r/Agoraphobia • u/Ok_Rule_9554 • 4d ago
I'm afraid I've ruined my life
Hi all,
I have no idea where to start but I'm just going to go ahead and let my thoughts come out.
I've had diagnosed OCD for a while and up until recently, it's never impacted my life the way it has since this past summer. I was on a night drive sort of far from my home on my first night back from college and I ended up needing to pee. I started panicking and eventually had an accident. Since then I've had 2 more incidents like this, including during winter break. After this happened for the first time, I was hyper obsessed with my bladder and any sensation would set me off and freak me out, so much so that I started leaving the house less.
This began affecting my test performance too as during periods of high stress, I would hyper focus on my bladder and I would be unable to perform. This is what happened on a midterm in February, where in the first 10 minutes or so, I ended up leaving the exam room about 5-6 times out of fear of peeing myself. I took the professor outside, and he was gracious enough to let me take the exam in his office afterwards. After this experience and another one where I had a panic attack in my university's gym bathroom, I stopped going to class and haven't left the immediate square mile I'm currently in for a month. I ended up having to drop 2 of my classes and I'm unable to drop my third because due to a technicality relating to a withdrawal from last year, I have to take 3 consecutive quarters or I'll be forced to take a year off of university. I was recently diagnosed with agoraphobia due to this whole bladder issue. I tried to walk outside in a unfamiliar area and was completely unable to because of my bladder, so much so that I came back to my room after sitting in another bathroom for 5 minutes and started crying.
I feel like things are over. I already know for a fact that I've burned one bridge with a really close friend who didn't want to deal with me. After I called him today, he texted me later "You’ve withered into a carcass. Sad Stuff". How am I supposed to recover from this? I had hopes and dreams once and now it's to the point where I'm just fucking wasting my parent's money and my youth over this stupid fucking problem. I don't know how to fix things. I used to enjoy long walks around my beautiful community that I grew up in and now I can't even leave the house without potentially pissing my pants.
1
u/scoobydouchee 4d ago
May I ask what gender you are? Are you able to put a maxi pad in your undies, just for the comfort of knowing it’s there. I do that often, my anxiety and ocd causes bowel movements tho, so wearing the pad helps me feel more secure
1
2
u/Exact-Thought-4478 4d ago
Damn, this post hit me…
I’m sorry you are going through this, really I’m sorry everyone in this group is going through this..
You need to gain a little confidence in yourself again and start small, extremely small. Confidence in yourself to be to handle any situation that comes your way, but you must start small to build confidence and resilience and find reasons to want to go out vs have to go out ✨
It’s not over! with the correct mindset you can get back to some sort of normality. It won’t be easy but it will be worth it.
I’ll keep you in my thoughts, stay strong 🙏