So, I anticipate my anxiety/intrusive thoughts. They tell me “you think about your ex, there has to be a reason for it.” And it really flip flops my stomach. I feel sick, sad, and guilty. The reality of the matter is that I don’t actually have thoughts about my ex, directly. I don’t long for her or think about her in that way. I have intrusive thoughts that just say, “You’re not over her, or you miss her.” And those thoughts bring me immense anxiety. I really don’t know how to get past this. I tried ERP but quite honestly, it scares me. I literally anticipate this though. I go to bed thinking, “I’m going to have anxiety over this when I wake up.” Our whole ride back from NY last night, I was having bad anxiety over it. My wife talked me through it and was extremely helpful. Unfortunately we were both exhausted and didn’t go to sleep until almost 3 in the morning. I had a dream about my ex last night, and in the dream it felt as if I cared for her. And I woke up this morning so extremely anxious, upset, and guilty. I gotta figure out a way to calm down, I just want to enjoy my life. I am so scared that I’m going to ruin something so important to me.

My ex boyfriend broke up with me last summer and it was really rough on me even thought we only dated for a little while. He treated me terribly but I guess I wanted it to work. However during the fall I was healing well and met my current boyfriend. I knew him as a kid and we reconnected and started dating. It’s the most WONDERFUL relationship ever and I love him so much. However for the past couple months, on and off, I have been obsessively thinking about my ex, to the point of feeling so sick to my stomach. Just the thought will do it. I have been stopping myself from checking his instagram because that just makes it worse. I do not want me ex back at all and I am so happy now. I recognize these thoughts as intrusive and hurtful. I just want them to stop and be in the moment. Has anyone had a similar experience? What did u do? Also, I want to tell my boyfriend about this but I am unsure on how to do so.

Hi. This is my first post here and it was recommended by my therapist to join and speak about this to get help and advice from others on top of therapy. For context sake, we are a wlw couple, I was raised in a purity doomsday cult, and I have been diagnosed with OCD since I was 14 and PTSD since I was 24. For about 4ish weeks now, I have been having horrible intrusive thoughts, daydreams, nightmares, and night terrors about my gf sleeping with or doing other sexual things with her exes. I just can't get it out of my head and it is breaking me. It feels like it was timed out of hell itself, because while I have been fighting this literally 3 of her exes have tried to contact her or get back with her. She tells me, without me asking at all, each time it happens so that way she doesnt feel like she isn't communicating about these things and to help my insecurities (I know I have them, I struggle with them often but don't use them as an excuse for anything). I know we are rock solid, we have been since we got together as we have been friends for 7 years before starting dating. But thats made this even harder. I know her exes, I met 3 of them and shook hands with one of them. I know the stories, I know the times she did things and "kiss and told" to me cause I was her bff. I know when she hooked up with people on dates. And all of that has exasperated this issue in me. It doesn't help that my last relationship (a marriage) ended cause of getting cheated on by my exwife with someone who I thought was a friend. So I keep getting thoughts along with these daydreams and nightmares like "does she really love me more than any ex that could try to contact her", "am I just a placeholder?", or "is it gonna happen again?" and things of that nature. Mind you, we are moving in together next year, so I know that those things arent true yet they still berate my head with scared paranoia. I will be minding my own business and then next thing you know my mind throws an image at me of her underneath one of the exes I know about or have met. It destroys me. I have broke down crying several times from it. It also gets worsened when she gets flirty comments on her tiktok. I just feel like I cant take any more. I am not sleeping, cant rest when I am awake, and feel like I cant even lean in and get comfort from the relationship without these thoughts flooding in and crushing me. She has been amazing through this and tries to help in any way she can, but idek where to start to handle this. Next week me and my therapist are gonna dig deeper into where this may be coming from (outside of OCD) and I hope we get answers through that. I just can't keep feeling like something that happened in the past and that I never witnessed is causing a rift between us emotionally, and will definitely affect the relationship even harder if I dont get this under control. Im so tired, I just want my peace of mind back. I just want to not think about the past and instead think about us. But it is like I am being haunted by her exes and other people wanting to get with her. Almost as if I am wondering just who its gonna take to approach her before I become the afterthought. I just want my happiness with my gf back. Thank you for reading this, I am not doing well and just needed to get this out there to both vent, cry, and get support.

I made a really stupid mistake over two years ago. I brushed it off and have just assumed everything was fine since. I even forgot about it. Recently, I saw a reel on my phone that triggered anxiety and ruminating about said mistake. Everyday when I wake up and fall asleep, it’s all I think about. I begun opening up to loved ones about the story and they all reassured me that everything’s fine, and that it’s really “not a big deal”. I’m still very much on edge, paranoid, and aware that it could come back to bite me in the ass. It’s consumed my mind so much to the point where I don’t enjoy the things I used to, it’s difficult keeping up with daily tasks, it has stripped me of my motivation and my relationships with other people due to isolation. I’m physically sick from worrying about the future, coming up with every worst possible case scenario and mentally living in that persona instead of what’s happening right now in front of me in the present.