- Date posted
- 5y ago
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Well I’m not an OCD specialist or relationship therapist but ur relationship sounds very untrusting even without OCD being involved. He should understand why you don’t trust him and he should trust you. In a relationship that’s how it works. My boyfriend is out clubbing tonight and my OCD goes through the roof saying stuff like “what if he cheats on you and can’t remember” or “what if he finds another girl attractive” but I know that is OCD because I do trust him. You can tell the difference from OCD thoughts and just generally not trusting them anyway like I know he wouldn’t do anything and he loves me very much and understands my OCD thoughts and supports me. But I can’t help OCD thoughts popping up in my head, I don’t the thoughts but they stick in my head because OCD is evil and tries to take away the things you love the most.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I was forced to explain my OCD due to my thoughts getting so bad I couldn’t take it anymore. I was really crying and I tried to keep it a secret for a bit but it didn’t work. I didn’t say it was related to relationships but I have had the theme and all themes like (HOCD, ROCD, PureO) he responded by giving me a hug and basically said you need to get help and I will support you no matter what your thoughts say.
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Oh that must be so difficult :( how long have you been with him? Trust me our relationship isn’t perfect my OCD has tested our relationship many times!
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I’ve had similar experience except with trust issues with my boyfriend. I’ve caught him messaging another girl and after a huge debate I decided to give him another chance ... this was 4 months ago. I think that breach in trust exacerbated my OCD because now I’m always thinking, that if he doesn’t text me back right away, or I see him active on social media and not replied to be that he is talking to another girl ... this has put a lot of strain on our relationship where he’s getting fed up with me alway picking fights and saying “i know u fucked up, but if you want to be with me you have to trust me” and I’m really struggling with deciphering: is this OCD ? Or is this reality ? Any advice ?
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Wow, I just joined today after therapy but your original post is exactly what I have. I have exactly these thoughts and my head likes to mess with timelines too. I can't get it out of my head and it drives me mad. I am trying to do ERP to help and fortunately my bf is extremely supportive but it's really reassuring to find I am not the only one with these thoughts..
- Date posted
- 5y ago
How did u explain to your boyfriend that you have ocd ? Did you explain it’s related to relationships? How did he respond ?
Related posts
- Date posted
- 14w ago
Specifically how can my fiance best support me without offering reassurance? I'm trying to encourage myself to grow and keep trying ERP, but I'm not sure how I can include my partner in a healthy way. I plan on talking to my therapist about it soon, but I wanted to hear thoughts from people who have been dealing with it themselves.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 11w ago
December 14, 2024, marked two years since my first ERP therapy session with my NOCD therapist, Mixi. And October 2024 marked a year of being free from OCD. It was not an easy journey, confronting my fears face to face. Exposing myself to the images and thoughts my brain kept throwing at me, accepting that I might be the worst mother, that my daughter wouldn’t love me, and that I deserved to be considered a bad person. It was challenging having to say, “Yes, I am those things,” feeling the desire to run, but realizing the thoughts followed me. At the start of my therapy, I remember feeling like I couldn’t do this anymore. Life felt unbearable, and I felt so weak. I longed for a time before the OCD, before the flare-ups, before the anxiety, the daily panic attacks. I thought I’d never be myself again. But I now know that ERP saved my life. The first couple of sessions were tough. I wasn’t fully present. I lied to my therapist about what my actual thoughts were, fearing judgment. I pretended that the exposures were working, but when the sessions ended, I went back to not sleeping, constantly overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. But my therapist never judged me. She made me feel safe to be honest with her. She understood OCD and never faltered in supporting me, even when I admitted I had been lying and still continued my compulsions. My biggest milestone in therapy was being 100% transparent with my therapist. That was when real change began. At first, I started small—simply reading the words that terrified me: "bad mom," "hated," "unloved." Then, I worked on listening to those words while doing dishes—not completely stopping my rumination, but noticing it. Just 15 minutes, my therapist said. It wasn’t easy. At one point, I found myself thinking, “Will I ever feel like myself again?” But I kept pushing through. Slowly, I built tolerance and moved to face-to-face exposures—sitting alone with my daughter, leaning into the thought that my siblings might die, reading articles about my worst fears, and calling myself the things I feared. Each session was challenging, but with time, the thoughts started to lose their grip. By my eleventh session, I started to realize: OCD was here, and it wasn’t going away, but I could keep living my life despite it. I didn’t need to wait for it to be quiet or go away to move on. Slowly, it began to quiet down, and I started to feel like myself again. In fact, I am not my old self anymore—I’m a better version. OCD hasn’t completely disappeared, but it’s quieter now. Most of the time, it doesn’t speak, and when it does, I know how to handle it. The last session with my therapist was emotional. I cried because I was finishing therapy. I remember how, in the beginning, I cried because I thought it was just starting—because I was overwhelmed and terrified. But at the end, I cried because I was sad it was ending. It felt like I had come so far, and part of me wasn’t ready to say goodbye, even though I had already learned so much. It was a bittersweet moment, but I knew I was walking away stronger, equipped with the tools to handle OCD on my own. If I could change anything about my journey, it would be being open and honest from the beginning. It was the key to finding true healing. The transparency, the honesty—it opened the door to lasting change. I’m no longer that person who was stuck in constant panic. I’m someone who has fought and survived, and while OCD still appears from time to time, I know it doesn’t define me. I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments. Have you started therapy, is something holding you back? Is there something you want to know about ERP therapy? I'll be live in the app answering each and every one today from 6-7pm EST. Please drop them below!
