I just told my son in law how much it hurts me when he treats my daughter badly. I made sure I said it hurts me. Now I am worried I may have done it wrong. I go over and over conversations in my mind wanting reassurance . Realizing reassurance feeling is temporary and I am feeding my OCD. Is that what Exposure and Response Prevention is about?

I’ve heard it’s not good to seek reassurance or give it because it lowers your tolerance to uncertainty. But how do I avoid seeking reassurance when my thoughts and doubts are so bad, I genuinely just don’t know anymore if I’m a bad person or if it’s just OCD? I know I’m supposed to sit with the uncertainty, but how can I do that when the uncertainty has me unable to trust my own brain? Especially when the OCD is real event and POCD? How can I not seek reassurance when I feel so alone and so abnormal and just don’t wanna feel that way anymore? In turn, I see so many people on here struggling so bad and my heart breaks for them. How can I give advice to towers without giving them reassurance and hurting them in the long run?

I’m just realizing I have OCD. I have been diagnosed with adhd, autism and CPTSD but OCD never occurred to me until recently. My OCD manifests internally (pure O) then I seek reassurance for whatever topic I’m fixating on so of course I chalked it up to anxiety but it’s so much more than that. And I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. Now it’s really messing with my life. Lately, it’s been ROCD that’s been ruining me. I had a couple deep wounds created by my husband a few years ago and I’m constantly fixating on if he’s lying, really loves me, and or he wants to leave me. I’m constantly asking for reassurance and I think he’s getting tired of it. He’s an otherwise great partner but the OCD has really kicked in after I found out he was hiding a porn addiction, he hid it twice and it really ruined my self esteem and trust in him. Now I get triggered by every pretty girl I see, every social media post about relationships, I fixate on how unattractive he might find me or what’s wrong with me. I’m also aging in my thirties so I obsess over if he is getting less attracted as I age . I feel pathetic. Of course he always tells me I’m beautiful and he loves me but I’m always suspicious that he’s not being honest. I’ve always had OCD but this is the worst I’ve been with my relationship. I’m melting down and doubting us often and especially at night. It’s been a few years now and I feel like it’s gotten so hard. When I was younger it was health OCD, then it was existential, and I definitely fixate on if I’m “good” morally too. I’ll confess and overshare to people all my mistakes. And on top of the ROCD, I have pure OCD and get the worst images and intrusive thoughts at work/ random places and it’s horrible because I work with vulnerable people. My biggest nightmare and fear is pedophilia or assault, and I care deeply about my kids and vulnerable people so it’s like my mind hates me and these horrible images and thoughts fly at me l. I would never ever harm my kids or vulnerable people so this is especially disturbing and mortifying. I learned that OCD is ego dystonic and that’s helped but the images still make me feel awful. I also have been the scapegoat and black sheep in my narcissistic abusive family so I will my OCD will fixate on if I AM the narcissist! It’s exhausting. It got worse after I encountered my abuser in my family earlier this year and he brought up a lot of trauma. He is actually a narcissist but my brain will try to convince me that I am, and I will give in to the compulsion then do quizzes and tests and of course they tell me I’m not a narcissist, but then my OCD will make me think I am. I’m very empathetic and terrified of hurting people yet my brain tries to convince me I’m horrible, then the reassurance seeking and anxiety that manifests from my OCD and trauma makes me feel so self absorbed and sick of myself, convincing me I’m narcissistic for thinking of myself so much. I’m so exhausted by this. My brain tortures me. The overthinking is hard to combat. I really try hard to accept these thoughts as just thoughts but there’s always that voice creeping in that maybe the intrusive thoughts are right. Maybe I’m terrible and unlovable. I hate it.

One place where my OCD tends to crop up is around contamination (ie ways that I believe I am endangering my family, whether exposing them to danger or whether I am the danger myself). But sometimes I feel that my fears are totally justified and that ERP is just trying to gaslight my brain into forgetting my responsibility to keep them safe. I don’t really believe in ERP right now and I don’t see why I should. Truthfully, I’ve never seen why I should. I don’t want to be calm. At least, that’s not my priority. I want my family to be safe, and if they’re not, then why should I be calm about that? Being at peace should be a by-product of having done my best to protect them. Maybe I can “live with” the possibility of something external happening if I’ve done what I can to protect them, but if I’m not doing that, then I have no right to be at peace. Does anyone else feel this way, and how do you answer yourself? I’m feeling angry and disillusioned about what ERP is trying to accomplish. I’m feeling like it’s setting up a false peace in my mind that doesn’t match the truth that my fear is trying to make me understand. I have heard my therapist say that I need to work the process if I want it to work, but I am not even sold on whether the promised result is worth pursuing. Please help if you can.