Imagination is the limit

I don’t think much of this has to do with OCD and the subtypes that I struggle with: Harm OCD and religious OCD and Guilt OCD. Yesterday, I felt like a failure. I’ve been volunteering at my church to help families affected by some wild fires and I’ve been managing a lot of the logistics associated with it. I love this type of work and the people I work with. I consistently struggle with not giving my heart away so easily to the various interns or full time staff there. My affections were all over the place yesterday and thinking about how I looked or appeared toward one person in particular. I tried on four different occasions to remind myself and to refocus that she was an just like an older sister in my faith and to try and think of her as a literal sister as well, but it didn't really change how I was feeling. It was really cool at some points I felt very comfortable to talk briefly about my story. Told her about my wife and my son (we are currently separated and living in different states) and the battle I’ve had with OCD. Yet I could see that I was jealous for her attention. It was pretty much just us there yesterday. There was a guy named Jim and I felt like I was just irritated that he was there, because he was taking the attention from me. It wasn't all bad, we were able to help a lot of families, I made my son and awesome video, there were moments of relief when I recalled her as my sister and got to hear more about her testimony, in a way deeper conversations helped me see her more than just a crush or temptation. Idk. I've asked for forgiveness to the Lord and I know even though I feel guilty and upset at myself, that He is rooting me on. My wife and I have been going through an uncontested divorce, a lot of it has to do with OCD and this new diagnosis, but as you can see by what I’m struggling with there are other problems as well within me as I’m trying to be a faithful husband, a strong father, and a just good friend to the people in my life. For so long I went to relationships and the hope of one as a source of life, but when I got married I kept trying to find life in “what if I was with this person?” I’ve caused real hurt to my wife and struggling to stop the way I feel so easily when I’m around different people and love everyone how I am supposed to.

I have been doing very well managing my OCD over the past few months amidst the most amount of life changes I've had in years. However, today I had something catch me off guard that I just want to get off my chest. I'm getting ready to serve a mission for my church, and I've been spending a lot of time praying and getting closer to God. I've had a thought pop in my head few times that, sometime in my life, I'm going to experience divorce. I've been trying to treat it like any other OCD thought, but today when I was visiting my parents, my stepmom told me a story about when she was younger. She lost her little girl in a fire, and she said when she was young and before that happened, she heard a woman speak at church with her same name that had just lost her little girl, and she had a premonition and a really strong feeling that it would happen to her. She forgot about it, but years later, it did happen. During the story, I thought about my divorce thought, and it felt like it was from God and that it is going to happen. I got instant cold sweats and chills, and it's like my heart just dropped. It was suffocating. I'm worried that it was from God, and that divorce will happen in my life. This terrifies me, because my parents got divorced when I was a child, and most of my extended family members have been through divorces with the minority staying with their spouses. More than anything, I want to build a loving, nurturing family, so this is just really scary right now. I prayed to God about it, and He told me to trust Him. I'm trying to keep it together but I'm just so scared I want to cry.

So I recently met this girl and honestly she is amazing. She’s beautiful and her personality is perfect. She lives only 15 min away from me and I feel blessed to have a chance to get to know her, we both feel the same. But here comes OCD to ruin it. My OCD has latched onto a friend of mine. He’s a pretty close friend and we talk often. He’s never really one to let out a laugh so I always like to hear him laugh and just be able to have a good time. Partially it’s because I just don’t want to think I’m annoying and unfunny, I’m pretty self concious about myself. OCD is turning this into some sort of scary what if I like him question. I don’t have romantic feelings for my friend and I don’t actually want to be with a man. I am a straight male and getting to know this girl has been a blessing. OCD makes me feel in denial and as if I’m lying to myself. I hate this. It feels awful, when I haven’t felt this way about a girl in a long time