ROCD (any advice?)

I don’t have any recommendation for apps, per se, but I really recommend getting treatment with a therapist here from NOCD if you can afford it. My ROCD was debilitating a few months ago, and I still have good and bad days, I still have issues I can work on but I can actually live my life and go about my day with relative ease and some background anxiety (nothing like before though). What helped me: - Educating myself about ROCD (On YouTube: Awaken Into Love, You Love and You Learn, Ali Greymond, Healing Embodied, and Danielle Thorton, and SOME videos by OCD Recovery - specifically the ones about ROCD. I warn you that I definitely had my fair share of compulsive watching after I got all the info I could get about it and after cutting myself off, I feel a lot better and actually educated. - Getting treatment from an OCD specialist (here on NOCD), who taught me ERP and strategies to combat anxiety. - Having a routine to my day and refocusing rumination into tasks I need to do to stay functioning in my day to day (make your bed, brush teeth, skin care, laundry, cleaning the house, going to work, keeping up with friends and family even when you don’t feel like it. - Focusing on my relationship but not making it my entire life and remember I’m still a worthy person both inside a relationship and outside of one. -Getting comfortable with the idea that maybe my partner isn’t the “right” one, whatever that means, and coming to terms with the fact that there may be a better partner for me, but there’s no way for me to imperially measure that, and each person comes with their pros and cons. -I gave up trying to figure out if something is ROCD or not, because there’s no way for you to know, and becoming used to that confusion and uncertainty wasn’t easy but over time, but it became more natural and comfortable. I became comfortable with the idea that love is a choice, not always a feeling, and to stop chasing that feeling of love and wondering where it is. Once I stopped doing that, I was actually able to feel it much of the time. With your friends and family, you’re not always focusing on how you love them, most of the time you’re pretty neutral, same thing goes with relationships. -Realizing that “if you know, you know” and “if it’s not a f*ck yes, it’s a no” or all these other black and white statements of love are not the way most people actually feel about their relationships and that most of your fears and concerns are probably present in the minds of people with no ROCD/Relationship Anxiety, however, they don’t obsess over them. If it’s severe enough concern, they make a choice and take action but aren’t racked with concern for hours, days, weeks, months, and years like people with ROCD. Most of the time, if your feelings and thoughts feel incredibly urgent and your emotions are swelling, it may be ROCD (or not 😉, I wink because we have to live with uncertainty). However, there may come a time that you feel extremely numb or even apathetic, emotionless to the thought of breaking up, and that’s ok too, it doesn’t mean you have to make a decision or choice and it doesn’t mean you’ve arrived at an answer. Ultimately, as long as your partner isn’t abusive, violent, and blatantly mistreating you, the decision to break up will fall in this very gray area, and there isn’t really a right or wrong choice. That’s the part you have to become comfortable with. - I stopped asking for “advice” (really it was a compulsion to get external reassurance and certainty) from friends and family about my relationship. They’re not in your relationship, you are. You get the choice, and that’s a beautiful thing. - I realized my thoughts and actions do not have to be connected, you can always choose to act on your values, which you also get to decide. There’s a lot more that I’ve done but these were the big ones that I really recommend doing for the time being. Hang in there and hold on to hope that you can and will live with this and live in a satisfying, loving relationship, given you actually put in the work and change your perspective on things while remaining patient that your brain can and will rewire.

@ironmike, you sound a lot like me! I tend to think that by watching videos or asking for advice, something might just “click” and I’ll suddenly know how to do what I’m wanting to do. That happens with me when I ask for advice, or watch videos, or Google looking for answers to things (not just relationships) and while doing that a little bit is fine, (especially when you know absolutely nothing about a subject), we can trick our brains into thinking we’ve done enough simply by educating. I do this with compulsively looking up mental health advice/podcasts, workout advice, etc etc and I have to kindly remind myself that simply watching something won’t actually make me do it, and understanding that work is required. Same goes with therapy, if you decide to get treatment, just showing up to sessions won’t help you in a meaningful way. I’m sure even my post can feel like a bit of a letdown because maybe you have a subconscious belief that someone out there can solve things for you if they just say it a certain way. That’s the case with me when I compulsively look for help. The thing that helps me, is reminding myself that I will never feel perfectly ready to start something and just taking a step, even if it’s “wrong” (again, no such thing), it’s still a step. You can hoard all the advice you want but it won’t get you there on its own. If you don’t mind me asking, do you have any plans for how to start treatment?

All good! I understand. Well, the one thing I can comment on is that the only person who is gonna get you out of this slump is you. People and resources can help but being responsible for your own recovery is as important as you want to make it. There’s no need to be suffering without a reason. I think it’s helpful to see things that you’ve been dealt, be it a mental health disorder, a disability, unfortunate events, etc, and give them meaning. I don’t enjoy having this anxiety disorder, but I believe that learning how to recovery has definitely given me some amazing insights I might not have gotten otherwise. Do you or your parents have any sort of insurance that is compatible with NOCD? It might require a little bit of research on your end but having a therapist that can help you can really bring new insights and help you make a plan. Is that something that interests you?