[HopeForBetter]

Hello everyone,
I am a 23 year old student and I live with my husband in Nebraska. I was diagnosed with OCD 3 years ago and have started pulling out my hair about a year ago (I am missing a spot of hair in the back of my head). I was so relieved when I was diagnose with OCD because I had finally had a name for what was going on. Even though I was diagnosed with it when I was a sophmore in college, as I looked back, I can see it happening from when I was very little. It has changed over the years and it became extremely distressing when it hit me as a freshman in high school. These were sexual thoughts that truely disturbed me and I even considered sucide to escape them. Ever since then my OCD symptoms have been relate to sexual thoughts. I hate them.

For a couple of years now I have had sexual thoughts about children that have waxed and waned. These have been extremely distressing but they have become less distressing the longer they stick around. It sucks, because then I still have the thoughts, but I start to panic because I'm not as upset about them and maybe that means that I want these thoughts. I am terrified that maybe I was misdiagnosed and I truly am a horrible person. I DO NOT WANT THIS! I have tried everything and nothing seems to work except for sometimes they just go away or lessen as time goes on.

I have gone through some big stressors lately and that has made my thoughts worse. I am a student full time, up until about a month ago I also worked full time (now it is part time), my best friend in the whole world moved away, my husband and I move last month, and we had a miscarriage this past summer. I am student teaching right now and I am struggling, but I expected that to happen. I just keep trying to remind myself that the thoughts aren't real, but sometimes I still try to prove to myself that I would never do anything like that and I don't ever want too.

In the end, I am terrified that these thoughts are going to ruin everything I have ever dreamed of. I have wanted to be a teacher since I can remember, I want to be an amazing wife that can do everything her husband needs (I have a hard time with sex because I associate it with negative thoughts and I am scared that I will have the thoughts), and I want to be a great mother. Some nights I try to bargain with God and tell him how much I don't want these thoughts and if I did, or ever did anything like my mind comes up with, that I would kill myself. I tell Him that I would rather be dead than do these things. I pray that these thoughts are OCD, and it was a correct diagnosis, because I don't want to be a terrible person.

Everyday, I keep going because I refuse to let my OCD win and controll what I am willing to do, but some days it just terrifies me. I'm sorry that this post is so long, but I needed to get it off my chest, because only 5 people I know know about this problem and I need to know that I am not alone. If you have any thoughts or ideas on what might help I would greatly appreciate it.

I always hope for a better future! Thanks for reading.

[pbutton]

you are not alone One of the things that made me feel better was reading (in several places) that it is very common for people with OCD to worry that they have something else and that it's not OCD. I do have to remind myself of that from time to time.