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Is avoidance a compulsion?

Can feelings go away after a really big disappointment?? It's like I don't know my bf anymore, it's like if it is a stranger. I became indifferent, reluctant and anxious at the idea of seeing him. My coping strategies is to take distances when I'm hurt... he did a thing that really disappointed me and made me feel so unspecial, I felt really really hurted. I couldn't stop crying for a day. (He didn't cheat, and no violence). And from that thing, my feelings change. I have rocd, and in past they changed a lot. But in the way that happend that day... never! We talked, he tried to find compromise, and wanted to change things. Now he is trying, but it feels like it is too late! Can my feelings came back, or do I have to broke up with him??

Does anybody else have experience with obessional thinking about other people? I have begun to compare myself to others very negatively, to particular people in my life. It has grown over months to the point that simple words, colours, smells can trigger a thought about a person, past relationships and then following thoughts about my own self worth, lack of control over things and my general anxiety and distress. I am not really looking for reassurance. I just wanted to know if anybody else experiences this and how exposure therapy could work in relation to people and relationships.

Is it true that OCD latches onto thing you value most? My themes are: pure OCD, POCD, and real event. If those are my themes, what does that mean about what I value?

It feels so real. And then some days I feel like I can really differentiate between me and ocd and see it all clearly. And be okay with uncertainty. And then it just hits me back again like a brick where my brain is like “no it’s all or nothing you can’t have anything in between” and then I get anxious. And when I’m anxious I get irritable with my partner and it’s almost like I resent her for not letting me HOCD thoughts be played out. Like surely that means I’m just in denial about it.

This is killing me now i am lost I don't know if this is ocd anymore or just major denial cause i think i am just getting major proofs of that pls help me. Okay so i went out today and a few things or thoughts bothered me or didn't idk it was my friends birthday and she just kissed her bf and my other female friend was sitting next to me and the thought of kissing her just popped up?!! Like what?! And it felt to real like i wanted it and the lighting was also such and stuff just which i just found weird and then this girl was pretty and attractive and I thought that she was the same but i don't know in what sense now and if I don't know it could mean that it could be the one that i fear too this uncertainty now feels like it could lead me to my denial being true which is not true or is it!?!? Is it is and i am writing this so casually and okay with it what is that then. Then this guy was being creepy and trying to be like too close to me and the thought of saying i have a girlfriend popped into my head like right away without much thought.. why would that come if I don't think thats true or has some truth to it cause it was so like reflexive and if it is that what does that mean?!? Do i know the answer but don't wanna believe it or am i faking having od and this isn't that and am i asking these questions cause i want it to be ocd cause i think i wont have a problem kissing the same sex and what does this statement of mine mean people with soocd say they hate the thought or they would never why did i say the other though what does that say about me?!? Why does being with guys give me anxiety is its not something i want and why does being withe the same sex feel more like a possibility and real that the opposite its like i am telling people i am into the same sex feel more like a possibility and real that the opposite its like i am telling people i am into the same sex am i?!? What am I supposed to do how is this ocd how can this be anyone hearing will say its just me in major major denial... being with a guy feels like I don't want it whyyy what do i do?!? And sometimes i notice good looking guys and girls too and do i get the same feeling when i see them or is that ocd too?!? Like What do i do?!

I just need an opinion on this.. please don’t get upset…

I never forget that childhood mistake I did on the past when I was like 9 y/o but as I child I also quickly learned from that experience, repent, say sorry to God, I never repeat that mistake again and moved on. Highschool, college, after college, having a career passed by and I'm totally okay but never forgot that mistake its just that I don't react to it everytime that thought pops into my head. But suddenly, pandemic and lockdown happened last yr I was 26 y/o and that thought came out of nowhere and to my surprise my reaction was different, I feel shame, guilt, dirty, undeserving of a great life. And I keep on replaying that scenario to get all the details as possible and to answer my questions "why you did that?" "whats running into your mind when youre doing that mistake" "eventhough youre still a child back then you still knew that it was wrong!" "you need to make sure all the details! and not having a false memory ocd!" UHHHHHRGH!!! I'm really tired!!!! Why ocd keeps asking me questions I don't know or probably won't remember?? Its irritating! Why it can't just accept the fact that hey I'm human! commiting mistakes is included in my DNA. Why do I feel the guilt, shame, tainted feels over and over again?? Oh please give me a break! 😪

