- Username
- .ketamine.kitten.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
I'm here if you want to talk. I feel you completely. X
Thank you Molly, I appreciate that. It's hard to explain this to folks without OCD and thus no shared experience.
I'm not a therapist, merely a patient and fellow sufferer, but what you described is in fact textbook ROCD. You're not alone in this, though it can seem so preposterous and intrusive that you can't imagine being anything but unique. I can tell you that when the cycle gets really bad and/or goes on long enough, even though you think there's no trigger you are actually still dealing with the latest trigger, or any or all of the triggers you've been going through. Our systems have gotten used to being on high alert. The bottom line is that the thoughts are irrational and don't reflect actual emotions. And you will not be able to think your way to feeling what you want to feel. Even if you felt the right feelings, the ROCD will still want to cause trouble. If it's at all possible, I highly recommend getting into ERP therapy.
How are you doing at the moment? Has this ruined relationships for you? X
Doing a lot better but still find myself looking over my shoulder in fear that the next cycle is looking to get me. My therapist is helping a lot with this, mostly by assuring me that this is a totally normal part of the process. And this has actually made my relationships stronger. I'm fortunate to be surrounded by people who see the real me, even when I can't.
Was it jjst your SO it affected or your other relationships too? X
@mollyyy Just my SO. Taking someone who's OCD and throwing in a surgery to their SO, then a week later going into lockdown ... things can go haywire in the brain! Fortunately, I have amazing loving support from her as well as some wonderful support from friends. And of course, NOCD.
@Anonymous That's good to hear. I just constantly question and iverthink every little thing, trying to be more present but this am I looked at him sleeping and was like 'do I want to look at this fave for the rest of my life, what if I dont find him cute enough etc'(he is pretty beautiful lol) and I was present in that moment so now I'm like blahhhhh. Haha my SO is super supportive but he doesn't fully understand so he gets frustrated too. He's only human x
Thank you both for your responses. I know we're not supposed to seek reassurance, but I haven't felt safe in my body or identity for days now, and it's unbearable at times. I scheduled a consult with a NOCD therapist to get back into ERP.
Yes, reading articles for reassurance is a compulsion; and I think it's safe to say that most everyone who has ROCD and other subtypes has done this, myself included. Ultimately, you just want to feel better and there's nothing wrong with that, so you deserve some self-compassion. It's not that you can't tell what you feel, it's that the obsessions are so strong that your real feelings don't stand a chance. And the less you feel what you want, the more it seems like that's evidence of your worst fear. It's a really messed up cycle this condition puts us in! Emotions naturally ebb and flow anyway, and the ebb part is not adequate evidence of anything. The key that ERP helps you achieve is to get to the point where you are comfortable with not needing to be certain. When you can do that, your true feelings will be able to breathe and find room to express themselves again.
Thank you so much for saying "the obsessions are so strong the real feelings don't stand a chance"... That really resonates. The ERP I've done in the past had been focused on my perfectionism, eating behaviors and organization, with a fair amount of efficacy so I know it works. It's almost like the OCD has nowhere else to go but to my relationship. š«
I have often felt that very same thing, that OCD is most at home feeding on my greatest fears. I guess this is a means to overcoming those fears.
It's flaring up again, and I found myself Googling "real doubt vs. relationship OCD"... It's not helping. The first few times I read these articles (some from NOCD) I felt relief, and now I can't achieve that. Would we call this compulsing? I'm so confused about how I feel I can't tell what's real and what's what.
