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This Is The Depressing Truth About Living With OCD

Officially, it is no more possible to be a little bit OCD than it is to be a little bit pregnant or a little bit dead.
Holly Riordan
April 18, 2017
“It’s not always about repetitive actions, counting steps, or making sure things are super clean – the classic signs of OCD. It’s more often about not being able to let go of a thought or fear, and then taking extreme measures to resolve the problem.”
— Brianna Wiest, 7 Things People With High-Functioning OCD Want You To Know
Tagged: ocd, actions, Steps
“The whole problem is that OCD makes you incapable of controlling your attention. While nobody has power over what thoughts pop up in their heads, they usually do have autonomy over whether or not they focus on them. This is not the case with OCD.”
— Brianna Wiest, 7 Things People With High-Functioning OCD Want You To Know
Tagged: ocd, Thoughts, Attention
“Obsessive thoughts are often a response to confusing discomfort for danger. This is the premise of all anxiety, but particularly with OCD.”
— Brianna Wiest, 7 Things People With High-Functioning OCD Want You To Know
Tagged: ocd, Discomfort, danger
“The difference is those living with OCD are not able to pass off these thoughts quickly as an ‘odd thought’ but often get ‘stuck’ on them even with every attempt to ignore or suppress them.”
— Blare June, What It Really Means To Say ‘I Have OCD’
Tagged: ocd, Thoughts, Obsession
“Common obsessional thoughts include: violent thoughts (ex: wanting to kill a loved one), sexual thoughts (ex: sexual thoughts of children and family members) and thoughts of contamination (ex: thoughts that one will be infested with germs).”
— Blare June, What It Really Means To Say ‘I Have OCD’
Tagged: ocd, Murder, Sex, germs
“The thing about OCD is that I realize I’m being completely ridiculous. You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to make me feel even worse about it than I already do, because I know. I’m trying to resist my urges, but it’s hard.”
— Holly Riordan, How To Love Someone With OCD(Because We’re Not All Like Sheldon And Monk)
Tagged: ocd, crazy, Temptations
“Sometimes, I’ll even cancel plans, because I feel like something bad is going to happen if I leave the house. The worst case scenario is always the first scenario I think of.”
— Holly Riordan, How To Love Someone With OCD(Because We’re Not All Like Sheldon And Monk)
Tagged: ocd, Fear, Death
“If you have a bad feeling about something, and something bad actually ends up happening that day, you’ll chalk it up to a coincidence and move on. Not me. I’ll think that, somehow, I knew it was going to happen. That I was right. It gives my OCD credit that it doesn’t deserve. It makes the disorder even harder to handle.”
— Holly Riordan, How To Love Someone With OCD(Because We’re Not All Like Sheldon And Monk)
Tagged: ocd, coincidence, Gut Feelings
“The severity of my OCD ebbs and flows depending on the circumstances surrounding me.”
— Cat Aleman, Living With OCD
Tagged: ocd, Circumstances, environment
“You see, my OCD serves as a weird kind of security blanket. It (very) temporarily calms my anxiety, makes me feel like I have control over the things I clearly cannot control.”
— Cat Aleman, Living With OCD
Tagged: ocd, Control, Anxiety
“I know that I’m being unreasonable but there’s a little itch that says, ‘…but what if you didn’t?’”
— Cat Aleman, Living With OCD
Tagged: ocd, Unreasonable, worries
“When you have OCD, the trigger is not reasonable, it is not something along the lines of ‘they messed it up, I have to fix it or it will annoy me’, it is more a long the lines of ‘if I don’t make sure my collection of vintage potato chips is in chronological order, someone will date-rape my future daughter’.”
— Hayden Carroll, 5 Things Everyone Misunderstands About OCD
Tagged: ocd, Unreasonable, Rape
“The intrusive thought. The needling lack of logic. The obsession. The anxiety. They do not yield, but you can get better at ignoring it.”
— Hayden Carroll, 5 Things Everyone Misunderstands About OCD
Tagged: ocd, Ignoring, Anxiety
“It’s thoughts like that that trigger the need to fix or clean. It is not because something not being the way you prefer it, bugs you. It is because something terrible will happen if you do not fix it, and the thought does not go away until you make sure what ever it is is the way it has to be. Then you have to make certain you did that correctly.”
