Does this sound like OCD?

Does this sound like it could be OCD? I hate the idea of self-diagnosing etc but i don’t know if I’m just using this as an excuse for my weird behaviours or not. Anyway, for a long time, if I felt my parents were in anyway acting off with me I’d compulsively ask them what’s wrong and apologise even if I hadn’t done anything, and if they didn’t respond in a particular way that made it sound okay then I would keep apologising until they did. Needless to say the fact that I keep apologising frustrates them to the point where they can’t hide their annoyance and I can sense that, and it creates a vicious cycle. Recently, I’ve been struggling with unbearable guilt regarding some experimentation/inappropriate behaviour as a 12 year old I engaged in with my younger sister, however it wasn’t obviously sexual in nature I.e no genital contact, no one was naked, no touching each other’s private’s, it was inappropriate nevertheless, but on uncommon forum I posted the story and someone said there is no way she’ll remember and what I did doesn’t qualify as abusive. Despite this I can’t stop researching how what I did is abuse, looking up stories of sibling abuse and convincing myself her life is ruined and she’ll come forward in the future and I’ll go to jail, and then finding reassurance through googling forums which have people with similar stories, and real event ocd forums which make me feel like this is what my problem is, and that temporarily alleviates my anxiety. The constant rumination also has led to me distorting memories and imagining I may have been older when this happened and I know deep down I wasn’t. I also have recently found myself tapping my feet alternately and counting to 20 along with the taps, but if one tap is “off beat” I have to start over again until I land on 20 on the right foot. I also do this with my fingers as in tapping the desk and counting to 20 or something. I don’t know what it is but it just doesn’t feel right if I don’t do it this way. I’ve also been somewhat of a sexual health hypochondriac. When I was 17 I convinced myself I had herpes even though I had never had sex and only oral, and the chances of me contracting from one instance of oral were astronomically small. I convinced myself I could see sores, my lymph nodes were swelling and I had shooting pains, and kept going onto opinion forum sites, googling the likelihood of contracting herpes in this fashion, and what sores look like. Also before this, I had an instance of thrush, but the circumstances (first gf, talk of having sex etc) made this very very embarrassing. Subsequently I went into somewhat of a depression over this and convinced myself it’d never be gone. I’d spend hours looking at my penis and online to see if I could find cures, I’d constantly ask my dad to look and see if it looked any better (weird I know) and made him book an appointment with a private dermatologist. My dad, the dermatologist, and the doctor on 2 occasions all said it looked completely fine and healthy, and eventually the worry subsided. I found myself realising I had spent what was probably two months in one of the worst state of my life convincing I had something I Didn’t. All in all I don’t know if these are simple worries or indicative of something like OCD and I know a professional diagnosis would be the best way to go but wanted to know if it was worth considering it? The apologising compulsion thing has gone on as long as I remember, the rest of these have been since I was about 16/17, and I’m 18 now

