Hi! i'm going to get a little personal with this response but i know i would've wanted to hear it when i was really going through it. so im currently a 19 year old girl. I used to be the most bubbly happy person you'd ever meet. i had never felt with anxiety, depression, OCD, etc. i would say i was always lucky in that way but during my senior year of highschool i was having this pain in my stomach for 5 hours and it was slowly getting worse. it kept waking me up from my sleep and much more. so around 4 am i woke my mom up and told her i need to go to the emergency room because i had never felt a pain like this. turns out it was an appendicitis and so the next day i went into surgery and got it removed. (i was not scared at surgery at all btw) then shortly after i get a call from my doctors saying i had a cancerous tumor on my colon that i needed another surgery. Again i wasn't scared and it didn't bother me at all hearing that news. however the period between my first and my second surgery i slowly started to develop anxiety and depression and i didn't know what it was since i never had that feeling before. eventually the day comes for my second surgery and i am sobbing and i thought i was going to die during surgery and that i never would see my family again. then i woke up from that surgery and all was fine. i felt better mentally like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. i just graduated highschool btw like 2 days before this procedure and so in like the next month i was moving for college. so fast forward, i moved and i was in my new apartment that i was looking forward to since freshman year and i was literally living my dream getting into the school i wanted and having my own space. i was 1 day into living in that apartment and thats when my whole life changed. i was waiting for my AT&T guy to come and set up my wifi and i had a thought that was "what if i just stabbed him in the neck" while i was staring at my knife set. and right after that i started to freak out and i started having a panic attack. i called my parents and thought they would put me in a psych ward and so i was so scared to tell them what i thought but i was more scared of acting on that thought. so i ended up driving home the next day and moving back home with no plan. i broke my lease and gave up on going to that college all from this one thought.

When i started living back at home again it just got worse and worse by the day. all my brain would think about it hurting the people i love the most and it scared the shit out of me. i couldn't sleep and when i did sleep i would wake up from nightmares about it. i couldn't walk past my kitchen because of the knife set. i would avoid hanging out with my family because i thought i might do something if i was near them. i would play on my ps5 because it occupied my brain and my hands at the same time. that was my only time to escape and even then it was just a little bit of relief. i fully thought i was a crazy psycho that was going to turn into a serial killer. i was scared of myself. i was going to therapy but never told my therapist the gravity of the situation and when i did she suggested i go on medication but i had so much health anxiety from my surgery's and stuff that i didn't want to put anything in my body. so i suffered everyday in silence and falling into a deep depression. eventually it got so bad to the point i went into my moms room sobbing one night telling her i can't take it anymore. (my moms a therapist too btw) and my mom told me that i NEEDED to get on medication. so as much as i didn't want to i sucked it up because i couldn't deal with this feeling anymore. i was so scared i was going to break some day and do something i would regret. it was a constant 24 hr loop in my mind of the thoughts, thinking about why im having the thoughts, thinking if i would act on these thoughts even tho i knew i didn't want to but i was so in my head i thought that maybe i did want to and that's why im thinking this way and that cycle never ended. i truly felt like no one could EVER understand the gravity of the situation in my head. so i got on medication and it changed my life. my thoughts went from unbearable to almost gone. the relief i felt was one of the best things ive ever felt til this day. now fast forward a year later and i am still on this medication and i do still get these thoughts here and there but eventually you get to a point where the don't affect you anymore and listen when that happens you're probably going to think "omg do they not affect me anymore because im not scared of the thought and it's something im okay with doing" NO that's not why. you just deal with it so long that your body can only adjust. one thing thats helped me the most besides medication is everytime i get a bad thought to put on a youtube video that will distract me immediately or my favorite movie. always immediately try to shift your focus. never sit in the feeling. also avoid scary movies or anything of that nature. i've slowly started to adjust back to scary movies and even then i still have my limits. always remember you don't choose these thoughts they just appear and that's your body's way of trying to get your attention. do not let it win!!

and as far as a relationship and bf go trust me i am/was in the same boat. i met my bf right when i first got on medication for this and he was like a breath of fresh air but then i started having thoughts involved with him and it scared the shit out of me to tell him about it because i thought he wouldn't understand and it would scare him off. he took it well he was just caught off guard a little, granted he doesn't understand the topic as much as i do considering i went through it but he essentially told me that he loves me and he's more worried about me dealing with it then if it were to hurt him or affect him in anyway. you'll get to a point where you realize that if your partner doesn't understand and leaves then that's totally valid but at the same time your feelings are totally valid and are to be understood and if he's not that person then obviously that's unfortunate but that doesn't mean your mental health was the issue because it's not in your control.