hi everyone. i found out that i have ocd recently. i went to different psychiatrists and they never told me that but now when i think about my past i understand that i have had ocd since childhood. now i experience rocd and it’s really hard. when i met my boyfriend i noticed that he is not perfect (appearance) but i felt that i like him really and i wanted to kiss him and to have sex with him. also it was really interesting to chat with him and to talk. but this thing with appearance wouldn’t go away. when he was away i checked videos and photos to calm down and to tell myself that he’s okay, anxiety passed away for several hours and then it came back. but i realized i have had ocd only after 3 month we have been together. i even broke up with him because i thought it would help, but obviously it didn’t because i felt that i like to spend time with him. and lately i understood that it was one of my compulsions. now it’s really hard. sometimes i think that i like everyone except him and that it will never go away, but during past week my anxiety (i do exercises and sit with my fears) went from 10/10 to 7 or even 6 out of 10. when i feel anxious i think that i just hate him and i even experience nightmares with him where he looks like really scary, not like in reality. sometimes i can’t talk to him on facetime because i think that he is ugly when thoughts about this go away my brain makes new ones – he is stupid, you never liked him, you didn’t feel sympathy it was all an illusion. it’s really hard cause before i never knew how to DEAL WITH IT cause no one told me i need to live through this anxiety without trying to make it pass away. sometimes i feel i hate him and i’m not interested about anything about him and my brain tells me to just break up but i know this is one of mechanisms to remove the anxiety. i know i liked him really but sometimes i think “does this really worth it if i fell like this?” but i know that i feel like this cause i just acknowledged that i have ocd and cause i never really coped with my anxiety in the right way. you know, it sucks when you understand that you had really bad ocd past 3 years and it affected relationship with friends and studying and like all life??? but you thought it was depression and doctors just gave you pills that never really helped you and now you can’t stop taking it cause you have really bad anxiety that will rise if you stop taking pills that you have taken for years. (i will stop taking it and now i go to new doctor and trying to find a doctor that will help me with my medicaments) but i know i can handle it and i want to know that i’m able to love and to build any kind of relationship without fear… i know that i’m okay and that i will be okay because now i know how to handle this… but sometimes i think that i can’t handle.. but deep inside i know I CAN. and also sometimes i think that i don’t have ocd and i made it up just to avoid the difficulties. but also i know that it’s one of the symptoms of ocd. if anyone goes or went through this please reply i would be happy to talk sorry for my mistakes english is not my native language

Hi everyone. I’m really struggling and I need to let it all out. I’ve been dealing with ROCD (or what I think is ROCD) for a long time, and I feel like I’m at my breaking point. I’m in a loving relationship with a boyfriend who is kind, understanding, and patient. But ever since I started reading a lot online, googling symptoms, talking to AI like ChatGPT, searching for reassurance, things have gotten worse and worse. And now… I feel completely disconnected from my feelings. I don’t know what’s real anymore. My boyfriend told me that he believes I’ve convinced myself that I have something that needs to be treated, and that all this constant researching is making me feel worse. And honestly, I think he’s right. Before I fell into this cycle, I could be more intimate with him. I used to say “I love you,” I used to feel warmth. Now I don’t say it anymore. I haven’t in a long time. And it hurts him. And I know I’m hurting him, and that makes it even worse. He also said that maybe I’m having these obsessive thoughts because I don’t have a daily purpose, that I need to get occupied, to stop being consumed by this. And others in my life have told me the same. He even suggested taking a break from each other for a week, just to give me space. But I’m terrified of that. I’m scared that the thing I fear most will become “the truth.” I’m scared I’ll feel relief, and that will mean everything I fear is real. But he told me that if I don’t want the break, maybe it means I still care. Still love. Still want this. The problem is, I don’t know anymore. And that’s what’s killing me. I’ve also had a psychologist who told me that just because I feel guilt or “care,” it doesn’t necessarily mean I like him — and that sent me spiraling. She said that maybe I care about people in general, but it doesn’t mean I love him. And it made me