Lise07Senior Contributor
I've never *really* been diagnosed, and now it's bothering me
So, apologies right off the bat because this is going to be awfully close to reassurance-seeking behaviour but I do want some other opinions. I've had OCD-like symptoms since I was about 10 years old (following some significant trauma) but I kept them secret from everyone I knew because I was deeply ashamed. At the time I thought I must have had a kind of phobia because I was afraid of touching "contaminated/dirty" things which were mostly objects I encountered at school. I wasn't actually afraid of dirt or germs though - the "dirtiness" was more abstract - but I distinctly remember thinking of things that way. It got to the point I couldn't walk into certain rooms at certain times of the day because e.g. I'd previously been in there wearing a shirt that I was wearing when I touched a "contaminated" object so the room was therefore now contaminated itself. I had a mental heatmap of every room, chair, surface, and doorknob in the house categorised by levels of contamination. If I came into contact with one of these objects at the "wrong" time I'd feel like my skin was being invaded with those scarab beetles from The Mummy and I'd panic. I was severely distressed by all this but even more distressed at the thought of anyone else finding out so I kept it under wraps. This fear of being found out lead me to reading about phobias and exposure therapy, so in desperation I applied it to myself. It too maybe 6 months until I'd reached a point where it wasn't affecting my daily life so I shut the struggles of the previous 3 years in a big box in the back of my brain and vowed to never look at it again, and certainly never to speak of it. Jump to 15 years later and stuff starts leaking out of the box. I had accidentally glanced at an article about OCD in my early 20s, got a few paragraphs in before thinking "fuck that's me" and throwing the magazine away because I didn't want to think about it. The first things I read after finally acknowledging I should do some real research hit me like a tonne of bricks. It was horribly painful to read but also helped put a lot of pieces together - the contamination fears, random violent thoughts I often had that lead me to doing endless research about sociopathy, needing to count my steps when anxious, rules around food/disordered eating etc. that had caused me suffering at different times in my life but I'd never connected them before.
I spent months researching (hello doubting and reassurance) before finally talking to a professional. When I did I straight-up said that I thought I had OCD (+ depression at the time). That was several years ago and I've now moved countries and cities a few times and have spoken with different therapists and doctors. Of all the people I've seen, I've never *not* said what I thought I had, which I now realise is...problematic. No one has diagnosed me with anything before hearing my opinion, although no one has really challenged me on it either. Due to the moving countries thing new doctors don't have access to old records either, so they don't know what anybody else did or did not diagnose.
So NOW of course my stupid brain is like "you don't actually have OCD you just think you do. All your current obsessive thoughts have just been implanted there by the power of suggestion". I realise the ridiculousness and meta-ness of these doubts too. Sorry for word-vomit. I hadn't planned on such verbosity when I opened this thread.
TLDR: no doctor has ever told me I have OCD without me announcing it to them first and I'm now bothered by it. Do I have to directly ask for an opinion from current doctors? Find someone new and go from the top? Please note I'm not asking for people in this forum to diagnose me, just opinions on what I should ask of doctors.