well lookie there—a sudden flood of memories  sorry in advance  i used to keep isopropyl alcohol at my desk at work for cleaning purposes it understandably annoyed my co-workers most of whom were aware of my condition and added an additional layer of stress on top of what an office ecosystem already creates and that made it worse because i was friends with a lot of them so i felt worse about it but also kind of upset in my own right that they didnt fully understand what i was going through and show what i would have interpreted as compassion and understanding but which i also knew i had no right to expect of them as they dont have ocd etc it was a bad cycle and im happy to be out of it for the most part ive progressed to where i dont have to clean my workspace like i used to  i said all of that to say this  the feeling that image most brings to mind for me is the sudden shock of realizing that someone has caught me doing something im incredibly self-conscious about i spent a long time attempting to hide a lot of my behaviors in public and that only made them worse like i mentioned this also added an additional layer of stress to everything that i didnt really acknowledge as much as i should have—the constant pressure in my mind to appear normal and participate in everyday life  while being at my psychological limit at all times it was just too much at a certain point  lots of bad decisions and destructive coping mechanisms later i reached a point where i couldnt keep up the act anymore as a result i started guarding my behaviors less and less in public and people definitely took notice i was very uncomfortable the first few times i had to explain what i was doing not that i was ever forced to explain anything to anybody but you know but the more i explained it the more i realized that most people were willing to hear me out and at least try to understand my perspective most of them never really did fully understand and i still got plenty of have you ever tried to just not but overall i learned that i can actually talk to others about whats going on with me and that has been helpful i feel like that led to me being more comfortable as a person with ocd in a work setting and that in turn allowed me to start making some of the progress i have  i dont know if it helps anybody else who might be in a similar situation to hear about this or not as it can be a big obstacle to overcome but a lot of people are willing to listen if youre willing to talk i didnt realize that initially and that misconception was on me  and now ironically i feel weird for typing such a long post  wow sorry ill justill be over here now waves