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Dealing with a breakup due to ocd and could use some encouraging words. I feel really alone. I can’t sleep or eat. My mind won’t turn off.

Hi everyone, does anyone struggle with relationship OCD? I have substantial trouble with ROCD, It has been present in my life for as long as I've been in relationships, and the pain that comes with this OCD is unreal sometimes. I have left every past relationship I had been in just to relieve the unbearable anxiety and suffering I was in 24/7, up until meeting my current partner 1 1/2 years ago, I have just learned within the week about OCD, and more specifically ROCD. For the last 6~ years, I thought I was just broken-like something was just wrong with me, like I was just wired this way, and that I was just unfixable. No diagnosis/disorder I have been diagnosed with has ever made sense/explained any symptom I had with me; like OCD. This disorder just clicks in my head and checks every box I have ever been searching for, for the last 6 years. I made peace with myself that I was just made this way. Going out in public with my S/O, going to friends houses with her, staying at her house and having people come in her room with us; all made my anxiety so unbearable, I was so uncomfortable, I felt like I was in survival mode, like I was in grave danger. I feel this crazy jealousy with anyone she spends time with besides me, anything that I couldn't predict/control, drove me insane, I would lose sleep over those thoughts, that I would lose her, that she could be laughing with someone else, they'd never ever leave my head, the sense of danger never left me, unless I left that partner, then and only then, would my anxiety go away. I would start to feel safe, but so lonely. The uncertainty that is a relationship would quite literally drive me to the brink of insanity, but would break my heart in the process, because I have simply felt unlovable for as long as I have been searching for it.

can relationship ocd come and go? I was fine for like years now it’s back.. makes me think it’s the truth

During school, I went with my friends to get food but there wasnt enough room in the car so my friend offered their lap to sit on. I said yes and went to sit on her lap but there wasn’t enough room vertically for my head so i ended up laying down across the people in the back seat. I made sure my head and butt were on my female friends but there was a guy sitting in the middle so i arched my back a bit so it wouldn’t touch him. i felt really uncomfortable the whole time but there wasn’t anything i could do because we already started driving. I made sure he didnt touch me and i didnt touch him but i feel really guilty and i dont know what to do. I dont know if i should tell my partner or not. My friend that offered me her lap was trying to console me saying that its okay and that i didnt touch him and she made sure that he didnt touch me but still. please help

Today i started job of coordinator at a school. I wanted to come out of my comfort zone which is actually my room and i wanted to come in the outside world. I thought i would get better if i spend some time outside but my ocd just flared up. I felt like the environment was not clean enough. I felt like people coming out of the restrooms contaminated everything. I felt the doorknobs and all the stuff was contaminated. Now i feel i am contaminated. After coming home i touched alot of my stuff which is also contaminated. But i cannot wash everything everyday so may be i would delay it to the day i leave the job which i dont want now. I want to do it least few months. I also have magical thinking ocd. I think if i get married and met my husband or his family in my contaminated clothes something is gonna happen and their house will be contaminated too. So i have to wash my whole wardrobe. I am feeling so anxious right now. Cannot do anything but sitting with thoughts

sometimes when I read all these posts I just start crying 😭😭 I hate that we are all suffering like this… ocd is not for the weak and its so frustrating 😭 Im really tired honestly… my ocd has its good and bad days but im just exhausted by all of it. I cant enjoy simple things because my ocd has to overcomplicate every little thing and create these “signs” as to what I am and what I am not. Ive had ocd for over a year now im a just upset 😭😭😭 I dont want to live like this forever… I have a lot of people who say, “you can talk to me if you want” and its really sweet 💓 but I dont think anyone can understand what I am feeling because even I cant… I dont know what im doing- how im feeling- who I am- or even what my values are 😭 ocd just makes me question everything. I am a 14 year old girl 😭😭😭 how am I supposed to know what to do? Ive talked mom about my ocd a few times and she tries to help but she doesn’t even understand 1/5th of what I go through daily. I appreciate her caring even if its a little but I just want some help 😭😭 I am a bit scared of therapy though. But im willing to try but im not sure if my mom will let me… Ocd just makes me feel so unlovable. I hate it.

Ive chatted with romantically attached women on the explicit chat website... people on the site tell me im a good person and that people on the site are here for their own reasons, or their partners allow them to be, but i still feel horrible about the two women who were keeping secret from their partners... (not the ones whose partners allow them to be on there...) this one girl is the one i regret the most because she was in a relationship with the girl on the site and didnt want me to tell her... i feel like a horrible person... even though many people on the site tell me im not... and that its all fantasy and not real... me and her have chatted several times so i feel like a bad person because of those several times... and ive wanted to chat with her... i feel horrible because of this... i only want to be a good person... i only want to do good things... but no matter how many people on the site reassure me, i still feel horrible because of this...

