. Within 2 to 3 days of starting Lexapro, there was a noticeable lift in my general mood. A WARNING ABOUT STOPPING OR WEANING OFF LEXAPRO: I started taking 10 mg daily a couple of years ago for about 2 months, then decided I just didn’t want to take medicine every day. So I weaned myself off over a 2-wk period, first reducing the dose to 5 mg/day, then 5 mg every other day before I stopped altogether. I figured I would be able to tell if my mood was going downhill and I would just restart if it did. Well, there was no gradual decline. I was careful to monitor my mood and thoughts every day and everything went great for about 3 months, then C.R.A.S.H!!! I mean it hit me like a WALL, very very suddenly! Despite exercising 4-5x per week, healthy eating, etc., I hit an all-time low.

I have experienced some of these side effects-
Constant dull headache, jittery in the morning if taken before bed, dizziness. These negative side effects subsided within a week or two. Other side effects have continued, including sleepiness and yawning, apathy, vivid (but great) dreams. My libido died and never came back.

I hope this information will be useful to others,
Lisa Carter