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Hey y’all, feel free to have conversations about this. But literally y OCD has been switching all around from false memory OCD to Relationship OCD back to false memory about a different topic. And then it’s like, none of the things I stressed about even happened whether it be false memory or relationship OCD. Just so crazy to me.

TW: SA mention hi so my current relationship is the longest and by far the healthiest i have ever been in. to the point where i’m extremely confident that i am going to marry him. we are best friends. however one of my more recent triggers is imagining my bf as my ex from about 4 years ago. this ex was my first bf and was absolutely horrible to me. he was manipulative and assaulted me multiple times throughout our like 7 ish month relationship. so i’ll be doing something with my bf then automatically imagine “what if i did this with ex instead and we were still together”. there is absolutely no world where i would ever leave my current bf for that man but these thoughts are extremely frustrating because they’re trying to convince me i miss my ex when i know i dont. i have very bad trauma from him and even just seeing him makes me extremely scared. i know that i don’t miss him and i do not love him anymore but i feel like these thoughts are taking away from all my good memories with my current bf. if anyone has any tips plz help me out thanks

Well I’m not sure if it’s OCD Related but this is a tough break up. I finally had a great relationship with someone but I ruined it with my overthinking and insecurities. No I can’t stop obsessing about him. He broke up with me because he was just tired of it. Now I’m afraid I won’t find another as good as he was. I feel terrible

My OCD has come back in full force this week and I’m not sure what to do. The last time I had a rough go, I was worried about being perceived as a cheater because I danced with someone at a bar. It ate at me and I didn’t feel like I deserved my partner. I couldn’t stop thinking about it all hours of the day and wanted to be punished. I worked through this and no longer have these thoughts. Fast forward to now. I am having obsessive thoughts about my husband’s best friend. I’m currently on my honeymoon, so the pressure to be focused solely on my husband is really high, making me feel like a horrible person. The thoughts say things like “you’d be happier with (name)” or “(name) would do this instead.” I love my husband immensely, and we have a relationship built on trust, respect and a long history. I don’t know why I am obsessing over this guy like I want him to want me when I have everything. Is it limerence? I just learned this term, so not sure if it’s even what I’m experiencing, but it seems close. I keep crying constantly. I can’t eat because I feel so physically sick. I have heart palpitations and I’m shaky. Has anyone dealt with this kind of ROCD? Any advice would be so appreciated.

The thing I feel is so hard about ROCD in particular is that there is not an objective definition of what is or is not cheating. Some people believe if you talk to a guy that is not your partner, it is a form of emotional cheating. Some people believe porn is cheating. Some people have such a high bar for cheating that it may be that as long as you dont have sex with them it does not matter. But I think the fear in ROCD goes deeper than that. In my case I do not think I fear actually cheating. I know that I am capable of controlling the actions my body takes. It is the fear of desire. It is the fear that I am a bad person and that if my partner knew I thought about cheating that he might be hurt. That he might see my true character and leave. So I guess the base fear of ROCD for me is isolation and abandonment. Who would ever want to be with someone who was terrible person? I have cheated before. I cheated on my HS boyfriend in college about 6 years ago. And while that was a horrible thing to do and heartbreaking for him, I have paid for it. To this day I cant find peace in any relationship because I am afraid I will do the same thing to them. I cant be alone without thinking I will cheat, which makes me overly clingy when naturally I am not. What does ERP look like for this? If cheating is subjective, and emotionally cheating exists, couldnt ERP be actually cheating on my partner to overcome the fear? This has prevented me from doing it.

