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for couples who have been together for a good amount of time is it normal to not always feel “ in love” all the time ? that it comes and goes ?

i’ve talked about this before but i’m still having a hard time lol basically i like this boy and we’re almost to the point of dating but i’m getting the idea i manifested him and i can’t remember if i did or not and i keep telling myself it’s not true but i’m having such a hard time believing it. the guilt is the worst part like i’m taking away his free will, that it’s not consensual, etc.

i want to start erp therapy but i’m so afraid to say my thoughts out loud bc even though i know i don’t be judged i’m so scared bc i feel like the therapist might judge me in her head and that i’ll be extremely embarrassed

The biggest question i ask myself sometimes Is: What if it's not OCD, what if i'm really a bad person and i can cause suffering around me? What if i'm only a burden? And even if it's OCD, who can tell me that one day, tired of all these thoughts, i will or will not harm myself or others? I don't remember who i was before and i feel lost and alone, i just want my life back..

At the end of February I started having very bad self harm ocd. I don’t want to die. I have a great life. Anyways I gave my firearms to a friend and then the self harm ocd went away. Since then it’s been constant harm ocd and ruminations. Basically full anxiety all day every day. It’s unbearable at work. Im scared and getting discouraged and depressed. I hate these thoughts and they truly scare me. Part of me thinks that going to inpatient mental health for a few days would help but the other part tells me it’s just a reassurance seeking thing. The worst part about the thoughts is it makes you think “oh I must want to do this because this thought didn’t cause anxiety” or you should, have to, urges. Things like that. I have my second appt with my therapist on here tomorrow and all I want to do is go to sleep. Life is a wreck right now and I don’t know where else to go. And the self harm ocd Kicks in and it’s like well just have to do it if you aren’t gonna get better which introduces more anxiety. Thanks for listening.

Her ocd is all about the fear of hospitals, medicine, the government is after us etc.. I was in on it until recently. I'm the eldest in a family of three siblings, I talk to my dad a lot more now that me and my mom don't share the same beliefs anymore. I feel like I'm taking his side in this.. and it feels like I'm causing a lot of conflict between my parents. While my mom's behavior is very controlling (she takes his painkillers, "bad" products, instilles fear) etc. And I was in on this.. I feel bad over having been in on it but yeah. I just blame myself rn for potentially causing a big rupture in my family. It's not my fault.. yet I see her side as we both have ocd. She needs help, and she won't get it any time soon. I'm gonna talk to my therapist. Idk wether to keep the peace (in which my dad is controlled, so it's not really peace) or to "side" with dad. Both feel terrible.

The whole story starts from when I was little (8-9-10 years old). I had a tiny voice in my mind where he was telling me (look at this guy's dick because otherwise a relative of yours will get something bad) I as a small child did not know what was happening and I just did it. Then these thoughts left. At some point in my 10s, these thoughts were so intense that I had to tell my mom that I might be gay because I have these thoughts. (I have always liked women and I clearly remember that the first girl I liked was when I was 6 years old. After some years at the age (12-13) thoughts appeared in my mind that my relatives would suffer something bad and in order for this not to happen I had to make my cross. I remember doing my cross more than 20 times a day. This stopped when I went 15. And now we are reaching the age I am now. At 18. After a difficult period of adjusting to a demanding job (intense stress). I got the idea that I was gay. Strong thoughts that my sexuality will change and more. But I remember always being afraid that others would think I was gay, when I was never. NEVER but NEVER did I like a man, I had never seen a man erotically. But I always envied others because of my low self-esteem. These thoughts (am I gay ?, do others think I'm gay?) Start from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep. I can not be left without a cell phone or music because otherwise my mind will swallow me. Only when I read articles about HOCD do I find peace. 80 days ago I started working for the first time. It was a demanding job. I had to wake up every day at 5 o'clock in the morning (while before work I slept at 5 o'clock in the morning ..) I fought it for 5 days. These 5 days I had a lot of stress before bed. I was anxious because I had to sleep and I was pushing myself a lot. There were times when I could not breathe due to stress and I was ready to vomit. So I made the decision to resign. When my parents pressured me to explain to them what made me make this decision EXACTLY at that moment, the idea that I was gay entered my mind. I quickly got up from the couch and immediately went to throw up. I went to cry. The next day I read some articles by some people who said they understood their homosexuality at an old age and so I started thinking I was gay. All these thoughts made me anxious and intensely disgusted. I did not know where they came from. I never liked men. I used to say that some people were beautiful simply because they had characteristics that I would like to have. From a young age, however, I was anxious. Am I gay? That is, when I dreamed about the future. One day I will grow up and marry a beautiful woman and have children, a small voice in my mind was asking me, what if you are gay ?? But I never paid attention to her. I don't ask for reassurance but i really want to know what is going on with me.

