I’m still having a hard time with my OCD and bad things I have actually done. When I was younger, I lied about a lot of life situations and I know I did this. I don’t know why, if it was because I wanted attention or if I wanted a distraction from what was going on in my own life. Recently I’ve been dwelling more and more of these past actions. I can’t even tell myself it’s OCD making them worse because they are bad but then the OCD kicks in and it makes me feel like my world is just going to be over tomorrow. Please. Any suggestions or anything really would be a great help.

+1 on self compassion. I was like that sometimes as a teenager, it was a combination of low self esteem like I wasn't cool or interesting enough, and wanting people's care and attention without having to talk about the ACTUAL bad stuff in my life or past. If you cant try to reverse the roles, maybe that can help a bit. Would you be mortally offended and thing the person deserves severe punishment if a friend came up to you and said that they'd lied to you about something in their life because they were feeling bad about themselves or wanted a distraction from bad things in their life situation? I really doubt it. I think you'd see that it makes sense. Their lie really didn't affect you that much, you were busy getting on with your own life. In cases where the lie did effect them, the reality is that we all make mistakes and you're far from the only one who has made these particular mistakes. A sincere apology which is neither full of excuses or full of guilt, so that the focus can be on the apology rather than pressuring them to feel bad for you..... It goes a long way. I've had to apologise for some bad mistakes in my life, and it turned out better than expected, you know? People just don't spend their time and energy judging you the way you judge yourself in your head. There is no such thing as a perfect person and nobody is watching to be sure that you are one. As the other user says, it's gray areas. Sometimes people need to hear this stuff because they've actually not really heard it or believed it before. But if you already know that this stuff is true, it can be OCD. I had a problem with guilt about mistakes and feelings of responsibility for others, the vast majority of which turned out to be inappropriate (from overblowing my mistakes, taking responsibility for stuff that isn't about/caused by me etc). My recommendation is based on how I learned to get past most of it. Read and watch as much stuff as you possibly can about self-compassion and the difference between it and self-esteem. Then get the book Letting Go by David R Hawkins, and use the technique in it to process your guilt (mine took me a few days of staying in the body). Once the guilt is fully felt and gone, instead of going immediately back into the head, try to cultivate self compassion from the peaceful emptiness you've been left with. Imagine going back to past versions of yourself at times where you made mistakes and giving yourself a hug and saying kind things, and even apologising for judging and abandoning them. Acknowledge the feelings that the past-yous were suffering with. Accept that you were trying your best to get by in life, even if you made bad decisions. Then after that you can start looking at the arguments about what you are and aren't responsible for etc and the stuff that usually goes around in your head, and you'll be able to see the flaws in it and embrace some wisdom about grey areas and see where your levels of responsibility or guilt feelings haven't been reasonable. You really have to feel this stuff instead of being told it, so that requires the emotional processing in the book I mentioned. Best money I ever spent. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

I would start with being more self-compassionate towards yourself. Also, I am guessing that you often probably view things in black and white terms. It's either I'm a good person or bad person. Most of life lies in the gray areas.