It is a personal decision to decide to share information about your anxiety/OCD with teachers. If you decide to share, you do not need to share everything, but consider sharing information on how your symptoms impact your academics/learning, since that is most relevant to them.
For example:
- Have your teachers noticed your repetitive questioning, excessive checking of classroom work, excessive neatness or organization, re-reading or re-writing, perfectionism, repetitive trips to the bathroom to wash your hands, or avoidance behavior?
- Are you having trouble turning in your work on time, due to excessive rituals?
- Is it hard for you to answer questions in class?
- Are you having trouble staying alert in class, due to difficulty sleeping at night?
It is possible that your teachers may have noticed some delays in your work completion, or other problems. Let them know what you are having trouble with, so they better understand how your symptoms affect you.
Sharing information may also be helpful because your teachers may not even realize that you are having any difficulty at all. Youth with anxiety/OCD often go overlooked by teachers and others due to the nature of how they present, so you may have to clue them in to what you are dealing with. They may be unaware of what you are experiencing inside your head (e.g., feelings of discomfort or fear, intrusive thoughts or urges), since it may not be something they can easily see. Additionally, the nature of some aspects of anxiety/OCD can often be seen as desirable by teachers and other outsiders - such as feeling the need to please others or do the “right thing,” perfectionism with schoolwork, etc. - so they may not recognize the underlying struggles that drive such behavior.