- Date posted
- 5y
- 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.
- 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?
- Date posted
- 5y
Exactly
- Date posted
- 5y
Alright, thank you very much. I'm quite new to dealing with my ocd and I didn't realise this.
- 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.
- 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.
- Date posted
- 5y
You can do it!
- 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:)
- 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
- Date posted
- 5y
@Louw I mean I'm a gender neutral female, I just liked the dog hehe oop
- Date posted
- 5y
@smolbean I just realised the dog does look masculine wow
- 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 ?
- Date posted
- 5y
@Louw Oh that's brilliant hehe. I think it's a shibe
- Date posted
- 5y
@smolbean I'm agender myself, maybe I should start using the dog ?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Date posted
- 5y
@Louw That's really helpful
- 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.
- 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.
- Date posted
- 5y
:)
- Date posted
- 5y
Some of these articles might helphttps://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/family-issues/
- Date posted
- 5y
Thank you :)
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w
Someone I care about has OCD, he often gets worried to answer certain things in fear that he might be wrong or gets anxious in times when certain conversations such as dealing with negative emotions come into play and in the event something goes wrong even though we deal with the issue it takes him a long time to put himself back together. Often times worried about his image, hyper focused on being a good person etc etc. I believe I’m doing my best but as someone who doesn’t struggle with OCD I cant fully comprehend him and i wish to learn more about it, not just read it off of google. Any advice would be appreciate it. -Thank you!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 19w
Hi all! I was wondering if anyone being treated with ROCD and/or SOOCD has some advice on how they handle the things *with* their partner. For context, my ex and I were together ~7 months before we broke up a year ago, in large part due to my severe anxiety from untreated ROCD/SOOCD. I’ve gotten a lot better through NOCD treatment and we’ve been friends since then. But we’re currently in a “situationship” kind of stage, where I think we’re both trying to figure out if the relationship is still feasible, and I’m finding that I’m a lot more triggered as the relationship nears becoming “serious” again. We’re both really trying to figure out the healthiest way to handle when things get hard for me. Does anyone have input about what they’ve learned or found what has worked in their own relationships? Some specific questions: - I’ve found that when getting really triggered in my own head, I have no clue if I should explain how I’m feeling to my partner or how we should address it together. How do you differentiate between communicating versus falling into the confessing/reassurance trap? - Related to the above, my partner and I are both a bit lost on the best way for him to respond when I’m really paranoid (for examples, I have major I’m-being-cheated-on paranoia and overanalyze if I’m enjoying sex enough), or if I’m overreacting to feeling rejected/misunderstood (e.g. “he didn’t respond to my comment just now, he doesn’t care/he doesn’t get me/maybe we shouldn’t be together…”) - How much does your partner know about ROCD/SOOCD in general? How much have you shared with them about your thoughts and experiences? I’ve explained both subtypes and some of my thought processes to him, but definitely not all of it, and I’m not sure how much is helpful for him to know. Answers to any or all of the questions are very much appreciated. Thanks so much in advance! Hope you’re all well 💗
- Date posted
- 18w
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
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond