I work at a college. I have to start working in my office again on Monday. I'm petrified. I feel like I'm being gaslighted because admin is saying it is safe when I know it isn't. I keep trying to explain my extreme anxiety about returning to campus, but I keep getting responses like "we're anxious too" etc. They don't understand that my anxiety is more intense because of OCD. I went to campus 2 weeks ago and my first interaction was with a campus cop who didn't wear a mask or keep 6 feet apart from me. My college also had a flu outbreak earlier this year so I do not trust that campus will be safe from COVID. I'm in the process of getting a diagnosis, but in the meantime, I don't know what to do. Even if I did have paperwork, OCD is not a "risk factor" for COVID and HR doesn't have to do anything. I feel like I'm shutting down. Any advice about returning to work during all *this* would be appreciated.

I've been having a really tough time lately with a recent workplace interaction that occurrd today, and my mind just keeps replaying the events over and over. It feels like an endless loop, and I'm finding it incredibly hard to let go. I'm trying to figure out if this intense replaying is more about my OCD, or if it's a typical reaction to a stressful situation that's being amplified by my OCD tendencies. The specific details of the incident involve a colleague engaging in a racially insensitive discussion that I tried to disengage from. Despite my attempts to steer the conversation away and remove myself, the situation escalated with direct confrontation and accusations. This led to significant emotional distress for me. Later in the day, the same colleague misunderstood another conversation, making baseless accusations and publicly confronting me in a very aggressive way. I kept quiet throughout, just a bit of muttering. The emotional toll of these interactions has been immense. Now, my mind is stuck. I can't seem to stop dwelling on every word, every gesture, and every imagined alternative outcome. Hoping I'm not viewed as the "angry black woman" which is such an affair narrative why can't I state grievances of racism, without this narrative. * how do you manage the relentless replaying of stressful workplace interactions? What are your go-to coping mechanisms when your mind gets "stuck" on these loops? * Have you found any specific strategies helpful for navigating interpersonal conflicts at work when your OCD makes it difficult to process and move past them? * When you're feeling emotionally vulnerable due to work stress, what helps you prevent these situations from turning into prolonged rumination cycles? Any advice or shared experiences would be incredibly helpful. I'll be so grateful for any assistance. I just feel like I'm not good at life.

I’ve been spiraling since a workplace incident last Thursday. I had an uncomfortable and tense interaction with a colleague, and it triggered a lot of obsessive rumination. I spent the whole weekend crying, panicking, and replaying everything that happened. Today, I went back to work — and it was really hard. Everyone acted like nothing happened. They joke with him, treat him normally, even though he bullied me and I’m just… sitting there. I didn’t greet him, and he didn’t greet me. I kept to myself, answered questions when I had to, but didn’t socialize. Now I feel scared. Like I’m walking on eggshells. I keep thinking: “What if I say something wrong?” “What if I make a mistake and they say, ‘You see? She’s the problem’? Acting holier than thou & she's a bigot too!" I know this is partly my OCD and trauma talking, but it feels so real. Like I’m one wrong move away from being blamed or alienated. I’ve even started eating lunch in my car to feel safe. I’m trying so hard to hold boundaries, stay professional, and protect my peace. But I’m exhausted. I feel like a shell of myself and I’m scared I’ll break. I was already a little on eggshells cause most of my colleagues say or do something bigoted every now & then...my bigotry ocd is always scared that when I don't confront them. I'm condoning it & becoming them. I'm exhausted. I want to work remotely so I can stay isolated from people. I don't think I'll ever heal from this. I feel like this incident is one of those that permanently changes you. Like when my parents & siblings says I'm not the same anymore. I'm more panicked etc.

