Ocd and dreams

I’ve had really bad ROCD for over a year since I started dating my boyfriend. It manifests in a lot of ways but the main one is specific intrusive images about his past. It’s the worst part. I’ve been trying so so so hard to get over it for the past 15 months or so, but this morning just before I woke up laying next to him I had a dream specifically about those things from his past that I hate so much. I’ve made so much progress and I had to wait until he walked out the door for work before I could start crying. I hate what OCD has taken from me in terms of not just my own life, but the small moments it steals from my relationship too. I could go on and on about what it’s done to me in terms of my relationship, but I guess my main question is what do you do when you’ve been making really really good progress about a specific theme and then it shows up in your subconscious; you feel like you lost that progress and fear you may never get past it. Id almost go as far as to say it was one I got past, or it only bothered me once or twice a month. Now it’s at the forefront of my brain again after over a year of working on it. I just signed a lease with him at our transfer college. I suppose the anxiety spike is in part due to discomfort in the uncertainty in this commitment, but the ITs related to him are The only OCD theme I’ve ever had that’s lasted more than a few months. I don’t know what to do here. I don’t even know if it’s OCD or if it truly just bugs me as a person. I want to be able to heal from things without having to hope they don’t show up in my dreams. I’m not sure how to proceed going forward. How to prevent it or learn to get past it. I don’t want to have to put in another years worth of effort just to be content again

Elizabeth A.

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y

I have relationship OCD and have intrusive thoughts about my husband. We have a long complicated past and I'm unsure if it stems from that but it seems to add to it. I have dreams about him cheating on me, leaving me, telling me he was never attracted to me, etc. They're very painful dreams. I feel a lot of anxiety when I wake up from them and it's often hard to get them out of my mind. My NOCD therapist had me work on a script wherein the worst case scenario occurred ie I caught him in the act of cheating. It was very hard to do but helped tremendously and the ITs come much less now. Something that's also helped is working on myself. Putting time and self care into myself has made me less focused on him or the relationship. If the dreams are very regular and intrusive you can do things before you go to sleep like journaling, ERP messaging or playing the dream through your mind with a good ending. I read about something called nightmare rehearsal therapy that sounds interesting. Don't be hard on yourself it's a journey and my ITs surrounding my relationship have had times where it came back and then got better. Also, any stressful situation especially where you're committing to something together can definitely increase negative thoughts/feelings. Hang in there

Anonymous2212

Date posted: 20w

False Memory/ ROCD

I am diagnosed with OCD, ADHD, and mild depression. But my OCD symptoms are so prominent in my daily life where it feels debilitating. It comes in waves, there will be months with very minor symptoms and other times where it comes in random hitting me like a truck making me rethink life. I grew up having intrusive thoughts of all types, and a lot of them sent me over the edge because I couldn’t understand why things of such sort would cross my mind, things that I’m sure to this day that I’m incapable of or would never want to actually do. Yet I find myself in a constant cycle of trying to dig deep in the past and trying to figure out if I ever acted on any of the intrusive thoughts I can remember, yet ofc have no recollection of acting on them because they most likely didn’t happen. However, not having concrete proof of these things makes me not want to see another day sometimes. It is so hard to move into daily basis like this. I’m also in a happy healthy relationship and sometimes I get these thoughts of “what if I’ve done something awful during the relationship (for example, cheat, dishonesty, etc.) and can’t remember?” I know I would never do anything intentionally to harm my relationship and I think that maybe the idea of not having my partner sends me down a rabbit hole to think all these things. This mental fight is getting harder and harder. It feels unbearable. Does anyone have some fruit for thought, relate, or have any tips?

Anonymous

Date posted: 14w

A couple questions about rocd

I hate myself a lot and don’t understand. I do so well for a few days then spiral and feel so awful bc it feels true. The BIGGEST and WORST trigger and theme has been my brother old friend ish who I had a crush on yrs ago. Since my ocd returned once I got in a relationship (after many yrs of being hidden) this theme is the most brutal. For some background I had a crush on my current boyfriend last year in February til May and we were friends then we started talking officially in end of May then dating in 2 week of June. I was obsessed w him 100%. The one time I even saw this old crush and the mall and my 1 friend and I followed him bc like old crush yk and I literally like stopped caring like idk how to explain it bc it was a while ago, but it didn’t matter to me. I eventually walked away and then later used that as an excuse to talk to my biggest crush (my current bf). Since we began dating, my ocd has been brutal. My little brother mentioned the old crush the one day saying “you still love him ur lying to urself rn by being w ur bf” and then it sent my mind on its first loop ab that guy. Since then, it’ll return getting worse and worse. (Sometimes I actually don’t care and it won’t feel as tru and ik it’s fake, but others it’s terrible) I hate it. And I feel so awful like I needa check to make sure I don’t like him. Yet logically why would I check my feelings. Ik I love my man bc everything ab him I love and he’s my comfort and best friend. But I get so stuck up in the confusion of all the thoughts ab this other guy and all I have wanted for the 10 months I’ve been dating my man is to go back to normal. Back to myself. The one who was head over heels obsessed w my man and completely forgetting ab the other ppl. But my brain says I can’t bc a part of me will always want the other guy or some other lame bs excuse and it hurts me so much and my man sometimes too. I’m considering medication but will it truly work? Will it make my thoughts go away? I hate how real/ true they feel I feel like a cheater or like I am lying to my man. I feel like rn when I say I love him, that I’m a liar😖for the past 3 days I was better. I gave it up and let God help me, but last night into today I’m lost. Are we sure ocd attacks wuts most important to us? Bc why is it so persistent and evil

ellij

Date posted: 10w

ROCD flare up

Lately my ROCD has been flaring up, making it difficult to even be around my partner. I’m having so many troubling thoughts with the one that bugs me most being, “maybe this isn’t my OCD, maybe I’m just in a bad relationship and I’m trying to cover it up and blame it on OCD”. This thought really scares me because there are valid doubts in my relationship but my boyfriend and I have openly talked about them and are trying to work through. My OCD won’t take that as an option tho. It makes me feel like I need to be 100% certain that these things can NEVER happen again or else we need to break up immediately. So anything he says in that moment about trying to do better, my OCD will not trust anything he says and just wait until the next “bad thing” happens. When I continuously bring these things up to my boyfriend even tho nothing has happened between these conversations, it exhausts him making it feel like he can never do enough. I feel so bad because I know it’s just my OCD getting in the way. But then that thought creeps in saying I can’t trust him because I need to protect myself. It’s just an ongoing cycle that is so tiring. I don’t even know what I want anymore. We are very opposite when it comes to emotions. I am very in tune and very emotionally intelligent, and he is not. He is the opposite. I do recognize that my anxious attachment style may be hard for him too but I can’t stop thinking about all of his flaws and all of the things he needs to do to make our relationship better. It makes me feel like I’m the only one putting in effort when in reality that is not true. But my OCD does make me feel like he doesn’t really love me or want to be with me and that he feels forced to be with me or do things for me. It makes me feel like him being with me is like a chore. Can anyone relate? My OCD just makes me feel like I can’t trust anything he says to make our relationship better.

Relationship OCD

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Ocd and dreams

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