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Of course everyone has certain characteristics of autism, OCD, ADHD, and depression. That’s called being human. It’s a mental illness when it’s to the extreme.

Lmfao story of my life half are deleted tho cuz they don’t abide by community rules

OCD is a paradox of "I dont want to die," and "I dont want to live like this."

idk I call them tic tics cause it's cuter than 'visceral and uncontrollable physical attention-grabbing reactions.'

Yes. You know a person really cares about you when they listen even though we both know it doesn't make sense. Also, they will laugh at you when you need it. I've been to the point of tears from my anxiety and when I explain it my bf sees the 'threads' of anxiety I put together and he'll laugh and hold me and tell me it's okay and that he can't believe how my mind works. And then I'm in tears because his laughter is contagious. He brings out the best from the worst.

Hell no I’m not sure idk why the hell I haven’t jumped off a bridge. Wait I know wouldn’t want to make a mess with my blood when I hit the ground

Oh my god, I just found this subreddit after having a very similar freakout like, 2 minutes ago and being greeted by something that shows im not alone with these kind of things immediately calmed me down. I know I’m late, but thank you.

I identify so hard with this! Reflecting it happened to me too a few years ago. I was working at a school, big summer exam, exam papers are collected in, students allowed to leave the room, examiner starts bagging up the exam papers to send off to the exam board. They can’t find one of the papers. The student was in the room, they sat the exam, the paper isn’t in the pile, examiner remembers collecting the paper from her. Everyone was having KITTENS. I walked into a room of panicking adults operating like headless monkeys. I called out for them all to calm down, said I’d bought my ‘bi-noc-u-lars’ with me, and put my fingers up to my face like I was looking through them. I told everyone to back off and started slowly looking at one end of the room, checking everything in every cubic meter of the room before slowly moving to its neighbour. Everyone kept saying, “no it can’t possibly be there!” And “we’ve checked there”, as I went. I found it. In a pile of spare papers and general paper crud which someone said ‘it can’t be in there’ whilst someone else said ‘I already checked there’. I’d learnt over the years not to bother using memory and reasoning when looking for lost items. The only answer is forensic, physical searching. Took me another 10 years to learn I had ADHD.

What is worse is when this happens for somthing you actually *want* to do.

y r talented ! i would want one like this to be pinned on the wall of my room

Great, now I have to wash my hands for 15 minutes..

Alarms don’t work for me I need to be hit by a truck

Most of this is sound no-nonsense advice, but I don't agree with the tolerance point. I'm sure there is a limit to tolerance, but that doesn't mean that you want to reach that ceiling. Upping your dose is not inherently a good or bad thing, but it's definitely good to keep an eye on your intake. If you find yourself constantly taking a higher dose because you want to reproduce that feeling from the first week of being on medication, it could lead to you taking more than is good for you. And in the worst case scenario it could slowly lead to a usage pattern that starts to resemble addiction (which is not very likely; I don't mean to be the alarmist fearmonger).

It’s so cute when you wash your hands until they bleed and tap your foot on the doorstop until you rip your hair out 😍🥰🤩

My best advice is: dive into the thoughts and you'll see they can't hurt you.

This guy is one of my favorite social media account I follow

I just tell them how every day I worry that I’m a murderer and just somehow forgot about it or how I can’t be around knives and people at the same time because stabby stabby thoughts

I have said and thought that last paragraph so many times!!

I have always felt it was not me but the whole world was fucked up. I simply did not fit in it. Then I found out about my ADHD when I was 45. Now it makes sense why I do not fit in this fucked up world.

Wtf yessss I felt this, it dead ass ruin all the enjoyable shit n the things that makes u happy in life & push u to stay away.. it’s a fucking kill joy for sure!

I thought the intrusive thoughts were normal and then my therapist was like “um no hun that ain’t normal”

Sounds like he means well. He’s probably just trying to help. It maybe hard for him to understand what your dealing with.

Honestly OCD is so common. It’s approximated that 1 in 40 people have it and I can’t imagine how many there are undiagnosed because of all the misconceptions. Some people actually think the “C” stands for cleaning... I’m not open about my mental health at all in person. I imagine there’s a lot of people like that too? The pediatrician I had as a kid was autistic AND had OCD. Such an Amazing doctor with a really good sense of humor too.