— Hayden Carroll, 5 Things Everyone Misunderstands About OCD
Tagged: ocd, Fear, Death
“I always fucking beat it. I beat it every time I don’t do a ritual. I beat it every time I have a good day. And I beat it every day I don’t take a knife and end myself.”
— Colin Carson, You Are Stronger Than Your OCD
Tagged: ocd, strength, Rituals
“Sometimes it’s easy. You’re getting through the day: no ruminating, no rituals, you’re in the moment, no worries or doubts and you are, genuinely, on top of the world. Sometimes it’s not so easy. Sometimes you get sucked in.”
— Colin Carson, You Are Stronger Than Your OCD
Tagged: ocd, Rituals, worries, Doubts
“You often visualize bad things happening, and then need a visual distraction just to push the mental images out of your head.”
— Maya Kachroo-Levine, 9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because Of Your OCD
Tagged: ocd, Visualize, Mental Images
“OCD can make you forgetful because you can’t focus on your jarring obsessions and your real life all at the same time.”
— Maya Kachroo-Levine, 9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because Of Your OCD
Tagged: ocd, forgetful, obsessions
“When you are trying to stay in control of your wandering mind, you seek out work or other activities that take up every ounce of thought you have. You want to be fully immersed in an activity because that ensures that your mind won’t wander and obsess over your most irrational fears.”
— Maya Kachroo-Levine, 9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because Of Your OCD
Tagged: ocd, Control, Busy
“Did I leave the lights on? Did I feed the dog? Did I leave the lights on? Did I lock the door? I need to attend a meeting for a class. Did I leave the lights on? Did I forget my keys? I’ll visit a friend later. Did I leave the lights on?”
— Miggie Sarmiento, This Is What It’s Like To Fall In Love When You Have OCD
Tagged: ocd, lights, Doors, keys
“OCD will involve a lot of overthinking. Things that are yet to happen, but you will already imagine it happening inside your head.”
— Miggie Sarmiento, This Is What It’s Like To Fall In Love When You Have OCD
Tagged: ocd, Overthinking, Imagination
“You see, being Obsessive Compulsive is like going through hell.”
— Miggie Sarmiento, This Is What It’s Like To Fall In Love When You Have OCD
Tagged: ocd, Hell, Torture
“People with OCD including myself, realize that their seemingly uncontrollable behavior is irrational, but they feel unable to stop it.”
— Abhijit Naskar, The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance
Tagged: ocd, Unreasonable, Uncontrollable
“Torture: knowing something makes no sense, doing it anyway.”
— Corey Ann Haydu, OCD Love Story
Tagged: ocd, Torture, Unreasonable
“One thing which I can't stress enough is that OCD is completely nonsensical and will not listen to reason. This is one of the most frightening things about having it. I knew that to anyone I told, there are Salvador Dali paintings that make more sense.”
— Joe Wells, Touch and Go Joe: An Adolescent's Experience of OCD
Tagged: ocd, Unreasonable, Fear
“The real problem with his type of OCD--chronic fear of hurting other people--was that you thought so much about not running over children, not sideswiping pedestrians, not poisoning strangers with germs on your hands--essentially not killing a world full of strangers--that you ended up hurting the people you loved most.”
— Cammie McGovern, Say What You Will
Tagged: ocd, poison, Murder
“Officially, it is no more possible to be a little bit OCD than it is to be a little bit pregnant or a little bit dead.”
— David Adam, The Man Who Couldn't Stop
Tagged: ocd, pregnant, dead
“OCD is not a disease that bothers; it is a disease that tortures.”
— J.J. Keeler, I Hardly Ever Wash My Hands: The Other Side of OCD
Tagged: ocd, disease, Torture
“OCD focuses on the negative. I didn't think to myself, my praying will save my grandma. Instead, I thought, If I don't pray, my grandma will die for sure.”
— J.J. Keeler, I Hardly Ever Wash My Hands: The Other Side of OCD
Tagged: ocd, Negative, prayer
“OCD can literally paralyze a person from getting stuff done. It can become difficult to get out of bed, to leave your room or to do any number of basic daily activities.”
— Lance Weiss, I Have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, And This Is What It's Really Like
Tagged: ocd, Paralyze, chores