feels real

Best thing is to stop trying to get rid of them. we don't control out thoughts, the average person has about 60,000 thoughts a day. The only thing we can control is which thoughts we want to pay attention to and which ones we can throw in the trash. OCD makes this hard cuz it makes you attach meaning to feelings. i good way to know if something is OCD is when you say " i just FEEL ...." you say it 3 times in your post that you FEEL this or that, but when you say you love your bf, you didn't say " i feel like i love him" you say " i love him" that's your logical brain still poking thru the holes of OCD. remind yourself feelings are not facts, and when you feel something that doesn't line up with how you THINK you should feel " why do i feel like i don't love my bf when i know i do" that's called ego-dystonic thinking and its a flawed thought process. OCD causes this and is one of, if not its main characteristic that makes it so distressing. you just have to remind yourself you have OCD, that's why you're paying too much attention to these junk thoughts and you have to choose to carry on despite them, train your brain to re-direct, re-focus, choose what to pay attention DESPITE the anxiety and in time, the anxiety will loose its power.

@TexasOCD41 so i just sit with the that, the thoughts the feelings and do nothing??? even if it feels real and it makes me feel horible???

@Mariabae - yep. its called ERP. Exposure and Response Prevention. OCD is a cycle. you have the intrusive unwanted thought (1) you feel immense distress and discomfort (2) you seek relief and do a compulsion to get it (3) you get relief... temporarily, until the thought returns again ( back to (1) and it continues to go around and around and each cycle just makes it stronger. ERP is the tool where you cut it off at (2) you "expose" yourself to that discomfort and you "Prevent the Response" which would be a compulsion ( using Chat GPT, talking to your bf about it, posting on here to get reassurance). It will bring SIGNIFICANT discomfort at first. This is where you would use calming techniques that are NOT compulsive, like breathing techniques, grounding yourself, REMINDING yourself " yea it sucks but its just ocd it might FEEL real but that doesn't mean it IS real" and by doing this over and over, you eventually break the cycle. i had ROCD right at the beginning of my relationship. i even tried to break up with my boyfriend i was so distressed. i missed work, i lost 15 lbs, i was a WRECK, but i listend to my therapist and did as i was told ( i also started medicine) and i doubled down on the relationship becuase i KNEW its what i WANTED. I WANTED to be with him despite my OCD lying to me. after a few weeks of medicine and ERP and choosing to be with him, being romantic despite the thoughts, i re-trained my brain and the OCD lost its grip. We have now been married going on 3 years. i still have thoughts where i just can't stand him but hey, that's being in a relationship, not going to like the person 100% of the time. your BIGGEST issue is thinking that feelings are facts, they arent. OCDs MAIN PROBLEM is it makes things feel 100% real when they arent.

@TexasOCD41 i found it very hard to not do compuslions… even if they are small ones, my mind just tells me that i dont want to accept the truth:(

@Mariabae - Understandable, but ocd is fed by compulsions and if you want to beat it you HAVE to stop them. small, big, all compulsions are the same. and your mind "telling you you don't want to accept the truth" that's just another intrusive thought. OCD will feed you all sorts of thoughts and reasons that will try to trick you. you have to get ahead of them and call their bluff. OCD is a very real thing. Brain scans of people with OCD show that blood gets redirected away from the frontal cortex ( the logical part of the brain) to the amegdayla ( the animal brain- where fight or flight comes from). and this is send you very real feelings and thoughts that FEEL 100% real. its a false alarm of fight or flight, a smoke alarm with no fire. you beat it but teaching your brain there is no danger but ignoring the alarm. its not going to turn off immediately and that's why treating OCD sucks because in the beginning it physically hurts. like i said, i lost 15 lbs, i missed work, i couldn't leave the house, my mom had to come stay with me for a few days and help me do basic functions. i 100% know how you feel, i had ALL the same thoughts " this is real, I'm just denying the truth, i need to break up with him cuz i don't love him, I'm in danger, i must seek relief, i need reassurance, " but doing all of those things only made it stronger. once i started ignoring the feelings and focused on what i wanted, it SLOWLY started shifting. i also needed medicine, and most people do to really get OCD under control, I'm on medicine now and its a life saver. continue to do nothing, and nothing will happen, you will just keep falling into the false narrative of OCD, you have to DO the things that are PROVEN to work and bear the discomfort no matter how bad, ignore the lies no matter how convincing. The discomfort alone is the proof of the OCD. normal people, when they don't ACTUALLY love someone, it doesn't send them into extreme emotional distress, they just think " well this sucks, probably going to make that person sad when i end it, but I'm just not feeling it" and they break up and move on. they don't have 2 dueling feelings inside them that feel equally strong ( loving someone and feeling like you don't love them) - notice how i used " feeling" for the second part becuase feeling is different from knowing. YOUR TRUTH is you love your boyfriend, the OCD lie is you FEEL like you don't. hold this in your mind and start ignoring that lie, ignore the fight or flight, and teach your brain you are not in danger. What resources do you have? have you done research into ROCD to understand how it works, and what common compulsions are so you can know how to prevent them? first step to beating an enemy is to understand it.

@TexasOCD41 yes i have dine a lot of research, i cant go to therapy and im doing it on my own, i have been in a loop for over a year, i hate this. I found out about rocd this fall, after a year straight of crying i found out about rocd, im scared this is not rocd, someone herr asked me if maybe i feel bad for losing feelings and that im not a bad person of i did but i want to pull my hair out only when i read it. It cant be true i dont want it to be true

@Mariabae - unfortunatly, a lot of people don't realize that this app, as helpful as it CAN be, can also be a harmful compulsion. When your brain is in OCD mode, you feel like you need reassurance so you ask people " is this real? do you feel this way too?" and other such questions, but you're going to get other peoples ideas and opinions and just like feelings, those are also not facts and most importantly, no one can tell YOU what YOUR truth is. again, loosing feelings for people happens sure, but it doesn't cause a year long spiral of grief and anxiety and extreme emotional distress and there also isn't the persistent belief of still loving them. when you loose feelings, that's it, you don't feel love sometimes, its gone, and its MILDLY distressing for a few days, weeks tops. the extreme distress and consistentancy of it all is the proof its ROCD. I think you should probably give this app a break. i have seen your post frequency and the content of each post and they are all basically the same post in different wording and i can see you desperately want someone to tell you " oh, that's ROCD 100%, you defiantly love him, nothing to worry about" and that would give you euphoric relief...... for a few hours? until those pesky feelings and thoughts come back and make you start to doubt all over again. there is a youtube i often refer people to on here, he is NOCD sponsored and he really knows his stuff and has videos on everything from how to do ERP, to what OCD is, how it tricks you, how to stay ahead of it and has videos specifically for ROCD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPtjx2ysxa8&t=540s Here is a link to one of his videos that will be a good starting place for you and then i would recommend you search for his ROCD videos. i know you are tired of this, so why not start the new year with a resolution to take your life back. do the work, it cant hurt and will most likely help you. be ready for it to suck before it gets better. i am recovered from ROCD, POCD, HOCD, real event ocd, false memory ocd and somatic OCD, i understand 100% what you are going thru which is why i can say with out a shadow of a doubt, you have ROCD, EVERYTHING you say, iv thought and felt before. don't read in more into it, no more Chat GPT, give this app a break. you have your answer, its OCD, no its up to you to address it and stop letting it control you. be kind to yourself, be patient, understand that anxiety is normal, but your level is abnormal and it needs to be fixed. if you don't want to have lost feelings, it mean you haven't, and ocd is just lying to you. go watch some of those videos and start working on yourself. you can do it!