Sexual orientation OCD is so hard. I haven’t struggled with the thoughts for a while now, I know I like boys. I am 19 and I have never had feelings for a girl and the thought of being in one makes me feel uncomfortable. But why do I still deal with HOCD then? OCD is a stupid disease that I wish I never had to deal with. Anyone else understand this?

Ok this isn’t ROCD related whatsoever. I’m stressed and frustrated about other things too. No one needs to write or respond to this I am just venting since it’s about my friend and her freaking husband. We’ve been roommates for 5 years now. My husband and I are moving into my sister’s new home since she offered and we couldn’t find a place before January. Her husband which is my husband’s so called freaking friend has been pissed and angry and all we’ve been feeling is tension from him which is making things very uncomfortable before we have to move. We can’t move yet since my sister’s new place is having work done on it so it won’t be ready until the end of the month. I get it. We’ve been here long enough and they got married awhile back so they want the house to themselves again since they are more financially stable than us. We are not angry about that. We are angry bc of the freaking tension he is giving off. It’s really starting to piss me off. I just wish he would tell us what’s bothering him to get it over with and if he or my friend never wants to see us again JUST bc we are not at the same level as them in life than of the fuck well. I’m care about my friend we are close but I’m tired of her husband giving off this freaking tension that is adding extra stress. He has a huge freaking history for holding grudges. He will hate someone forever if they do something wrong to them and isn’t willing to talk it out with them. Like my friend told me her husband is upset with mine bc he doesn’t wanna hang out. My partner is stressed out depressed and honestly is just a homebody. The thing is they don’t talk shit out and he expects my partner to just know when he wants to hang out. Her husband has been busy with work, doing stuff with his music and hanging out with his other friends that he gets into annoyed with on occasions. I told my friend that if her husband is having issues with mine then he needs to talk to mine about it. I can’t do it for him or either can she. If he isn’t willing which sounds like he isn’t then what’s the point of bringing it up!? She said it isn’t upsetting him now but it must be upsetting him in some way if she had to bring it up in the first place. My friend and I get along perfectly fine but I can’t bring this up to her bc I don’t want things to get worse before we move out. I know them living with my ROCD hasn’t been great and lately I tried my best to stay far away from them. I even told her I don’t wanna bother her with my issues anymore but she tells me to let it out so I do. I even try to changed topic quickly by asking her how her new job is going. But my god her husband needs to either tell us what’s bothering him or just calm down with the tension. He will have his house back soon after 5 years. Oh he even gets upset that my partner doesn’t like to go drinking and going out to randomly places to hang. He even said he doesn’t bother to hang out with him while he is at home. Well it’s hard when her husband is busy or seems freaking angry all the time. My partner sure can be oblivious sometimes that’s just who he is but he knows and can feel the tension with his friend so he stays away for that purpose. Right now too with us moving he doesn’t even see hanging out with friends right now as top priority. I don’t even hang out with my friend that often just bc there are bigger things to worry about. Sure I hung out with her twice this month for like an hour 1/2. Socializing drains my energy so I don’t like to hang out that much unless I’m in the mood too. I wish I could be open about this with her but I can’t without problems arising. My partner already has confident issues about what people think of him and this isn’t helping him at all. So I think when we move we are gonna stay away from them for awhile. Even though I have a feeling his friend will no longer want anything to do with him anymore which is pissing me the hell off. Sorry that was so long. I am just frustrated.

