Hi
I’ve struggled with mental health as long as I remember. I was an anxious child. I’ve had sessions of CBT and counselling on several separate occasions since my early teens (now in my late 20s), but I was always told I was struggling with either mild depression or anxiety. I’ve never seen more than minor improvements with this treatment, and I’m starting to wonder if my main problem is actually OCD. Let me give some examples of the type of problems I have.
- obsessing about mistakes I’ve made in the past. This includes beating myself up about them (thinking badly of myself and thinking that others should/would think badly of me if they knew about my actions). It also includes worrying about people “finding out” about mistakes I’ve made, and how ashamed and embarrassed that would make me feel.
- similarly, worrying that at some point in the past I’ve done something wrong/illegal (yet can’t remember doing it), and one of these days there’ll be some investigation that will uncover it, I will be prosecuted and my life will be ruined.
- I constantly feel like I’m being watched while browsing the internet. This is particularly bad at work - I’m too scared to read news articles about criminals in case there is some sort of “sensor” that will pick up the keywords in the article, and I will get in trouble for reading about e.g. a murder case
- more “stereotypical” compulsions, e.g. checking I’ve locked the door, windows, turned things off etc. I often check things multiple times in a row, like checking the door handle until my hand hurts, so when I walk away the pain tells me I’ve definitely checked
- worrying I’ll do something wrong at work and people will think badly of me, e.g. say the wrong information in an email, and then people will think I’m bad at my job
- worrying I’ve harmed someone in some way. E.g. picking up my baby niece, did I hold her too roughly and injure her?
sorry that turned into a long post - I just kept thinking of more. Even writing this post has been a bit of a trigger. What if I this post is somehow traced back to me? Would appreciate anyone’s thoughts.