Hey, everyone. So I am a college student going into my sophomore year in fall. For reference I am 19 and have ocd which I found out recently.College is rough for me in social settings especially rotc which requires a lot of communication. So my freshman year in fall I avoided all outings but in spring I got out more and became more involved. I noticed when I got more involved I enjoyed it but it made me very exhausted mentally .I want to get even more involved in college and make friends because I only have friends in rotc and none through the college. One thing that I think about a lot is relationships. I recently left a toxic relationship of 4 years in March. This whole summer I have been wanting to get out again and potentially talk to people again.I have asked around and many people say that it doesn’t matter how long you wait after the relationship but if you feel ready again go for it. At first I felt guilt right after the relationship for wanting to talk to someone else but many people told me that healing is a process it won’t happen right away and it might even happen while talking to people. I feel like there is nothing wrong when talking to people before it gets serious because the mistake with my ex was we just dated straight away we didn’t talk to get to know each other. I want to start talking to people but at the same time I feel like God wants me to wait and be patient. So I am unsure because many people say God will bring the one to you when you are ready but if you seek you might be tested. Also I don’t know where to start with talking to people and finding people it’s like the dating market has changed and every guy that tries to reach out to me wants nudes and talk to me inappropriately.Also I don’t go out much it overstimulates me after a while. I just want to get to know someone and take things slow. Even if things don’t go that way it would be nice to have a friend. I have many friends but I keep all of them at a distance because I trusted my ex with a lot. But now I sit back and realize I never had even a true friend or a healthy relationship. And I know I am still young and their is no rush but that’s why I said to get to know someone before even getting to the relationship part.Any thoughts?

I had a job opportunity come up and the owners of the place are a lesbian couple and that is making me freak and feel concerned about moving forward with this job. my ocd is telling me all sorts of things like that i want to work there BECAUSE of that or that i find the more masculine one attractive. i’m truly spiraling. i don’t know what to do my ocd just keeps telling me it’s true and it worries me that i don’t have ocd and i then worry because i love my boyfriend and it’s just so much.

I’ve been going on dates with this guy. He is so so sweet, respectful beyond belief and what I want in a guy to date. My anxiety/ OCD keeps getting to me because I see him active on Facebook and Instagram and he hasn’t responded to my message for over an hour yet it active on socials. I don’t want to sound obsessive or crazy but I get worried he isn’t as interested. I try to tell myself he could just need to a break from talking to people, he may be bored and forgot I messaged him, etc. but my OCD keeps telling me he isn’t interested, is annoyed with me, etc. I’ve been cheated on before and had more than one time where this exact thing happened and the guy was not interested and kept ignoring my messages and it’s freaking me out. When he does message me back regularly he always sounds very interested in me still and says he wants to go on more dates still but my OCD won’t shut up. Any advice?? I hate that my OCD does this and I refuse to keep messaging over and over first. I don’t wanna look or seem desperate…. Help.

So for some time my relationship with my partner has been what would be qualified as a “Dead Bedroom” or a “Sexless Marriage”. I am working through a lot of shame and scrupulously from growing up in purity culture and my marriage has been harmed on multiple occasions by my compulsively viewing pornography and attempting to hide it from my spouse. Whenever I feel attraction or sexual desire for my spouse, it feels the same way as other intrusive thoughts (triggers anxiety, triggering BFRBs, thoughts of self harm). The main issue is that, I know that because of damaged trust in the relationship and my spouse’s own mental and physical health issues that these desires and thoughts are not reciprocated. I don’t want to put pressure on the relationship by communicating these wants and feelings, but I feel like trying to squash these thoughts at any cost seems counterproductive to OCD treatment. Anyone else have any thoughts or advice?

I think my life would be a lot easier. This is me confessing in my full selfishness. I don’t care that they’re kind, fun people. I don’t care that they like me or find me beautiful. They don’t need to have my bf as a friend. This is my honest, dark, evil truth. ☹️

Hi all, Question/comment on my journey. I've been dealing with so ocd for a few years and have ridden it's waves but recently identified a new trigger where reading stories of people realizing they're gay after years of a happy relationship sparks a ton of fear in me. I did some ERP by intentionally reading these stories and trying to write down that it's ok and my partner is supportive and if I'm happy now I can be ok with that despite uncertainty. My question is while I'm reading these stories I got to the point of dizziness, nausea and was shaking. Should I keep reading stories and let the anxiety build in moments like this or am I ok at that peak discomfort to write down my what ifs and do deep breathing? I just want to make sure I'm doing ERP correct. Thanks!

