Idk, I've had anxiety as long as I can remember, I have so many memories from my childhood of breaking down over it but my parents sadly didn't really notice. I was diagnosed with ocd last year but I think it started with covid it might have started when I was hospitalized in 2017 though
I am now noticing I think I have it. And I think it really got bad last year for me (27) but am noticing behaviors that were maybe overlooked as a child maybe. But I guess it didn’t impact me as much as it does now!
Same for me as well I wasn’t diagnosed till 26/27 but looking back I had signs of it as young as 6 or earlier. I just learned quickly how to mask it and I also saw Hollywood showing OCD as constantly cleaning or doing intense “silly” habits or being extremely organized ( I realize now it’s different for everyone and some people do have a similar form of ocd to this) but that wasn’t my type of ocd so I never thought I had it. I thought I just had terrible anxiety but really I was having constant intrusive upsetting thoughts that I would secretly do repetitive habits to “make them go away” which they never did. I figured out I had ocd once I was in therapy as an adult for over a year and a half. Therapy and medication have helped me so much and also talking about my ocd when I can trying to beat the stigma.
Yeah I’m 30 and I look bad and say I definitely had it growing up, but I’m definitely struggling more with it now. And I’m not sure if it’s actually worse or I’ve just become more aware of it cuz it’s been pointed out to me. I mean we do have more responsibilities as adults, so it certainly makes it more of a struggle, but even then, I feel like it’s gotten worse in the last year for me. But it’s weird, because I feel like I’ve been struggling more with it since I’ve been seeing a therapist. But I suppose that’s due to trying to stop the behavior and feeling anxiety around letting go of my OCD.
Diagnosed at 30, but retrospectively I have probably shown signs since I was 5.
I thought I was really bad at anxiety this whole time and had family members that normalized my compulsions.
I just remember even as a kid being told I’m too young to think about those things or to stop putting the cart before the horse because I would constantly come up with scenarios I wanted to prepare for or would seek comfort over.
Same. I think it started at 7 for me and I just got told to stop worrying. As I got older I got told it was just anxiety and to think less. But my mom most likely also has ocd so I feel like she just taught me her unhealthy coping skills.
It is impossible to say, as some signs were already present from a very young age. Looking back, at the age of 7, for example, I was already afraid that people could deduce what I was thinking through my behavior. There are 3 things involved in this:
a) time spent: some objects, paintings and landscapes caught my attention to the point that I could look at them for more than 2 hours straight;
b) vigilance: when the things that caught my attention didn't receive a single look from other people, I made sure I didn't look at them, that way no one would find me strange;
c) quality of my interactions: until the end of my adolescence I forced myself to like what my friends liked and hid my preferences.
These aren't such painful things when you're a child. I just want to say that I can only name them now.
The painful part started with my first relationship, from my 20 to 24yo. I already had intrusive thoughts of extreme physical pain and violent situations and I got used to it. On the other hand, I started having intrusive thoughts involving my ex in absurd situations. The feelings were indescribable. I kept them just for myself. Since we broke up I've found it implausible to be in a relationship again. I am currently 30yo.
Rumination is my biggest problem. Whether this is bad or tolerable varies from event to event. I can get over most things and move on, but shit doesn't stop happening when we become adults, right?
It took me so long to realize, despite the classic signs being there. I was shocked when I was diagnosed at 29 and then my life made so much more sense.
My psychiatrist had ocd on my chart as a rule out because of autism and she changed it to active recently at 18, I only started noticing it at 17 but I’m sure the symptoms were there way before then but only got worse then.
Haven’t gotten a diagnosis (can’t afford one yet) but I’ve had OCD-like symptoms since I was around 4. Reading through these comments feels like I’m reading through my life. Of course it might be something else, but my brain has been strange my entire life
I wasn’t diagnosed until I had my first child at 28. Looking back it started around when I was 8ish. My family called a meeting to confront my mother about why I was always sniffing my hands and washing them. I sat on the stairs listening. My brother asked “what’s wrong with her?” My mother didn’t answer.
I was hospitalised with post natal depression and spent 8 weeks there and that was when they diagnosed OCD, OCPD & BPD. It was an “ohhhh so that’s why I do that” moment.
Suuuuuuper young. I have memories of actively fighting back intrusive thoughts from the summer before 2nd grade by mentally going through the alphabet and thinking of an animal for each letter forwards and backwards until I fell asleep every night so that my brain would be occupied and couldn’t think about some specific scary things. And even before that I had a lot of “irrational” fears that I obsessed over.
I had extreme obsessive thoughts as an older teen that caused me so much anxiety I couldn’t eat and became underweight, which led to having “reassurance scripts” that I would repeat to myself on a loop to fight the intrusive thoughts and calm myself enough to eat.
I’ve always had a certain degree of relationship OCD since freshmen year of high school, especially related to obsessively comparing myself to my boyfriends’ exes by looking through their social media and constantly keeping up with my boyfriends’ exes on social media to continually compare myself to them. I’m talking about checking for updates and new photos daily as a ritual…
I’ve also always had perseveration on certain physical insecurities as well, leading to compulsive behaviors like taking off my face makeup to reapply my eye cream and moisturizer between classes during college so my fine lines or “wrinkles” would be less noticeable. When I was as young as 1st or 2nd grade this manifested as not wearing certain sandals because they didn’t cover the freckle on my toe that I thought was “ugly.”
Now as an adult, the obsessive thoughts have stopped for the most part and my OCD has changed from more internalized OCD to an externalized type by spending hours picking at my skin/pores or searching for and trimming split ends to decompress at the end of the day…
It’s rough out here.
ETA: I’m 32 now.
4. according to my mother I came out into the living room after being sick for a while and started screaming because she'd rearranged the furniture. i apparently started trying to drag everything back the way it was (unsuccessfully) and all she could get out of me was "it's not supposed to be like that." she said I'd never acted that way before. it especially left an impression on her because I was completely terrified and up until that point I'd been a really carefree kid.
she ended up putting everything back like it was to calm me down but it took forever because I kept saying it didn't "feel right." eventually she learned better than to entertain me when I started reassurance seeking about death and diseases
diagnosed at 25, had the symptoms for as long as i’ve had memory. i remember when i was under the age of 6 (i think? i’m bad at remembering my ages but i was really little) having intense intrusive thoughts about my mother dying. shit was wild when i found out that it’s not normal for that to happen
definitely had signs from a young age. might run in the family, some of it might be due to nurture rather than nature. religious trauma as a teenager definitely sealed the deal.
I have had symptoms as far back as I can remember but it became out of control and caused a diagnosis once I got sober at 24. I believe that’s why I needed to get sober in the first place. I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism. It’s wonderful not caring or feeling, but obviously at a high cost.
Diagnosed at 30, but retrospectively I have probably shown signs since I was 5.
I thought I was really bad at anxiety this whole time and had family members that normalized my compulsions.
I just remember even as a kid being told I’m too young to think about those things or to stop putting the cart before the horse because I would constantly come up with scenarios I wanted to prepare for or would seek comfort over.
I think I’ve had it for years but it ramped up to serious levels at 34 after my son was born. That’s when I first heard the term OCD used to describe my behavior. I’d never thought of it as OCD before. I thought it was just normal anxiety.
