You can't get though life without advice. Without talking to the people who had been though life already and had learned from their mistakes. Be it a job fair, or spending a night on a college campus before you apply, everyday people share what they have learned from experience. However, for people with OCD, that is not quite the case. You can't just go up to someone and ask, "hey, what is it like to have OCD?" especially because they probably wouldn't have had it in the first place. So, here I am, determined to change that.
First off, let me say that I am a 17 year old high school graduate who will be heading to college in the fall. I was officially diagnosed with OCD at the end of ninth grade when I could not longer function normally with my obsessions and compulsions. When I began to fear that I was going crazy, I went to the internet, desperate to find proof for myself that I was not some deranged person, but that there was a reason for why I felt as I did. Maybe I can be that proof for another scared person who may just think that they are going crazy.
However, I'm and not writing this blog solely for the use of people with OCD. I am also writing it for their friends and parents, siblings, spouses, coworkers, and children. Because a life controlled with OCD can get mighty lonely when you don't have anyone that understands. But understanding OCD, now that can be a big problem. I believe that you can only fully understand what OCD is like if you have experienced it. But others can get pretty close. And let me tell you, understanding is the best thing that someone with OCD can receive from the people that care about them. Sometimes compulsions can seem annoying or weird to people without OCD, but if you try to understand how people with OCD feel, you can resist letting OCD ruin a relationship.
Now, a symptom of this disorder is a desire to hide compulsions, and an innate embarrassment or shame surrounding what OCDers think and feel. So, how are you supposed to understand someone with OCD if they don't want to talk about it? Well that, ladies and gentlemen, brings me full circle to the reason that I am writing this blog. To give you a glimpse into the thought processes and experiences of someone with OCD. To help those parents out there understand how to help there children, and the friends out there how to be supportive of people they know with OCD. To help those people out there with OCD to know that they are not alone in what they got through.
