- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
What you’re experiencing right now is ambivalence. It leaves you confused and drained. It makes you question everything and you’re left ruminating why am I feeling this way? do I love him? Do I not? Should I leave? All of these things leave you confused and wondering constantly. I’ve been here before too. I’ve also experienced the numbness of it all, it’s as though you dissociate from the stress. It’s so much uncertainty that the only way your body knows how ti turn it off is to dissociate. It helps and lasts a while before the anxiety and needyness comes back around again for the cycle to repeat itself once more. The only piece of advice I could give you right now is to sit with your feelings. Don’t question why are they there or look outside yourself aka, looking at your partner for answers, looking to us or your friends, instead, sit there, become curious, listen to what’s going on in your head, don’t judge it, just sit and listen. Become interested. So something like “oh, I just had a thought that I may not love him anymore and that I want to break up...hmm...interesting” and then don’t react, sit and feel it in all its glory. feel the emotions that the thought brings and then comfort yourself. Notice how it’s your mind trying to protect itself. Everything is okay in this present moment, you are not in danger, you are safe. There is no threat but your mind. You must stay in the present moment, not the past nor future. When anxious, you are in the future, not the present.
- Date posted
- 3y
Thank you. Your advices are always so precious ❤ But that's the problem. I usually have the toughs that you write down. I was questioning and searching for answer as a compulsion. But now it is kind of different, it is like if I know that I don't want to stay with him, and I'm not scared by the idea of leaving. But at the same time something keeps me with him... there's something wrong in this tho! I am not having the same intrusive thoughts about the relationship, it is like if I know we don't have a future; and I can do nothing to change it because it is like if I don't want it... but maby I want it? Okay, writing it, it seem like an intrusive thoughts. But it is strange, I don't feel nothing and I will be okay leaving him; but also staying with him... uff I can't understand what I want it's so frustrating!!
- Date posted
- 3y
Maybe try accepting that in this moment you don’t know what you want and that is okay? I noticed with me as well, as a perfectionist I HAD TO KNOW. But what if you didn’t? What if you asked yourself “if I were to allow myself just one minute of not needing to know what I want, how would I feel?” And just sit and allow yourself to not need to know.
- Date posted
- 3y
it’s okay to not know what you want all the time. Not everything in life is perfect and a lot of things in life is unpredictable
- Date posted
- 3y
Wow I never saw it from this point of view. Thanks you. I will try this immediately!
- Date posted
- 3y
I think maybe we’re too harsh on ourselves, thinking we have to have it all right.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 15w
Hi. I wanted to stop posting here, but I can’t hold it in anymore. I’m feeling so lost. I’m in a relationship that, from the outside, looks wonderful. We’ve been together for 2 years. He loves me deeply. He’s kind and caring. And still… I can’t feel anything. I can’t imagine a future with him — living together, starting a family, growing old. When I try, it feels like something in me shuts down, like it’s wrong. I don’t feel happiness in the relationship. I don’t feel love, warmth, or comfort. I feel anxiety, numbness, guilt, and fear. We fight over the smallest things. My thoughts scream that I don’t love him, that I’m forcing this, that I’m just used to him. The scariest part is: sometimes I feel okay, even calm. And that’s when it hits me — “What if this calm means I’ve accepted the truth? What if I don’t love him?” It feels like I’m in shock. Like I’m finally seeing clearly… but I’m terrified that it’s a clarity I never wanted. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I just know that I’m exhausted. And I want peace. If anyone else has felt this — the numbness, the fear, the doubt that feels like the truth — please tell me how you’ve gotten through it. I don’t want to lose him. But I also don’t want to keep living like this. i know that people reading this will tell me to leave. but i dont have any reasons. All the problems started because of my never ending thoughts. i feel like i ruin everything. i feel like i have changed. im so lost and scared. i dont understand what is happening. It feels so real. im in agony, im crying so much. I wasnt always like this. i am trying to remember times i felt better and i cant. i cant feel anything. its so hard. i can’t explain how i feel and in scared what are you going to respond if someone will. i usually see “if you feel so bad then leave” but its not like that. he loves me so much and if the thoughts werent there it would gave been so different. everything was perfect. but i keep thinking that when the thoughts started, one and a half years ago, i realised that “i just dont like him” and gbat i couldn’t accept the truth and i am denying it. i feel fake. do i even have rocd? or is this cope?? why do i feel like this. why does it feel so real? please somebody help me
- Date posted
- 13w
