Is it possible I have OCD? Please help

Let me start out by saying I do not know a lot about OCD. I was diagnosed with GAD this past fall, and even long before that I always knew I had problems with anxiety and intrusive/obsessive thoughts. I had never considered the possibility I might have OCD, but after doing some research I am starting to feel like everything I’ve been reading fits me well. (ESPECIALLY ROCD, which I didn’t know was a thing until today.) I’m also aware that anxiety and OCD have some overlap. I’m just looking for some insight about whether or not what I have been experiencing are common symptoms of OCD.

To start with, every relationship I have ever been in has caused me an absurd amount of doubt and worry. Constantly doubting my relationship; wondering whether I love my boyfriend enough, thinking about whether or not I could be more “in love” with someone else, questioning whether or not I’m truly “in love”, comparing my relationship to other people’s, “checking” my feelings, asking friends how they feel about their partner, etc. (This is the most recurring/disruptive of my symptoms.) In some ways I feel like everything I do to try and reassure my own feelings just cause me to feel even number. I have been experiencing this quite a bit recently, and I don’t doubt it has something to do with the fact I just signed a year lease with my boyfriend.

It goes the other way in my relationship, too, like where I start to question if my boyfriend loves me, if he’s cheating on me, etc. When this happens I get a really strong urge to go through his stuff, look through his messages, check his history on his computer, etc. That probably makes me sound horrible, but the urge is so strong and hard to fight and I do give in sometimes.

I go through periods of obsessing over health-related issues. For example, there have been many times I was convinced I had an STD. When I become sure I have some sort of health condition, I spend hours researching it and thinking about it. When I was younger I was convinced I had HIV even though I was a virgin and logically knew the chances were very slim I could have gotten it any way (never shared needles, never came in contact with someone else’s blood, etc) I also still have a problem with convincing myself I’m pregnant all the time, and even if I take a pregnancy test it still usually doesn’t put my mind at ease until I get my period.

When I was younger, I was raised very religious. I used to obsessively worry about the concept of hell and feared that I might go to hell or my friends or loved ones might go to hell. I don’t believe in it anymore but I am still slightly bothered by the idea of hell.

I constantly question how I feel about basically everything. I feel like I can never be certain about things. For example, even on good days, I will have thoughts pop in my head like “am I really happy?” “am I as happy as other people?”, and things like that. And once that happens, it feels like the whole day is ruined.

Can anyone tell me if this sounds more like OCD, or do you think the obsessive thoughts are just a result of GAD? I am going to talk to my psychiatrist about this, but I was just looking for an opinion until I get to meet with him.

Oh, one more thing. Sometimes if I think about a certain part of my body (my calf, for example), I get a really, really strong urge to flex the muscle or squeeze it, and I can’t stop thinking about it until I have done that. It makes me feel like I’m so weird.
PS. I Just started taking Cymbalta for anxiety- if I do have OCD, does anyone know if it could be effective for that too? I also have a prescription for Xanax and I do take it sometimes, but it doesn’t always make the thoughts stop (it does make me sleepy though).

Dear annybells323:

GAD and OCD are two of the many diagnoses, combinations of symptoms. The root cause is the same: anxiety: excessive, ongoing fear circulating in the brain. The brain is a mushy flash and blood organ, not the neat book of diagnoses. The diagnoses are artificial, people sitting in a room organizing symptoms into groups.

Your symptoms- the flexing of your calf is a bit of a tic, like in Tourette Syndrome. Your obsessive thoughts, doubts are very OCD and all of these are the havoc anxiety causes. So psychotherapy to heal anxiety and medications to manage anxiety will affect these symptoms.

I was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and OCD 20 years after symptoms as well mood disorders, eating disorders, a personality disorder... and all these had the same root cause: excessive, ongoing fear. Psych medications did not improve my life at all, 17 years of those. It was psychotherapy that jump started my healing, more than five years now.

atina