NorthDBoy wrote:Does this sound like it could be OCD? I hate the idea of self-diagnosing etc but i don’t know if I’m just using this as an excuse for my weird behaviours or not. Anyway, for a long time, if I felt my parents were in anyway acting off with me I’d compulsively ask them what’s wrong and apologise even if I hadn’t done anything, and if they didn’t respond in a particular way that made it sound okay then I would keep apologising until they did. Needless to say the fact that I keep apologising frustrates them to the point where they can’t hide their annoyance and I can sense that, and it creates a vicious cycle. Recently, I’ve been struggling with unbearable guilt regarding some experimentation/inappropriate behaviour as a 12 year old I engaged in with my younger sister, however it wasn’t obviously sexual in nature I.e no genital contact, no one was naked, no touching each other’s private’s, it was inappropriate nevertheless, but on uncommon forum I posted the story and someone said there is no way she’ll remember and what I did doesn’t qualify as abusive. Despite this I can’t stop researching how what I did is abuse, looking up stories of sibling abuse and convincing myself her life is ruined and she’ll come forward in the future and I’ll go to jail, and then finding reassurance through googling forums which have people with similar stories, and real event ocd forums which make me feel like this is what my problem is, and that temporarily alleviates my anxiety. The constant rumination also has led to me distorting memories and imagining I may have been older when this happened and I know deep down I wasn’t. I also have recently found myself tapping my feet alternately and counting to 20 along with the taps, but if one tap is “off beat” I have to start over again until I land on 20 on the right foot. I also do this with my fingers as in tapping the desk and counting to 20 or something. I don’t know what it is but it just doesn’t feel right if I don’t do it this way. I’ve also been somewhat of a sexual health hypochondriac. When I was 17 I convinced myself I had herpes even though I had never had sex and only oral, and the chances of me contracting from one instance of oral were astronomically small. I convinced myself I could see sores, my lymph nodes were swelling and I had shooting pains, and kept going onto opinion forum sites, googling the likelihood of contracting herpes in this fashion, and what sores look like. Also before this, I had an instance of thrush, but the circumstances (first gf, talk of having sex etc) made this very very embarrassing. Subsequently I went into somewhat of a depression over this and convinced myself it’d never be gone. I’d spend hours looking at my penis and online to see if I could find cures, I’d constantly ask my dad to look and see if it looked any better (weird I know) and made him book an appointment with a private dermatologist. My dad, the dermatologist, and the doctor on 2 occasions all said it looked completely fine and healthy, and eventually the worry subsided. I found myself realising I had spent what was probably two months in one of the worst state of my life convincing I had something I Didn’t. All in all I don’t know if these are simple worries or indicative of something like OCD and I know a professional diagnosis would be the best way to go but wanted to know if it was worth considering it? The apologising compulsion thing has gone on as long as I remember, the rest of these have been since I was about 16/17, and I’m 18 now

This sounds very much like OCD to me. I can relate a great deal to many of the things you have written about.

Health anxiety
The health anxiety OCD (you were worried about sexually transmitted diseases) in my case was about worrying I had cancer. I would check for lumps on my chest (I'm a guy) and kept going to the doctors surgery, at the worst point multiple times a week. Multiple doctors reassured me there was nothing wrong, just fatty tissue. But I remained unconvinced and kept insisting they weren't taking me seriously because I was only 19 and too young to get cancer. They eventually sent me for an ultrasound which showed nothing was wrong. Somehow I managed to stop worrying about it. Later on, I was obsessed I had bowel cancer because of stomach cramps and blood in stools. It turned out I had ulcerative colitis - probably exacerbated by my years of intense worrying!

Sexuality related OCD
The OCD concerning being a pervert/pedo was another horrifying phase of OCD I experienced when I turned adolescent. Like you, I was convinced I had done something inappropriate to a relative, in my case, my younger cousin. I had to go through the painful process of seeking reassurance from my own mother and father about this. It was very embarrassing but I couldn't bare the guilt I felt about it. Of course, I didn't have anything to feel guilty about because it was distorted OCD thinking which convinced me I had abused my cousin, it wasn't reality.

I'm evil OCD

This was actually the trigger which started off my OCD, before the sexuality and health related OCD came about. I started off believing I was a psychopath after watching the film Se7en with Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey. I asked my dad constantly if every thought I had was normal and did it mean I was a psychopath. At one point, it was so bad I was filling up sheets of A4 paper with every single thought that came into my head and then asking my poor dad to go through all of them, making sure I wasn't evil.
This one I still have to some degree, hence why I ended up on this site, as I currently am concerned about maybe being a covert narcissist.