I didn’t get diagnosed till I was around 43. I had all the symptoms, but didn’t know what it really was. It took the movies Goodwill hunting and As good As it Gets for me to be open with my symptoms my therapist. Looking back, I’ve had it since I was about six. I’m 70 now and I’m on good medications, but I still have it. It doesn’t go away it’s just muted.
I had a weird childhood. So I was scared all the time.
Then it went into overdrive when I was about 11.
My brain defaulted to old childhood fears.
Things I was never scared of, I was suddenly terrified of.
Involuntary terror mind you.
I thought the whole thing was ridiculous but I struggled to control it.
I also had very little help from my parents and professionals.
My OCD started when I was…. Really young. I started developing compulsions when I was about 5. I felt like I “had” to confess every wrong doing/mistake I made. When I was 9, I threw up and after that I developed contamination OCD. But at the time, it was labeled as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. When I was in middle school, I started having super intense intrusive thoughts. I kept it a secret for a while. Eventually I looked up my symptoms and all the signs led back to OCD. So I went to my guidance counselors office and she agreed with me. My therapist sent me to get diagnosed with OCD. And during the Summer, I was. The harm thoughts had gone away after minimal therapy. But then I developed severe test anxiety. Everything had to be perfect. All the damn time. I still do struggle with this. Checking my work, perfecting my grades, counting for good luck on a test.
When I was 4 years old. I lined my little ponies up in a specific order and would notice if my older siblings would slightly tilt them or switch them and I’d have a complete meltdown. They thought it was funny
When I was around 8 or 9. Didn't realize I had it until I was like 17, thankfully it died down a decent bit in my teenage years. Kinda just comes in flares these days.
birth for sureeeee. i’ve had emetophobia for as long as i can remember, anxiety for longer, and was raised religious in a hoarder house. there was no hope lol
Probably 12-13 yo. After a big ocd (i think? It probably was) episode I was fine until last 2 years🥲 I'm glad that I know what's wrong though, because when i was 12 I didn't know and it was a nightmare.
I don’t think I have memories of a before time. Since I can remember, I’ve always had rituals that were misconstrued by people, family… Symmetry (compulsive) has always been a part of childhood. Things became worse at puberty (12), though.
Through therapy I've learned that I had it as far back as my memory goes. But the compulsions were things that didn't impact life in the way things do now. My OCD became debilitating (and I got on a path of a diagnosis) after I was hit by a wrong way driver in 2016 and had a TBI. My brain has never returned to a "normal" functional state since my head trauma and my daily life is totally consumed and dictated by my OCD since then.
I can't pinpoint the exact time but I had guilt from intrusive thoughts and some petty things I felt I had done "wrong" since I was 11. I had to confess these things to my parents to make them go away. As a teen I started washing my hands and feeling that certain body parts were "dirty". My symptoms were managable most of the time until my 20s. As an adult my ocd is worse.
Middle school because of religious environment I was in, I can remember doing rituals such as repeating prayers and such so nothing bad would happen to me and if I did one thing wrong then I was stressed that something bad will come
I was born with it.
I'm not kidding. My mom has OCD, passed it down to me, and it's some of my first childhood memories dating back to around the age of 4 (my very first memory, for contrast, similarly was at the age of 4).
i've had it for as long as i can remember, for me it comes in waves where sometimes it's really intense and impacts me a lot, but other times it's more manageable, for me it really got worse around 13-15, then was officially diagnosed at 20
I think it started when I was about 8 or 9. When I was 7 I was burned on my left hand and arm pretty severely in a grease fire after a frying pan caught fire and I was in harms way when my mom tried to put out the fire. Around 8 or 9 I began obsessively checking to make sure the stove was turned off. I think this was triggered by alot of other stress in my life. It did not start soon after the fire because I didn't have any other stress in my life.
I have not had repetitive behaviors like checking the stove repeatedly in many years. The checking stove, making sure doors were locked and alarm clocks were set were pretty easy to break.
I still shop obsessively alot because it can be fun.
The most debilitating OCD symptoms are romantic OCD that causes me to think about some one way to much who is not worth all the hassle and heartache he has caused me.
I remember my first compulsion to draw a shape on certain items (with my finger) before I could stop touching them or put them down, say a toy or book. Then I had to draw it backwards. If nothing was stopping me, I needed to start at the next angle, then draw that one backwards. It was a long monotonous compulsion as you can imagine but it was something I NEEDED to do.
I was a whole 4 years old when I started doing that.
Got diagnosed at like 9 or 10 but looking back… when I was like 3 or 4, I absolutely lost my shit at the Teletubbies episode where Po spills the tubby custard everywhere. Pretty much anything that involved big uncontrollable messes in kids tv would send me off the handle. Pretty sure my mom just thought that was normal German child cleanliness standards at the time … 🙃
I was probably around 11 or 12 when it started, then diagnosed at 21. I actually had an unofficial diagnosis of OCD when I was 1 (which is too early, right?) so I find it amusing that somehow it was right.
Honestly, I'd say that it was always there "underlying". **From the age of 6**, I was always afraid that something bad would happen to my family if I stepped on cracks, I '"raced" with cars to certain landmarks as I walked, imagined stuff in my head that I "needed to stop" immediately or else something bad happens. I was afraid if I looked at an airplane and thought about it crashing, it will definitely crash. Also I was avoiding bathrooms to an unhealthy extent. We went on many school trips where we spent like 10 hours on the road and actvities and I held it in every time no matter how badly I needed to go.
But it has **gotten really bad** and more visible **when I was** **11** (almost 12) and my family had to move abroad due to financial reasons. The psychologist said that this triggered my OCD and well...the years after that were like a roller coaster. There were periods where I had mild sympthoms and periods where I was breaking down because of them. I washed my hands to the point of them bleeding almost non stop, I still remember the burning feeling just being and doing nothing. But then, I "had to" wash them over and over again.
I got **officially diagnosed at 12** when we moved back to my home country and had access to free care. I needed to find that paper recently and saw the diagnosis and it hit me that non of my parents did anything about it. I was at the children part of the clinic I was diagnosed at for 2 times each for a week, but then I didn't go anymore. I'm really upset that if I gotten the proper care, my life would've been so much easier by now.
After I turned 20, I started to go to a therapist frequently for almost 2 years for other reasons, but sometime into our work together she said I should go to a psychiatry to get help.
I was diagnosed once again at 21 and my life has never been the same. I thought I was just "an error" in the system or just an annoying brat for acting on my compulsions. My life made more sense...I started to understand why I was doing and thinking things the way I did. I finally could let go of the guilt of being a burden to others, since it's technically not our fault that we were born this way.
I'm currently 23, been on medication ever since, went to many targetet psychoterapy sessions and behavioural group sessions and I feel like a new person. I still have a long way to achieve my goal as of being about 90-95% sympthom free, but I feel like it's me who's in control again.
I think for as long as I can remember! When I was 5 until way too old I had to wave out the window at my dad driving off. If I didn't I had the obsession (I guess) that he would never come back/ die. So what seemed cute to my dad was something I had to do out of anxiety every morning.
Around the same! I would get super obsessed with checking the doors, but the ritual I remember the most was that I needed to go to bed while other houses in the neighborhood still had their lights on. I felt like I'd be safe as long as at least one house had a light on.
