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How to get past a false memory that i thought was real at first? I think I need to confess it to my bf

i definitely think my eating disorder is caused from my ocd, if not only spurring it on. it feels so good to have such a rigid routine on myself. it feels grounding, but exhausting as well. its so fucking tiring being so strict on myself every second of every day but if i ever went off track i would no doubt think about it for like 3 whole days in paranoia of what the affects will be later and how i’ll get rid of it. i fucking hate it. i cant help but check my weight multiple times a day; if i don’t i feel panicked and lost. sorry this is a post about an ED but i do genuinely think if i didn’t have OCD i probably wouldn’t have this. if this isn’t appropriate to post let me know

Hello I’m a mom of 3. I have many symptoms and am unsure of where and what to start with. I know I have anxiety, ptsd AND depression. I just feel that I have something more. I’m not diagnosed with OCD yet wonder if I have it. Everyday is something different yet the same. I’m living on my own for the first time and to know how I can be behind close doors scares the living daylights out of me. I’ve been clean of D**g abuse, clean almost 8 years. My thoughts become vivid images in my mind, the fear is real along with everything else that comes to mind. One time I was sleeping and my friends dogo somehow ended up sleeping under my leg. My dream was about a dog dying. I woke up in fear. Felt her under my leg and was terrified to check if she was okay. I lay there waiting for her to breathe. I feel nothing moving. I get up and look at her, she looks lifeless. I’m silently frantic because I’m trying to figure out how to break the news that I killed my friends best buddy. I try to wake her, no movement for wat seemed and felt like hours. I started crying, kept calling her name and moving her. SHE FINALLY WAKES UP scared and worried. I cried in relief and hugged her. I never had the courage to tell her momma human what happened that night. All of my pregnancies, I didn’t want to carry through any of my kids especially my first one. I feel horrible as a parent still to this day. Yet people say how great, well behaved and so much more. I tel myself they didn’t learn that feom me. I feel that I’m unfit. Yet, there’s NOTHING that I wouldn’t do for them to provide the best that I can for them. They hold me when I cry, ask if I’m okay when I’m angry. My oldest snaps me out of my daydreams with a gentle touch. My kids are awesome!!! Idk why I didn’t want them, idk why I feel that they do better without me. I have thought of death almost every day, these are my what if’s. No plan, just what if. My most annoying one is I think is the magical thinking, if I’m wrong I apologize. I feel that I should know what’s going to happen next, that it’s obvious signs. Even with people I’m getting to know. If something bad happened, I should’ve know, it was obvious. How dumb can one person be? I talk myself down DAILY. It’s painful and draining. I try positive words. What I’m thankful, what I’m blessed with. It doesn’t work. As I’m thinking of the words or saying out loud, the words are drifting before even getting “stored” into thought. They’re lost and long gone words. I’m not sure what else to put down. I usually only follow to read and understand as best I can. I’m not so great with words. Thank you for having a safe place to vent.

Anyone on here recovered from ROCD ??

Seeking reassurance is a sneeky bitch. It tricks your brain into thinking that some reassurance is okay. That if you can just receive the answer you're looking for to the biggest/broadest trigger you have, then somehow you won't need reassurance for all the smaller daily, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour intrusive thoughts that flood your brain. I'm not sure about you all, but I'm at that point in my relationship with OCD where every experience , every conversation, every decision, every step I take has me wrestling with "what ifs". I'm in constant fight or flight mode and I just want someone to wave a magic wand and tell me it's okay. That my fears are irrational and I actually control much less than I think I do. That I should just drink that contaminated cup of coffee, because life keeps moving anyway. Unfortunately, that's still reassurance seeking if it's one magic wand vs. a million tiny checks, questions, or other compulsions. How do we finally stop wanting reassurance and just move forward without feeling like our brain is going to explode and we're going to vomit everywhere. (Anyone else feel physically ill during an exposure?) I just started ERP therapy yesterday, but I have lived with OCD since I was a child. I remember feeling personally responsible for the Iraq War, Tornadoes occuring thousands of miles from me, and the survival of my parents, all as a 7 year old kid. My recovery has ebbed and flowed since that time and I've experience all different kinds of subtypes. I feel as though once I have a handle on one, a different form pops up, taunting me because I'm somehow unworthy of a day without intrusive thoughts. Sometimes I look at other people and try to imagine what it's like to live without OCD. Then, my dog licks my hand and my daydream is interrupted with a lengthy handwash. The days can be really hard, but I am so grateful for this community and my new therapist, Danielle. To anyone else that's tired, I hope you can do one thing today that is unexpected and makes you happy. I'm not sure yet what mine will be, but I'm going to do something, even if I'm tired.

