- Date posted
- 18h
how to be yourself (even when triggered)?
my partner of five years and i had been fighting a lot recently and we FINALLY had the good restorative conversation we needed. we had a few actually. i asked her to please be more patient with my ocd symptoms and she asked me to give her more grace. we both agreed and talked about what that looks like, amazing. she is very supportive of my ocd and she actually has started listening to a podcast called “your anxiety toolkit” to help understand my ocd better. i really appreciate her taking those steps to understand me better and i want everything to be fine now… i don’t want to keep feeling uncomfortable. i want us to go back to how we normally are but i still feel triggered. i know it’s relationship ocd but i can’t stop hearing in my head all the things she said while we were fighting. it’s triggered me to legitimately feel like i’m 14 years old again, living with my parents, rather than an adult. i feel moody, i feel angry when she tries to touch me or sometimes is just in the same room as me. after a year of therapy, i’ve learned that this is how i act when im scared. i feel scared of her but not because she’s scary but because i’m just stuck. i don’t feel like i can act like myself around her anymore even though i know it’s not true. i can’t even remember what “acting myself” even means because my little fundamental belief that im annoying, a burden, difficult to be around, selfish, wasteful, entitled etc. all of those beliefs got triggered while we were fighting and the confirmation bias built up so high. now i just feel stuck. how can i be myself again with my partner? i don’t want to ruminate this at her, there isn’t anything more to talk about, i know these feelings are ocd and not reality, but it’s been 2 weeks of being “uncomfortable” and ive tried every healthy exposure i know to do. ugh.