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My husband told me recently he was going to hang out with a local friend he often goes to see. It got very late and I heard nothing from him. Tried calling and texting. Stayed up all night thinking maybe he was dead or injured. Logged into our cell phone account to see if I could find any recent location and discovered he had talked to someone on the phone that night but he was like 2 hours away from home at that time. And also saw a phone number he was spending hours on the phone with every day. I had been confronting him about his secrecy prior to that and he kept telling me it was this friend or that friend, or he was just taking the dog on a long walk or having a fire out back. He finally called me back in the morning and I yelled at him. He told me he was randomly with two friends from longer ago and had gotten drunk and passed out, and hadn't told me about these plans because I had a heart surgery a few weeks prior and health concerns and he didn't want to stress me out. He told me the phone number was a girl that he related to on trauma factors and that he views like a little sister. He said he didn't tell me because he was caught up in his trauma spilling of events he didn't share with a single person since they occurred to him 35 years ago, due to feelings of shame and anger, and that he thought I would view it as emotional cheating. I told him it really could be viewed as emotional cheating and in principle, honesty shouldn't be dependent upon the outcome... lying isn't justified because I would be upset by the truth. Since then, he's been more open with me and tells me when that girl is calling, talks to me about their conversations, answers her calls when I'm present. I talked to him about boundaries and things I'm uncomfortable with or bothered by and he changes those things. Especially because I have trauma from an emotionally abusive ex, having him lie to me when I directly questioned him about what I was perceiving or experiencing and telling me those experiences weren't real, when they actually WERE real, has really messed me up. Now when he wants to hang out with a friend, I don't trust it. But I'm handling these feelings in destructive OCD ways. I spend literally the entire time he's gone thinking and thinking and thinking about what if he's lying or what he might be doing instead of what he said. I call and text him intermittently and feel like all of my obsessive thoughts are confirmed if he doesn't answer right away. I'm always checking the phone history. The driving toll history. Scrutinizing everything. I cannot get out of this mindset. It's like this horrible mixture of emotional flashbacks and OCD. I don't want to live like this. I want to work on my relationship in productive ways. I want to be able to use my own time while my husband is gone. Even if he lied to me and is somewhere other than he said, I don't want to lie in bed just thinking and thinking and thinking for entire days and nights. I'm not sure what I'm really asking here. This is just the only place where I feel like I can share this without people thinking "wow she's crazy".
Having a little bit of a rough morning. My boyfriend and I are finally ending long distance next month and moving in together! I’m so excited, but the big change means some ROCD and SOOCD flaring up. I also got triggered by a tik tok of a bisexual woman this morning. I’ve been ruminating about: - ending long distance and being in a more consistent routine will make me realize I don’t actually love him and that we’re not compatible - I will not like spending so much time with a man but I enjoyed a long vacation with a girl friend one time (my best friend and I took a 7 week trip to Europe after we graduated college early and I had so much fun and we hardly fought / disagreed) - if i have been suppressing my attraction to women, even though I really don’t think I have feelings for women. I admire their beauty and always have, but I truly think that’s as far as it goes - substance use ocd also came up this morning? Worrying that I will become an alcoholic / that I secretly want to drugs and drink all the time I’m also getting my period in a few days and have flair ups around this time and my ovulation time. Just looking for support 🫶🏼
Youtubers are constantly getting accused of doing p*dophilic activity and inappropriately messaging minors and its making me think my real events are as bad or as worse as them... Ive vented a lot to a lot of people in the PM's about my OCD... some of them younger (minors)... because I wanted reassurance from everyone and anyone... but this situation triggers me the most because I was venting about my 18+ HOCD situations... (the 18+ HOCD situations were about 18+ s3xual HOCD triggers that triggered me immensely...) In an HOCD support group I was in, I vented to 2 minors in the PM's about my 18+ HOCD situations... The leader of the support group (that i vented to) was 17... I was 19 at the time... the other minor i vented to was younger (14-15)... the younger one told me she was uncomfortable when i vented to her in the PM's twice... The 14-15 year old said she was uncomfortable the first time and i tried to stop venting to her... after she said i was a bad person for supporting trump, i vented to her again because her saying i was a bad person triggered me... she said she was uncomfortable for the second time and then i blocked her... i kept asking the leader of the support group for reassurance for my 18+ HOCD situations for months because she kept giving me reassurance... i thought she was cute but didnt pursue her because of my age... i dont ever want to ever be a P or a MAP or a groomer in any way... ChatGPT just told me I inappropriately messaged minors when I dont ever want to be like those dirty disgusting youtubers who inappropriately messaged them and did P3do stuff with them at all... Im so triggered please someone help me...
