- Username
- aidancdm
- Date posted
- 6y ago
I agree, you should be careful with how much you are comforting your girlfriend. It’s great that you want to be supportive and caring, but unfortunately the more you provide reassurance for her, the deeper your girlfriend will fall into this cycle. Has she had any therapy yet? What is you and your girlfriends knowledge of OCD in general? We can provide more help here if you give us more info..
Do she know about this app? It seems to help a lot for me when I’m in sos mode..
Bravo for reaching out and looking for support.
That’s great you are supportive, but with ocd, you often want to prevent giving reassurance for people’s obsessions
It’s considered a compulsion which makes the OCD sometimes worse
@PetShopBoysRock so there isn’t much anyone can do expect her own self in the path of bettering her OCD?
Has* not had^
@LaPink that’s great advice
No problem!
@nOCD I wasn’t aware of that, thank you very much that definitely should help a lot
@Mjs110160 thank you very much, this information helps a ton
@PetShopBoysrock she has had a couple of sessions of therapy and counselling but she stopped short before like even 5 sessions because they grew too much of a cost for her mom to afford and her dad doesn’t know about her OCD because he doesn’t believe in mental illness. She is clinically diagnosed with OCD by her counsellor and is more compulsive and gets like severe intrusive thoughts, it’s hard to distract and calm her down once she is in an episode... has that laid down more cement to build some answers on top of?
@LaPink thank you so much, looking at it now and its been great
@Aiden it’s a shame about the cost being a factor in the continuance of her therapy. It’s a problem for so many people. However, since this is the current status of where we’re at.. Your girlfriend will need to understand that a therapist or clinic isn’t going to cure her OCD. They can maybe teach her more coping skills/techniques, but essentially it is up to her to practice and re-wire her brain to think more rationally.
There is help she can receive from therapists and clinicians, but my point was more so that they won’t be able to cure OCD for your girlfriend. Is there any chance of her going to another therapist?
I think my little sister has OCD, she constantly seeks reassurance about things such as whether the dog has died, if the lights are definitely off, if the door is locked... I could go on. She gets quite distressed if you don’t give her reassurance. She seems to have some verbal and physical compulsions too. I also have OCD but it is different from hers as mine mainly focuses on contamination, counting and having things ‘just right.’ I’m not sure how to support her properly because I know I’m not supposed to give her any reassurance but it is horrible seeing her getting anxious. Does anyone know how I can best help her?
Does anyone have any advice for helping your partner deal with your ocd? Mine is getting frustrated feeling it's stupid and finds intrusive thoughts I try and share hurtful.
Hello everyone! I am not the one having OCD, but my boyfriend does, and it is combined with depression. He hides it pretty well (he doesn't want to make me or any other person sad) and acts like everything is normal most of the time (makes everyone laugh etc. - like many other depressed people) even though I know he suffers a lot. We know each other on a very deep level and I am the only person who he has told about having OCD and depression, and I just want to help him as much as I can. The thing is that he has a lot of negative thoughts most of the time and if he doesn't do something, for example, claps his hands 8 times, he believes 100% something bad is going to happen to me, like I'm gonna get hurt or something. At the moment it is not possible for him to talk to specialized OCD therapist as there is not one in the area where we live in, but I am confident that I can help him or, even better, guide him, so he helps himself, so that he, at least, suffers less from this. What advice would you give me? I know that I shouldn't be too pushy or telling him what I think he should do. I just want him to know that I'm there for him and that, even though I cannot understand what he's going through, I can at least educate myself about OCD (I've seen some self-help books you posted here) and talk to him about what I've read, because I think it is better to talk about it rather than him hiding it and suffering in silence.. This is how I thought I could help him: When I see or when he tells me that compulsions are happening or going to happen, I'm gonna let him know that he is not going through this alone and that he can trust me. Then I will ask him to tell me what kind of thoughts are going through his mind at the moment, and if he, for example, tells me that he thinks something bad is gonna happen to me I'm gonna tell him to try not to do any compulsive behaviour and try to, no matter how hard it is at the moment, accept that thought and repeat after me: You are safe. I am safe. We are always going to be safe. Only good things happen to us and always will. I believe that if this is done constantly that it will make his OCD more managenable (and depression as well). I would really appreciate any comment, expert or from a person having a similar experience that my boyfriend has. I really want to help him. Thank you! ❤
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