I really just want to go to sleep. I’m so exhausted with these thoughts and this guilt. I feel so gross. I literally want to just die. I was playing sims 4 & my sim had a son. when he became a teen he was a cute teenager so I thought “oh I’ll make a sim that will be with him (as a gf)” and then I just started being bombarded with thoughts like “oh wow ur attracted to ur son” “why would you want to play as another character to date your son” “ur so disgusting that’s ur son why would you want to date him” “ur disgusting that’s incest” and I just feel so horrible. i really didn’t mean anything by thinking it but I just feel so disgusted omg. I’m so freaking sick of myself and these thoughts. I don’t even know how to feel. what does anyone think?? someone please give their thoughts. it’s something new everyday. i get worked up over the “smallest” things but is this really small or was what I thought not okay??? I promise im not some incest freak.

All my life I had labeled myself as bisexual. And I was OK with that! It never really made me uncomfortable or doubt. Even know, when I think about the possibility of me being bisexual, or just straight I feel alright and normal!! I don’t have a SOCD crap attack over it! BUT when me being a lesbian is involved, that’s when my OCD explodes!! Anyone else get like that?

I’m worried that I am taking too long to get better. I have been doing erp therapy for 9 months now😬.

Would love to hear some of your recovery stories or progress reports since starting therapy.

Hi… I struggle severely with ROCD. I’ve been married for 7.5 years and my husband and I have an amazing relationship. It’s one that I am extremely lucky to have because he is such a wonderful and good man. The only thing we really have ever had fights about, is my ROCD. Im afraid he will lose interest in me, or see/meet someone that he will desire more than me and he will leave me for them. I do KNOW he is not that type of man to be disloyal or step out on our family. I KNOW he loves me, but because cheating is still a possibility for any human being, no matter how perfect they may seem, I’m terrified as if it is inevitable and will happen one of these days. He has never given me a reason to think he will do this. My current issue I’m running into is sex/nudity in the media. I was raised believing R rated movies are absolutely not okay and are sinful if you watch them. He was raised believing R rated movies were fine to watch. Because of the type of OCD I have, R rated movies don’t bother me other than if it has nudity in it. I see it as being pornographic and inappropriate for people in a committed relationship to view. He says he doesn’t watch because of the nudity, but just because it is a good movie and he believes I’m being controlling and over-reactive about my desire for us to not watch anything with nudity in it. He doesn’t watch anything with nudity out of respect for me but will occasionally bring up movies/shows he wants to watch but “can’t” because it has nudity in it and it would cause me to have a panic attack. I feel like his desire to see these movies must matter more to him than my fears/feelings. Then again, nudity is EVERYWHERE nowadays and I feel there is no escaping it. So I do think it is something I need to get past and stop letting it control my life. Am I in the wrong here for having these feelings? I believe I take it to the extreme and something needs to be done about that, but I do think seeing these things is inappropriate. I fear he will compare me to other women even if they are on tv. He tells me that will never happen. I don’t know what to do to get past this horrific anxious feeling if he comes across nudity in some way. Anyone else experience this? Sorry for the novel.

I have only recently come to terms with OCD and decided to do something about it. I have found that I no longer have any desire to be around anyone who isn’t part of the OCD community. I don’t want to talk to anyone else. I want only to be around people I can share things with and not face judgment or the “Oh my god, that’s insane” response I know I will get from anyone on the outside. I don’t know if this is just a normal part of early recovery but I really feel like disappearing from the rest of the world and only engaging with this new community I have become part of (albeit against more than 30 years of resistance). Has anyone who is farther along in recovery experiences this and come out of it? Is anyone else also in the early stages and feeling this way? I can’t decide whether or not it’s healthy but I can’t help but think I shouldn’t be isolating from friends and family to spend all of my waking hours focused on this. Maybe it’s just part of the agreement we have with OCD that anything new becomes an obsession… Anyway, I just wanted to share and see if anyone else has experienced this.

