Need advice on a situation that’s making my OCD act up and making me feel really bad. Please respond!! So I have a lot of OCD surrounding the fear of having had cheated on assignments/tests. I’m a college student and I really value integrity and honesty in my work. Yesterday during class we were playing this game for extra credit and we were not allowed to talk with/work together with other teams. The one guy on my team mentioned that he was in contact with one of his friends on the other team were in contact and trying to collaborate. I was PISSED. I wanted to tell him to stop but I was really shy and this guy is really confident/loud so I didn’t find the courage to stop him and I feel really bad about it. Eventually he stopped having contact with him but I’m afraid that his knowledge of stuff with the other team influenced our answers. Then this other guy on the team tried to make contact as well but I was able to shut him down and tell him to stop. The thing is I don’t think we ended up using any of the information we knew about the other team, but I really don’t know. We ended up winning the most extra credit points than any team and I feel so bad about it. SO BAD. I don’t know what to do. I really want to confess but I’m afraid of getting in trouble, afraid of getting 8 other people in trouble if they get mad at me esp cause a lot of them weren’t even the ones communicating. I’m also afraid of this desire to confess being a compulsion, but I also don’t want to benefit from anything that could possibly be cheating and I’m afraid of being associated with this. I want to do the good thing but I also don’t want to get people in trouble. I’m just really mad about this whole situation. I’m afraid the professor is going to find out if I don’t come forward/someone else will tell them before I do. Also me and the professor are close/have a professional relationship as I’m helping her out with research and she’s helping me out with a grant proposal. I’m really passionate about it and I’m afraid of losing that opportunity and afraid that I’ll lose my career/degree over this. I did not choose for those guys to do that. I did not choose to be on their team. The thing is also they were not being quiet particularly about the collaboration. It’s possible the professor heard them talking about this and already knows and is waiting for someone to come forward. I just can’t handle this. I had a nightmare about it last night and woke up in a major anxiety attack like 3 times. What do y’all suggest I do? Am I overreacting? It is just extra credit but it feels really unfair to me. Thank you for reading if you did.

okay so, i had this friend i met in the 8th grade when i was 13 when we became friends and my nickname for her was “red” and i had a crush on this friend before we became friends and once we became friends the crush faded away and i just grew a close platonic friendship with her and no longer has any crush or attraction or romantic interest in her. then i got a girlfriend named lisa in the 8th grade also and we were all friends and hung out but that summer going into highschool lisa broke up with me, we dated only for 2 months so you know it wasnt a big deal. and my friend “red” she and my other friend lana we are a trio and they helped me move on from that. then i started 9th grade (my freshman year of highschool) and i went into this year thinking i was gonna stay best friends with this trio but we ended up splitting paths but me and my friend “red” always had a more special bond in the trio we were like the duo because we trauma bonded and dealt with mental health problems. and in the end of my first semester i fell in love with this girl named riley (who became my 3 year serious relationship) and i love this girl so much i met her when i was 15 and she was 14, me and riley (who is my current partner) were very toxic during freshman sophomore and junior year. she was very insecure over my ex from the 8th grade who i didnt care about because she was my first girlfriend. and she was also very insecure over my friend “red” because she was my best friend during the time i was with my ex and she reminds her of my ex for some reason. i still wanted to be friends with “red” at the time and we would get into numerous fights about that. she would control me and who i was friends with and said i couldnt be friends with her and i felt so awful and defeated bc i had a close bond with this friend. she then gave me an ultimatum of either her or my former best friend and i chose my partner obviously but she was so in her head i think that she still broke up with me for like 3 days and that day she broke up with me i had to go home with her since she was my ride home and i was broken and she was obviously angry and i was crying while we were walking out of school and then she stormed off without me all upset and my other guy friend and his girlfriend saw me and went up to me to comfort me and asked what was wrong and i told them she broke up with me and then my partner yells my name very upset from across the street comes back and grabs my arm aggressively and drags me past everyone very aggressively and angry while telling me to stop crying because her mom is going to be upset and ask questions and i felt so bad. we got into the car and i had to try my best not to cry and my partner who was visibly upset a few seconds ago just completely smiled at her mom and asked how her day was with such a happy tone of voice and i was completely in shock. hours later since we were broken up i texted my former friend “red” (the one who my partner broke up with me over) and told her i needed emotional support that reyna had dumped me and i needed a friend. and she came over and talked to me. that was all nothing romantic. and then 2 days later my partner says we are back together and i was happy but felt guilty because i hung out with my friend who she dumped me over. Now years later im still with this partner after many splits but we are finally healthy and healing and shes been super supportive and there for me and loving during my recent journey discovering my ocd. i have been confessing over and over many past mistakes or things i thought were mistakes. i last confessed something on monday and ive been feeling better and relieved after confessing up until yesterday when i remembered a past mistake (which was what i just shared) and now i cant stop ruminating on it and feeling guilty and feel the need to confess this to my partner but i learned that confessing is my ocd compulsion and if i give into it ill be feeding my ocd and not breaking the cycle. but im also feeling conflicted on if i should genuinely let her know and confess because i feel what i did that time was wrong but i dont want to give into my ocd but also what if i basically cheated on my partner by doing that and if i tell her that i did what i did even tho i didnt cheat but i told her i never liked this person even tho i had a crush on the former friend and tried to get my partner to let me keep this friendship because its not like i like her romantically which is true i dont but i used to. so i feel like i betrayed her even especially by hanging out with her so now i dont know if i should tell her or if its my ocd and i dont have to share absolutely everything especially if its in the past. i dont want to lose my partner and im scared if i keep confessing it will ruin our relationship and drive her away but it will also make me lose myself and my own privacy and also feed my ocd and compulsions but im scared if i dont confess ill never stop thinking about it and i will feel like im lying to my partner and like i cheated and i wont be able to enjoy the good moments and the present because im stuck on my past “mistakes” and now im scared ill have the end my relationship to feel better but that will hurt me more but im scared if i stay im just going to try to avoid my partner in fear ill confess or feel the urge to confess every time we speak. i dont know what to do im completely lost this is the hardest thing ive ever dealt with and i have a lot ive dealt with in my life already. im barely 17 i havent had a year of a break

