Does anyone's OCD affect their work and driving? I work in health care, dealing daily with patients and my OCD makes me extra checky with all my tasks to ensure I'm happy even though my final answer hardly ever changes from my initial thought....even though it never felt right in the first place. It's so frustrating why it never feels right until it sort of does and then you can let it go only once all the checking has been fulfilled. I find myself re-reading my records to ensure I didn't accidentally write down the opposite to what I wanted to write even though I never have. My OCD makes it feel like it's hard to concentrate like something is obscuring my vision yet it isn't?! I'm just trying to be careful so I think anyway. I can't seem to do stuff in a relaxed manner- I hold so much importance to everything I do in work that it takes me longer to fulfil tasks compared to my colleagues. Even then I feel terrible at my job because I'm not like them. Part of the length of time it takes to do my tasks is also because I have to get over the anxiety which makes me avoidant of said tasks as well. My OCD also affects my driving it sounds so stupid to say out loud but any bump in the road or even just a 'feeling' makes me think I have hit someone and then I drive around just to check I haven't which makes it ten times worse as I'm on tender hooks when I'm checking and getting home is all I want to do yet it's not that simple. I don't know what to call my OCD but it's affecting my work and my relationship with my husband. Saying that it used to be worse and has improved from me suffering from panic attacks and not even going to work. I do see a psychologist regularly and we are trying ERP but I just don't ever seem to be able to do it fully as my OCD seems so confusing,so intricate, so natural when you're in the moment?! Can anyone help ?

So my husband has been off work a couple of months due to me having some pretty severe health problems, not associated with OCD. His Family medical leave has run out and he is returning to work. I’ve been struggling with this because when he’s home my OCD is non existent. When he’s here I feel safe, and I don’t fear because he’s here with me and I feel like he would stop me from losing it if I were to. My recent fear is that when he goes back to work he won’t be here to stop me if I were to lose my mind, I get thoughts of what if I lose my mind, what if I run out in traffic, what of I go to a neighbors house and try to harm someone. I NEVER want to do anything like that, but the thought and fear of it and the urges are very REAL! I know I’m supposed to sit with the uncomfortable thoughts, feelings and urges but my god that’s impossible for me, I go straight into panic attacks and freak out! I’m doing ERP but I’m in the very beginning stages of it, and I’m really struggling to cope. My fear is I’ll forever be debilitated by this and it will cause my husband to lose his job, and we will lose everything. Can anyone help me to find extra resources on how to cope and deal with this, or any hope? I would greatly appreciate it. This is the WORST condition to ever have to deal with. :(

Hey everyone. This is my first post here and it’s probably going to be a long one because I guess I feel comfortable enough to be open here. I need help. When I first got diagnosed with OCD, I figured it only impacted a small part of my life. I thought I was only affected with compulsions and obsessions that dealt with contamination, tangible perfectionism and the obvious intrusive thoughts and that’s it. Well, I’ve come to realize that most of my thinking has been impacted by OCD. At this point the only way to describe how it feels to me is a forest of thorny vines growing in place of my mind or maybe through and around my brain constantly growing every-time I give into this type of thinking (which is basically all the time because I wasn’t aware this was OCD). I’ve definitely felt it more recently, but I know it’s always been there from what I recall from past memories. I got diagnosed not so long ago with OCD and I was happy to because it explained this thing I knew was wrong with me but I didn’t know how much it will and has impacted me in the past. So, I think I’ve created a matrix in my mind or strengthened the OCD thought patterns because now I feel like my OCD impacts everything I do. And I guess I’m saying I need help here because maybe you guys will be able to see it, maybe validate me and point me where I can get help. I’ve been telling the people around me, I think my thinking is disordered and I need help but I don’t think they really understand the amount it’s affecting me or grasp what I meant when I say “I Need Help”. I did have a therapist before but because of a insurance change, she can’t work with me anymore and I’m not sure when I’ll get another (just to clarify). Back to the matter, the past couple of months I’ve been in my head just thinking and thinking. About everything. To the point where my head starts to hurt or until I feel sick of thinking about it but I can’t. I find that’s my obsessions and compulsions (other than the need for order [which can also be mental]) are very mentally based and I find myself ashamed of them so I hide them so maybe that’s why the people around me don’t feel my need for getting help as much as I do. Anyways, examples of this have been, -constantly thinking about what’s the purpose of all of life and the hidden messages in life -feeling like if I don’t do everything perfectly then what the point or being very mad at myself -being obsessed with how I present to the rest of the world sometimes even in close relationships -having calculated movements and actions (having to move my body a certain way or it doesn’t feel right) -obsessing over an absolute truth -questioning friendships and other relationships - obsessing over achievements or failures -obsessing over people -obsessing over decisions and outcomes because I want to make the perfect decisions I could go on and on but basically it’s just a lot of thinking and ruminating and obsessing to the point where people tell me I look like I’m some where else all the time. And I’ve started to feel like I find comfort in it now. I’m also diagnosed with depression and anxiety and I feel like it’s all just OCD. And same goes for my dissociation. I feel like they all root from my OCD. I’m so tired of feeling like this all the time and without my therapist I feel like I’m stuck here. I can’t make decisions, I’m never present, I can’t make or keep friendships/ relationships, everything impacts me deeply because I create a emotional obsession to it, I can’t just be without questioning everything and I’m constantly in my head. I’ve also started getting high all the time because I feel like it’s the only way to escape my brain but I’ve felt like it’s getting out of hand. I’m starting to lose in any type of hope of getting better. Does anyone have an advice for working on OCD by yourself or identifying when it’s OCD (especially mental obsessions and compulsions) so I can start to chip at this boulder that’s weighing down my life and energy?

Hey everyone! I’m new to this app, but not new when it comes to OCD treatments. A few years ago I had to leave school/ my job in order to work on my mental health which was hard but needed. Mentally things have more or less gotten better OCD wise but I still really struggle with protectionism. I started a new job within the past 6 months that is challenging, but I enjoy enough to hopefully stay at for a few years. As of the past two weeks I have been really struggling with ruminating over my performance at work. I have been trying really hard to learn all the moving parts of the job, but because of lack of mentoring and constant little hiccups I have been stressing. Currently I have been overwhelmed/ overthinking so much that I have been messing up my work and it seems like my coworkers are pretty annoyed by constantly having to correct me. It’s honestly my worst fear as a perfectionist to feel like a burden. My intrusive thoughts as of late is that they are going to think I don’t care or try hard enough, that they talk bad about me to each other, and that they are going to fire me. Has anyone else experienced this type of OCD perfectionism that affects there performance within school or work and if so is there anything that you did in order to help recenter yourself in the moment to stop your brain from running in circles?