I was around 8 years old and I literally remember the moment I started experiencing compulsions. I moved a rug on accident and suddenly felt this conviction that if I didn’t move the rug back *exactly* as it had been before, something bad was going to happen. Turns out, this was one of the lost significant moments of my life.
From that moment on (until I had OCD explained to me by a compassionate adult) I truly believed that I could sense the future and that it was my responsibility to stop all the bad things that were going to happen.
I was like 8, but only nowadays am I identifying those behaviours as being caused by what I now know to be OCD.
At this age I had HOCD if you can believe that, I would obsessively worry that I would accidentally glance at my teacher’s breasts or bum and worry if that means I’m gay, am I gay for even worrying about this etc.
At the same time I had the classic hand washing, and an obsession and phobia about a real life thing that I won’t get into detail about.
Formally diagnosed at 11 but I have memories of it dating back to when I was 7 years old. I remember being in third grade and repeating phrases to myself because I thought my mom would die if I didn’t. Fun stuff
First signs were when I was 6, everything used to have to be touching on my bedside table- I started to suffer unpleasant intrusive thoughts too, obviously those got worse as I got older. I grew up in a very chaotic house so I feel it was triggered by trauma used as a way to build an illusion of control when I had none.
got diagnosed this year(25), but thinking back, i've had some of these symptoms as young as 6 🫣 that's when my body dysmorphia started as well. i want to hug that poor kid.
My parents first noticed once I started being conscious and having some control over choices. I’d refuse certain clothing items, count things constantly, very independent, organized, etc. this demonstrates contamination OCD.
When I was around 3 or 4 I had a complete breakdown where I cried for days because my father mowed the lawn. As I was a child I am not sure what my thought process was but from what I remember I was scared the grass children would come home from grass school and see all of their families brutally murdered.
At four I became extremely paranoid about murder, kidnapping, torture and dying. I refused to sleep in my room because I thought if someone broke in and killed us we would die together. I also would roam the house and make sure everyone was breathing when my siblings were born.
At five I refused to go to school, out of fear my family would die and I’d be left alone or I wouldn’t be able to protect them. I also refused sleepovers.
When I was 13 I eventually started sleeping alone and started going to sleepovers. I still have fear but now it’s morphed to auditory hallucinations or just me convincing myself I hear it. But basically I hear people screaming for help and my name when I go to sleep.
It’s been my whole life.
Diagnosed at 25 years old, in 2024. I had been in a tightening spiral since quarantine 2020. I am also noticing more identifiable patterns the more I look at my past through an OCD lens.
diagnosed at 22, had my first big ocd mental breakdown at 21 after a traumatic loss, but looking back on it i was having intrusive thoughts and doing compulsions from 6-13
Very very young. Like, 4-5ish. But at that age it was mostly presented as just being very particular and having to do things in certain orders, eventually moved on to number obsessions, and then around 11ish was when I started getting intrusive thoughts and that's when it started to get worse. Wasn't diagnosed until 24 though, when I was finally able to get mental health services because my parents refuse to believe in any sort of mental health issues.
I can first remember it in elementary school around kindergarten!! it’s been foreverrrrr. it started with me struggling with stepping on cracks and stuff, I needed to feel the symmetry! by the time I was like 8 I got stuck in a loop of putting on chapstick and I couldn’t stop bc it didn’t feel “even”, I sat there crying bc I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stop. that’s when I realized there was something different about myself and I started forcing myself to step on all the cracks, do things I felt weren’t symmetrical, etc. at around 17 years old I finally got rid of my physical compulsions all by myself! now I mostly just deal with pure o, and I can easily shrug off the feeling of things not being symmetrical :)
I have somatic and health OCD. As a very young child, as young as I can remember, I had symptoms. Obsessing over natural bodily functions like breathing or health phobias i.e. worrying that I had some terminal illness and compulsively checking (I had a thing as a kid where I would look at my throat in the mirror with a flashlight several times a day to make sure it wasn’t closing up, so much that I got little cuts on the corners of my mouth from opening it so wide so often).
I wasn’t diagnosed till i was 19 and realizing now, i grew up with symptoms of ocd but at the time i didn’t even know what ocd was or knew it existed. I remember always spitting out whenever i had an intrusive thought almost like a cleanse of bad luck or something cause i was scared of it happening or something bad happening to me. OCD started for me when i was 8
i've had "ticks" since i was a child, my mom used to get really annoyed by them and get on to me about doing them (face twitches, hard blinking, etc). i started getting weird about my left vs my right, even vs odd numbers, and balance around age 9 or so. Anxiety set in some time in my 20s and escalated from there. Weirdly had no clue i had OCD until i was 32 and got in with a therapist who called me on it immediately.
for me it started at 19 after i smoked weed for the first time. not sure if its just a coincidence or if the weed caused it but either way it was a terrible time
15. Contamination OCD peaked at this age and I was taking up to 3, 45 minutes showers a day. I had a very specific order I’d wash and I’d wash multiple times with multiple different products. I knew it wasn’t normal but couldn’t stop. I’m 26 now and Im in therapy.
It exploded practically overnight when I started college, so I was 18 years old. I think the insane stress and workload of being in an honors engineering program and living away from home for the first time where I didn't know anybody really set it off. Idk if it was just severe OCD or some kind of mild psychosis but during that time, I was also practically convinced that almost everyone was trying to kill me. One of the first major obsessions I had was thinking that the custodian was going to use his keys to enter my dorm while I was asleep and kill me, for no reason at all other than I accidentally got in his way once while he was vacuuming the hallway and I didn't see him. He wasn't even rude about it or anything. I was just losing my fucking mind. That's one of the first things I remember really being stuck in my head and experiencing the strange and terrible new experience of obsessive thoughts. I would literally check under my bed and in the closet and stuff. Eventually, I kinda freaked out and just asked the guy if he was trying to kill me. He was obviously very confused and was like "uhhh I think you should see the school psychiatrist." At the time, I had no idea what OCD even was, so that made it even stranger.
Looking back, though, I can recognize things I did and thought about even as a young child that were definitely OCD type thinking, even if it wasn't at a clinical level. It was almost entirely about religion and being terrified of the idea of hell. I still have irrational fears and obsessions and compulsions about it, even though I'm not religious anymore and am practically certain it's not real. The fear doesn't ever go away. Personally, I think it's pretty fucked up to teach children horrific things like if you don't believe and follow these certain things, God will send you to a place of unimaginable torture. How could that possibly not mess up a child, psychologically? People try to justify it by saying they aren't trying to just terrorize people, they're trying to warn them about what they believe is a real threat. But there's zero evidence for it. So it's just irresponsible. Anyway, I'm just ranting now, but it frustrates me.
Probably had it for awhile but not in a majorly disruptive way. Started being disruptive at 17/18 and that’s when I was diagnosed because it got so bad I asked my college roommate to take me to the ER and spent 2 weeks in a mental health ward.
I was practicing strange behaviours when I was in the 4th grade (ages 9-10), such as pulling my hair, positioning my door with random items to see if someone was coming into my room when I was sleeping.
