One of my closest friends since 6th grade is planning on visiting me soon. I havent spoken with him in almost a year, havent talked to them in over a year infact, keep making excuses when they ask me to talk. (i live in a different country than them). Now this friend thats visiting me is living his best life in the Uk, has a gf, going to a top tier Uni, partying everyday and Im just rotting in my house since ocd began. I dont feel like myself, I feel gay in denial, depressed, ßuicidal and a weirdo, a total mess. I dont want to meet him in this condition, I hate this, I wish I was d ead. How the fuck did things get so bad for me? Sorry for ranting, Im tired and sad

(Long post warning) Hi, I’ve been struggling with severe OCD for six years now. it started in 2019 with my theme being getting sick/emetophobia. it devastated my life. I almost didn’t graduate high school from it. I remember washing my hands for three hours one day until they were nearly bloody while crying and asking why I could not stop doing it. I remember id have to write and rewrite sentences when I did my English homework and that’s why I nearly failed that class. I remember how I would spend up to thirty minutes to an hour pacing the halls of my apartment while my mom was asleep until I neutralized the thoughts about throwing up and I could finally go to bed. I don’t know when it happened, but my theme switched. Sometimes in late 2020 or early 2021, it switched to POCD. It started with a single thought, and I focused on it and it’s been my theme since then for four years. It has been absolutely destroying me. I feel so disgusted and lost and just tired. My compulsions are severe now. I thought they were bad before, but now they’re ten times worse. I can’t eat, drink, change my clothes, walk, or even do things on my phone normally. I’ve developed so many mental compulsions that it’s so intricate and complicated yet at the same time I’ve done them so much that they’ve become normal. An example I have is if im putting on a shirt and I have a “bad” thought, I have to take it off and put it back on two more times (that’ll make it 3 times I put the shirt back on - odd numbers are my safe number). I have to have a good thought on the third time otherwise I have to take it off and put it on two more times to make it five times I put on that shirt. If not that then I just put on a different shirt because the original is now tainted with my bad thought. I can’t open apps on my phone. It’s with the numbers again. If I open TikTok once while having a bad thought - I have to close it and open it two more times and so on. Sometimes I do it up to 30 times. So I just don’t do things usually. I don’t turn on the TV because I know I’ll redo it. I don’t open a book or grab it off my shelf because I’ll have to repeat the action. I can’t even lay in bed without getting up and redoing it even if im exhausted. I just feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do. I feel disgusting and even now my minds screaming at me that I am dirty and what I think is true. I just wish I was free of this, I wish I could just live my life. I’ve wasted hours and days because of my compulsions. I mask it so well around my friends. I don’t do them in front of anyone or I’ve learned to hide it well. But when im back home alone, it goes haywire. I just want to live again.

So I recently met this girl and honestly she is amazing. She’s beautiful and her personality is perfect. She lives only 15 min away from me and I feel blessed to have a chance to get to know her, we both feel the same. But here comes OCD to ruin it. My OCD has latched onto a friend of mine. He’s a pretty close friend and we talk often. He’s never really one to let out a laugh so I always like to hear him laugh and just be able to have a good time. Partially it’s because I just don’t want to think I’m annoying and unfunny, I’m pretty self concious about myself. OCD is turning this into some sort of scary what if I like him question. I don’t have romantic feelings for my friend and I don’t actually want to be with a man. I am a straight male and getting to know this girl has been a blessing. OCD makes me feel in denial and as if I’m lying to myself. I hate this. It feels awful, when I haven’t felt this way about a girl in a long time

I’ve been in a really difficult situation recently and this weekend I’ve been looking forward to for ages. I had a concert and then nights out planned with my cousins. But I’m a tad bit older than them and they’re a lot closer in ages, as are all their friends from uni, so I’m kinda just stuck here with nothing to do. They’re off flirting with people their age and dancing and I’m getting no attraction or even attention (not in an attention seeking kinda way just an I’m lonely kinda way). At the concert they left my 5 or 6 times to go to the toilet and get drinks, when I went to the toilet I went alone. I was left alone to the point people around started to notice and I had one guy say “left alone are you? You need to get better friends” I just feel very left out. I’m a lot older than them and I know I have to keep a mature head but I’ve already fallen into a pit of depression recently and very very low self esteem to the point I barely wanna go out in public, that I’m now sat here all anxious and in a really bad mood. I don’t even know exactly why or when it changed but last night I just snapped. My sister was off meeting new people, my cousin was dancing with creepy men, a guy I found attractive was more interested in my cousin, she started dancing all provocative on him and I was just kinda there. I then had people asking me if I was neurodivergent and bisexual which just sent my ocd spiralling and nobody quite understands how horrible it is to be in my head. There was this lovely guy saying how amazing stunning and beautiful I was but it kinda just made me go “you’re saying that because you feel bad for me, because you know they’re getting all the attention and I’m this ugly duff person on the side”, it’s insanely exhausting. I’m tired of it now. I don’t wanna be in a mood anymore but I can’t seem to shift it, I’m stuck