I'm 24 and have been suffering from OCD since I was about 8 or so. The symptoms have changed throughout the years depending on the episode. Sometimes it's worse than others. Since college it has mainly surrounded the idea of me contracting stds- specifically herpes and HIV/AIDS. It started the first time I got a tattoo and I had literally convinced myself that I had gotten HIV from the needle. I wouldn't leave my room and I had already accepted the fact that I had it. I went and got tested and that still wasn't good enough. I still worried I had it. Then when I became somewhat sexually active of course other diseases came into the picture to be paranoid about. Alcohol makes it better but then of course the next morning it's worse as I worry that I've blacked out and had sex that I've forgotten about. I can't be sexually active or even touch a guy anymore. I no longer even have sexual desires because it's not even worth the repercussions. And I know that obviously a healthy fear of stds is a normal thing, but I feel like my obsession is crippling. I won't leave my room or eat for days and I just sleep because it's the only time my mind is free from unwanted thoughts. Today is not a good day and sometimes, like today, my OCD actually convinces me that I don't have OCD at all, I just SHOULD worry about the things I worry about (like stds, or sometimes cancer, whatever the fear of the day is) because I probably have it. And then I just feel hopeless. Sorry to be so dramatic, but that's just how I feel sometimes. Does anyone else's OCD get them down this much?