Extremely frustrated at the moment. I had to move home from college because I have I had a crisis due to contamination OCD. (Anybody else live their life by viewing the “clean” and “dirty” worlds?) my school only has suite style housing so I was forced to share space with two other people who were constantly bringing contamination and strangers into to my clean safe space. I’m trying to advocate for housing accommodations for next year so I can have a single suite to myself and not have to worry about performing my compulsions in the safe space. I have sent the school multiple pieces of documentation from my psychiatrist explaining why this is a medical necessity and the school is still not granting me the accommodations. I feel like I’m being punished for having OCD and they are trying to away my education. I will keep fighting for these accommodations because if they don’t grant them I’ll have no way to attend school and I’ll be forced to drop out. I just want to go to school and get my college experience like everyone else :(

When I started therapy with NOCD, I was stuck in a debilitating OCD spiral, feeling lost and alone. ERP changed my life—it wasn’t easy, but it helped me resist compulsions and sit with uncertainty. Even when I had to pause therapy to move for my Master’s degree in the UK, the tools I learned stayed with me. NOCD not only helped me manage my OCD symptoms but also gave me the confidence to take on one of the biggest changes of my life. As a Master’s student, OCD made completing assignments incredibly difficult. I developed compulsions that forced me to reread and rewrite endlessly, making deadlines stressful. After speaking with my advisor, I applied for an Individual Learning Plan, which provided accommodations like extended deadlines. Knowing I had that flexibility lifted the pressure and allowed me to do my best work—I finished my degree with Merit, close to a 3.8 GPA. If you’re a student struggling with OCD, know that support is available, and it’s okay to ask for help. What strategies or accommodations have helped you succeed in school while managing OCD?

(long read ahead, sorry lol) I’ve struggled with ocd for as far back as I can remember. I find that it gets worse with stress, and recently I’ve really been struggling with the contamination aspect of my ocd. I’m worried about it becoming unmanageable and negatively affecting my relationship with my partner. I’ve been living with my boyfriend since January (got kicked out of my house a week after I turned 18, it’s for the better though my house is toxic as hell) and I love living with him, but him and his family aren’t as concerned with cleaning as I am used to. My boyfriend and I have been together going on 2 years and there’s been many times throughout our relationship that his struggle with depression severely impacted his ability to keep up with cleaning his room. This is something I completely understand because I’ve struggled with it too so i’ve often helped him clean, and since i’ve moved in he’s done so much better at keeping up with cleaning (especially because he knows about my issues with clutter, mess, germs, etc.) He is really good at being accommodating towards my needs (not overly so, i’m aware that recovering includes accepting being uncomfortable), but it’s so hard for me to differentiate between what is the normal standard for cleanliness and hygiene and what’s excessive and unhealthy. I get so stressed out every single day over the thought of how dirty everything is. He has 3 cats that mainly stay in his room (he has a catio attached to his window/side of the house) and dogs which stay on the opposite side of the house and backyard, so there is fur everywhere constantly (i’m also allergic to cats but it’s not severe). I can’t stop thinking about how they are getting germs from their litter box all over everything. They also used to piss under his bed and in his closet when his room used to be a mess and it’s soaked into the floor so no matter what it stinks. It’s so hard to bring myself to walk around the house without slippers because my feet will get visibly dirty and my socks would get covered in hair. I always think about how my boyfriend sometimes walks on the rugs in the bathroom in shoes and all the germs that spreads. There’s so many more things but this is already getting long and I am shaking just thinking about how unclean everything is. I want to deep clean the entire house myself so I can get it to where It’s not like psychological torture everyday and it’s easier to maintain but I have been so busy I don’t have the time. I am worried about my boyfriend thinking I don’t like living with him or that I think that’s he’s dirty but i don’t. We have had several conversations about this and he’s reassured me that he knows none of my obsessive thoughts are personal but I still feel so bad about it. I would like to get therapy to help work through this but currently that is not an option for me. I know things will get better once I get through the main things in my life that are causing a lot of stress and therefore making my ocd flair up, but I need advice on what to do in the mean time. I keep having moments where all I can do is shake and cry and clean and I feel bad for my poor boyfriend who can only sit next to me and try to comfort me or help me clean. I also don’t want to make him worried that nothing he does is enough for me (i’ve also already talked to him about this and told him about how I can never even be clean enough for myself and that I don’t think he’s dirty). There’s been many times where I want to tell him to do things that I think might be my own unhealthy compulsions (ex. not wearing shoes in the house or in our room, not getting into bed with socks on, making sure to completely dry off before getting out the shower, put makeup and jewelry back where they belong right after using them, etc.) but i can’t tell if they’re reasonable or not and i try to not tell him unless it’s something that severely distresses me. I’m aware that everything is going to have germs no matter what and have been using NER’s to help manage my thought spirals/rumination. I know that I shouldn’t keep doing compulsions because it just offers temporary relief and makes the problem worse because nothing will ever be enough. I just feeling so overwhelmed and hopeless and exhausted and want some feedback.

I had avoided a lot with school specifically, but I did do it in other areas of life as well. School for some reason has been the biggest trigger that sends me into avoidance and it has been for the longest time. Does anybody relate? If so, what did you do to help besides therapy? In high school I used to sit in the bathroom stalls for hours so I could avoid going to classes. I was struggling to keep up because my OCD makes me perfect my school work so much so to the point where I’d never turn it in because I’d never be satisfied with what I’d produce. I’d get so incredibly frustrated with myself and the fact that I could never meet my own standards, never mind the rubrics given. I took ages analyzing all my writing, all my answers, all my google slides and I burnt myself out. So I stopped trying. I stopped turning in work because I’d never be satisfied. I’d cry because I felt I wasn’t good enough. Then I’d be missing assignments, getting them done but not submitting them because I was too ashamed. So, I avoided classes because I’d be in trouble or be called out for not getting anything done. Unfortunately this habit bled into my first year of college last year, and OCD coupled up with depression, made going to the dining hall and attending classes even worse. So I avoided it all together. It’s so hard being a freshman in college, so so hard. I unfortunately failed out of that school but I tried to medically withdraw either semester. No, I wasn’t partying, or drinking or smoking or hanging with the wrong people. I was a college freshman struggling with ocd and depression. I’m trying to not make excuses for myself either because I’m well aware this is my fault and I’m trying to reverse it now at community college. Right now I’m trying to get those Fs turned into Ws from my old school so I can fix my gpa. I want to transfer, I want to be a forensic psychologist, I want to be independent, I want to be ok. It’s gonna take me so long to transfer from community college but that’s on me. I’m willing to put in the work. I’m so embarassed, please help me.