Well, isolation has completely stripped me of relationships but I also think those relationships were rocky anyways. How do you get through treatment while dealing with the amount of loneliness surrounding your life? I need to use the support groups on here more often
I feel you. I had several friend groups in my life and always ended up sort of on the outs. I still have old friends who will occasionally reply to messages but very few who will reach out without me reaching out first. I'm very grateful for the ones I do have. I think something I realized was the OCD does make it sort of hard for people to be friends with us. It's not to say it's our fault but for me anyway I know the windows of time where I wasn't obsessing or doing compulsions I was extra energetic and a little much because I was trying to fit my life into those windows. I had other issues to causing me to not get enough sleep and so I was either hyperactive or exhausted. It makes it hard to show the real you sometimes. What I will say is even though it's hard try to get yourself out there. Do the hard thing. Talk to a stranger, a neighbor, join a club join a class. I got lucky and made friends with someone in my building and it has made a huge difference. You might be surprised and find you are able to offer a lot of really good advice to others because of what you've gone through. I think people with OCD are often the best at giving good advice they don't necessarily take themselves but they're trying to take their own advice lol
Also don't feel like you need to do it all on your own. We didn't come into this world alone despite what the saying might say. We came into this world surrounded by other people and we are not meant to exist on the outside and not interact with anyone else. I was definitely getting into this attitude of feeling like I should be totally healthy and good when I was totally alone and then I sort of saw it as like a challenge or a test and for a while there I was just embracing the isolation but then I realized you don't have to make things worse to show yourself you can do it. Yeah you should have resilience to get through those times and you should be generally okay alone but nobody is meant to intentionally isolate themselves I mean I guess I shouldn't say nobody maybe some people really like being totally alone but in general. It's like we get this idea we need to expose ourselves and be able to tolerate anything to show ourselves we are healthy but not doing unhealthy things does not mean you are not healthy. I feel like that was a little confusing but one other way to explain it is I lived in a city where it was sort of run down and It had a lot of crime and it just wasn't good and I lived there for like 5 years and I convinced myself I should be able to be happy anywhere I am and I shouldn't be dependent on my exterior circumstances and then once I moved it was just so much better and easier and it should come as common sense if you surround yourself with negativity you're not letting yourself see the good stuff and you're forcing yourself to basically accept these things as okay. While I do still think there is some truth to feeling okay wherever you are because you can't run away from yourself, it doesn't mean you should blame yourself for your exterior circumstances either.
I feel the same that’s Why Im looking for new friends but i think its better of they also have ocd u know sharing the same pain and way of thinking it helps alot
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