can anyone please tell me their experiences with rocd. i love my boyfriend more than i’ve ever loved anytbing to be honest, yet my brain doesn’t understand what i’m telling myself and i spiral into thoughts about maybe you just don’t love him or maybe this relationship isn’t right
Me too, I spiral into thoughts of do I love him? Does he love me? Am I good enough for him? Do I need to tell him all my thoughts? Do I need to tell him something I did in my past that literally has nothing to do with our relationship? Have I cheated on him? Am I attracted enough to him or him to me? Are we gonna break up? What if he's out cheating on me? What if I would be happier with someone else? What if he'd prefer someone else? What if he loves me more than I love him or vice versa? Am I just leading him on and if so I should break up with him RIGHT NOW? I question every situation im in with another person in case I flirted or did something cheaty, I stress about what I say to him or about him to others incase it was actually mean to say. I overthink everything, even thoughts I had 3 years ago I'll spiral into months of stressing about. I have had false memories. I'll overthink how I feel when I'm around him and stress in case I get intrusive thoughts.
But ERP has helped me so much and I'm in a completely different place now than I was a year ago
It can get better if you work on it
@Soupy could i ask you how you did erp for these thoughts? i live in canada and where i live there isn’t many options for ocd specialists around. im hoping NOCD works but other than that, do you have any tips or recommendations?
So I started by saying or writing, for example, 'maybe I don't love him' over and over again. Then I started recording looptapes (on the therapy section) of me saying the thought. I also write fear scripts (a scenario that you write as if it actually happened, for example, I wrote about my therapist telling me that my thoughts weren't OCD, I needed to break up with him because I'm a horrible person) and read it over and over. You can also edit them or rewrite them if they start making you less anxious. I looked at photos of people I stressed about finding attractive or photos of my boyfriend. l found blog posts of people writing that you should break up with your boyfriend if you have these thoughts and read them over and over. This by itself isn't ERP, you also need to not ruminate, check, try and figure your thoughts out, confess, avoid, or whatever your compulsions are as you do this. I try and do this kind of ERP everyday but also in the moment of when the thoughts pop in my head I dont ask for reassurance. I tend to compulsively either google questions or ask my boyfriend questions or confess to him. Instead I just think 'yeah maybe that thought is true, I don't know, maybe I never will' and then either do the ERP exercises I mentioned above or do something else. Don't avoid the thought. Accept it and move on. It doesn't matter what the content of your thoughts is, it's all OCD. Also don't avoid situations, I stress that if I sit next to a guy or talk to one I'll have cheated so I don't avoid doing that and I don't confess it to my boyfriend. You'll do this in therapy but make a hierarchy of your thoughts (starting with what makes you least to most anxious) some of mine I couldn't even say or write down at the start but as you work up these, doing ERP on each, it got better. The app is really good for setting your ERP exercises up as you can add links to pages, add photos, looptapes, fear scripts etc.
