u/Quiet-Revolution-144

I am Brazilian and my husband is American. I want our son/daughter's name to work for both cultures.

My main names at the moment are

Joana

Samuel (I love how it sounds in English, not so much in Portuguese. )

William (I think it's such beautiful, but it still seems a bit out of place in Portuguese haha.)

Anna

I think that's all I can think of that I like enough to mention.

Before I started medication this year, I had a crisis. My mom had ALS and died from it three years ago, and since then, I’ve been terrified that I might develop the same disease.

This year, I had a horrible crisis where I would constantly feel symptoms in my body. I would feel my body twitching all over, and of course, that would give me horrible anxiety. I couldn’t even sleep properly, I would cry constantly, and it was just a horrible sensation.

But as soon as I started taking medication and recovered from my crisis, those symptoms completely stopped. There have been months when I haven’t felt anything at all. My OCD was so strong that it actually caused all these sensations in my body.

And it wasn’t just that. I would feel like I was having heart attacks, I would think I was having an aneurysm—it was crazy. OCD can actually be so powerful that it makes you feel things physically in your own body.

Do you guys experience the same kind of sensations? Has your OCD ever caused physical symptoms that felt completely real to you?

I was in the elevator with my husband and a couple got in, and the first thing the guy said was, "How tall are you?" What happened to saying good morning or how are you?

I work with the public and there's always someone treating me like an alien. And it's always a weird guy. Why??? 🫪

Eu sei que falamos muito sobre como o TOC afeta negativamente nossas vidas, mas ele trouxe alguma coisa boa pra você? Por exemplo, eu acho que me ajuda muito a antecipar problemas potenciais antes que eles apareçam. Mesmo que... Isso pode ser uma faca de dois gumes. Acho que pode me ajudar em algumas situações. Também sou muito bom em me planejar. E como trabalho em uma função de atendimento ao cliente, consigo sempre antecipar todas as maneiras que um cliente pode reclamar antes mesmo de chegarem, rs.

What about you?

Bem, no meu caso, eu luto com isso desde a pré-adolescência. Foi quando meus sintomas começaram. Minha mãe era psicóloga, mas eu sempre pensei que era apenas uma pessoa ansiosa. Passei por vários terapeutas, mas nunca realmente compartilhei meus pensamentos intrusivos com eles. Nem sei por que. Acho que parte de mim nunca reconheceu completamente. Eles estavam sempre na minha mente, mas eu nunca os disse em voz alta porque sabia que soavam tão loucos, sabe?

De qualquer forma, passei por diversos psicólogos, e nenhum deles nunca sugeriu que eu pudesse ter TOC. A palavra nunca foi nem mencionada. Para mim, TOC sempre estava associado a rituais compulsivos, que eu nunca realmente tive. Meu TOC é muito mental—é principalmente pensamentos que nunca param, junto com muito pensamento mágico.

Eu tinha crises debilitantes por pequenas coisas, e às vezes até meus próprios pensamentos me deixavam completamente incapaz de funcionar ou de me sentir como eu mesma. Eventualmente, decidi ver um psiquiatra pela primeira vez na minha vida, e ela simplesmente disse: “TOC. Isso é TOC.” Depois disso, comecei a pesquisar sobre isso, e nunca me senti tão ouvida ou compreendida. Finalmente, eu tinha uma maneira de entender e dar nome a coisas que sempre pensei serem apenas parte da minha personalidade, mas que na verdade eram sintomas de um transtorno.

Agora que comecei o tratamento, estou me sentindo muito melhor. Também comecei a terapia depois, mas minha psicóloga nunca realmente considerou meu TOC. Ela é mais uma terapeuta do tipo freudiana, psicanalítica, eu acho. Fiquei um pouco frustrada e honestamente me senti meio envergonhada porque, sempre que compartilhei meus pensamentos e sentimentos, não senti que estava sendo ouvida ou compreendida. Eventualmente, eu desisti, e infelizmente, não tenho a estabilidade financeira para continuar a terapia agora.

