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How do you guys deal with rejection from other people or them pulling away when you talk about your OCD and intrusive thoughts? I've been dealing with that a little bit lately and it hurts a lot. I don't know how to deal with it.

Hey y’all! I am asking for some support for a rough time with my OCD. I’m a straight woman who has SOOCD about being attracted to women as well as hints of ROCD and previous themes of the environment and religion. SO OCD has been kicking my ass on and off for over 2 years and I’ve seen 2 different therapists for treatment. With my current therapist we are doing I-CBT which has helped in some ways but not in others. I had an incredibly bad flare up thinking about some 🌽 I watched as a kid and it made me spiral thinking I could have a fetish that made me feel so awful gross and scared. I spent about 2 straight hours scrolling through forums trying to get an answer before feeling relief. I can’t see my therapist until next Friday and decided to make a list of my triggers, obsessions and compulsions to bring to her so we can talk about it and hopefully find a structured way to confront my fears. I’m currently ok right now but am nervous about when my next spiral is going to be and to go to sleep because I frequently have dreams relating to my triggers and it stresses me out so much :( This illness has stolen so much from me and feels like it borderline ruins many components of my life. I feel like I have « lost » my attraction to men becuase im so anxious all the time and im nervous to have sex with my bf (im a virgin) becuase of what ill think about or how ill react to certain thoughts. It doesn’t make any sense because I have so intensely wanted to have sex and be sexual with men in the past and that has always been my normal. It is destroying me. I’m sure people can relate but does anyone have advice on what I can do in the meantime until I can see my therapist? What I can do if I have an intrusive thought and want to engage in a compulsion? Thank you for any and all advice :))

Hi yall just wanted to get more information as I’ve always wrote it off as something else before but I always figured you have to be in a relationship to know if you have rocd and if I think about my two brief relationships in the past ( long ago) it kinda of jives with it but is it still rocd if you get extreme anxiety and are super picky and second guess your attraction to the person in the initial talking/dating phase? Like I want to pursue a relationship so I’ll get n apps and start the swiping get overwhelmed with doubt and anxiety over f I want this then I get over that hurdle and then let’s say I really was into a guys profile but now he messages me and my full on panic button is hit, I question everything, why did I even liek him is he even that cute ? Omg what if I’m doing this wrong what if I’m broken or secretly gay ( I know I have so-ocd) omg is this gonna change my life in a way that I can’t handle? I don’t wanna lose myself in another relationship, what if they think I’m fat ugly or a freak cause I can’t get through talking or meeting a new person without spiraling ? And honestly I’m not even fully aware of what goes through my head it’s just so instant and intense and overwhelming and in the past I would just panic and stop dating all together and the last several yrs it’s been a struggle for me not to completely abandon it. I do get frustrated with myself and beat myself up at my glacial progress I’ve gone on maybe 2 attempted dates ( one kept cancelling and one just didn’t show up ) I’ve gone one successful date where I was able to get through it and go and I felt so proud of myself but I don’t think I was really interested in the guy and just felt guilty so I told him I wasn’t interested. I’ve been in therapy for ocd and overcome my other subtypes this one is just hard af and I’m doing my work and my modules but it’s so exhausting. How do I get over not feeling safe exposing myself and being vulnerable with someone else even though it’s want I ultimately want ? Sigh p.s. I have a feeling a part of my extreme anxiety is my first bf assaulted me and then ditched me so I know that’s part of it but I’m also like but that was over ten yrs ago and the way I reacted was to just avoid dating all together! I felt like I couldn’t trust myself and now I know I can but I get overwhelmed with this feeling of worrying about being a fraud and leading someone on if I can’t go all into it or my anxiety gets in the way and I’m wishywashy and battling myself so I need to go slow but ugh I’m so frustrated !!! Does anyone who struggles with this have advice/tools they use to get through it? Thank you in advance