I don’t really talk about my mental health with my family because they make me feel like shit. Sometimes when I have anxiety attacks at home they accuse me of wanting to be sick. For example, I get really anxious about having a heart attack and then they interrogate me and say that I want it to happen even though I don’t. Is this a toxic response? They get mad whenever I’m anxious and I’ve told them this and they say that I’m selfish. Also when I had schiz OCD they said I wanted to go crazy.

if a thought starts with what if, it's an intrusive thought. It means the thought isn't coming from you. It's the opposite of who you are and it's there to scare you. Let it go, let it be. You'll be fine. They attack the things you love most, stay strong. I feel that if you have ROCD and really doubt that you love someone, you really love them because you wouldn't fight for someone if you didn't love them or think they were worth it. You just have to understand that. Kiyomi from Awaken into live said: “They appear as things we DON'T WANT to happen to our relationship and ourselves.”

I’m married and have been with my husband for almost 10 years. The ROCD has always been there—it comes and goes. Great times and bad times. Anyway, do you all find yourself getting ROCD triggered by certain behaviors done by your partner? For example, my husband will say something annoying to me and then I get a surge of anxiety. I’m so tired of this response. Like, why can’t I just let it go. I say this because lots of posts on here talk about ROCD being triggered randomly (by internal events such as feelings) and not by actual events that occur in a relationship. But especially when you have been with someone for a long time, actual shit happens in your relationship. But of course, ROCD makes me feel all these things mean I shouldn’t be with him. “If you find him annoying, then he isn’t right for you.” Can anyone relate?

I’m afraid I am going to lose my boyfriend because of my OCD. One of my compulsions is to confess and I shared an intrusive thought I had about my boyfriend with him. It wasn’t the first time I had shared the thought with him and it caused problems in the past. I was doing better this time at letting it go on my own this time, when I had a slip-up that sent me in a downward spiral and I ended up sharing the thought again. Right now he wants space from me to think. He’s told me he loves me, but is having trouble moving on from this because I have other triggers that he’s seen and it’s a lot for anyone to deal with (including me). He’s been such an amazing support system but I think I pushed it too far this time and I’m not sure how to fix it. I’ve obviously apologized a ton and asked him what he needs, but right now it’s just space. I was up all night having panic attacks about losing him. He’s the best person to come into my life and has shown endless patience with me, that I feel in many ways I haven’t deserved because of these thoughts. I can’t lose him. Losing him because of my OCD is my worst nightmare and makes me feel like if I share my full self with someone (including the really bad), I’m unlovable. Has anyone else had relationship issues like this? If so, how did you help your partner to understand/not be bothered by your intrusive thoughts? Any advice on how to get through this would be great.

I'm currently struggling if I should tell her (she knows that I have mental health issues but nothing exactly). On the one hand I think she's really supportive and understanding, on the other hand I'm not sure if it would just be a compulsions (confessing - which I used to do a lot) and I don't want that she feels insecure.

The intrusive thoughts aren’t even causing that much anxiety now I’m just getting extremely sad that I’m still going through this a year into my relationship

Hi, i don’t know if this is rOCD or not but here is my story…. we’ve been together for almost year and 6 months and i was never more in love with somebody as I’m with him. he is everything i ever wanted. during our “honeymoon phase” of relationship i felt all those butterflies, love, fulfilment but all of the sudden, just in one night, everything changed. that night the thought that crossed my mind was: “ what if i don’t love him and i want to break up.” then panic attackt came. from that day, i’m having intrusive and unwanted, intense obsessive thoughts about rightness and certainty of my relationship. i’m constantly doubting my feelings towards my boyfriend. “Do i love him enough?” , “is he a right person for me?” , “what if i lose feelings for him?” , “what if i loss feelings?” , “what if i want to break up but i don’t know how to?” , “what if i’m not attracted to him anymore, do i see him ugly?, “what if i cheat?” and so on. after all those questions i NEED an instant answer. is it right, is he the one, will we be together forever?, will we have kids together?,…i was seeking for reassurance with constant googling thinks like “do i love my partner” , “ is my partner enough” or “is it time for break up”. solving these quizzes i was praying that results will say “don’t break up, you love each other, he is the one”. after that i would be in temporary relief. after some time another thought or trigger would come and the cycle would go again; obsessive thinking, panic attacks, anxiety,…. every day, all day i’m just thinking about that and i have feelings of deep shame and guilt, i would feel numb and like something is wrong with me. also i would just start to cry and i would be very sad, than after i found reassurance that my relationship is fine, i would be relived and happy. of course, after million google researches i found the term rOCD which stands for relationship obsessive compulsive disorder and relationship anxiety. more precisely, i found a website “awaken into love” whose founder is Kyiomi. a woman who experienced all my thoughts and feelings. i felt so happy knowing i’m not the only one because i was sure that something was wrong with me. i told to my mom and sister what thoughts i’m having, and all what my mom told me was “than you should break up”. i was so miserable. i didn’t want to hear anything about breaking up, i just wanted someone to tell me “lucija you don’t want to do ja that!” . i was scared. no one understood me, and seeing a lot’s of other people having exact same problem as i do, made me feel much more better. i was researching, i watched yt videos and everything about rOCD and it helped me but not for too long. thoughts came back, numb feelings and anxiety came back and now i’m feeling like there is no escape. constantly thinking about rightness of my relationship even when i know that i wouldn’t act this way. moreover, if i want a break up i wouldn’t be needy, emotional or even relived when i see him in person. probably i wouldn’t want to see him at all. he is my safe place. my home. and now saying that, i’m feeling like i’m lying to myself and to him, but deep down i know I’m not. i just can’t wait to see him again. a lot of the time i find myself obsessively looking at his photos on my phone to make sure i’m attracted to him and if in some photos he is less attractive, i find myself being overwhelmed and anxious. but, on the other and hand, if i find him attractive in some photos i would be happy but instant trigger would come “you’re lying to your self”. because of my thoughts and feelings i feel a lot of distance between my boyfriend and me, even if we love each other and we are having same values and aspects of view at our common future. i’m having a fear of abandonment, a fear of losing my partner, a fear of loss, i have a deep fear of losing someone i care most about. can please someone just tell me if this is what i truly hope it is, i don’t want to lose the most important person in my life:(

