I have missed three college classes because of my depression and anxiety which lead to my OCD being triggered. I did a dumb thing last night. In my haste of getting out of my toxic living situation to spend the night at a loved one’s house, I left a candle burning. I light candles because I am very sensitive to smells and my roommates leave the apartment a mess with trash and dirty dishes. This resulted in the fire alarm going off last night and my roommate had to take care of it. After I take my meds for the night, I am pretty much out of it. I become sedated. She called at 1:30 AM but I didn’t hear it, leaving her to deal with it. Behind a locked door my candle burned, and I was just stupid to not even remember to blow it out before I left. Come the next morning, I apologized profusely. But I can’t help but feel like a total ditz. A waste of space and a neusance to those around me. It’s really hard. I cannot even move a muscle to get to that class. My ocd is keeping me in my room because it smells so bad everywhere else in the apartment. And now that I can’t light a candle out of embarrassment, I’m spraying Mrs. Meyers peony surface cleaning spray on my fan to make my room smell less like trash. It’s all OCD, and I feel worthless and helpless.

Sorry you’re having a rough time. A lot of times our ocd can make situations so much worse, especially if it’s already kind of in a tough spot. I too have left candles burning or done other careless things and felt extreme guilt or stupidity, but in the end no one was hurt and I learned a lesson so I tried to to dwell on it and made sure to be more vigilant about things like that that could ACTUALLY be a threat, unlike the “threats” my ocd shows me. You are not a waste of space or stupid, you are human. Humans make mistakes. Allow yourself compassion for yourself, which we do often forget or deny. As for your living situation, what are the things that are within your power to change? Have you talked to your roommate about how things are and how they can change? If it’s a clean place and it’s more of an issue with your contamination, be honest with yourself about it and do one practice avoidance. However, if things are not being taken care of in a shared living space (dishes, trash, etc) it is time to have a candid conversation about that with whoever lives there. It’s a place to start. Your school should offer some kind of counseling, so maybe you can talk to someone compassionate about why you’ve missed classes. See if you can talk to your professors about making up the work, and break it into bite-sized, doable pieces. Do what you can. It’s okay to ask for help from those around you.

Kali, your response really helped. It’s so hard to see past my nose when I’m in a funk with all of those thoughts floating around my head. I’m definitely avoiding so much by locking myself in my room and not communicating with the roommates. It’s definitely time to sit and talk candidly like you said. It’s scary asking for help, but I definitely should reach out to the offices that deal with accessibility at my college (they have notes and files from doctors explaining my condition). A meeting with them should take care of my worries with the class. Thank you again, E

Are you in campus housing? This is the type of thing RAs and housing coordinators are trained to help students problem solve