Me and my boyfriend spend a lot of time together. Especially since we were long distance on and off for a long while, we spend as much time together as we can when he's not working. This is also due to my social OCD, which has made it very very difficult to be able to spend time without him among friends or in public. We've now been together for over 2 1/2 years and I'm so so grateful for all the help he's provided me with mentally and emotionally in these last 3 months we've been living together. It hasn't been easy, but he's been so patient with me. He continues to be patient with me every day, but he's not a machine either. Sometimes I hate myself for the ways that my OCD, ADHD, PTSD trauma and cannabis dependency can jump out in ways that not only hurt him, but our relationship too. Sometimes I'll say things or feel things that feel like they authentically come from me as a person, only to realize it was some OCD thought spiral or obsession or checking compulsion... IT'S SO FRUSTRATING!!! I can come off as crass, unconcerned, narrow minded, pushy and rude. None of these things represent me, I know they don't. I feel like I constantly have to explain that to myself and him to not feel like a shitty ass person. My obsessions can be so persistent that they ignore him trying to communicate to me that I'm not in the right headspace and that I should take a breather. It feels like there's so much standing in the way of me being able to meet both of our needs sometimes, especially because I don't exactly feel like I can trust myself. I need a break from how hard this disorder can be, he needs a break, we're both tired of it. I'm blessed that each other's presence is already such a big gift to one another, and none of this negates the fact that we are still falling in love with each other over and over again. I'm beyond blessed to have someone like him through the good times and the hard times, the hard times can just be so hard on the both of us and I wish it would stop. Any advice would be appreciated <3

Yesterday me and my bf were gaming and he had a glitch in the game and raged at it because he died because of the glitch which was out of his control and I ended up being startled and left the call on impulse. My ocd always expects an answer in my favour and when an answer is not what my Ocd expects it goes WILD. My ocd expected “I’m so sorry I made you startled my love it will never happen again ” after I told him why I left the call, but he gave me a completely different answer to the positive reassuring answer it wanted. He said we both overreacted and it’s not a big deal he was just letting out some anger because he couldn’t fix a glitch that caused him to lose the game we were playing while mine was working normally. He wasn’t mad at anyone, just the game because he died from a reason he couldn’t control. He couldn’t understand why I reacted the way I did so he couldn’t exactly feel sad about it, just confused. I think my ocd has reacted so badly to this situation because I am used to asking more questions after the initial response my ocd didn’t like, so I can get a positive answer to balance it out and be reassured, but it reacted badly because my bf stood his ground and said he needs to stop reassuring me/babying me in some situations because it’s just catering towards my OCD and I need a positive answer constantly and I somewhat agree because I see how my ocd trying to twist it to be positive is reassurance seeking. It can’t cope with an answer it doesn’t want to hear. If there is an answer that my ocd hates, it paints my boyfriend out to be a bad person like in this situation, a “narcissist with no empathy” ,when actually he admits/realises when he is wrong, he was just standing his ground with an answer and not catering to my ocd being like “awwww it’s okay I’m sorry” and he decided to be honest this time that he was extremely confused with how I reacted in that situation so he couldn’t feel anything. He said he would have possibly reacted differently if I hadn’t of left the call which confused him/stressed him a little and I could of have just said “I need a few minutes” and muted to calm down. He also might of reacted differently if he heard how I was on call if I didn’t leave. I have realised maybe it’s me being sort of toxic with the way I think and I need to get out of this thing where I hear an answer I don’t like and then ask questions until it changes to be reassured. Is it better to learn to sit with the uncomfortableness/ uncertainty of having a negative answer and not getting out of it by trying to “cancel it out” with a positive answer? Do I need to fight my OCD back when it’s being like “oh my god he’s so horrible we didn’t get the answer we wanted to hear! Let’s ask questions until it changes to something we want to hear!” Does anyone else have where their ocd goes wild because you expect a certain answer always and you don’t get it and it’s distressing and you feel like you need to find a positive to make it stop?

Recently an important relationship in my life has gone south. All day and all night it's all I think about, and I just keep trying to solve their personality flaws or my personality flaws. I'm also fearing for our next interaction, creating situations where I have to stick up for myself. I feel like I'm just stuck in this loop. What I want to accomplish is for these racing thoughts to just stop. This person can't completely be out of my life. So how do I comfortably coexist and live with the betrayal. The best advice I've heard is I need to learn to self-love and accept my feelings but I guess I don't understand how to do that.

