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How do I not shut down and go quiet and cry when my partner is trying to have an uncomfortable conversation with me is anyone else dealing or dealt with this ?

so, i wake up every morning feeling anxious and like i need to start ruminating. it’s like that feeling when your thoughts are jumbled and immediately start to race the second you get up. for me lately my focus has been on my rocd per my latest post. i feel like ill settle into the fact and idea that i love my girlfriend, that i like her and that i want to be in the relationship blah blah but the second i wake up the loop of doubt continues. it obviously makes me feel like im lying to myself. that im convincing myself that i have basic feelings of attraction and connection to my partner, at this point the thoughts are so loud that im beginning to believe them. it feels so hard to access my true feelings and beliefs and when i do it just feels like i have to try so so hard and that i dont even believe it! i feel like im struggling to let her in. we had a really good conversation about my rocd last night, but i still worry about being a liar, secretly just staying in the relationship and not being attracted! ugh!! you can imagine this makes me feel like i dont even have rocd or ocd. the thought/compulsion of even breaking up with her comes to mind, but i know i would just feel unhappy and think about her then too. i dont want to do that obviously but those with rocd know sometimes it feels like the only way out. (we’ve broken up before because of this) which def adds a level. though i know doing that would alleviate this anxiety/ocd source, it would just come back and form itself in different ocd themes until i got back into a relationship and then the whole loop would start over. Does anyone have any advice for how you cope with this? I do my exposures and try to accept my uncertainty and thoughts but i’m wondering if any other methods that help anyone get through these struggles.

I realized recently my intrusive thoughts have been adapting to be “more realistic”. I’ve now become more obsessed with my life safety, work social environment, and first true love? (Apparently I’m demiromantic and he really feels like my soulmate. I’m the one not letting us be a couple for, I think a good reason, and he respects that decision.) Point is they’re getting harder to ID as OCD, which although never stopped the intrusive thoughts, it helped me apply personal tactics I’ve learned that have alleviated some distress and prevent thought spiraling in the past. Is it possible for the thoughts to adapt like this, I can’t ID them as quick this way and get in thought spirals way too far before I realize what’s happening. I even had a spout of my classical religious OCD thoughts, began repetitively praying “Jesus” to block them out which I’m sure is a compulsion. I ended up effectively distracting myself from it, so thank God. I don’t want to go down that road again. Avoidance has been the main compulsion for the ones listed before that side tangent above, I literally was not going to my apartment for months because a neighbor had creeped me out so bad. I sorta overcame avoidance with the relationship to truthfully talk to my love, but I worry my reason for staying apart has a secret reason in this… idk. It seemed reasonable to us both? The thoughts started targeting the guy I love even more yesterday, and I knew trying to fight them would make them worse, but I really didn’t want them anywhere near that. Somehow I got to a point where instead of the worries, I could literally feel nothing. Nothing bad but also nothing good and I thought I broke my brain and almost called a mental health hotline because I was concerned I lost my emotions forever and I wanted them all back. Even the negative ones. Luckily I had the awareness to at least try the emergency anxiety medicine my doctor gave me (even though I couldn’t feel anxiety), and I think this is what broke me out of that. But now I’m worried I’ll trigger that again. I hesitate to self diagnose, but given my experience and past, I definitely have primarily obsessional OCD (pure O). I couldn’t tell any of the mental health professionals I saw before because I thought I was the only one like this and that if I said anything about the worse thoughts they’d take me away from family or… well that they would do something, disgusted by my very existence. For a while my mom was the only one I let hear some of the worse thoughts and I swore her to secrecy about them. Luckily she had experienced some intrusive thoughts (not to my level but) with her GAD and she understood enough these were distressing things I didn’t want. But yea, I’ve been through a slew of the themes in my life. My biggest being religious OCD and OCD with sexual themes (I am aroace so the lack of sexual desire was very confusing, especially at first, and I didn’t know I was or that people could be that, so I guess my core worry became that my other forms of love ie familial, friend, etc had been secretly perverted and corrupted the whole time) Ugh.

hey all, this past week has definitely been a struggle for me with rocd. i’m constantly in my head and looping. i have a fear that i don’t actually like my partner and that ive been trying to convince myself that i do and that i am connected to her. this isn’t the first time this has come up, but i feel so disconnected and numb sometimes when we hang out and i know that’s a symptom, but it just feels so real. i feel like this is preventing me from being really present in the relationship and that im just convincing myself that i want to be with her. i feel sad that this halle s for me and guilty for my partner. i don’t know how i can decipher this and how to go from here. i feel like i need to figure it out and deal with it but i don’t know how to! any advice?