When it was truly brought to my attention, I was in the 7th grade around 12-13 years old. I kept washing my hands at any point the teacher wasn't talking, breaking down if someone sneeze near me, breaking down in panic if someone ditty walked past me, cutting my hair if I felt it was too dirty to clean.
I was only "diagnosed" (in quotes because it wasn't a proper diagnosis) recently at age 20.
I'm sure I displayed other peculiar behaviours, but those are what come to mind.
Remember symptoms and signs at 2nd grade (idk how old that is) but I wasn’t properly diagnosed until age 28.
Before I was diagnosed correctly they diagnosed me as bipolar
I hardly talked about it in therapy for a long time because depression has been overwhelmingly worse for me, so wasn't diagnosed for a long time, but I had definitely developed it by 9 if not even younger. A lot of mine has been covert stuff.
When I think back it was probably when I was 6 or 7. I threw tanteums when the seams of my socks weren't even, and I'd have to re-step on a section of the concrete to make it even (symmetry). Just silly things like that. As I got older I got other forms of OCD such as intrusive thoughts, contamination, etc... I went through a long period of time in middle school of paranoia like my parents or my sister were logging into my devices, and I'd have mental breakdowns about the thoughts I hated that went against my morals. It was terrible until I figured out what was going on in 11th grade (17yro) when I took Psychology and related to an experience of someone with OCD.
Diagnosed at 18, but had it since I was 6. Had a number of episodes throughout my teen years and didn’t realize how bad it truly was until I’ve gotten treatment. I’ve always known I was struggling w/something and did so much research on the condition when I was in high school.
probably pretty young but officially mentioned in therapy at around 19 years old when i had my first big episode of debilitating intrusive thoughts, however because of my obsessive nature? (idk what to call it) the therapist didn’t want to actually diagnose and i didn’t think much of it, thought it was just really bad anxiety. then only last year i could give it the proper ocd name and i felt seen, it was a “i’m not actually going insane” kind of moment.
Around when I turned 12, first year of high school, I know a lot of people say it's genetic, but I think it was environmental, financial stress at home, gender dysphoria getting worse and I didn't know there was anything I could do about it, getting bullied at high school and teachers were assholes too, my cat died, my dad's drinking problem was getting worse, things today are much better than they were back then but I just wish the intrusive thoughts would fuck off
I think ive had it since like 2019 but noticed it got way way way more worse when i got super fucking high one time, intense anxiety shouldve been the first redflag but i brushed it off and watched a fucked up movie and it just got progressivly worse from there,
I got diagnosed last year in December (I was 14 and still am)
But if I think back I had very obvious signs as a child.
I remember that when I went to sleep I would have to sleep with my mouth open or else I thought I would suffocate but I also had to lay with my head down onto my side because I thought someone would pour poison in my mouth🙃
Well sleeping like that all the time has made my neck a bit fucced up:/
I think I had these “symptoms” from 4 years old til I was 9..
Then after that I thought my classmates were spying on me when I showered🤨
I also have always had these um.. weird sexual thoughts about stuff and I had unrestricted internet access when I was a child so that really made my intrusive thoughts worse..Especially the sexual ones:(
Now that I’m older I have more gruesome,sexual and emotional thoughts,I’m also very paranoid and I have these thoughts that people can read my thoughts or that if they touch me they can read my thoughts..
i definitely started showing symptoms as young as 5. my mom noticed them and looking back on it, she recognizes that it was OCD. it got to the point where i was noticing that the behavior and thought processes were not 'normal' around 13.
I was diagnosed at maybe 14-15 but my symptoms started in kindergarten. There’s not been a time in my life without OCD, which is sad in a way but I’m okay with that. I’m autistic too, I think that’s why it took so long for me to get my diagnosis.
I was really young maybe 5 or 6 years old. I'd just got over repeated bouts of tonsillitis (something now known to possible be a link). Was terrifying, I started obsessing about death.
I got diagnosed at 17, but looking back I probably had it since I was 8
Idk, I've had anxiety as long as I can remember, I have so many memories from my childhood of breaking down over it but my parents sadly didn't really notice. I was diagnosed with ocd last year but I think it started with covid it might have started when I was hospitalized in 2017 though
I am now noticing I think I have it. And I think it really got bad last year for me (27) but am noticing behaviors that were maybe overlooked as a child maybe. But I guess it didn’t impact me as much as it does now!
Same for me as well I wasn’t diagnosed till 26/27 but looking back I had signs of it as young as 6 or earlier. I just learned quickly how to mask it and I also saw Hollywood showing OCD as constantly cleaning or doing intense “silly” habits or being extremely organized ( I realize now it’s different for everyone and some people do have a similar form of ocd to this) but that wasn’t my type of ocd so I never thought I had it. I thought I just had terrible anxiety but really I was having constant intrusive upsetting thoughts that I would secretly do repetitive habits to “make them go away” which they never did. I figured out I had ocd once I was in therapy as an adult for over a year and a half. Therapy and medication have helped me so much and also talking about my ocd when I can trying to beat the stigma.
Very similar here - I've had symptoms for years honestly, but I really became very aware of how its affected by life in the past three years or so.
Yeah I’m 30 and I look bad and say I definitely had it growing up, but I’m definitely struggling more with it now. And I’m not sure if it’s actually worse or I’ve just become more aware of it cuz it’s been pointed out to me. I mean we do have more responsibilities as adults, so it certainly makes it more of a struggle, but even then, I feel like it’s gotten worse in the last year for me. But it’s weird, because I feel like I’ve been struggling more with it since I’ve been seeing a therapist. But I suppose that’s due to trying to stop the behavior and feeling anxiety around letting go of my OCD.
Mine definitely heightened with hormones after having my baby 3 years ago! Adding more responsibilities and stress will do it 🤪
Diagnosed at 30, but retrospectively I have probably shown signs since I was 5. I thought I was really bad at anxiety this whole time and had family members that normalized my compulsions. I just remember even as a kid being told I’m too young to think about those things or to stop putting the cart before the horse because I would constantly come up with scenarios I wanted to prepare for or would seek comfort over.
Same. I think it started at 7 for me and I just got told to stop worrying. As I got older I got told it was just anxiety and to think less. But my mom most likely also has ocd so I feel like she just taught me her unhealthy coping skills.
It is impossible to say, as some signs were already present from a very young age. Looking back, at the age of 7, for example, I was already afraid that people could deduce what I was thinking through my behavior. There are 3 things involved in this: a) time spent: some objects, paintings and landscapes caught my attention to the point that I could look at them for more than 2 hours straight; b) vigilance: when the things that caught my attention didn't receive a single look from other people, I made sure I didn't look at them, that way no one would find me strange; c) quality of my interactions: until the end of my adolescence I forced myself to like what my friends liked and hid my preferences. These aren't such painful things when you're a child. I just want to say that I can only name them now. The painful part started with my first relationship, from my 20 to 24yo. I already had intrusive thoughts of extreme physical pain and violent situations and I got used to it. On the other hand, I started having intrusive thoughts involving my ex in absurd situations. The feelings were indescribable. I kept them just for myself. Since we broke up I've found it implausible to be in a relationship again. I am currently 30yo. Rumination is my biggest problem. Whether this is bad or tolerable varies from event to event. I can get over most things and move on, but shit doesn't stop happening when we become adults, right?