Super relatable to me. It was particularly bad when I'd go to stay with family or friends.

😂 😂 yea.. best advice I can offer is focus on studying what you’re most interested/need to know first. I often don’t use the play later, if I cut out of a video early and really need to see it again later I use view history.

I remember in college (was not diagnosed until like 10 yrs later) I was desperately trying to figure out what was “wrong with me,” and my parents, trying to be supportive, told me to “just do my best.” I told them that my best wasn’t the problem, the “doing” was the problem.

I’m so sorry that you’re dealing with that. I have a lot of swollen lymph nodes but when I got a biopsy last year, it came back normal. I still wonder if I should follow up and get anxious that they missed something. Because of covid my annual doctors appointment was pushed to next year, but this is encouraging me to reach back out again and see if they have openings.

This or the sudden urge to go to the toilet even if I went 3 times already in the past hour

Wow, can't believe I never thought of that myself. My ADHD must have made me forget to try it.

Thank you for sharing this op, and I hope its mundane and you get it resolved quickly. This post reminded me that my left lymph node has been swollen for about a year now and I'm sweating...

Thank you! I have gotten quite better recently for OCD which had lasted like 7 years but then a surge of anxiety and depression kicks in. But I'll cope with it eventually! I'm so glad you have coped with it!😆😆😆

Disappointed Everyone: 'If only you could focus like this on x, y, or z...'

Forewarning, or maybe its just me. If you take it everyday, which which I started doing that this semester taking seven days a week. Make sure you don't run out. I ran out of Adderall XR and just wanted to die.

Story of my life. I think many people here will agree.

i agree, this has ruined my life several times over, and i hate myself because of it. I don't know what to do anymore, its been pretty hopeless for me.

as a 35 year old man, my wildest dream is literally to talk to an ocd therapist.

Creating the worst possible scenarios. That's my natural habitat

I just love you guys. I've never come across people so much like me. I used to think I was just a lazy weirdo.

When it comes to cleaning and organizing I always put it off until I can’t stand my room anymore because I know that once I begin I won’t be satisfied until everything is “in its right place.” I had the same problem with homework, which is why I didn’t do it most of the time. It takes hours to do and so much of my mental concentration (partly because of my perfectionism and fear of seeming stupid) so I just never do it.

I’m so giggling about this - I’m literally laying on the couch surfing Reddit avoiding my dishes- I love knowing I have peeps !!

consuming/making memes and treating OCD like an actual condition instead of trying to pretend I'm super neurotypical (and that therefore problematic thoughts are "actually" problematic) is quite literally part of my therapy. Meme on.

Yooo thats real good tho!! I can hardly go through a week with 14/14 brush-my-teeth record coz I get lazy sometimes lmao

I'm alone and this made me say "holy fuck" out loud.

This is not pathetic, each one is a victory! Keep it up!

I got diagnosed last year (at age 21) and my entire experience with the medical system has been infantilizing. Googling symptoms and how to deal with them was really the cherry on top. It sucks that you're going through that too, but at least we aren't alone in this :(

PSA that in most countries *other people can make phone calls to doctors for you*. I enlisted a friend of mine who wanted to help, they called around at psychiatrist offices until they found a place that could help me. I still wouldn't even have my diagnosis now if I'd had to make all those phone calls myself. It's not shameful to ask someone to help you with this! It IS hard, your friends care about you, if you tell them how they can help, a lot of the time they will *be glad* that they can help!! You're always allowed to ask, and they're always allowed to say no - that's the much better approach than anything that includes "oh I can't ask that, they'll feel obligated to say yes..." or "oh I can't say no, because they asked...". No! You're allowed to ask for *any* help, and they're allowed to say no if they so choose. You'll find that often times, people *want* to help and are super happy to find that there's something they can do to make your life easier! This doesn't just go for phone calls, this goes for anything!

