Feeling the crushing effects of social burnout. I haven’t been on this app in about a year, especially after I got therapy and things seemed to be going in the right direction. Unfortunately, things happened a few months ago and I’m back at square one… below square one in fact. I know that progress is not linear. But that doesn’t mean going backwards again feels great at all. For someone as pessimistic and easily burnt out like me, it can feel like yourself and the whole world are failing you. Funnily enough, what caused the OCD spiral is not actually what’s bothering me right now. Rather than health, which is my main subtype, it’s this pulverising social hangover that feels like it’s added about 10 kilograms to my brain. I’ve spoken to people online (because of quarantine) every single day for around 5-6 hours, and this has gone on for about 2 years now. I am exhausted. My friends are quite sociable, whereas I am extremely introverted and really like time alone. Because my friends are so gregarious, I feel bad not talking to them — they’ve specifically told me how much they like talking to me, and so I told myself that I absolutely must go online otherwise I’ll receive backlash from them. Forcing myself to stay up late to talk with people, my eyelids feel like leather at this point. I say ‘brb’ then leave for 20 minutes, stare blankly at the wall, then go back to talking. I leave minutes in between messages just so it prolongs conversations and I don’t have to think as much. I make excuses that I’m having technical difficulties so I get the chance to take a breather. But the worst part is, of course, I have OCD. No matter how much I try to throw my OCD out of certain situations, it just comes back to me like a boomerang. As well as restricting myself; my emotions and how I portray myself online, I’ve made the specific times of talking to my friends a routine, which you can guess has now become obsessive. Go online and start talking at 7, at midnight switch to the laptop and start talking there, come back to my phone at 1am, then leave at 2am. I’m not a good sleeper too, so leaving at a time like that is messing up my sleep schedule and leaving me so deprived and light headed every single day. Just earlier I almost passed out when I stood up, and smashed my head straight into a door… had to lay on the floor for a bit to get all the blood back to my head. I can’t tell them about this though. I don’t like talking about how I feel. Whatever I feel is being kept to me and me alone. The unknown is scary, and I don’t like the uncertainty of not knowing how people will react to what I say. And I understand that if other people have a problem with my daily routine then that’s their problem and not mine, but I’m so people-pleasing that I absolutely have to live by the wants of others. Passiveness and the act of being reserved are the two self-imposed rules that I live by. I have a goal in mind — something that might leave me a bit less burnt out in the future (hopefully), and that’s the courage to change when I go on/offline, plus being able to communicate my boundaries with people. It’s just finding the strength to say what I want, that which I don’t think I have right now. Because of things that have happened in the past, I paint myself as a ‘villain’ whose words all have consequences. I feel like if I express an opinion of my own, all it will be met with is backlash and me feeling absolutely awful about it. If I tell them that I’m scared of getting an adverse reaction; they’re going to think I ‘hate them’ or ‘don’t trust them’. Thus, unfortunately, sometimes I feel as if being as acquiescent as I am is easier than putting up a fight. I guess what advice I want is how in the world do you tell people how you truly feel. I’m so jealous of those who freely express their emotions knowing that I can’t do the same thing. Keep in mind some of friends also deal with mental health issues, so the responses from them may be dissimilar and mixed. I 100% know that some may take me wanting my own time alone to heart, which I have to admit upsets me because they are such good friends but I feel as if I have to be so careful and restricted with what I say. But that’s a whole other thing… for now, I’d like advice on how to finally tell people absolutely everything. They know I have OCD, they just don’t know to what extent. I want them to know that I have boundaries, especially social boundaries, but in a way that won’t hurt or offend.