My grandma just had a stroke and is in the ICU not doing well. My ROCD has been flaring up. I feel like all i can still think and worry about is my relationship even though all of this is going on. it makes me feel guilty and like why would i stay in this if i can't even grieve other things in the way i normally would. Has anyone else experienced ROCD flaring up even worse with tragic life events?
Sorry about your grandma, I've been there myself. Are you overthinking about your relationship with your grandma, or your outside romantic relationship with someone else while she's in ICU? Its pretty normal to overthink about someone in the hospital and feel guilt for not being there enough or in the past, and it's also normal to want a distraction from real life in your partner during stressful times. Is your partner helping you during this or adding responsibilities to you without really caring about your extra stress?
@Anonymous I'm more so still worried about if my boyfriend is right for me. he is not doing anything out of the ordinary, not adding stress, he's here for me and supportive. i just am still having constant thoughts and it's hard to not engage in compulsions about our relationship with everything else going on. i just can't tell if the outside stress is latching onto my relationship ocd, or what.
@lostmyswag You're in a very emotional time right now, and if he's not adding stress and he's actually being supportive, then you definitely shouldn't make any serious decisions about your relationship while your grandma's sick. One of my exes acted like they were supportive by making me like a playlist on Spotify while I was in the hospital. Initially, I thought it was a really sweet gesture, but then found out that they were following up a bunch asking if I'd listened to it yet. And I was just sitting there like, why does this gift have an expiration date when I'm already stressed? Why are they putting extra responsibilities on me when they already know I'm overstretched? If they're doing their best to support you, you have to ask yourself whether you want to go through the best case and the worst case scenarios with your grandmas health with someone or if you want to do it alone. If you really don't think they're a good fit and you don't love them, then you should let them go, but you probably shouldn't make that decision while under other stress.
@Anonymous That one instance is not the entire reason I broke up with this person, there was a whole laundry list of reasons why, but that particular one stood out to me as coming across positive, yet added more stress to me in a stressful time.
@Anonymous thank you for your response. i'm sorry you went through that. have you struggled with ROCD?
@lostmyswag Yes, often
@Anonymous Did you have it more prominently in certain relationships? or when did you realize you had rocd and why
@lostmyswag I was more responding to your question, "does it get worse with tragic life events". I would say the answer is yes, because your emotions are already in a heightened state, so by transfer, yes, it would make sense. Certain people make your ROCD worse because previous relationships in your life had similar habits or behaviors, making their actions or inactions trigger ruminating thoughts. It's your job to be able to understand those thoughts and actually communicate them positively to your partner to see if you can compromise on them. It should be one of their priorities to make you comfortable, specifically because you're in a relationship with them, but they can't read your mind and if you come at them with a laundry list of things you don't like about them, it'll probably not end well. Also, it's your job to heal from the past relationships that hurt you if you're still holding onto things from your past. If you can do both of these things over time, your ROCD will start getting better.
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