I developed rocd after having a long distance relationship. I've had other themes before but didn't know I had ocd... Just called it anxiety. At first I obsessed over if the relationship was right or if he really loved me or I loved him. We finally moved in together and it switched to is he going to cheat on me and is he looking at other women. The problem is, bedsides having anxiety about it all day, that he does stare at other women ALOT. It makes it so much harder. He says he doesn't stare at women but I see him doing it. I used to enjoy going out and doing things with him but now I just watch him to see if he's looking at other women. I really just want to stop it and enjoy the relationship again. He knows I have ocd and is cool about it. I'm doing erp therapy for it. When I was married before if my ex looked at a pretty woman I would just give him a look and think it was annoying and move on with my day. Now I will obsess about it all day if my current partner does it. Any suggestions?

I started with the worst OCD you could possibly imagine last August. I woke up one day and randomly started analyzing every last part of my being. It was as if I was awoken to parts of me that I was unaware of. I couldn’t eat, sleep, lost 20 lbs., cried multiple times a day, had intrusive thoughts, and was hanging on by a thread. I confessed the most cringy things to my therapist who I ended up seeing twice a week for 2 hours at a time. The embarrassment, the shame, the way I dissected things that most people would keep to themselves was earth shattering to me. I told her I thought I was a bad person, weird, & saw life in an abnormal way. I also told her how I feel off. For example, I can hear a song and it can totally make me romanticize someone to the extreme where ai can lay out their whole like in my mind, imagining them even listening to the song. Of course, I told her way more in depth, but every single thing I told her she said was normal. Even the things that made me feel like a bad person, full of myself, crazy, or just plain weird. One of the things that really, really rocked my world was something I have done as far back as I can possibly remember and that was becoming so infatuated with people I liked. I will do things like watch their favorite movies just to see exactly what they see on the t.v. screen, or to have the same sort of feelings they have towards a movie. Same thing with a song. I will listen to their favorite song just to hear the same lyrics or the beat they hear. Doing these things makes me feel closer to them. Almost in the same way that people will stand in the same place that their favorite celebrity stood or touch the same light pole that their favorite celebrity touched. I’ll even do this with books. Just to read the exact same words they read or eat the same food they like. I’ll even take the long way home just to drive the same highway the do. There’s times where I’m laying on the couch watching some random tv show and I’ll pull up Google maps just to look around their area to see what their neighborhood looks like. Doing these things makes me feel more connected to them. It kind of brings me in to their world. I have always done these types of things in which my therapist says is harmless, but if I think about the people I have in my life who I’ve done this with, it scares me because I’m afraid they’ll think I’m absolutely nuts, obsessed, and maybe even scare them off. I’m afraid they’d be scared by me. Eventually this all wears off after a while, but I am so curious to know if there’s anyone else out there who does the same thing or thinks in the same way. I have never had a problem with making or keeping friends. I’m 41 and have the same friends I’ve had since elementary school and middle school. I’ve never thought of myself as weird and have never had issues with others thinking I’m weird. It’s just like my own secret little world, but does everyone do this sort of thing or is it just me? Of course with OCD I have worried a tremendous amount of times if I had some kind of mental illness and have been told by two different therapist that I do not. I’m just insanely anxious they say. Please no mean comments. OCD is hard enough. 😊

I’ve never worried about this in all of my SOOCD and ROCD journey. Suddenly I am PANICKING about how birth control impacts sexual orientation / attraction. I’ve been on it since I was 17 and am now 23. What if I go off of it and suddenly am attracted to women or no longer attracted to my boyfriend? I got into a hole with some googling. Ugh has anyone related to this? I could use some advice 😭😭😭

Good morning NOCD community, I wanted to take a moment to share my own experiences over the years and also provide some hope out there to anyone who is struggling or having a bad day. Over the years I have struggled with OCD on many occasions and mostly related to real event ocd and also false memory ocd. It is crazy on how OCD will always create the worst story in your head and we will believe exactly what is happening and/or being told even though we have reassurance that nothing happened or not as bad as it seemed. Over the past 7 months, I have struggled with high anxiety levels, ocd which was directly related to an event that happened and turned my world upside down.. Over the months this obsession has calmed about the event and now has moved over too ROCD and impacting my relationship with my wife and constantly thinking about leaving because of the guilt/shame attached to the event.. I have experienced everything from high anxiety levels, intrusive thoughts, suicidal thoughts and much more..... What I have learnt over the past months/years is the OCD will be here and that is ok and embrace our own mental health.. I have seen many different specialists over the months and was not getting the right support because they couldn't understand what my mind was going through and why I was obsessed over something so small and insignificant The reality is that OCD made this event very significant and very important to me and that's why this has been an ongoing struggle for so long because I was afraid to face my worst fears about the event and also tried to change perception of what happened What I have learned: 1. OCD will only tell you the bad story 2. OCD will latch onto something you most value 3. OCD loves information and will keep seeking for reassurance The most important part is that ERP is the #1 treatment for OCD because it helps to challenge your OCD in a very strategy way and will help to send a signal to your brain that this thought, worry is no longer important and no longer need to obsess about it Hopefully for whoever is reading this will either get comfort or some hope with respect to your own personal journey Stay strong and stay committed 💪

