same again

I have a hard time with this also. This was actually something I brought up in therapy last week… I finally hit a milestone in my treatment, and immediately after I had super intense ROCD thoughts that honestly still are roaming in my brain. I think it’s okay to mourn a life with severe OCD, and actually think it’s important to voice that. At the end of the day, OCD is kind of a buzz kill and at its worst can be a life ruiner. Sometimes we have thoughts we know for sure are OCD, sometimes we realize something is OCD after the fact. Sometimes we overcome a theme for a moment and it comes back, sometimes we have many new themes pop up at once. When my OCD is at its worst, my brain can become so disoriented that I can’t even recognize which thoughts are my own and which ones are my OCD. It’s a very scary feeling. One of the hardest things to let go of during treatment is the short term security of finding ways to reassure your intrusive thoughts. It’s very difficult when your brain is telling you someone might rob your house if you don’t make sure your door is locked to not go and recheck the lock twice or three times. It’s very difficult when you’re in an actually healthy relationship to sit in the discomfort when you suddenly have break up intrusive thoughts out of nowhere. Unfortunately, I fear the only way out is through. I’ve been in treatment for almost six months I believe. In many ways, ocd feels easier to manage. But I still have my bad days and weeks. I think it was really important for me to voice when I was feeling “OCDy” to my partner so that I could receive support in whatever way I needed. I don’t often voice my intrusive thoughts to him in the moment if they are ROCD related because that is how I self sabotaged relationships in the past. I haven’t quite figured out the golden ticket to not feeling panicked in the moment, but I think my biggest obstacle is understanding that discomfort and uncertainty are part of life and that I can feel these things and not assign meaning to them.