Hey guys so I’m new to this. I struggle really bad with religious ocd on top of other themes of ocd i have. But the religious ocd and POCD I have are definitely the hardest two. Today was so hard for me because I was freaking out all day about the eclipse and if it was the end of the world. I grew of in a very strict church and being gay was not acceptable so now I feel I’m morally wrong and unlovable in a sense. I don’t really know how to explain it. Wether it was from my youth pastor outing me on stage in front of all of my friends and hundreds of students, to them praying over me for years on end, before I finally left the church. Yet I still question if my salvation is safe or not. I question if God loves me etc. it gets so bad that I’m convinced everything I do is because I’m possessed by a demon. And I’ll start to vomit. Literally vomit. It sounds wild I know. Wether it’s music my ocd deems demonic or movies or spiritual things such as tarot cards that I enjoy. But my mind will convince me if I use them I will go to hell because that’s what I was taught for so long. I just wish I could get better but I don’t know how and I’m so hopeless.

I put too much on my plate. Im working full time night shift, a full time hybrid student, and doing clinical rotations all in the midst of buying a house and adding a third to my long term relationship. i thought i could handle it. i thought that if i wanted this enough that i could make it work but now i feel like my brain is on fire. Working nights has me so paranoid that i have to count my steps out 1-2-3-4 and sometimes feel completely glued to my seat counting 1-2-3-4 over and over to get the feeling of dread to go away. I am constantly ruminating and reassurance seeking to the point of breaking down every time i’m alone. My brain is full of all of the what-ifs so full that it’s hard to sleep. I had my first appointment with a specialist but due to everything going on, i fell asleep while waiting for the appointment to start (Telehealth) Before all of this started my OCD was just the counting steps and bouts of contamination fears and over cleaning but now im questioning my life over and over to point of pointlessness and its driving me insane. i cant do this. i will because i know i have to and it will be over soon but im so scared and i dont know how i can come out of all of this okay and intact with the people i love still around me. i hate who i have become.

Worried that I’m gonna speak negativity into existence after seeing a video on tiktok saying that you speak things into existence. Dude I hate this so much. I hate this so much.

DROP SOME COPING MECHANISMS FOR ME TO TRY :3!!

does anyone have any tips on managing and controlling this? especially if you have said questionable things in the past or as a kid. A long 13 yr friendship of mine is ending and the ex friend really despises me.I can’t help but obsess and ruminate over what I could have possible done wrong even though they’re the one who said hateful things to me. I can’t help but wonder about all past friendships and ex friendships and whether it’s tied to me being a good/bad person. Does anyone have any advice on managing this? I try to reflect on different friendships and why it ended but still end up ruminating on my morality and self. Thank you ❤️

I feel like me and my best friend and ending for many reasons but when I talk to her about it she says it’s really all in my head and she doesn’t feel it at all. What is going on??

Everytime i try, my attraction to men is always just constantly underminded by constant intrusive thoughts. I just feel like what excuse do i have at this point. Im so unstable i cant tell up from down. Id feel like myself one day, and the next im convinced i have 0 attraction to men anymore, so what choice do i have but be straight, just to have a crush on a dude the next day. Being thrown through the ringer just kills me. It feels like my personality is being rewritten day by day, and I cant tell which thoughts are real anymore.

I was doing really well until yesterday, where the goalpost was moved and my grounding and mindfulness exercises werent working. I eventually lapsed in a panic attack in the middle of the night. Today i just feel like im wasting away, my body is weak, i feel sick, I cant summon any motivation. I havent really given in to my thoughts, but i really dont have the energy to care rn.