My best friend hasn’t spoken to me in months. It triggered some symptoms that I now realize fall along the lines of ROCD. It’s making me behave in a way that chased my other friends away. I’m feeling very hopeless and guilty.
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Read my Relationship OCD story →Everything feels Like its falling apart at the Moment. I am faced with Lots of unprocessed trauma and flashbacks in my Relationship + this stupid pocd that latches onto my Partner. Even if I Just know and she has also OCD, Anxiety, maybe autism BC she cannot read emotions or reacts Sometimes too rational, she understands me best. She understands my illnesses and intrusive thoughts and in the past she got triggered by the pocd also a little bit. Just the disgust Feelings, triggers in some Situations and Compulsion to Look away and some what If thoughts.... It didnt get much worse but I maybe constantly reminding her of some stuff because I have to hold myself back from Compulsions.... She opened Up over some stuff that happened in her childhood and over the Last weeks it got worse and worse in my case BC of triggers of my own childhood Trauma and Trauma in General.... And she is a mirror.. I feel constantly unloved or unwanted, I am so impulsive, I insulted her in Arguments as a p..... Such stuff... She does Not leave but I feel that she has no Energy left either... Before a few days it heated so much Up that I was outside until late at night.... Slept on the Couch.... Next day the Argument continued... I h@rmed myself .... I also hurted myself thursday night with a plastic bottle but on friday it was with a kn*fe.... She called ambulance.... I Had to Go to Hospital.... I never went with an ambulance to Hospital.... That day when I was Back WE Had a good afternoon and it was okay.... Saturday was okay too Just the night.... I have some disturbing Feelings BC the OCD and everything impacts our seggs life .... I offen feel unwanted or undesired.... Misscommunication can lead to arguments... Yesterday in the evening it got worse after a day that was alright.... I was Feeling Like leaving but I stayed outside and she was so upset she didnt let me in... Then we chose to pause the argument... Today it was alright I think but I was so worried what to do If I should Work tomorrow again bc I am sick since a week..... But on a walk outside it was hard to speak without getting upset... So I Said I wanted to walk alone and she should Go the other way... After a few Minutes she was gone... I don't know where she is since Like 1 h 40 Minutes.... Tried to send WhatsApp and call but she isnt online.... Thought she wasn't at Home so I didnt Ring the bell and now I am sitting at MC Donalds.... Maybe I try to Go Back to the House and Look .... If she is there.... I barely have Energy for myself how should I Take Energy for her and the Relationship too? Pls send advice. Kind regards. Jal
Having a severe ROCD episode right now. I’ve had an ROCD OBSESSION with another person for months now. I want to make it clear that not only have I made sure NOT TO act on it romantically at all, I have also made sure to NEVER EVER EVER even attempt to build a friendship with this person. I do not ever initiate conversations with them, I don’t even look at them or speak to them when i see them in person, i make sure to never be alone with them, and i never ever ever even attempt to get closer to them. My limerence extends to looking up their social media, fantasizing about them, daydreaming, and viewing their messages in a group server (where i make sure to only ever joke around with and reply to OTHER PEOPLES messages, NOT theirs (intentionally). I have told my partner ALL of this; he is aware and he told me it’s fine. However, I told him it was a crush, not limerence. And i know for a fact that the only reason this stuck around for so long was because it turned into a full-blown OCD obsession where I would constantly ruminate on my actions, wonder if it was cheating or not, and then daydreaming became a compulsion where i escaped that guilt. The thing is, I’m worried that this means I’m having some sort of internal emotional affair behind his back. I even told him this, that I’m worried I am emotionally cheating, and he told me “Okay so what? What if it’s emotional cheating? What if your biggest fear is true?” He said he cares about real actions and outcomes, not thoughts and feelings and that he doesn’t want to know what happens in my head. But I am constantly obsessing over figuring out the morality of it and if i’ve developed feelings, and if that’s unforgivable and if that counts as an emotional affair (my biggest fear).