Contamination OCD sent me spiralling once before and now i have gotten into a new relationship it has come back. Bodily fluids came in contact with mine and I'm so scared of HIV even though i don't think he has it. I think this is all OCD, because last time, my fear of catching the disease was irrational, doctors and my therapist told me it was too. The uncertainty is horrible right now. I thought I could handle sex and everything but OCD won't let up. Any thoughts? I like this guy but OCD is scaring me so much and taking all the fun away

My relationship ocd is partner focused and tries to pick apart my bf to show me he’s “bad”. A lot of times I’ll just randomly worry about something old he did or something happens in the moment and ocd latches to it and i bring it up and question him with my heart racing and that classic anxious feeling and need to be “certain”. But sometimes there is times it latches to something he’s done where I feel sick to my stomach with anxiety and can’t tell how I feel about him and wake up multiple times in the night with what feels like a wave of “doom” going over me? And an upset stomach because I’m so anxious. My ocd tries to tell me that these themes are very bad and true because I reacted so badly…. It’s so convincing. Does anyone get the same level of anxiety as me with ROCD?

When I get a new theme the previous theme completely disappears/seems unimportant until there is a trigger for it. Is circling themes a very obvious sign its ocd? If it’s something actually serious in the relationship wouldn’t I get a worse feeling than just “omg this is bad I need to ruminate and search and seek reassurance” There is always one theme in control and my main focus until a new/ returning theme takes its place and the other theme is shoved away in the back of my mind like nothing until it circles around again. Even if the theme I’m currently having seems like an actual problem/super serious a different trigger/theme can occur and the “serious” theme that i was panicking over thinking “is my bf a bad person” can be wiped away and replaced with another theme. Is the constant thinking something is super serious but then it can easily be replaced with another worry a big sign it’s ocd?

idk how to even make this make sense but i’m gonna try so i think i’ve convinced myself that im like afraid of more feminine men??? especially straight ones. like i was watching a tik tok of this guy who i would consider pretty feminine and he was talking abt his girlfriend and all of a sudden i just felt really weird??? and today i saw a more feminine guy holding hands with a girl walking around town and got that same feeling again. idk what’s even wrong. i don’t think it’s bad for guys to be feminine at all. if anything im glad people are able to express themselves the way they want. i’ve mentioned in my others posts that im scared of being a lesbian bc that means i won’t like my bf and i think im forcing myself to think im like hyper straight and super feminine and maybe im pushing that onto how i view other people?? like i think that if i look or act even a little bit lesbian then i am. but how does one even look or act lesbian?? anyone can be a lesbian!!! now i’m worried that if my bf does something more feminine i won’t like him. i feel so stressed sexuality literally does not matter why am i freaking out!!!! as long i like love him and he loves me nothing is wrong and it’s not wrong for other people to love who they love either!!! sorry if this absolutely made no sense i tried to explain it the way im feeling it. i’m scared that im like being homophobic or something but im not!! i genuinely think love is such a beautiful thing and that you should get to be with whoever you’re attracted to even if it’s a feminine man (which there’s nothing wrong with at all) i just don’t know why these feelings don’t align with my views. im sorry

Hi all. I have OCD, and I’ve been having it for about 2 years. I am Christian, and I heavily love the Lord. I also have a loving boyfriend, who is not religious. It’s a huge struggle because in the Bible, it says to not make close relationships with nonbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14 NIV). I love my boyfriend and totally accept him for who he is, and he accepts me for who I am and my beliefs. However, it’s just been an on and off thing of “should I break up with him?” “Does God not want me with him?” “Am I selfish for wanting to be in a relationship with him?” “Does God accept us?” Those things. I always tend to over analyze and overthink about this sensitive topic of mine, and it overwhelms me so much because I truly don’t know what to do. I know the Lord doesn’t want his children with nonbelievers, so I feel selfish. However, my boyfriend heavily respects me and my beliefs, and whenever I tell him about my day whether it’s reading the Bible, praying, etc, he totally supports me and is actually happy for me! He doesn’t judge me, he doesn’t judge my love for God, and he wants to be a better person. Our relationship has helped change me for the better and helped me realize I really need to focus on the Lord. When we first dated, I was a lost girl and didn’t fully know God. The fear I had about dating a nonbeliever as a believer really got to me at that time which made me look into it more. I definitely think it helped me to understand the Lord and form a relationship with him. Furthermore, he uses the Lord’s name in vain which absolutely hurts me. I haven’t told him that it does, but I’m waiting for a right time because he too has mental issues going on. It’s hard because we have different values so I definitely feel like talking about it will affect us and make me seem controlling. But, this is what we signed up for, knowing how hard it will be. All in all, I’m a daughter of God dating a non believer, but we help each other get back up. Even right now I’m asking myself if I’m selfish. I don’t need reassurance or help, but I’d love to hear from people.

