What’s It Like to Have OCD
Living with OCD is like being in an abusive relationship with your own mind. Except there’s no leaving. No breakup. No safe house. Just me, myself, and this glitchy wiring that turns everyday life into a minefield of rituals, thoughts, and panic.
I don’t think people truly understand what it means when I say I have OCD. They think it’s about color-coded closets or alphabetized spice racks. No. OCD is not cute. It’s not quirky. It’s not a personality trait.
It’s hell. And it’s in my head.
Let me paint you a picture: I lock the door. I hear the click. I see the bolt. I walk away. Twenty feet later, a thought creeps in—Are you sure? I stop. My stomach flips. I walk back. I check it again. And again. I leave. Then I check again, this time from the window, like a burglar stalking my own house. Sometimes I get all the way to work and still turn around.
That’s just one example.
Other times, it’s numbers. I count letters in my head while I’m talking. I rearrange sentences so they add up to a “good” number. If they don’t? I feel like something terrible will happen. Like I’ve cursed the universe by phrasing something wrong.
And then there are the thoughts.
The ones I never say out loud. The ones that make me question if I’m a good person, or secretly a monster. Intrusive, violent, disturbing thoughts that flash in my mind uninvited. It’s not that I want them. It’s that they come, and my brain grabs onto them like a dog with a bone. And then I’m stuck there—asking over and over, What kind of person even thinks that?
I try to fight it with logic. But OCD laughs in logic’s face. It’s immune to facts. It’s not a problem you can “think your way out of.” It’s a parasite that feeds on thinking.
And sometimes, it’s cleaning. Or rather, cleansing. I can spend five hours rearranging the same corner of a room, fixing the way a lamp is tilted, smoothing a wrinkle in the bedsheet, wiping an invisible smudge from the wall. Not because I want to. But because not doing it sets off a fire alarm in my chest that won’t stop blaring until I give in.
And yeah, I’ve had the “magical thinking” too. Like if I don’t worry about my mom dying, she will. So I sit there picturing car crashes and hospital rooms, thinking that the sheer weight of my worry will keep them from becoming real. It’s exhausting. And it never makes sense—but that’s never the point.
And when I don’t give in to the rituals, there’s this awful gnawing feeling. Like I’ve left something undone. Like a splinter in the soul. I could be having dinner, watching a movie, talking to a friend—and yet there’s this loop playing in the background: Go back. Check. Fix it. Clean it. Think it again. Say it just right. It’s like trying to concentrate on life while a fire alarm blares next to your head. All. The. Time.
It messes with relationships too. Try explaining to someone why you won’t hug them. Or why you can’t eat something they touched. Or why their car is “contaminated.” Try explaining that it’s not about them. It’s about this twisted algorithm in your head that flags things as “dangerous” with zero consistency.
Some days I manage it. Some days I even laugh at it. Other days, I can’t get out of bed because I’m terrified I’ll “do life wrong.”
And the worst part? I know it’s irrational. I know it’s nonsense. But knowing doesn’t stop it. That’s what makes OCD so cruel. You’re completely aware that your mind is lying to you—and still, you’re powerless to stop believing it.
I’ve learned to live with it. I’ve gotten help. I’ve found tools—medication, therapy, ERP. But there are still days where I feel like a prisoner in my own skull. Where everything feels tainted, or wrong, or doomed.
But I keep going.
Because in this war with my own mind, I’ve learned something valuable: OCD might be relentless. But so am I.
What’s It Like To Find Out That Your Child Isn’t Yours
I didn’t just lose trust. I lost reality.
That’s what no one tells you about this kind of betrayal—it’s not just heartbreak or anger. It’s disorientation. A complete unraveling of the story you thought you were living.
I’ve been with my wife for 17 years. Seventeen. High school sweethearts. College together. Married before our son was born. Built a life. Shared bills, laughter, inside jokes, lazy weekends, everything. I wasn’t just proud of our life—I thought we’d made it. I thought I had found my person.
And then one medical test detonated it all.
Our son, nine years old, started showing health issues. We ran tests. One came back pointing to a genetic disease—one that requires both parents to carry a specific gene. She tested positive. I didn’t. The math didn’t add up. The biology didn’t lie.
And that’s when she told me: he’s not my son.
She said she had an affair—brief, just a month—with a coworker from a past job. They had sex “a couple of times,” then stopped. She said she loved me too much to let it continue. But during that affair, she got pregnant. And she said nothing. She just… let me believe. Let me raise him. Let me fall in love with a child that was never mine, biologically. Let me name him. Teach him to ride a bike. Stay up with him when he was sick. All of it, a lie I didn’t know I was living.
I’m not proud of what I’ve felt since. The shame. The bitterness. The coldness creeping in when I look at him now. I hate myself for that. Because it’s not his fault. He didn’t ask for any of this. And yet, I can’t look at him the same. I still make him breakfast. Still drive him to school. But I feel like a substitute teacher who never got the memo that the class wasn’t his.
What makes it worse is that he’s sick. Really sick. We may need to explore a transplant. He needs his parents. He needs comfort. And I’m going through the motions like a man possessed, because inside, I’m gutted.