I’m so so so anxious right now, I got triggered really badly. My partner made a joke saying he’s glad all his coworkers are old and married because he “won’t develop feelings for any of them.” This sent me into a major spiral and I almost threw up and starting sobbing from the anxiety. It triggered me badly and everything was fine before that. I’m so anxious that I cheated on my partner. I’ve had an ROCD obsession with another person for a few months now, and I’ve told my partner EVERYTHING. I told him how I have a crush on this person, how guilty I feel about messaging a group server that this person is a part of (despite being very careful to never ever message them privately or even reply to their messages in the group server and instead message other people), how I have fantasized and daydreamed about this person. My partner was fine with it, and he said fantasizing is normal and that he has had crushes too. He said he has had a work crush and fantasized about her and that it was all fine and that fantasizing is fun as long as it stays a fantasy. I kept telling him that I am terrified that I’m having some sort of one-sided emotional affair by fantasizing about this person, and my partner kept telling me, “Okay so what? Now what? Let’s say your worst fears are true, now what? I’m not leaving you and you’re not leaving me so why worry about it?” I also feel like fantasizing about this person turned into a compulsion because I would spend months agonizing over the ROCD guilt, ruminating, throwing up, thinking, and then I’d try to fantasize in order to soothe the anxiety and “prove to myself” that it was nothing. I have talked to my therapist about this extensively and he told me that I should not confess as it’s a compulsion. He said if it were something wrong, my body would just “know” and I’d intuitively confess instead of ruminating over and over on whether it’s worth confessing or not. My partner told me he doesn’t want any more confessions and that he doesn’t need to know what goes on in my head. I’ve told him a lot already, about the crush, my fears, the daydreaming, and he said it was all fine. I know for a fact that I have never ever ever crossed a line with this person, I have been extremely careful to rarely ever interact with him. I’ve been careful to ensure that we’re not even FRIENDS at all, just barely acquaintances. Literally every single interaction has been just small talk the handful of times that I’ve seen him show up to a group event. He is also moving away and I’m never gonna see him again. I have been extremely obsessive and careful about not ever EVER speaking to him unless spoken to, never giving him attention, obsessively monitoring the frequency with which i pay attention, etc. But I’m so terrified that I’ve already done something wrong by having these thoughts and feelings. I feel like the feelings lasted this long BECAUSE of the OCD and guilt and anxiety. Because I became anxious and started ruminating on the feelings and the morality for months and months. I don’t know what to do. I need help. I feel like I’ve irreparably ruined my relationship. Did i catch feelings? Is there a difference between feelings and a crush? Is this a form of cheating? We are going on a trip in literally 12 hours and I’m so incredibly stressed I can’t take this. Do i confess?