Hi! I don’t even know what I’m trying to get from this, I think I just need to get it out of my system around people who know what OCD feels like. I have a partner which I love a lot, I feel like we have a great, healthy relationship, we communicate a lot. She never got to know me at my really ill or ,lowest points‘ with OCD. I’ve been relatively stable for some time, but I have this big fear of getting bad again, making her feel bad, having breakdowns in front of her and now tonight I had a panic attack because I kept spiralling. (Intrusive thoughts about how I might be manipulating her, might be bad for her) It’s like I start feeling bad and then I try to force my way out of it but I can’t, and instead I panic and start rambling and scaring myself because I sound incoherent or stumble upon my words, and then I panic that I’m disturbing her and/or losing my mind and destroying our relationship by exposing her to this part of me. I feel like rationally I know I don’t have to freak out but there’s still this terrified little child inside of me that will completely panic and hate myself in these moments. I guess I just would like for someone to say they understand what this feels like or that they’ve been through something similar. I just feel like I desperately want to say the right thing, and not behave like the weirdest person ever, but the more I want that, the more I freak out. Aaah. I don’t want to go back to this mess. And I don’t want to drag her into it. Right now I wish I could just erase the past hour and apologize in the right, correct way, as to soothe her and redo everything weird I said - but I know that’s just my need to control everything aka my compulsions nagging at me :(

I’m here because I’m looking for help. I’ve tried CBT but my therapist isn’t specialized in OCD and I don’t know what else to do. I’m terrified all the time, I wear a mask every day and wash my hands till they are raw. I don’t know what to do, I didn’t have anywhere near the levels of anxiety and depression before the pandemic that I have since the pandemic started, I am terrified of everything, I had Covid once but I am terrified that I’m a ticking time bomb because it does cause long lasting symptoms and can disable or kill you even after one infection and that’s what terrifies me. I’m forced to go into the office with people who don’t mask and don’t care about coughing up a lung and not covering it up. I can’t sleep without feeling like something is wrong with my heart or my body and I am constantly afraid of going out and being around people and crowds. I’m terrified of Covid and getting it again and losing my life and quality of life because of it. I’m also terrified of losing my wife because she doesn’t want a partner who just stays in the house all the time.

I love my partner and I can tell she's not a hateful human being. It seems clear to me though that she has mainly interacted with white people in her life and I think she's got white fragility. The other day she was telling me something that her friend was saying about me and prefaced it with, "Please don't think this is racist", but I was offended by what her friend said. I take a lot of issue with the phrase "please don't think this is racist" from a white person, even if it is my partner. As a person of color I feel like I have the right to decide if smthing said about me in the lack of my presence is racist or not. I get fired up and angry thinking about it, but I wish I could let it go. Ive just felt so invisible as an Asian American for much of my life. I've never been good at spending time with people I don't agree with. I just can't stop thinking about it over and over. I'm not sure what to do.

Hello! I was wondering if people with religious or moral scrupulosity can relate to this! I identify as gay (I’ve known it since I was a preteen) and I grew up in a religiously conservative household and in a culture that does not accept the LGBT community. Growing up, I’ve made a lot of progress in accepting myself and learning to love myself for who I am despite the lack of acceptance and support from my cultural and family background. …however, it has obviously been a tough road. And recently, I think I’ve started developing scrupulosity around my sexuality. Basically, I wanted to rediscover my faith in a way that helped me, but it ended up just causing me a lot of distress because the LGBT are not exactly affirmed by the Catholic Church. And despite my best efforts, I feel like I’ve slid so far back into a pit of guilt, shame, and disgust with myself. I have so many intrusive thoughts that being LGBT is not natural, is not right, is something that can and should be changed or fixed, even when I know these to not be true. I’m curious to know if anyone else with religious or moral scrupulosity experiences similar feelings of guilt or shame about who they are. Not only do the intrusive thoughts themselves make me feel guilty, but I have intrusive thoughts that I AM bad and that I should feel shame and disgust about myself. I’m hesitant to post this not only because I don’t want to trigger others but also because I don’t want it to be reassurance seeking or a compulsion, but I do have doubt that this isnt just from my OCD and that I should be exploring other forms of therapy to deal with these problems.

So me & my gf are taking a break & i dont blame her. i confessed to her my intrusive thoughts because i felt bad when in reality im realizing this was ocd. She felt like i didnt love her for days after that. we have decided to go on break. she only seems to care ab my mental health genuinely when im saying something about our relationship. but then again she said if i need time alone i can take that. then she said she loves me too much & she wants me to seek help but bro😐 how when i cant even afford it. it kinda pisses me off idk. i don’t think she cares about my mental health as much as she states🤔 or maybe thats ocd speaking? idk im still trying to understand this shit. help pleaseeee

Hi everyone. I have been experiencing harm intrusive thoughts for 2 months now. I believe it started for me when I had a bad experience with a delta 9 gummy. I am looking this up everyday trying to find reassurance and an answer to all of this. I hate that my thoughts make me question what kind of person I am and if I’m actually capable of this. I’m so scared I will lose it for even a second and do these things. I align with being a gentle, kind, caring person but this makes me feel like I’m capable of anything. I desperately want my old life back. I want to be able to sit on the couch with my partner, eat junk food, watch our fave shows together, and not worry about harm. I hope this will disappear soon.