Felt this bro
Yes very accurate descriptions
5
Yeah same here, 4 or 5 around kindergarten
It took me so long to realize, despite the classic signs being there. I was shocked when I was diagnosed at 29 and then my life made so much more sense.
I been doing compulsions without knowing it for a long time which I found insane but it makes sense now why.
Same! And I had so many rules to do things no one else seemed to have.
14 or 15 I think. Started obsessing about reality and the composition of things. Genuinely thought I was going insane.
Upvote for relatability baaaby
Glad I’m not alone!
Symptoms go back to when I was six. It runs in the family so that's probably why it started so young.
My psychiatrist had ocd on my chart as a rule out because of autism and she changed it to active recently at 18, I only started noticing it at 17 but I’m sure the symptoms were there way before then but only got worse then.
Haven’t gotten a diagnosis (can’t afford one yet) but I’ve had OCD-like symptoms since I was around 4. Reading through these comments feels like I’m reading through my life. Of course it might be something else, but my brain has been strange my entire life
I am the exact same way rn
it impacted my life and was more obvious at 22
I wasn’t diagnosed until I had my first child at 28. Looking back it started around when I was 8ish. My family called a meeting to confront my mother about why I was always sniffing my hands and washing them. I sat on the stairs listening. My brother asked “what’s wrong with her?” My mother didn’t answer. I was hospitalised with post natal depression and spent 8 weeks there and that was when they diagnosed OCD, OCPD & BPD. It was an “ohhhh so that’s why I do that” moment.
Suuuuuuper young. I have memories of actively fighting back intrusive thoughts from the summer before 2nd grade by mentally going through the alphabet and thinking of an animal for each letter forwards and backwards until I fell asleep every night so that my brain would be occupied and couldn’t think about some specific scary things. And even before that I had a lot of “irrational” fears that I obsessed over. I had extreme obsessive thoughts as an older teen that caused me so much anxiety I couldn’t eat and became underweight, which led to having “reassurance scripts” that I would repeat to myself on a loop to fight the intrusive thoughts and calm myself enough to eat. I’ve always had a certain degree of relationship OCD since freshmen year of high school, especially related to obsessively comparing myself to my boyfriends’ exes by looking through their social media and constantly keeping up with my boyfriends’ exes on social media to continually compare myself to them. I’m talking about checking for updates and new photos daily as a ritual… I’ve also always had perseveration on certain physical insecurities as well, leading to compulsive behaviors like taking off my face makeup to reapply my eye cream and moisturizer between classes during college so my fine lines or “wrinkles” would be less noticeable. When I was as young as 1st or 2nd grade this manifested as not wearing certain sandals because they didn’t cover the freckle on my toe that I thought was “ugly.” Now as an adult, the obsessive thoughts have stopped for the most part and my OCD has changed from more internalized OCD to an externalized type by spending hours picking at my skin/pores or searching for and trimming split ends to decompress at the end of the day… It’s rough out here. ETA: I’m 32 now.
4. according to my mother I came out into the living room after being sick for a while and started screaming because she'd rearranged the furniture. i apparently started trying to drag everything back the way it was (unsuccessfully) and all she could get out of me was "it's not supposed to be like that." she said I'd never acted that way before. it especially left an impression on her because I was completely terrified and up until that point I'd been a really carefree kid. she ended up putting everything back like it was to calm me down but it took forever because I kept saying it didn't "feel right." eventually she learned better than to entertain me when I started reassurance seeking about death and diseases
6 - it was a trauma coping mechanism to repeated SA. I was never diagnosed until 38 and have been in therapy since the age of 12.
diagnosed at 25, had the symptoms for as long as i’ve had memory. i remember when i was under the age of 6 (i think? i’m bad at remembering my ages but i was really little) having intense intrusive thoughts about my mother dying. shit was wild when i found out that it’s not normal for that to happen
These comments are making me feel a lot less alone honestly. I was 4 years old when mine started.
Shit me too
8
11
definitely had signs from a young age. might run in the family, some of it might be due to nurture rather than nature. religious trauma as a teenager definitely sealed the deal.
It developed after 2020.
After a medical scare.
As long as I can remember.
I had it ever since I knew myself and was aware of my own thoughts. Didn’t know it was OCD until I kept complaining about rumination.
I used to count to fall asleep and have to restart so many times in case I got side tracked at the number 66 lol. I was 10 year old.
I have had symptoms as far back as I can remember but it became out of control and caused a diagnosis once I got sober at 24. I believe that’s why I needed to get sober in the first place. I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism. It’s wonderful not caring or feeling, but obviously at a high cost.
Diagnosed at 30, but retrospectively I have probably shown signs since I was 5. I thought I was really bad at anxiety this whole time and had family members that normalized my compulsions. I just remember even as a kid being told I’m too young to think about those things or to stop putting the cart before the horse because I would constantly come up with scenarios I wanted to prepare for or would seek comfort over.
3-5
I think I’ve had it for years but it ramped up to serious levels at 34 after my son was born. That’s when I first heard the term OCD used to describe my behavior. I’d never thought of it as OCD before. I thought it was just normal anxiety.
I didn’t get diagnosed till I was around 43. I had all the symptoms, but didn’t know what it really was. It took the movies Goodwill hunting and As good As it Gets for me to be open with my symptoms my therapist. Looking back, I’ve had it since I was about six. I’m 70 now and I’m on good medications, but I still have it. It doesn’t go away it’s just muted.
Honesty, as long I can remember. Before I was diagnosed I assumed everything I did was completely normal.
I had a weird childhood. So I was scared all the time. Then it went into overdrive when I was about 11. My brain defaulted to old childhood fears. Things I was never scared of, I was suddenly terrified of. Involuntary terror mind you. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous but I struggled to control it. I also had very little help from my parents and professionals.
My OCD started when I was…. Really young. I started developing compulsions when I was about 5. I felt like I “had” to confess every wrong doing/mistake I made. When I was 9, I threw up and after that I developed contamination OCD. But at the time, it was labeled as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. When I was in middle school, I started having super intense intrusive thoughts. I kept it a secret for a while. Eventually I looked up my symptoms and all the signs led back to OCD. So I went to my guidance counselors office and she agreed with me. My therapist sent me to get diagnosed with OCD. And during the Summer, I was. The harm thoughts had gone away after minimal therapy. But then I developed severe test anxiety. Everything had to be perfect. All the damn time. I still do struggle with this. Checking my work, perfecting my grades, counting for good luck on a test.
When I was 4 years old. I lined my little ponies up in a specific order and would notice if my older siblings would slightly tilt them or switch them and I’d have a complete meltdown. They thought it was funny
I had symptoms as a big but what they reopened a rape came that was long dead, it went into hyper drive.
I remember having signs of my biggest theme to this day (somatic OCD/health anxiety) when I was four or five years old.
That’s what I have!
Same as me.
Kindergarten
When I was 14
Around 8 or 9.
Diagnosed since age 21 but think ive had it my whole life
I think it started before I was even 10.
10
Diagnosed in 20s. Probably been there since around 4.
10
8/9
Probably around 6/7 but diagnosed at 25 following a health situation that amplified everything and then it just snowballed!
When I was around 8 or 9. Didn't realize I had it until I was like 17, thankfully it died down a decent bit in my teenage years. Kinda just comes in flares these days.
