[nikon]

hey, this is the first time I've posted in this sub-forum. I'm in recovery from addiction, self harm and an eating disorder, and anxiety and depression, and am doing ok at the moment but periodically have very low periods, and sometimes find the memories of my childhood OCD very heavy to sit with. I guess I just want to relate to people, as I only discovered around age 19 or so that what I went through was probably OCD - "pure-O" OCD - and not something terrible I was doing myself. professionals I have seen as an adult (i'm 28) haven't ever really been clear with saying "you have xyz" but do refer to "OCD issues" etc.
this is probably going to be triggering with discussing obsessive thoughts.

when I was 10 or younger I started getting intense obsessive and intrusive thoughts. the first was around a needle phobia, and thinking that I had to have a vaccination, and feeling sick with fear about it for weeks, constantly. It moved to intrusive thoughts about death - my mom dying, what death was, afterlife vs no afterlife etc. It was like having someone walking around with me holding onto my shoulder or my clothes, and if I forgot about the thoughts for a second they immediately reminded me.

then i got obsessions around my mom and other women. one day a thought popped into my head, just a random "mom is stupid", and this time i believed it, or thought i did, and it made me feel panicky, and it felt like the only way it would stop was if i told my mom. but then, every time i "confessed" one bad thought, another one would come: stuff like, i loved my best friend's mom instead of my mom. i loved this random woman i saw in the street more than my mom. if i had to choose between my friend's mom and my mom dying, who would i choose? half the time, looking back, it was more like delusions, because although i didn't love my friend's mom, for example, i was convinced that i did. only later i realised the thoughts were more like "what if....?"

my family got very upset and angry about me having these thoughts and talking about them. my mom reacted by shutting me out and not speaking to me, at one time screaming at me, and when i appeared "normal" she was fine with me. for years i got terrified that my mom hated me because of the thoughts and forced myself not to talk about them at all; i actually got so ashamed and scared of talking about them that i could barely bring myself to type them out in a chatroom when i researched them online years ago. it felt like they were too evil and dirty to bring into the world.

i think my eating disorder started at roughly the same time as the worst obsessive thoughts, but my memory of myself seems to be split into two - the ocd self and the ed self. My parents told me the ocd thoughts were just a phase that all teenagers go through - hating their parents - but i felt like if everyone went through that how come all teenagers didn't kill themselves? after years, i think the specific thoughts about death and my mom got dulled by eating disorder obsessions, and eventually growing further apart from my family and not caring how i felt about my mom. now if i have thoughts like that i don't care at all, but i do get eating disorder obsessions, and occasionally have thoughts i get stuck on and feel the need to "confess" to someone.

i didn't have very strong compulsions, but had a few like walking on specific squares on the linoleum, writing notes to my mom, and other rituals around my mom.

i guess the regret and slight resentment i have now is that my parents didn't help me when i was a kid, beyond telling me that it was a phase. i had anxiety from pre-school age that resulted in a lot of physical pain but never got professional help, and i sometimes feel bitter that i now have years and years of an eating disorder, self harm, addiction, depression and anxiety behind me, and years wasted, and so much stuff now i don't know how to do because i was just trying to survive, and even now, like i don't know if i'll EVER be capable of holding down a full-time job because i get so overwhelmed, i'm on so much medication, and flounder in the real world.

in a way i hate my family more and more. like i've never really got on with or felt like i loved my dad because he was just a physical presence, never an emotional one, but at times it feels like i just feel bitterness towards my mom, and apathy towards my older siblings. my mom always seems so happy for me now and proud of how "well" i'm doing with studying part time and doing odd jobs, but i still feel like i've got here despite all her input and influence on my life, not with her help.

i know this is getting really long - sorry to anyone who is still reading!

also, a lot of my friends in recovery are very separate from their families and parents, and very seldom see them, and live away from them. i live very close to my family and end up seeing them every week. i'm just used to it, it's a habit, it's a hard-to-break habit and also my mom expects me to come round often. but for some reason i feel uncomfortable when friends point out that i "choose" to see my family often, when they don't see their families or talk to them for weeks or months at a time.

i sometimes feel like i would love to move to another country and be surrounded by other people, but it's just unrealistic for me. a part of me hates myself for visiting my family because i don't like the role i get sucked into when i go there. instead of being me i just become "family member/child".

anyway, i'm sorry for the long long essay. when i eventually read about purely obsessional ocd online it was such a relief, because i could finally relate to how people thought and realised i wasn't evil or bad or deliberately doing something wrong. i just kind of feel sad now for the young me who felt so **** about it and so scared and guilty all the time.

[Skeezyks]

Thanks for sharing this. I'm sorry you had to struggle through all of this. I was an only child. And my parents are both long since gone now. I also sometimes think back to that child who was the young me so many decades ago. And it makes to sad too. I'm glad you were finally able to gain some clarification with regard to your Pure O type of OCD. Have you seen family therapist Kati Morton's Pure O video on her YouTube channel? If not, here's a link:

[nikon]

thanks for the link! i hope that you have found some peace for your younger self x