D-Me-23

HI there, Thank you for replying. I've spoken to the 'Advice Unit' at the university about my situation, yeah. I'd wondered something similar, but I don't think I have; I haven't even completed half of the work yet, so my guess would be that I haven't. Surely if you 'graduate', though, that would be it? How would you then be able to complete a dissertation thereafter? The Advice Unit has said to me about benefits, and I definitely don't have anywhere near as much as £16,000. That's what I need to do now. I've put work to the side for the time being. My priority is to secure funding, in whatever form, and accommodation, for another year here. I'm scared I'm not going to be able to stay, though, but it really is a matter of necessity. What exactly do you mean by "consultant-led"? All I know about it is that it's called the 'DAS' - depression and anxiety service - the local NHS provision for CBT. Thanks again.

Hi there, Ashley, Thanks for replying. I can understand that. That's precisely why I want friends with OCD - for the understanding. Indeed, I comprehend the caveat, too. No, I don't have a large circle of friends, but I do have some, which is another reason why it's so crucial that I am able to stay here (because they're here, and not at home). A few of them know that I suffer with OCD, but that's about it. I suffer with 'Pure O' predominantly, and I'm sure you know what kinds of doubts, worries, and fears plague people with that particular type of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Furthermore, I know if I were to tell a particular friend all of the details, they could easily become 'the one I speak to', and I wouldn't want to lose friends as a result of that. Bear in mind we're talking about healthy people here - the way I see it is that they might be OK talking about it once or twice, but they're certainly not going to want to keep going over it, and would soon get fed up of it, distancing themselves from you. Hence the only sort of friends I feel I truly could talk to about it is others with OCD, who know exactly what it's like to have a head full of fears, doubts, and worries, day in, day out, morning to evening, no matter what you're doing, and to have been in that situation for, not just weeks or months, but years.

Hi there, PolarBear, Sorry for not responding sooner. Yes, I've been trying to access CBT for the past 3 years, but to no avail...??! Please see my latest post for more information on this. Thank you.

I'm sitting here in floods of tears, so so desperate. Please help me I'm absolutely petrified about my future. That's the current worry tonight. I'm in such a dire situation. I'll be as concise as I can. In a nutshell, I'm supposed to be studying for a Master's, but OCD has completely destroyed it. I'm meant to be at the stage of writing my dissertation now, soon to finish in September, but that's clearly not the case for me. I've had extension, after extension, after extension, deferrals, and I'm probably now going to have to interrupt. I couldn't feel more trapped, I really couldn't. I study in/am currently living in Exeter, Devon, and rent's ridiculously high here. I want and so desperately need to stay here, which is my issue, and what's breaking me tonight. I NEED to stay here to be able to both finish my course, and for my health/treatment. Home for me is an incredibly rural, isolated village, on the other side of the country. I'm currently on a waiting list for CBT, and have been on it since January. If I have to move home at the end of next month, I'm going to be in exactly the same situation for the third time - being put right to the bottom of the waiting list again! Before moving here, I was on the list at home, for nearly a year, and then finally reached the top a month before coming here. I've now gone another year without any proper support, hearing absolutely NOTHING from them, and I CANNOT do that again!!!! I have only ONE friend at home, and I only see him once a month, if that. I have NO social life there, there's nothing to do, it's awful public transport, I can't drive, there's no work about (if ever I did feel able to find a little job), and I'm 15 miles from an urban area - which takes a inexcusable hour and a half to get to by bus!!!! Add to the list that I suffer with this debilitating illness, about which I have NO ONE to talk to, and know NOBODY else who suffers with it, AND the fact that I'm gay, and there's no gay community in a rural area, it really is not a good place for me to be Going back there just makes everything x10 worse. I've only been able to live without working this year because of the governmental post-graduate loan, and I simply could not afford to spend another year here without working, out of my own funds. What options are open to me? There are benefits, but I don't know how much I'd be entitled to, or whether they would cover everything. What triggered me off this evening, though, was watching Phil Spencer's Find Me A Home, and all he kept saying was that no landlords accept people on benefits, which set me off by thinking, even with that kind of financial support, who would actually house me?!?! He kept talking about how hopeless the situation was, and he could have genuinely been talking about my life instead, the way I see it. Then I was crying because, for many people, 'those kinds of situations' are other people's problems, and it hit me hard that that's not the case with me - it very much is my reality. After that was then First Dates, which upset me. For many, it's merely the issue of finding someone special, but there's still the hope and the chance, because they live in cities - but when I'm at home, because there literally is no other gay person my age, or even of any age, it's not even a possibility for as long as I'm there That absolutely kills me So what can I do? Any suggestions or options? I forgot to mention, although it's rather obvious, I'm too ill to work at the moment, and, even if I could, I wouldn't have the time, as I've got my course to finish. I have considered quitting, but I really don't want to do that, and it would give me more stuff to hate about my life. And I said this on my last post, but nobody responded - PLEASE, I am DESPERATE for some friends who suffer with OCD. Something I've NEVER had. I have no one to talk to, no therapist to talk to, and I can't talk to my parents either, so I literally am on my own. I predominantly suffer with Pure O, so other Pure O sufferers would be great. I'm a 24-year-old gay guy, so other gay sufferers around my age would be even more amazing, as I don't even have any fellow gay friends either As I said, I live in Exeter - if there is anybody who lives reasonably close and would be prepared to travel/meet, I want to be friends with you!!!!!! Please. Thank you.