Mas, de qualquer forma, eu desejo a vocês tudo de bom. Eu realmente adoraria ouvir suas histórias—como vocês experienciam o TOC, como foram diagnosticados e como receber esse diagnóstico ajudou vocês a entender e lidar com isso.

Do you guys also struggle financially because of binge eating? I’m struggling financially because it feels like every bit of money I have left ends up going toward food. It can be groceries, junk food, takeout—anything. I feel like I can’t get through a single day without spending money on food.

Even when I’m out of money, I’ll use my credit card or let my account go into the negative. I hide it from my husband because he knows I struggle with this and has offered to help me, but I feel like I just can’t stop. I’ve tried deleting food apps from my phone, but it never seems to be enough, and eventually I end up right back here.

It’s so fucking exhausting. I just spent a significant amount of money on food that I didn’t even want and that wasn’t even good, and I still couldn’t stop myself. I’ve also been eating huge amounts, and I feel like I’m getting worse.

My grandmother recently died, and everything has gotten even harder. Honestly, I think the happiest I’ve ever been was when I was dieting because I felt like I had control over my eating, was living a more disciplined life, and was actually saving money.

I really want to start dieting again because I felt so much better back then, but I’m scared I can’t. Every day, I feel like I’m getting deeper into this problem, and I’m so tired of it.

I love kids. I think I would genuinely enjoy having a baby, a toddler, a kid, and eventually a teenager. I think kids are bright, smart, funny, and interesting. I love the idea of creating another human being and watching them become their own person.

But with the level of OCD I have right now, I just don't think I can do it.

Pregnancy alone terrifies me. I'm scared of doctors and medical situations, and I know myself well enough to know that I would overanalyze every single symptom. Every little pain or change would probably send me into a spiral. I can already imagine constantly googling things, looking for reassurance, and having panic attacks.

And birth? Honestly, it sounds horrifying to me. My brain immediately goes through the million things that could potentially go wrong. Complications, emergencies, something happening to me or the baby... I know that statistically many pregnancies and births are completely fine, but OCD doesn't really care about statistics. It cares about "But what if I'm the exception?"

And then there's everything that comes after.

What if my child gets sick? What if they develop a serious disease? What if they have a genetic condition? What if there's a predator at school? What if there's a school shooting? What if they get hit by a car? What if something happens when I'm not there?

And then my brain goes even further.

What if my husband dies? What if I die? What if we struggle financially? What if something happens to our home? What if climate change makes their future horrible? What if something happens that I haven't even thought of yet?

It's basically an endless list of catastrophic possibilities.

Sometimes I think, How could I ever have peace again after having a child? There would always be another person in the world whose safety and wellbeing I could worry about.

And I don't want to raise a child with all of my insecurities.

I suspect my own mom may have had undiagnosed OCD, and I remember how terrified she could be whenever I left the house, even when I was already 18. Looking back, I understand that she loved me and was scared something would happen to me. But being on the receiving end of that anxiety was difficult too. I don't want to repeat that cycle with my own child.

So, for now, I think my answer is no. Not necessarily never, but definitely not while my OCD is at this level.

I want to get to a point where I can tolerate uncertainty. Where I can understand that something bad could happen without feeling like I have to mentally prepare for every possible catastrophe. Where I can let my future child have a life without constantly projecting my fears onto them.

Maybe one day my OCD will be manageable enough that I can have children and actually enjoy being their mother instead of spending every day terrified that something will happen to them.

And maybe I'll ultimately decide that motherhood isn't for me.

I genuinely don't know.

I just know that I don't want OCD to make this decision for me, but I also don't want to bring a child into my life before I'm capable of managing it.

I lost my grandfather, my grandmother, and my mom over a period of seven years, and I saw all of them die. I was the primary caretaker of my mom and my granny for a long time, and I took care of my grandfather too.

My grandfather died when I was 16, my mom died when I was 20, and my grandmother died when I was 23. For a long time, I was the only female cousin in my generation. My grandmother had two daughters, my mom and my aunt, and we did most of the caregiving. We prepared the funerals, took care of the sick, gave them their medications, took them to hospital appointments, and handled everything else that needed to be done.

