What Is It Like Living With Anxiety And Extreme OCD? | Our Life

People don't realize how devastating anxiety, depression, OCD and mental health disorders can be.

"I lost my James, I lost my happy loving little boy" I'm sorry? because he's struggling with something? He's still there. I HATE when people treat you like a different version of yourself for taking anti-depressants or being seen as sick. It's part of who we are, not something to be expunged and exercised like a demon. We are still here, suffering, but we are still here!

I would love to know how James is doing now. It was upsetting to hear the part where he said he thought so little of himself. I found him engaging, quirky, sweet and stylish. Hope he's ok now.

Watching James made me realise how mild my anxiety and OCD is in comparison. He is completely tormented by his thoughts. I hope he finally manages his OCD.

hey guys!! i was actually in a psychriatric unit in gloucester with james late last year!! he’s such a lovely person and was one of my closet friends there!!:))

Hearing James mother yell and saying “because you're stupid” makes me believe she is the problem! Maybe he was abused when he was little for going on himself....but you can tell James is a loving person who just wants a normal life.🥺 I just want to hug him.

I suffered OCD 18 years ago as a teenage. Spent my whole life fighting OCD. Also suffered severe depression and mental disorder. Not until my wife recommended me to psilocybin mushrooms treatment. Psilocybin treatment saved my life honestly. 8 years totally clean. Never thought I would be saying this about mushrooms.

James looks like he just came out of a time machine from the 70s

I've had OCD almost all my life, diagnosed at 15. It's such a strange mental illness. You spend all day trying to relieve yourself of your anxiety and do things to cope with your intrusive thoughts. You try to avoid the things that make you anxious and gain reassurance from yourself and others. But, conversely and quite ironically the only way to get permanent relief and start healing is to purposely trigger yourself and seek no reassurance whatsoever. Kind of like reverse psychology. Medications help too for sure, but they aren't happy pills that make your thoughts go away completely. You have to put in the work. Recovery is possible. I'm living proof. Positive thoughts to all those affected <3

I hate parents who say “I miss my child”, “i want my child back”, etc. It is so frustrating to hear that especially since the parent has known what the child has been going through and then don’t seek for help for their child. Then the parents go “well they werent like this before”. Of course the child wasn’t like that before. I am not putting all the blame on the parents, but as parents you should try to help your own child. James had been suffering for a while and was frustrated, but his mom didn’t empathize with him and still told him to do something. This fed into his insecurities that he is a useless person.

I have anxiety and its exhausting. I can change my thinking most times but can get stuck in a downward spiral if stress is present. Its awful. I feel for these people.

It caught me so off guard when the narrator said “shit himself”

I hope James comes to the realisation that his mum isn't helping him at all, and that moving out into residential care or even into his own place one day will be massively beneficial to him. His mum is completely out of line and disrespectful to him, not helping him at all

The first guy closing the drawers a specific amount of times, and counting, and how some numbers are magical, and having to do it again and again.....Oh man that made me cry, I've been doing this for over 40 years, I thought I was the only one!

I feel for James; as someone with panic disorder and fear of vomiting, whenever I start to feel sick I go straight to the bathroom and stay for hours to feel safe. It was one of my largest battles to beat that fear.

At 9:05 when James is saying why he’s anxious, it’s such a good example of what happens when someone feels anxious and when they think the worst . This usually happens in someone’s head and isn’t verbalised as such, so people don’t realise how bad anxiety / worry can be.

I have been living with OCD (it’s a subconscious desire to control my environment because I grew up in a very chaotic home with an insane violent hateful cruel monster mother) and C-PTSD (from repeatedly experiencing abuse for decades). It’s very real, non logical, hard to understand, impossible to explain

I think James’s mum is low key emotionally disturbing. She sounds controlling. I hope she changes her ways. Why pressurise children to go to university. Why push your opinions at all? Let alone scream them. She has to be contributing factor to his health condition. Compassion from parent is vital.

James is so charming! It's so upsetting that he didn't get the support he needed from his mother and I hope he gets better. Also, I adore his hair!!

Ive never felt so seen with the toilet anxiety. I used to have awful anxiety related to fearing wetting myself and it was super embarrassing for me. His thought process relating to trying to decide if he should go before the meeting was incredibly relatable, i used to go through that before going to any event, movie, bus ride etc. I hope he's doing better now