Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is something that I've been living with since I was a little girl. Everything had to have a certain order to it, I would get bent out of shape if something didn't go the way I had planned it, and I had a routine for the entire day. Throughout the years, it would get worse as I would give a certain order or routine to almost anything I encountered, and I even gave each day a number so I would know how many times to do my routine that day.

People didn't understand why I would get so ornery about the smallest of things. I knew I was being irrational, but there was nothing I could do about it - my anxiety would get to the point that I would lash out at people. My compulsions would only get worse...and then I realized that the obsessive thoughts were bad too.

I had always had obsessive thoughts, but I never realized what they were. I never even wanted them, as anyone with OCD would confirm: thoughts of what would if I were to drive in the opposite lane of traffic, what the accidental brush of that boy against my arm meant, and even the thoughts of wondering if people liked me or not.

Eventually, it did get better. I found it easier and easier to deal with the compulsions and thoughts; I still have to struggle with it, but I find that distractions are a great tool.

On the downside, I see myself become increasingly more annoyed with the stigma that people consider themselves to be "OCD" about certain things. I see pictures online trying to make fun of the disorder with M&M's separated into the different colors with a green one mixed in with the reds, and a caption along the lines of "how you know you're OCD."

Those who post these pictures don't really get it. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder isn't necessarily having colors in the right place, it's daily rituals (such as the cliche of excessive hand washing) that are brought on because of anxiety. It's thoughts that won't go away, no matter how much you don't want them or how irrational you know they are. You cannot "be" OCD, you have OCD. It's sometimes hard for people to understand what it's really like to have the disorder, that I understand; however, trivializing a true illness is not the way to solve it.