I am a happily married 26 year old. I love my husband and our two year old child. I have struggled with intrusive thoughts in the past. Pure āOā OCD and also POCD. A couple months ago I got triggered by something that made me think of an ex boyfriend from 2016. and it made me think what if I have feelings for him or what if I want to talk to him, etc and it's spiraled from there. Now I feel like I have to be with him or talk to him for the anxiety and thoughts to go away. And then yesterday I thought about him again and I was like well if I was with him would it be that bad? And it didn't make me anxious and now I'm anxious because it didn't make me anxious. Which has to mean I want to be with him? I don't want to be with him tho but what if thatās the case? And what if my ocd isnāt real. I feel like Iām drowning in my thoughts and I have created a situation that feels so intense and real
hi so i am pretty new to discovering ocd and trying to figure out why i am feeling the way i am feeling. iāve never been diagnosed with ocd and honestly thought my anxiety was just super bad until it started affecting the way i saw my relationship. iāve never had this bad of anxiety in my relationship and around november of last year is whenever i started noticing the cycle of repeated thoughts of āshould i break up with him?ā ive been with my boyfriend for almost two years. yes weāve been through our ups and downs and our relationship has overall been such a beautiful relationship (super healthy compared to old ones) we love each other deeply and communicate and just overall find ways to help improve our relationship healthier and iāve had a doubt here and there throughout these years but since last November i started feeling disconnected with him a little. i started to question sometimes if i really loved him. other times i told myself and asked myself if i should break up with him. if we really loved each other. i started focusing on his features a lot more. to the point where these thoughts around him made me feel so extremely uncomfortable. iāve done all my research trying to figure out if I love him or not and trying to find reassurance and other people stories to see if they feel the same way I would also see how I feel whenever I was around him and it got to a point where I overall just felt very disconnected with him and a lot of different forms. I sometimes will forget about these thoughts and I will go out through my week throughout my days and I wonāt even think about them and then something good will happen actually and it will trigger that immediate thought or sometimes weāre not even doing anything weāre just hanging out and being together and that will trigger the thought of wanting to break up with him and it makes me extremely uncomfortable and it makes me panic gives me anxiety and it just stresses me out because I know itās not true, but my brain has tried to fully convince myself it is. I was doing really good and I figured out how healthy I wanted this relationship to be recently and because weāve been so stressed on talking about our relationship and moving on even further and growing together, it started coming back and now Iām very very anxious again. I also have this type of anxiety of obsessing over things such as my health. When it comes to my gut health to my skin I have a very bad habit of having perfectionism not only within, my body face and everything around what is myself. I have a lot of anxieties, and I always thought it was just very severe anxiety until when I was researching why I was doubting my love for my boyfriend I heard of ROCD and I was super curious to know if I even have OCD, I brought it up with my psychiatrist and she doesnāt think that I have any. I have so much anxiety over this I feel like itās physically and mentally controlling my body from how much itās overwhelming me. I donāt know what to do. I keep convincing myself itās not even RCOD and maybe I truly donāt love him but I have no other proof or feelings that that could be true. Itās just a thought that circles in my head and no matter how many reassurance I give myself it will come back within an hour, if someone could please give some advice I will have my own therapy session here soon and Iām very excited to know how I can overcome this
someone please reach out im really not doing okay and this is the closest i think ive come to making the decision that ny relationship needs to end but i cant do it. it's gotten so bad that even being around my boyfriend doesn't calm me down or make me feel better out these feelings, it just makes me feel like they're more real. im not confident that I'm just dealing with ocd at all. I'm so worried that my relationship is beyond repair and that I've fallen out of love because of resentment from problems we have. I don't know what love feels like how do I even know and yeah I know lo e isn't a feeling it's a choice but it's so hard to make choices let alone the correct ones when I'm doubting every aspect of our lives and relationship. I don't want to prolong the inevitable and make us both more miserable until we decide to finally end it but I don't want to end it if things can get better and I will feel normal again and in love. not guilty every time I say I love you because then I have the thought that I shouldn't say it because I don't know anymore. How do I talk to him about this. I bring it up but then I gloss it over with a reason that is more understandable and true but less painfu then "I don't know if im falling out of love or even what love feels like and I don't even know myself anymore so I don't know how I feel" and then we kinda comfort eachother until we get too sleepy to stay awake. I know OCD messes with your brain and can make feelings feel so real when they aren't and thoughts that aren't logical make the most sense. I know how it works but having OCD doesn't mean you can't experience the same things other people experience in relationships. So how do you know the difference.
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