It may be that she has *too* much empathy. That she feels *too* much when she sees people that are different enough to trigger these feelings for her. Just as there are things I've learned to avoid because they trigger issues for me regarding my anxiety these may be triggers for her OCD so she avoids them. Just like not being able to let the shower run on her head and face...it triggers panic for her and she's never been able to overcome that. I've overcome much of what triggers anxiety for me. I'm talking about extreme anxiety which verges on panic. I've been blessed in that I've never had a full blown panic attack. The worst I experienced was physical symptoms of shortness of breath, asthma type attacks along with extreme fear. And I don't have asthma. I also seem to have a type of OCD but it's with thoughts I can't get rid of. Repeating thoughts and such. It's difficult to get away from that. It takes time and training myself how to turn those thoughts into something different or off altogether. Someone with full-blown OCD does not have that kind of control. If they did they wouldn't have OCD.

Even having the anxiety issues and such that I've had I have problems with other people with anxiety issues because what triggers for them may not trigger for me and I sometimes have a hard time understanding *their* triggers. It's like I can't understand why they would be afraid of *that*! But that's the nature of these problems. And why it's even harder for someone that has *no* problems with anxiety and deprssesion to understand that telling us to just get over it doesn't work. It's far from that simple. At least experienceing anxiety I can look at another person and even if I can't relate to exactly what triggers attacks for them I can understand that the fear and panic is real. At that point it no longer matters what the trigger is. I can and do relate to their fears. But for someone that's never experienced any of this it's impossible for them to have any understanding.

The bottom line for OCD, anxiety and other disorders is they *don't* make sense. Even to those of us that suffer from them. It just is.