This is one of those few times that having ADHD feels like a real super power. I’m so used to losing shit all the time so I’ve had great practice with finding things. My boyfriend isn’t used to losing things but will occasionally set his wallet or phone down somewhere and will give up on looking when he can’t find it. I usually step in and find his stuff within a matter of a few tries. So I always joke that he can’t ever lose me bc then he’s screwed lol

This is my parents reaction to me being diagnosed with OCD and then telling me I don’t have it cause my room is messy

I'm in this situation way too often. Especially with my favorite video games. I'm scared of interacting with it or fan content, while my OCD is flaring up. However, some of the best advice I've gotten is to do something engaging. Like, play my favorite video, make fanart if it, etc. It might not be best for everyone. Regardless, I send lots of love and support to those who try it or not. It's freeing to go against your OCD. It's hard and scary, but sometimes, I get that feeling of power and control in my life again.

It’s like your brain is constantly working overtime. It’s so tired of itself yet keeps staying late after work.

What I needed to hear as I battle more disgusting thoughts in my head 😭

Yes!!! I can tell when mine is wearing off because I feel anxious

This made me feel bad but also good at the same time. Alone but not lonely

Acknowledge your successes. We overlook them far too often.

I'm at work and I pray that I will remember this until I get home

Oh all the time. I hate it so much because there’s nothing I can really do about it and I don’t know if others remember it as well. Even mentioning to a therapist that I might have OCD, which we did a screening test for it (not an official test tho) and her telling me that technically I may have mild OCD, makes me feel guilty and like I’m faking. Almost any time I have any intrusive thought I remember this and then worry myself over thinking that I thought something bad intentionally even though I didn’t because who would willingly think about something bad like that.

I honestly thought I’d written this for a moment. I feel your pain! I have also resorted to shutting myself off and I feel like no one knows who I really am because of it. NOT wishing anxiety on you, but a coping mechanism I have built up throughout my life has been to spend much of my time rehearsing what I might say if a certain situation comes up. Funnily enough, I never seem to say it the way it is in my head 😂 but if I’m lucky, a useful sentence survives when the conversation happens. Does your girlfriend know that you struggle with ADHD? I feel like partners, family and friends are the most important relationships, so of course we want to do it right. One thing I have done in the past is to almost “schedule” an important conversation with someone when there is something I want to discuss with them, and in the mean time I spend some time alone and write down all my thoughts and feelings and any important stuff I want to communicate. If they care about you, you keeping this at hand during the conversation will not offend them, and in fact they may appreciate the effort you have gone to for them. This has helped me communicating with my parter and some family. As for work situations, it’s a lot harder and I haven’t found something that works every time, ESPECIALLY for casual or unexpected interactions where you have to have a response right there. When it’s conflict-related, I retreat almost every time and just get flustered. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it could help to rehearse for situations where you have the time to prepare. Whether the information comes up when you need it is a different story 😂 I hope this gets a little easier for you eventually OP. Hugs 🥰 EDIT - incoherent idea lol

This is the first time I've come to this sub, and this is the top thread after I opened the front page. Holy fuck I had a laugh for a minute straight - this is me currently. hahahaha we're all doomed my friend wtf is wrong with me?

I love Mother Mother! I’ve been listening to them a lot recently. Great music choices.

Now featuring a bonus bundle of apathy and anosognosia

Thank you for making this. At the moment my therapist isnt adamant about me being ocd, but she is not an ocd expert. This only confirms my entire world that is never said out loud ☺️🥰

Nothing makes me feel worse than someone pulling something out of my hands so they can do it themselves. I wanted to do it myself! I know it's not always going to happen, but I feel so awful if someone else picks up what I'm trying to do out of annoyance.

I had my first two days of still not being able to focus after taking meds since I recently started on them today and yesterday and honestly feel this post so much. Really hoping tomorrow is better...

This is a trap. I'd never catch up. Give me (roughly)infinity time, I'd still be "OH CRAP I FORGOT" 5min before the time-bubble pops.

I feel like believing none of what my experiences and thoughts are real is just an act of avoidance and not acceptance or non judgement. I’ve had my fair share of telling myself that my obsessions and feelings aren’t real, which they are real and they exist within me for a reason. I have realized that I just need to understand, accept and then let go of what’s inside me for them to really not interfere with my life. Everytime I’ve just tried to drown them out they just come back stronger when I do have episodes and I always hear this voice saying “Not real? See how REAL I AM NOW” and it just freaks me the hell out.

I’m 31 years old. I was working on something like this when I was a senior in high school for art class. I had it out working on it during World History. The teacher walked by my desk and confiscated it, then refused to give it back. I’m still not over it.

This shit is like a long term effect. It just won’t go away.