Hi, I have been struggling in my relationship due to ROCD and would love for someone to weigh in and help. Here is my story: My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 years. We got together young and are only in our early 20’s now. About two years ago I developed an extreme anxiety disorder. A few months into this disorder I also developed OCD in the form of sexual orientation ocd and relationship ocd. It immediately affected my relationship no matter how much I didn’t want it to. I immediately felt like maybe we shouldn’t be together because I don’t truly love him. Or I actually love girls so therefore can not be with him. This has been happening now for two year and it is still a daily struggle. I have people in my life that are major triggers because when I am around them all I can do is think sexual thoughts or obsessive thoughts about possibly wanting to be with them. It is so hard to know if I am actually gay or not and no matter how hard I try to figure it out I can’t. It also makes me deeply sad because I so so badly want the relationship back that my partner and I had. We had 3 amazing years before all of this and now that feels like a distant memory that I may never experience again. I feel like I am trying so hard yet it isn’t getting better and I’m afraid it never will. I want to feel the same love I used to for him and without all the fear and doubt. If anyone else has experienced this please share if there was anything helpful for you. Thank you.

I feel like I have asked a variation of this question before but still don’t quite know how to deal effectively. What is the suggested pathway for someone dealing with a trauma (sexual) when OCD is latching on and making it worse? I feel like this is something I genuinely need to seek help or counseling for because it is affecting my relationship, but OCD is so loud and trying to make itself the center of attention. I feel like I am suppressing healing just so I don’t engage with my OCD.

I don't know what is more difficult, when you have strong anxiety and fear or when you don't feel anxiety. I met a girl and I've been talking to her for a month, we've gone out a couple of times and we've already kissed, I feel like things could go really well between us, I like her and she likes me, I've imagined living together, but I have a lot of anxiety and fear about it happening in bed. I feel that this is going to come soon and every time the opportunity arises, I spend the whole day with thoughts of failure and that I am going to fail and it is going to ruin everything. I have thought about stopping talking to him, telling him about the anxiety I have or something like that as an avoidance, with strong anxiety it is very likely that it will not work as I want, and I can clearly see that the fear is due to the thought of failure, because I have failed sexually in the past and I feel that my libido is low , I think because of all this anxiety. But I really don't want to stop seeing her or stop talking to her, I don't want her to leave, I don't want to miss another opportunity, I don't want to give up on women, I don't want to have this f**k anxiety, I didn't have it before, right now it's uncontrollable, I don't deserve this, nothing makes sense, I'm sad.

hi everyone, really need some advice if possible!! me and my boyfriend have been going through a rough patch. we’ve both realized that we really are complete opposites. he’s an extrovert, i’m an introvert, he has an avoidant attachment style and i have the anxious attachment style. scary, right!! anyways we’ve both been talking through how we’re going to work through it these past two weeks because we both genuinely feel we can make this work. i’ve been in therapy and he’s going to start therapy and we’ve honestly just made progress. and i was FINALLY feeling a relief of anxiety through this and he told me yesterday how he’s scared i won’t be able to adjust or enjoy his extroverted activities. i reassured him im willing to try but just him having anxiety and small doubts gives me the worst anxiety!! i feel confident we will make this work and find middle grounds to everything like we have before but i don’t really do too much of his interest and he’s scared i won’t like them or he’ll find difficulty being okay with my adjustments right away. he said he’s also confident in us but he also has anxiety about this whole thing. we’ve been dating for two years now and i really want this relationship to work but my rocd keeps telling me to leave now and not try out this new lifestyle. that this is too scary to even go through. that he’ll leave me because i’m not “perfect” or “enough” for him even though he’s reassured me. i keep wanting to budge and keep asking for reassurance even though i’ve asked a bjillion times. any advice on how to get through this scary times? we’re both scared of change and we both know we’re capable of it but i’m scared this won’t work out so my ocd is telling me to leave now so i can be stress free. to leave now because it’s never going to work ever and why try but i don’t want that. i don’t want my thoughts to control actions that i don’t even know are true since i haven’t even tried this new change in our relationship

Hello, does anyone have aby advice for how to handle disagreements and arguments with partner, when you have ROCD? I have rocd under control most of the time. But I don't handle conflict very well... Even when it is about something silly, my brain goes: see, you shouldn't be with him. You need someone, who gets you more. And when we argue about something that is not silly, something actually important, I get a lot of anxiety. And I start again thinking about wanting to leave him, questioning if we are compatible... Compabilty is a big theme for me right now. And I don't even know what compability actually means... I hate it. I am sometimes so frustrated with my partner and seriously question if I should leave the relationship. I compare our relationship a lot. Note: we never raise voices when we argue, we both apologize, we try our best to communicate, no one uses nasty words

I made a big mistake trusting someone in my past and it’s made me obsessive over it. To the point where everyone distrust me and I’m creating obsessions in my mind. It affects my work, relationships with family and friends I thought I had.

