I'm so glad i found this site, I've been having problems with OCD since I was in 4th grade but I've never gone to a psychologist for treatment or medicine. When I remember first having problems I was obsessed with how I would look as an adult and I would look at people on the streets for a long time and chant to myself in my head that i was not going to look like that or that I was going to look like that. Or i would see a person on tv or something and obsess over their face and to make sure i didnt look like them or did look like them i would touch the lights or whatever object i was near until it felt right while thinking of the image of that person. Eventually as i entered middle school it turned into things like using a certain amount of toilet paper and having good or lucky numbers or banishing images of things that give me a bad feeling (not even things like hurting people or things that would cause anyone anxiety, but things like a person's face or a certain number or something insignificant that made me feel jittery or anxious for no reason.)
My mother told my pediatrician about it at the end of 6th grade when I was 12 and he didn't put much concern to it because I was having bigger physical health problems at the time and I needed treatment for that before anything. After that I didn't continue to push it and my Mom just kept pushing me to stop the rituals I was doing but they would just continue or change or I would get new ones. As I got older and had more "experience" with dealing with the rituals it got easier to hide them or adapt to the situation. By the time i was 13 i also realized i began to have problems with food and eating. I started flip flopping between diets and stuff. I was always skinny so any weight loss wasn't as noticeable. It got worse in 8th grade as i began to starve obsessively and then eventually do a combination of starving and diet restriction and exercise as well as using laxatives. I have no idea if this was something that came as a result of my OCD or if it was just something independent of it, because i was still suffering from the rituals on top of the anorexia. Eventually when I was 14 i had to go to the hospital because I was abusing sleeping pills to try and get myself knocked out so i didn't have to eat. When i was there no one found out about my eating problems because no one but me knew about them and neither me or my mom thought my OCD was important enough to bring up because it didn't seem to be relevant to the situation and i didn't want to risk saying anything that could lead to them finding out about my anorexia, so i just told the doctor i was having sleeping problems and was desperately looking for a way to cope so no one would ask questions that could lead to them treating me for anorexia. I still had to stay in a teen rehab place for a few days but everyone there regarded me as someone who didn't need to be there because i was considered a stable one (people in the hospital had like depression and stuff...) My anorexia went unnoticed. After I got out i had to go to a therapist for a check up so that i could go home and I knew it could be my chance to get help with my OCD rituals which were even worse than the eating problems but at that point i was too afraid to say anything because I didn't want anyone to intervene with my anorexia problem which could possibly come up so i just told the therapist all the good things about my school and friend life which were always good despite my own problems, and then afterwards I was checked out. Over that summer however my eating problems got a little better and it looked hopeful for a few months as I was enjoying high school and it took my mind off the extreme dieting. My OCD continued to persist however. As I went through high school it seemed like my hopes of coming to terms with my rituals were getting farther away from becoming a reality. As time went on i starting thinking that i could just cope because i had gotten this far and i was doing okay with hiding the rituals. However along with the persistence of the compulsions, in the end of 2013 continuing on till now my eating problems have began to start up again despite being fine for 2 years. I've began dieting again, using laxatives to get ahead on diets, etc. My OCD is getting harder to control too because I'm struggling with physical symptoms that weren't happening when I was elementary and middle school age. Ive started getting headaches, constipation, cramps, and other pains if i don't perform a certain ritual. It's even worse than the anxiety most of the time. As of now I'm 17 and I don't know if when I turn 18 and go to college I will ever get my own help with my OCD and eating problems as an adult or if I will just continue to try and cope with it, but it's been good to get this off my mind because I've never talked about it.
