Help

People say I have OCD and I have a low self-esteem. I get criticized all the time but I think they might be right. Anyways, being scared is normal. A solution to the problems you stated is just talking to your friends online so you don't need to leave the house, touch anything besides your device and fulfilling your daily needs, and you don't need to be near anyone (unless you live with your family or have a roommate). If you REALLY want to meet your friends, try telling yourself and your friends that it's Covid-19 and you don't want yourself or them to get sick, they live far from away from you, or, if your a pushover like me, keep yourself busy so you don't have an excuse to want to meet up with them.

The interesting thing about the pandemic is that it gives us a lot of creative ways to stay in touch with people. If you're too scared to meet your friends in person (besides being cautious about Covid) there's ways you guys can hang out online. Try zoom or even Skype or Facebook hangouts, you'll be able to still talk to them while at home and being safe from covid. There's also this app and there's people here you can reach out to if you ever need to talk to someone to get you through the hard times. I can relate, I have anxiety too. One of the most important things you'll learn about it that I'm learning myself still, is to remember that your anxiety and your worries can't physically hurt you, they don't present any real danger. You are safe in your house as you are outside of it. Believe it. 💙

Hello, I'm very sorry to hear about what you are going through. It is very rough. Don't be too hard on yourself. Here is a simple and profound exercise: consider that the things your mind says have no bearings on what reality is - go look at a coffee mug and try and make it levitate by thinking the words "this mug will levitate for 5 second 3 feet in the air above its current location right now". Literally go and try it. Go try a bunch of different things like that that demonstrate that the words in your head are powerless in this regard. Just as you can speak an untruth, you can think of one. That doesn't make it true! If it did I could make a million dollars appear before me. If you think of something scary, you might feel scared, think about it, what do you expect? Everyone feels scared what they figure on things that currently frighten them. That's okay. Nothing's broken. You are just putting the thought within your focus and your body naturally reacts to what's in your focus. If you focus on happy things, you will feel happy. If you figure on sad things you will feel sad. If you figure on empty threats you have thought up you will feel scared. Any of these emotions to at least to some degree. You can desensitize yourself to just about anything. You are going to want to face these scary thoughts at some point, but you can! You'll learn that words and thoughts are only ever a model of what the world actually is and that model is in some "degree of accordance" with how the world actually works. And that degree can be not at all. You can spend your whole life trying to levitate a mug by telling yourself it as a story in your mind. It'll be okay. I know it's scary, it feels bleak at times but you can get through this. The mind and body always work towards self improvement and homeostasis. I could go on and on. You'll be okay. Can those thoughts what they are, thoughts! And thoughts are in try to be in accordance with reality, not the other way around. It's is always trivial to prove this. So go prove it to yourself. Good luck with the therapy. Wishing you tranquility and a speedy recovery. I hope you come out of it a stronger person.

Hi lavender, Hope it works out soon. You made a big step in deciding to work with a therapist and I understand how frustrating it can seem waiting a while to start. Being here, the support chats and chatting online with friends and listeners is definitely a good way to still connect without meeting in person. I found this youtube video on anxiety a bit helpful, it took a second watch. https://youtu.be/7DGupVaIwEY