Has anyone experienced OCD regarding a particular individual? This person is absolutely meaningless to you, yet your brain has been giving them a sort of “god complex.” This all started a few years ago for me with a classmate from college when Covid began and this individual made me feel bad about something, although they didn’t know they did. This particular thing really bothered me and I was never sure why. They did nothing wrong, my brain did by latching onto that trivial thing and feeding the obsession. I still struggle with it and sometimes it feels like it’s constantly in the background and it causes severe anxiety at times. Anyways was just wondering if I could get anyone else’s input or thoughts on this particular issue.

Hey everyone! Here is my story and I would love to see if anyone relates or if the same thing may have happened to them. Back in August of 2022, I tested positive for COVID for the third time (yippie🙃). I have to say that this was my worst bout of COVID yet and I had massive brain-fog, migraines(previous diagnosed w/ chronic migraines), all the fun stuff. A week after I got over this round of COVID, I tested positive for strep and found out I had a sinus infection that had been untreated for about a month. Needless to say, my immune system was shot. After all of this occurred, I started having severe panic attacks constantly.. every morning I woke up and was already panicking, I would feel like I wasn’t in my own body, my brain was a foggy mess, and I absolutely hated the life I was living. This went on for three months before I finally decided to see my health care provider about it. In November of that same year, I started taking Sertraline and have been moving up in my dose ever since. In June of this past year, I started having extremely distressing thoughts about my boyfriend, who I have been with since January of 2022. These thoughts were ones that I was able to push away at first, but as time went on they became more and more anxiety provoking. Thoughts such as, “do I love him enough?”, “do I even love him and if I do, why don’t I feel it?”, “you should break up with him”, “are you attracted to him?”. Deep down, I know I love him VERY much, he is my best friend and I feel so safe with him, and he is the first healthy relationship I have had in my life. It’s comfortable and he feels like home. These thoughts come and go for WEEKS on end, and then the anxiety calms down and the thoughts get quiet for awhile.. and then they come back full force and cripple me with anxiety and sadness all over. I’m currently having a flair up on these feelings (I have not been diagnosed, but I find myself relating to a lot of what other people have felt or are feeling + have talked to my doctor and they believe I could benefit from therapy with these symptoms). I find that when I am extremely stressed or anxious, these thoughts appear. The first time I had ever had these thoughts or feelings was in my 20s and it is something I have never experienced before my immune system gave up on me for awhile. Long story short, I wanted to see if anyone else may be dealing with this or if long-term COVID has messed with others’ psyche. Thanks for reading!!

When I was in school I kept having unwanted thoughts of cheating..makes me think I just like the idea which I don't!!! I don't want to cheat on my boyfriend at all. Then when I saw some of the male students introducing thereselfs. My brain just automatically say that they are attractive or say like "cheating sounds fun" NO NO NO NOOOO. :< It didn't stop with one particular boy in my class which made me panic because it would make me think I had crush feelings and it didn't go away even when I was no many times. I was saying that my boyfriend is way more attractive and I have crush feelings for my boyfriend not this person and I don't care about this person. But it doesn't believe it would blame me because of my cheating thoughts THAT I DON'T EVEN WANNA DO. After awhile I was sitting in a different class and then I just looked around the room and just noticed him there. My thoughts would keep making him this woah pretty boy and the unwanted feelings did not go away at all. I would say I do not like cheating I never did I love my boyfriend he is better and way attractive. Then the boy came to my table and wanted to ask me like a question for one of the assignments. BUT MY STUPID THOUGHTS KEPT MAKING ME THINK I'M SHY OR I LIKE HIM. I stood still and felt uncomfortable. He sounded nice but THAT DOESN'T MEAN I'M GONNA JUST THROW MY BOYFRIEND :<. After he left one thought came in and said "if he said your boyfriend doesn't have to know would you cheat?" I said no no no no no but it kept making me feel different and I was trying my best not to scream or freak out. I WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING AND I MEAN ANYTHING TO LEAVE OR HURT MY BOYFRIEND. I DON'T LIKE THIS RANDOM BOY I NEVER DID. now it's making me think I'm a cheater because I didn't panic or did something to disagree more to the thoughts....it felt like I liked the thoughts but I didn't I love my boyfriend why would I think that. It's making me think I'm this toxic cheating planning 15 year old bad influence on my boyfriend but I didn't want to have thoughts of this random boy in my class or have cheating thoughts. I FUCKING CAN'T I HATE THIS I DON'T WANT TO THINK ANY STUPID FUCKING BOY IS ATTRACTIVE OR HAVE THOUGHTS THAT I HAVE A "CRUSH" ON A BOY WHO JUST HAS GOOD FEATURES. MY BOYFRIEND HAS GOOD FEATURES, I HAVE A CRUSH ON MY BOYFRIEND, I'M NOT GONNA CHEAT I WILL LITERALLY MURDER THEM IF THEY EVER SAID MY BOYFRIEND DOESN'T HAVE TO KNOW. I DON'T GET IT I DON'T FUCKING GET IT I NEVER WANTED TO THINO OF OTHER STUPID FUCKING BOYS. GOD DAMNIT. I'M NOT DOING THIS JUST TO LOOK GOOD I'M NOT DOING THIS JUST TO KEEP MY BOYFRIEND. I DON'T EVER WANT TO THINK OF THIS BOY IN MY CLASS I DON'T FUCKING GEY IT.