TW: mice/rodents; contamination/virus; feeling unsafe in my home Hello, I'm new to the community, and new to OCD at 42 years old. My OCD is about contagion but specifically around mice and a virus some of them carry (hantavirus). For background, my husband and I have been in our house for a little over 10 years, and in all that time, there have been mice coming in and out through what we've discovered are chew-holes in the sill plate where the house frame sits on the foundation. Mice are gross, but we never saw evidence of them in the actual living spaces (only attics and cellar), and I was okay knowing they were there. I was a new mom when COVID hit, and the anxiety over that ratcheted up my general anxiety, which was never awful but definitely had me thinking more about contamination and contagion in a big way. Two years ago, I found mouse poop in the upstairs where the bedrooms are, got some traps, never caught anything, and then ended up actually SEEING a mouse come out from behind the toilet. It went back into the wall before we could catch it. After that, I got steel wool and expanding foam and plugged up EVERY hole in the house--mostly pipe holes for the radiators, toilets, sinks, etc. And I was still OK. Then, two months ago, I was in the cellar doing laundry and I saw a larger-than-usual dropping, bigger than mouse OR rat droppings, I thought, sitting on top of the dryer. I was like...hm, that's strange. I mentioned it to my Discord writing group, most of whom live in the Midwest (this will become relevant), and one of them said "oh, you have to be careful with mice, they carry Hantavirus. My husband had it a couple of years ago and it was really scary." I didn't know what hantavirus is, so I looked it up and found out you can contract it through breathing/contact with mouse poop, urine and saliva. The sickness that results from hantavirus has a 40% mortality rate, which scares the heck out of me b/c that's really high. Further research told me that the CDC started tracking Hantavirus in 1993. Between then and 2022, the latest of their available data, there have been fewer than 900 cases in the entire US; 96% of those cases were west of the Mississippi, and there has been in that time only ONE confirmed case in the state where I live. So, objectively, the risk of me or my family contracting this virus from our local mice is low. And I wouldn't think about it at all, except that there are still mice in the house. We've had a pest company setting and managing traps this whole time; recently they also came to plug the existing holes in the foundation, but they keep finding mice in their traps and they found a new chew hole near one of the cellar windows this week. We're working on a more aggressive solution (1/4" hardware cloth over the places where they're getting in), but it's slow going and in the meantime, there's still the risk of coming into contact with mouse stuff. But my brain has ballooned this into something so much bigger than that. I'm washing my hands so much that they're starting to crack and bleed and the skin feels tight. I'm afraid to go in the cellar to do laundry, because that's where the mice are. My husband has no problem going down in the cellar, which means I'm afraid to touch things around the house because what if he touched something with mouse virus on his hands? And even though I've plugged up all the holes where mice could get into the living spaces, I'm still obsessively afraid of every single surface--what if a mouse touched it? Ran across it? Peed on it? Even though I don't see mouse droppings in any of our living spaces, nor evidence of them chewing anything, I'm still losing my mind with fear. And although I've heard that folks with contamination OCD typically clean a LOT, I'm afraid to clean because what if I move the mess (we both have full time jobs and a 6 year old, so cleaning isn't always top priority) and I find mouse poop under there? This is an absolute nightmare. I hate not feeling safe in my own home. And I'm frustrated because I was FINE for so long...I don't know where this OCD suddenly came from, but it went 0 to 100 almost overnight. My loved ones are concerned and want to be supportive, but they're also not afraid and have never experienced anxiety nor OCD, so their "helpful" advice is usually along the lines of "can't you just decide to be afraid and do it anyway" or "have you tried not feeling this way"? I know this is a weirdly specific OCD but that's my story. I've been working with a therapist now for a few weeks but her breathing techniques, while somewhat helpful, aren't enough, so I need to have a talk with her about what comes next for treatment. Thanks to OCD, my world feels like it keeps getting smaller and smaller. I want to just find a tiny chair where I can sit and not move and not touch anything until all the bad stuff goes away...but I know that's not realistic, nor is is healthy. I'm just...exhausted, and frustrated, and scared, and really hopeful that I can find a way through this.