Does it ever go away?

I have been having OCD symptoms since I was in year 5.
I don't know what triggered it but I remember that once I thought I got some insect poison on my hand. After wards I started the classic obsession with cleaning. I washed my hand all the time. I could not eat lunch at school because the toilets were not clean and I couldn't wash my hands there. I was going crazy.

In year 7 I diagnosed with it and when I realized that my obsession with cleaning was actually ill-founded. I stopped myself from doing it. Now I have absolutely no obsession with it at all. In fact I can be kinda gross sometimes

Anyway I thought that was the end of that. I got rid of one of the most debilitating thing in my life. I thought I defeated my OCD yeah...
Wrong I started doing extremely elaborate rituals. I had a ritual to go to my seat and there was a pattern to how I was supposed to step on the tiles or else something would go severely wrong. I had to have all the money in my purse a certain way otherwise I could not function.

Eventually I started to realize that these were perhaps a result of my OCD so I stopped myself to do them. My mom helps; she moticed my behaviour and talked to me about it and I realized I was being irrational

Anyway since then I don't have elaborate rituals. I again though my OCD was gone but wrong.
I went online and read up more on it and realized that I still have it and it's more severe then before.

Now I have started having relationship-related obsessions, I have started to move towards what is termed as "Pure O" which is so much harder to fight since it all happens in my brain. I have extreme intrusive thoughts. Sometimes I feel the sudden compulsion to do things like when I write I go over the same letter twice etc. I have them at the weirdest moments and just have to do them,

Its harder because "Primary Obsessional OCD" which I have now is mostly mental. I could force myself to stop washing my hands, jumping on the tiles a certain way but I can't stop something constantly happening in my brain. My compulsions are completely random too so I can't really fight them.

I feel bad. I did not have much info on OCD and now I do I feel like my whole personality has been shaped by it. I feel like a failure; I can't fight it. Its like a virus it just keeps mutating to a new form and hiding from me by presenting itself differently.

Does it ever leave you?

Unlike you, I've only ever had what could be considered "Pure-O" and intrusive thoughts. I can tell you that yes, eventually they do go away, but it takes time and work on your part. If medication is something you're comfortable with, I'd suggest it. I was on Paxil for about two years and it just takes the edge off. I got off of it at the beginning of this year and was fine until about a month and a half ago so I'm probably going to start it up again.

Until then (because it can take a few days or even weeks before you get into the doctor's office) I suggest writing down what the thoughts are and staying active. Exercise, go out with friends, just do not sit and do nothing because that's when they attack the hardest.

It sounds like you've done your research so you've probably seen this, but it's also very important to know that the only real defense is to let the thoughts kind of run through your brain. The more you fight back and try to logically break everything down, the harder it hits. When I first started going through this I thought "there's no way I can just let these thoughts go in my head, they're wicked disturbing" but the less attention you give them, the less fear it instills and eventually you begin to realize they're just thoughts. Do they annoy the hell out of me? Yeah they do, but they're just thoughts.

A strategy I took is I made a list of real life stresses in my life - meaning not the things that I was having OCD about, but real things going on in m physical life that could cause stress. This shows you why you might be feeling anxious and honestly might start to hit the root of the problem because these mental obsessions are not the real problems. Then once I got comfortable knowing that the intrusive thoughts basically weren't real, I made another list of about ten things that I can think about or do whenever I start to realize I'm over thinking, over analyzing or getting lost in the intrusive thoughts. As soon as I realize it, I calmly try to change my mental state. Obsessions suck. It's tough, but don't worry it takes time but it will pass. Good luck.