- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
Hey, Zoed. So based on what I read it sounds like you're going through a lot right now. More than you might be able to handle. I'm really sorry for your loss. I hope it gets better. I'm sorry that your parents haven't been on good terms either. Understanding that you have OCD, which is a doubting disorder and it will go after anything that you care the most about. Understand that this isn't your fault, none of this is. You are suffering and it's okay to not be okay. As human beings, we all suffer together. What you can do about these thoughts I'd acknowledge them as just that: thoughts. You don't have to give them meaning. You don't have to act on any of them. And you don't have to reason with them. You can even use these thoughts as some sort of exposure, such as saying "maybe, maybe not" or agreeing with the thoughts even. The thing about these thoughts is that you will never be certain about your partner's trust. You may have not realized this prior to OCD, but you have always assumed that you had your partner's trust and didn't have any second guesses about it. Now with OCD, however, you feel that you have to doubt, check, figure out, and try to understand pretty much everything. I'm here to tell you that you do not have to that. It will only lead you into going in circles. Try challenging the thoughts. Tell your husband how you're feeling. Tell him what you're going through and know that he will be there for you. He along with this entire community will be here to support, help, and guide you in any way we can! Don't give up. :)
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you very much for your advice! Your words are really helpful to me! I have realized that my relationship is the center of my ocd thoughts and anxiety because i have inside me feelings of betrayal, people that were supposed to love and give me security gave up on me and lied so i have created the rule "All people lie, all people think I don't have value so I must be treated like i am a zero". It is really sad that I have lost trust and pure feelings but I find it very difficult to win back my past self and forget all the negative feelings I have inside me. My husband knows everything and tries to help me on his own way but he is not an expert and sometimes cannot really understand how my thoughts terrorise me and how real they seem to me. I told him that every time i have an ocd episode to not give special attention and just try to be there. However sometimes the episodes are so intense that he feels so bad and sad for me and tries to give me as much support as he can. I think it's really difficult for the partners of ocd sufferers to understand and be calm while their loved ones seem to suffer so much. I think they should have a psychological support too.
- Date posted
- 4y
I just want you to know I have exactly the same fears. I woke up this morning after having a bad dream. My husband was hooking up with someone else in the dream. I spent 60 mins this morning reading a script to myself and sitting with the anxiety. I have major trust issues too, from being hurt in the past. I think this is why my OCD latches on to my intimate relationships. If you ever need someone to talk to I’m happy to offer exposure ideas and let you know I’m working on the same thing.
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you very much for your help! I have always wondered if other people think so many weird things about their partners and are in a constant anxious mood. It means a lot to listen stories from other people that have the same worries and fears. Unfortunately being hurt in the past lives deep wounds that need therapy and help. If you can give me any sort of exercise or tip i would love to hear it! Thank you again!
- Date posted
- 4y
Absolutely. For me the only way out is the way through. I’m surprised I ever got married given how strong my anxiety is about being hurt. The way I think about it, OCD already has me living in my worst fears by sending me these vivid intrusive thoughts. I may as well just try and enjoy my time with my partner because if it does ever happen that I’m hurt I’ll have to deal with the painful heartbreaking feelings then. Why torture myself now. I’m trying to not avoid things that scare me: movies with attractive women, attractive women out in the world my partner sees or interacts with. I can’t control what he decides to do, only how I choose to respond. For me staring fear in the face with exposures is so important. If it’s scary I have to approach. I’m happy to be a buddy in the work. We can keep each other posted on how it’s going. Find me on Snapchat. Fayete99
Related posts
- Date posted
- 21w
My husband told me recently he was going to hang out with a local friend he often goes to see. It got very late and I heard nothing from him. Tried calling and texting. Stayed up all night thinking maybe he was dead or injured. Logged into our cell phone account to see if I could find any recent location and discovered he had talked to someone on the phone that night but he was like 2 hours away from home at that time. And also saw a phone number he was spending hours on the phone with every day. I had been confronting him about his secrecy prior to that and he kept telling me it was this friend or that friend, or he was just taking the dog on a long walk or having a fire out back. He finally called me back in the morning and I yelled at him. He told me he was randomly with two friends from longer ago and had gotten drunk and passed out, and hadn't told me about these plans because I had a heart surgery a few weeks prior and health concerns and he didn't want to stress me out. He told me the phone number was a girl that he related to on trauma factors and that he views like a little sister. He said he didn't tell me because he was caught up in his trauma spilling of events he didn't share with a single person since they occurred to him 35 years ago, due to feelings of shame and anger, and that he thought I would view it as emotional cheating. I told him it really could be viewed as emotional cheating and in principle, honesty shouldn't be dependent upon the outcome... lying isn't justified because I would be upset by the truth. Since then, he's been more open with me and tells me when that girl is calling, talks to me about their conversations, answers her calls when I'm present. I talked to him about boundaries and things I'm uncomfortable with or bothered by and he changes those things. Especially because I have trauma from an emotionally abusive ex, having him lie to me when I directly questioned him about what I was perceiving or experiencing and telling me those experiences weren't real, when they actually WERE real, has really messed me up. Now when he wants to hang out with a friend, I don't trust it. But I'm handling these feelings in destructive OCD ways. I spend literally the entire time he's gone thinking and thinking and thinking about what if he's lying or what he might be doing instead of what he said. I call and text him intermittently and feel like all of my obsessive thoughts are confirmed if he doesn't answer right away. I'm always checking the phone history. The driving toll history. Scrutinizing everything. I cannot get out of this mindset. It's like this horrible mixture of emotional flashbacks and OCD. I don't want to live like this. I want to work on my relationship in productive ways. I want to be able to use my own time while my husband is gone. Even if he lied to me and is somewhere other than he said, I don't want to lie in bed just thinking and thinking and thinking for entire days and nights. I'm not sure what I'm really asking here. This is just the only place where I feel like I can share this without people thinking "wow she's crazy".