I was at a house party a month ago and everyone was taking photos of silly moments. I took two photos that had an attractive person in them. I deleted the photos a few days later because I felt guilty and anxious that I had taken them. I keep ruminating and thinking about my intentions. I do believe I took them because they had an attractive person in them. I worry that this makes it count as cheating. I am very very open with my partner and I tend to constantly confess things like this to him. I have confessed so many things to him, and he always holds the same stance: he believes that fantasizing and crushing is okay. He said he has had his own crushes and he said “fantasizing is nice as long as it stays a fantasy.” I agreed. I told him about my crush and how anxious I was about it and how I was afraid that it was emotional cheating. He told me that it really doesn’t matter and that it’s only wrong if it’s physical cheating. I should note that I have taken VERY VERY good care to never even attempt to become friends with this person. I’ve seen them a handful of times at group gatherings but I never ever message them on my own, I ignore all their messages in a group chat because I don’t want to give them special attention, I never even speak to them in person unless they speak to me first. We are barely even friends. He said he doesn’t need to know what goes on in my head and as long as an action seems innocent to an outsider, it’s not cheating and he doesn’t need to know about it. One time I confessed an action where I also felt like my intentions were wrong, and he told me “Who cares about intentions? It’s outcome that matters.” My therapist also told me not to worry about these actions. He said that if I keep ruminating on whether an action is right or wrong, I should just try to sit with the discomfort and not confess. He told me that if an action were really wrong, I would KNOW it intuitively and “my body would push me to confess.” I’m just so worried sick about this. Do I confess or not?

I’m so so so anxious right now, I got triggered really badly. My partner made a joke saying he’s glad all his coworkers are old and married because he “won’t develop feelings for any of them.” This sent me into a major spiral and I almost threw up and starting sobbing from the anxiety. It triggered me badly and everything was fine before that. I’m so anxious that I cheated on my partner. I’ve had an ROCD obsession with another person for a few months now, and I’ve told my partner EVERYTHING. I told him how I have a crush on this person, how guilty I feel about messaging a group server that this person is a part of (despite being very careful to never ever message them privately or even reply to their messages in the group server and instead message other people), how I have fantasized and daydreamed about this person. My partner was fine with it, and he said fantasizing is normal and that he has had crushes too. He said he has had a work crush and fantasized about her and that it was all fine and that fantasizing is fun as long as it stays a fantasy. I kept telling him that I am terrified that I’m having some sort of one-sided emotional affair by fantasizing about this person, and my partner kept telling me, “Okay so what? Now what? Let’s say your worst fears are true, now what? I’m not leaving you and you’re not leaving me so why worry about it?” I also feel like fantasizing about this person turned into a compulsion because I would spend months agonizing over the ROCD guilt, ruminating, throwing up, thinking, and then I’d try to fantasize in order to soothe the anxiety and “prove to myself” that it was nothing. I have talked to my therapist about this extensively and he told me that I should not confess as it’s a compulsion. He said if it were something wrong, my body would just “know” and I’d intuitively confess instead of ruminating over and over on whether it’s worth confessing or not. My partner told me he doesn’t want any more confessions and that he doesn’t need to know what goes on in my head. I’ve told him a lot already, about the crush, my fears, the daydreaming, and he said it was all fine. I know for a fact that I have never ever ever crossed a line with this person, I have been extremely careful to rarely ever interact with him. I’ve been careful to ensure that we’re not even FRIENDS at all, just barely acquaintances. Literally every single interaction has been just small talk the handful of times that I’ve seen him show up to a group event. He is also moving away and I’m never gonna see him again. I have been extremely obsessive and careful about not ever EVER speaking to him unless spoken to, never giving him attention, obsessively monitoring the frequency with which i pay attention, etc. But I’m so terrified that I’ve already done something wrong by having these thoughts and feelings. I feel like the feelings lasted this long BECAUSE of the OCD and guilt and anxiety. Because I became anxious and started ruminating on the feelings and the morality for months and months. I don’t know what to do. I need help. I feel like I’ve irreparably ruined my relationship. Did i catch feelings? Is there a difference between feelings and a crush? Is this a form of cheating? We are going on a trip in literally 12 hours and I’m so incredibly stressed I can’t take this. Do i confess?