I’m in a relationship right now, it’s my first real relationship, and I’m struggling a lot with different flaws that I find bothersome about my partner. I’m trying to learn acceptance but it’s difficult. One of the bigger ones that’s bothering me right now is my bf’s voice. It can be irritating and it’s higher pitched and nasally/twangy. I was doing a lot better this weekend, I found that I wasn’t overthinking so much about his voice is I just let it be when I felt bothered instead of analyzing it. But today my best friend and her bf were talking about my bf and they were mentioning he “doesn’t irritate them as much as he did” when they first met him. And I asked what it was that irritated them most and the first thing that was mentioned was his voice. And to be honest I can agree with them, his voice is different, it is higher than normal, and it’s nasally and twangy, especially in social situations. And it can be bothersome for me. And all over the internet I see people saying that voice is such a huge ick that made them instantly turned off. I’m worried because I really struggle with my partners voice, and it can be a turn off at times, but I don’t want it to be a deal breaker, because he’s so amazing and I love him a lot. But I’m struggling because I don’t know what to do. Sometimes he can annoy people, and I feel that some people have a bad first impression of him due to his voice, or the tone in which he speaks. I sometimes perceive negative tones in his voice, even when he’s genuinely not trying to. He just sounds snarky sometimes, and like he’s constantly teasing but I know he’s not doing it to hurt anyone, he’s genuinely just trying to be funny and have a little fun. I love my bf so much, but how can I get past the parts that irritate me. I want to learn acceptance, I don’t want to let these things bother me forever, but I worry that I won’t be able to get over it. And knowing that other people find his voice irritating and it’s not just me makes it more difficult, because I was convincing myself that I was just focusing too much on his flaws, making them feel like a bigger deal than they were, but now I’m not so sure. I really need some sound advice from someone who can relate in one way or another.

Hi, I’m writing because I’m extremely triggered by a video I watched on instagram. I hope I can find someone to provide some insight. I’m happily married and my ROCD has flared up since we’ve got married and moved to another city, started a mortgage and trying for a baby. My thoughts focus on the beginning of our relationship: I was very interested in my husband when I first met him, but even though I was attracted to him, I didn’t fully like his physical appearance. I know it seems a bit shallow, but he wasn’t 100% the type of person I had imagined for me. The more I tried to understand, the less I liked him, so I rejected him, especially because he already was really into me and it didn’t seem fair to lead him. After a while I decided to try and date him, because I missed him, I liked talking to him and I wanted to be with him. In therapy I worked on my OCD that focused on physical aspect and chemistry (main theme) and it felt like I was forcing it, though I really wanted to be with him and chose him, guided by the mantra “love is a choice”. Now I’m worried because I keep thinking that back then I have only convinced myself to love him, or that I just wanted to reciprocate only because he was in love with me, but it was all forced. I feel so bad like everything is a lie… I saw a video on instagram about it and it triggered me sooo much! My therapist is on holiday and I can’t talk to her, please can you help me? I need someone to help

