- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Sounds like you already know that the frequency and intensity of the guilt you're experiencing is inappropriate for the situation. Although our minds don't necessarily acclimatise to guilt the way they do to anxiety, guilt can be made stronger by resisting and arguing with it instead of allowing it to happen. Emotions don't always make sense but they do need to be felt so that they can stop popping up or controlling your life or state of mind. I wonder if you have a day totally free soon where you could focus on letting your guilt happen fully without arguing with it, reassuring yourself or ruminating about the situation or the past or the future or asking yourself or others for reassurance or looking for it. Just feeling the guilt. You can focus on the sensations of it in your body if you need something to focus on to prevent being all up in your brain. A whole day will probably be long enough to feel the guilt through until it's gone without compulsions. If you catch yourself doing a compulsion, try to come back to the body. You can survive the physiological sensations of guilt without doing any thinking about whether it's accurate, inaccurate, right, wrong, or means anything else. This should help your problem. I have had serious issues with doing my own compulsions and avoidance to stave off guilt as it's a very uncomfortable and worrying emotion, as well as getting so drawn into the debate with it that I begin to question myself much more severely. More rumination and analysing and memory checking only equals more opportunities for things to pop up which make you feel even worse or take you into worse self-doubt. In future when you feel inappropriate or overwhelming guilt, your responses should either be feeling it through as described, or doing the "worry later" method if you can't face feeling it, in order to avoid doing compulsions at all costs, including venting/confessing to others with more posts or asking friends to attempt to validate that the meanings attached to your guilt aren't true, as reassurance. Feel the guilt first. We're here to support you in that. Later comes the insight, and the beers and rants with the boys if you like.
- Date posted
- 5y
I have very similar feelings my ocd is mostly due to guilt about things I did when I was drunk. And I also have feelings of not deserving to be happy which is miserable. I’m trying to accept and embrace uncertainty like I always want concrete answers if I’m a good person or not but it’s not that cut and dry and I have to live with that uncertainty so it will lessen the anxiety
- Date posted
- 5y
Totally man! Like it’s so frustrating like I know I’m a good person. But it’s like because one person has said something ocd will latch on to it and fuck with you like I guarantee if you were to tell me the silly things you’ve done when you’ve been drunk - I would say oh don’t be silly that doesn’t make you a bad person at all! And vice verca!
- Date posted
- 5y
What? Man you were drunk! People say dumb things when they’re drunk all the time. If what you said hurt her really bad, why would she stay with you for another year? She’s just trying to find an excuse to justify why she was breaking up with you. You apologized, that’s what is most important. It’s on her for holding onto that memory. She needs to forget and forgive, not you. I hope everything goes fine with the girl you’re interested now:)
- Date posted
- 5y
Thanks for your reply man! The thing is so much happened too when we were sober about her attitude towards the relationship she was disrespectful undermining and made me feel like shit a lot of the time. It took the break up for me to realise this. But because when I’ve drank a bit too much and said a few things nothing awful though she’s used this against me in the break up which has made me feel like shit and that I don’t deserve anyone else. And now that I’m moving on I feel like my ocd is trying to hold me back.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w
I will be straight forward and honest. I have cheated in the past. My last relationship was long term, and I had begged and begged for him to change and in the end he never did. I don’t know why I cheated. And I’m not going to make excuses for myself for why I did. I messed up. The cheating was online, it was never in person. But now, I’m in a new relationship. And he’s everything I have ever wanted in a boyfriend, husband, and best friend. I want this man to be with me the rest of our lives, and I want to see him help raise our future children. But I can’t help but feel such immense guilt, because although I have never cheated on him, his ex had cheated on him. And I truly don’t understand how or why she would…but that’s not my place to comment on. Such a big part of me wants to tell him, and tell him that that’s not me anymore, and I know that we will communicate healthily and openly, unlike my last relationship, which he never wanted to. Not only this, my brain just won’t. stop. thinking…about how I had cheated. I regret doing what I had done, I don’t WANT to cheat anymore, or ever again. Especially with the love of my life I have now. But I’m scared of what do I do if I have a compulsion, or anything revolving around cheating. I want to tell him about it, but I know I shouldn’t, and can’t really tell him as it’s complicated, and I know I would only make things worse. I feel like such a terrible person, and girlfriend, for what I have done and what I’m worried about ‘if I do’, even though I don’t want to. I want to be better, I want to grow. Any advice please would be amazing.
