What is the best way to tell others that I have OCD?

I suffer from harm OCD, and the only person who knows about that is my girlfriend, who supports me a lot. I don’t feel ready yet to reveal it to others in my social circle. However, I will have to mention it at some point probably. I was wondering what the best way to do it. I hope to hear some of your experiences too.

From my experience, the easiest way is to join an online community as you do now. You can read more about other people’s experiences and realize it’s a condition like any other. Then you can open up to the people you trust most in your life. Afterward, you will feel in a more accessible position to share it with other friends and relatives if you feel the need to.

You should focus on your treatment and start improving your condition first. After some time, when you feel confident in your progress, you can start thinking about sharing it. This is what I did myself, and probably it’s not the right way for everyone but for me, it worked well.

I also think that your primary focus should not be wondering about telling others but improving your symptoms first. Nevertheless, if you want to share that you have OCD, I would say you can do it like any other thing. You don’t need to gather your family together to announce your condition. Try to be casual about it. After all, everyone has some health or mental issue they are dealing with.

Thank you for the excellent advice. I will try to take a point from each of you. Now when I think about it, I don’t need to rush to tell people about the condition. At least I have my closest person who truly supports me, and that’s enough.