u/JayDM20s

I visited a therapist to discuss my recent relationship and breakup and the therapist told me that I have OCPD traits. The place I see them show up the most is in romantic and sexual relationships. Ever since I started to have any kind of dating life as a teen, I have had all kinds of rules for myself about when I am allowed to date someone, what type of people I can date, who I can have sex with, at what point in a relationship I’m allowed to have sex, and all kinds of other circumstances that need to be “just right” or at least good enough for me to feel comfortable being in relationships. I am no longer religious but as a teen I was in an evangelical, “purity culture”-saturated environment which I think contributed a lot to this issue.

I think I am reaching a turning point where my rules are really harming me; when I get broken up with by someone and things turn sour, I freak out that my rules didn’t work and things turned out badly, especially if the person dumping me does something hurtful during the breakup or can’t give a reasonably communicative explanation for why they are leaving me. I go completely off the deep end and do not know how to mentally recover, and this is especially true if the relationship was serious and had sex involved. I read one of the popular books on OCPD and really related to the personal stories of people who felt “wronged” in relationships where they thought they’d “done everything right” and they let their anger and pain over the “injustice” essentially ruin their life. That is pretty much me to a T, and then I have added on top of it these very conservative rules about sex and romance—I go to great lengths to pick “safe” partners, and if they ever become “unsafe” or we have to cut contact, I truly feel like I need to die because my rules haven’t worked or kept me safe and I don’t know how to go on in life having some of these terrible experiences and permanently damaged relationships as part of my life when I tried so hard to make the relationship “safe”/“perfect”/“just right.”

It’s like I can’t or don’t want to accept that things won’t always work out even if I try to “do everything right,” and it’s seriously taking a toll on my mental health because I just keep trying to make my rules stricter to pick better partners and more conservative sexual situations, therefore making myself “safer,” but every time I get into a negative relational situation I freak out and feel even worse than the time before since it seems none of my strategies for creating the perfect safe or painless scenario actually work.

Idk if I’m explaining this well but if anyone has dealt with this type of OCPD trait presentation I would be so curious to hear how you helped yourself, became able to deal with negative relationship outcomes, or warmed up to seeing things in a less “black and white” way because I am reaching a point where I think I need to help myself out of this mindset somehow instead of just “trying harder” or making more rules to keep myself “safe.”

I feel like a lot of the advice that gets tossed around for codependents and people obsessed with relationships is all that stuff like “focus on you,” “make your life so great you don’t need a partner,” “try new hobbies,” “make new friends,” etc. This advice doesn’t resonate with me because I have a great support system and many good friends, do lots of activities and hobbies, and generally have a great life. It would be very hard for me to even squeeze in new activities with how full my life is, but that doesn’t stop me from constantly feeling like I need a partner, having codependent tendencies, and becoming obsessively attached to romantic partners when I have them. I just feel like a lot of the typical advice given isn’t relevant as I have such a full life and could fill it up to the absolute brim with activities, friends, etc. but that would not stop the underlying codependent and obsessive feelings and urges. Many people seem to act like just filling up your life enough will fix these underlying things but it doesn’t seem to for me. I feel stuck because I don’t understand what I’m missing or what advice would actually help me. Am I not understanding something about this advice or can anyone give me something more helpful?

I’m really struggling with how to survive my life several years out from leaving evangelicalism. I guess I always thought my life would be complete and I’d be given meaning by “following gods plan for me” which I thought was getting married to “the one” and finding a job that was “the perfect fit” for me. I still pretty much believe in and try to find these things even now that I’ve left church. I never feel as safe or happy as when I seem on track to find “the one” or “the perfect fit.”

But because nothing ever goes quite according to plan, my life has recently fallen apart again and I’ve realized these fantasies pretty much aren’t true. There is no “the one” and no job will be “the perfect fit.” Realizing as much has me losing the will to live. Things suck so much in the world and so many random unfortunate things have happened to me, and I just feel way less resilient than I used to be because I have lost hope in a worthwhile future since the fantasy i used to believe isn’t true. Realizing that I can’t just keep trying until I find the “right” or “perfect” thing to save me has me wondering why I try at all. If real life is just the lows and the boring middle ground and most of the highs I’ve felt have been me buying into the fantasy that the “right” or “perfect” thing will fix my life, I honestly find life too bleak and depressing and don’t want to live without those fantasies and hopes that kept me optimistic and working toward something.