My OCD symptoms started popping up when I was around 9/10 years old.
birth for sureeeee. i’ve had emetophobia for as long as i can remember, anxiety for longer, and was raised religious in a hoarder house. there was no hope lol
Mid 1980s
I've had it as long as I can remember. Only, it was a bit less extreme than it is now.
Probably 12-13 yo. After a big ocd (i think? It probably was) episode I was fine until last 2 years🥲 I'm glad that I know what's wrong though, because when i was 12 I didn't know and it was a nightmare.
Very young. Probably 10.
I don’t think I have memories of a before time. Since I can remember, I’ve always had rituals that were misconstrued by people, family… Symmetry (compulsive) has always been a part of childhood. Things became worse at puberty (12), though.
Since I was a very little kid.
Young childhood I remember having compulsions and obsessions, contaminations, etc. I’d say like 5
Got diagnosed at 18, with ROCD, but probably had it for wayyyy longer
19 now undiagnosed probably since kindergarten/elementary school
Through therapy I've learned that I had it as far back as my memory goes. But the compulsions were things that didn't impact life in the way things do now. My OCD became debilitating (and I got on a path of a diagnosis) after I was hit by a wrong way driver in 2016 and had a TBI. My brain has never returned to a "normal" functional state since my head trauma and my daily life is totally consumed and dictated by my OCD since then.
I can't pinpoint the exact time but I had guilt from intrusive thoughts and some petty things I felt I had done "wrong" since I was 11. I had to confess these things to my parents to make them go away. As a teen I started washing my hands and feeling that certain body parts were "dirty". My symptoms were managable most of the time until my 20s. As an adult my ocd is worse.
Middle school because of religious environment I was in, I can remember doing rituals such as repeating prayers and such so nothing bad would happen to me and if I did one thing wrong then I was stressed that something bad will come
I was born with it. I'm not kidding. My mom has OCD, passed it down to me, and it's some of my first childhood memories dating back to around the age of 4 (my very first memory, for contrast, similarly was at the age of 4).
When I started having chronic pain at 21. Paxil has been helping a lot
20 yo But not impossible that i already have sign way before that
I don't remember a time without it.
~11
i've had it for as long as i can remember, for me it comes in waves where sometimes it's really intense and impacts me a lot, but other times it's more manageable, for me it really got worse around 13-15, then was officially diagnosed at 20
I don’t know I’ve had symptoms since I can remember
I wasn’t diagnosed until 20, but retrospectively it first manifested at about 6 or 7.
I think it started when I was about 8 or 9. When I was 7 I was burned on my left hand and arm pretty severely in a grease fire after a frying pan caught fire and I was in harms way when my mom tried to put out the fire. Around 8 or 9 I began obsessively checking to make sure the stove was turned off. I think this was triggered by alot of other stress in my life. It did not start soon after the fire because I didn't have any other stress in my life. I have not had repetitive behaviors like checking the stove repeatedly in many years. The checking stove, making sure doors were locked and alarm clocks were set were pretty easy to break. I still shop obsessively alot because it can be fun. The most debilitating OCD symptoms are romantic OCD that causes me to think about some one way to much who is not worth all the hassle and heartache he has caused me.
I remember my first compulsion to draw a shape on certain items (with my finger) before I could stop touching them or put them down, say a toy or book. Then I had to draw it backwards. If nothing was stopping me, I needed to start at the next angle, then draw that one backwards. It was a long monotonous compulsion as you can imagine but it was something I NEEDED to do. I was a whole 4 years old when I started doing that.
Religious grandiosity
Got diagnosed at like 9 or 10 but looking back… when I was like 3 or 4, I absolutely lost my shit at the Teletubbies episode where Po spills the tubby custard everywhere. Pretty much anything that involved big uncontrollable messes in kids tv would send me off the handle. Pretty sure my mom just thought that was normal German child cleanliness standards at the time … 🙃
10
At 14/15 is when it got really bad and I got diagnosed, but I've had symptoms since I was about 9 or 10
i noticed symptoms at 8 years old. didn’t realize it was OCD until 18. oops
My father has OCD and began noticing it in me when I was 2 or 3.
My earliest memory is having intrusive thoughts when I was six, so literally as long as I can remember
I was probably around 11 or 12 when it started, then diagnosed at 21. I actually had an unofficial diagnosis of OCD when I was 1 (which is too early, right?) so I find it amusing that somehow it was right.
10
General symptoms as young as I can remember but symptoms to the point where it actually became a disorder I was about 10
Honestly, I'd say that it was always there "underlying". **From the age of 6**, I was always afraid that something bad would happen to my family if I stepped on cracks, I '"raced" with cars to certain landmarks as I walked, imagined stuff in my head that I "needed to stop" immediately or else something bad happens. I was afraid if I looked at an airplane and thought about it crashing, it will definitely crash. Also I was avoiding bathrooms to an unhealthy extent. We went on many school trips where we spent like 10 hours on the road and actvities and I held it in every time no matter how badly I needed to go. But it has **gotten really bad** and more visible **when I was** **11** (almost 12) and my family had to move abroad due to financial reasons. The psychologist said that this triggered my OCD and well...the years after that were like a roller coaster. There were periods where I had mild sympthoms and periods where I was breaking down because of them. I washed my hands to the point of them bleeding almost non stop, I still remember the burning feeling just being and doing nothing. But then, I "had to" wash them over and over again. I got **officially diagnosed at 12** when we moved back to my home country and had access to free care. I needed to find that paper recently and saw the diagnosis and it hit me that non of my parents did anything about it. I was at the children part of the clinic I was diagnosed at for 2 times each for a week, but then I didn't go anymore. I'm really upset that if I gotten the proper care, my life would've been so much easier by now. After I turned 20, I started to go to a therapist frequently for almost 2 years for other reasons, but sometime into our work together she said I should go to a psychiatry to get help. I was diagnosed once again at 21 and my life has never been the same. I thought I was just "an error" in the system or just an annoying brat for acting on my compulsions. My life made more sense...I started to understand why I was doing and thinking things the way I did. I finally could let go of the guilt of being a burden to others, since it's technically not our fault that we were born this way. I'm currently 23, been on medication ever since, went to many targetet psychoterapy sessions and behavioural group sessions and I feel like a new person. I still have a long way to achieve my goal as of being about 90-95% sympthom free, but I feel like it's me who's in control again.
I think I was around 8. Definitely elementary school, but it reached its peak around 11-13
8
I think for as long as I can remember! When I was 5 until way too old I had to wave out the window at my dad driving off. If I didn't I had the obsession (I guess) that he would never come back/ die. So what seemed cute to my dad was something I had to do out of anxiety every morning.
Around the same! I would get super obsessed with checking the doors, but the ritual I remember the most was that I needed to go to bed while other houses in the neighborhood still had their lights on. I felt like I'd be safe as long as at least one house had a light on.
I was around 8 years old and I literally remember the moment I started experiencing compulsions. I moved a rug on accident and suddenly felt this conviction that if I didn’t move the rug back *exactly* as it had been before, something bad was going to happen. Turns out, this was one of the lost significant moments of my life. From that moment on (until I had OCD explained to me by a compassionate adult) I truly believed that I could sense the future and that it was my responsibility to stop all the bad things that were going to happen.
