Requesting ROCD Advice

I have been with my boyfriend for over three years. I have struggled with OCD for likely the entirety of this relationship. It has been extremely hard. I have had many ups and downs with my anxiety and ocd and doubt. I’ve had a complete breakdown in front of my boyfriend on probably 6+ different occasions where I doubt everything and can’t hold in the anxiety. He has been supportive and patient and kind and loving throughout each one. Each time I promise I am going to figure it out, but each time I haven’t been able to. I have started therapy a couple times and each time it didn’t work out for a variety of reasons. I struggle with a large variety of intrusive thoughts largely focused on my side of the relationship (do I love him enough? My sexuality. Our compatibility. And constantly comparing him to others). I am 24 years old and this has been my first relationship, which has added to my anxiety and insecurity about not knowing enough. My whole life I have been hugely indecisive and a constant people pleaser. I feel I lack a true understanding of who I am and idk what I truly value because of this. I have always been one to go along with those around me and to be agreeable, kind of like a chameleon. This has left me lost and confused. I have always cared deeply of what others think of me and I have always strived to be viewed as perfect. Anyways, last week, I had a break down and it ended with me asking for a break. We decided we would give it one week of no contact, and then we would talk and decide the plan. Whether that be a longer break (6 weeks maybe? Or something else??) or we breakup, or we get back together. Anyways, I am still uncertain on what’s going to happen. But I am considering the break option. I feel I need to take some serious time learning about myself, learning about my core values, learning what it is I value for in a relationship, and reflecting. I need to work on my anxiety patterns and learn how to hear my own voice. I am looking for advice, I know a break is generally not recommended with rocd, but I feel I have already dug myself a hole as we are essentially one week into one. If I take a break, what can I do for it to be as productive, healthy, and healing as possible? How long should it be? Any advice? Is a break a bad idea? I don’t want to run from my anxiety. I want to grow and heal.

tvmiller

Date posted: Yesterday

I can’t give you advice about the break, only you and your partner can know what’s best on that front. If you’ve already set it up, my only recommendation is to work as much as possible on self compassion. It’s the only remedy I’ve found that helps to patch up the painful holes inside. Kristin Neff and especially Kimberly Quinlan are great sources for this. I relate to all of what you wrote tremendously, and it’s so hard. I’m 42 now and it’s still hard and I can remember how much harder it felt at 24. The indecisiveness in your relationship, the feeling like you need to be perfect, losing yourself in all of it while you can’t help but people please. Recently my therapist recommended i “welcome” difficult feelings: guilt, shame, doubt, regret, whatever you’d rather push away. Try to welcome it instead. Let it wash over you and go out like the tide. I won’t pretend it’s fixed everything, but it’s helped a lot as a lifestyle change for someone who’s always tried to be perfect and not even feel “bad” feelings. This is a tough journey. You’re starting early (though it probably doesn’t feel that way). With the tools and awareness you have, it will get easier. You got this.

j vv

Date posted: 22h

Hi hhyy 👋 I relate so much to your post! In my case, I have also always been a people pleaser and felt like a chameleon. In my experience, this is *not* sustainable. After years of constant suppression and contortion as I compulsively people pleased, eventually my body said enough was enough. The bill came due, and it was a very painful and personal rock bottom. What has helped since? 1-on-1 therapy through OCD, and a marriage therapist for my partner and I —one who specializes in OCD. OCD craves certainty. For me, the certainty it aims for is complete isolation and lonely solitude, because there is certainty in exile and misery. Working with a trained professional has helped me sort through what is really going on, and helped my partner know how to best support me. Beware of strong binary/black-and-white thinking. This is often a hallmark of OCD. For example: “If I completely isolate via a break, THEN I can heal” or “I’m not worthy of this relationship, so I MUST take a break in order to deserve this”. Marriage therapy has taught me that life does not need fast, dramatic solutions…but steady consistent effort over time. You can work on yourself while remaining in the relationship. If you *do* need a break, having a third party to guide you and your partner through it can be a great help so that the break achieves what you both want for the relationship. I feel for you though—I wouldn’t wish ROCD on my worst enemy. It can feel so brutal to constantly have your mind flipping on you about your loved ones. It can be very unnerving to feel like you are in the wrong life/with the wrong person/not able to feel on a daily basis. With therapy these feelings haven’t disappeared, but they’ve lessened over time. There is hope 💜

