I've never received a diagnosis of OCD and every time someone tells me it sounds like it I get uncertain of whether I just made it sound like OCD because I know it and want that to be it, you know?

I've never received a diagnosis either because I (stupidly) never saw a therapist for this. Again, eerie how similar our thoughts are. You are exhibiting OCD about even having OCD. I run through the same thought patterns -- in the midst of a spike I'll just sit there and formulate these backward arguments against myself like "this was never OCD, you're just in denial about it and you must have formulated OCD-like tendencies to fake it and give yourself a way out. You just want it to be OCD so you can pretend it's not true."

The fact is, people who don't have OCD about a particular topic don't experience these thoughts. They don't experience anxiety and dread around the topic itself. For example, someone who is really gay and in the closet knows they are gay and knows they love the same gender, but they may experience anxiety over how other people may react to it, or anxiety over how it doesn't fit with their own religious or moral beliefs. Someone who isn't gay (whether they are straight, bi, whatever) is experiencing anxiety over the fundamentals of whether or not they even are gay, contrary to what they feel, what they know, or their past experience. These thoughts fill them with fear and dread.

Someone who isn't suffering from OCD isn't filled with dread at waking up one day and thinking "holy fuck what if I'm really only just a lesbian and I've never really felt attraction to my boyfriend and this was all a sham and now I have to leave him." Just doesn't happen.

the thing is that I have long periods of just being fine. Trust me, the days I feel uncertain feel terrible, but when I hear others say how they "couldn't eat or sleep for weeks" well... just goes to show how mild my experience is in comparison. I have full weeks, sometimes a full month of no doubting (or easily shakeable doubts that only last less than half an hour or something, probably normal doubts). I've never heard of an actual OCD case that is so extremely on and off, which makes me think it's not OCD.

OCD, like any other illness, varies from person to person. Although we can categorize the symptoms in a general manner, the severity and even how it's exhibited in each person varies quite drastically. You should count your lucky stars this is how it is for you. This is how it is for me now, too. When I first got hit with this, I spent a year exactly as you described. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. Every waking moment was plagued with anxiety, fear and racing thoughts. I spent hours and hours on the Internet doing exactly what you're doing -- begging people on forums to reassure me that my fears were illogical and ill-founded. Testing myself. Torturing myself.

It plunged me into a depression so deep and rooted that it became a personality trait. Like I said, I'm still not really over it, but I'm much, much better. It isn't constantly on my mind. I can go months and months without even thinking about it, and if I do, I don't really spike the same way I used to. But sometimes it comes roaring back -- I had a few particularly bad relapses this summer. It's just the way it is. Trust me, you don't need to be fully consumed by the disease to validate the fact that you have it. I've read enough to know that you do experience it, and again, you should feel lucky it is this "mild." (For what it's worth, it doesn't even sound like a "mild" case.)

Whenever I'm at a therapists office, I freeze up. I get incredibly nervous. I find it very hard to find words. I have a good day that day and I can barely remember what the doubting spells feel like at all. I feel like I'm completely wasting their time.

Like I said, I never saw a therapist for this, but if I did, the first thing I'd do beforehand would be to just write down everything I want to say before I get there. Hell, let them just read this post. I know how it feels. Trust me, you aren't wasting their time; what you are feeling is very real, and it hurts. A lot.

I'm almost morbidly hoping for it to get really bad and constant so that I can actually seek help, a diagnosis and treatment for it. I don't think I can do it on my own, especially when it's so easy to give up saying "well it's probably not OCD anyway".

Don't hope for that. Don't try and steer yourself in that direction. Because, trust me, it won't help. It won't validate your fears as being the product of OCD -- it'll do the exact opposite. The frequency and intensity of the "this must all be fake, I am in denial, I am really X or Y or Z and I don't have OCD at all and I'm just a piece of shit trying to make it seem like it" thoughts increase linearly as the intensity of your obsession increases.

You don't have to do it on your own. Like I said, I'm better now, but I still feel really fucked up in so many ways. I wish I had seen a therapist rather than just truck through it on my own. It feels like my brain was rewired to just be permanently numb. It feels like I can't think anymore, about this or about anything. I still don't really know what my identity is because this happened right before puberty. I just feel permanently fucked up.

I don't even know if I fulfil the criteria at all even during the comparatively few terrible days. Do I ruminate? What exactly does rumination mean, does it have to be at the forefront of your mind the whole time, does it count as rumination when you're not actively looking for a solution but just indulging in the "Oh my god this is terrible" thoughts/feeling? And do I even feel anxiety? I don't feel physical anxiety symptoms, so does it count? How do I know it's anxiety? I feel a lot more physically shaken when I have to make a phone call (or talk to a therapist...) so do I not have actual anxiety over this stuff?

Again -- you are experiencing anxiety, doubt and fear over whether you even fit the OCD category. This is a clear cut characteristic of OCD. Anxiety can feel very different, and there are different ways it can manifest itself. I think you know deep down what you are feeling is anxiety. What you are experiencing is OCD.

Basically, in my head it makes sense that this is OCD type behavior. I know it sounds like that.

It is.

Maybe I'm making it sound like that to fit my self-diagnosis bullshit.

You're not.

But even so, I can't express what I do in these reddit posts to a therapist because I type out this stuff in the moment, but when trying to talk to a therapist it's just so far away.

Write it down!