Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

Does anyone have any advice for helping your partner deal with your ocd? Mine is getting frustrated feeling it's stupid and finds intrusive thoughts I try and share hurtful.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

If they find them hurtful then it's probably best that you don't share them. They're going to naturally find it hurtful if those thoughts you share make them feel judged or unsafe, and get frustrated if you continue to share them when they have told you that they find it hurtful and upsetting. In fact for me it would be a deal-breaker if my partner continued to say things which made me feel bad when I've asked them to stop, and that includes if it was OCD- and I have all the understanding of the condition which you could hope for your partner to have. Understanding that it's a mental illness isn't going to make those things much less hurtful or annoying. Your partner isn't your therapist, and acting on your confession and reassurance-seeking urges by telling them about your thoughts is not only going to reinforce and worsen your OCD, but drive them away. OCD is about dysfunctional patterns of cognition, emotional processing and behaviour, not about the content of your thoughts or obsessions. If you must share with her and want to feel supported, try sharing your struggles with patterns of thinking, stuck emotions and behaviour without detailing the content to her against her will.

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

Would you say it would be good to let them know I'm having intrusive thoughts rather than say what they are?

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

Exactly

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

Alright, thank you very much. I'm quite new to dealing with my ocd and I didn't realise this.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

That's alright. I have been in a relationship and had severe OCD at the time but I didn't know it, and I didn't get the same urges to get reassurance etc other than always asking my partner if he was ok and what he was doing when I wasn't with him, and I'm sure that was annoying enough. It's important to make the distinction that it's all OCD and that the content of the fear or worry doesn't matter and can't be alleviated by other people, despite it feeling so important.

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

Okay. Thank you that really helped. Not to say you've been mean, but reading that made some tears prick so that's definitely the triggers.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

You can do it!

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

@Louw Just wanted to say my partner is actually a boy, didnt want me correcting you to get in the way of your advice:)

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@smolbean Oh yes sorry I was trying to keep gender neutral as you didn't specify but I must have slipped into heteronormativity based on your profile pic, gah

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

@Louw I mean I'm a gender neutral female, I just liked the dog hehe oop

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

@smolbean I just realised the dog does look masculine wow

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@smolbean Hah I didn't even realise it was a dog I thought that one was a bearded man with a funny hat ?

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

@Louw Oh that's brilliant hehe. I think it's a shibe

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@smolbean I'm agender myself, maybe I should start using the dog ?

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

Saying "I am having a bad day with rumination/guilt/fear/checking" is going to be much better received AND much less hurtful and damaging in all ways than saying "I keep getting thoughts that you're ugly and annoying and I don't want to be with you and I want to be back with my ex" or something. She CAN support your emotions and struggles with kindness and compassion, but it is not possible or even healthy for anybody to support you with the content of your obsessions. Even a therapist won't do that.

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

Thank you so much, it never clicked in my head that the content doesn't matter. I realised my anxiety was partly ocd in October when it was really bad, but it flared up this week. Do you have any other advice for starting out dealing with ocd? I'm trying the erp on this app but I find it hard to focus on thoughts when they're not there for the exercise and I'm not always in a position to use the sos.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

Well, the app ERP just asks you to imagine that the idea is true and sit with all the feelings that the idea causes for 5 minutes or as long as possible, without trying to figure it out even once more thoughts come which are disagreeing with the intrusive thought or offering other evidence. And it offers suggestions like focusing on your physical feelings and taking deep breaths. It should be possible to do it without the SOS as a guide, your memory is perfectly functional even if you have a worry about doing it on the go. The idea is to notice the thoughts but not spiral down intro trying to untangle them. Over time you'll find that sitting with the feelings doesn't kill you or make it true, and eventually it will reduce the emotional response you get to the thoughts. If you feel up to it, you can trigger the thoughts deliberately when you don't have them to do the ERP. This can usually be done by remembering occasions which have triggered the thoughts before, or looking at exposures about the topic on the internet in order to get that spike of anxiety. It's going to feel counterproductive to deliberately name yourself anxious but so long as your response to the anxiety and fear is to sit with it rather than avoiding using compulsions like problem-solving/ruminating or asking for reassurance or confessing, then it's a good thing to do.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

Try to remember- don't push the thoughts away or berate yourself for having them. Just don't try to weigh them up or figure out if they're true, because that is the compulsion and that is the thing which is hurting our lives, not the initial thought. Just feel the anxiety they cause. It can't hurt you.