No actually my defense to intrusive thoughts is a thought as well. If I don't like the thought ill picture myself destroying the thought in some way, usually by throwing it in my head and quickly thinking of something else. It sounds weird, but ive responded this way as long as I can remember

as someone who has been told "you're overthinking it" approximately 1 million times... this fills me with incoherent rage

I. Can’t. Stand. when people think ocd is an adjective.

Nobody can know that I haven't put the clean sheets on my bed yet. It's been like 5 months and you can see the dirt spot where I've been sleeping on the white mattress cover. ....how much pay is required to wash a multitude of old coffee cups? And the corner of my shower where soap scum accumulates and I just ignore it until I hate myself! This is actually a big-brain, genius idea.

I usually take one day off on the weekends so I can sleep more. It gives me a sleep deficit throughout the week.

I feel like its more a “hyper” type analogy (sort of). For me its mostly just because I easily drift into myself. I am diagnosed Combined, but I would discribe myself as inattentive. My focus is not everywhere and everything. Its more like I just dont want to do the thing in front of me but only the thing in my head. But when I get to do the thing in my head I want to do another thing. I need huge amount of motivation. And its easiest if I find the movitvation by myself from an external thing.

sometimes I just make a weird sound to “change the subject” lmaoooooooo. If people notice, I’m sure that’s more weird than me spiraling about the thought.

Tiktok creeps me out. What is the point of sitting in front of the words and just staring into the camera

I have the same reaction as you. Pretty much any negativity directed towards me just instantly drains me. Once I'm through it tho, I generally come out with a sense of purpose and energy and I'm a real go getter! For a few hours - couple days until it wears off.

I genuinely couldn’t be more happier for you!!!! You’re AMAZING 😁🖤

It’s harder to deal with something when you don’t know what it is. After I was diagnosed I was also told by my father that he had ocd, so that explained the compultions I did and what they were. It definitely made it better when I knew it was a disorder that I couldn’t control.

I can't really tell you if any of these ADHD books are good. I'm 1/3 of the way through five of them, and I've forgotten all their titles.

I absolutely love it!! I would love to have a sticker of that.

“Just focus”. right. Let me do that real quick while there are many things happening in my brain multiple fictitious scenarios simultaneously, random anxiety of things that may be real or not and omg my assignment is due in 2 hours but OH i hear voices downstairs ? who’s here? i must go say hello oh and a snack i should get a snack and water on the way. and since i have so much time i should also start a journal entry too since i have a little thought needs to be recorded and SHIT there’s only an hour left and damnit i forgot my snack i better go back to get it

I am 51 years old with ADHD. I have tried bullet journals and the concept is great. However I just cannot seem to get into paper. I suggest an app called ClickUp. This has made a big change in my life. Try the web version first. It has just enough structure and flexibility. Used it a work yesterday for the first time and had the most productive day ever.

That's huge! You should be super proud of yourself!!

So stressfull! Exam is coming up, its supposed to be written school exam. 8 hours, write what you remember. There is a chance the exam might be switched to home exam. Home exam is a nightmare! I cannot structure myself, plan and structure a text. Last time I had an home exam I failed to deliver it on time, a few seconds after deadline. I had prepared so well, knew the curriculum. Fucked up.

How do you get diagnosed or the option to do a brain scan? What do you have to tell your doctor

My dad had schizophrenia and my kids have OCD. My dad never worried that he might be crazy. He worried that external things were affecting him, like aliens had installed a loudspeaker in his bedroom or the FBI was following him. It was really different from my kids' OCD, which is all about fears they might cause something through their actions. So I think if you're really worried about being schizophrenic, you probably aren't.

Absolutely relate! Have you tried the app “HabitShare”? You can track your progress towards habits/daily goals and can setup reminder alerts. You can also share select habits with others to help hold you accountable! Highly recommend, it’s the only way I’ve been remembering to do 50 sit-ups a day lol.

For me it’s working memory. My seems to have a synergistic effect with my social anxiety. Whether my social anxiety is *entirely* caused by my adhd, I’m still not quite sure, I think it may be. But I do know my social anxiety makes my working memory worse in conversation, I’m losing place in conversations constantly. This enters a feedback loop where eventually I’m just like ahhh screw it, id rather stay home and play video games

Oh god I feel seen. Except for me it's after I shut the bathroom door after washing my face my brain is like "mmmm sink turned itself back on you didn't turn it off and if you did it turned itself back on". So I end up standing by the door with my eyes closed listening. Walking away, circling back again. Rinse and repeat. I have never one forgotten to turn the sink off.

