Confession compulsion tips?

Oh man I am right there with you, mine started in 4tb grade right when I hit puberty. I felt I had to confess any intrusive thought to my parents and if I didn't, I got this sick feeling in my stomach like I was going to throw up. I would then pace back and forth frantically until I said something. I went to therapy then but as a 4th grader didn't know why, and the Dr didn't ever bring up OCD. So I just assumed those feelings were wrong and started bottling them. I can tell you for sure that is not the correct way to deal with it, as I got older, I seemed to feel emotion less and less and I got scared I was becoming psychopathic or something. Eventually some of the decisions I made during college came back and shook my entire life, and that ended up with me back in therapy, where my therapist ended up telling me I had OCD. We read some books together that had some interviews with other people with OCD and it was like they were reading how my mind thought. The problem was, now the confession compulsion came back, and it's focused in on having to share them with my wife, who is very understanding of my condition. From there, I still can't exactly fight the compulsion when it gets to that point, but if I can tell that my mind had an intrusive thought that I can tell is going to bring me to that point again, I try and ground myself in the moment, basically distracting my mind. If I am driving, I will focus in on the wheels of the cars around me, try and describe their look and motion, etc. I still fail a lot and have to confess, but then I will try and do things where I generify the though when confessing it to try and take some of the power away from it. After enough of that, I tended to start noticing patterns of some of my intrusive thoughts, which, when that happens I was able to just recall the conversation I already had confessing it, replaying that conversation in my mind and knowing that it is all OK. Overall though, I still don't know or think this is the correct way to deal with it. I highly suggest finding a therapist who specializes in OCD as I am definitely not that.

I'm proud of you sharing so openly. I have been in the same situation! Exact same. I told my ex I had sm with this guy once, and forgot about that it was 3 times. I felt like confessing too, and as he was a narcissist, he felt entitled to all the information before him, and I as I confessed I moved far away from my right to keep Everything I did in my past personal and treat it as sm I WANT to, but don't NEED to share. You were not committed to him so there is no confession needed. It doesn't matter if it is one or two times. In terms of relationship ocd, my partner always says :if you feel like confessing, ask urself if you would want me to confess for that too. If not, resist the compulsion and sit w the guilt. The moment you follow ur compulsion (searching reassurance thru confession) you give reaction and interaction to the false identity ocd is projecting on you. You are not a liar if you don't feel comfortable sharing personal info that happened before your partner. If it ever comes up tell him that you didn't intend to lie, just that you didn't feel comfortable adding unnecessary detail as you wouldn't want that much detail of his stories either. Working on your boundaries, what YOU would expect from others, helps you get rid of the ocd. Don't follow compulsions like that as you are stealing yourself of the right of your personal information. I belive in you a 1000 percent, you are a good partner without engaging in ocd and you can tackle it with resisting to give it what it wants!

I never delt with it really. I got a pacemaker for deep brain stimulation, as my OCD got diagnosed as treatment resistant and most of my physical compulsions (checking) got down from sometimes hours to a few minutes. I also stopped feeling the need to confess...

What is the confession related to? Harm ocd or relationship ocd?