Hello everybody. I wanted to ask you how you managed OCD and concentration, because I struggle a lot with it. I'm always afraid to be distracted by the OCD thoughts, so of course when I have to talk in public I'm incredibly worried because I'm afraid that my OCD will ruin everything. I manage it most of the time, but it's more problematic when I study and when I'm in class, because I'm always afraid by advance that I won't understand what the teacher says and that I won't succeed because of the OCD thoughts. So I develop some kind of a checking OCD now, because I always have to verify I understood correctly and that I didn't miss anything. I'm always tempted to read the same page of a book twice in case of etc. And what horrifies me is that I feel like I don't have the grades I deserve even when I worked like crazy because of my fear of not understanding, see? For example, my theoretical driving lessons. We have 15 seconds to answer to each question. And I'm always incredibly nervous because I'm afraid that my OCD thoughts will distract me. So, if I don't concentrate really hard, the panic comes because I'm afraid by advance that I won't understand the question correctly. And then I make a mistake because time was out and I answered randomly, not being able to shut my anxiety enough to concentrate, when I could have understood the question perfectly. Sometimes, I'm able to concentrate, but I try so hard to do my best that I make a mistake because well, I overthinked the answer too much and saw a trap when there wasn't one. It's like a vicious circle! I've been in this driving school for ages and I feel like I failed the theoretical exam after months and months of studying and practice … because of OCD. It saddens me so much. I don't know if I'm supposed to ignore the anxiety to concentrate or if I shouldn't even try to concentrate. Because when I try too hard to concentrate, the anxiety is very strong 'cause I'm afraid that I'm not gonna be able to ignore it. And then, what is worse is that I'm afraid people will think I'm dumb for not understanding, while I could have understood! I was just too scared to not understand and I failed because of this fear. So then I'm afraid of what people might think of me etc, and even if my mother doesn't believe it one bit, I'm scared that I'm going to disappoint her and that she's going to think I'm dumb so I'm even more scared. I'm really sad because I used to have really good grades and to learn quickly. Now I feel like OCD is trying to take this away from me, to make me fail so that I would have even less confidence in myself. I'm sad because I've never been a bad student and I used to feel like I was rather smart, and it was almost the only thing I liked about myself. So when I have a bad grade, I always have to verify is it was caused by OCD that altered my concentration, or if it was because I didn't learn enough. So well yeah … it's a new obsession. And what saddens me even more is that people in my driving school may think I'm not smart enough while it's my OCD and fear that ruins everything… I'm just tired of being scared when going to school, I'm always wondering: what if I don't understand what the teacher is saying because of my OCD? what if …? I swear, if I don't have my year because of this disease, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to put myself back together… It will be too hard to accept. To hard to accept that this disease won. I try too hard to not let the OCD win and paradoxically, I think that I might feel even more anxiety because of it. I know that the obsession stays only because I give it importance. But how could I not? This is important to me, to succeed. So I have trouble to accept that one. I refuse this to destroy everything I have left in my life. And I'm a bit frustrated as well, because I realize that I have to be twice as strong as all the other people. I have to stay strong, to do much more efforts than all the other teenagers. And it sucks, you know. I'm young. I'm supposed to be young, wild and free, not so scared of everything. I feel like I'm 1000 years old sometimes, and I know it's paradoxical as well.

So… did you have this problem? How did you manage it? I see my therapist tomorrow. I think I'm going to ask me to put me on some meds. Maybe it would fix this problem, at least a little…