You don’t just lose trust in your partner when this happens. You lose trust in yourself. I think about all the times I told her how lucky I felt. All the times I looked at her like she was my safe harbor. All the times I laughed, held her hand, made plans for a future that apparently never had solid ground to begin with. I feel stupid. Humiliated. I even joked once about a paternity test—lightly, playfully. She brushed it off like it was silly. And I laughed along. She didn’t even have to lie. She just had to let me believe.
That’s what kills me.
I feel like I’ve been raising someone else’s kid while the woman I loved sat on that secret, year after year.
And now, I don’t know who I am in this story. I’m not a husband—not really. I don’t know if I ever truly was. I’m not a father—not in the biological sense. And emotionally, I’m starting to feel myself detach from both of them.
People say blood doesn’t make a father. I used to believe that. I still want to believe that. But when it gets ripped out from under you like this—without warning, without your consent—it’s like your body reacts before your beliefs can catch up. There’s this hollow, echoing void where your sense of self used to be.
We’re still in the same house. I sleep next to her. I eat dinner with them. But it feels like I’ve stepped into a play and forgotten all my lines. I catch myself staring at the walls, trying to remember what joy felt like before it turned out to be a performance.
I’m stuck between two impossible choices:
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Stay, and try to rebuild a life on top of broken foundations.
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Leave, and torch everything we built over almost two decades.
I want to scream. I want to rewind time. I want to hold my son like I used to, without this layer of pain and confusion fogging every moment.
But mostly, I want peace. And I don’t know how to find it right now.
I don’t know how this ends. I just know that I needed to write this down. Because if I don’t, I’ll lose myself completely.
What’s It Like To Be A NEET
Let me explain what being a NEET is before I get into what it feels like.
A NEET is someone who’s Not in Education, Employment, or Training. It’s a label. A sterile acronym that governments use in reports to describe people who’ve stepped—or fallen—off the traditional path of school, work, and self-improvement. It sounds clinical, even bureaucratic. But it doesn’t feel clinical. It feels like existing in a fog. Like watching life happen to everyone else while you stay paused.
I’ve been a NEET for most of my adult life. I’m closing in on 30 now, and if you saw me on the street, you wouldn’t think “failure” or “waste of potential.” You’d just see a guy in line at the gas station or browsing Reddit on his phone. From the outside, it looks like I’m just between things. But the truth is, I’ve been stuck here for years.
It didn’t start because I was lazy or unmotivated. It started with things that didn’t seem like they’d change my life at the time. I got pulled out of school as a kid. My dad, paranoid about the education system, decided to homeschool me. Except he never actually taught anything. So while other kids were in class, I was alone at home, watching the clock tick until he got back from work. There were no textbooks. No lessons. Just time. Endless, meaningless time.
And when you grow up without structure or expectations, that becomes your default setting.
Here’s the truth: the NEET life is both intoxicating and brutal. It’s like being rich in a prison. I have everything. Not materially—money’s always tight—but access. I’ve consumed thousands of albums, movies, books, podcasts. I know obscure philosophy, niche politics, underground music. I’ve played hundreds of video games, watched entire lecture series, and explored rabbit holes most people don’t even know exist.
If curiosity alone were currency, I’d be a billionaire.
But what does all that mean when you don’t have friends? Or a partner? Or a future?
People imagine being a NEET as sleeping in, watching Netflix all day, not answering to anyone. And sure, I can do that. But try doing it for years. Try waking up every day with no reason to. Try having your entire sense of worth tied to whether you remembered to do the dishes or stayed under the grocery budget that week.
Try hearing your family ask, “What are you doing with your life?” when you’re already asking yourself that question every hour of every day.
I’m not an idiot. I know what people think when they hear my story. Lazy. Parasitic. Man-child. Just get a job. Just do something. But they don’t understand the paralyzing self-doubt that comes with it. Applying for jobs feels like sending a paper airplane into a hurricane. And if, by some miracle, I did land one? I’m terrified I’d screw it up. That I wouldn’t know how to talk to people. That I’d get fired the first week because I forgot how to be normal.
Some days I feel like a ghost haunting my own life.
I’m not saying I want to live like this forever. If I had the skills or confidence to get a job that paid enough to move out and live on my own, I’d do it tomorrow. Hell, I dream about it. But I’m stuck in a loop: no job means no experience, no experience means no job. Add in no transportation, no health care, and no one pushing me forward—and here I am.
It’s not just about income. It’s about identity. Purpose. Progress. NEETs don’t just lack jobs—we often lack a reason.
I think the worst part is the shame. That constant, buzzing guilt that comes from feeling like a burden. From hiding when guests visit. From avoiding family gatherings because you can’t stand the questions. From hearing “What do you do all day?” and not having an answer that sounds like a life.
And yet, if I force myself into the world, the anxiety hits just as hard. I feel like a fraud no matter what I do.
There are NEETs who dropped out of college, crippled by depression or anxiety. NEETs who were bullied, broken, neglected. NEETs who are geniuses on the inside and barely functioning on the outside. Some are angry. Some are numb. Some are just tired. But all of us are living in a kind of stasis, watching time pass, trying to figure out how to start moving again.
Is it the dream? Sometimes. There are days I feel like I’ve cheated the system. I have freedom people would kill for. But freedom without direction is just drifting.
So no. It’s not worth it.
I’ve lived this life. I know the costs.
I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
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