Name: Sasha
Age: 24 years old
Occupation: Server
Toronto, ON
I’ve definitely experienced OCD on and off throughout my life. It started when I was really young but my obsessions weren’t as serious. As I got older it started to get a lot more severe because as you get older you become more aware of all the things that could go wrong and my thoughts started becoming really intrusive which made walking away that much harder.
My biggest thing right now is death. I feel like if I don’t do a certain something that I’m going to die. I’ve also always had an obsession with the number six. All of my compulsions revolve around it. If I do something and it doesn’t feel right I have to do it over and over again six times until it does. At times I wish I could just trust my self and walk away, but I can’t. I’m fully aware of what I’m doing but it’s like I can’t control my own brain and there’s certain times in my life where its been really debilitating. It would take me significantly longer to leave the house, like physically leave the house. I wasn’t sleeping. Nothing ever felt right in my head no matter how many times I would do it. It got to the point where I just wanted to rip my hair out and scream because I was so furious with myself for not being able to stop. But, I couldn’t control it and I was living in constant discomfort.
I’ve never gone for treatment. I’ve always just dealt with it on my own. Sometimes I feel like I have a grasp on it and other times I don’t. It was only recently that I told two of my best friends and my mom. I don’t know if the rest of my family knows because they never approached me about it. But, these things are never really talked about because of the stigma around mental health and if you haven’t gone through it personally than people are scared to talk about it. I’ve started to be more open and I feel like it’s a start to helping me control it in the long run. It hasn’t always been easy for me though. I think a big part of the issue is that even though you tell people you love and trust they down play it. Or don’t really understand or want to accept the severity of it. Mostly, because if they haven’t gone through it themselves then they can’t relate and they compare it to the most severe case. But, like any other mental health disorder there is a spectrum of OCD and it affects every single person differently. It isn’t fair to compare one persons experience to another. So, at times I’m still scared to open up. Scared that people won’t take me seriously. It’s still a challenge, but I’m trying.
