- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
It’s totally & completely up to you if you want to tell others about your OCD or not. Personally, I wanted to tell my best friend, boyfriend, and others close to me bc I felt like it helped them better understand me and my habits. However, that doesn’t mean that’s the best option for everyone! If you’d rather keep it to yourself, that’s totally fine.
- Date posted
- 3y
@qtwr Try not to think of it as a secret and more so as privacy. You are entitled to your own privacy and don’t have to tell anything you don’t want to. If you feel it would help them to understand you or you’d like to speak about past events and that this has made you who you are today, then that’s ok. If you want to keep it private and put the past in the past, then that’s ok too.
- Date posted
- 3y
asking if you're a bad person for this is reassurance seeking, and i don't want to enable that. instead, i'm gonna tell you this: while your medical diagnosis is your business and only your business, you don't have to decide who you do or don't want to tell today. you havent even met this supposed significant other yet, so don't sit here and be anxious about whether or not youre going to tell them. accept the fact that you don't know what you're going to do when the conversation comes up and move on
- Date posted
- 3y
@qtwr i can't answer that for you. if your best friend had a mental illness and decided to never tell you, would you think they were a bad person?
- Date posted
- 3y
@qtwr so if you dont think they'd be a bad person, why would you be a bad person?
- Date posted
- 3y
Congratulations on feeling better! I don’t have any experience yet because I am still struggling pretty bad with ocd but I think about this a lot. I worry that I’ll never find a SO because I won’t want to tell him about the horrible things I have thought. Perhaps just letting them know we have ocd and aren’t really comfortable going into it further is enough? 🤷🏼♀️ I don’t think there is anything wrong with not wanting to share something so personal but I do think not revealing something that is such a big part of our life might be complicated and you might be stressed about not accidentally revealing it. It’s a tough decision to make. Honestly, right now I can’t imagine finding a man that could ever accept my issues and thoughts so I am battling with the notion of being alone forever. Sorry I couldn’t give any personal advice. Do you mind me asking if you have any advice on how you stopped ruminating and got your ocd to a manageable level?
- Date posted
- 3y
It would say I stopped caring about my OCD. Whenever I get a thought I breath in and breath out, then I would say maybe maybe not, and let the thought be uncertain and try to not figure it out. It feels hard at first but later it gets better. Just forget everything so far , think today as a new beginning and you are only what you do and what your intentions are. A thought is just a thought you wouldn't want to do it so why bother finding it out if it's true or not, so why bother ruminating about it. Also be mindful, meditate daily, journal, eat your meals (atleast 3 meals a day) , have a consistent sleep pattern, read something daily.
- Date posted
- 3y
@qtwr Thanks for the advice!
- Date posted
- 3y
You are allowed to do whatever you want. Sharing it or keeping it to yourself is not good or bad. It’s your personal day preference. People don’t need to know every single thing about us.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w
For those of you in relationships with ROCD, do your partners know of your diagnosis. I am new to treatment and new to this avenue of mental health. I am generally pretty open and honest with my partner about things but the dark side of my mind I keep hidden. I’m scared to tell him about this if I’m diagnosed. And I’m scared that if I’m diagnosed and something real does go south in the relationship then my diagnosis will be used against me.
- Date posted
- 11w
I can’t help but feel so anxious because of guilt. I feel guilty about not sharing everything about my OCD to my partner, but because I understand that confession itself is a compulsion and would not help anyone. I feel so anxious too that if all my fears come true and she finds out, then it would be so devastating for everyone especially her. Does anyone feel the same thing? How could I change my perspective on this?
- Date posted
- 8w
Does anyone feel the urge to confess secrets even though they’re not yours to share? My husband told me about a traumatic event he had and trusts me to keep the secret. It has NOTHING to do with me at all. And my brain is making me feel like I need or want to tell someone. I want to be trustworthy and my brain is making me feel like I’m not because of this obsession. It’s so confusing because I know I don’t need to but I feel like I “want to” because of the OCD anxiety? And the feeling of wanting to makes me feel more anxious and like a terrible person. I have confessed literally everything to my mom about my thoughts so she’s my safe person. And I had an emotionally abusive dad (probably how I got OCD at a young age - like 8 years old) that has now passed away. So confiding in her even with intrusive thoughts and messed up shit was safe for me. Does my brain feel like I need to tell her just because she’s my safe person? I hate the feeling of me “wanting” to tell at all too and can’t tell if it’s real and it’s making me feel like a horrible person. I literally have no secrets myself. His mom knows and so do I. So I’m not the only one that knows. But why is my brain doing this? It’s spiraling me out and has been for a few days. But I want to keep the secret because it’s HIS and it doesn’t affect me in any way. I mean sure I feel bad for him - but it’s from his past before we even met? Someone please help me rationalize why I feel these things and why it’s so confusing to know if you actually “want” to do something or if it’s OCD? It’s causing a deep anxiety pit in my stomach and has been for days now.
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