Lately my ROCD has been flaring up, making it difficult to even be around my partner. I’m having so many troubling thoughts with the one that bugs me most being, “maybe this isn’t my OCD, maybe I’m just in a bad relationship and I’m trying to cover it up and blame it on OCD”. This thought really scares me because there are valid doubts in my relationship but my boyfriend and I have openly talked about them and are trying to work through. My OCD won’t take that as an option tho. It makes me feel like I need to be 100% certain that these things can NEVER happen again or else we need to break up immediately. So anything he says in that moment about trying to do better, my OCD will not trust anything he says and just wait until the next “bad thing” happens. When I continuously bring these things up to my boyfriend even tho nothing has happened between these conversations, it exhausts him making it feel like he can never do enough. I feel so bad because I know it’s just my OCD getting in the way. But then that thought creeps in saying I can’t trust him because I need to protect myself. It’s just an ongoing cycle that is so tiring. I don’t even know what I want anymore. We are very opposite when it comes to emotions. I am very in tune and very emotionally intelligent, and he is not. He is the opposite. I do recognize that my anxious attachment style may be hard for him too but I can’t stop thinking about all of his flaws and all of the things he needs to do to make our relationship better. It makes me feel like I’m the only one putting in effort when in reality that is not true. But my OCD does make me feel like he doesn’t really love me or want to be with me and that he feels forced to be with me or do things for me. It makes me feel like him being with me is like a chore. Can anyone relate? My OCD just makes me feel like I can’t trust anything he says to make our relationship better.
I broke up with my boyfriend today because of how bad my anxiety had gotten I couldn’t tell what was my heart and what was my head. I’m heartbroken because I feel like I lost my best friend and I truly do have love for him and want him in my future. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. We broke up because I’m not on medication for my anxiety and have a doctor’s appointment coming up on Wednesday to see about getting some. I still feel anxious after our breaks but I feel guilty to admit that I do feel better. I’m still just anxious in general a little and I don’t know why. We had decided to stay in touch but not on a daily or even weekly basis, just because there is no hate in our relationship just pure love. I’m just so scared and sad that I really will lose him and be all alone.
For some time i was obsessing over relationship with my girlfriend. For a long time we we're each other's best friends and we only had each other. Recently she made a good friend in work and im obviously really happy for her because she deserves to be loved by more people than me. But i started to feel really jealous. I never thought she can cheat on me i just have really low self esteem and i started to obsess over if she is still in love with me or if she is still attracted to me bc she sometimes would be more interested to spend time with that friend and not me. We talked about it a lot and i tried my best to not be jealous and give her space but i felt how she's distancing from me. At some point she stopped showing me her love in any way. She stopped hugging me and kissing me and she kinda stop telling me she loves me. She only responded "me too" when i told her i love her. I talked about it with her few times and she always said she understands and that she's tired and don't really need physical touch etc. But i was still worrying bc i just knew something is off. She really was acting different. And then few days ago she told me she's actually tired not because of job but me. She feels irritated by me and she don't know why and that she actually thought about breaking up with me and she don't know what to do because she's confused about her own feelings. She said she thinks she still loves me but it's hard for her to see a difference between friendship and love and that she feels tired of concept of dating someone. She said we should wait and see bc she thinks she still loves me but i don't know if that's honest. I don't know what to do anymore im crying all the time every day since that conversation we had. I feel like my worst nightmare just came true and now it's real and not only a though in my head. I can't do anything and i feel like it's the end of the world. We're living together and i don't want to go back to my parents but that's not the worst thing. I just love her so much and i can't hande thought of loosing her. My ocd made me question every single thing about me but somehow i never questioned my love for her so that's why I'm so emotional about it. I don't want to lose her. I don't know what to do i just want to be loved but I don't want anyone else. I don't know what to do im so scared. I want to die every time i look at her with love in my heart and i know she doesn't think about me like that anymore.