- Young adults with OCD
- Older adults with OCD
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- NOCD Therapy Alumni
- Relationship OCD
- Date posted
- 12w
I feel like I really need help right now. I keep reminiscing on my old relationship and comparing it to my current one. For context, within my old relationship I had been with him for a pretty awful year and 3 months. Within the first 3 months I realized that I didn't actually want to be with him, but I felt sorry for him. So, I stupidly started self sabotaging the relationship. I know that it was stupid, and I tried to break up with him but every time I felt bad. His mental health was already bad and I hate any possibility that I can make someone's mental health worse. That whole "relationship" was so toxic on both ends though. All of that alone has me so messed up. But with that I also had this false attraction to him. Like, I would always be figuring out what I wanted in a relationship and tried to do that with him despite knowing that I didn't actually want to be with him. Now my mind keeps trying to convince me that I'm doing that with my current relationship. I know that I'm not. This one feels genuine and it's pretty healthy. We have our bumps, but we both have this want to fix it and it's just so nice. I hate that my brain is trying to ruin this for me.
- Date posted
- 8w
my name is isma, i am 19 in nyc. i met this amazing guy at the beginning of the year, we hit it off immediately and he really stood out to me. i recently broke up with him because i feel like if id put him thru a lot if he’d stay with me. i recently came out to my parents and it wasn’t voluntary. i was caught with him and then had to reveal that i was gay. my parents didn’t take it too well. i felt uncomfortable and a little scared to be at home for some days. that settled in a week and both my parents told me they were acceptant but in the end it just felt to me like if they accepted me but they just didn’t wanna know about it anymore in a sense of just avoiding touching on the topic. now me and my boyfriend, i was going thru a lot and he gave me all his attention and was there for me whenever i had to vent or just cry because of everything going on. it’s crazy to think that at 19 years old id be coming out to my parents when at the start of the year, i never thought that’d be something id end up doing. ive never been open about my emotions or a “soft” person because i was never able to be myself at home and with my parents. sometimes i can’t even hug anyone. i find it hard to speak to strangers that r not my friends. i’m very picky when it comes to making friends. i feel like my thoughts are all over the place and im very indecisive. i miss my boyfriend and i wanna go back with him but im scared that ill ruin things again. before him, i was stuck in hookup culture and thought that by hooking up w a guy i was interested in, he’d wanna stay with me and get to know me. i was used many times and ive also used people many times. i’ve been done dirty and ive done people dirty, i dont think of myself as a good person but i felt loved and deeply cared for by this guy. he lives in nj and i live in ny. sometimes he’d even surprise me at work and i cried the first time he did. i felt so special and in awe because i would’ve never thought i could get so emotional over a small gesture. to me it wasn’t a small gesture. it was everything because he came from all the way in nj to ny just to see me for a couple of minutes. i hate the way that i am. i am unconfident, i think i am so ugly, sometimes i question how he found me attractive to date. i overthink everything, i cried one time imagining him coming to see me in ny then having to go home so late back to nj, i dont think im worth it and i felt like i didn’t deserve that and maybe it’d be better if he found someone near him. i also compared myself a lot with him. he’s such a kind spirited person, he’s always smiling and i on the other hand get told i look sad or anxious. i am i pretty negative person and that just adds on to me being an overthinker. i always thought someone as happy as him deserves another happy person and not someone who gets mad or agitated easily. i wish i can be more for him, i do miss him a lot and i plan on talking with him again. i just wanna talk everything out, even if we don’t date for sometime, i wanna be around him and know we’re gonna get back there again someday. he’s the best person that’s came to my life, i know ppl may say to let it go and see it as a learning experience but i don’t wanna move on if it’s not me moving on by his side. i really do wanna be with him i just wanna get my head clear. i don’t know what to do, im stuck
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