Hey guys. So the ex romantic partner i had in my life has returned and when he left my ocd was terrible. Now he’s back after a year and a half and he told me when/if he came back into my life it would mean that he’s over me. Now he’s saying and doing things/ hinting that he’s still interested in me at least sexually. I feel like he doesn’t respect me and sees me as a object rn. It completely put me off of him. Im now torn on how direct i should be about not wanting anything romantic to happen. Cause every time i shy away from flirty jokes it seems like he becomes distant. I still think of him as one of my closest friends and i want it to remain that way… but if i tell him I’m not interested in that way I’m afraid to lose him. I don’t have any friends rn but 1 person (besides this app) and him and it is pretty lonely. He smothers me in attention and im ngl i love it. I tried reconnecting with other friends but honestly i think I might’ve cringed them out by how much i wanted to hang out with them idk. I just don’t want to be alone, but i don’t like this ex-romantic partner like that. I don’t want to lose him again though. Help?

Long story short he’s one of many subjects of my ROCD intrusive thoughts (i’m in a committed relationship) but we were once decent friends in college. We’re mutuals online bc we’re both artists. I recently ran into him while visiting campus, tried to reach out to catch up and got ghosted after expressing that I can sense he doesn’t care for the friendship (he kept flaking and I’m worth more than that lol). Told my bf, he seems indifferent . But he also doesn’t know how bad my ROCD can get. Should I just cut the dude off? I feel that’d provide a quick temporary relief from the ROCD problems, but I also am sad for the friendship. He helped and supported my bf and I’s relationship when no one else did. Plus he’s not the source of the ROCD, my brain is. Cutting out every trigger won’t fix it.

my name is isma, i am 19 in nyc. i met this amazing guy at the beginning of the year, we hit it off immediately and he really stood out to me. i recently broke up with him because i feel like if id put him thru a lot if he’d stay with me. i recently came out to my parents and it wasn’t voluntary. i was caught with him and then had to reveal that i was gay. my parents didn’t take it too well. i felt uncomfortable and a little scared to be at home for some days. that settled in a week and both my parents told me they were acceptant but in the end it just felt to me like if they accepted me but they just didn’t wanna know about it anymore in a sense of just avoiding touching on the topic. now me and my boyfriend, i was going thru a lot and he gave me all his attention and was there for me whenever i had to vent or just cry because of everything going on. it’s crazy to think that at 19 years old id be coming out to my parents when at the start of the year, i never thought that’d be something id end up doing. ive never been open about my emotions or a “soft” person because i was never able to be myself at home and with my parents. sometimes i can’t even hug anyone. i find it hard to speak to strangers that r not my friends. i’m very picky when it comes to making friends. i feel like my thoughts are all over the place and im very indecisive. i miss my boyfriend and i wanna go back with him but im scared that ill ruin things again. before him, i was stuck in hookup culture and thought that by hooking up w a guy i was interested in, he’d wanna stay with me and get to know me. i was used many times and ive also used people many times. i’ve been done dirty and ive done people dirty, i dont think of myself as a good person but i felt loved and deeply cared for by this guy. he lives in nj and i live in ny. sometimes he’d even surprise me at work and i cried the first time he did. i felt so special and in awe because i would’ve never thought i could get so emotional over a small gesture. to me it wasn’t a small gesture. it was everything because he came from all the way in nj to ny just to see me for a couple of minutes. i hate the way that i am. i am unconfident, i think i am so ugly, sometimes i question how he found me attractive to date. i overthink everything, i cried one time imagining him coming to see me in ny then having to go home so late back to nj, i dont think im worth it and i felt like i didn’t deserve that and maybe it’d be better if he found someone near him. i also compared myself a lot with him. he’s such a kind spirited person, he’s always smiling and i on the other hand get told i look sad or anxious. i am i pretty negative person and that just adds on to me being an overthinker. i always thought someone as happy as him deserves another happy person and not someone who gets mad or agitated easily. i wish i can be more for him, i do miss him a lot and i plan on talking with him again. i just wanna talk everything out, even if we don’t date for sometime, i wanna be around him and know we’re gonna get back there again someday. he’s the best person that’s came to my life, i know ppl may say to let it go and see it as a learning experience but i don’t wanna move on if it’s not me moving on by his side. i really do wanna be with him i just wanna get my head clear. i don’t know what to do, im stuck

I had a best friend middle school. We were friends for a long time and I can guarantee with 100% certainty that not once did I ever have any crush or romantic feelings for her. No matter how much I analyze it, I can’t find any trace of romantic feelings. However what is eating me alive right now, is a time where she was showing me a martial arts move and I was VERY uncomfortable. I’m not really a touchy person even with friends I’ve never been comfortable with hugging or anything like that. Even if i’m very comfortable with that friend I just don’t like to be touchy feely. But when she was showing me her martial arts moves I immediately got very uncomfortable and stiff especially because to my brain it was like a sexual position and I didn’t like it. So as I sat there full of discomfort she was sitting on my groin and my focus went to my groin and I felt a tingle. I immediately got up and just felt disgusted and again, UNCOMFORTABLE. Yk that uncomfortable distressing feeling you get with a groinal response? that’s how it felt. I don’t remember what happened after but it never changed my sexuality or how I viewed her. I completely forgot about it and we remained friends for a little while in high school but nothing ever changed. Now that my OCD has latched onto my childhood exploration/reaction to sexual content/porn use/ false memories/this particular memory/ and me mistaking a cartoon character and masc lesbian as men, I have been going actually insane. Before my spiral i completely forgot ab all of this. It didn’t mean anything to me and changed nothing. The logical side of my brain tells me I’m obsessing over nothing, my real genuine feelings i’ve had for men all my life and the ones I felt for my boyfriend after years of numbness, are the real me. But my OCD is telling me it HAS to mean something that i know nothing about myself. But what tf does ocd know if even when I had no attraction and had absolutely 0 libido(still happening but worse now) I was in my mans car 2 months ago literally wanting him to kiss me, feeling a thick layer of attraction for him, admiring his smile and his eyes, and this was when my mind was clear and ocd let wasn’t fully running my life. I feel my mind and body shutting down again. I’m going back to that fully numb place again. It’s crazy because I felt like I was slowly defeating OCD a couple months ago. The feelings I felt for my (now) boyfriend after years of feeling nothing were coming back and made me feel like I could fight this. Now I feel like everything is ruined again. I miss how I used to feel about my man. I’m going crazy again I FUCKING HATE THIS. I used to be able to tune this out and enjoy my time with him but not anymore. This is consuming me again. The checking, rumination, mental reviewing, analyzing, reassurance, hyper awareness, the numbness, loss of attraction, the fucking debilitating anxiety IS DRIVING ME INSANE. I’m questioning everything I do and feel, even the good feelings I have with my boyfriend. I miss who i was 2 months ago even if it was still slightly controlled by ocd, I had hope. My posts when the spiral was barely started showed how much hope I had. Now i have lost it. I feel anxious and like a liar when I call, text, or am round him when it used to give me peace. I just reminisce thinking about our early dates and I feel like those feelings are fully lost. I don’t wish this type of pain on anyone.