Does anyone else convince themselves their faking their compulsions while actively doing them?
So basically, last night I told my parents about my OCD and one of the things I mentioned was how much I hate when people touch my stuff or rearrange my room. I explained to them that that's why I yell so much when they clean my room and I see that they've moved something.
So today, after that entire conversation last night, my mum vacuumed my room. The vacuuming left lines indented into the carpet, which completely freaked me out.
I stood in the doorway of my room for like ten minutes, unable to go inside because I was freaking out. I just stood there staring at the lines and picking at my skin. The lines were starting right at the doorway and leading into my room, which for some reason made it even harder to walk through them.
The way I eventually got inside was by looking up at the ceiling and walking in while feeling really anxious and anticipating that something bad would happen. When nothing happened, I told myself, "See? Nothing bad happened."
Then I sat in my desk chair for about five minutes with my head in my hands and whispered, "You're okay," four times, took a breath, and then did it again and again.
But the entire time I was doing all of that, my brain was telling me that I was faking it. Like, that I didn't actually feel compelled to do any of those things and was instead forcing myself to do them so I could convince myself that I have OCD when I don't actually have it (I'm currently undiagnosed but looking into seeing a therapist).
Then, after all of that, I ate one bite of my breakfast (yoghurt with bananas and strawberries). A little context: when I was cutting up the strawberries, I noticed a white spot on some of them. It didn't look like mould, more like a stain, but I told myself it was probably nothing and put them in the bowl anyway.
Then I took my first bite of strawberry and it tasted weird, kind of like oranges. Now I've convinced myself that it's infected with something, that I'm going to get food poisoning, and I can't eat the rest of my breakfast.
Has anyone else experienced OCD making them question whether they're even actually having compulsions or whether they're somehow forcing themselves to do them? Like, I'm actively distressed and doing these things, but at the same time my brain is telling me, "You're only doing this to prove you have OCD."
Posted Aug 21, 2026, 2:20 AM UTC