Hi guys, my name is Moe, im 22 years old and I suffer from bouts of OCD. My family has a history of anxiety related disorders, so I must have inherited it genetically.
Probably the first compulsion I could ever think of (which is kind of funny) was my obsession with my nipple, I got nipple crippled once when I was about 13, and I just kept rubbing it. It became engulfed in puss, and I kind of hid it from everyone for about a year (or more), kinda gross. I became obsessed with hiding it and not doing anything about it.
The next notable bout was when I was 16 years old. I got HOCD. I was obsessed with the thought that I could be a homosexual. In hindsight, I find this hilarious. I’m so totally without a doubt straight, but the crap that went through my head for about 2(+) years after getting it, was ridiculous. I’d be associating people with “rounder” eyes as being homosexual, I’d be watching TV and every word that sounded like “gay” such as “day, play, today” I thought they were saying “gay”. This battered my confidence at this age, because I just did not have a clue what was going on, I felt like I was totally straight, but the incessant thoughts really damaged my confidence. It felt as though a demon had entered my head. I remember when I was 18 years old, I was on a holiday in Greece. When I was in the swimming pool, I was talking to a very attractive girl. I was so attracted to her that I was aroused in the swimming pool (sorry if this is too much information, but it will highlight the condition). In the mean time, in my head, I was thinking “you can’t have this girl, you are gay” etc. My own internal conflict prevented me from having what I really wanted.
After a while, I snapped myself out of it. A turning point was when I heard a talk about a Buddhist monk about the nature of thoughts. “Picture a tranquil landscape in your mind, with mountains in the background. Now picture a bird flying across the horizon. A thought is merely a bird flying across the landscape of your mind. You need not focus on the bird, but acknowledge it and let it fly on."
This statement, I feel made me make sense of the nature of thoughts and helped my OCD a lot more.
It was the time that I snapped out of the HOCD that I met my girlfriend. We had a very good relationship for 2 years which started to stagnate after 3 years. During this time I had a couple of obsessions, but nothing too serious. In the 3rd year I also started to feel like seeing other girls, however I never spoke up about it. I think in defense to what I was feeling, I developed another compulsion. I became obsessed with sustainability.
Now, I still love nature, sustainable technology and everything involved, but when you take it to the point that I did, it becomes a problem. I did many constructive things, such as grew my own vegetables, made a rainwater tank, got backyard chickens, read a lot, etc. The problem was it became too much. I stopped going out and seeing my friends, to the point that my girlfriend said, you need to see your friends and go out! I started neglecting people around me that I cared about. All I wanted to do was go out into the country side and get my own property and live there by myself preparing the Armageddon and the end of the world. I became so dark, to the point that my girlfriend and I broke up.
After we broke up, I did a complete 180 degree turn. I started going out a lot, seeing all my friends, being really sociable, seeing other girls. After about 3 weeks my ex girlfriend and I decided to meet up again to see how we’ve been. Our relationship was never violent, abusive or harsh and we wanted to remain friends, so seeing her was not difficult. Of course, we slept together soon after and she realized she still had feelings for me. A couple of weeks later, I realized the same thing. We are now back together, and now that she’s realized I truly have OCD, we both are making a lot of sense of all the things that happened during our relationship. It’s strange because her brother has OCD, (he’s now 23) so she’s always had someone with OCD in the family. His compulsions were more obvious; mine however, have always been subtle; to the point that it could be confused with me being “myself”. My compulsions even evade my own mind and a lot of them are based on things I actually enjoy doing.
My goals now are to meditate as much as possible. I really think that mediation is important for OCD sufferers as it will be able to control your mind and gain a good grasp on what is happening. I also don’t take my OCD seriously. When stupid crap goes through my head, I laugh at it. It’s easier said than done in hind sight, however, I find it really helps me deal with it these days.
My other goal is to learn to pick up projects/ideas once I have left it behind. The problem is, I go into an obsessive phase with an idea, do heaaaaps of work on it and then once the obsession is gone, I leave it as an unfinished project or idea. This pisses me off the most about OCD. When you have an obsession, you just go crazy with motivation and will to complete it. Then when it’s gone, the idea seems so much less appealing and the motivation to finish it is gone! You still want to do it, but it’s not like before, which is like doing the same thing, but on drugs!
I ultimately want to destroy my OCD (haha) if that is possible. It wants to rule my life, but it really can go get ****ed. I will accept it as part of myself, but I really want to learn as many techniques as possible to learn to harness the power of it, without it controlling me. If you have found this to be possible, please let me know your techniques.
