Hey guys, I just wanted to mention this as it seems to be an important point in recovery. I’ve noticed that doing exposures only when you get the chance isn’t always helpful, it helps a bit but then you have to wait for the next trigger to come along so you can do an exposure. Deliberate exposures help me, so putting yourself in those situations daily is good because you will recover quicker. ??

ROCD is hard I know ? I’m in the same boat. I think as things are, what I think may help yourself and anyone else experiencing ROCD, is to recognise when you are questioning whether you love your partner. Because I never noticed until I started to put a tally chart of how many times I caught myself questioning it, I actually scored very high, lol. I seemed to spend a lot more time questioning it than I thought. You could do the same? Make it a habit to recognise when you are questioning your love, feelings and thoughts etc. Perhaps too we could try and let the thoughts come in, but say ‘ok cool, that’s a normal thought, and maybe that does bug me, but I really like that about him/her’ for example, they really make me laugh or are amazing at this’ and then leave the thought there. Don’t avoid the thought but just like approach it in a way which is like lol, ok we all have things that bug us about our partners, because we all do! Nobody is perfect but when you have ROCD is tends to focus on things that already bug you/or bugged you even before you had an obsession about it, just the difference is you didn’t have bad habit of thinking about it all the time and analysing it, which would have made the thoughts come less back then. Thought suppression only makes the thoughts worse, so I suppose with ROCD, just accepting that you so have those thoughts and you can admit that there are things that bug you, sure. It would be unusual for things not to, but it becomes an obsession when you always think about it and question your love for them because of it. Ruminating is a compulsion and one of the biggest with rocd and not ruminating will be an exposure, and these things may help to lessen your need to ruminate over time, at the start it may feel difficult because you’ll feel like you need to and you’ll feel like you are lying to yourself, which is just ocds way of keeping you attached, but the longer you do it your brain will naturally realise you really aren’t that bothered anymore about the fact things bug you about your partner and that might mean you don’t love them, you will realise that it was nonsense and you only thought you don’t love him/her because of the amount of questioning you did. ROCD tends to worry about cheating too, as for that, I feel like maybe it would make sense to use the same method with this, perhaps just saying to yourself well, this is a thought, but I’m not going to dwell on it. Hope this helped :)

This was more than helpful. It is the missing piece in my recovery. I don’t know who you are but you have just changed another person’s life. Thank you so very much.

Hi guys. I feel like this week I've made real progress in catching myself when I'm ruminating, acknowledging the initial thought (usually it is just "I don't love my partner") and switching my focus to something else. I think I'm becoming reasonably successful at doing it when I'm alone at work or whatever, but when I'm with my partner it becomes so much harder to not analyse. I end up barely listening and really distant because my mind is just going round and round like a washing machine. Any more tips? I guess it is just harder and I need to keep trying

I hope I get the strength to this

I wish someone could give me exposure ideas for ROCD. I’ve tried looking on his Facebook page to get jealous of ex-girlfriends. But that doesn’t trigger me when I’m doing it on purpose.

I know from experience with worrying about cheating on my partner, i still do worry about it to this day, feeling the need to confess the smallest things. But these are just a few thoughts that came to mind about ROCD exposure, I really hope this helped ??

I think I understand what you're saying, it's hard to put it to practice though. I struggle to split triggers/obsessions/compulsions as they all seem to happen so quickly in the mind without me noticing. I think my main compulsion is just ruminating about possibly not loving my girlfriend and trying to prove to myself that I do. What specific triggers and compulsions have you identified? I also find it hard to purposefully trigger my anxiety to the same extremes that it happens naturally. Currently the only ERP I'm doing is writing stuff down (stay together despite not being sure, breaking up later and devastating us both), reading it aloud and then listening to it on repeat. Have you been doing anything differently?

I agree with you, it is hard to sort out our compulsions because they aren’t physical, it’s mostly rumination isn’t it. I write in a journal. Depending on how much time I have is depending on how much detail I get in to. I also am doing the anxiety meditation course on Headspace. But my biggest help has been these free YouTube ocd recovery lessons by Ali Greymond

I’m really glad I could help? no problem ??

Nice. I've done the anxiety course on headspace a couple of times. I go backwards and forwards between thinking it helps or doesn't. I think the first time I tried it I was focusing to much on trying to make the thoughts leave. I read the happiness trap recently and found the first two parts to be quite useful. It's the usual stuff about not reading too much into your thoughts and feelings but just accepting that you're having them and that they don't reflect what you want to do or value. I'll try the Ali Greymond videos, thanks! Hope things continue to improve for you

Sometimes I get annoyed of things my partner does. Is this normal?

For sure. I get that a lot!