Hey everyone — I wrote this in my journal the other day and I’m curious if anyone else experiences “talking in circles” or not being able to “get to the point” when answering a question because you think that a lot of information is necessary to answer it. I have this problem with schoolwork. Instead of a one-sentence answer, I’ll write a long paragraph explaining details that are relevant but aren’t necessary to answer the question. This entry is out of context, but I think you’ll get the vibe: ‘I want to say that I understood what you were asking. You were asking, “What has helped you to make progress in the past?” I understood why you were asking that question: so that you can help facilitate me in following the plan. I suppose I just didn’t have a good answer. And when I tried to answer, the thought I expressed branched off into another semi-related topic. I feel as if I can’t get a clear thought through. It makes me feel like I am stupid and unable to hold a followable and intelligible conversation. And then I understood what you were doing in response: you acknowledged what I said respectfully and then found a way to circle back to your original question which I didn’t answer very well. And then I would try and explain my answer to the original question again, but I had no direct answer and it led me off onto another path. I feel as if my cognition makes it difficult to hold a cohesive, purposeful, and coherent conversation. I want to apologize because I feel like I’m waisting time instead of getting to the important questions / topics. I really, really wish I could just put my stupid thoughts together in a concise way so that I could answer your question. I am painfully aware of my circling thoughts and overly-detailed responses that are difficult to follow. I am very self-conscious of it. And I am very well aware of which thoughts are normal and which are disordered. That’s why I always say, “I know that’s disordered.” I get afraid that people will think I’m crazy. I don’t know why this happens to me. Maybe it’s OCD, anxiety, or maybe it’s some other disorder that I’m not diagnosed with yet (ADD)? I’m also unsure if I talk like this all the time or if it’s only when I get anxiety or when a lot of thoughts that I want to express come into my mind at once. The same thing sometimes happens when I do my schoolwork. I get anxiety that what I am saying is unintelligible and that what I am saying makes no sense. I wonder if more medication will help or if this is just how I think. And I bet I’ve repeated myself numerous times in this script. So I’ll stop writing. I hope my point came across and I hope I was able to express all that I felt the need to say.’

Hi, I’m new here!! I’m praying I don’t get judged for this. But, back in late May of 2022 ( literally right before I graduated high school), I added this one random girl from my school on Snapchat. She posted something about a graduation party , so I swiped up on her story basically saying how I can’t believe we’re almost graduated. She replied and we had a really short and simple conversation. The next day ( i believe) , we started talking a lot , and I just so happened to see her at the highschool when we were grabbing our graduation outfits and doing the rehearsal. When I saw her irl, I kinda got turned off ( I heard she was kinda crazy) , and on top of that , she was a little ugly irl. I remember seeing her Snapchat bio , and she was close friends with my female cousin ( a year younger than me) , who I happened to experiment sexually with when I was 10-11 years old. I remember going to work later that day and having sort of a lightbulb flick thought ( it wasn’t a good thought though) , what if my cousin told her about what happened when we were younger? So I started to kind of panic and immediately distanced myself from that girl. I also experimented sexually with one of my female friends when I was 10-11 , and from that day onwards, I’ve been pretty much living in paranoia and a little bit of guilt about someone finding out and my life being ruined . On top of that, It’s gotten worse to now sometimes I wonder if a girl I added off of quick add ( Snapchat) is underage even if they told me they were 18+ or had 18 and above in their bio, and I get so much guilt and anxiety about that. I even had a quick thought last February on what if I did something inappropriate with my younger cousin when I was 15-16 but I just can’t exactly remember when it happened , and it still eats me alive when I think about it, because I don’t know if it happened or not. I’m sorry for the long vent, I just wish I felt normal again. No matter how much I try to do things that old me used to do, life always feels “ off”. I always kept the top part about when I was younger a secret up until early (ish ) 2024, then I vented to one of my best friends and he told me that that’s a normal thing to do at a young age. Since then, I have told multiple friends and they all say they did similar stuff, but my brain just can’t accept that. Please help me, I quite literally overthink everything nowadays. 2021 was the last full year that I felt normal ( coincidentally, the best year of my life so far) . It’s not just about sexual related things either, sometimes I’ll wonder if I messed up something at work or hit a car while driving/hit someone and drove off. I just wanna live my life how I was supposed to live it after highschool ( carefree and happy) before whatever it is ( I think it’s ocd) hit me unexpectedly. Thanks to anyone who read this , I just needed to pour it out regardless of how negative I felt typing this, I hope someone can relate , because I feel so alone in my head at times.

