- Date posted
- 30w
ROCD thoughts+constant rumination
HELP! Relationship ruminating worries Hi all. I am diagnosed anxiety, depression, ADHD, and recent in the last year PTSD. No OCD diagnosis, yet I’m having rumination struggles that have caused me to join this app seeking maybe some help or tips. I’m 20 and in my first ever committed relationship, we’ve been seeing each other about 5 months, and dating about 2-3. I’m in a huuuuge anxiety episode right now. And all day I ruminate about how to find relief in my own mind. However, recently my rumination has latched on/moved towards questioning thoughts that I’ve never had before about my relationship. I’ll be sitting normally, and ‘remember’ that the ruminating thoughts exist from a pang of anxiety, and then start thinking them again, with the goal of ‘figuring out’ how I feel about him. It feels urgent that I figure it out, and it makes me feel like I’ve lost everything I know about love to be true about our good relationship. I love my boyfriend, and it’s been a very positive, nice first relationship experience so far. Whenever I am with him in person, I have never had any of these thoughts. Another variable that has potentially changed this thinking for me is that we have been apart nearly a month for the first time, since I am on holiday with family. However, it’s been tolerable, I miss him, but a normal amount. The thoughts are things like, “am I making the right decision to be in a relationship?” “Is he really the one that I want to be committed to?” “Is this how a relationship is supposed to feel, is it right for me?” “I don’t think I want this long LONG term, isn’t that bad? Aren’t I making the wrong decision, then?” “Is what I feel truly love? Is this idea of ‘love’ truly strong like it might be with another person who is ‘better’ for me?” “Have I been zoning out this whole time, and made a decision of commitment that is totally not my style and not my thing?” I don’t really believe that most of these are true. I chose this relationship at the time based off of true gut and heart feeling. I love my partner. But when I’m worrying, they start to feel potentially true. I ruminate for hours and days trying to figure out and come to a better mental feeling about it. Trying to answer all of these questions has proved useless- I never feel better after spiraling into thought. However, when I think about these questions, I start to believe that they really might be true, and for some reason that scares me a lot. My main fear that Comes from this process is that I may really truly feel this way, and just not clearly know it yet. Just wondering if anyone else has had these thoughts. I told my partner about them but it didn’t help too much, he just told me I have nothing to worry about and that he loves me a lot, he has no mental health issues and doesn’t really understand my severe ruminating anxiety yet. I start therapy again in about a week and a half, so I will bring this up to them next session, but I have been a worried wreck. Let me know if you have any pointers/similar experience.