I'm currently visiting my third therapist in the last three years and none of them have helped me so far. None of them have given me any type of diagnosis so I'm not even sure if I actually have OCD, and it's driving me mad. The last session I had, I even felt like it made things worse rather that it helped. I wanna feel that trust to my therapist that you should feel to be able to share your emotions but I don't. I feel like its not going anywhere, like it's useless. Lately I've been thinking about finding a therapist here at NOCD, I've even looked up some specific people and they all seem really nice and sweet.

I'm starting to believe I have had SOOCD since childhood. I remember having thoughts since as early as 7 that felt bad and wrong and made me sad and worried. Thoughts of being bisexual or lesbian still make me so unhappy and uncomfortable, but they also feel so deeply ingrained in me that I have a hard time knowing what my sexuality is. I felt forced to accept the fact that I was bisexual when I was an adult, even though it made me sad, but is that even true? Is dealing with this since childhood really just denial? Am I just gay? Or is ALL of it a lie and I'm straight? Maybe I'm asexual, and am not attracted to anyone? I can't sort it out in my head, my heart is breaking- my wonderful fiance has been so careful and kind as I process what is going on. Now the idea of having sex or attraction to ANYONE of any gender makes me panic and cry. He is so patient, but he doesn't deserve this, he deserves better than my panic attacks and doubt. Has anyone else had a theme since childhood? How have you sorted what IS real from what is NOT real, now that you know you have OCD?

I got really drunk for the first time in a long time and I’ve been mentally out of it all day. I want to cry and my mind won’t stop racing. Nothing is helping and I feel really alone right now :(

Hi guys I’m new to NOCD and tbh I don’t know if I have it, but some people I talked to told me I have it. I am currently in the U.S. Army I just got back from deployment from Kuwait. I got home and everything seemed great; I was overly excited to see my wife, and be around her again. After a month of being home I one day woke up and started having these intrusive thoughts about not wanting to be with her, and it freaked me out. I brushed the thought off and ignored it for that day. Next day the thoughts returned and I was so frightened by the thoughts and told my wife. She freaked out and thought I was going to leave her and she thought I didn’t love her anymore. I was so scared of the thoughts I couldn’t eat, sleep, or enjoy life. I was even puking and chain smoking like crazy. I started getting on google and searching signs of falling out of love, best ways to save a marriage, and the list goes on and on. I was also talking to a lot of friends and family trying to get some kind of advice and it seemed like that didn’t work. I get 100 good things but the moment someone told me sometime bad I dwelled on that one bad thing. I finally went to my units chaplain and told him what was going on and was scared and frightened by the thoughts and he was the one who told me that it seems like strong signs of OCD and that I should get tested. When he told me OCD I was like how can it be OCD I don’t clean or put things in order. He told me that OCD manafest itself in a lot more different forms then just cleaning and he told me did you know that there are some People out there that have thoughts about being gay even though they know they are strait. After our conversation I went home and started researching OCD and it’s mean forms. I’m currently going to a mental health expert next week to get tested. Any advice would be much appreciated.

I don’t even feel like me anymore. I don’t know who I am or what my purpose is. I’m questioning why I’m even bothering doing my PhD when I’ve lost all passion for my discipline, why anyone even likes me, how do my family and boyfriend see me? I feel so strange and disconnected from everything and just sad all the time. I’ve spent the majority of the weekend crying because I truly believe I need to set my boyfriend free because he deserves someone who doesn’t question whether she loved him every waking moment of her life. I’m not even sure if I’m in the ROCD cycle anymore because I don’t often feel anxious from it now. It’s more like I’m constantly ruminating on a past theme because I still don’t know the answers. I know I love my boyfriend when I’m either really happy or really sad. I can’t see a way out of this. There isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t feel this depressed the last time I went through ROCD with a different guy, I was sad ending the relationship but it felt like a huge relief. This time around I’m just so broken at even the thought of breaking up. But I don’t know how to live like this anymore