I feel nothing throughout him... I think I should just let him go... can someone help me? Now, one thing about me, is that my love language is quality time. Attentions means everything for me. Giving/receiving more attentions = being really intrested/really care about someone. When I love someone, I would like to talk/stay with them all the time! The problem is that from the event written below, I started to feel apathy with him... the only things that keeps hurting me is the idea of left him! I didn't want to answer his messages , they didn't give me nothing anymore. Now didn't want to see him, or even planning a date with him... his face, his hugs, his kisses means nothing anymore to me... after the day written below, he started to try to make things better; but it is like if I can't trust him anymore... I don't even desire to be intimate with him anymore... it is like If it isn't anymore the bf that I met! That's what's happened: I had rocd in past, I even fall in depression because of that. I was always asking if I love him or not, if I love him enough, and viceversa... than I learned how to control my thoughts, and I started to be happy again, again until a week ago. Me and my bf, because of quarantine, have always date alone. A week ago, I asked him if I can join bowling with his friends group. He was happy about it, so I did get there. I always felt so special because of all the attentions he gaves to me. In that friends group there were 2 girls, both with a bf. My bf, get more along with girls than males and I knew that. But when I was at the bowling; he gave to them (the 2 girls) all the attentions! And I'm not talking about just chatting.. he never put down his eyes from them! A lot of Hugging, hand shaking, compliments for their "bowling performance" a lot of advices and posture correction for throwing the ball, he helped them finding and choosing the right ball etc.. all night like that. And that with the other guys sitting down, talking each others. He said that that it's how he treats his females friends. I was there just soo sad, alone, and wanting to die inside, because all the attentions means to me that I'm less important than all his female friends! Sometimes he sitted next to me too, but just for little minutes! At the and of the night I wanted to take a pause from him, but he was with his friends so I decided to wait to tell him... Before the end, he asked me if I wanted to date him the next day... I didn't know what to say! I declined and ask him to call me later... In that call, I was so devastated; and he really think that I'm just too jealous (he never told me this words, but he said that it is his normal behaviour, that it is just the way he treats his female friends, that because he see me often, when he see his friends it's normal to gave them more attentions!"). He also told me that he could fix this, he gaves me some compromises... that gives me a little hope so I didn'tbroke up with him, but I felt like if I wasn't special enymore... I felt so bad that day... and now I can't recover! I try to keep being happy with him; but I can't! Even if the next days he was more present for me; it felt like it was too late... Sorry for the super long message, I don't want to leave him, but I feel like I have no choice... this event destroyed me, and I don't know If I will ever be able to live a life like that!

Hey, for my harm OCD peeps, can you give me an example of exposures you do EVERY day? I wanna make sure I challenge myself enough, and it’s hard to know when you don’t regularly interact with other OCD sufferers.

I need help. I need it so bad. My throat is closing and I can’t breath right

TW* Im watching a show and was on the second last season of it, I went on google to read about the characters and it got spoiled for me. Bascially the guy in the show throughout the series has sex with tons of women hes the 2nd lead actor, now part that got spoiled for me was that he ends up falling in love with a man and goes gay in the last season. I continued watching the show and the whole time I was just focused on the said gay guy and how and which man was he was going to fall for and its ruined the show for me bc I didnt enjoy any other characters' parts or storylines, everything else kinda faded out for me. It didnt directly trigger me but it feels like throughout the last season I was just confused and felt like Im gay aswell. I just cant seem to imagine and picture myself with a girl, with guys it just feels more normal and like easier to do and it feels like I want to like guys now, it feels sweet and stuff. I guess this is it, Hocd really did win, I think it wouldve happened regardless of ocd or not