I don’t know what to do anymore I made a friend recently in college and was texting her the other night and she mentioned she was doing her nails and I said nice and asked her if I could see. Because I was curious about what she did to them this time around and since then she has not responded to me I apologized to her saying I’m sorry if it bothered her but still nothing. Some of my friends just don’t answer me anymore I feel like I’m a burden of the ones who do still talk me I’m so done with it all. I’m tired of trying to find love as well I feel nothing to it anymore it’s only left me with disappointment and sadness I feel like I’m an unlovable husk of a person and that I would only ever be a bother I cannot fathom the idea of someone loving ME I just can’t I feel like it’s impossible I feel like everything about me bothers people to the point where I think is it even something I should try to achieve anymore. I should honestly block myself from trying to make new friends and relationships I’m so so tired of it. I feel unappreciated and annoyed that I am the one that has to try to keep up any sort of relationship because if I don’t reach out they never will reach out to me the reason I know this is because it’s been proven time after time since middle school that I am nothing to these people and I might as well no longer try. I don’t know what to do anymore I feel like I’m going to be all alone for the rest of my life I’m just so lonely now.
I’m scared people are using me for their personal gain and that no one on this earth will ever view me as an actual person. I don’t want to be someone’s friend/girlfriend/wife because they’re lonely, I want to be in their life because they actually like me and VALUE me. I don’t know the difference between my instinct and my ocd sometimes. I think I tend to make sound judgements and usually perceive others accurately to the truth of who they really are; but now im scared to do this because what if im proved wrong once again, wasted my time, and ignored signs I should’ve noticed all along? I cannot make this mistake again. I can’t trust another person again to the point where I think if they compliment me, talk to me, or make an effort to know me, they’re only doing it for a transactional, convenient purpose. They must want something from me that is something superficial/benefits only them, not a real or authentic connection. My brain is telling me they must all be lying to me because they pity me, and think im dumb or naive. This is not how I feel about my relationships with people, this is how my ocd thinks others perceive me. I feel like im getting punished over and over again for making past mistakes and God is sending me people who don’t actually like/love me to teach me a lesson. I can’t fucking stand it anymore. I wish I could trade lives with someone who doesn’t think this way. I don’t understand what I did to deserve the weirdest/meanest people come into my life and fuck my perception of humanity even more than how I viewed it before. Can someone tell me why I even care this much about it? What do I do? Why does this happen?? I’m crying and im so embarassed im even posting this. We have such small amounts of time on earth and my head sabotages me to hate every minute of it. I want it to stop
i need some kind words or maybe some advice? basically i went through trauma as a kid including sexual, and acted out in disturbing ways. I’ve done things i regret. even as an early teenager i did also. the only weird things ive done recently were compulsions and weird ocd driven stuff… but besides that ive found it easy to forgive myself for a lot of stuff because i know myself and my intentions and also talking to people helps. but one thing that’s hard is when im intimate with others or in a relationship. i feel so gross and undeserving like if they knew everything ive done in my life they would hate me. I don’t tell everyone everything, i think i only did that with therapists and like one family member. I feel like if I don’t tell someone everything I’ve done that I regret and see if they forgive me for it, then that means im “hiding” something about me and being malicious. anything helps :(
I don’t think much of this has to do with OCD and the subtypes that I struggle with: Harm OCD and religious OCD and Guilt OCD. Yesterday, I felt like a failure. I’ve been volunteering at my church to help families affected by some wild fires and I’ve been managing a lot of the logistics associated with it. I love this type of work and the people I work with. I consistently struggle with not giving my heart away so easily to the various interns or full time staff there. My affections were all over the place yesterday and thinking about how I looked or appeared toward one person in particular. I tried on four different occasions to remind myself and to refocus that she was an just like an older sister in my faith and to try and think of her as a literal sister as well, but it didn't really change how I was feeling. It was really cool at some points I felt very comfortable to talk briefly about my story. Told her about my wife and my son (we are currently separated and living in different states) and the battle I’ve had with OCD. Yet I could see that I was jealous for her attention. It was pretty much just us there yesterday. There was a guy named Jim and I felt like I was just irritated that he was there, because he was taking the attention from me. It wasn't all bad, we were able to help a lot of families, I made my son and awesome video, there were moments of relief when I recalled her as my sister and got to hear more about her testimony, in a way deeper conversations helped me see her more than just a crush or temptation. Idk. I've asked for forgiveness to the Lord and I know even though I feel guilty and upset at myself, that He is rooting me on. My wife and I have been going through an uncontested divorce, a lot of it has to do with OCD and this new diagnosis, but as you can see by what I’m struggling with there are other problems as well within me as I’m trying to be a faithful husband, a strong father, and a just good friend to the people in my life. For so long I went to relationships and the hope of one as a source of life, but when I got married I kept trying to find life in “what if I was with this person?” I’ve caused real hurt to my wife and struggling to stop the way I feel so easily when I’m around different people and love everyone how I am supposed to.