I started with the worst OCD you could possibly imagine last August. I woke up one day and randomly started analyzing every last part of my being. It was as if I was awoken to parts of me that I was unaware of. I couldn’t eat, sleep, lost 20 lbs., cried multiple times a day, had intrusive thoughts, and was hanging on by a thread. I confessed the most cringy things to my therapist who I ended up seeing twice a week for 2 hours at a time. The embarrassment, the shame, the way I dissected things that most people would keep to themselves was earth shattering to me. I told her I thought I was a bad person, weird, & saw life in an abnormal way. I also told her how I feel off. For example, I can hear a song and it can totally make me romanticize someone to the extreme where ai can lay out their whole like in my mind, imagining them even listening to the song. Of course, I told her way more in depth, but every single thing I told her she said was normal. Even the things that made me feel like a bad person, full of myself, crazy, or just plain weird. One of the things that really, really rocked my world was something I have done as far back as I can possibly remember and that was becoming so infatuated with people I liked. I will do things like watch their favorite movies just to see exactly what they see on the t.v. screen, or to have the same sort of feelings they have towards a movie. Same thing with a song. I will listen to their favorite song just to hear the same lyrics or the beat they hear. Doing these things makes me feel closer to them. Almost in the same way that people will stand in the same place that their favorite celebrity stood or touch the same light pole that their favorite celebrity touched. I’ll even do this with books. Just to read the exact same words they read or eat the same food they like. I’ll even take the long way home just to drive the same highway the do. There’s times where I’m laying on the couch watching some random tv show and I’ll pull up Google maps just to look around their area to see what their neighborhood looks like. Doing these things makes me feel more connected to them. It kind of brings me in to their world. I have always done these types of things in which my therapist says is harmless, but if I think about the people I have in my life who I’ve done this with, it scares me because I’m afraid they’ll think I’m absolutely nuts, obsessed, and maybe even scare them off. I’m afraid they’d be scared by me. Eventually this all wears off after a while, but I am so curious to know if there’s anyone else out there who does the same thing or thinks in the same way. I have never had a problem with making or keeping friends. I’m 41 and have the same friends I’ve had since elementary school and middle school. I’ve never thought of myself as weird and have never had issues with others thinking I’m weird. It’s just like my own secret little world, but does everyone do this sort of thing or is it just me? Of course with OCD I have worried a tremendous amount of times if I had some kind of mental illness and have been told by two different therapist that I do not. I’m just insanely anxious they say. Please no mean comments. OCD is hard enough. 😊

ive genuinely been experiencing the worst cycle of my ocd yet. ive dealt w rocd for months but ive never felt this before. i feel so numb to the point where idk if i want to text him at all and when i see tik toks or social media abt romantic things i used to think of him and send them to him but now i force myself to think of him and i lost that romantic connection. i still send them to him but theres no feeling connected to it. some times i text less bcs idk if im forcing myself to or if i genuinely mean it and i feel horrible. i keep thinking if i ended it i wouldn't feel bad and i wouldn't be hurt usually when i have thoughts that i need to break up i feel hurt or i know i would feel awful but now i can't even feel that. i can't feel like i miss him either. and i know this all sounds awful but i genujnely want to feel these emotions i just can't and its causing me so much anxiety my stomach hurts i just need to know someone relates to this level of numbness bcs i cant tell if its my ocd anymore im so lost psa i feel like ive grown numb to the idea of breaking up like i can feel anxiety about this whole thing but usually that urgent break up need amkes me feel like shit immediately and induces panic but now its like i dont want to want it and i want to feel panic about it but i cant tell if i do and i cant tell if i want to break up or if i don't want to bcs usually i feel stronger about it. pls can someone tell me if this is normal

Should you never answer the triggering questions that arise from triggering experiences? The questions that OCD ask, or better, the answers that it demands? That make you want to review the memory of that trigger and give it a solution an answer. Like yesterday I had a very triggering thought process and I needed to review it, to understand what it really meant, if they were real thoughs or OCD's, if I liked those thoughts or they were just hypotethical etc. but at the end I didn't do it as a challenge. So should we ignore the calls in any circumstance even if they are really important? Even if the answers to that questions could actually be positive? Even if the triggering that happened doesn't feel like a lie from OCD but something that seems very true and real? That seems so real that there is no space for the hypothesis of an intrusive thought? Even if you feel like maybe you could have been attracted, and that feeling felt so true and real that it is undistinguishable, that you can't even reassure yourself thinking that it was just triggering, should we deny the call still? Should we allow uncertainty to be even if it doesn't feel like it is actually uncertain? maybe it is distorsted in our mind and we think that we're attracted when we are not. Maybe it's because we are so deep in this theme that everything, like attraction, feels very realistic, but it is not actually real.