Does this sound like codependency? I don’t know…

Hey everybody! My name’s Tori :) I pop on & off of here every few months. Well, here goes. Since I was younger, my mom & dad offered comfort, but I always pushed it away. Especially my dad. He was a therapist & I deeply resented therapy for the longest. I used to think it was stupid, the concept of “cry it out”. Like, the heck?? That doesn’t solve the problem. Until one day, on a movie, I saw the power of just accepting that some days are just hard. No matter how you try to fix it, you can’t, & it hit home for me. Suddenly, I noticed myself craving that “just hold me while I cry” type comfort a LOT. & then eventually, all the time. But mostly at the time from a male-significant other. Less so from my dad. Well, almost 9 years later, here I am with that same craving for comfort. Just, a LOT more prominent & hindering. To the point that it can be almost annoying the way I fiend for it. Sometimes I crave it from a sister figure (I am an only child which was recasting for me as a kid) but most times, I crave it from either a male figure or a male significant other. The WEIRD thing though, is that, after a person has been with me in that vulnerable state enough, I crave it from someone else. Normally men. Like I said. It’s really shameful & embarrassing for me, but since this is an anonymous peer community, I just wanted to come on here & see if literally anyone related & if so, what started this in your life/what do you do about it? It’s a big hindrance in my friendships, but especially my mentorships that involve almost like, older-brother-ish figures. Sometimes I am good at hiding it or it doesn’t pop up as much. But last night seeing my “brother figure” hug my friend & say nothing as she cried, made me feel DESPERATE for the same comfort, even if it wasn’t obviously visible. It’s like it hit a nerve in some way. He’s an attractive guy, but not my type at all & mouth older than me. Suddenly though, I was completely drawn to him. Lotta words, but can someone help me interpret this? Thank y’all so much if you read this far.

Relationship OCD

ROCDmensch

Date posted: 1y

Hey, you said that this is hindering you. In what ways, if I may ask? Craving comfort in others is not necessarily wrong or bad, is it?

bootscoot&bo...

Date posted: 1y

@ROCDmensch I just think about & fantasize about this world in my head where I am sad & certain people (in my life or influencers whose content mean a lot to me in some way) are there for me. & then I am disappointed in real life when I am not my favorite people’s favorite person.

bootscoot&bo...

Date posted: 1y

@ROCDmensch Basically for some unknown reason, I fantasize about being comforted all day every day sometimes. Some days are better than others with it. But, some days I live in this fantasy world the entire time. I also have DREADFULLY insecure attachments to the “brother figures” & men in my life especially, but sometimes the women too. I had trouble for the longest time distinguishing between, “Okay do they offer me a sense of safety, or do I have feelings for them?” One of which is married (talk about a moral scrupulosity nightmare). Like, these attachments are somewhere between being desperate to run to these people for comfort, while also running away from them in some ways too. & constantly feeling like my place in their life is threatened.

ROCDmensch

Date posted: 1y

@bootscootboogie Okay, I see. Have you ever heard of the concept of "lingering"?

ROCDmensch

Date posted: 1y

@ROCDmensch And also maladaptive daydreaming, which can become a compulsion yes.

bootscoot&bo...

Date posted: 1y

ALSO for context. My parents offered comfort to me most of my life until my OCD became unmanageable in high school. I started to feel super abandoned by them. But, this weird obsessive need for nurturing started in around middle school. K bye!

Tanza_night67

Date posted: 24w

Hypersexuality and or over sexualizing myself

In lack of better wording, Sometimes I really just feel like I don’t understand myself and I want to. So I can fix it. I’m looking in the mirror and I’m body dysmorphic, I want to see myself when I was younger and physically healthier but cant. I used to be on birthcontrol, and it made me gain 70lbs and I haven’t been able to feel the same about my body ever since then. Somehow since allowing my ex to semi control everything about our sexual relationship, I have developed a complexity of desired intimacy with myself constantly alone. Because I feel like I want to be in more control with how my sexual feelings affect me. I can’t get sexual gratification from my self sometimes even though, and then I turn to peopke. And then it turns to; I can’t be satisfied by anyone, and I haven’t had sex within a loving relationship for a long time. Because well I have been going through a lot recently. And most of the encounters sexually were in fact not in relationships, but I didn’t feel the satisfaction I was looking for and it just didn’t make sense. I have to have all the right emotions or else the moment gets ruined. If I don’t feel love for them, if I don’t think they are attractive, if I don’t like how they react to seeing my body, if I don’t like how they interact with me during the sexual encounters. And since this is so difficult I All together just don’t desire to have sex with anyone most times I feel mentally aroused. Speaking of just mentally aroused, it confuses me that my body will be physically aroused all the time and beg for satisfaction and it’s a cold burning sensation pleading for constant attention. I hate it. I can’t help but wonder why that exists when I haven’t been mentally aroused. But when it happens I can’t seem to satisfy it and neither can other people. And that somewhat altogether made a plethora of issues in my last relationship because my ex dealt with feelings of guilt and or resentment towards themselves for not being able to satisfy me.. and I would be crying from days on end recently in fact from trying MYSELF to release that feeling, but I’d try to the point my body grew sore. .. I hate it. Genuinely I feel disgusted and want to get help on how to stop this. It’s going to ruin the much healthier relationship I have now just gotten into down the line and I don’t think I can handle that. Not again.

