Is This True?

Ok, ever since I was first diagnosed almost fifteen years ago, I've questioned the OCD diagnosis. Generalized anxiety sure, depression yup, PTSD took some convincing but OCD? Really?

My therapist convinced me to accept it and others have confirmed it over the years but in the back of my head I've always thought, it's not really OCD. Even as I learned about OCD not necessarily meaning compulsions I thought, nah, not really. Hell, I don't even include it in my signature here even though I've been diagnosed with it.

I just read in an article by a person with OCD that denying you have OCD is really common. Is that true? Because I'm beginning to get the feeling these therapists were seeing more of me than I was giving them credit for. So is it true?

Cyrano

I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know it is very typical for anybody to deny anything about themselves they haven't decided for themselves. If they didn't get the inkling and start wondering and come to the conclusion by themselves. Not to say everyone does that, but....OCD can also not be obvious before diagnosis to the person with it I think, another reason not to accept it at first. It took me a while to believe it for me.

Hi Cyran0, it is quite common to have OCD tendencies if you have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is about fear, OCD is about trying to make it safe, so yes the two can go together.

Why do you think you don't have OCD?

A lot of people just associate OCD with the typical "germaphobe" type thing, but it's absolutely not just that - OCD is very complicated and can manifest in a great, ... possibly infinite number of ways. These are just some of the typical compulsions:

• Rumination
• Seeking reassurance
• Cleaning/Tidying
• Checking
• Verbal, mental, or physical compulsions, such as mantras, numbers, words, or movements
• Hoarding (I think this is one, ... some argue that hoarding doesn't belong as an OCD sub-type, but I disagree)
• Improving, updating, upgrading, bettering, perfecting, etc

... and many more.

As for the obsessions:

Some can become obsessed with the idea they are bad, evil, gay, lesbian, sexually inappropriate, violent, or that they need to do their compulsion in order for something bad to not happen. Some people become obsessed with health, although this tends to touch on hypochondria and/or "health anxiety", but I believe it to belong as an OCD sub-type, given there are clear obsessions and compulsions. There are people that are obsessed with perfection, such as perfect grammar, perfect speech, perfect placement of objects, perfect food, and so on.

There's really a lot of these, too.

OCD = Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - the sufferer obsesses, and as a result, is compulsive, which causes disorder in their lives, be it social, work, education, or otherwise.

I'm sure you've been lectured about OCD, quite often, but I thought I'd just give it a shot.

Best of luck to you.

I think it is also important to keep in mind that OCD is an anxiety cluster disorder. It's common in people with GAD.

I don't think people usually deny it. However I think it is common for people who have it and don't know what it is to be very scared and confused and thinking they are "going crazy". Often a diagnosis is a relief because they at least get to understand that even if OCD indeed is a mental illness, it is not a psychosis or will lead up to it.

Yeah, I was massively relieved when I discovered the "darker side of OCD" as I often referred to it, was very much symptomatic of OCD.

I often doubt my OCD diagnosis though apparently it's quite clear that I have it. I'm diagnosed with it, my therapist is sure I have it, it causes me quite a lot of problems (though perhaps not the "classic" problems one tends to think of when thinking of OCD) etc. Last time my OCD caused a panic attack I knew that the anxiety was caused by OCD and that it made me re-check things for a couple of hours. But then, just a few moments after the panic attack was over, I started doubting my diagnosis again and I even started to think that maybe I had induced the panic attack myself. Intentionally. That it wasn't OCD and that I was probably misdiagnosed. I reckon that must be OCD too.

So yes, I think that some people might doubt their diagnosis even though the diagnosis is correct. Also, someone once told me that "doubting your OCD diagnosis is OCD at work".