It's gonna be my birthday tomorrow. My friends will have a sleepover round my house and I'm excited. At the same time, I feel that it's also triggering my fears. For these past few years, I had a fear of not enjoying the moment (ESPECIALLY in hangouts, vacations, big events etc), so I would constantly do emotional checking, perfect my thoughts or ruminate about it. I'm getting better at managing it, but I've also been having intrusive thoughts of me not valuing my friends enough. What if I spend too much time fixating on the person I'm attached to? And then my birthday will be ruined etc But the thing that's been bothering me the most is that can't control my strong attachment one of my friends (lets call them Mango). Why am I attached, you ask? We've planned to live together in the future. Because of my low self-esteem issues, I was attached because they also have a massive crush on me. Lets bear in mind that I'm also crave romance. For ages, I've had intrusive thoughts that secretly I'm a selfish, manipulative person. Many people say I'm so loving and nice, but I used to have so much doubts. So for example, I was scared that I manipulated them to like me because im self-aware of my attachment issues. I'd be scared to talk to Mango because I feared that I'd lead them on, then my mind pictures them killing themselves because what if I traumatise them 20 years from now because i've had "secret selfish motives". I'd analyse my thoughts constantly. Would I use them? Am I a good person? Am i having the right motives? Do I actually want to live with them or am I lying to myself? Do I genuinely love them (as a friend) or do I secretly dislike them? Have I been lying this whole time? Are they the one? If I'm feeling this anxious, then surely this isn't right. I'm making the wrong decisions arent i? What do I do? What's true and what's not? I keep ruminating. I also feel compulsed to make sure I text and interact with them right, with correct feelings and thoughts or else our relationship will "hit rock bottom". If they don't reply fast enough, or in the right way, it triggers me too. Whenever they say something sweet and genuine, my initial feelings was comfort and being flustered (in a good way). But then I recall those words, trying to analyse if I still feel the same like how I did initially. As time nears my birthday, the intrusive thoughts of them are making me increasingly anxious. I know I have to accept uncertainty. I just hate this feeling. I never feel certain enough. I'm scared to text them. I'm scared of what each feeling ir thought I have could possibly mean. Maybe they dont mean anything. I just hate how my brain keeps picturing me and Mango's friendship ending horribly in the end because of me. Sure, it's all probably made up in my head. Maybe my fears have no link to reality, but I just wish this would stop. I wish I could get help too. I dont know if I actually have OCD, but the things I've experienced really resonated with what others have experienced. What I've typed here are just some of the examples. Say, if i do have ROCD, this would make sense. Being bi with possible SOOCD isnt helping either. Constantly trying to analyse whether my identity is true is exhausting too. All of this is exhausting. I'm so stressed.

I feel like everyday I am getting worse I’m finding very hard to feel relaxed I constantly think I do something bad to ruin my relationship that I find it hard to be by myself bc if I start thinking something I think it’s real I can’t even relax at my job bc I constantly think guys go downstairs with me when I go down there bc my mind throws images at me and I think they are real and I start freaking out And I feel bad calling my boyfriend and telling him him that my mind is telling me I did something with someone when that’s the last thing I want to do but my mind has like intrusive images and thoughts and then 2 seconds laters I think they are real and it’s annoying me I can’t relax at all & I know I’m not supposed to “confess” but I feel horrible if I don’t say anything and I think that’s why I’m stuck in a loop bc I can’t keep things like that to myself

Hi everyone. I am currently on Luvox after being on Prozac (20-40mg) for the last 5 years. Prozac was no longer working for me so my doctor/therapist and I decided to switch SSRIs. With help from my primary care doctor, I tapered off of Prozac while tapering on to Luvox over the course of a few weeks. I am now off of Prozac and on 150mg of Luvox. I had a couple good weeks where there were more good days than bad, but recently I have felt more depressed, anxious, and in my head on 150mg of Luvox. The anxiety/Harm/Suicidal/Relationship/Pure OCD has been ramping up and it makes me feel a bit hopeless that I won’t get better. The mornings are hard when you feel like it’s just another day suffering through the ups and downs. If anyone can share their ideal Luvox dosage/medicine combo where they finally felt consistent relief from intrusive thoughts and rumination, I would be so appreciative. I know switching medicine and doing ERP is a long process, and I’ve only been in the thick of it for 5 weeks (6/29-8/2), but as I’m sure you can all understand, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this disorder. Any positivity, encouragement, advice, coping mechanisms/tools and success stories are appreciated!

