Obsessed with morality/laws.

[Mav]

Have I ever told you the story about my old roommate, Mav?

No, but I would love to know

[MyNameIsTerry]

Mav,

This is just a quick response as I'm short on time tonight so will come back to you with something better later. But you said you struggle to see your compulsions so I thought it would be useful to break them out of the text you already gave us. You detail them well and we will see them standing out but it can be hard from your side with your head in such a mess. So, get them into a list.

Once you have a list you can work on them individually. ERP tends to be a good way and with yours it will be more about resisting compulsion most likely by reducing check volume and inserting longer periods between the fear arising and the check starting.

I wouldn't worry too much about the reassurance seeking on forums because I don't think you do much of that anyway compared to some on here. And my concern is you will cut yourself off from helpful support. If you have a plan and will see it through on your own with support offline then great but if not it is better to have online support (and you can change how you use a site to something more aimed at recovery anyway) than be isolated.

At the moment the things I deal with are, I am too scared to learn to drive incase I cause an accident and end up in jail,

Not compulsion, a lack of self confidence keeping you from moving forward with something you want to do. The same as being afraid to go on holiday because of somethign bad happening.

I walk a certain way in in shops so CCTV is clear that I am not stealing anything,

This might be a compulsion tied in with some Magical Thinking in a similiar manner to walking on cracks to ensure something bad doesn't happen.

I check my pockets/bag to makesure nothing fell in.

Checking compulsion and some Magical Thinking involved.

I make sure I am safe browing constantly and visiting only a few sites (facebook/youtube etc) and definitely not adult sites as I am too frightened I could come into contact with an illegal link or pop up or something.

Checking compulsion and avoidance.

I talk about these intrusive thoughts/fears with people on facebook intrusive thought support groups, and I have this horrible thought that my fb messages will be hacked and everything will be interpreted wrongly and I will be falsely accused of something just because I am talking about these absurd but distressing thoughts. I always have to check to makesure I've not written false untrue confessions anywhere (this one is ridiculous but I really do feel the need to be certain I havent).

Checking compulsion.

I cannot read the news, I cannot bare to read news stories on crimes or criminals and when I do I feel immense anxiety. I read them sometimes to check how I feel, and if I am disgusted by the crimes etc.

Avoidance.

Check/testing compulsion aimed at proving an accepted reaction takes place.

I confess and reassurance seek constantly, if i tell a lie or gossip, i confess.

Confession compulsion to seek reassurance of doing nothing wrong or to neutralise.

i also mentally review all memories I have to makesure I have not been immoral in the past.

Confirmation Bias, looking for flaws to validate a fear. It's little different to looking for some cancer stories to match your symptoms to. It's also a cycle starter because like the check/testing mentioned above these will just lead onto more obsessive-compulsive cycles.

A common error in searching memories is forgetting the "you of the time". For instance, some worry they did things to siblings but they forget that expert groups like the NSCPCC say it's fine for a child of that age. It would be obviously wrong for an adult to some xyz in that situation but the anxious person forgets to apply the child's eyes.

[AntsyVee]

So one day when I was in college I woke up to one of my roommates duct-taping the kitchen drawers shut. I asked her why she was doing this, and she said it was so she couldn't get to the knives. When I asked her what was up with the knives, she said she was afraid something bad was going to happen to us...that either she or someone else was going to get to the knives and hurt us. She was trying to keep us safe. Needless to say, we knew something wasn't right, and since we were in college, we were able to take her to the university health center. Turns out she had been having thoughts like this for a long time, but she never said anything about it because she was we would think she was crazy. She used to do things like check her car to make sure she didn't hit anyone on the way home and triple check doors to make sure she didn't lock my cat in the garage. None of us even knew.

We all met with a psychologist there after her intake, including her family, and they explained that no, she wasn't crazy, she just had OCD. Long story short, after she got some therapy and took medication, she was stable. You'd never know she had OCD...especially OCD that was that bad. We're still friends today, twenty years later, and she's doing well. She had some hiccups after the birth of her first child, but other than that, A-okay.