📐✒️ Symmetry/perfectionist/just-right friends: We need, like, an email-anxiety-related group or something. Or maybe a few of us can just figure out some kind of check-in routine here together? Thoughts?

i’ve unfortunately fallen into the cycle of trying to figure out my thoughts and find answers as to why i feel so distressed. this still pertains to the situation regarding changing my room for those reading who have seen my multiple posts over the last few days. i’ve been so distressed and in so much panic about it. i’m also panicking over my other room looking so different from when i left it. it’s been making me feel crazy because to me there’s no reason for my anxiety to latch so hard onto something that seems so minuscule. i was thinking i was having anxiety over change, but it’s like symptoms of ocd too that’s making it really hard for me to let go. SO i started thinking maybe it was perfectionism ocd? i’ve realized over time that i do compulsions to where things have to feel “just right”, but i also do that with any environment i’m in. like it HAS to feel cozy to me and provide me comfort in order for me to feel at ease. and this change is causing me to panic because there’s something wrong that i can’t find an answer to. maybe the different colored carpet? but it’s also more than that it feels like. however, now it’s spreading into other areas of my house where i’ve always been fine in and possibly to just any area i’m in at all. hence why it’s making me feel crazy because there’s no reason for me to be THIS distressed over that as i’ve never really had this problem before. and when i did it would last maybe an hour to a couple of days at most, but this has been going for over 2 weeks with my really bad anxiety being this week. i’m doing a little better, but it’s still hard when i can feel that panic waiting for me to acknowledge and just engulf me in the ocd cycle. i’m also analyzing basically any feeling i have so i just feel off in general and like i’m going insane. i’ve been so hyper focused on how i feel and that will send me spiraling too. multiple themes then start coming in like existential ocd and fear of solipsism. not to mention my harm and contamination ocd that just adds on when i’m this vulnerable. then i worry if no one is real, then no one feels the way i do. or just in general that what if no one feels the way i do. honestly, i think being out of college and in my house with nothing to do is causing me too much time with my thoughts. which is why i’m so distressed about everything that pops into my brain.

I’ve been my job for almost 2 years now and I can not shake the constant worry that I am going to do something to mess it up. I’m constantly checking things over and over to make sure they’re correct to the point where I almost don’t believe my own eyes anymore. Everyday I go home with something to be anxious about. Today me and a coworker got in a bit of a tiff and I can’t stop thinking about it (even though I was totally right to be upset 🤣) everyday I play out fake scenarios that may happen because of what I said or did. Occasionally I will worry if I had written something inappropriate on the work I turn in. There’s no amount of reassurance that can make me stop worrying and I’m not sure what to do anymore. I’m new here and would love some suggestions!

I’m new to NOCD and just wanted to share my experience to see if anyone else can relate or has any thoughts or advice. My thing is needing a system or some kind of digitally saved reference (online article/notes app) to make decisions on how to live my life and spend my time- then I get super caught up in what is the objectively “right” system to have which never really leads anywhere- over the last 6+ years I’ve probably changed this system over 100 times because at some point I realized it wasn’t “right”. At best, I stick with a system for months and be pretty free from OCD but at worst I can go months where I only experience intermittent periods of living free from OCD and spend hours and hours putting my life on hold trying to figure out what the right system is or to answer and figure out impossible answers to completely subjective things. I get a lot of regret over all the time and life I’ve wasted in this cycle, and feel kinda like everything I’ve done in previous systems was “wrong” so I try to fix that by undoing some of those actions. I think part of the root of this is wanting to control so many parts of my life and the fact that there are other parts of life I could be experiencing, ways I could be improving, and that there is so much out there that I could never ever do or experience all of it leads me to try to figure out some system that gives me a better feeling of control over this. If anyone reads all this that’s awesome- lmk if this resonates with you at all