I developed compulsions in relation to the various obsessions I had:

- Feeling for lumps to check if I had cancer. Multiple times a day, multiple times an hour at the worst point. I would also spend hours searching the internet for symptoms.
- If one of my arms brushed against a piece of furniture, I would have to brush my other arm to "neutralise" it. This was connected to my fear of inappropriately touching a child. I would also check there were no gaps in my curtains at night for fear of being sent to jail for exposing myself.
- If I had a negative thought about someone in my class, I would have to neutralise it by smiling at them. This got me some very strange looks! This was in relation to my obsession about being a bad person (psychopath). I would also keep repeating positive statements in my head about the person.
- Would continually seek reassurance from my parents and therapist asking if my thoughts, feelings and behaviours were normal.

Breaking the cycle:
Thankfully, I was able to break the vicious cycle thanks to my therapist teaching me how to endure the very unpleasant process of staying with the intrusive thoughts and self doubts without performing any compulsion/neutralising action or seeking reassurance from people. It is extremely unpleasant to begin with as every fibre in you is saying the thoughts are true and I MUST neutralise them. But slowly, the thoughts and fears began losing their power and I was able to go for longer and longer periods without needing reassurance or neutralising/performing compulsions. I was also prescribed sertraline which helped me a lot also. Started on 50mg, later increased to 100mg then 150mg.

I still struggle with excessive analysing of myself (currently narcissism being the main concern) but nowhere near as intense as before. I very rarely perform any compulsions and seek reassurance far less. In my case, the OCD went on for too long without being properly controlled so I developed depersonalization from sheer exhaustion which I still have unfortunately, but I am grateful that the OCD is far less severe.

I hope you are able to come through the other side as I did. I would advise seeing if there are any therapists who specialise in OCD who could help you.

thelivinghell92 wrote:

NorthDBoy wrote:Does this sound like it could be OCD? I hate the idea of self-diagnosing etc but i don’t know if I’m just using this as an excuse for my weird behaviours or not. Anyway, for a long time, if I felt my parents were in anyway acting off with me I’d compulsively ask them what’s wrong and apologise even if I hadn’t done anything, and if they didn’t respond in a particular way that made it sound okay then I would keep apologising until they did. Needless to say the fact that I keep apologising frustrates them to the point where they can’t hide their annoyance and I can sense that, and it creates a vicious cycle. Recently, I’ve been struggling with unbearable guilt regarding some experimentation/inappropriate behaviour as a 12 year old I engaged in with my younger sister, however it wasn’t obviously sexual in nature I.e no genital contact, no one was naked, no touching each other’s private’s, it was inappropriate nevertheless, but on uncommon forum I posted the story and someone said there is no way she’ll remember and what I did doesn’t qualify as abusive. Despite this I can’t stop researching how what I did is abuse, looking up stories of sibling abuse and convincing myself her life is ruined and she’ll come forward in the future and I’ll go to jail, and then finding reassurance through googling forums which have people with similar stories, and real event ocd forums which make me feel like this is what my problem is, and that temporarily alleviates my anxiety. The constant rumination also has led to me distorting memories and imagining I may have been older when this happened and I know deep down I wasn’t. I also have recently found myself tapping my feet alternately and counting to 20 along with the taps, but if one tap is “off beat” I have to start over again until I land on 20 on the right foot. I also do this with my fingers as in tapping the desk and counting to 20 or something. I don’t know what it is but it just doesn’t feel right if I don’t do it this way. I’ve also been somewhat of a sexual health hypochondriac. When I was 17 I convinced myself I had herpes even though I had never had sex and only oral, and the chances of me contracting from one instance of oral were astronomically small. I convinced myself I could see sores, my lymph nodes were swelling and I had shooting pains, and kept going onto opinion forum sites, googling the likelihood of contracting herpes in this fashion, and what sores look like. Also before this, I had an instance of thrush, but the circumstances (first gf, talk of having sex etc) made this very very embarrassing. Subsequently I went into somewhat of a depression over this and convinced myself it’d never be gone. I’d spend hours looking at my penis and online to see if I could find cures, I’d constantly ask my dad to look and see if it looked any better (weird I know) and made him book an appointment with a private dermatologist. My dad, the dermatologist, and the doctor on 2 occasions all said it looked completely fine and healthy, and eventually the worry subsided. I found myself realising I had spent what was probably two months in one of the worst state of my life convincing I had something I Didn’t. All in all I don’t know if these are simple worries or indicative of something like OCD and I know a professional diagnosis would be the best way to go but wanted to know if it was worth considering it? The apologising compulsion thing has gone on as long as I remember, the rest of these have been since I was about 16/17, and I’m 18 now

This sounds very much like OCD to me. I can relate a great deal to many of the things you have written about.

