someone PLEASE RESPOND

I want to respond. I'm worried my advice isn't good enough. But what's helped me the most is knowing that other people are too busy thinking about themselves to think about me. If my clothes or hair look bad, chances are nobody even notices. It was easiest to start with strangers. It truly doesn't matter to a stranger if I go to work with bad hair. A stranger has no reason to evaluate me. And if a stranger DOES look at me and judge me as the worst person they ever met, who cares? I'll never see them again. So that was my on-ramp to not worrying so much. I slowly learned to not care what strangers think. But Andrew and Brody aren't strangers. You work with them. They build an opinion of you. Unfortunately Idk how to go straight to not worrying so much about them. Again, it took me time just to be okay about strangers, and then ig got easier for people I knew. My best advice here is... I would really lean on remembering that Brody spends most of his time thinking about Brody, and probably didn't even notice your earrings. Another thought, what about really owning your fashion and going "fuck you" to whoever doesn't agree? If you think your top is cute and your earrings look great with it, then you can own that. Imagine Brody said, "ugh, flare legs are so 1990" and you hit him back with, "I'm keeping them in style." Maybe try imagining scenarios where you defend yourself awesomely and the other person is exposed as a shallow judgmental jerk? I've found this builds my self-confidence a little, though idk how healthy it is.

I would just focus on your actions! These thoughts don’t show that you’re doing anything. The fact that it’s distressing shows you care about who you’re with.

I can relate to what you have written and that can be very hard. I don’t know if this will help at all, but it is ok to want to look your best for YOU and no one else. You are not flirting by looking put together. I agree with the first response a lot. Focus on your actions. You’ve got this.

I can totally relate. This is OCD. The problem is that you have put a lot of weight on whether or not you have these thoughts. You have to change that. You have to start allowing yourself to have the thoughts. Stop fighting them. The more you fight thoughts like this, the more your brain thinks they are important. And then your brain will just think about it more and just make you more miserable. Instead, you need to ALLOW the thoughts. When your brain says, "What is Andrew going to think of me today?" Then your job is to say to yourself, "There's my brain thinking about Andrew again. That's nice. My brain can think about him all day if it wants. Whatever." When you get to the point where you DON'T CARE if those thoughts are in your head or not--that is when the door opens to freedom. We can talk about this more. This is going to take time and a process for you to get to freedom. But here's your first step: 1. When the thoughts come about Andrew or whoever else, tell yourself, "Here's those thoughts again. Oh well. It doesn't matter. My brain can think these thoughts all day if it wants. I'm just going to keep going forward." Don't be afraid of the thoughts of the other guys. Your job is to JUST KEEP MOVING FORWARD WITH YOUR DAY. This is your work. This is your job. And this is the path to getting better. Write to me more!! You can write every day if you want to! This will take time as you practice. I can help you as you go along. It will feel WRONG to ignore the thoughts. But you need to do this as a step of faith. In OCD recovery, it feels like we are doing something terribly wrong, but we are actually taking steps of freedom. So take a step out. You can do it!!!