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OCD and making mistakes, any advice/help?

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OCD and making mistakes, any advice/help?

Postby kaytor8 » Sun Dec 13, 2015 3:55 pm

//Possible warnings!! I'll go a bit more into detail with what I'm struggling with because it's gotten pretty bad recently.

My OCD comes and goes in many forms but this one has been going on for a while- and it's the inability to make mistakes re: saying something wrong or offensive. If I'm about to make a post about a sensitive issue online, I would check what I wrote a dozen or so times before and after I post it, and I'll keep going back to it editing and re-editing. I usually end up being too scared to say anything that might be risky or I might regret because I'm scared of the unbearable guilt that comes afterwards.

And if I do make a mistake or say something wrong, I'll start panicking, and I'll l a) do anything to try and reverse that mistake (eg, if I posted something permanent on a forum like this I would actually contact the mods to ask them to remove it, even if it's something pretty small or inconsequential) and b) seek reassurance over and over again from as many places as possible that it's okay to make mistakes and that I'm not a bad person, and that it's okay and forgivable. It is so incredibly draining and exhausting.

This also relates with things I really like and care about as well. For example if I really like a band but I said something bad about them in the past, or something iffy or a mistake, it would not leave me alone. I can't even pinpoint what the worry is, just that it keeps coming through, as does the anxiety and guilt, and for this reason I end up not being able to enjoy things I would have really liked. I do the same as above, or try to say lots of good things to 'neutralize' things and balance things out.

More recently I've been writing TV show reviews for my school newsletter which is published every term and is permanently in the school records- physically and digitally, which causes me a lot of anxiety already but I wanted the job, and I didn't want my anxiety to stop me. I'm the main person in charge of the section, and my name is under everything I write.
Well recently I submitted this term's article in which I was reviewing a popular show I particularly liked. I realized after I submitted it to be published, that I made a mistake in writing the show's name in the title out of carelessness. It isn't a spelling error, just way the name is stylized (punctuation and spacing of the letters). It's not a big thing at all. But now I literally cannot stop feeling bad, I actually feel like I can't enjoy the show anymore because I screwed up (it's so ridiculous), and that people are going to think this and that, and I've spent hours checking websites/other reviewers online to see if other people have made the same mistake in the past to reassure myself it's okay, that it's not a huge deal, that who cares how it's written, nobody cares and it's not hurting anyone.

Right now I can email the publishing team and tell them to take it back so I can change it, but it's a hassle that seems so silly and I can't tell if it's just my anxiety pushing me to perform the compulsion instead of leaving the mistake. I simply can't leave it and this irrational anxiety has been making me run circles around myself checking for reassurance and now pushing me to email the team.

Has anyone been through something similar in general, or has any advice at all? I know that I shouldn't send that email, that it's just giving into the anxiety. But I don't know.
kaytor8
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