I have partner focused rocd and I have been with my bf for over a year now and we have engaged in sexual stuff obviously, my ocd has randomly latched onto consent?? Like there has been times where my bf asked to do something sexual and I’ve just made “unsure noises” and he has said “please” a couple of times and I did the sexual thing. I was fine throughout the sexual acts and wasn’t really uncomfortable but my ocd is trying to convince me I was uncomfortable. My boyfriend and I have autism and sometimes struggle understanding things and need straight forward/clear answers. My boyfriend said a few times he’s said “please” or asked me to do something else after I didn’t say yes is because he wasn’t sure what I was giving off wether I was not wanting to do it or if I was just thinking. The times he’s said please he took it as me thinking. I do see why he would be unsure as sometimes I don’t give a straight forward yes or no sometimes because I am awkward. I asked him if I need to be clearer with saying no because I am a bit of a people pleaser and he said yes and it’s completely okay if I say no and he will be fine if I ever say no and I can make it clear and I don’t sound “mean”. A lot of the time I have low motivation because of ADHD and I might be unsure/can’t be arsed to do it but then he does something and I enjoy it and want to do more because it gave me motivation. My ocd still tries to convince me it’s bad??? Also my boyfriend sometimes does playful silly stuff like smack my behind when I’m infront of him and I do it back and it’s funny but sometimes my ocd is like “omg he didn’t ask that’s really bad!” My boyfriend has said if he does something I don’t want him to do in that moment I can just say no. My ocd constantly tries to make him a bad person. Can Anyone relate/help?

i feel anxious, i feel change. i feel like i don’t know. im being honest with myself. i love my girlfriend but i don’t know if i can give her what she needs when i feel like this and rocd. i don’t know if she’s the one for me sometimes. i feel good when im with her and i feel calm, not too much on edge, not too much on guard. i feel afraid of giving this my all, because i worry that i will want to leave eventually for real. bc im in my 20s and change imminent. i hate seeing these things on social media about how “i left this person because i knew that they weren’t right even though they were amazing to me” it scares me that maybe i know deep down the truth, that really triggered me today on tiktok. on top of it i just moved apartments, and that made me super stressed and burnt out. i really appreciate my girlfriend, we’ve been through a lot together. it’s no secret that my feelings for her have ebbed and flowed; it’s why it makes me anxious, it’s why it makes me feel guilty, it’s why im worried on if this is right. should i feel more secure and immensely and deeply emotionally connected in a way i was before. i don’t believe love is a certain way, i think everyone experiences it differently. for me i know that i feel light, and warm and action, a burst of excitement and a sense of peace and happiness. i question my happiness out of fear that maybe im not happy and that my gut is telling me something with rocd since my symptoms have lowered. i have to be true to myself, i want to grow and be happy, i want to come into myself with security. i need to learn to let go of these past obsessions and comparisons. i keep comparing my feelings in the back of my mind for my girlfriend to my last relationship. even though it was hell and full of limerence, i still felt like a weird sense of peace that i don’t experience all the time with her, though it was giving anxious attachment. but i feel like accessing that same sense of peace is broken now because of how my trust was broken traumatically before in my last relationship. i want to be able to give myself to my partner. but i feel guilty that i don’t know if i will end up with her or marry her even tho im only 21. my mind completely goes to this plan for the future and an age of when ill get married and the rest of life, and then it makes me feel like i dont want that but i feel like i have to stick to a plan. i dont want to do that i want to make my own choices and know myself. i’m feeling like i know i can be more present with myself and i know i must let go of any future ideas in order to find out what to do with my life. these thoughts make me question and fantasize scenarios. they make me almost feel regret starting this relationship bc of how i thought about it beforehand and how i think how it could be easier for me to be single because i wouldn’t be thinking like this all the time. i don’t know if people in love think that way. truthfully i don’t regret any of this, my anxiety and mind have created a perspective that this relationship has only been stressful and not enjoyable at all. but i know that’s not true. i don’t want to break up with my girlfriend, genuinely. i know that i would be miserable and so regretful. it would feel like a weight off me because of my anxiety and ocd, but i know i would simply be thinking about her still and how much i wished it worked out, or how in love i am with her, or how my life would suck without her, etc etc. but something needs to change in order for me to keep moving forward in this relationship. maybe it’s reframing my own life and myself. i create these plans and get successful quick schemes so that i can know what would or could happen and that all my aspirations would be met. but that just gives me anxiety because it makes me feel like i wouldn’t be happy with THAT LMAO. i want to change and let go of that and live presently. i feel it’s the only way through this. but i need advice and some guidance. does anyone have any advice? thank you for reading

