Suffering? Feel like no one is listening?

I'm here!!!! What is bothering you? Post below. Sometimes the first step is to just get everything out in the open air. But with OCD it can be tricky, because most people don't understand it. Therefore, sometimes people's advice can even be counterproductive. But if you can find mentors who understand OCD, you can make a lot of progress. When we spin our problems around and around inside our own heads, trying to solve them, we can end up being stuck for years. I know these things from experience. So here is a safe community for you. And here's your chance to air it out below…

♡`　Mercy

Date posted: 14h

I suffer with what I can only assume can be described as paranoid ocd? To be honest, I dont know if im just paranoid or if this is ocd. I keep thinking that my ex boyfriend is popping into my life as strangers or that he is stalking me in different ways, despite him never having done this before. Im often inclined to check my windows, or cross check the way he writes with messages I receive from strangers just to make sure its not him on a new account. I don't know if anyone else deals with this or if this doesnt count as ocd, but its really hard to get out of right now

Tea and Honey

Date posted: 11h

@♡`　Mercy This sounds like OCD to me. Even if it isn't OCD, I think it would respond very well to OCD treatment. This means treating the problem with ERP therapy. What would that look like? This means you would ALLOW all the icky feelings that come with feeling like you are being stalked, or feeling like you need to check things. Remember, you don't need to do anything to "fix "the feelings. However, you need to deny yourself from TAKING ANY ACTION based on those feelings. That means you don't allow yourself to check messages, check windows, or anything else like that. It can also help to TRANSFER RESPONSIBILITY to someone else. This is especially helpful in religious OCD. If a person is obsessed (like I am) of losing their salvation, this person can transfer the responsibility for their salvation to God. I haven't heard of a lot of examples of this, but I really think this strategy could be used in other ways as well. For example, someone with OCD who feels compelled to check the stove 10 times (to see if it's off), could transfer the responsibility to a spouse. The spouse is now responsible for making sure that the stove is not going to start a fire--and the person with OCD takes their hands completely off the situation. In your case, maybe you could transfer responsibility for protecting you from stalkers to a parent or a trusted friend or a current boyfriend. If you tell them any indication you have they your ex is being inappropriate, you can let them decide if any action needs to be taken. If there is anything real going on, they will tell you. If it's all just OCD, they are completely competent to tell you that you can let it all go. This way you don't have to feel responsible to decide whether or not your feelings of being stalked true or not. I like the idea of transferring responsibility. Sometimes we really have to take our hands off the situation and let people handle it who don't have OCD.

shan00

Date posted: 9h

So I’m in a 6 year committed relationship. For some reason this guy I dated when I was like 19 keeps popping up in my mind. Like I’ll go a week without thinking about him and then bam, I’ll go a month straight not being able to get him out of my mind. Idk what this means. For some reason I want to talk to him but I can’t because I’m in a relationship. I feel like he meant a lot to me and wanted the best for me, but I pushed him away. Is this normal or just obsessive thoughts?

Tea and Honey

Date posted: 7h

@shan00 A lot of this is just normal. Whether or not it crosses into the OCD realm is not clear at this point. Here's some questions you can ask yourself that might help clarify things ... Are you afraid of thoughts about him? Do you feel like you have to do a compulsion in order to neutralize the thoughts? Are you tortured by the whole process? Or does it kind of feel like normal questioning? If this person was kind to you in your past, it's normal for you to think about him some. That's just human to do that. It doesn't mean you're unfaithful to the person you are currently with. It just means your brain is processing. I think it depends on the NATURE of the thoughts in order to determine if they are OCD or just normal . :):)

Tea and Honey

Date posted: 7h

@Tea and Honey I think obsessions with people and false attraction are very normal with OCD. If it feels like that, you can treat it just like any other branch of OCD. That means that you ALLOW these thoughts to come into your brain all that they want to. And then you just ignore them. You just keep living your life, as if those thoughts never happened. You don't confess them to your current boyfriend or girlfriend. You don't do anything to try to fix the situation. You just go on and live your life as if the thoughts were never there.

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