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

@Louw That's really helpful

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

Okay. I'm not too sure how to find things to trigger my anxiety. I feel like my intrusive thoughts are always based around me not being good enough and other people not wanting me and me being a bad person, I'm not sure how to get a visual on that.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

So you know which things and situations tend to bring up those thoughts? Perhaps you can think of a time when your partner wasn't as responsive as you'd like and it triggered these feelings. It seems by your post that her not wanting to comfort you about the feelings can be a trigger, assuming that you were feeling quite bad about yourself when you wrote this post.

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

ocdillustrated

Date posted: 5y

Some of these articles might helphttps://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/family-issues/

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

Thank you :)

Jpais28

Date posted: 21w

ROCD advice help for supporting partner

I am at a very difficult spot in my relationship. My boyfriend and I have been together for 6 years, and I have a history of cheating that for years we’ve been trying to work through. To me, it makes a lot of sense that my OCD has attached itself to this and for the last few years I’ve experienced intrusive sexual thoughts of others and relationship ocd. I have been open to him about the content of my thoughts and now, with a proper diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, I am able to reframe them and work through them with ERP so that my brain will *hopefully* get bored and stop sending them. But, things have not been easy. As a result of this and everything in our past, he has become anxious about all the scenarios where I could be having sexualized thoughts about other people. To him, if I am thinking something utterly different than what I am telling him or acting like to him, he can’t fully trust it. And of course, I can imagine how difficult it is to know your life partner is sexualizing others in her brain and to be able find a way to dismiss them as unthreatening, especially when past mistakes say otherwise. Is there anyone that has gone through this with a partner? And other than repeatedly explaining the egodystonic nature of my thoughts and providing reassurance, what are some things you did that helped them? Any advice helps! Thank you

Masha✨

Date posted: 14w

Does anyone have any tips and tricks for dealing R

I am in an incredible relationship with the most patient and gentle person I have ever met. We have been together for 4 years and I realized I had OCD a year ago, got diagnosed a month ago. Its quite difficult going from a narcissistic/abusive household to experiencing the gentle and constant love that comes with a healthy relationship. Since he doesn’t have explosive (big) feelings my OCD insists that he doesn’t love me enough. Which is crazy. I have set a few rules for myself, biggest one being: No picking fights after 6:30 pm. (If im still upset in the morning, bring it up then) But I am new to this and appreciate any advice.

Relationship OCD

Jae18

Date posted: 11d

Help not sure what to do in this situation

I feel like an awful partner to my person … I get very immoral thoughts and thoughts I can’t even write here or share … and I have been very intolerant to my compulsions and I always tell him my thoughts , the content .. my actions .. everything and I fall for ocd’s tricks … I get thoughts about people .. people .. strangers .. people from my uni .. people he knows or is close with and I hate it .. and these thoughts can range but recently they’ve been enough to make me reach this point .. I made the decision to not tell him anything , to protect him and to get better but I haven’t been fully avoiding all my compulsions yet.. not all.. although the last 2 days I did but I haven’t been feeling or doing great at all .. I have been very frustrated and snappy even with him when that never happens .. I feel awful and selfish , I feel depressed and I have exams this week … hes a really pure soul .. hes nothing but sweet , supportive, patient and understanding but I’m really hurting snd I don’t like feeling this way .. feeling this angry at everything .. being unlike me .. being distant from him .. and I feel like life is falling apart .. I can barely catch my breath , barely catching up to my studies and I’ve been compromising on my attendance… I need help snd I don’t know what to do .. I feel stuck snd lost .. I don’t know if I should be telling him what thoughts exactly come to mind or like what happened the last few days (thoughts includes someone close he knows like super super close to him , had a doubt snd I know it’s intrusive but still , thats just one thought ) or do I suck it up truly and not share anything at all because this is the disorder snd not me .. it’s not my fault or intention ? (Again most of the thoughts that come in like for instance those comments I get about strangers for instance , I don’t want or intend them but they do as if my brain is teasing me and I feel like I’m responsible or at fault ) and I should just treat this as a disorder ? And really know that it’s all just lies snd not ever true or real ?… I can’t help but feel it’s as if I’m deceiving him , betraying him , hiding things from him or cheering on him specially because of these thoughts snd a great person like him deserves the best but I’ve been nothing but shitty hence why.. I’ve been the way I am … I really do need advice snd not just in this but actual advice almost im every aspect of my life right now and I would really appreciate any urgent help or advice … im sorry for how long this is but I thought maybe you’d see the picture clearly this way … Thank you 🙏🏻

Be a part of the largest OCD Community

Share your thoughts so the Community can respond

Does anyone have any advice for helping your partner deal with your ocd? Mine is getting frustrated feeling it's stupid and finds intrusive thoughts I try and share hurtful.

Related posts

Be a part of the largest OCD Community

Be a part of the largest OCD Community