I don't really know how to start this or if I'm even in the right forum as I'm not even sure if this classes as OCD or just Anxiety or something else entirely, but I am here seeking advice as to how to get help and move forward with my life.
I've always had what my family members would describe as an 'obsessive personality' whenever I am interested in something or enjoying a hobby it takes up all of my time and I have to know everything about it. While I quite enjoy this when it comes to certain things (like my hobby of playing the guitar etc.) on the flip side my brain can become obsessed with things that cause me upset or fear for some reason. This all started when I was 13 and happened roughly once a year up until I was 18 where it took a break for a year or two and has now returned worse than ever at age 20. Basically, I don't want to describe in detail every "obsession" I've had but I'll go into detail of my one from last year as it is best describes what I feel every time these thoughts happen. There is no common theme between these "obsessions" but every so often something that causes me upset will get into my head and cause me severe torment as I am unable to think about anything but the thought in question and have to constantly "check" in my mind whether the thoughts still upset me. In the past this has ranged from philosophical ideas to scientific ideas to true crime cases.
Last year I was running low on sleep one day and ended up reading some true crime story in the news, now while this didn't really upset me as I read it I kept thinking about the crime case in question. I think it was the lack of sleep that allowed my mind to latch onto the thought and turn it into an "obsession" but suddenly by the next day it was all I could think about. I kept envisioning how that person must have felt in their last moments, the events that led up, what it would have been like if it happened to me etc etc and I (like with all my previous "obsessions") become obsessed with googling everything I could about the case. Having experienced this before, I knew googling about the case would only make it worse, as when I was 13 I randomly had the thought "What if everyone in my family was a robot?" which caused me to throw up and then spend an entire year thinking everything around me wasn't real. Googling "why do I think everyone in my family is a robot?" which provided temporary relief only to eventually led me to discovering ideas like solipsism and movies like the Truman Show which evidently only prolonged my distress and caused further obsession to the point where I started believing I wasn't real. This repeated with different scenarios throughout my teenage years and led to my brain to latching onto the idea of goading me into googling everything I could about stuff that made me distressed and doing little checks to see if I was still upset by the thoughts. So when my brain decided this true crime case was my new obsession I spent 20 minutes on reddit reading about it and making myself more and more distressed until I managed to pull myself back to reality. The damage was done though as I spent the next three days barely eating, sleeping and throwing up when the thoughts got too bad, as it was all I could think about. My brain kept goading me into finding out details and I began to get anxious with thoughts like pestering myself to lookup the trial date so I would know when the case would be in the news again as I didn't want to be caught off guard. Additionally, it would get truly ridiculous irrational thoughts where I would get paranoid of naming my character when playing RPG games with my friends as "What if that's the name of a family member involved in the case, you have to google and check you cannot be associated with this in anyway!", or getting nauseous when I saw a post office and refusing to go in (there was a post office involved in the case.), or even unfriending my friend on social media because they reposted something about the case and no longer talking to them as I couldn't handle it the possibility of the case being brought up by them. I was practically bedridden with these thoughts as my brain kept goading me telling me this case would go mainstream and I'd see it in the news everyday. I had no compulsions like most cases of OCD describe (I flip coins and touch wood a lot but not usually to do with my distressing thoughts), but the obsessive 24/7 thoughts were there and I could do nothing except attempt to distract myself. I had no one to confide in as I had kept these "obsessions" to myself for so long and couldn't get help or therapy at the time. I constantly fought my brain on researching the case any further, trying to diffuse the panic attacks and praying the thoughts would go away. Eventually after about a month (with the severe symptoms like throwing up only lasting the first three days.) I moved on for a while, but seeing a post office or a person with a name similar to those involved in the case still caused me to feel unease.
I thought these "obsessions" where only me being a teenager and anxious but recently in the last week after a year of relief one of my old "obsessions" came back and I truly cannot deal with it anymore it's been 7 years of this and I've had enough. I'm looking into therapy but I'm scared of opening up about this, my MO has always been to ride out the feelings in quiet and then move on with my life avoiding any association with anything that previously caused distress. I'm an adult now though and I realise this is not healthy so I began to research whilst suffering with my thoughts. I guess what I came here to ask is if my research is right and this a form of OCD (perhaps Pure 'O' I've been reading a lot about that and I think I align up with the description of it?) and if it was what would you advice to cope in my daily life before I begin to get therapy, or has anyone suffered the same ? How would this be sorted in therapy? Really any advice that could steer me in the right direction would be helpful.
I'm so sorry this is so long and probably doesn't make any sense buy I needed to vent and open up anonymously.
I sincerely thank anyone who took the time to read this.
