ROCD

especially if there’s attractive qualities in other men that i encounter. i obviously know my boundaries but it’s such a scary feeling because i don’t want to develop feeling for anyone else and the anxiety tells me it’s like a guarantee it’ll happen because it happened to someone else.

You are NOT alone!! I struggle with the constant worry of “what if I start to like someone else”. One thing that helps me is knowing that sometimes, love is a choice, so even IF the scenario happens (which it will not), you can choose your partner bc you know that’s what you truly want. (:

I’m experiencing the same thing. It sucks as I’m considering proposing and otherwise feel confident. I’m working on accepting that I can’t control how I feel and that how I feel is guaranteed to change in some ways over time. I’m working on basing my decisions on how I feel now and less on how I worry I might feel in the future.

thank you both for making me feel less alone! one thing i’ve been processing that’s helping me is that i can find attractive qualities in others while enjoying their conversation (with boundaries of course) and it doesn’t mean that i have romantic interest in them. it just means im human and that they have attractive qualities but it’s not like a diagnosis that i automatically like them romantically. it’s more like when i think about those people, anxiety comes up, it’s not romantic feelings.

do you find this makes it hard for you to build platonic friendships at work? I struggle with this and I am constantly over analysing everything I do. My ocd says I’m doing something wrong speaking to people especially if they have attractive qualities and it sends me into a spiral even though deep down I know that it’s my ocd, it still causes me a lot of distress