i’ve been dealing with this “thing” since i was 15. (i’m 23 now) if i have a bad memory that i have done when i was really young or just an intrusive thought i feel like i need to tell my mom or boyfriend. it’s been on and off ever since but since January hit it’s been an everyday thing about the littlest things. mostly about my relationship. an example is i was talking to someone random at my job and we were talking about taxes and when im in deep thought or just thinking i do a thing where i bite my lip (not in the sexual way) and i had a thought when it happened “was that sexual?” and i felt like i did something wrong and i went for a while thinking that until i told my boyfriend about it. or like my ex’s face has popped up in my head in the most inappropriate times and i feel the need that i have to tell him. (my ex was not a good person) i feel like im a prisoner in my head everyday, trying to justify thoughts or remind myself that its just a thought. i didnt know that this was or could be a form of ocd. it runs in my family but i’ve just never considered it being this. i always called it anxiety or depression but i always felt like it is more than that.

I cannot tell if this is OCD assigning meaning where there is none, or if it is something else entirely. I have ADHD, and I tend to hyperfixate on people, specifically men I find interesting. It feels like a crush. Maybe it is a crush. I do not know. It does not matter. I daydream a lot. I have posted about this before, and the responses were helpful, but right now I am spiraling again. Lately, what I think is a dopamine-driven hyperfixation has latched onto my supervisor at work. I actively stop myself from ruminating too much about what it could mean. I remind myself they are just thoughts. I love my boyfriend and I am committed to him. But I have noticed that I sometimes *hope* something goes wrong with an order, just so I have a reason to talk to my supervisor, even if the interaction is only a few sentences. I do not even smile at him because I am so afraid of being disloyal or disrespectful to my boyfriend. The other day, my voice sounded nice, and I got scared that I did that on *purpose* because I was talking to my supervisor. I know how to make my voice sound smoother, and I worried that I subconsciously did it for him. I know people do that kind of thing to seem pleasant in general, but it feels wrong when it is tied to one specific person. There was another moment where I had to bend slightly, and I knew he was behind me, though I didn’t know he would walk in my direction. It turned into a kind of awkward traffic situation, and I started wondering if I *hoped* for that. I even caught myself thinking about whether he finds me attractive. I know that these thoughts might be in the normal range, but the fact that I think about him so much, daydreaming, hoping for interactions, mentally replaying things, feeling excitement, makes me feel incredibly guilty. Is that disrespectful to my boyfriend? I don’t think I’m flirting. But I feel like even hoping/looking for interactions or tweaking my voice counts as some kind of betrayal. I just don’t know. To me, it sounds like a mix of ADHD and OCD, It really does feel like chaos inside my head. I want to be honest with my boyfriend, but I know talking about this stuff makes his jealousy flare up, and understandably so I’m a jealous person myself. But if I don’t confess, it feels like I am hiding something and it feels *extra* disloyal. I know that daydreaming and a bit of excitement are normal, especially with ADHD and dopamine-seeking, but when I go out of my way for a few-sentence interaction, or crave eye contact, is that disloyal? I am not asking for reassurance. I genuinely want to understand if this is normal or if it crosses a line. I am scared that I am just making excuses for bad behavior. I am scared that this is not okay and I am doing it anyway. I wish I could ask my therapist about this, but I had to stop going recently. She always understood how my brain works, especially the difference between reassurance-seeking and genuinely wanting clarity. She was really good at helping me figure out whether something was common or explainable. It helped so much to just know if something was normal, even if knowing did not stop the rumination. That’s kind of what I am looking for now, just someone to tell me if this pattern makes sense or if it crosses a line. Please help :(