Health anxiety
The health anxiety OCD (you were worried about sexually transmitted diseases) in my case was about worrying I had cancer. I would check for lumps on my chest (I'm a guy) and kept going to the doctors surgery, at the worst point multiple times a week. Multiple doctors reassured me there was nothing wrong, just fatty tissue. But I remained unconvinced and kept insisting they weren't taking me seriously because I was only 19 and too young to get cancer. They eventually sent me for an ultrasound which showed nothing was wrong. Somehow I managed to stop worrying about it. Later on, I was obsessed I had bowel cancer because of stomach cramps and blood in stools. It turned out I had ulcerative colitis - probably exacerbated by my years of intense worrying!

Sexuality related OCD
The OCD concerning being a pervert/pedo was another horrifying phase of OCD I experienced when I turned adolescent. Like you, I was convinced I had done something inappropriate to a relative, in my case, my younger cousin. I had to go through the painful process of seeking reassurance from my own mother and father about this. It was very embarrassing but I couldn't bare the guilt I felt about it. Of course, I didn't have anything to feel guilty about because it was distorted OCD thinking which convinced me I had abused my cousin, it wasn't reality.

I'm evil OCD

This was actually the trigger which started off my OCD, before the sexuality and health related OCD came about. I started off believing I was a psychopath after watching the film Se7en with Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey. I asked my dad constantly if every thought I had was normal and did it mean I was a psychopath. At one point, it was so bad I was filling up sheets of A4 paper with every single thought that came into my head and then asking my poor dad to go through all of them, making sure I wasn't evil.
This one I still have to some degree, hence why I ended up on this site, as I currently am concerned about maybe being a covert narcissist.

I developed compulsions in relation to the various obsessions I had:

- Feeling for lumps to check if I had cancer. Multiple times a day, multiple times an hour at the worst point. I would also spend hours searching the internet for symptoms.
- If one of my arms brushed against a piece of furniture, I would have to brush my other arm to "neutralise" it. This was connected to my fear of inappropriately touching a child. I would also check there were no gaps in my curtains at night for fear of being sent to jail for exposing myself.
- If I had a negative thought about someone in my class, I would have to neutralise it by smiling at them. This got me some very strange looks! This was in relation to my obsession about being a bad person (psychopath). I would also keep repeating positive statements in my head about the person.
- Would continually seek reassurance from my parents and therapist asking if my thoughts, feelings and behaviours were normal.

Breaking the cycle:
Thankfully, I was able to break the vicious cycle thanks to my therapist teaching me how to endure the very unpleasant process of staying with the intrusive thoughts and self doubts without performing any compulsion/neutralising action or seeking reassurance from people. It is extremely unpleasant to begin with as every fibre in you is saying the thoughts are true and I MUST neutralise them. But slowly, the thoughts and fears began losing their power and I was able to go for longer and longer periods without needing reassurance or neutralising/performing compulsions. I was also prescribed sertraline which helped me a lot also. Started on 50mg, later increased to 100mg then 150mg.

I still struggle with excessive analysing of myself (currently narcissism being the main concern) but nowhere near as intense as before. I very rarely perform any compulsions and seek reassurance far less. In my case, the OCD went on for too long without being properly controlled so I developed depersonalization from sheer exhaustion which I still have unfortunately, but I am grateful that the OCD is far less severe.

