To the ones in college, has OCD put a huge impact on our school work. Honestly I’ve spent more time thinking than actually doing assignments this year... it’s eating me up because now I feel like I’m behind and a disappointment

Its been like 3 weeks of school and its just been really difficult and stressful 😭 ive had two tests and i havent gotten them back yet but i have a feeling i didnt do as well as i wanted to on either of them and that scares me because i usually score perfectly and well. And my classmates are so good at everything 😭 and ik this is kinda bad but i hate seeing people do better in things im supposed to be good at… like math is one of my strongest subjects but i messed up on a few questions so bad and i feel so stupid and now im scared that im gonna be like this for the rest of the semester 😞 it scares me. Plus all my classmates talk to me sometimes and all and i be as nice as possible but i still feel invisible- even with friends i just feel like im bothering them and i feel like im just alone and have no one to talk to bc either no one cares or i feel like burden and annoying and unlovable 💀

Hi, I am new to this community and don’t know much about OCD or if i even have it. I am a college senior going to a university that is relatively close to my home (1.5 hr) My goal was to apply to OT school at my current school because I love it there and can’t imagine myself anywhere else. I have a high gpa, many observation hours, and was told i would be a top candidate-if I passed the GRE. This school is the only school in my state that requires the GRE for OT school. Well, with the stakes being so high I was a complete wreck before the exam. It stressed me out so much that even looking at study materials made me nauseous. I did not score high enough to get into my desired program when I took it. I am retaking it next Tuesday (which i had to beg the admissions committee to let me do due to it being past a due date) and i feel the weight of my whole future on my shoulders. If I don’t get into my desired program, I will have to go to programs that are very far from home/my boyfriend of two years who I currently live with. I feel if I don’t pass, I will have to move away to a different school and I will lose my boyfriend. He is my rock and is so important to me. My other option is to stay where I am and attend the radiography program at the local community college and stay close to home and be with my boyfriend . Note: i just decided to apply to OT school this year (changed major from nursing). Do I risk my relationship/happiness for a career that i don’t even know that I will enjoy or do i keep my relationship, stay close to home, but regret not taking a huge opportunity given to me. This situation stays in my mind all day and night which is stressing me out greatly. Sorry for such a long post, I just want an unbiased view on what I should do/how to get this thought out of my head. thx for listening <3

Hey, I’ve been doing some research on OCD and think I may have it. I’m not 100% sure, but I have a lot of the symptoms. I want to get myself diagnosed, but my parents won’t let me. They agree that it’s very likely that I have OCD, but they think that if I try hard enough, I can get over it. I don’t know what to do anymore or if what I have even is OCD, and I want to be somewhat sure before a I do anything. Right now, I’m a junior in high school, but freshman year was when my “OCD” was the most severe. I think I had (and still do) the symmetry/order subtype and “just right” subtype. I was obsessed with writing things neatly to a point in which I kept forcing myself to erase and rewrite things until all the letters were straight and all the graphs were neatly drawn (typing wasn’t safe either because I use Notability and felt the need to align every text box and make them all the same length). Handwriting was especially a problem in calculus A, and it got to a point in which I couldn’t keep up with the notes, and the homework was taking hours a night because I was obsessed with making my work perfect. Needless to say, I didn’t get a good grade in calculus A and didn’t build a good foundation for future math classes. This makes me really sad because I was previously really good at math and had a bright future in the subject. Eventually, I just stopped trying in calculus A, but by then, I felt burnt out, couldn’t concentrate on anything, kept putting things off, and lost the ability to properly manage my time. I think it may have escalated to executive dysfunction at that point, and it carried over to all my other classes. As someone who was previously pretty productive and good at planning, this was a huge hit on my self-esteem. I was also obsessed with symmetry. If I touched one side of my body, I had to touch the other side in the exact same place. If I was coding something, I would have to evenly distribute touch across each key on the keyboard. It felt like everything was a heatmap, and the colors had to be kept in balance at all times. I also avoided odd numbers because they were considered “asymmetrical”. I was obsessed with routine and had to complete tasks in a certain way, a certain order, and a certain amount of time. Even something as small as combing my hair for five minutes instead of six caused me extreme distress. Writing one word that “sounded off” on an English paper left me unable to keep writing until I fixed it. I had to keep the sound of my phone at a certain volume (6 normally, 10 when exercising, and 12 when cleaning, divide everything by 2 when using a computer) and had to walk a round number (any number that ends in 0) of steps a day. I kid you not when I say that some days I woke up and didn’t want to live anymore. Sophomore year, my mental health improved and I probably seemed overly perfectionistic but not to a point of concern. However, this year, the handwriting issue relapsed in all its glory during physics, and I’m not able to keep up with notes or homework. I feel the same way that I did in calculus A, and I don’t want history to repeat itself. I want to ask my teacher to let me do my homework on paper rather than the iPad (it’s easier for me to write on paper due to increased friction), but I’m scared to ask because I don’t have a formal diagnosis. I don’t know what causes my behavior. I feel like if I can’t do things perfectly, no one will like me. I’ll lose all my friends, and no boy will ever want to go out with me. I know it’s irrational. Literally no one cares what my notes look like or how long I spend on each step of my morning routine or whatever, but I constantly feel like people are judging me and will hate me the second I mess up. There are two more times in my life that I can think of when I displayed symptoms of OCD, contamination OCD when I was 9 and pure/religious/magical thinking/health concern OCD (they all just kind morphed together) when I was 11. I can go into more detail if you wish. As of now, I just want to know my behavior sounds like OCD, and if so, how to more forward. If not, I would love to know what I do have and how to treat it. Thank you so much.