So, I don't know if anyone has issues with this or not or if it is OCD, but I had a huge fight with my dad about this last night. So, I am 29 years old and ever since I graduated high school, I have been obsessed over how young or old I look. People have told me this past year different ages and mostly I want them to tell me I look like a kid. I was told last year by a couple people that I look 19 and two other people said I looked 14 or 15 and so over the years people have told me how look really young for my age and I decided why not pretend I am that age. Why not embrace? Me and my dad have gotten in many fights about this, and he tells me that it is delusional, but I don't think so. Tonight, I was arguing with him to please call me a girl and he would not do it and it drives me insane that I wanted to kill myself over this. I feel like I deserve to relive my childhood since I have been going through this OCD thing for 13 years. I live at home with my parents because of the debilitating nature of my OCD and I want to do things like a job and make some friends, but I feel like I am nowhere near moving out. This thing about the age thing is something that drives me crazy whenever I tell my parents I am a teenager, or I am not at the maturity level of a 29-year-old. I know this all sounds crazy, but it is just how I feel. I would rather look fourteen any day than my age. Also, if I dated someone, I would like them to be in their early 20s because that is what I prefer. Please don't tell me to grow up or anything because that never helps me. Please kind comments. Thanks.

I’m going to post a couple parts because I don’t want to bore anyone or make people read a bunch of content at once. so, I’m a 14 y/o girl and I’ve had what I presume to be ocd for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, it wasn’t too serious, just intrusive thoughts mostly, and repeatedly asking my mom for reassurance (I was too young to even consider ocd and just thought I was crazy). I’ve been to therapy one time when I was around 9. The therapist didn’t seem to think I had ocd because I never mentioned any compulsions (didn’t consider reassurance seeking a compulsion). Since then, the thoughts went away for awhile and I was good. Up until quarantine, so 2021 ish. I was alone a lot and had a lot of time to think and worry and all that. The first theme I can remember at that time was SO OCD or Hocd. I was constantly researching, crying, stressing, asking people that know me if I seemed homosexual at all. * I have no problems with homosexuality or being homosexual, it was just the uncertainty and “what if” that drove me crazy. I was so depressed, I lost five pounds in a span of days because I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t talking care of myself, I didn’t even get out of bed. This started because I was watching a video of two female celebrity friends and a lot of people ship them, I started reading YouTube comments and people said that they were how they had the courage to come out. That scared me because if they were making people come out, did that mean that because I liked them that I needed to come out too (or was in the closet). I’ve never had feelings for a girl so this just confused me if anything. From here, I would read the comments in every video and made sure that I didn’t agree or relate to any comments that could mean I was homosexual ( again, this is hard to talk about bc the last thing I want is to sound homophobic because I’m not, I think love is a beautiful thing and everyone deserves to feel it with whoever they want; I whole heartedly believe that). I was so worried that I was and I was telling myself I had been hiding or in denial and wasn’t ever truly me and that’s the part that scared me. I got over it by telling myself to just be and if I am, I am and there’s nothing I can do about that but ultimately; I get to decide who I am, and who I want to be with. If you have any advice on this part, please comment and i am writing part 2 right now, you don’t have to read it but I really do need as much advice as I can get. If you’ve read this much, thank you💚

I feel like everything in my past tell me that my theme is real.

