I’m 33 years old and had had a couple minor, yet negative, situational OCD instances in the past. Those instances were always a mystery to me. “Why did I do that? You know better than that.” Why I suddenly, after over 20 years of playing basketball, felt the need to clean and put in my contacts and tie my shoes multiple times until I thought they were perfect before every game was a mystery to me after the fact. There were other things I did following a traumatic night where I had gone to the emergency room with “emergency level low potassium” and it messed me up for quite some time. I was CONVINCED my pain to follow had to be something and wasn’t at all in my head. Even though those were incidents that triggered some OCD response, NOTHING has been near as bad or hindering to me as actually finding out WHAT those obsessive thoughts or compulsions were (OCD). When I searched the internet looking for answers bc my brain felt like it was going to explode due to attempted rationalization and excessive rumination, I found out that I had definitely had some OCD in the past. When I first found out, I was relieved. I FINALLY had something I could point to for why I thought and did the things I thought and did and it felt good. “I’m not crazy,” is what I thought. But, ever since then, I’ve been OCDing hard about having OCD. It’s been more of a pure OCD and just obsessive thoughts. I want to be a writer more than anything and I find myself thinking things like “how can you possibly be a good writer if you’ve wasted so many hours ruminating and obsessing over past mistakes or misfortunes? Writers need to live life and read and be attentive. You are constantly distracted by thoughts on your head, how can you be the best writer to ever live with that going on? It’s impossible.” I also read an article (no clue if it was legit but seemed to be) saying that people with OCD have worse working memory when it comes to shapes and pictures and no loss of memory when it comes to words (on page or verbal) and I want my memory to be perfectly clear for my writing. These thoughts hinder me in thinking I can’t be the best me I can be. Thinking I’m not as up to date in the world or as self-aware as others because I waste time ruminating instead of reading or writing or doing all the things I would normally be doing if I didn’t have the thoughts. I will say I’m lucky in the fact that most of the time I’m out or around people I’m able to shove it to the side and function properly without it really affecting my life in a big negative way. I guess I just feel like I can’t possibly be as good as I should in all facets of life due to my OCD and time wasted. I feel like I don’t deserve to be the best bc I have this coo coo part of my brain that won’t let me. Maybe the people around me know more and are better than me bc they live in each moment fully, even if alone. And I can’t do that, especially and mostly while I’m alone w my thoughts and not out amongst other people, in which I seem to be able to push it to the side for the most part. I do realize that these thoughts are ridiculous but I can’t help but think them and it’s tough bc I want to the confident, calm guy I’ve always been up to about a year ago but feel as if I can’t now bc I have OCD and the people around me know something I don’t and are more self-aware and don’t forget things. I want to be the best writer to ever live, but can’t possibly be that with these irrational thoughts. Does memory loss occur in people with OCD, or does it just seem that way because OCD people are always obsessing over or paying attention to irrational, ruminating thoughts going on in their head and that disguises itself as memory loss but you don’t actually forget anything, it’s just that you weren’t paying attention because you were stuck in your own thoughts at the time? Am I still capable of remembering everything from before realizing I had OCD and then OCDing hard over it for most of the time since then?