I have noticed that my ocd symptoms has went sooooo downhill after my second trimester. I am terrified that this will get only worse during pregnancy. I recently finished my therapy and i dont have any medication currently. I have been getting instrutive false memories from past event. I feel that i’m losing my mind with it, and been crying all these 3 days in a row. I feel like i need to confess these hurtful false memories and instrutive thoughts to my man and i can see him getting upset by them. So, this one tv show triggered my cheating ocd, where this one girl kissed another guy than his spouse. And my situation basicaly was a taxi ride home with my male friend (i promised him to go for his avec to one wedding before knowing my man so i went. We never had anything romantic between us just old colleagues), and i was tipsy and telling him how glad i am to have him as one of my good friends. I kissed him on his cheek and the chat was that. Then we went home where my fiance and other friend was. This happened 3 yrs ago. So i think the cheek kiss triggered my cheating ocd also bc of that tv show. I have told my partner about this millions of times and he is okay with everything. There didnt happen anything else. (Even my ocd is reallllyyyy making it hellish for me to say this) Still i am ruminating so much. And i am doubting that do i remember right, did i kiss him properly, is there smtng i havent registered bc of alcohol etcetc. Or the worst have i told him not to tell me if i ask him? Its so ridiculous. I am SO dissapointed to myself as i was doing so well couple of months ago and now literally i have been asking reassurance from this person who was at the event with me already 2 years ago and now again. Im just embarrasing myself so bad right now😭 I feel so helpless with these kind of situations

i feel anxious, i feel change. i feel like i don’t know. im being honest with myself. i love my girlfriend but i don’t know if i can give her what she needs when i feel like this and rocd. i don’t know if she’s the one for me sometimes. i feel good when im with her and i feel calm, not too much on edge, not too much on guard. i feel afraid of giving this my all, because i worry that i will want to leave eventually for real. bc im in my 20s and change imminent. i hate seeing these things on social media about how “i left this person because i knew that they weren’t right even though they were amazing to me” it scares me that maybe i know deep down the truth, that really triggered me today on tiktok. on top of it i just moved apartments, and that made me super stressed and burnt out. i really appreciate my girlfriend, we’ve been through a lot together. it’s no secret that my feelings for her have ebbed and flowed; it’s why it makes me anxious, it’s why it makes me feel guilty, it’s why im worried on if this is right. should i feel more secure and immensely and deeply emotionally connected in a way i was before. i don’t believe love is a certain way, i think everyone experiences it differently. for me i know that i feel light, and warm and action, a burst of excitement and a sense of peace and happiness. i question my happiness out of fear that maybe im not happy and that my gut is telling me something with rocd since my symptoms have lowered. i have to be true to myself, i want to grow and be happy, i want to come into myself with security. i need to learn to let go of these past obsessions and comparisons. i keep comparing my feelings in the back of my mind for my girlfriend to my last relationship. even though it was hell and full of limerence, i still felt like a weird sense of peace that i don’t experience all the time with her, though it was giving anxious attachment. but i feel like accessing that same sense of peace is broken now because of how my trust was broken traumatically before in my last relationship. i want to be able to give myself to my partner. but i feel guilty that i don’t know if i will end up with her or marry her even tho im only 21. my mind completely goes to this plan for the future and an age of when ill get married and the rest of life, and then it makes me feel like i dont want that but i feel like i have to stick to a plan. i dont want to do that i want to make my own choices and know myself. i’m feeling like i know i can be more present with myself and i know i must let go of any future ideas in order to find out what to do with my life. these thoughts make me question and fantasize scenarios. they make me almost feel regret starting this relationship bc of how i thought about it beforehand and how i think how it could be easier for me to be single because i wouldn’t be thinking like this all the time. i don’t know if people in love think that way. truthfully i don’t regret any of this, my anxiety and mind have created a perspective that this relationship has only been stressful and not enjoyable at all. but i know that’s not true. i don’t want to break up with my girlfriend, genuinely. i know that i would be miserable and so regretful. it would feel like a weight off me because of my anxiety and ocd, but i know i would simply be thinking about her still and how much i wished it worked out, or how in love i am with her, or how my life would suck without her, etc etc. but something needs to change in order for me to keep moving forward in this relationship. maybe it’s reframing my own life and myself. i create these plans and get successful quick schemes so that i can know what would or could happen and that all my aspirations would be met. but that just gives me anxiety because it makes me feel like i wouldn’t be happy with THAT LMAO. i want to change and let go of that and live presently. i feel it’s the only way through this. but i need advice and some guidance. does anyone have any advice? thank you for reading