Hello, everyone. If you would take the time to read my story and comment, I would appreciate it though it is long so I apologize. I was advised to come here if I think I have ROCD so I figured 'huh... why not?' I was initially on Betterhelp because I thought it was anxiety but with as obsessive as my thoughts got, I started to suspect something more was going on. It started like this: I would be in a relationship and have those happy feel good feelings you get at the start of it or aka the honeymoon phase and then boom! It was like I'd hit a wall and that's when the anxiety would kick in. And then, it centered around my relationship and I started overthinking EVERYTHING! I would have thoughts like 'did I lose feelings for him?' 'why did he just annoy me there? What does that mean? Oh god... am I losing feelings?' 'Holy crap! I have another person in my life! I need to- (insert list of things)' 'Will we work?' 'Is he the one?' 'Am I sure about this?' 'What if I'm forcing myself?' 'I love him... right?' 'HE JUST GOT ANGRY/ANNOYED WITH ME! ARE WE OVER?!' 'I feel overwhelmed. Was this too much for me to take on?' 'Are relationships for me?' 'Should we break up?' 'Oh god no I don't want to break up!' 'What if ending this relationship is the only way to fix this?' 'What if he gets tired of me like my last relationship?' 'What if he leaves before I can figure this out?' 'Love isn't fear though, is it? Why won't this stop?' 'What does this anxiety mean?' 'Shouldn't I feel more certain about this?' and this isn't even all of them, just some. My boyfriend and I have talked about it and he's been such a good and supportive partner! He promised to be with me every step of the way, he doesn't judge me for being like this, and he's proud I am taking steps to get help. He doesn't blame me for being terrified of our relationship. I'm so thankful to have someone like him in my life. You bet your behind I am not just going to give up and decide to end it anytime soon. But I feel so guilty for my thoughts. It's gotten to where I can't take a compliment from him or say 'I love you' without feeling guilt and anxiety. I just want to enjoy my relationship with him without over analyzing everything. I may have to cancel my subscription on betterhelp if this place has a better options for me because I can't afford both. I don't think my therapist on there knows the full extent of my symptoms. She currently has me doing EMDR therapy which while if this was regular anxiety, might help but chances are, if it is OCD, I will probably have to switch to a therapist that knows more about OCD. I remember my last relationship at 19, my anxiety and intrusive thoughts got so bad that I had to be taken to the ER to have an ativan which I hated because it didn't stop the thoughts, it just stopped my physical reaction to feel anxious. I felt so miserable and depressed when I took that stuff. My ex decided to leave, figuring it would help us both. But that didn't help me at all and I did stuff I regret. It took me a few years to get back to normal after that relationship. Although I can admit that I learned valuable lessons from it. I have had obsessions in the past as a kid. I remember when I used to be afraid of everything that I deemed toxic and so wouldn't use certain markers or glues if I thought it was. I used to get so teased for that and funny enough, the thing that snapped me out of that was my mom getting frustrated and saying 'IT WON'T HURT YOU IF YOU DON'T EAT IT!' And then in my teen years, I was terrified of death after a classmate had died so I focused on anything and everything going on in my body and just getting scared for even having a faster heart rate! That leveled off on its own mostly but sometimes I will get back into a cycle of worry again if I spot something off but it usually levels off again. I can't begin to figure out how I managed that. Maybe I just inadvertently learned to live with the discomfort on my own. I guess if it turns out I have ocd, that would explain why it felt like some ADHD meds and anti-anxiety meds didn't feel like they affected me like they should. I have been diagnosed with ADD as a kid and was on meds for that but I didn't feel much different despite being told otherwise. But kids don't know what they're supposed to look for when on meds so it's hard to say for sure what those did to me. Other things I've been diagnosed with is anxiety and depression so I'm guessing the chemistry in my brain is probably a lot more complicated than anyone has realized. I want to learn how to navigate my life. I want to figure out how to remedy this. Because I know if I don't, I will never have a healthy relationship. I love my boyfriend and I want to make sure I get better for both of us. Some days are hard though and at the end of the day, I just wish it wasn't long distance because I really need to be held some nights. I haven't even been able to take some time for myself without ruminating on everything and I've just been so tired and overwhelmed. But if I can just get on the right path, I know I'll get through this and I know I can count on him to be there every step of the way.