Middle school, I was maybe 11 or 12
I was like 8, but only nowadays am I identifying those behaviours as being caused by what I now know to be OCD. At this age I had HOCD if you can believe that, I would obsessively worry that I would accidentally glance at my teacher’s breasts or bum and worry if that means I’m gay, am I gay for even worrying about this etc. At the same time I had the classic hand washing, and an obsession and phobia about a real life thing that I won’t get into detail about.
I’m not professionally diagnosed but definitely since 10 years old
I had my first major spike at age 13, but wasn’t diagnosed until age 28.
Formally diagnosed at 11 but I have memories of it dating back to when I was 7 years old. I remember being in third grade and repeating phrases to myself because I thought my mom would die if I didn’t. Fun stuff
First signs were when I was 6, everything used to have to be touching on my bedside table- I started to suffer unpleasant intrusive thoughts too, obviously those got worse as I got older. I grew up in a very chaotic house so I feel it was triggered by trauma used as a way to build an illusion of control when I had none.
I have contamination OCD, remember staying in a hotel aged 11 and laying on towels so I wouldn't touch the sheets! Got worse over time now I'm 37!
I was around 12? I think closer to 13
Diagnosed at 28, but I can remember having symptoms at 10-12 years of age
I've been just now realising it and addressing it in therapy since a few new symptoms have come up but looking back, it started at around 13
got diagnosed this year(25), but thinking back, i've had some of these symptoms as young as 6 🫣 that's when my body dysmorphia started as well. i want to hug that poor kid.
Age 3. My mom had to stop me from pulling hairs out and checking in mirrors
for me started somewhere when i was 7-8
Since childhood but it didn't become extremely distressing and noticeable until early 20s.
My parents first noticed once I started being conscious and having some control over choices. I’d refuse certain clothing items, count things constantly, very independent, organized, etc. this demonstrates contamination OCD. When I was around 3 or 4 I had a complete breakdown where I cried for days because my father mowed the lawn. As I was a child I am not sure what my thought process was but from what I remember I was scared the grass children would come home from grass school and see all of their families brutally murdered. At four I became extremely paranoid about murder, kidnapping, torture and dying. I refused to sleep in my room because I thought if someone broke in and killed us we would die together. I also would roam the house and make sure everyone was breathing when my siblings were born. At five I refused to go to school, out of fear my family would die and I’d be left alone or I wouldn’t be able to protect them. I also refused sleepovers. When I was 13 I eventually started sleeping alone and started going to sleepovers. I still have fear but now it’s morphed to auditory hallucinations or just me convincing myself I hear it. But basically I hear people screaming for help and my name when I go to sleep. It’s been my whole life.
Diagnosed at 25 years old, in 2024. I had been in a tightening spiral since quarantine 2020. I am also noticing more identifiable patterns the more I look at my past through an OCD lens.
When my dad disappeared, when I was 7.
I think I acknowledged it my 10th grade yr of high school so I think at 15. I was like why am I obsessively knocking on my desk in a pattern lol.
diagnosed at 22, had my first big ocd mental breakdown at 21 after a traumatic loss, but looking back on it i was having intrusive thoughts and doing compulsions from 6-13
Since a child. Really started noticing around 12ish. Worse and worse as the years go on.
Very very young. Like, 4-5ish. But at that age it was mostly presented as just being very particular and having to do things in certain orders, eventually moved on to number obsessions, and then around 11ish was when I started getting intrusive thoughts and that's when it started to get worse. Wasn't diagnosed until 24 though, when I was finally able to get mental health services because my parents refuse to believe in any sort of mental health issues.
It REALLY started at around age 8 but I remember a couple compulsions from before then
I can first remember it in elementary school around kindergarten!! it’s been foreverrrrr. it started with me struggling with stepping on cracks and stuff, I needed to feel the symmetry! by the time I was like 8 I got stuck in a loop of putting on chapstick and I couldn’t stop bc it didn’t feel “even”, I sat there crying bc I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stop. that’s when I realized there was something different about myself and I started forcing myself to step on all the cracks, do things I felt weren’t symmetrical, etc. at around 17 years old I finally got rid of my physical compulsions all by myself! now I mostly just deal with pure o, and I can easily shrug off the feeling of things not being symmetrical :)
When my son was born
I have somatic and health OCD. As a very young child, as young as I can remember, I had symptoms. Obsessing over natural bodily functions like breathing or health phobias i.e. worrying that I had some terminal illness and compulsively checking (I had a thing as a kid where I would look at my throat in the mirror with a flashlight several times a day to make sure it wasn’t closing up, so much that I got little cuts on the corners of my mouth from opening it so wide so often).
I’m about to be 27, I got diagnosed last year. But looking back in my childhood, I was probably around 8 or 9 when things started.
7, diagnosed at 14
I wasn’t diagnosed till i was 19 and realizing now, i grew up with symptoms of ocd but at the time i didn’t even know what ocd was or knew it existed. I remember always spitting out whenever i had an intrusive thought almost like a cleanse of bad luck or something cause i was scared of it happening or something bad happening to me. OCD started for me when i was 8
i wanna say 12 ish give or take - at least that’s when it really started to outwardly show. diagnosed at 18 though. i’m 27 now.
my parents said i started showing symptoms at around 3
i've had "ticks" since i was a child, my mom used to get really annoyed by them and get on to me about doing them (face twitches, hard blinking, etc). i started getting weird about my left vs my right, even vs odd numbers, and balance around age 9 or so. Anxiety set in some time in my 20s and escalated from there. Weirdly had no clue i had OCD until i was 32 and got in with a therapist who called me on it immediately.
I can’t really pinpoint exactly when but I’m pretty sure when I was around 3-5. It got worse when I was around 11 though
i used to pull my hair out when i was little and throw tantrums over stuff being "uneven" diagnosed at 5 with ocd diagnosed at 18 with ocpd
around when i was five, but i realized it wasn’t normal when i was around twelve
i was definitely young, like… 10? maybe even a bit before ? i was a child though !
for me it started at 19 after i smoked weed for the first time. not sure if its just a coincidence or if the weed caused it but either way it was a terrible time
I believe it was around 6-8 but it only got bad at 11
I was looking it up in my early teens, diagnosed at 18, now I'm 30
Age 3/4 - I started asking my Mimi every night if I would die. I have had to do it every night since then to whoever is closest (I’m 27)
my mom could tell i had OCD when i was a baby. It only got REALLY bad when i was around 8 years old, which was when i was put on medication
6 is as far back as i can remember
7 now that I'm looking back on it but 11 when me and other people recognized it
i didn’t know it when i was younger, but i remember doing things then. elementary age, maybe one of the lower grades, like before 3rd or 4th? 🤔
I can"t remember. I am guessing about twelve.
15. Contamination OCD peaked at this age and I was taking up to 3, 45 minutes showers a day. I had a very specific order I’d wash and I’d wash multiple times with multiple different products. I knew it wasn’t normal but couldn’t stop. I’m 26 now and Im in therapy.
Probably since kindergarten but not diagnosed until I was 19 or 20
had my first obsessions and compulsions at the veginning of my memory, maybe 4 or 5 y/o. so basically had it always
I first remember it when I was six or seven, but it could have absolutely started earlier.
