A part of my life that OCD ruined for me is my social skills. The intrusive thoughts affected the way i talked, acted and interacted with others i can’t even look at people for more than 2 seconds i get very anxious if i had to keep eye contact more than that im afraid they’ll know what i think about them or notice the images that pop up. I know it’s impossible for that to happen but i just can’t act normal or have a simple conversation anymore.

I remember reading a comment someone had made to one of my posts on an OCD subreddit and they told me how they believed their OCD symptoms got worse during a time in their life when they were socially isolated. Reading this comment made the brightest lightbulb go off in my head because it basically summarized most of what I’ve been going through. In addition to OCD, I also struggle with depression and social anxiety. I feel like these three things and the profound sense of loneliness I’ve felt throughout my years in college (undergrad) feed off of each other. I know that OCD can manifest in so many different ways regardless of what your social life looks like, but I can’t help but feel like the lack of relationships (specifically friendships)/community in my life has something to do with my mental health and the delay in my recovery. Side note: I’m still relatively new to NOCD, but I’m happy to say that I’ve been making some good progress in my therapy sessions <3

I’ve been dealing with ocd and anxiety since I was a kid, but these recent years have been the worst it’s ever been. It’s hard to communicate with people about your mental health so I’ve been self isolating by accident lol, my social anxiety is terrible and it’s extremely stressful for me to hangout with people and my friends don’t seem to really understand even when I try my best to explain. They notice I don’t hangout as much but to them it’s “me being weird “ or “ a fake friend” I don’t know what to do and it’s frustrating

Need some advice please. I'm trying to fix my social anxiety, self esteem and confidence but ocd infests itself and makes me I had all these issues because I my ocd was true all along. For example, Im extremely uptight/awkward around people and have a fear of being judged, laughed at or seen through, fear of not being liked etc. One cause of this I read is it's because i suppressed my real self/feelings and pretended to put on a fake mask to be liked by others/fit in and now that im older that mask is breaking and causing me disconnect from my real self. My hocd inserts itself and makes me feel because I was gay all along without knowing it is why it happened. It genuinely feels like that's the case but then I feel dreaded and depressed because it feels so real I'm ready to accept that scenario. But back then I didnt think I could have been gay or anything. Im not sure how to handle this difficulty. Please any advice?