QuietSalad

Date posted: 17h

Boy oh boy, this was me six months ago. I could have written this. I tried regular therapy which didn’t help. I was having several crying breakdowns that led to me breaking up with him. The anxiety was so bad I thought there was no other option. I went to my doctor and told her about my obsessive thoughts. I started taking Prozac. We got back together a month later. I started NOCD therapy shortly after and I’m in a much better place now. Meds may or may not help but they did in my case. Beware of ruminating. OCD loves to dwell on the what ifs. You are in charge of your decisions, not the OCD.

Mariabae

Date posted: 23w

i am lost. completely. ROCD

Hi everyone, I really need help and guidance because I feel like I’m falling apart and I don’t know how to handle this anymore. Please read carefully what I’m about to say. I’m dealing with ROCD (at least people tell me it sounds like ROCD), but everything feels too real, too intense, and I feel like I’m losing myself completely. I feel like I’m stuck in my mind all day long. I keep thinking that I don’t love my boyfriend anymore, that I never loved him, that I only wanted the idea of a relationship and that I forced myself to feel something because he is such a good person. My intrusive thoughts say: • “You don’t love him.” • “You never loved him.” • “You’re forcing yourself.” • “You only liked the idea of love.” • “You’re ruining him and yourself by staying.” • “The relationship is wrong.” • “You’re a bad person for pretending.” And my FEELINGS are worse than the thoughts — I feel NOTHING when I’m with him. When I hug him, kiss him, or hear his voice, I feel disconnected. I feel numb, empty, fake. Sometimes I even feel disgusted when we are intimate or when he says something sexual, and then I feel huge guilt and anxiety about that. When we’re talking or when I’m with him in bed, I constantly think: “I don’t like him anymore,” “Why am I here?” “Why can’t I feel anything?” “Maybe I just want to escape this relationship and I’m not brave enough.” And now, I’m starting to feel that I’m not even upset about the thoughts anymore — which makes me think “See? It’s true, you’re finally accepting it.” This scares me so much. When I look at our old pictures, I feel no warmth, no happiness, just anxiety or nothing at all. When people ask me about him or mention him, I feel flat or uncomfortable, and my mind screams again: “You don’t love him anymore.” Even worse: my family sometimes says things that make me spiral more. My mom told me that I’m lying to myself and that I’m hurting him by staying, and that I need to stop if I don’t love him anymore. I know she didn’t mean it badly — she sees me suffering every day and it’s too hard for her to watch — but those words stuck in my head and now I can’t get them out. I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know what my values are, or what I want. I know I care about him — but then I think maybe I only care because I’m a good person and don’t want to hurt him, not because I love him. When I’m out with him, I often feel irritated, anxious, uncomfortable — and this fuels the thoughts even more: “See? You can’t even enjoy time with him anymore.” I know that logically I should sit with these feelings and thoughts and not give them power. But it feels unbearable. I’ve read so much about ERP, I’ve tried to understand this logically — but it’s like no matter how much I read or try, it doesn’t help. It feels like my mind is now saying: “No, this is different — this is the truth.” I feel alone because I have no one to talk to. Whenever I try to talk to my mom or someone close, it only makes things worse because I feel more confused and guilty. Even when I try to write here, it feels compulsive sometimes — but I’m desperate. I just want to stop suffering. I am exhausted. I am afraid that I will go to the beach with him and our friends in one month and I will feel horrible there too, ruining everything. I am afraid that I can’t be happy anymore and that the only solution is to leave — but that also terrifies me, because I don’t know if it’s the truth or OCD. Please, if anyone can give me some advice on how to sit with this and start healing, I would be so grateful. I feel like I have no strength left. I just want to feel peace again.