I have had ROCD in my relationship for a while and I’ve always been having the feeling do I break up so I not but even with the anxiety I still felt love and knew I didn’t want to be without him. But now it feels different. What scares me is it feels like I could actually see myself wanting to date someone else because of qualities he doesn’t have. I keep seeing him as overall bad. For more context he is caring, generous, we are very similar, but have different communication styles and talking issues out is hard for him. He also can be irritable easily, he doesn’t like talking things out that much and there’s a bit of a maturity difference which I know is sometning that can grow. Lately I feel like when I’m around him I am just frustrated with how he is acting like when he does something that upsets me like makes a joke about something he knows isn’t funny and bothersome to me, he’ll say sorry but then end up doing it again. Even though I know he really does care about me which I know it feels like he only cares about him doing wrong like he doesn’t want to do wrong instead of actually wanting to fix my feelings being hurt cause when he asks if I’m upset and I say yes he will get upset and try to be defensive and it makes me feel he cares more about being wrong. I also have had less empathy toward him which really scares me because I am a very empathetic person but I am hoping it’s just cause of bad ocd and built frustrations. Also, I do know cause he has told me and I’ve seen it that he always wants to impress his parents and not make them mad because they pick at him the minute he does wrong. This is probably why it’s hard to talk things out but lately I have been feeling like I can’t say anything cause he will just get more anxious or shut down or not want to hear it. Anyway, what makes me anxious is it feels like I don’t feel anything anymore and my brain is saying the only reason why I get anxious thinking of not being together is because I hate change and cause he is the first person I’m with. But I keep going back and forth. It’s so hard to be around him now. All I’m trying to think of is evidence that I still love him or the good things about him. I’m really afraid this isn’t ocd and that it has just morphed into it just isn’t working anymore. Some feelings like less love feel real but also ocd gets in between everything and it’s so fuzzy. I am afraid deep down I really know. My brain keeps saying I can’t be with him anymore cause I can’t be with someone if I feel like this about him. Meaning if I don’t have empathy for him cause I’m frustrated or whatever and if all I can see his bad even though I know there is good. It also says if I was with someone else that was a little nicer or could talk things out or whatever imaginary scenario in my head I wouldn’t feel like this😭 and I love the family and it keeps saying I’m only staying cause of the family. And some of this I’m like wait that might be true and I have to rest and review and I’m exhausted. And one minute I want to leave the next I don’t….im worried the only reason I am with him is cause of how great things were or cause he loves me and not me loving him.
- Date posted
- 12w
Hi everyone, I really need help and guidance because I feel like I’m falling apart and I don’t know how to handle this anymore. Please read carefully what I’m about to say. I’m dealing with ROCD (at least people tell me it sounds like ROCD), but everything feels too real, too intense, and I feel like I’m losing myself completely. I feel like I’m stuck in my mind all day long. I keep thinking that I don’t love my boyfriend anymore, that I never loved him, that I only wanted the idea of a relationship and that I forced myself to feel something because he is such a good person. My intrusive thoughts say: • “You don’t love him.” • “You never loved him.” • “You’re forcing yourself.” • “You only liked the idea of love.” • “You’re ruining him and yourself by staying.” • “The relationship is wrong.” • “You’re a bad person for pretending.” And my FEELINGS are worse than the thoughts — I feel NOTHING when I’m with him. When I hug him, kiss him, or hear his voice, I feel disconnected. I feel numb, empty, fake. Sometimes I even feel disgusted when we are intimate or when he says something sexual, and then I feel huge guilt and anxiety about that. When we’re talking or when I’m with him in bed, I constantly think: “I don’t like him anymore,” “Why am I here?” “Why can’t I feel anything?” “Maybe I just want to escape this relationship and I’m not brave enough.” And now, I’m starting to feel that I’m not even upset about the thoughts anymore — which makes me think “See? It’s true, you’re finally accepting it.” This scares me so much. When I look at our old pictures, I feel no warmth, no happiness, just anxiety or nothing at all. When people ask me about him or mention him, I feel flat or uncomfortable, and my mind screams again: “You don’t love him anymore.” Even worse: my family sometimes says things that make me spiral more. My mom told me that I’m lying to myself and that I’m hurting him by staying, and that I need to stop if I don’t love him anymore. I know she didn’t mean it badly — she sees me suffering every day and it’s too hard for her to watch — but those words stuck in my head and now I can’t get them out. I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know what my values are, or what I want. I know I care about him — but then I think maybe I only care because I’m a good person and don’t want to hurt him, not because I love him. When I’m out with him, I often feel irritated, anxious, uncomfortable — and this fuels the thoughts even more: “See? You can’t even enjoy time with him anymore.” I know that logically I should sit with these feelings and thoughts and not give them power. But it feels unbearable. I’ve read so much about ERP, I’ve tried to understand this logically — but it’s like no matter how much I read or try, it doesn’t help. It feels like my mind is now saying: “No, this is different — this is the truth.” I feel alone because I have no one to talk to. Whenever I try to talk to my mom or someone close, it only makes things worse because I feel more confused and guilty. Even when I try to write here, it feels compulsive sometimes — but I’m desperate. I just want to stop suffering. I am exhausted. I am afraid that I will go to the beach with him and our friends in one month and I will feel horrible there too, ruining everything. I am afraid that I can’t be happy anymore and that the only solution is to leave — but that also terrifies me, because I don’t know if it’s the truth or OCD. Please, if anyone can give me some advice on how to sit with this and start healing, I would be so grateful. I feel like I have no strength left. I just want to feel peace again.
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