needing support for ROCD

Hey friends :) I haven’t posted on here before (I don’t think), but I wanted to share some of my ROCD struggles. It’s a little scary to share my themes to a bunch of strangers, but I figure we’re all probably dealing with the same monsters, so why not? I was diagnosed with OCD in 2021. A year before that, I had what I now know was a 6-8 month OCD episode. It was the most debilitating experience, and brought on mild depression and crippling rumination that I didn’t understand at the time. TBH I was super religious so I kind of just thought God was my intrusive thoughts. This episode was triggered largely by relationships I was in at the time, and I now know that ROCD holds my biggest triggers. It’s super annoying, especially when I anticipate being triggered before it even happens (funny how that works). Anyway, I’ve been doing ERP for about four months now, and it does seem like my OCD management has gotten better. HOWEVER I met an amazing man, literally the best thing that’s ever happened to me… if you have ROCD, you know what’s coming next LOL. We’ve been dating for about five months, which is crazy to me. I can’t even imagine my life without him. He’s such a match for me. He balances me out, he’s so patient with me… he knows about my OCD and I’ve shared some of the thoughts I have (usually after I work through them so it’s not a reassurance seeking thing). About once a month (sometimes close to my period, sometimes not) I have a really bad OCD moment, usually lasting a few days. The intrusive thoughts aren’t always the same. Sometimes it’s the classic “is this the right man? Do I actually like him or am I just pretending? What if we’re actually bad for each other and we don’t even know it? Etc” One new trigger I found is when he or I travels solo. When we come back, my brain goes crazy and my intrusive thoughts are insane. It could be questions of attraction, breakup obsessions, etc. sometimes I even anticipate them happening before they even become a problem. Anyway, I guess I just want some support and to know I am not alone. I love this guy, and I don’t want to self sabotage and escape, but sometimes it’s so hard because my brain becomes confused and frozen in the intrusive thought and it feels easier to run away and isolate than to work through. I had therapy yesterday and we went through a couple of scripts that were helpful. One thing I’ve read a lot is “feelings aren’t facts”. This was good to hear, but when I’m feeling very “OCDy” it’s hard to sit with the feeling and not try and play detective to try and figure it out.