Thanks for reading my story! -Moe
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Probably the first compulsion I could ever think of (which is kind of funny) was my obsession with my nipple, I got nipple crippled once when I was about 13, and I just kept rubbing it. It became engulfed in puss, and I kind of hid it from everyone for about a year (or more), kinda gross. I became obsessed with hiding it and not doing anything about it.
The next notable bout was when I was 16 years old. I got HOCD. I was obsessed with the thought that I could be a homosexual. In hindsight, I find this hilarious. I’m so totally without a doubt straight, but the crap that went through my head for about 2(+) years after getting it, was ridiculous. I’d be associating people with “rounder” eyes as being homosexual, I’d be watching TV and every word that sounded like “gay” such as “day, play, today” I thought they were saying “gay”. This battered my confidence at this age, because I just did not have a clue what was going on, I felt like I was totally straight, but the incessant thoughts really damaged my confidence. It felt as though a demon had entered my head. I remember when I was 18 years old, I was on a holiday in Greece. When I was in the swimming pool, I was talking to a very attractive girl. I was so attracted to her that I was aroused in the swimming pool (sorry if this is too much information, but it will highlight the condition). In the mean time, in my head, I was thinking “you can’t have this girl, you are gay” etc. My own internal conflict prevented me from having what I really wanted.
After a while, I snapped myself out of it. A turning point was when I heard a talk about a Buddhist monk about the nature of thoughts. “Picture a tranquil landscape in your mind, with mountains in the background. Now picture a bird flying across the horizon. A thought is merely a bird flying across the landscape of your mind. You need not focus on the bird, but acknowledge it and let it fly on."
This statement, I feel made me make sense of the nature of thoughts and helped my OCD a lot more.
It was the time that I snapped out of the HOCD that I met my girlfriend. We had a very good relationship for 2 years which started to stagnate after 3 years. During this time I had a couple of obsessions, but nothing too serious. In the 3rd year I also started to feel like seeing other girls, however I never spoke up about it. I think in defense to what I was feeling, I developed another compulsion. I became obsessed with sustainability.
Now, I still love nature, sustainable technology and everything involved, but when you take it to the point that I did, it becomes a problem. I did many constructive things, such as grew my own vegetables, made a rainwater tank, got backyard chickens, read a lot, etc. The problem was it became too much. I stopped going out and seeing my friends, to the point that my girlfriend said, you need to see your friends and go out! I started neglecting people around me that I cared about. All I wanted to do was go out into the country side and get my own property and live there by myself preparing the Armageddon and the end of the world. I became so dark, to the point that my girlfriend and I broke up.
After we broke up, I did a complete 180 degree turn. I started going out a lot, seeing all my friends, being really sociable, seeing other girls. After about 3 weeks my ex girlfriend and I decided to meet up again to see how we’ve been. Our relationship was never violent, abusive or harsh and we wanted to remain friends, so seeing her was not difficult. Of course, we slept together soon after and she realized she still had feelings for me. A couple of weeks later, I realized the same thing. We are now back together, and now that she’s realized I truly have OCD, we both are making a lot of sense of all the things that happened during our relationship. It’s strange because her brother has OCD, (he’s now 23) so she’s always had someone with OCD in the family. His compulsions were more obvious; mine however, have always been subtle; to the point that it could be confused with me being “myself”. My compulsions even evade my own mind and a lot of them are based on things I actually enjoy doing.
My goals now are to meditate as much as possible. I really think that mediation is important for OCD sufferers as it will be able to control your mind and gain a good grasp on what is happening. I also don’t take my OCD seriously. When stupid crap goes through my head, I laugh at it. It’s easier said than done in hind sight, however, I find it really helps me deal with it these days.
My other goal is to learn to pick up projects/ideas once I have left it behind. The problem is, I go into an obsessive phase with an idea, do heaaaaps of work on it and then once the obsession is gone, I leave it as an unfinished project or idea. This pisses me off the most about OCD. When you have an obsession, you just go crazy with motivation and will to complete it. Then when it’s gone, the idea seems so much less appealing and the motivation to finish it is gone! You still want to do it, but it’s not like before, which is like doing the same thing, but on drugs!
I ultimately want to destroy my OCD (haha) if that is possible. It wants to rule my life, but it really can go get ****ed. I will accept it as part of myself, but I really want to learn as many techniques as possible to learn to harness the power of it, without it controlling me. If you have found this to be possible, please let me know your techniques.
Thanks for reading my story! -Moe
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