I am struggling so much with ROCD symptoms, and lately everything feels more and more real, like I am finally “realizing” that I don’t love my boyfriend anymore. When I think about him, about him speaking kindly to me, or about being with him — I feel no warmth inside me, no happiness, no calm. This makes me panic, and I start thinking that maybe this is the truth, that I don’t love him anymore or never did. It feels like my mind is connecting everything to “prove” I don’t love him — I even struggle now to remember good moments with him or any time when I felt love. When I am in his arms, instead of comfort, I feel anxious and disconnected. When he says sexual things, I feel disgust or nothing. I also had a really hard moment with my mom yesterday — I told her I don’t feel love anymore, and she told me that I am lying to myself, that I am hurting both him and myself. I keep hearing her words in my mind now. On top of this, someone on NOCD told me to focus on traits I admire about him, but when I try, nothing comes to mind and this scares me even more — like maybe I never truly loved him, I just liked the idea of having a boyfriend. I know I have read a lot about ROCD, I know about ERP, I know I should “let the feelings be there” and not fight them. But even though I know this, I feel so stuck, hopeless, and burned out. The thoughts feel so real now — like I have a gut feeling that I don’t love him anymore, that I’ve changed, and I’m just forcing myself. I am also afraid that deep down, maybe I don’t want to love him anymore, I just want to feel “normal” again — and this terrifies me. Lately I feel like everything feels more and more real — like the thoughts and this horrible feeling are the truth that I was denying all along. Now I feel almost numb, like I have accepted this horrible idea and I can’t connect to my emotions any I feel desperate. I don’t know what is real anymore. Please, if anyone can relate or give some guidance, I would be very grateful. 💔 (edited)
Everyday always has to be something, I go through multiple different ocd induced spirals daily. Always worrying if I betrayed my partner. First it’s “did I cheat on my girlfriend and just forget?” Then it’s “Do sexual fantasies count as cheating? Did I betray her?” Then it’s “Oh you looked at your exes instagram out of a random impulse or curiosity a few times throughout your 2 year relationship that just mean you betrayed her” And many more throughout the day. I just feel so exhausted and tired. All I really want is to just be a good boyfriend, I just want to live in peace and wake up not always worried about something. I can never seem to really get over the ocd spiral unless I confess my ocd induced anxiety to my girlfriend. It’s obviously not healthy and it hurts her feelings more times than not. My girlfriend also has ocd so she tends to be more understanding but it doesn’t mean she isn’t hurt. I always feel trapped in the loop, if it’s not one thing it’s another. I’m ALWAYS worrying, I just feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. this has been going on for over a year, with only small breaks between spirals, i’m so unbelievably tired and more than anything, I just want to overcome this obstacle in my life and just be a good person and a good partner. If anyone has any advice, anything helps I feel so hopeless.
I got TMS almost a year ago and it helped so much. Now I am having one of the worst flare ups I have had in over a year. My themes keep changing, I am so exhausted. Its affecting my relationship because I am constantly on edge and my boyfriend is struggling to manage the whip lash. He thinks its his fault. I feel like I cannot trust my own thoughts but they feel so real, I am so lost. Has anyone had their OCD score drop and then rapidly peak? No one understands my heightened anxiety, and I’m just so tired 😔
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