Ocd confession advice

I have done some pretty weird and messed up things throughout my life. Some just because I grew up I guess a little weird and traumatized and some were compulsions for OCD or to relieve anxiety or stress. All of these i consider mistakes. I have a new boyfriend and a part of me gets reminded of often of these weird things I’ve done and I feel like I need to confess them to him or that means I’m hiding a really bad part of myself. Some of these things I consider disturbing. I have confessed them to people before and they don’t look at me different, but I don’t want to feel like I have to confess, but I don’t know how to feel like I shouldn’t have to.

FearIncarnate

Date posted: 16h

The feeling like you need to confess in order for him to see the “real you” is indeed a compulsion, and that means you need to try really hard to resist. You aren’t gonna “feel like you shouldn’t” for a while, resisting won’t magically make you feel better, but doing that compulsion will just make you more anxious and insecure and stressed in the long run and we don’t want that! Sadly the journey of treating OCD is long and uncomfortable, but being uncomfortable and uncertain is the only way you’ll be able to grow and eventually not need to be worried all the time. You need to think about the idea of you “hiding your terrible, bad, true self” from him and you need to sit with that thought, the anxiety it’ll make you feel is normal and will pass eventually, you need to sit with it and not try to challenge it in your head, and soon you will feel a bit better. Sitting with uncomfortable or worrying thoughts and allowing them to “maybe be right” is truly the only way you’ll eventually feel better. Now rationally, you know you aren’t “accidentally/secretly manipulating him by not telling him of these things you’ve done in the past”, you can’t accidentally trick him into liking you or thinking of you a certain way, that’s not how that works. Everyone has done weird things in the past for all different reasons, and we don’t all just blatantly confess them to people to make sure they know the “real us”. I guarantee your boyfriend has made bad decisions, has done weird things, everyone has, no human is perfect, but those things don’t have any basis on his character and so he hasn’t told you about them. That’s just a part of being human, you aren’t any more weird, terrible, or disturbed then anyone else, if you were you wouldn’t feel this worried and guilty. A good rule of thumb, bad people don’t feel bad about what they do. :)

dee012

Date posted: 15h

@FearIncarnate Thank you so much for your comment. I saw your comment on another post and I think you are a very kind and helpful person. This comment you put has helped me a lot. I understand that the urge is going to take a while to go away, but giving in and confessing will not make anything better. I have been engaging with mindfulness a lot more, and healing, and realize that being uncomfortable is the process of healing. Maybe he will judge me and completely hate me for my past actions or maybe he will not care at all. I will never know and I shouldn’t want to find out because that is a compulsion. You are right, everyone has done a lot of things they regret whether that is on a scale of really bad or not really bad, depending on who it is. What is bad to me may be harmless to someone else, what is not that bad to me may be really bad to someone else, we are imperfect and I shouldn’t hold myself to such a golden standard. I tried to tell myself to be compassionate with myself the same way I would be compassionate with someone else coming to me with this issue. But thank you again for your comment. If I am spiraling, I will come back to this thread. I wish you the best on your OCD journey as well and I have a lot of gratitude for you taking the time to write this comment.

dee012

Date posted: 24w

taboo theme ocd and childhood trauma

i need some kind words or maybe some advice? basically i went through trauma as a kid including sexual, and acted out in disturbing ways. I’ve done things i regret. even as an early teenager i did also. the only weird things ive done recently were compulsions and weird ocd driven stuff… but besides that ive found it easy to forgive myself for a lot of stuff because i know myself and my intentions and also talking to people helps. but one thing that’s hard is when im intimate with others or in a relationship. i feel so gross and undeserving like if they knew everything ive done in my life they would hate me. I don’t tell everyone everything, i think i only did that with therapists and like one family member. I feel like if I don’t tell someone everything I’ve done that I regret and see if they forgive me for it, then that means im “hiding” something about me and being malicious. anything helps :(

Siffrin

Date posted: 12w

Should I confess my POCD thoughts?

I know confession is a compulsion, and it ultimately feeds into the cycle, but I'm tearing myself apart over this and I want help. I just want to confess everything to my partner, and then we can figure out how to deal with my thoughts together. Should I confess?

swirlycurly

Date posted: 8w

Confession compulsion

I have this intense urge to need to confess something about my past to my boyfriend. We’ve been dating almost two years and when we first started talking, I had told him about my past. I cannot fully remember everything I told him, as it was a while ago. One time I remembered something that I didn’t tell him and confessed because I felt so guilty. This was something that I actually didn’t tell him because I had forgotten about it. I am having a similar situation now where I told him about this person, but I don’t think I went into detail (I don’t remember if I did or didn’t), but I have a memory of me telling him I didn’t want to go into details about it and him saying that’s okay (I don’t fully know if this is a real memory or fake one). I now have been obsessing over this situation from my past and feel like I need to confess or else I’m a bad girlfriend, but at the same time he told me that if I remember something I don’t need to tell him unless I really can’t help it. He also said that he’s not upset about my past and I’m the one who needs to forgive myself, which I know he is right about but I don’t know how to do that without feeling like I need to confess. Any tips on how to manage these thoughts and how to stop confession compulsions?

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