I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder in March, but my symptoms go as far back as I can remember. Therefore, I think it's pretty accurate to say I grew up with it, and that growing up with obsessive-compulsive disorder is a really scary experience.
When I was about three years old, I had my first intrusive thoughts. The subject matter weirded me out, and I had no idea why I was thinking such strange things. I was young, so I figured maybe all this was temporary and I would grow out of it someday.
I didn't.
At the age of eight, the subject matter of my intrusive thoughts had gone from moderately cringeworthy to deeply disturbing. I had no idea where they kept coming from, and the fact that I was even thinking them caused me a lot of distress. At this point in time, I had become certain of two things: there was something seriously wrong with me, and there was no way anyone would understand it. I didn't know my condition had a name yet, so I explained it to myself by saying that I was cursed and there was a demon inside me that constantly spewed obscenities.
Although my condition became progressively worse as the years passed, it was not until I was sixteen that I finally decided to seek help. I'd Googled my symptoms, and I found out that the thoughts I was having were called "intrusive thoughts." Unfortunately, the counselor I saw told me that she'd never heard of something like this and the violent nature of my intrusive thoughts must be the result of anger I was not expressing. I took this to mean that my kind, caring personality was actually just a façade, and beneath it was a mass murderer just waiting to be let out.
Because she had failed me, I decided to take matters into my own hands... literally.
After reading a Tumblr post in which the author mentioned flapping one's hands in response to stress, I decided to try flapping my hands whenever the intrusive thoughts began to pour in. To my surprise, it was effective. It served as a distraction from them, which allowed me to temporarily stop thinking them. I was quite happy - until I had to start doing that all the time.
I Googled my symptoms once again, this time including the hand-flapping, and at some point I stumbled upon an article about obsessive-compulsive disorder. Its description of what compulsions were sounded much like my hand-flapping, so I thought maybe this was what I had. With this new information, I decided to seek help once again from the same counselor. She was no more helpful than she was previously, and told me I couldn't have obsessive-compulsive disorder because I had compulsions but not obsessions. (I did in fact have obsessions; she just didn't pick up on that because they revolved around things that weren't cleaning.)
Frustrated, I described my symptoms to the school psychologist. She just stared at me blankly and said "Does it interfere with your life?" My symptoms had never caused me to black out or die, so I said no. She responded by saying that if it doesn't interfere with my life, I don't have a mental illness. I felt even more hopeless than before.
Once I turned eighteen my mom had me evaluated, but it was because my poor social skills and literalism seemed to indicate autism spectrum disorder. I had heard through the grapevine that having violent thoughts could get you institutionalized and put in a straitjacket. I therefore only indicated my less scary symptoms on my diagnostic questionnaires such as anxiety and inability to relate to others and was misdiagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. The quantitative tests I was given resulted in diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and ADHD, which I agree with because they were based on quantitative data and would thusly have been the same regardless of my questionnaire responses.
Contrary to my assumptions, however, my psychologist couldn't read my mind and my obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms had not been accounted for by any of my diagnoses.
Well, I thought. I guess the only way to get help is to be honest about literally everything.
A year later, I found another psychologist and opened up to her about the full extent of my symptoms. I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, among other things.
"Thank goodness!" I thought. "I'm not cursed—I'm mentally ill!"
