In my life, people have always seemeed to run away from me and I never understood why. Although, they tell me I am friendly and nice, there is always a barrier between us. I do not believe that people ran away from me when I was two years old because they thought I was mentally ill. However, the feeling of awkwardness was there. I spent much of my childhood in isolation, even though I was in a large family. I would often play behind the couch. At the time that I did this, it really didn't seem odd, but now that I have had time to reflect, it helps me to understand the anxiety. I think for me, it all comes from the reality that I know I am alone. In my mind, I don't want to be alone, but the reality is, I will always be alone. As I get older, I am trying to understand why people run away. I don't know if you experienced this with your OCD. It is probably hard to understand if you are a teenager or still in your early twenties. I didn't know I had OCD until last May. At that time, I was 35 yeras old. Although I have two brothers and three sisters, I am not that close to them. I am close to my mother, but hate my father. My father used to beat me al through my childhood, up until I was fourteen and the police told him he couldn't hit me anymore. At the time I was growing up it wasn't consider physical abuse for a parent to dicsipline their children with hitting. Although my mother hit me a great deal, I never consider what she did was abusive. My father on the other hand, I always thought it was abusive. He seemed to want to kill me when he hit me. I can't really remember when my mother hit me, but I can remember everytime my father hit me. What does this have to do with people running away? I don't really know, but they are the thoughts that are going through my head at the moment. Somehow, I think it is all connected. It is important to understand that I have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder too. when my OCD kicks in, I have all these memories of my childhood flashing through my mind. On top of the memories, I can feel all the places I was hit, I can remember all the emotion I felt then. when the strong feelings of anger subside, I can feel the painful feeling of abandonment. I get this same feeling when people run away from me, or distance themselves from me.  Although the try to conceal the idea, it is very evident  to me. I get this same feeling at work, when people ignore my input. Until something goes wrong, then they are my best friend. After, I labor to fix what they thought was impossible, they leap in and act like they did something imporant, and then sell me out. I get that same feeling of abandonment, and all the feelings and memories go racing thorugh my head. also, when people try to control me or manipulate me to do what they want me to do. I see this as " they think I am stupid and gullable", and I get the same feeling of abandonment and all the memories and emotions racing through my mind. I often like to think that people running away from me is just me being paranoid, but it isn't. I don't have any friends. I just have people who use me until the money tap runs dry. Over the last year, since I have learned of my mental conditions, I have used that time to really think about all the people in my life. So over night, I ended up deleting all those people off my myspace page. I figure, if they really wanted to be my friend, they would find a way to stay in touch. I like to say I have had many girlf friends, but that would be a lie. I have only been with two ladies in my life. The first lady was when I was twenty three, and the next was when I was twenty seven. In less then twelve months, i would have gone a full decade with out being in any kind of relationship with a lady. From my point of view, the ladies seem to run away out of fear. I don't really know why they do, but i feel it is all connected with my OCD/ADHD.