- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
I’m not sure what emotional blockage is, but when my rOCD was bad, trying to figure out my emotions only made things worse. I did ERP and it took months, but here I am 2 years later happier than I’ve ever been and still with my gf. You need to stop trying to figure things out and practice acceptance. It’s hard, it’s a very slow process, and it feels like you’re lying to yourself, but it works
Everyone is different but can I ask how long did it took for ERP to work for you? I’ve been at it since Nov & I’ve gotten better at stopping the checking but there are hard days like today.
@WhyMe? It’s hard to say. After a few weeks it lowered my anxiety a significant amount. But to get to where I am today took like a year and a half. Granted the last year I wasn’t constantly doing ERP, I was just resisting compulsions and whenever I got triggered I just rode it out until it dissipated. Eventually you want to kind of integrate it into your daily life. When you feel anxious just ride it out instead of ruminating or doing other compulsions. I still occasionally feel anxious but it’s way less. Last time I was triggered was Halloween and even then the anxiety was nowhere near what it used to be
@Drvmstick My main struggle is SOOCD and I feel this is the one theme that we do ERP daily 😅 wow a year and a half? I’m already so drained and it’s only been 4 months with this flare. I feel like my brain is triggering itself.
yes a few weeks ago i was very apathetic towards everything in my life now i cant stop crying...i dont know how i overcame it...my friend basically told me to force myself to cry even if i dont feel like it
Ah ok. Yeah all kinds of weird emotional things can happen when you continuously struggle with mental health. I’ve had similar experiences. Ultimately you have to treat the root cause, which I’m assuming is OCD if you’re on this app
I'm going through it right now... I'm struggling
So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.
I’m new to the app and wanting to know who else experiences this form of ocd. Some background I was a therapist for over 10 years now I am out of the clinical space. So I have background knowledge of ocd but never knew much about relationship ocd. I realized over the last several years with my now fiancé, that I have a hard time just letting go in general, whether that’s an argument or statement or feeling. I want to be able to just accept things at face value and move on (and talk later if my partner is ready as needed). But when conflict arises I can’t disengage till there is a clear resolution. It’s causing serious strife as he can feel trapped and it escalates the argument. I am reading more and this sounds like relationship OCD. Anyone else experience this? Curious on what others have done to work on this for themselves. I do have a therapist but we are not doing work in this area yet as I am realizing this is an actual concern.
I think when people are saying OCD is egodystonic is really triggering me and I was just wondering if this has happened to anyone else? I’m going through a really bad relapse and right now I’m trying to figure out if my thoughts are truly egodystonic, like I how do I know I won’t act on them, how can I trust my emotions and everything. I feel really confused and I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore or how I carry on with life because it’s so long and I’m so unsure of everything that’s going on in my head. Like how do I know that this is OCD and true desires/urges. I’m so confused.
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