i know i love my boyfriend and i know he’s attractive, but my mind is telling me that both of those things are false. i feel completely numb to everything. it’s a hard day for sure. i don’t want to accept uncertainty for the fear that it could be true, and compulsions aren’t giving me any relief. i’m so lost and confused. if anyone has any advice, i’m all ears!

I’m in such a dark place right now. No matter what I do with my boyfriend — kissing, hugging, cuddling, talking — I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing. And every time, my brain says: “That’s it. It’s the truth. You don’t love him anymore.” I keep thinking I’m forcing myself to act like I still like him just because I can’t accept the truth — that maybe I fell out of love and don’t want to admit it. When he calls me beautiful, when he’s kind to me, when he holds me… I feel numb. And that numbness makes me feel like a stranger in my own life. Like I’m faking everything. Like I’m lying to him and to myself. It feels too real. I used to have moments — even during intrusive thoughts — where I would relax in his arms and feel safe and reminded that this is ROCD. But now… even those moments feel gone. Like the thoughts aren’t lies anymore — they feel like the truth. And I don’t know what to do with that. My therapist made things worse. She told me things that made me believe I’ve mentally “decided” I have to be with him, and that I’m wrong for thinking it’s bad to walk away. Now I feel like I’ve built my entire relationship on an idea that I should stay, not that I want to. I feel like I’ve changed. I remember moments of deep love, warmth, and closeness… but now I can’t feel them anymore. And all I hear in my head is “you’re different now. It’s over.” I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve hit a wall. I’m not even crying anymore — I’m just… empty. What if this is the truth I’ve been avoiding all along? What if I just can’t accept that I stopped loving him? What if this relationship is no longer right, and I’m just pretending? This is the worst it’s ever been. I’ve never felt this far gone before.

Hi everyone. I’ve been struggling deeply with what I believe is ROCD for about a year and a half. I’ve read so much, I’ve learned about ERP, I know that I’m supposed to let the thoughts and feelings pass without reacting — but even knowing all of that, I feel stuck. More than stuck — I feel broken. Lately, I can’t stop thinking that maybe I never loved my boyfriend. That I only loved the idea of being in a relationship, and now I’m just trying to hold on to a fantasy. These thoughts feel incredibly real. When I’m next to him, kissing or cuddling him, I feel like I’m faking it. And that scares me. It feels like something inside me changed and I can’t go back. And now I can’t even remember what love felt like — it’s like I’ve lost myself completely. Yesterday was especially painful. I was overwhelmed and my mom, who usually notices when I’m not okay, tried to talk to me. She loves me a lot and has been carrying her own burdens lately. When she saw how much pain I was in, she reacted strongly — not because she doesn’t care, but because it hurts her to see me like this every day. She told me I might be lying to myself. That I’m hurting both myself and my boyfriend by holding on if I don’t feel love. She asked me to imagine what I would feel if he broke up with me — and I couldn’t answer. I froze. The thing is, I don’t know what I want anymore. I feel hopeless. I try to remember good memories and feel nothing. I used to cry when we said goodbye — now I feel numb. It makes me think that maybe I’ve always been in denial. That maybe everything I believed was love was just me forcing it. And yet… I still don’t want to lose him. But even that feeling feels far away now. These thoughts aren’t just whispers anymore. They feel like truths screaming in my head. “You don’t like him.” “You don’t love him.” “You’re just used to him.” “It was all fake.” And I can’t stop ruminating. Every second of my day is consumed with doubt, fear, guilt, sadness, emptiness — and above all, confusion. I just want to know if anyone else has felt this. Felt like they were losing everything, like nothing feels real anymore, like they’re trying so hard to do the right thing and nothing works. I’m trying to sit with the feelings. I’m trying not to seek reassurance. But I also need support. I feel so alone in this. Thank you for reading.

I feel like I’ve reached such a painful place where everything seems real. I feel like I don’t love him anymore, like I’ve been lying to myself and to him this whole time — and now I’m realizing a terrible truth that I couldn’t accept until now. The thoughts come in like statements, like facts: “You don’t love him,” “It was just habit,” “You’re pretending.” They don’t feel like just thoughts — they feel like reality. And the hardest part is that I don’t feel anything anymore. Just a deep emptiness, numbness, and detachment. I don’t know what love feels like anymore, and because I don’t feel, I start to believe there’s nothing left to feel — maybe there never was. My mom told me that I’m lying to myself, that I’m hurting him and myself, and if I really don’t feel anything, I should end the relationship. She’s overwhelmed, and I know she’s saying these things out of worry for me — but it still hurts. My boyfriend shows me so much love. He really does. He tells me, he shows me, he supports me. And yet… I feel like I can’t respond, like I’m empty inside. That makes me feel like a terrible person. I feel fake, like I’m performing in a life that doesn’t feel real anymore. I’ve read so much about ROCD. I’ve been told over and over again that I need to sit with the thoughts, that I need to accept uncertainty. I know what ERP is, I know the tools. But even with all this knowledge, I feel stuck. It feels like nothing is helping. Like I’m frozen in place, and my only truth is this awful, real-seeming feeling that I don’t love him. I keep thinking: maybe I just liked the idea of love. Maybe I only stayed because he’s a good person. Maybe the love I thought I felt was just me coping and hoping. And now it feels like that hope is gone. I feel so disconnected from everything. I can’t even remember how it felt to love him. I look at our memories and they feel distant, blurry, meaningless. I’m scared. I’m tired. I just want to feel okay again. Please, if anyone has been through something like this — if you understand this storm — I’d love to hear how you kept going. I feel like I’m barely holding on.