When my mom got really sick, I quit school and college to take care of her. She had a terminal illness that killed her less than a year after her diagnosis. She became extremely sick, spent days in the hospital, and had a tracheostomy. It was horrible.

All my uncles and my aunt put so much pressure on me. They made it seem like quitting college and taking care of my mom was my responsibility. They treated me like an adult when I was barely 20, as if I was completely prepared to deal with all of this. Whenever I expressed fear or said that I couldn't handle something, it was treated like a lack of maturity or responsibility.

Meanwhile, my aunt would talk about how happy she was that my cousin was in school and college and learning to cook for himself while I was at home taking care of an entire household.

I was cleaning, cooking, taking care of the sick, being a nurse, a maid, a psychologist, taking them to the hospital, remembering medications and appointments, and trying to keep everything together.

And it wasn't one or two or three times that people would come to my house unexpectedly and judge me. They would criticize the hygiene, the dishes, or the fact that I didn't know how to cook. They implied that my mom was losing weight because my food wasn't good enough and she didn't want to eat, rather than because she had a horrible disease.

She was losing movement in her legs and arms, and somehow that was blamed on me too, as if it wasn't because of her illness, but because I wasn't doing enough physiotherapy with her.

After my mom died, I moved away with my boyfriend and lived far from my family. I cut contact with them for a long time.

But then my granny started getting sicker.

And do you know who was taking care of her?

My baby cousin, who was 15, and my aunt, who was almost blind and going through a divorce and everything else in her own life.

My aunt's brothers—my uncles—were adults. Their children were adults. One of my uncles was retired and didn't even work anymore. And yet they weren't stepping in.

They let my 15-year-old cousin bear the weight of watching my grandmother deteriorate, changing her diapers, giving her showers, and taking care of her. And then they criticized her for not doing enough.

And when we had family parties, they expected us to cook everything. They expected us to clean the house. They expected us to take care of everything.

My family is progressive. We believe in equality and all of that, at least in theory.

But when things got hard, they let a 15-year-old girl do everything while grown men stood back.

And my older cousins didn't do anything either.

One of my uncles was living there for months with my sick grandmother, my aunt, and my cousin, and they were barely managing everything. My cousin was a teenager. I cannot emphasize this enough. She was a teenager.

And the adults weren't doing anything.

Even during the funeral, my cousin was taking care of my uncle because he was in a wheelchair. She has this incredible ability to take care of people and seems so emotionally mature and responsible, but I don't think that's because she was naturally like that.

I think she became that way because she had so much responsibility put on her shoulders.

Just like me.

Just like my aunt.

And I'm so tired. And I'm so angry.

I'm angry that I had to carry all of this. I'm angry that I watched so many of my relatives die. I'm angry that I had to take care of their funerals because the people who should have helped me couldn't—or wouldn't.

And I'm especially angry that my little cousin had to go through the same thing.

I couldn't save her from it.

I tell her that I love her. I tell her that she's so young and that what she's doing is incredibly difficult. I try to support her, but I feel like I haven't been able to do enough.

And that makes me so angry.

I'm angry about how often women and girls become the default caregivers. I'm angry about how much of my life I lost because I was expected to take care of everyone else. I'm angry about how much I suffered.

I don't regret taking care of my mom or my grandmother. I loved them, and I would do it all again because I loved them.

But I wish I had been supported.

I wish someone had looked at me when I was 20 and said, "You're a child too. You shouldn't have to do this alone."

And I wish someone had done the same for my cousin.

Uma coisa que eu realmente não entendo é por que tanta gente insiste em ficar parada bem na frente do ônibus, ao lado do motorista. Será que ninguém percebe o risco? Se acontecer até um pequeno acidente, quem está ali tem muito mais chance de ser lançado contra o vidro e sofrer ferimentos graves do que quem está mais para trás. Pior ainda é quando são as tiazinhas Maria Catraca que ficam lá pra conversar com o motorista

Além disso, quem fica ali acaba atrapalhando a entrada e a saída dos outros passageiros. Ou pior, quem fica parado ao lado dos bancos da parte da frento. Todo dia de manhã eu me irrito pelo mesmo motivo. Pra entrar tenho que sarrar todo mundo.