- Date posted
- 8w ago
Hello all, I’ve dealt with various OCD themes and compulsions for pretty much as long as I can remember. In some periods of my life the thoughts and compulsions have been particularly severe, but I’ve also had years where I’m able to keep it under control. This has made me worry I don’t actually have OCD, especially because I haven’t been doing consistent therapy and my therapists have gone back and forth on whether I have OCD. In the past few years, I’ve struggled immensely with false memory ocd, and right now I’m going through probably the most severe episode of my life. I love my boyfriend with all my heart. A few times that I’ve gone out drinking I’ve had the thought before “what if I lost control and cheated tonight” and it’s bothered me severely. Two times before, it’s gotten to the point of convincing myself that because I talked to a man that meant I had cheated on my boyfriend and just couldn’t remember. It has never turned out to be true. About a month ago, I went out with friends and had too much to drink. I was really ashamed of myself the next morning, particularly because I always try to drink cautiously now that I know it can trigger my anxiety. I am ashamed to admit I do not remember the very end of the night getting in my uber and going home. I woke up anxious and extremely worried and immediately started off by worrying if I could have tried to kiss my friend and not remembered. I called him and was immediately reassured nothing had happened, I simply drank too much and went home at the end of the night. I started feeling better, but then remembered a moment I had been in the bathroom. I remembered chatting with people in line about how long the line was, and then being in the bathroom on my phone. I then felt like I remembered people knocking and saying to myself “that wasn’t that long” and leaving. There is nothing concrete that I remember that in any way indicates I cheated, and in fact I have texts with my boyfriend from the whole night telling him I loved him. My friend told me that the only time I was ever apart from him was about 5 minutes and that when he came back I was in the same exact spot he left me in. However, when I remembered being in the bathroom, I thought to myself “what if you cheated on him in the bathroom”/ “oh my god did you cheat on him in the bathroom” and then a series of images of me performing sexual acts popped into my head. I’ve poured over my memory and truly do not remember meeting anyone, talking to anyone, or even finding anyone attractive that night, but the fact that I was drinking makes me worried I’m just forgetting and these images could be real. I’ve been constantly ruminating on these fears for the past month, to the point that the only relief I feel is when I’m able to fall asleep. I’m a law student and it’s becoming extremely difficult to keep up with my classes. I’ve been google searching, asked chat gpt for advice, confessed my fears to my boyfriend, asked for reassurance from pretty much everyone in my life, and even emailed the bar asking for security footage (which I know all sounds insane). I’m a naturally guilty person and feel bad about small things, so I really don’t think I would be capable of cheating and then nonchalantly texting my boyfriend, but these images feel so real that it’s terrifying. I’ve also seen a lot about how I would “just know” and that begins to scare me because then I think “you do just know, you did it” even though I really don’t think I did. I know these posts are not supposed to be for reassurance seeking, I’m just so exhausted and feeling really depressed. I’m wondering if anyone has experienced something similar and has any advice. I’m also wondering if images can feel more real the more you ruminate on them or if it’s a sign of memory. Thank you so much for listening.
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