issphra 🫶🏻

Date posted: 18w

(long post, I’m sorry) help please

I cannot tell if this is OCD assigning meaning where there is none, or if it is something else entirely. I have ADHD, and I tend to hyperfixate on people, specifically men I find interesting. It feels like a crush. Maybe it is a crush. I do not know. It does not matter. I daydream a lot. I have posted about this before, and the responses were helpful, but right now I am spiraling again. Lately, what I think is a dopamine-driven hyperfixation has latched onto my supervisor at work. I actively stop myself from ruminating too much about what it could mean. I remind myself they are just thoughts. I love my boyfriend and I am committed to him. But I have noticed that I sometimes *hope* something goes wrong with an order, just so I have a reason to talk to my supervisor, even if the interaction is only a few sentences. I do not even smile at him because I am so afraid of being disloyal or disrespectful to my boyfriend. The other day, my voice sounded nice, and I got scared that I did that on *purpose* because I was talking to my supervisor. I know how to make my voice sound smoother, and I worried that I subconsciously did it for him. I know people do that kind of thing to seem pleasant in general, but it feels wrong when it is tied to one specific person. There was another moment where I had to bend slightly, and I knew he was behind me, though I didn’t know he would walk in my direction. It turned into a kind of awkward traffic situation, and I started wondering if I *hoped* for that. I even caught myself thinking about whether he finds me attractive. I know that these thoughts might be in the normal range, but the fact that I think about him so much, daydreaming, hoping for interactions, mentally replaying things, feeling excitement, makes me feel incredibly guilty. Is that disrespectful to my boyfriend? I don’t think I’m flirting. But I feel like even hoping/looking for interactions or tweaking my voice counts as some kind of betrayal. I just don’t know. To me, it sounds like a mix of ADHD and OCD, It really does feel like chaos inside my head. I want to be honest with my boyfriend, but I know talking about this stuff makes his jealousy flare up, and understandably so I’m a jealous person myself. But if I don’t confess, it feels like I am hiding something and it feels *extra* disloyal. I know that daydreaming and a bit of excitement are normal, especially with ADHD and dopamine-seeking, but when I go out of my way for a few-sentence interaction, or crave eye contact, is that disloyal? I am not asking for reassurance. I genuinely want to understand if this is normal or if it crosses a line. I am scared that I am just making excuses for bad behavior. I am scared that this is not okay and I am doing it anyway. I wish I could ask my therapist about this, but I had to stop going recently. She always understood how my brain works, especially the difference between reassurance-seeking and genuinely wanting clarity. She was really good at helping me figure out whether something was common or explainable. It helped so much to just know if something was normal, even if knowing did not stop the rumination. That’s kind of what I am looking for now, just someone to tell me if this pattern makes sense or if it crosses a line. Please help :(

nae nae

Date posted: 18w

Feeling conflicted (long post)!

Early this morning, my mom and I had a really, really long discussion. We talked about a lot, but it eventually led to me. She said that because of her past relationships, which she feels like involved some sort of power struggle, sometimes if I hug her too often, she gets uncomfortable/anxious. For context, before my parents (mom or dad) go anywhere, I'll say goodbye, I love you, and give them a quick hug or two. Even if I'm just going upstairs or walking away from a conversation! I've done this since I was little. It might've been a compulsion back then, but it's just habit now. But a couple of months ago, when I was in a really dark place due to OCD, I'd give my mom really long hugs because I just wanted comfort during that point in time. Unfortunately, it ended up stressing my mom out, and she pushed me away once and said it was weird or uncomfortable when I hugged her because it didn't feel genuine. That really hurt to be rejected like that, and then later, my sister told me my mom complained about me in the car about how it felt like I was draining the energy from her and annoying. Which... That hurt, too. But I mainly felt guilt because that wasn't my intention at all, and I've since tried my best not to hug her as often. So when she brought it up again today, she said she feels like she's experiencing a power struggle with me and that when I was younger, she said she felt like everything had to be on my terms. The context behind that is due to me being a really anxious child (and baby). I'd wake her up because I'd get really bad anxiety at night and panic, and she said it was really exhausting and that she's never known what to do with me. Then she went on to tell me really private details about my father and hers marriage (they've been divorced since I was little), and how that's affected her, and I just felt really uncomfortable. Like I want to be respect her boundaries, and I don't want to make her uncomfortable, but... I don't know what to do with all of this...? I didn't need to know those details about her and my father, and I feel really disgusting inside. And also guilty because my dad doesn't know that I know any of these things now, and I'm overwhelmed. I talked to my dad and his girlfriend about it, and I just started crying. I just feel so... Ugh :( They both comforted me, and my dad said that my mom's always struggled with physical affection and that I shouldn't take it personally. But it hurts to be rejected by a parent like that. I've tried the best I can to be understanding and supportive with her, but it just felt like she's seen me as a burden or something unfixable. If you read this far, thank you so much. I'm just really struggling to process this. I felt better after talking with my dad, but once he went to bed and I went back to my room, I just broke down.

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Does this sound like codependency? I don’t know…

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