I had very obvious and observable behavioral symptoms of OCD as a child and young adult but I didn’t realize how it has manifested itself as an adult. After a very emotionally abusive dynamic in my last long-term where my obsessive thinking and compulsive researching led me to expose a terrible fraud and even cope with the fallout of leaving him. It had been almost exactly a year and I was still researching and digging and exposing more fraudulent info about my ex. I was about 6 months into a wonderful new relationship that we took very slowly (he waited 4 months only texting with me until I was ready). At about one year from when I started uncovering my ex’s cons, I began obsessively looking for flaws, lies and infidelity in a wonderful man. And on the one year mark almost to the date, i hurt him so terribly when I randomly just sabotaged over the course of about 2 days with my suspicions that he couldn’t get past it. He took about two weeks to try to start over with me and I just kept making it worse. It’s been two months now yet I’m still ruminating and trying to convince myself I was right and I know deep down I was wrong. I can’t fix it. He’s moved on and moved on far too quickly which validated my suspicions even though I know I’m wrong. And I’m still digging into his life like I was and can’t seem to stop. It’s been two months and he’s very happy with someone new. Now add to it that I can’t stop punishing myself. It’s dug up the trauma from my ex all over again. I just realized my medicine got messed up in my refill just two weeks before this all happened (I was supposed to be taking two smaller pills instead of my usual one larger dose pill but didn’t realize it) but its no excuse. I then realized in my overthinking that in my 30s I ended all of my relationships right before easter and in my 20s all of them right before my birthday so now I really have something all new to overthink about. I feel so overwhelmed and I feel so awful that I hurt someone. I want to make things right but I realize that’s just more of my harmful behaviour to want to fix everything and try to justify my actions. I don’t ever tell anyone about anything I’ve done because I don’t want sympathy or encouragement or placating. I am new to trying this method and i will do my best to learn from this. It was bad enough when I only sabotaged me but I hurt someone who had a very traumatic set of experiences when he was at his weakest moment and needed me most. It was my wake up call. And I’m finally ready to ask for help.

A friend who has gone through a lot of hospitalizations and become a very vocal advocate in the community spoke recently about ERP. As we are at home and learning new coping mechanisms anyway, I am ready for the challenge. It’s as good a time as any to really tear myself down to the studs and rebuild. Since I don’t need to be as productive and disciplined in other arenas in life at the moment, I have the emotional energy to do my homework right now and the usual outlets for distraction to not face myself have been removed. I was starting talk therapy for the first the right before lockdown but only for the relationship trauma that I wasn’t ready to admit was actually trauma. I keep trying ways to cope with general anxiety by distracting myself (like exercise) instead of actually understanding what’s happening so I can grow. This virus ordeal has brought back up some childhood OCD and it what made me see that I’m spiraling like I did as a child just I’ve learned to hide it in my mind. That was “treated” with harsh tough love so maybe explains why I buried it so only I can “see” it. How did you first start facing getting help? I’m not good at talking aloud. Slightly better at writing but I can’t express my thoughts well so getting help from another person is hard.

@ParanoiaParalyzed I ended up in the hospital for major depression and suicidal ideation While there, I was diagnosed with OCD. I always suspected that I had OCD but wasn't sure because I was not the stereotypical hand washer or door lock/stove knob checker. Have you reached an emotional bottom where you are prepared to do the tough stuff that lies ahead in OCD treatment?

@Fear Strikes Out I attempted suicide 7 years ago and hadn’t had feelings like that until last year but I pushed them down. They bubbled up again recently. I lost everything when I walked away from my last major relationship (literally this isn’t an exaggeration... he was a con artist... literally everything including him bullying me out of my career, alienating me from my friends, draining me financially and putting me in debt for him, and never letting me move out keeping all of my things including heirlooms, etc) but I was numb then and I moved across the country with nothing to get out of his reach. I’m feeling raw now. I’ve spent the majority of last year or so sitting in silence most days just alone in my thoughts trying to cope alone. I hibernated by choice before this lockdown. Now that the pressure is off for the time being to try to start a new life here in a hurry, I want to stop the spiral. I am not as low as I was last year but I’m on that path again. I hit rock bottom and bounced and I’m heading back down. I want to do it right this time.

@ParanoiaParalyzed I think that working on the OCD as a priority makes a lot of sense. One of your apparent compulsions is ruminating aboutpast events. As you know, that's a real rabbit hole. Once learning how to manage the OCD, you may want to revisit the childhood trauma you mentioned with a talk therapist. Are you thinking about seeing an OCD therapist or learning and applying ERP on your own, hopefully with some self-compassion mixed in. Do you think that you will be able to build up a support network of a few good friends in your new location?