Am I lesbian or it’s just hocd and libido issues? I (F29) don’t feel desire to have sex with my boyfriend (M32) and I am scared it’s because I am lesbian. We are together 3 years and we are also living together. I think I am more aroused by lesbian porn and lesbian fantasies than straight stuff and sex with men. I always dated men and I felt drawn to them, I also never wanted to be with a woman in real life and I was never attracted to a woman in real life, but I am scared I am just in denial and didn’t know about it or I always knew but didn’t want to accept the truth :-(. It’s not that I never wanted to have sex with men, but when the relationship starts to be serious the desire decreases. I really don’t know what to do. I love my boyfriend and don’t want to break up with him. It’s not a new topic for me. I deal with it already 4 years. I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder 5 years ago, because I had panic attacks and some health ocd. After one year I started to be scared that I am a lesbian. I had a therapy and I talked about it with my therapists and they said it’s ocd, but I didn’t tell them the whole true about the porn and fantasies. In my country (Poland/Germany) the therapists are mainly familiar with health or harm ocd, so I don’t know if my therapists were familiar with these kind of thoughts. Also sometimes I think that even if it’s ocd it doesn’t mean it’s not truth. The only difference is that I am just more worried, scared and obsessed about it than other people who are questioning their sexuality. Also I even don’t know if it’s still ocd. It feels more like denial right now. Like I know the truth, but I just don’t want to accept it or I try to convince myself that for example it’s normal in long term relationship to not desire sex but the truth is it’s not normal if it happens all the time. I don’t really have ocd symptoms right now. At the beginning I was very scared and had to google all the time etc., but right now I just have pretty normal life. I am just still worried about it and ruminate though right now I try to avoid the whole thoughts and feelings all the time. And this is exactly what the people call denial. Knowing the truth but avoiding it… I don’t know if i have still doubts. It’s more like I know deep down what is the truth but I still hope it’s not the truth and try to convince myself that it’s everything ok but it doesn’t work because I am just a lesbian :-( TL;DR - I have sex issues in my relationship. I don’t feel desire to have sex and I am looking for a solution how to change it. Hopefully it’s because ocd and I am not attracted to women.

I'm having a bit of a crisis tonight. I didn't have many clean clothes so I figured I'd do laundry when I woke up (my sleeping schedule is all messed up). I'm weird about touching the laundry soap, I have to shower immediately afterwards so I started laundry and showered. I got out and put on my last pair of underwear and a T-shirt. I didn't have any clean shorts or pants, not a big deal but I feel weird. Whatever. The washer gets done and I go to put the stuff in the dryer and I didn't notice my partners hoodie was in with the dirty clothes. The same hoodie they were wearing a few months ago when our cat had worms and it jumped on their shoulder, leaning something on it. I don't know if it was dirt or poop but my biggest fear is worms/getting worms so I've avoided that hoodie like the plague. I tried ignoring having touched it or that it was mixed in with all of my clothes so I hung up the hoodie but I also had to touch a hanger that isn't ours, I don't know who touched it last or how long it's been sitting there collecting dust. At this point I started panicking so I threw the clothes in the dryer and took a second shower. When I got out I couldn't stop thinking about my clothes being contaminated so I had to rewash them, which means a third shower. But before that I dug around in my dresser for some old clothes to wear that I might of forgot about and sure enough I found a pair of shorts at least so I put them on the bed on my blanket, put the clothes back in the washer and took a third shower, it was mostly cold this time. But when I got out I realized I had touched the shorts on my blanket with my contaminated hand and that they touched my blanket so I threw both off in the floor with my feet and dug through my dresser again except with my foot this time and found a really old pair of shorts that are two sizes too big. At some point, too, I knocked off my 2DS charger onto the floor so I can't use that anymore until I clean it. All of my outside pants are now in my floor, the clothes are washing for a second time and at some point tonight I'm gonna have to wash my blanket and take a fourth shower. I'm so exhausted, I can't take this anymore. I want to cry.