hey guys, not really ocd related but i need some advice :/ so since my ocd started this summer i kinda stopped talking to ppl and making plans. and during the summer it was ok because i was away so it made sense. but since i jane back in september, i still haven’t really talked to people and made plans. especially with my best friend. i’m not mad at her or anything, but it’s a mix of being introverted, anxious, and she recently came out as bi, so being around her triggers me when she talks about it. about a month ago she confronted me abt it and said she was upset that i wasn’t making an effort to be her friend anymore, and so then i hung out w her that day. but i haven’t rly talked to her since. it’s been a month since i saw her last, and more since i last texted her. i feel so bad about it. i want to talk to her again. and her birthday is at the end of the month so i want to be able to talk to her then. ig i’m not sure how to go about reconnecting since it’s been so long. if y’all have any tips that would be greatly appreciated.

the past month ive been ruminating about a time last year where i hurt a friend by unintentionally bringing up a traumatic memory when i was really drunk, enough that i didnt remember it, so i went 6 months without apologizing until i was worried when they werent talking to me anymore. so they told me when i finally tried to talk to them. i apologized and they told me we were ok now, and still want me in their life, but now they stopped talking to me again and its been 3 weeks, and im terrified that i did something again, especially since they stopped talking to me when i made a mistake before, and wont tell me outright. the event triggered horrible horrible guilt over what i did, mostly guilt About the guilt i was feeling, because its not a normal amount of guilt for a regular person, and eventually my compulsions for confessing and ruminating reached a high point. and when they stopped talking to me again they got even worse . they are aware i suffer from ocd and anxiety to an extent (we've been friends since we were teenagers) so its hard for me to believe they wouldn't do this unless i did something wrong again, especially due to the events of my past mistake. lately ive been wondering, 'have they found out my abnormal reaction to what happened ?' 'did a friend who knows about it tell them?' ive been avoiding asking them if i did something wrong again, because i dont want to make it a habit since i can fall very deeply into that hole of asking for reassurance and i feel even regular reassurance, without the ocd, im the last person who deserves that right now. im scared they somehow found out about my compulsions (which isnt entirely irrational) and i feel the need to apologize to them again. ive been having panic attacks about this. i feel like no matter what i do i cant fix our friendship, and its going to end badly. i feel like a terrible friend, and im too mentally ill to have friendships. i don't know what to do.

Not directly OCD related, but: The therapist I will be talking to is not yet my official therapist and to keep a long story as short as possible: I’m from Germany, you usually get 1-2 sessions without “signing a contract” to see if you get along, I haven’t signed yet because I honestly want a different therapist but I also don’t want to wait 6 months and this will already be my 4th session with her. This time, me and my best friend will both attend at the same time since we’ve had ongoing and reoccurring issues for the past 6 months in our friendship, including confusing romantic feelings on my behalf and an overall misunderstanding and misinterpretation of each others feelings towards each other. We both recently graduated and she already knows what university she will be attending (somewhat pretty far away from mine) and even if I wanted to I most likely can’t live near her or attend the same uni. I don’t know how to explain this, but I have been grieving part of our friendship for the past year and the first time I felt like something was off was about 1 1/2 years ago. We haven’t been friends for that long (about 2 1/2 years) but we became very close friends very quickly and I do not want to lose her. However, I do feel like she has changed. Not personality wise but in her attitude towards emotions and friendship? We used to talk so much more and everything felt happier in the beginning as it does now. Obviously our friendship has had its hardships in the last 6 months (she liked/likes(?) a boy, I liked/like(?) her, she used to like be but only in the beginning of our friendship) but I miss our conversations and picknicks and just hanging out with her like normal. We also hat a time in which we didn’t talk to each other for almost 2 months and NOTHING about this made anything easier. I’m genuinely trying to detach myself from her like she did with me but nothing works. Last week we had our high school grad ceremony and we danced and when I held her hands to guide her through the people dancing, I felt those stupid butterflies again and I genuinely don’t know what to do. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t even befriend now her if we were strangers, but we made so many memories and I hate change and graduating, moving away from ALL of my friends and losing the best friend I ever had is too much for me. I get so jealous thinking about how she is going to met new friends at uni and finding a partner and forgetting about me. And I don’t know how to say any of this tomorrow because my therapist honestly doesn’t seem to care about anything I say and neither does my friend. Everytime I say that I feel like there is an issue we need to solve or talk about she just shakes it off. I feel helpless.

I started talking to this girl a few weeks ago. At first, everything seemed great, she asked questions, planned a date, even rescheduled when she couldn’t make the first one. Then, out of nowhere, she ghosted me for about eight days. When she came back, she apologized and said she’d been going through a tough time and was scared of going back in the dating world but really liked me and didn’t want me to think I did anything wrong. We started texting again, and it felt like we were back on track. But over the past few days, she’s been inconsistent with long gaps between responses. So last night I basically asked her if she was actually interested in talking or not, to which there wasn’t a quick response so I followed up calling myself dramatic and apologizing. When I woke up there still wasn’t a response and I went into an OCD episode where I thought I had messed everything up and felt the need to overly explain myself with a few more texts even mentioning the OCD because I know how double, triple or however many texts come off. My OCD spiraled, and I ended up sending multiple texts trying to explain myself and apologize, which I now regret. I didn’t say anything mean, the gist was trying to explain myself and apologizing. She hasn’t responded to those messages yet, and I’ve managed to calm my nerves a bit but has anybody had their OCD act up in similar ways? I feel really bad for sending multiple texts but in an OCD episode it felt like I had to in order to calm myself; which I know is irrational. Has anyone been through something similar or have strategies for handling this kind of relationship anxiety and overthinking?