I hope you are able to come through the other side as I did. I would advise seeing if there are any therapists who specialise in OCD who could help you.

Thank you very much for this. Your point about the narcissism obsession is interesting cause When my anxiety regarding my inappropriate behaviour was extremely high I worried that I myself might be a narcissist as I started believing I felt guilty merely cause I was afraid of consequences, not cause I actually did it. I asked my mum and girlfriend if they thought I had narcissistic tendencies and they said no absolutely not, and the thing is, this worry dissipated fairly quickly, as in after two days or so. This makes me think it wasn’t OCD but I was pretty anxious and depressed at the time. Either way, it’s interesting to see something like this manifest in someone else, even if for me it seemed to subside quickly

thelivinghell92 wrote:

NorthDBoy wrote:Does this sound like it could be OCD? I hate the idea of self-diagnosing etc but i don’t know if I’m just using this as an excuse for my weird behaviours or not. Anyway, for a long time, if I felt my parents were in anyway acting off with me I’d compulsively ask them what’s wrong and apologise even if I hadn’t done anything, and if they didn’t respond in a particular way that made it sound okay then I would keep apologising until they did. Needless to say the fact that I keep apologising frustrates them to the point where they can’t hide their annoyance and I can sense that, and it creates a vicious cycle. Recently, I’ve been struggling with unbearable guilt regarding some experimentation/inappropriate behaviour as a 12 year old I engaged in with my younger sister, however it wasn’t obviously sexual in nature I.e no genital contact, no one was naked, no touching each other’s private’s, it was inappropriate nevertheless, but on uncommon forum I posted the story and someone said there is no way she’ll remember and what I did doesn’t qualify as abusive. Despite this I can’t stop researching how what I did is abuse, looking up stories of sibling abuse and convincing myself her life is ruined and she’ll come forward in the future and I’ll go to jail, and then finding reassurance through googling forums which have people with similar stories, and real event ocd forums which make me feel like this is what my problem is, and that temporarily alleviates my anxiety. The constant rumination also has led to me distorting memories and imagining I may have been older when this happened and I know deep down I wasn’t. I also have recently found myself tapping my feet alternately and counting to 20 along with the taps, but if one tap is “off beat” I have to start over again until I land on 20 on the right foot. I also do this with my fingers as in tapping the desk and counting to 20 or something. I don’t know what it is but it just doesn’t feel right if I don’t do it this way. I’ve also been somewhat of a sexual health hypochondriac. When I was 17 I convinced myself I had herpes even though I had never had sex and only oral, and the chances of me contracting from one instance of oral were astronomically small. I convinced myself I could see sores, my lymph nodes were swelling and I had shooting pains, and kept going onto opinion forum sites, googling the likelihood of contracting herpes in this fashion, and what sores look like. Also before this, I had an instance of thrush, but the circumstances (first gf, talk of having sex etc) made this very very embarrassing. Subsequently I went into somewhat of a depression over this and convinced myself it’d never be gone. I’d spend hours looking at my penis and online to see if I could find cures, I’d constantly ask my dad to look and see if it looked any better (weird I know) and made him book an appointment with a private dermatologist. My dad, the dermatologist, and the doctor on 2 occasions all said it looked completely fine and healthy, and eventually the worry subsided. I found myself realising I had spent what was probably two months in one of the worst state of my life convincing I had something I Didn’t. All in all I don’t know if these are simple worries or indicative of something like OCD and I know a professional diagnosis would be the best way to go but wanted to know if it was worth considering it? The apologising compulsion thing has gone on as long as I remember, the rest of these have been since I was about 16/17, and I’m 18 now

This sounds very much like OCD to me. I can relate a great deal to many of the things you have written about.