For a few weeks I was talking to a guy. I do have feelings for him but he was very upfront and talked about how much he liked me. It was clear he liked me more. He is also friends with a guy I dated for a month who turned out to be a well known weirdo at my school and people got insanely mad at me but I didn't know this and wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt but ended up unable to. Multiple times after a few months after I broke up with him I got some angry messages from people he knows. I wasn't expecting his friend to start liking me and he is nice but he is going very fast. He already started calling me "Baby" and "Pookie" and recently made a comment about how my bendy legs could come in handy sometime and how he wants to hang out soon. It was all a bit much for me but I've also been worrying about how my ex would respond and lately it's worse so last night I mentioned being a bit overwhelmed about how forward he was being and said I wanted to get to know him some more still. He understood and said it was his bad. It was fine but a few hours that morning I was stressed put of my mind and realized alot of the stress also came from the fear of having to deal with my ex boyfriend again. I couldn't stand that thought and I sent the guy this message "I'm extremely sorry but I think we would be better off as friends. I have been stressed out alot because you are or were friends with (insert ex Boyfriends name) and it just feels really awkward. There was a couple times when he got a new girlfriend where she messaged me and got angry with me out of nowhere, which she texted me again yesterday not to yell but for some random thing she wanted me to vote for but the notification alone made me anxious. Don't feel bad about what I said about being a little overwhelming and quick with it all because I should have said something before. It was mostly due to the fact I was already stressed out about this. Your really cool and its not that I don't have feelings for you, it's just that I don't think I could be any more then friends with you without feeling guilty because I doubt (insert ex Boyfriends name) would react well which could also get me yelled at by somebody again and it's also just kinda awkward and stressful that you two were or are friends. I just don't think I can deal with any correlation to him considering when I started dating him alot of people got extremely mad and yelled at me and then with the girl he dated after me losing it at me out of nowhere I just can't. I'm really sorry, and I hope you don't hate me for this." He said be understood and it was okay I didn't have to be sorry or anything. I didn't add this but I also just felt like I didn't have as much interest in him as I thought. There is another guy I kinda like and this guy was stressing me out, espically the fact with my ex, and I didnt wanna make him mad ether. I then cried cause I felt so guilty. My friend said I did the right thing and I'm not a horrible person and it's okay. Not only did my OCD make me feel like the most awful human alive for hurting his feelings, I also ended up worrying that now somehow because I did this "people will assume I'm gay or asexual" I'm not asexual or gay. I'm straight but support, however that what if made me feel homophobic and more guilty. My OCD loves to hit me when I'm down. Am I horrible person? Will people assume those things and am I homophobic for worrying about then?

I was listening to some podcasts on OCD and heard that a lot of times OCD can be triggered from a traumatic event. Looking back I can say I’ve always had OCD tendencies but it didn’t get really debilitating until a few years ago when my dad became a late in life alcoholic and drug addict. This event traumatized me in many ways including almost all of my OCD fears and compulsions today. I know it’s up to me to learn to manage my OCD but on days when I’m having a hard time trusting when someone says they’ll come back at a certain time and start to freak out and check their location or ask over and over where they are I can’t help but be so angry about where a lot of these fears stemmed from and why they might have such a grip over me. It might seem selfish but it’s how I feel.