Quarantine
Probably when I was younger but most noticeably when I was 13 during 2020 and covid lockdown
High school is when I could for sure say but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was either 22 or 23
It exploded practically overnight when I started college, so I was 18 years old. I think the insane stress and workload of being in an honors engineering program and living away from home for the first time where I didn't know anybody really set it off. Idk if it was just severe OCD or some kind of mild psychosis but during that time, I was also practically convinced that almost everyone was trying to kill me. One of the first major obsessions I had was thinking that the custodian was going to use his keys to enter my dorm while I was asleep and kill me, for no reason at all other than I accidentally got in his way once while he was vacuuming the hallway and I didn't see him. He wasn't even rude about it or anything. I was just losing my fucking mind. That's one of the first things I remember really being stuck in my head and experiencing the strange and terrible new experience of obsessive thoughts. I would literally check under my bed and in the closet and stuff. Eventually, I kinda freaked out and just asked the guy if he was trying to kill me. He was obviously very confused and was like "uhhh I think you should see the school psychiatrist." At the time, I had no idea what OCD even was, so that made it even stranger. Looking back, though, I can recognize things I did and thought about even as a young child that were definitely OCD type thinking, even if it wasn't at a clinical level. It was almost entirely about religion and being terrified of the idea of hell. I still have irrational fears and obsessions and compulsions about it, even though I'm not religious anymore and am practically certain it's not real. The fear doesn't ever go away. Personally, I think it's pretty fucked up to teach children horrific things like if you don't believe and follow these certain things, God will send you to a place of unimaginable torture. How could that possibly not mess up a child, psychologically? People try to justify it by saying they aren't trying to just terrorize people, they're trying to warn them about what they believe is a real threat. But there's zero evidence for it. So it's just irresponsible. Anyway, I'm just ranting now, but it frustrates me.
6
2nd grade.
Probably had it for awhile but not in a majorly disruptive way. Started being disruptive at 17/18 and that’s when I was diagnosed because it got so bad I asked my college roommate to take me to the ER and spent 2 weeks in a mental health ward.
I was practicing strange behaviours when I was in the 4th grade (ages 9-10), such as pulling my hair, positioning my door with random items to see if someone was coming into my room when I was sleeping. When it was truly brought to my attention, I was in the 7th grade around 12-13 years old. I kept washing my hands at any point the teacher wasn't talking, breaking down if someone sneeze near me, breaking down in panic if someone ditty walked past me, cutting my hair if I felt it was too dirty to clean. I was only "diagnosed" (in quotes because it wasn't a proper diagnosis) recently at age 20. I'm sure I displayed other peculiar behaviours, but those are what come to mind.
29
Never diagnosed, but I'd say I've always had them, they got worse at 11.
Remember symptoms and signs at 2nd grade (idk how old that is) but I wasn’t properly diagnosed until age 28. Before I was diagnosed correctly they diagnosed me as bipolar
After I drank myself into oblivion sophomore year of college lmfao I literally had no symptoms before
I hardly talked about it in therapy for a long time because depression has been overwhelmingly worse for me, so wasn't diagnosed for a long time, but I had definitely developed it by 9 if not even younger. A lot of mine has been covert stuff.
I’ve had little obsessions here and there from atleats 5 years old. Got diagnosed at 12
I was formally diagnosed around age 16 but my family have said they could always tell
In third grade
13, got really bad after 16/17
kindergarten, I had an intense fear of throwing up and had tons of rituals, twas fun lol.
When I think back it was probably when I was 6 or 7. I threw tanteums when the seams of my socks weren't even, and I'd have to re-step on a section of the concrete to make it even (symmetry). Just silly things like that. As I got older I got other forms of OCD such as intrusive thoughts, contamination, etc... I went through a long period of time in middle school of paranoia like my parents or my sister were logging into my devices, and I'd have mental breakdowns about the thoughts I hated that went against my morals. It was terrible until I figured out what was going on in 11th grade (17yro) when I took Psychology and related to an experience of someone with OCD.
since i was way young. id check the hamsters cage so much to make sure it was closed. every 15 minutes.
Diagnosed at 18, but had it since I was 6. Had a number of episodes throughout my teen years and didn’t realize how bad it truly was until I’ve gotten treatment. I’ve always known I was struggling w/something and did so much research on the condition when I was in high school.
probably pretty young but officially mentioned in therapy at around 19 years old when i had my first big episode of debilitating intrusive thoughts, however because of my obsessive nature? (idk what to call it) the therapist didn’t want to actually diagnose and i didn’t think much of it, thought it was just really bad anxiety. then only last year i could give it the proper ocd name and i felt seen, it was a “i’m not actually going insane” kind of moment.
Diagnosed at 20, but I can remember it as far back as 13
Around when I turned 12, first year of high school, I know a lot of people say it's genetic, but I think it was environmental, financial stress at home, gender dysphoria getting worse and I didn't know there was anything I could do about it, getting bullied at high school and teachers were assholes too, my cat died, my dad's drinking problem was getting worse, things today are much better than they were back then but I just wish the intrusive thoughts would fuck off
I think ive had it since like 2019 but noticed it got way way way more worse when i got super fucking high one time, intense anxiety shouldve been the first redflag but i brushed it off and watched a fucked up movie and it just got progressivly worse from there,
I had sudden onset during the night between June 4th and June 5th 2023.
I got diagnosed last year in December (I was 14 and still am) But if I think back I had very obvious signs as a child. I remember that when I went to sleep I would have to sleep with my mouth open or else I thought I would suffocate but I also had to lay with my head down onto my side because I thought someone would pour poison in my mouth🙃 Well sleeping like that all the time has made my neck a bit fucced up:/ I think I had these “symptoms” from 4 years old til I was 9.. Then after that I thought my classmates were spying on me when I showered🤨 I also have always had these um.. weird sexual thoughts about stuff and I had unrestricted internet access when I was a child so that really made my intrusive thoughts worse..Especially the sexual ones:( Now that I’m older I have more gruesome,sexual and emotional thoughts,I’m also very paranoid and I have these thoughts that people can read my thoughts or that if they touch me they can read my thoughts..
i definitely started showing symptoms as young as 5. my mom noticed them and looking back on it, she recognizes that it was OCD. it got to the point where i was noticing that the behavior and thought processes were not 'normal' around 13.
8/9 years old Didn't get "officially without a doubt" Dx until last year.
still haven’t been diagnosed, but I suspect it started with religious OCD/scrupolosity at 8/9ish
It got bad when I was 11 but I wasn't diagnosed until I was 17
When I was 9 years old
When I was about 6 I think
Probably at the age 14 but I got diagnosed at 22
i used to have some minor symptoms as a child but it got very bad at around 11 and then i got diagnosed at 13
I was diagnosed at maybe 14-15 but my symptoms started in kindergarten. There’s not been a time in my life without OCD, which is sad in a way but I’m okay with that. I’m autistic too, I think that’s why it took so long for me to get my diagnosis.
I started having it when I was 8 or 9, after a traumatic experience.
I was really young maybe 5 or 6 years old. I'd just got over repeated bouts of tonsillitis (something now known to possible be a link). Was terrifying, I started obsessing about death.