i am having major ROCD right now and i just want to vent. my rocd centers around hyperanalyzing my past thoughts and behaviors and convincing myself that i might have cheated. to clarify, i haven’t physically cheated. but there’s a guy who i had a class with who i find attractive, and before i had such debilitating ocd (about a year ago) i feel like i indulged in this “crush” by fantasizing. i also feel especially guilty about one time when i thought about him when i was ~alone in an intimate setting~ and i think i might have said his name out loud. i am so so so embarrassed and feeling so guilty for that. it’s hard because a lot of the rocd cheating stuff i see is people having intrusive thoughts about someone else, but i worry because at that time it wasn’t intrusive thoughts, meaning i was indulging in the thoughts of someone else without feeling bad about it or pushing the thoughts away. but now i feel so guilty and wonder how i could have not felt guilty right away!! i love my boyfriend and it felt harmless at the time, but now i feel like i need to confess every little detail to him. it seems like a combination of rocd and moral scrupulously ocd to me, and i’m wondering if any of you guys agree with that? maybe real event ocd too in the sense that i’m making a small thing out to be some horrible thing? im mainly struggling with how i didn’t feel bad about it immediately and now i regret having those thoughts and doing those things. it’s difficult to know what is ocd making my actions seem worse than they are and what is like maybe i did really make some horrible mistake? it sucks because i feel this urge to be 100% honest all of the time, but telling my bf this could really hurt his feelings, but if it’s really gonna hurt his feelings maybe it means i need to tell him because i’m lying!!!

I see all these quotes about relationships on Instagram saying don’t waste time on someone whose not right and if you love someone you know etc and it’s stressing me out like it makes me feel so guilty and I’m trying so hard to get over ROCD but I’m so scared about finding out that I should just end things because I want to be honest with my boyfriend I don’t want to find out I do t have ROCD and it’s really just not right between us it makes me feel sick cause I want it to work out so bad :(

did erp consistently for 2 days and already feeling a lot better. It’s crazy how it works

Is it common with ROCD to only have negative thoughts about your relationship? I love my gf and I can say a lot of things I think are great about her. Yet all of my "natural" thoughts are just about the relationship failing, and me focusing on my mistakes and feeling guilty (OCD has helped me make a lot of mistakes) and thinking negatively about her even though it makes me feel crappy because I just want to think positive things. I am starting to get so anxious before going to sleep and waking up because I am struggling to deal with everyday feeling this way. Sometimes I want to breakup with her just so all this shit in my head will go away. Then I feel guilty for thinking that because I love her and want to make things good.

** TW ** I can’t I can’t do this. I can’t go on I’m terrified to go To sleep I love my guy despite the fact that he’s technically not my guy OK there’s no technicality but I’m not going to detail there. I don’t wanna different guy and I again just don’t want to get into it. But I’m frightened I feel funny keep smiling I’m scared that I keep shrugging and saying oh guess I do it like everything is changing I don’t like boobs I don’t understand! I don’t like the way I smiled and shrugged in such a nonchalant fashion saying yes I do when I don’t like boobs and I feel wrong thing I don’t and I keep shopping like I guess what I don’t like boobs there’s no guessing so I can’t I stop smiling and feeling warm and hollow and hot in my chest I don’t need a guess I know I don’t like boobs yeah every time imagine a guy and I’m frightened I feel weird and charged like I do I don’t like pointy boobs they’re not hot or sexy I’m scared I don’t like boobs but every time I try to imagine a guy it turns into something like hanging I don’t like boobs and I keep a matching much bigger guys but I’m not satisfied when I look at much bigger guys. I’m scared my guy is he’s not scrawny he’s not huge but he’s not scrawny and I don’t care in front of you but when I look at much bigger more muscular harder muscles like built guys I don’t like it. I keep saying I guess and I don’t like it why am I feeling hot and bubbly in my chest I don’t wanna change it I will start liking boobs I want the stuff to go away I CANT DO THIS I almost screamed that I missed them I don’t miss them I don’t want hanging boobs I want I said big and nothing wrong I don’t wanna forget my guy I don’t want big muscular guys they’ve never been my thing no I said her muscular I don’t want masculine because boobs are not masculine I don’t want boobs and I don’t want big muscular I keep calling them but they’re not hot I want with my guy it’s not just that I want to and I’m fine I have I haven’t lost my traction I know there’s lots of other guys but I don’t want them in the poop thing I hate this I feel like I can’t breathe like I’m hot and bubbly in my chest OK I hate that I keep saying I guess I I don’t want there to be a guess I don’t like boobs