Pandora_2003

Date posted: 17w

my experience

i have always been a pretty doubtful and overthinking person all my life, but i have never had bad ocd until something happened in my current relationship i met my boyfriend senior year of highschool, we started off as friends first but then would text all night and found out we have a lot in common, he still lived at his parents house at the time, i'd go over to his or he'd come over to mine sometimes, your typical teen romance story, my rocd didn't start acting up till we started getting serious fast forward to when i started working at my old job and met this guy who pretty much love bombed me, i didn't know it at the time, and so i lost myself during that time trying to balance everyone's feelings, i ended up hurting my current boyfriend really badly and ever since ive had raging rocd, every second of every day i cut this guy off and me and my boyfriend are still together, working it out, and then two christmases ago he gets kicked out of his house, and starts living with me and my family, a huge change i wasn't ready for but it happened my family loves my boyfriend, everyone i've ever introduced him to also does, he truly is an angel, he's so sweet and good to me, i've met all his friends and he's met mine, i could picture a life with him, but currently my rocd is too much to bear, id be better alone but im so deep in this now it's crippling, i can't hangout with my friends without rocd, cant wake up without rocd, cant think of anything without rocd, i cant eat or sleep, life feels like it's no longer real, the relief of breaking up with my boyfriend would free me, but i cant bring myself to, ive tried multiple times, i might just be a coward because i dont want to hurt him again, i dont want to lose him, but ive lost myself, this rocd is driving me insane lets say I break up with my boyfriend, he already got kicked out of his old house and I do not want him to have to feel like he's got to be kicked out again, this is his home now and I just couldn't do that to him, my family would lose someone they see as a son, and I would have to watch him move his stuff which would make me so sad because I care so much for him, I would even move out just so he doesn't have to the thing is I really can't put myself through this anymore, I have to put myself first or this will kill me, idk what to do maybe i could talk to him about how bad my ocd is, tell him that i really have tried to push through but i need a break, maybe we could be friends and work it out? i hope so

ale03jandra

Date posted: 15w

ROCD Spiral

I’ve been dealing with rocd for about 9 months now. Off and on I’ve been able to manage it. When it first presented in the beginning my boyfriend and I had just celebrated our one year anniversary and about a month later I started getting random thoughts questioning if I really love him or things telling me I’m incapable of love and then my brain trying to get me to break up with him. I started therapy a little after and she explained rocd to me. Fast forward to now I had been doing decently but we’ve been under a lot of stress lately. He has three kids from his previous marriage who started staying with us full time Monday through Thursday. He lost his job so now we both work for mine doing grocery deliveries. But the day before last I was feeling really anxious and it feels like any anxiety opens the door for intrusive thoughts. So I decided to put a post on a different ocd community forum. And a lot of the times one of my thoughts is what if you don’t really have rocd and you actually want to break up with him. In a persons response to that post they basically said what if you don’t have it and you really do want to break up but what if you do have it and you don’t want to break up. I wasn’t prepared for the first part of that sentence and I went into a full blown panic attack after reading that and my boyfriend had to help bring me out of it. We talked and I messaged my therapist after but haven’t gotten a response. And for the rest of the day I felt drained and like the anxiety was still there and the thoughts were still running around my head. And last night he had fallen asleep and I felt like crying and I came into our bathroom and I looked at myself in the mirror as I was and the thought that came up was look at you crying here this is your sign that you need to break up with him. But then I challenge my mind and ask why why do I need to do that and I can’t think of a single valid reason to break up with him. I love him I do. When I’m not spiraling we do so well and have amazing communication and he cares for me so much. But now I woke up this morning still really anxious and fighting my thoughts. Another thing too is that we have about a 9 year age gap and that had never ever been an issue in my mind. I love that he’s older than I am. Any guy my age was never something I looked for or wanted. Yesterday during the drained and still attacking thoughts I saw this younger guy at the store and then my mind immediately was like well this would be better for you he’s older and that’s why you should break up. I really really hate this and don’t want to feel like this anymore but I don’t want to leave him. He’s the person I see when I look into the future as my husband. But that’s also another thing I struggle with time and that creates more of an anxiety it’s like can I really do this for 20-30 years. But that’s not even just with my relationship I do that with anything that is long term and then I hyper focus on the time duration of everything and thinking I can’t do something for that long.

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