This is my OCD life story...

Hello, people.

I've just registered on this forum and I finally made my decision to share my OCD life story here on this thread, so other members can read it, relate to it and maybe help me out with my struggling that has been going on for the past 2-3 years. I've actually diagnosed myself by looking up stuff and investigating OCD on the internet itself.

First off, I want to point out that my native language is not English (nothing close to English, in fact), so I want to apologize in advance for any grammar mistakes, even though I will try make myself clear. While I cant promise you that this won't be a long thread (even though I'll try my best to make myself short), I would really, really appreciate it if you'd take 5 to 10 minutes of your time to read my story and get in my shoes just for a moment.

It all started 2-3 years ago when I had my first symptoms. It was excessive hand-washing, generally afraid of germs, afraid to touch door-knobs and so on... Even though this would really take away a lot of my time during the day (sometimes I missed school classes because I was washing my hands that long), it was nothing compared to what is happening now.

One day those symptoms stopped, I was generally happy about it. But right after those symptoms, the real horror started. I started getting random thoughts which were out of my control. They were, and they still ARE, really unpleasant thoughts, disturbing and disgusting and non-logical at the same time. For the sake of this thread, I'll make myself really short, so I'll move on to the most important things I want to state in this post.

Basically, my never-ending OCD circle goes like this: Lets say I'm entering a room with a clear mind and everything is fine. Out of a sudden I get a random disturbing thought while stepping on the threshold. What I must do is go back to the point where my mind was clear and without any disturbing thoughts (aka before stepping on the threshold). After that, I need to enter the room again with a clear thought or no thought at all. Lets say the thought is "My whole family will die". Now, what I have to do is go back to the point where I did not have the thought in my brain and just continue what I was doing with a clear mind. Or, as I'm typing this, I got another disturbing thought. What I need to do is say the complete opposite of the thought inside my brain while re-doing what I was doing WHILE I was having the thought itself (typing the message, in this case). I hope you understand me what I'm trying to say.

Now, my bigger problem is, not the thoughts themselves, but what would others (my friends, family etc) think about me IF they knew what kind of thoughts I'm having about them. Pretty disturbing and shameful if you'd ask me. Keep in mind that no one from my family or any of my friends know about my state. Its just you guys that know that just another random guy with OCD is posting on the forums. Its been my secret for the past 2-3 years and I was taking no therapists or any medication so far, until now (I'll explain what kind of medication a bit later).
I know that most of you guys will tell me that this OCD thing I'm having is not my fault, and I'm aware of that.

If I ever get rid of this, I know that it will make me a really stronger person. I do consider myself a strong person as of now, too. I've been able to live with this illness for a long time now, while trying to maintain relationships with a lot of my friends (I'm trying to get as most social I can) but it has its limits. OCD puts a limit to the social life too. I've also kept my parents away from this. I'm second year at college and college is going good too, considering my state, not many people would come this far (no disrespect to any of you, my lovely people).
I'm still at the OCD part where I ask myself "Why me? Why did I have to have this disorder?". I still haven't come that far so I can tell: **** you OCD, I'm taking control of my life from now on!". I've tried to do this, but after some time the OCD just came back by itself without me even noticing.
I know for a fact that the first step of recovery is: FACING YOUR FEARS. Like, take a list and write your fears/thoughts in one column, then on the other side write the logical thinking behind the thought and the OCD thinking. Which one makes more sense..The point of this is to realize that our fears are non-logical.
I've watched a documentary with Dr.Tolin (an OCD specialist by the way) where he gets bunch of patients and treats them over a course of time. His therapy consists of FACING YOUR FEARS. Afraid of germs? Never wash your hands in the next 3 days. Afraid of getting cancer? Write 100 papers with the word cancer on them and stick them throughout the room.
There is also am amazing series on YouTube, "OCD therapy through story-telling". Those stories really do make sense.

Well, I'm really pleased to tell you guys that this past week I've made some progress, but it has it side-effects as well. On some forums I saw some kind of "medications" that can help you get rid of OCD easy. They are not really medication, in fact they are just vitamins. Its called B-Complex (Im sure most of you heard of them). It just a mix of B vitamins and its nothing special.
But I was really surprised when I noticed that they actually help me get rid of my thoughts. It was just like, I took them and after 1 hour I sat and said to myself: "Wow, hey, its been an hour and I have NOT had any disturbing thought so far". That was the first time I felt OCD-free in a loooooong time. It felt awesome. I just cant believe that life is that great when you are OCD-free. I even tear up writing this post. I'm missing so much stuff from my youth just because of this. I do try to have a perfect life and get the most of it while having a metal disorder. I guess it was just meant to be and I was made like this so I can defeat this and be a really stronger person afterwards.

Lets just move on to the side-effects of the B-Complex vitamins. I'm having really tough headache throughout the day. I believe I know the reason behind this, considering my knowledge about OCD and my investigations on the Internet.
So, when I get a disturbing thought something is going on in my brain. In order to get rid of that "something" that's happening inside, I do physical stuff or mental stuff (repetitive things, counting fast etc)..But when taking these B-Complex vitamins the thoughts are kind of gone or minimal, but those OCD things in my brain are still going on, so me being not responsive to them, are causing the headache to occur. Its like they are still there, but I don't do any response to them.

I would really appreciate any other help besides "therapy" or "seeing a therapist" or "medicine". I would really like to start self-help now before anything happens.

I am REALLY thankful that you've come this far and read my story to its end. THANK YOU again, I wish you best of luck in your OCD treatment.

Hi AG -

First of all, welcome to the forums. I imagine you have been reading for a while, so thanks for registering and joining in. We can use all the stories we can get. It's good for all of us to know that there are people like us, though we wish no one was suffering.

Next, that is some really good English for not being "even close" to our language.

It sounds like you have some classic OCD going on there. I have been to all the places you have - invasive thoughts and then ritualistic behavior. The whole thing and more.

Yes, you are correct, we would say you should not be ashamed of any of it. I don't know what culture you live in, but I imagine it is not one conducive to sharing this kind of thing all around.

It seems like you have made some strides in approaching the issue. I can't speak to the vitamins, but I am glad that they have helped you. But it seems like the over all OCD is getting the better of the situation.

Is there a chance that you could seek out professional help and be comfortable with it? I don't remember seeing that in your post, forgive me if you mentioned it.

The key for me was meds and coming up with a cognitive formula for the OCD. After the meds helped make things got a little better, I decided not to act on the invasive thoughts with ritual behavior. Even though it felt like suicide to me, I did it anyway. I gave myself up to it. If it was going to "kill" me somehow, then at least I won the final battle. Well, whatever it was telling me to do vanished right away. Yes, it was replaced by something else, but slowly I built up strength to fight it.

I am free of it now. And like you always wondered - what it would be like to be free of it? Well, now I know.

And I hope you find out soon too.

Otter.