OKAYYY! So I like to think everyone has someone they just look forward to right? And that person makes them the happiest ever. Anywho mine is Harry styles. I LOVE HIM SO BAD! He always makes me feel better. He makes you feel heard and seen (which I love). I mean his moto is “treat people with kindness” come on🤭. He’s just amazing. I could talk about him for hours on end. I just love him so much. ❤️❤️ He makes me what to keep going and wake up and start a new day! He makes my life a little bit easier. I hope he knows that he really did and is saving my life for just being himself and being here💗💟

Anyone have this theme? For me it means being uncomfortable at every small mistake I’ve made in life and feeling the need to confess to others. If you have this theme how do you cope plz?

I desperately want to hire a cleaner to help me with my house, but am very afraid to do so. I am afraid that they will remove their mask without telling me (we require anyone who comes in to wear an N95 mask because we have immunocompromised family members) I am afraid they will do something gross, like using the same cleaning cloth to wipe the toilet and the sink. I do everything in such a particular order to avoid contamination -- obviously I can't ask a cleaner to replicate that. I am afraid the process will kick too much dust into the air and my wife's allergies will be really bad (this one is easily solved -- the dust will settle, she can just wear a mask for a little while after the cleaner leaves, but it still gives me a bit of anxiety) I am afraid they will throw things away (that are not trash) or steal things (I have had both of these happen before). I am afraid that they will be judgemental. I am afraid that they will dry something in the dryer that should be hung to dry and that my favorite clothes will be ruined. I am afraid that they will not follow instructions about which doors not to open an that a pet will be let outside and hit by a car. I'm afraid they will hurt a person or pet. We have food allergies and cross contamination is a big concern -- I am afraid they will have allergens on their clothes or body and then our whole house will be contaminated. I'm afraid that they won't wash their hands properly after using the bathroom or touching the toilet, and then our whole house will be contaminated. I'm afraid that I will have to many particular requests (wear a mask, don't let the pets outside, wash your hands, wear an apron, use our eco-friendly cat-safe cleaning products, don't use this one on the marble, don't use this one on the stainless steel, ask me before throwing anything out....etc.) and that I will annoy them. I'm afraid that they will say that everything is too cluttered and that they can't help, or that they will be overwhelmed, or upset, or that it will cost a ton of money because it takes longer than estimated. Our house isn't horribly cluttered or dirty, but it definitely looks like the home of someone who is behind on everything. I hate feeling this way. I have chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and am behind on so many things. I just want the help, but I want to be able to control every aspect of how that help happens. And I hate that I can't. And I'm embarrassed for wanting to. I know that if I were to hire someone to help me tidy and clean I will probably feel SO much better after its done. Has anyone else felt this way? Did you get over the hurdle? What happened?

Hey everyone! I’m new to this app and wanted to share my story and maybe get some advice from y’all. So up until all of this started, I pretty much was boy crazy (my first crush on a boy was at 7 years old) and had never thought about being with a girl at all. I haven’t been officially diagnosed but am working on what I feel is hocd. Anyways the thoughts started out as concerns about my relationship with my boyfriend. I also went through a big depressive episode because of school that really effected my self confidence. One night my roommate had a tv show about gay people on tv and that’s where the thoughts started. My brain has analyzed past events and tried to use that as evidence to say that I’m gay/bi or it even tried to latch onto my best friend that I’ve known since my freshman year of college. I’ve also dealt with my brain trying to check if I find them attractive or not (which if I don’t at first my brain tries to convince me I do. At some points my brain just screams BI at me all the time. I’ve noticed when I’m busy that I tend to not have as much of these thoughts. Thoughts about my relationship have also popped up but have been not as loud of a voice in my head. Even last week when I saw my boyfriend again he gave me a hug and I just felt so happy and in love. I’ve always dreamt of a normal life (husband and kids) and when I think about my boyfriend and I getting married it makes me really happy but I’m scared I’m not gonna have that and I’m gonna lose my boyfriend which I don’t want to happen since we worked so hard to get back together. Any advice from y’all?

I saw a TikTok last night that was about a woman who broke up with her boyfriend because she wasn’t happy and she just loved him, she wasn’t “in love” with him. The comments were made up of lots of other women who broke up for the same reasons. I found this really triggering and now I can’t forget about it because I’ve always worried I’m not in love with my boyfriend. I’ve had little in love moments scattered throughout my relationship and I guess because my anxiety ruined any infatuation I had at the beginning, I now don’t believe I’m “in love”. In my mind infatuation = being in love. Therefore, my relationship is invalid and I need to break up like in the TikTok. Can’t believe I’m still here with this theme after a whole year with him. I thought it’d be gone by now :(