Hi all. Before I start, I'd like to say that this is my first post, so I do hope that I'm posting in the right place! New to using these forums I might be, but new to OCD I most certainly am not. I'm a 23-year-old guy, who's a life-long sufferer of OCD, but who has suffered with the illness in its most extreme and debilitating form for the past five years. I honestly could write page, after page, after page about everything I've been through; if I were to sit down and go through everything for an entire year with you without sleeping, even then, I'd still only just be scratching the surface. You name it, I have been through it. I've had virtually every type of obsession you can think of, and it has completely broken me. I've been through more cr*p in the past five years than the average 80-year-old has in their entire lifetime. It has exhausted me - I am exhausted. I know the precise date it all started, I can remember the thought that triggered it, and I can even remember exactly where I was and what sort of time of day it was, to the point that I could take you to more or less the exact spot on the pavement, where it happened. And when I say five years, I really do mean five years - every, single day of those five years, since that very moment. I haven't had a moment's respite. Over the past five years, I've used the OCD-UK website a lot, for information (reassurance) etc., and have long wanted to actually reach out for help/make contact with the community on here. Until tonight, however, I'd never done so for two predominant reasons - either A) I've felt so bad that I physically couldn't bring myself to post on here, or B) I might have felt marginally better, and not done so, to avoid having to think about it, which would then trigger it all again. I registered for access to the forums back in December, and I've been wanting to post/waiting for 'the right time' to post - in every OCD sense - ever since. Well, here I am, tonight, posting for the first time, on Thursday, 4th May 2017. As I've said above, I could go on and on and on about what I have to deal with, but that's not the point of this post. No, the point of this post is as the title clearly states. Throughout this five year period, I haven't had a proper friend that I've been able to talk to about my OCD, and that's one of the reasons I'm writing this. Yeah, I have some friends, but all of them are healthy. They know I suffer with an illness called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, but that's about where it stops. I could tell them more, but, well, I'm sure you can all relate, they wouldn't understand, simply because they haven't been there themselves. Not only that, but no healthy person is going to want to hear "I feel so sh*t", "I feel so cr*p", "I feel so scared", "I don't know who I am/who I am any more" etc., coupled with long crying episodes on most days, every day. Not to mention 'the scarier thoughts' - I'm sure you know what I mean by these. If the crying and expressions of how you feel don't scare healthy people off, I'm sure the scarier thoughts would. So, I'm finally writing this to try to find friends who get it, have been there themselves and are still, and to whom I can say things like "I feel so ****" every day, without scaring them off. And by 'friends', I mean 'real ones', as well as supportive, virtual friends; friends I see on a regular basis, and go on to have a close friendship with for years to come. I realise that this might not be so easy to achieve, given that we live all over the country, and, indeed, around the world, but it would be absolutely fantastic if there were some people not too far away on here. As for wanting support and advice, I really don't know what to do. I'm currently doing a Master's, but my OCD has completely and utterly ruined it, and I really am so stuck. So, during the first term last Autumn, I was on track with the work, but it started falling to pieces at Christmas. Soon after, I lost my way, and I've been off the tracks, so to speak, since January, and it's been absolute hell. I don't at all understand how nearly half a year has passed me by, but somehow, it has. All this time, I've been trying to decide whether or not to continue full-time, or to take a break until next January, and pick it up