OCD?

Hi all.

I am new to this forum. I guess I'll start out by saying that I'm a female in my early twenties.

A little over two months ago I had the worst panic attack I've ever had. I've only had 4 or 5 and they've all been in the last year. I've always been a worrier, but my anxiety got really bad earlier this year. Anyway, I still don't know what triggered it, but it lasted a few hours and I literally felt like I was going crazy. After the panic attack, I started having intrusive thoughts. They started out has having thoughts/urges to strangle somebody. They have now progressed into more violent and even sexual thoughts. I had never, ever had such persistent thoughts before the panic attack. They're an almost all day thing now. I wake up and think to myself, "maybe today is the day I'll go crazy" because I have this unavoidable thought/fear that I'm going to snap, lose all control, and become violent. It all scares me so much, but I often find myself doubting my fear. How do I know I'm not actually a violent person? How do I know I'm not going to snap? are questions that often plague my mind. I also worry that I'm becoming less and less empathetic, and this means I'm turning into a sociopath. I have never ever ever been violent or angry. I do, however, tend to do all I can do avoid conflict. I don't really have anyone to have conflict with other than my mother, whom I've repressed a lot of stuff from because she's impossible to have any sort of conflict with.

It seems as if these thoughts never leave, like when I am not 100% distracted, they ruminate. If I'm at home they are almost constant, but if I'm at school or work they tend to be less persistent since I have more to think about. I tend to lock myself in my room when I'm at home because feeling like this makes me want to isolate and curl up in a ball. But it's like my brain doesn't know what else to think about when I don't have anything going on. I also tend to have irrational fears about something bad happening ALL THE TIME, such as being kidnapped, raped, etc. The past few days I've been just trying to let the thoughts come and go, but I've definitely been fighting them for the past couple months. I would never ever want to harm anyone, but then there's the part of my brain questioning "how do I know I don't want to hurt anyone or myself?"

Reading or seeing anything about suicide tends to be a big trigger for me as well. It's also hard for me to read about other people's mental illnesses, such as reading forums on this site. I have been in counseling for anxiety since January. Although, I don't know if it's helped. She did recommend me my last session to someone for OCD after I told her about the intrusive thoughts. I guess I'm here to hopefully find that I'm not alone or find some sort of justification that I may very well have a form of OCD.

I suggest you start seeing a therapist for the anxiety, obsessive thoughts and panic attacks. You're not gonna go crazy, and you probably won't strangle anyone, even though you have these thoughts. I, personally, am against medication if you're sane. You can deal with it without medication, and I'd say deal with it on your own, but it might turn out to be too much, so a therapist is a good choice.

Since you've had those for a year only, there's time to take it under control.