Since I got diagnosed, I've kind of managed to level my good and bad days out a little bit by recognizing that my brain just, kinda... sucks? And I can't trust it. Which is disorienting and doesn't play nice with my existential obsession, but hey, what the hell. OCD is full of logic knots. Our amygdalae are just kind of constantly screaming, and that's part of our experience of the good times too. We can redefine it. "The weather's nice, my dog wants breakfast, I don't know what gender I am, here's your breakfast doggie, maybe I'm a sociopath, I could really go for some cheerios." It's annoying, but definitely possible to live with.

Sounds like emotional abuse from a freaking sexist or otherwise "rape" or "victim blaming" mentality.... This literally sounds like my freaking mom and the epiphanies I've been having lately. (on my youtube channel... and a little bit on my blog for anybody who wants to see me try to explain what I mean...) But it's basically like being demeaned for trying to acknowledge somebody who is asking for your attention. It's like being demeaned for trying to respect somebody, who was really only ever asking you to compromise your own self-respect... because you fell for the trap of being manipulated into believing that they and their evil tricks (whether subconscious or otherwise) were ever actually worth your attention... It's an intriguing paradox. I'll have to try to elaborate more on this later... It feels like my mom saying "if my argument wasn't valid then why did you validate it by giving it your attention..." As if purely "dignifying something with a response" is an appropriate conclusion to have made... It's like the emotional abuse of having ever tried to love, somebody who was only ever just trying to make you stoop down to their level. Just so they could say... "see! I told you we were unlovable!!!" OCD sounds like the result of narcissistic or otherwise emotional neglect and abuse... (gaslighting...) and in my case I know that IT IS! OCD can be reversed. OCD can be curable!! Because OCD to me, sounds an awful lot, like never having fully came to terms with... who it was that your abuser... actually really is!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 \*\*\*\*Edit- this is my channel for anyone who might actually be interested! [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd1ikz0\_b6Ngx1mouoRA7cQ/](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd1ikz0_b6Ngx1mouoRA7cQ/) I would LOVE to hear from YOU. I would LOVE to know what YOU THINK!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Everyone is suddenly waking up to all the places germs frequent. I can't touch my face because I touched the underside of the table! You have to wash your hands this way! They're all lecturing and trying to "educate" others and I'm just standing there like :l Because this has been me my whole life. The most amusing to me is when they decide to lecture me and I've been doing this shit long before you Karen. This is serious! I know. No. You don't understand! I do. But! No really, *I do*.

There’s a particular “feeling” with ocd thoughts that gives it away every time, making it easier to label and ignore.

So... it isn't normal for a 7 year old to not step on the tiles because he believes that if he does, everyone close to him will die? Shit...

My dad once threw a lego set I had built against the wall saying that if I could manage to build that then I didn’t have attention dysfunctional whatever. Idk. It hurt my feelings pretty bad as a kid. I don’t even remember how old I was.

Imagine you just want to rub one out and then BAM! Intrusive thoughts ruining your vibe and setting you off causing you to either be unable to finish or finish despite the thoughts causing guilt and self doubt.

Tell me about it. Add bipolar and anxiety to the mix and you got yourself a hot mess

Far too relatable. This is how I feel trying to work from home. Just deciding to see it another way now, I'm at home because of a world crisis and if I can get some of my work done, then that's good. I'm not expecting too much of myself because my mental health is bad. And that's ok. Please try and reach out for some kind of help though. I'm in the uk, have given up on the nhs and have gone for low cost private therapy through a charity - I'm only going to have to wait a couple of weeks, and itll be online. Theres no way I can do this on my own.

This is me 100%. I have to see a doctor and get on something. Maybe the same stuff Bart was on...FocusIn.

All the time, could be reading or watching. Sometimes I have to just give up watching/reading because my brain won't let me. It could be something as simple as a letter that's come in the post, 3 paragraphs long. Its like I try and read all 3 paragraphs at once and end up reading none of it. So. Fucking. Frustrating.