Also watch videos on OCD, listen to audio books on it, just educate yourself on it
Ive been listening to 'brain lock' and a podcast called 'the OCD stories' has a good one on rocd
I also realised I check my phone a lot or want to read his messages straight away because I stress that he's messaged telling me we're breaking up so I try to not open them for a while
I don’t understand how my boyfriend can love me so much after everything I put him through. He constantly shows me how much he loves me, yet I feel like I can’t fully appreciate it. I can’t explain how badly I behave towards him when these thoughts take over, how often I lash out because of them, and how many times I’ve told him exactly what’s on my mind. He tries to use logic to help me, but it never seems to work. And now, even as I’m writing this, I feel like crying—yet at the same time, my mind tells me that I don’t care. This horrible feeling inside me won’t go away. I keep thinking, “What if I don’t like him?” That thought is always there. I wonder if I had unrealistic expectations about this relationship from the beginning, since he is my first boyfriend. What if I convinced myself I liked him just because I wanted my first relationship to be perfect? And now, I just can’t accept the truth? It scares me even more knowing that he moved to my city for me. I feel like I’m constantly upset, constantly sad. And despite everything, he’s always there for me. That makes me feel even worse because I don’t know what to do to feel okay again. Every time I talk to him, I get this strange feeling inside me, and I’m terrified that it means my thoughts are actually true. He tells me that my happiness shouldn’t depend only on him, that I should focus on more than just this relationship—because for over a year now, my mind has been stuck in an endless loop of questioning whether I love him or not. He asks me, “Who are you fighting? Why do you care so much? You’ve been asking yourself the same question for over a year—shouldn’t you know the answer by now?” And my response is always, “Because I want to be with you.” But then, when I try to answer whether I like him or not, more doubts take over. I start thinking, “Maybe I just can’t accept that I don’t love him. Maybe I just want to keep this relationship perfect.” The worst part is that he has never done anything wrong. He has always been patient, kind, and loving, yet I feel so lost. I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t understand what I feel. And I don’t understand why I can’t understand what I feel. He also tells me that ever since I started reading so much about relationships and OCD online, I have gotten worse. And he’s right. I have become much worse than I was before. The problem is that before, I thought I was at my worst, but looking back, I was still able to feel happiness at times. Now, I feel completely stuck. I don’t know if I’m crying because I hate this feeling, or because I don’t want to think this way about him. It feels like I don’t even know what’s happening to me anymore.
I just saw my boyfriend, and even though everything was okay on the outside, inside my mind it was a storm. I kept having thoughts like: “You don’t like him.” “You’re not feeling anything.” “You’re pretending.” “You don’t care.” And then, he said something sweet — something that should’ve made me feel happy: “We should marry.” And instead of warmth, I felt anxiety. A pit in my stomach. A voice in my head saying: “You don’t want that.” “You’ll never stay with him.” “If you really loved him, you’d feel joy.” And I hate it. I hate that I’m in this state. I don’t feel connected. I don’t feel clarity. I don’t even know what I feel anymore. I just feel… numb. And the worst part? It feels like I don’t even care. But I know I do. Somewhere, beneath all the noise and panic and obsessive thoughts, I care. I want to feel close to him. I want to stop second-guessing every word, every touch, every thought. This is ROCD. It makes me question everything. It makes me feel like I’m lying — even when I’m not. It steals the moments that should feel warm and turns them into confusion. If anyone else feels this awful mix of numbness, fear, and guilt — please tell me I’m not alone.
I believe I have ROCD — at least, that’s what many people here have told me based on what I’ve shared — and I really need help, because I feel like I’m falling apart. I don’t know what I feel anymore. I don’t know what’s real. My thoughts come as loud, cold statements — not questions. They say things like: “Nothing is the same.” “You don’t love him.” “You’re just staying because you’re used to him.” And even though I know I’m supposed to let the thoughts pass and not engage with them — I can’t. I get stuck in them. I try to find answers, I ruminate, I check, I cry, I panic. Everyone says “love isn’t just a feeling” — and I know that. But… I still want to feel something. I want to feel warmth, or connection, or even just peace. It’s been so long since I felt anything like that. Now everything just feels empty or terrifying or cold. My brain only gives me negative interpretations. No memory brings me comfort anymore. Nothing feels like it used to. And the worst part is — it all feels true. Sometimes I think: “What if I’m just denying the truth?” “What if I’ve finally realized that I don’t love him, and I just don’t want to admit it?” This feels like the worst version of myself. I’m so confused and scared and tired. Even therapy didn’t help — my therapist said things that made it worse, and now I don’t know who or what to believe anymore. I just want help. I want to know how to face ROCD — if that’s what this really is. I want to believe I can feel love again. I don’t want to lose myself in this forever. Has anyone else felt like this? How did you start to get better? i cant even remember past good memories with him, my head tells me that i didnt love him and i was just “excited “ to have someone. We have 2 years together and i have been dealing with this for a year and a half.
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