- Date posted
- 20w
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well! I lost my dad yesterday and me having ocd since I was 7, it just skyrocketed. Yesterday it was difficult for sure, but I didn’t have any intrusive thoughts about self harm. It all happened suddenly when I was half asleep (trying to sleep even though it was really hard), were I feel as if a switch turned on in my brain and out of nowhere I started feeling angry. I recognised at that moment that I was not angry but that’s what my brain was telling me. And that’s when I had an intrusive thought of harming my mom came to my mind and immediately after that came the thought of harming myself. And it stuck. I know grief can make these themes pop up, but what if this is all real and not ocd? I’m scared. I acknowledge I don’t have thoughts in my head of planning to harm myself, it’s just a feeling that this is going to happen. Now letting my thoughts out brings me relief, even sometimes this intrusive thoughts bring me relief (that is very scary), but ocd makes me so pessimistic, and that I’m doomed in life and the sad life my dad had will also be mine as well. There are moments where I feel hope and relief, but it doesn’t last for long. As if I’m so so sure that this is going to happen. And me having magical thinking ocd doesn’t help either. Grief is hard, sometimes I cry, other times I laugh with my friends and family, but those moments I laugh is when I get terrified ( I read people who have made up the decision to (you know) are happy and laugh. Anyways, I’ve talked to my mom about it, she’s super supportive of me restarting therapy and even though she’s struggling with grief, she’s always there to listen to me and give me all the comfort I need. But I informed her about the thoughts the moment the popped up. Just so that she knows and can save me because I don’t trust myself at all. Sorry for this huge rumble, but I’d really appreciate your advice. I’m scared and so not ready to start therapy (at one hand I don’t want to, it feels such a chore, but I know I need to get help). I’m very pessimistic at the moment and I feel no one can convince me that I’ll get better. I think my future life, and it brings me this warm nice feeling and then it is followed by the thought that this will never happen. And because I have magical thinking ocd, and my uni exams have just started, I had this feeling that this exam season will be endless and it’s never going to end. Guess what, I’m probably going to just take one exam out of three (my mind is like you see, this thought and feeling came true) and that’s where I get super pessimistic. Okay, I’ll shut up for now, please give me some advice on how you try to manage your thoughts and what to do for now. Take care ❤️
- Date posted
- 15w
This is going to sound crazy but I guess I am. For over a year now I’ve suffered from ocd. And I always thought ocd was just I turned the door the wrong way but it’s so much more. I feel as if I’ll never get better. I’m in a relationship, for 8 months now with the most encouraging and supportive boyfriend ever. I tell him all of my thoughts and he understands and accepts because he understands it’s not thoughts I mean to have. I feel so awful being the way I am and being with him. I feel like I can’t be happy because it’s always something going on with me. He has a bigger family all boys, and everyone I hangout with my boyfriend and his brothers I get uncomfortable and weird and convince myself I have feelings for them or I want them. It makes me so disgusted and physically ill every time. The thoughts never go away and it’s not even about them it’s tons of things. I cry constantly because I can’t get the thoughts to go away. I can’t hang out with anybody out of fear I’ll have a thought I don’t want. I feel like I’m so alone. A year ago I felt the same way about my dad which I know is absolutely disgusting and I would never have feelings for my own family and dad, bit thoughts pop into my head. I don’t know if it’s because my brain wants a reason and answer as to why I think those things so I tell myself I like them, but I can’t shake it. I’m trying medicines and hopefully getting into therapy soon. I just don’t know if it ever is going to get better. Some days are better than others and every time I have a bad thought I get heat flashes and and my stomach hurts and I get anxiety and I just want it all to go away. I hate it so much and I feel as if I’ll never be normal again and never be able to live my life freely. I have to constantly worry about what my brain might come up with. These are not thoughts I want to have but somehow my brain has them and I feel so disgusted and I need help so badly. I never know what to do and i feel like an awful human being. I convince myself these things are try when I know they aren’t deep down. I’m losing my charachter and I’m losing myself and the person I know I am which would never have thoughts like these. I want it all to go away. Please tell me it gets better. I don’t recognize myself anymore.
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