#but knowing that made me feel WORSE like “no wait you cant havw it you didnt go through that”

[peachie-kittie]

Okay so MASSIVE TW for talks of disturbing content.

Specifically: Implied pedophilic thoughts, suicidal ideation, political talk, race talk, mention of slurs, talks of obsessions and compulsions

For context, most of my compulsions are mental/not obvious. Same goes for my obsessions. I feel if I mentioned a lot of them in casual conversation, people would write them off as natural insecurities or overthinking.

My OCD tendencies started I believe back in middle school, when I first started questioning my sexuality and got my first proper crush. I would spend hours at a time looking up posts, blogs, quizzes about hoe to know you were queer. Bisexual vs lesbian posts. Coming out as one for a week, then the other for a next. It exasperated me and my parents, and for all the advice along the lines of "take it slow, it's okay" I couldn't get past the nagging feeling of needing to know. Not to mention my parent's secret exasperation ("how can you not know?") didn't help.

This is where it gets bad so anyone who may have experience with CSA specifically and/or similarly disturbing thoughts may want to turn away in case it may be triggering.

Long story short, around 9th/10th grade I started to develop intrusive thoughts about children. The kind that would get me put on a watch list at best, death threats at worst. However, without any real outlet, I once again took to constantly searching online, checking and re-checking (mentally), and asking a few trusted people if they thought I was a "creep"/acting strange.

It got so bad that I would actively avoid going out, tried to stay in my room at family gatherings, and was afraid of my developing sexuality for fear of getting off to the wrong thought and pegging myself as a monster. I even told my mom 2 times I needed therapy, before telling her "nevermind" less than 48 hours later. It was only after 2 calls to the suicide hotline and spraining my ankle (aka, essentially leaving myself alone in my head) did I break and finally expressed a firm NEED for therapy I didn't go back on.

I had a feeling I had ocd before asking though - my symptoms lined up super well, I had enough sense to realize that. The reason I didn't feel that way with my sexuality was - despite the immense distress - I thought it was just confusion mixing with normal low esteem (maybe depression? But I wasn't thinking ocd until I saw POCD was a thing).

I've been out of therapy for I believe half a year now? I honestly would like to go back, but for money reasons and also life reasons, I can't just yet. Thankfully, since then, THOSE thoughts have gone away for the most part. I still get em time-to-time, but am much better at dealing with them.

I currently label myself queer for a plethora of reasons - one being OCD. Everytime I try to find a more definitive label, my OCD gets squirmy, but without one I feel uncomfortable.

As for the overall/underlying issue? I've found my obsessions all stem trom this underlying insecurity of being "bad" - this is flexible, as it ranges from outright malicious to thoughtlessly impulsive to saying something ignorant.

It's not fun. My favorite thing as of late (/s) is the fact that my OCD clings to political issues, often taking the republican talking points and plays them on repeat in my head, making me break them down again and again. The only good thing to come out of this is the fact that with all my research, I've gotten decent (as decent as a young adult under 25 can be, anyway) at discerning biased from nonbiased resources. And even then, my brain doubts that, taking the stance of "Oh you're just so biased towards the left that you're unwilling to engage with the right" which. Truthn't. But okay I guess.

As for obsessions/compulsions? Most of mine are mental/not obvious, as stated before. Things I do/deal with include (in no specific order):

Watching reliable documentaries/reading "accredited" papers/blogs over and over

Constantly arguing with myself over the validity of certain ideas

Constantly being on-guard for certain thoughts; racist, queerphobic, ableist, etc etc

This is gonna seem fucked but I feel like I'm always aware of slurs?? It's annoying at best and guilt-inducing at worst to just think slurs for no reason bc one day someone said one around you (POV: you live in a red state) and now you've been thinking about it. Or smth similar.

Hyper aware of my identity. White, able-bodied, fat, (not visibly but still) queer, etc etc.

High guilt over past mistakes, even if no one got hurt/it was accidental.

Struggling with self-trust in general.

Dealing with thought crime guilt a LOT.

It presents differently now than it did back when I was having "thoughts" about kids, but like - nervous about your behavior in front of others. If you seem unsafe/prejudiced.

Hell, obsessions aren't even always over shit like this. I enjoy studying sidereal astrology (specifically the hindu branch!) as I feel it better aligns to the actual mythos. But the calculation on where it should start is debated and there are multiple calculations.

I've been stuck in equinox precession calculation hell (otherwise known as ayanamsha) for MONTHS. ACTUAL. FUCKING. MONTHS. And even before this, back when I first got into astrology, I was obsessing over how I was technically a libra instead of Scorpio (in western astrology) and just. It was a whole thing.

Once again, it boiled down to my percieved sense of self being wrong. Something I don't handle well, haha.

There's no real way to end this. I just hope this helped! Apologies for the long-ass post.

Okay, weird thing to put here perhaps - but this blog ironically feels safer then my main, not to mention more reach.

But! If you have any experience with having OCD, can you reblog with your experiences and how you realized you may have it? Especially if you have what some may consider non-typical experiences of the disorder.

I’m not asking out of a sense of weird curiosity, I’m sorta comparing and contrasting so I might be able to discuss something with my therapist.