- Date posted
- 36w
OCD ruined my life
Sorry for the long post, but I really need advice right now. Lately I have been really longing for the life that I could have had if I never got OCD. I've had it all my life, but it didn't get bad until I was 15, then it went away after a year and came back when I was 17. I've been struggling with it since, but in the past few months I've really improved. I'm really happy with the progress I've made, but I feel like I can't really appreciate it because I feel like my life has already been ruined beyond repair by this disorder. It's ruined my relationships by making me suspicious that all my friends secretly hated me, and because I started acting weird around them, they stopped talking to me, in a vicious cycle. I wasted so much time ruminating on small mistakes I made, punishing myself for no reason, and going to extreme lengths to avoid acting "weird" that actually made me look more awkward. Now I only have one friend, because he was the only one who cared enough to reach out to me after all that; and I had convinced myself that he hated me especially, because I had a crush on him and I felt that I had annoyed him the most. It wasn't true, but at the time I thought the damage was irreversible. I know for a fact my compulsions are pushing people away, because he asked me once if I noticed that I have a habit of blinking rapidly (a kind of grimacing response to my intrusive thoughts) and said that some people interpret it as rolling my eyes. Because of this whole spiral, my self esteem has been awful. I used to be friendly and even somewhat outgoing, but lately I can barely even talk to new people. I now have this deeply ingrained belief that I'm unlikeable and just avoid people as much as possible. My anxiety has gotten out of control. I analyse every interaction for signs that the other person is annoyed by me. I left my course for unrelated reasons, but college was torture because not a single person approached me, so I convinced myself that meant I wasn't welcome anywhere. I have a lot of embarrassing memories from the brief time I spent there, and I'm afraid that when I return next year I will already have a bad reputation and everyone will hate me for the rest of my life. All the stuff that happened were accidents, but I'm afraid nobody would believe me if I explained, and they probably wouldn't bother to ask since I didn't make any friends. I don't want to go into detail, but the only reason I didn't end up picking the course I originally wanted was because of my intrusive thoughts around a certain theme, which I barely even get lately. I could have just gone right into the course I wanted instead of wasting a year reapplying, and I wouldn't have the embarrassing shameful memories of what happened in my old course. Even though I'm nearly recovered from OCD, I feel like I can't escape the consequences of it. The way I acted when I was having those intense episodes has made almost everyone I've ever known hate me. Nobody knows about my OCD, not even my family or my one best friend because I'm too ashamed to talk about the taboo intrusive thoughts. I'm afraid they wouldn't understand. I want to continue on with my life and be normal again, but I'm genuinely afraid the past is going to affect my career and my social life. What do I do?