again from there. Yes, nearly six months to make a decision. In that time, I've made the decision to carry on full-time on several occasions, but I've always 'struggled' with it, because I struggle with perfectionism, and have always been aware that it isn't perfect, and that my grades could be affected by it. I've been having to review my decision practically every two weeks or so. Anyway, it's now the first week after four weeks "off" for Easter, during which time I was meant to complete three pieces of assessment - I still haven't started any of it :'( My department's fully aware of my illness, and they grant me extensions, but there's a limit of 3 weeks after the original deadline, after which point, work has to be deferred. The original deadline for it all is, in actual fact, tomorrow, meaning that, in theory, I could have until Friday, 26th May to complete it all. That might sound like a lot of time, and would give me, if divided amongst the three pieces, a week for each bit, but I really don't know if that's enough time, and wouldn't be allowing for any spare time, if I needed to re-stabilise myself. Practically every day is a bad day for me - I never have 'good days', merely 'somewhat better days', every now and again. As mentioned above, I'm chronically exhausted from it all. The hardest thing to do every day is getting out of bed, and most days, I don't manage it, both because I can't bring myself to face the day mentally, and because of tiredness/exhaustion. I frequently get up in the afternoon, and, particularly since January, haven't even got up until the evening on some days. Today was one such day that I got back into bed. I actually started writing this post yesterday evening. I started at about 9 o'clock, and wrote until about midnight, so, the date above has actually been changed from yesterday's date, the 3rd. I mention this, because yesterday was the 'right time', as I'd got up on time, and was in the mood to write, whereas, tonight, I'm not so much, hence less editing. I'm trying to refrain from editing so much, I'm just typing, because I know it's more important to just get this posted. Anyway, back to what I was saying, spare time is important. What I want to do is to carry on full-time, and just get the course finished, which is what I've been doing, for two main reasons - 1) I know I'd regret taking another year to complete it, because I'd feel as if OCD had won, and for other related reasons, such as all of the people I'd started with having finished, and not being here any more, and 2) I simply don't know how I'd fund another year of studying, without working. I have the money to complete the course in a year, but that wouldn't be the case, if I took another year. Some might then say 'well, work', but it really wouldn't be as simple as that. It would put me in the way of lots of triggers, and then there's crippling general anxiety in itself that I experience when working. And when stressed and anxious, that's when my OCD gets worse. I just cannot believe that I'm in this situation. I just want to finish my degree and get my Master's :'( I'm not going to pretend that I love my course, because I don't, but I do want to finish it. I would never forgive myself if I were to quit. I've done the entire course, as far as attending lectures etc. is concerned, it's just the assessment. Not only is there the issue of money if I were to have a break until next year, but I'm also worried that I'd then never complete the course. I'm very susceptible to self-destructive thoughts, and have been especially so the past week. I genuinely would never get over it, ever. But, at the same time, I don't want to just scrape a pass, I want to do exceptionally well, like I'm more than capable of doing, but for my illness. Then there's also the fact that I could quite as easily fall off the wagon again next year, and be back in the same position. I just don't know what to do. So, in summary then, I'm looking for genuine friends (ideally people who have suffered for years like me, and people who suffer with the same kind of OCD as me [I suffer with 'Pure O' mainly, with 'POCD' being the main thing]), but virtual, supportive friends welcome, too, and advice and support on what I should do concerning my course, because I really don't know.