I wouldn’t wish my OCD on anyone.

This condition is so frustrating that I was brought to tears while sitting on the toilet. The funny thing is: now that I’m writing this, I’m not even having intrusive thoughts anymore. Maybe it helps 🤷‍♂️. Set the scene: my boyfriend and I were having a conversation about when he’s coming back to my hometown. We’ve been seeing each other for three months now, and we spend an ungodly amount of time at his apartment, playing house. He lives in a different state, about a 5 hour drive. He’s in Spain right now, and when he comes back it’ll be just in time for 4th of July, so he’s gonna celebrate that with his family before coming back to my hometown (where he lives during the school year, etc. He’s in a PHD program). What’s bothering me: when we spoke on the phone today, he couldn’t tell me when he’d be back exactly. A few obstacles prevented him from giving me a firm answer. He’s gonna come back to his home state, trying to make some cash with a client, celebrate 4th of July, all before he can come back down to my state (where his apartment is that he leases year-round). He said he’d definitely be back before mid-July. He ALSO said something like “I know you wanna see me before you go back to school”- as in I WANNA see YOU? What about YOU seeing me? Do you even wanna see me? My brain is using that as evidence that he doesn’t want to be in this relationship anymore. Compulsions: I laid everything out for him. What I said is in screenshots at the bottom of the page. It’s debilitating to think this way. I don’t wanna go to class tomorrow. I know this is an OCD flare up but I don’t even know how to proceed. I’m in therapy, i wanna know if what I did is the right thing, how do I get my partner to show up for me in the right way with my OCD? Anything helps ❤️🌱

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LRW

Date posted: 12h

I unfortunately deal with the same thing. Today I had a flare up today due to a conversation we had last night, where my partner got upset. I was told repeatedly that they weren’t upset with me, and we ended up talking about lots of good things afterwards. However, they are in a different country as well with a time difference ahead of me. I typically wake up to their messages, and this morning I didn’t. I was immediately in panic mode, where I thought they were super angry at me because of the night prior. I tried really really hard to only think about the positives. They told me how much they love me, how proud of me they are, and they can see I’m trying so hard to conquer ocd. However, I was only able to make it 2.5 hours before I caved and had to tell them something. It made me feel good for a little bit, but then I began to worry that I was bugging them by saying something about how I was feeling, ultimately making me feel worse. After that I had a breakdown about my actions. So now, I am making it a commitment to get better by seeing the positives before the negatives. For example, they love me and would not ignore me purposefully to show their anger towards me because they know I overthink. And last night, I was told how proud of me they are and they wouldn’t say that last night if they didn’t still mean it today. So, overall my advice would to see the positives. In all my experience, the other person doesn’t even realize what they are saying is causing us to overthink and they don’t mean it in a malicious way (obviously the brain will still convince us otherwise). But, my main thing is that I think explaining to them your ocd was very crucial so they can understand how you think and what you deal with daily. Unfortunately, in my experience, continuously sending messages about my overthinking only has made my ocd worse. This is my case, I’m not sure how it is for you. But I recommend against it. Lastly, the hard part is going to be ignoring the urges to want to detail everything to them. By waiting and thinking about the positives instead of the negatives, hopefully things will be easier.

fruitbat42069

Date posted: 11h

This is similar to my experience as well. I agree that overexplaining typically makes the anxiety worse and it's important to remind yourself of all the reasons why you're in the relationship. I suppose you could think of the relationship not as a reflection of how good you and your partner are/for each other, but instead why you keep choosing this person to be your partner (and think about all the kind and positive things theyve done for you). I think I learned, looking back on my past relationship, that checking in and sending messages constantly didn't realistically do anything to stop the relationship itself from being shitty. And after we broke up, I was still obsessing about him and my connection with him and i couldnt shut my mind off. It wasnt until i had a therapist that actually pointed out that i was struggling with OCD that changing my mind and habits was realistic and it still took years to get to a point where I rarely experience ruminations and escalating anxiety. Recovery takes multiple different interventions, so the fact that you have named it and are addressing it means you are totally on the right path. Plus, if you have a supportive partner who listens to you and respects you, and you're in OCD therapy, those are both very important parts of your recovery. I think naming it and adressing it/explaining what you go through is a wonderful first step. Keep going with the ERP.

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