Hi

I seem to have become more and more inhibited as the years have gone by. I don't know if this has anything to do with my OCD but I suspect it might. As an example, our neighbor has a horse and thier fenceline runs along the service road where I take my morning walks. A few times the horse has come up to the fence like it wanted to make friends with me and I kind of thought about going over and petting it or giving it a treat.

Now a "normal" person (which I USED to be) would probably just go over and pet the darn thing and that would be the end of it. No big deal, right?. Well, with me, I suddenly get all these paranoid and fearful thoughts going through my mind like "what if I get arested for trespassing?" or "what if the horse got sick and someone blamed me?" or "what if a nosey neighbor called the cops on me and said there was a suspicous person prowling around?" or what if...the thoughts of EVERYTHING that *could* happen just overwhelm me to the point where I just get too afraid to go over and pet it and then I start to get really agitated because I think a person should be able to pet a horse for crying out loud!!.

I told my room mate about this and he sugested that I knock on the owner's door and ask them if it would be ok if I petted thier horse. I told him that it's seemed kind of silly to go over there and knock on thier door just for that and it might make them suspicious that I was going to all that trouble and making such a big deal out of just petting a horse. I mean, I'm 42 years old so just try to imagine a grown man knocking on your door and saying something like "um, hi..you don't know me but I came over to aks if I could pet your horse". Silly to say the least.

Anyway, my inhibitions go far beyond my simple horse example. In fact, I am inhibited from drinking because I fear becoming an alcoholic and I rarely have sex because it is supposed to be "evil" and "sinful". I obscess over my health and the health of my animals constantly and I am afraid to lgo out in my own yard (especially after dark) because my neighbor's dogs will start barking and then he might call the police (thinking I'm a prowler) and then I have to get the third degree from the cop, etc.

Does this sound like OCD or some other condition?. Does any of this even sound remotely familiar?. I hope I'm not alone but at the same time, I would'nt wish this on anyone. I'm sure I'm being robbed of a lot of things I ciould be doing in life because of my fears, inhibitions and paranoia.

- Regards