18+ !! ROCD or Not?

I’ve had OCD for over 6 years, and I know exactly how it is to live with OCD, I’ve been to therapy and I know exactly how intrusive thoughts are like, they are completely unwanted thoughts, followed with compulsive behaviors. Now I’ve been having a thought (idk if it’s intrusive) for months, it doesn’t feel like my usual intrusive thoughts, I don’t do compulsive behaviors or tics when I have this thought like I usually do, but instead I do comparisons. So the thought is: “I am not attracted to my boyfriend’s body, I do not feel aroused by him”, and then I imagine myself having another boyfriend that is “the perfect one” to see if I feel attraction to them in bed or not, and the answer is yes I feel. Then I repeat the same thought but with my current boyfriend to see if I felt the same feeling, and I do not feel it. Note that I love my boyfriend so much, he is the love of my life and I absolutely adore him, I couldn’t ask for more. But what if I love him but he does not turn me on? Help please

FearIncarnate

Date posted: Yesterday

I feel like this could both be a intrusive thought and a valid feeling, but I’m leaning towards intrusive thought. You are doing a compulsion, you’re ruminating and trying to prove it to yourself in your head, that’s checking, you’re checking to see if you’re attracted to your partner (which is a common compulsion in relationship OCD). The only way to handle this, treat it like an intrusive thought and resist the compulsion. Maybe you aren’t attracted to him anymore, maybe you are, who knows? You don’t right now and that’s okay, let it be okay that you’re uncertain. Eventually your anxiety around this will lessen and you’ll be able to see it with a clear head. Only then can you truly know if this is OCD or not.

ocdr1

Date posted: Yesterday

@FearIncarnate Thank you so much for your time to reply. You are absolutely right, although it felt a bit scary when you said it could be a valid feeling😅 I am trying to sit with uncertainty as much as I can, but it feels like I should know the answer right now, I should be 100% certain that I am attracted to him, it feels so heavy.

XwitnessX

Date posted: Yesterday

@FearIncarnate This was helpful to me as well so thank you! It’s hard for me to separate what’s an intrusive thought vs valid concern. What I can say for sure is attraction to your partner can come and go and that doesn’t mean you don’t love them or aren’t appreciative of them. 🙌✨

FearIncarnate

Date posted: 21h

@ocdr1 Of course it’s gonna be scary! Sadly that’s the whole point, it’s not easy resisting but it’s worth it in the end! The anxiety is good, it means you care, and you wanna help yourself, so you gotta do the hard things like resisting. Just focus on your end goal, that’s your motivation, in the end you’ll feel better, even if right now it feels like something big and bad and terrible. And I’m not perfect, I don’t follow my own advice every single time, but I try to and that’s also really important. As long as you know what you need to do and you try, you’ll get it eventually. You got this :)

ocdr1

Date posted: 19h

@FearIncarnate I’ll keep what you said in mind and try to work on it. You know, I realized that sometimes when the unlimited loops hit, when you “solve” one thought and another one shows up right after, make the previous thought feel like it’s fake, and I know the new thought is gonna be fake too, but you just can’t resist it because you cannot be satisfied with whatever validation you have, but we are stronger than some illusions, we got this!

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