I just wanted to let my thoughts and feelings out a bit because I haven't been able to take my mind off of this all day. Basically, I have been dealing with ROCD for the past year or so, and I am in my first relationship with my boyfriend (it's his first relationship as well). We're also both 19 and have been together for going on two years now. Dealing with ROCD has obviously been extremely challenging and even debilitating at times, but I'm finally getting the help that I need. I've also been struggling with healing from childhood trauma and things like that, and aside from my own problems, my boyfriend has been going through a lot as well. I think both of our mental health issues affect the relationship, but we overall have a really healthy relationship and we both put in the effort to be there for each other and try to understand each other too. Lately, my OCD has been getting worse and I find myself getting extremely anxious, most likely due to the fact that my exposure work is getting more intense and also my boyfriend and I have been having a little bit more conflict lately, but I think it's just normal relationship struggles. I choose not to talk about my relationship with people who don't understand ROCD, because I find that I end up feeling frustrated and misunderstood. Today, I was talking to my sister about a conflict that we were having, and she just ended up saying that if it's meant to be it's meant to be and that maybe we're just not right for each other and that we might break up. This triggered me heavily, because that is obviously the LAST thing someone with ROCD wants to hear. At this point, my anxiety was through the roof and it caused me to feel angry, so I snapped at her. This isn't the first time that she's said this to me and it feels like she says this every time I want to talk about my relationship, which is why I don't even like talking to her about it in the first place. I know that she means well and that she probably thinks that this might be what's best for me because she sees that the relationship stresses me out and she just wants me to be okay, but she doesn't understand that breaking up is not something I want, plan to do, or something that will even help my OCD. Even so, I told her that I want her to stop saying that to me because she's not going to change my mind and that I know that I want to stay in this relationship, and so does my boyfriend. She responded by saying "Okay that's fine, well you'll see. I'm only saying this because I have more experience than you do, so you'll see what I mean with time." Which meant to me that she feels like my relationship won't last and that I'm too young and inexperienced to know what I'm talking about. This is something that I keep thinking about and it makes me both anxious and angry, because it just fuels the fear that I'm going to lose my partner and also makes me feel a bit disrespected because I feel like she just isn't taking my relationship seriously or trying to understand what I'm going through because she's projecting her own personal experiences onto me. I'm just tired of my family telling me that my relationship won't last because I'm young and it's my first relationship. I understand that not many first relationships last, but I genuinely feel like with everything that my boyfriend and I have been through together already and how committed we are especially despite the trouble that ROCD has put in our way, we have a really good chance and we don't plan on giving up on each other.

I feel like I’m not good enough . I just started my new job and received news while ago that I may be moved on to be a shift team leader if I keep progressing according to my bosses . I been receiving positive comments/feedback from my coworkers and such. It made me feel great - however, I personally feel as tho I still need to improve on certain tasks mostly regarding with speed and when I’m in kitchen . But as far as accuracy, I think I’m good and others agree as well. I felt like I was doing more good in the beginning rather than now 🤷‍♂️I get so overwhelmed with not just my usual ocd anxiety episodes, but also the anxiety I’m getting from work when busy - all of that builds up especially when I’m compulsively giving into my ocd episodes during work . Aside from all that as well, I just have other things on plate - so stressed about social anxiety/low self esteem , my unability to drive , just constantly renting on how I’m not good in general and many things were delayed due to my severity with ocd itself . College, driving , - my first priority should logically be to start therapy for ocd - specifically erp that way it j can manage it to an extent where I’m mentally capable of working and accomplishing my goals 🥺but then this goes back to the driving issue - how can I go to ocd therapy if I don’t currently drive ? I realize therapy can be done online , however I don’t have prioritized time at home for me to just sit with a therapist without having some distraction in my house . I’m also just more comfortable taking with therapist directly in person . Once I drive, this could help with many things - I can drive to work, college, therapy sessions , gym - I’ll be much more satisfied 😔💔I wanna do all these things but number one issue here is ocd .