Me and the guy I’m seeing are taking a break, he said that he won’t be seeing anyone else but can’t make any promises as to what’s gonna happen after the break. I just feel so stupid. The guys friend took me aside and told me to keep it calm and don’t over do it and now I think I’ve done exactly that! I know he’s going through some stuff and this break has nothing to do with me at all but it feels like I’ve done so much wrong! We’re still talking and stuff but he needs space and idk how to give it. I feel sick thinking about losing him but l don’t know what to do

I went to a traumatic experience 8 years ago, however I never struggled with anything at the time, however last year i started to get intrusive thoughts about STDs, I got tested for hiv hsv2 and 1, went to get a cervix examination at a professional OBGYN everything is clean however I keep thinking I got something now I am obsessing over HPV and it's driving me crazy I don't sleep at night I don't get out of the bed in the day all I do is being afraid to contaminat my husband who I just married, I went to get my nails done and I got cut i freaked out over the STDs I previously tested ,and i want to get tested again, I keep thinking how in few years he will be sick and it's all my fault , and that i ruined his life and he will never forgive me I am taking medication for my anxiety and depression , does anyone have the same thing? Is it normal? Does anyone know how to deal with this?

I am a 17 year old male. I am friends with this one girl (same age). We've known each other for about a year. And I've never really thought about her romantically minus a few thoughts here and there. And they always give me intense anxiety because I don't like her like that and I know she doesn't like me like that. But these thoughts persist and it freaks me out. What if I actually do like her? Like one, she's one of my friends, two I know I don't like her like that and don't want to. And 3 I'm interested in someone else right now. And any time she looks pretty i say to myself she's cute or pretty and then immediately freak out because it feels weird even though noticing that isn't bad necessarily. You can think someone is pretty platonically. But like it still gives me anxiety. Help!

I think I may have had the worst day of my life yesterday. It started when I struggled with sleeping, only getting three or so hours in before waking up at 6am. Around 8 I had a bad panic attack. I haven't had one that bad in a long time. I had to call my mom to come hang out with me until it passed. Then I finally got some more sleep, not enough still but a few more hours at least until my partner got home from work. They were tired so I had my mom take me to the grocery store so I could get something for dinner for us but we didn't make it there. We got in a car wreck. No one was seriously hurt thankfully. I was pretty shaken up, we both were. I had another panic attack from it in the parking lot of some random hair salon that we pulled into to get off the road. I already feel pretty invisible and like I don't matter so when the paramedic only asked me if I was ok and I said "I think so" it hurt my feelings a little that he left and never checked back on us. Someone else did add before leaving that we could go to the ER if we wanted but it just made me sad to feel so dismissed after getting into an accident. It didn't help that the police officer was a little combative too. We had to wait there for a good 45 minutes before we could finally go home. Of course, with my OCD, I had to shower right when we got home before doing anything because I was "dirty" for going outside. That was frustrating, I couldn't even sit down for a second first. And now it's the next day and I'm still so utterly exhausted and my poor partner, it was there car and they've had to be on the phone with insurance and stuff so they're pretty stressed about everything too and I feel like the absolute worst partner because I can't be there for them more or comfort them. With my OCD I can't even hug them unless I know we're showering afterwards. :( Plus it was partly my fault for the wreck since I was the one that asked to go to the store. If I didn't none of that would of happened. There was a lot of reasons it happened though so I don't fully blame myself and I'm not beating myself up too much but still. Worst day of my life I think and today isn't much better.