Health anxiety
The health anxiety OCD (you were worried about sexually transmitted diseases) in my case was about worrying I had cancer. I would check for lumps on my chest (I'm a guy) and kept going to the doctors surgery, at the worst point multiple times a week. Multiple doctors reassured me there was nothing wrong, just fatty tissue. But I remained unconvinced and kept insisting they weren't taking me seriously because I was only 19 and too young to get cancer. They eventually sent me for an ultrasound which showed nothing was wrong. Somehow I managed to stop worrying about it. Later on, I was obsessed I had bowel cancer because of stomach cramps and blood in stools. It turned out I had ulcerative colitis - probably exacerbated by my years of intense worrying!

Sexuality related OCD
The OCD concerning being a pervert/pedo was another horrifying phase of OCD I experienced when I turned adolescent. Like you, I was convinced I had done something inappropriate to a relative, in my case, my younger cousin. I had to go through the painful process of seeking reassurance from my own mother and father about this. It was very embarrassing but I couldn't bare the guilt I felt about it. Of course, I didn't have anything to feel guilty about because it was distorted OCD thinking which convinced me I had abused my cousin, it wasn't reality.

I'm evil OCD

This was actually the trigger which started off my OCD, before the sexuality and health related OCD came about. I started off believing I was a psychopath after watching the film Se7en with Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey. I asked my dad constantly if every thought I had was normal and did it mean I was a psychopath. At one point, it was so bad I was filling up sheets of A4 paper with every single thought that came into my head and then asking my poor dad to go through all of them, making sure I wasn't evil.
This one I still have to some degree, hence why I ended up on this site, as I currently am concerned about maybe being a covert narcissist.

I developed compulsions in relation to the various obsessions I had:

- Feeling for lumps to check if I had cancer. Multiple times a day, multiple times an hour at the worst point. I would also spend hours searching the internet for symptoms.
- If one of my arms brushed against a piece of furniture, I would have to brush my other arm to "neutralise" it. This was connected to my fear of inappropriately touching a child. I would also check there were no gaps in my curtains at night for fear of being sent to jail for exposing myself.
- If I had a negative thought about someone in my class, I would have to neutralise it by smiling at them. This got me some very strange looks! This was in relation to my obsession about being a bad person (psychopath). I would also keep repeating positive statements in my head about the person.
- Would continually seek reassurance from my parents and therapist asking if my thoughts, feelings and behaviours were normal.

Breaking the cycle:
Thankfully, I was able to break the vicious cycle thanks to my therapist teaching me how to endure the very unpleasant process of staying with the intrusive thoughts and self doubts without performing any compulsion/neutralising action or seeking reassurance from people. It is extremely unpleasant to begin with as every fibre in you is saying the thoughts are true and I MUST neutralise them. But slowly, the thoughts and fears began losing their power and I was able to go for longer and longer periods without needing reassurance or neutralising/performing compulsions. I was also prescribed sertraline which helped me a lot also. Started on 50mg, later increased to 100mg then 150mg.

I still struggle with excessive analysing of myself (currently narcissism being the main concern) but nowhere near as intense as before. I very rarely perform any compulsions and seek reassurance far less. In my case, the OCD went on for too long without being properly controlled so I developed depersonalization from sheer exhaustion which I still have unfortunately, but I am grateful that the OCD is far less severe.

I hope you are able to come through the other side as I did. I would advise seeing if there are any therapists who specialise in OCD who could help you.

I also have another question for you if thats alright. Did your compulsions, like brushing your arm of a sofa, seem to just come out of nowhere and hit you all at once, or did they creep up on you? I ask this cause I've only noticed myself doing the counting thing recently but its defintely more crept up than just hit me out nowhere. I might not even notice I'm doing it for a few seconds then realise and have to 'even it out.' The counting hasn't taken over my life or anything by a long stretch but i do still find myself feeling uncomfortable if it isn't done right. Despite this though, I can remember the exact moment when memories of what I had done when I was younger just popped into my head and the guilt and anxiety hit me like a ton of bricks, so its weird that one of these obsessions/behaviours would just hit me out of nowhere and another could just creep up on me ever so slowly