feel like I’m just lying to myself. That maybe I’m holding on out of obligation, or because I set in my head that I “have to be with him.” And even when he tells me beautiful things — logical things — things that SHOULD make me feel safe and seen… I don’t feel better. I just feel more empty. And then I start spiraling again: “If this doesn’t help me feel better, then something must be wrong.” “What if I’m just pretending?” “What if I’ve been lying to myself all along?” I feel like there’s something wrong inside of me. Like no matter what anyone says, or how much love I’m given, I can’t feel it. I just want to know what to do. I want someone to tell me what this is. I want to stop feeling like I’m running after a version of myself that used to feel, used to love, used to be calm. I don’t know if this is ROCD or if I’m just slowly facing a truth I’ve been afraid to accept. Please, if anyone has felt this way, I need to hear that I’m not alone. And if you’ve come out the other side… how? My relationship is perfect and he is perfect, i just deal with this and i am far from happy.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to share a part of my journey that I’m struggling with right now. I’ve been diagnosed with ocd and while this is not my first subtype, ROCD and so ocd have definitely been the ones I’ve been struggling with the most. For context I have a boyfriend who I love very much and am terrified of loosing. That’s probably what ocd latched onto. The so-ocd especially is tricky because I’ve come to acknowledge that I am bisexual. Don’t worry I didn’t “discover” this through ocd, I’ve always known and it’s been in the back of my mind way before ocd, I had just never really directly acknowledged it because romantically I just always leaned towards men. The thing my ocd latched onto is “what if you are actually a lesbian and don’t know it yet and will have to leave your partner or are lying to your partner or end up leading him on” The thing is, I don’t have much experience with women except kissing my female best friend once, which didn’t feel special or made me have romantic feelings for her. I’ve always seeked men more actively than women and didn’t feel like I was gonna miss out if I get into a serious relationship with a man before having had more experience. I just know that I can be sexually attracted to women as well. But now that I’m in this beautiful relationship I’m terrified of getting it wrong or having missed something about myself or being scared that I’m actually a lesbian and have been lying to myself all along. I’m not seeking reassurance, just wanting to share and maybe someone else is going through something similar? If so I’d be so grateful to know I’m not alone. I love my boyfriend dearly and i really hope we will work out in the long run.

I wanted to talk about my experiences with rOCD since I currently do still suffer from it but I know if I talked about them. My thoughts are just gonna get stronger, but I’ll do it for the sake of talking about my experiences to others who feel like they’re alone. I have a very loving relationship actually my first healthy relationship we are currently still dating one year and six months. I would say these intrusive thoughts started to happen once I hit the one year mark with him. Nothing in the relationship has made me think these thoughts, but it just came. Like when my mind tried to make me think I liked another guy other than my boyfriend and that I was losing feelings for him. I started to panic because I knew that my heart belonged to my boyfriend and having thoughts that were against that belief it made me really anxious cause I never had those thoughts before. I was in and out of the care center at my school constantly having anxiety attacks, and it was affecting me day by day. I talk to my boyfriend about it because my mind can never keep secrets from him because then I would feel like that I’m lying to him… my mind just kinda works that way and I believe it’s due to the situation I have with rOCD. Luckily, he was really supportive.. in thoughts I’ve had was what if I don’t like him anymore or if he doesn’t do this does that mean he likes me or if he’s even the one just a lot of doubts about me and him in the relationship. And for anyone who’s experiencing stuff familiar to this you are not alone invalid only what you believe is what is true. And I know it’s gonna be hard to know what’s true or not because these thoughts that you have versus what’s in your heart you get confused but if you know that you love that person then that’s what true. Also, the only reason why it affected me a lot was because I kept trying to solve it and the only solution is to let those thoughts in and accept that you have those thoughts. I don’t mean as an accept that these thoughts are true, but accepts that those are the thoughts that you’re thinking because if you keep on trying to find a solution to remove them, it only just get worse.