Has anyone else dealt with this and come out the other side? I suppose I have to accept that there is no “one” and no “perfect” thing and just live my life in a totally new way with totally new ideas about the world but i honestly don’t know what worthwhile thing I could replace these ideas with and don’t really want to try. If there is no fantasy of one day finding the perfect fix that will save my life and make everything good, I don’t really care about keeping going because I don’t want to deal with how much overwhelming senseless bad there is when I don’t have the fantasy carrot of “one day when I’ve done the right things and everything is perfect and safe in the future” in front of me to help me cope. I don’t want to live in a world where the fantasy of eventually finding safety and peace in perfection simply isn’t real or feasible. I don’t feel safe or at peace in my life and was constantly striving for these fantasy ideas to create it, but now that I’m realizing even they aren’t true, I feel I’ll never be okay/peaceful/content/happy/etc and would rather just check out of the whole experience.

If you experienced anything like this, what helped you? What did you do? How did you survive and find some way to move forward? Are you happy you kept going or do you still wish you were dead? Did you ever find the same level of happiness that you got from fantasy?

I’m pretty new to learning about codependency. I was reading Language of Letting Go the other day, (I think June 6 or 7?) and the daily reading really surprised me. It was about how when we have a partner or significant person in our life, we shouldn’t try to be “the one who truly understood them when no one else did,” “the one who did the best job meeting their needs,” “the one who was better than the others they’ve been with,” etc. I’m paraphrasing but that was the essential idea—not trying to be the best or succeed above everyone else in how you appeal to a partner/friend/etc.

I always have this mindset with romantic partners, trying to be better than their previous partners and to go above and beyond to meet their needs in ways others would not. I want to be the best partner they’ve ever had and will feel insecure if I’m not. Likewise, if I’m dating, I’m always looking for the best partner possible. I feel like if they’re not the best person I’ve dated so far, why would I be dating them, since I’m trying to improve upon previous situations that have often ended poorly.

If this is not the mindset to have while dating, what mindset do you have, and what do you feel is the point if it’s not finding and/or being the best person and having the best possible match? Sometimes the more I learn in these programs the less I feel there is any reason to date, as even the best people seem to detract from my life in some manageable way so I assume that picking someone who isn’t the best would make my life worse much more actively, so I’m confused by this reading.

Sorry if this is codependency 101 but I’m genuinely curious as I’ve never really seen it described in the way the reading did and I didn’t realize that this was a sign of codependency.

Found out a while ago that someone was looking me up on one of my public social media accounts in relation to the person who dumped me; I could see it showing up in my analytics and it was coming from an anonymous source but was very obviously related to the person who dumped me by the analytics information. Idk if it was my dumper, their new partner, a friend, or whatever, but it felt like they wanted me to know they were watching and I have no clue why, since they dumped me and went no contact with me.

It has really freaked me out and now I'm constantly checking analytics and feel like I'm being watched even now that it's been like over a month since; I keep convincing myself that they're still there but are being sneakier about the stalking now. I don't know why someone would be looking me up like that when I'm the one who got dumped, and I'm trying not to break no contact over it but it definitely has me spiraling and it's also giving me a weird hope of reconnecting even though my ex has clearly moved on with a new partner.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I really don't know what to do besides confront them or abandon social media for a while, but I don't really want to break no contact or get off my social media, since I run this public account for fun. I feel like they're coming into my online space and it isn't fair that I would have to disappear for fear of being cyberstalked. Idk if anyone has experience with this but I'd be grateful for any thoughts because I'm so stressed out by it.

I’m on day 5 of trying to stay off Instagram tarot content. I finally am trying to stop in earnest after a friend tried to tell me how bad it was for me. They were right—I was totally obsessed and would sink so much time into it, and I was at the point of genuinely believing the readings, too. It’s terrifying how the algorithm seems to know what to feed you to get you hooked. It’s really hard to not have that reassurance since I’m in a low place, but I’m doing a surprisingly good job keeping off of it so far.

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I think a lot of my sense of safety ever since I was a kid has come from feeling like I was good enough to be special or chosen. Obviously Christianity probably played into this with being a “chosen people,” “city on a hill,” etc. but even after I left the church I was a very high achiever and still leaned on feeling like I was special in romantic relationships, academics, and work in order to make myself feel safe and like I was “enough.” Many of my major life goals to this day revolve around achieving “enough” to finally be special once and for all (ex. find a life partner, win some major award or finish a significant project in my field, etc).

My therapist and I have been talking about this need for specialness/chosenness as a “safety seeking behavior” recently but I really don’t know how to start unpacking it since it’s so deeply ingrained. This sounds crazy, but I somehow still have a deep sense very much along the lines of Christian purity/exceptionalism doctrines, like I can’t be “normal” or act “like everyone else” or lack significant achievement or else I’ll end up meaningless. It’s very much “set apart,” “don’t be like those sinners” vibes even though I’m many years out of church.

Any advice on how to combat this or how you developed a sense of safety outside of feeling exceptional/special/chosen?