u/whippycat

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i woke up today feeling completely empty. like absurdly empty. not even anxious at first, just blank. like a rock.

i talked to my girlfriend and i acted the same as always, treated her normally, but inside it felt like i was “making an act”. and that scared the hell out of me because i don’t know if it means something or if i’m just hyperaware of literally everything.

then i slept for a bit.

when i woke up again, i checked her chat and saw her last message was from like 3 hours ago, and i felt bad. then i went to peel some potatoes, and after that i just broke down crying. not exactly sobbing dramatically, but i started crying uncontrollably. i called her and told her what happened, then i went to the bathroom and ended the call

now i’m stuck with this horrible feeling of not knowing what i’m feeling about the relationship. like i can’t access my emotions properly. and obviously my brain immediately goes to “what if this means i don’t love her?” or “what if the relationship is dead?” and it’s terrifying.

the worst part is that i don’t want to lose her. the idea of losing her scares me a lot. but then the emptiness makes everything feel fake, like even caring feels hard to read.

has anyone else had this? like waking up completely numb/empty, feeling like you’re acting normal with your partner, and then breaking down because you’re terrified that the numbness means something?

i’m trying not to reassurance seek too much, but i’m genuinely scared and tired.

hi. it’s been about a month since my first big rocd spiral/incident, and i’m doing somewhat better, but i think checking this subreddit might be becoming a compulsion for me.

at first it helped me understand what was happening. reading other people’s experiences made me feel less alone and helped me recognize the pattern: intrusive doubts, checking, reassurance seeking, temporary relief, then another theme showing up.

but now i notice that sometimes i come here not to learn, but to calm myself down. i’ll search for posts that sound like my situation, compare symptoms, look for someone describing the exact same feeling, or try to convince myself that “yes, this is rocd and not real.” it gives me relief for a bit, but then i end up needing to check again.

so i wanted to ask: how do you tell the difference between using this subreddit in a healthy way and using it as reassurance/checking?

has anyone here had to limit their time on rocd forums/subreddits because it became part of the loop? what helped you reduce that without feeling like you were losing support?

i’m not asking for reassurance about my relationship. i’m more asking how to stop turning recovery resources into compulsions.

Hi. I’ve been struggling with what seems like ROCD for the past few weeks, and I wanted to ask about something that has been confusing me.

At first, it showed up more as clear intrusive questions like:

- “What if I don’t love her anymore?”

- “What if I’m not attracted to her?”

- “What if I could cheat on her?”

But lately it sometimes feels less like a clear thought and more like a body/emotional state. For example, I recently had a really awful empty feeling in my chest/stomach, and I felt very numb. I looked it up and it seems like numbness can happen with intense anxiety and rumination, but it still scared me a lot.

Now that the numb feeling has faded, the intrusive themes come back and alternate between love, attraction, and irrational fear of cheating, even though I don’t seek those situations, don’t go to parties, and don’t put myself in environments where that would happen.

What confuses me is that sometimes the obsession feels like it starts as a “feeling” first: numbness, emptiness, disconnection, or a vague “something is wrong” sensation. Then my brain starts trying to interpret it as: “Does this mean I don’t love her?”, “Does this mean I’m not attracted?”, “Does this mean something bad?”

So my questions are:

1. Is numbness/emotional emptiness a common part of ROCD or anxiety after a lot of rumination?

2. Should I treat this numbness as another OCD trigger rather than as evidence about the relationship?

3. How do you apply ERP when the trigger is not a clear thought, but more of a feeling or body sensation?

4. Is the ERP response basically: “there is a feeling, I don’t need to translate it,” and then continue with life without checking/reassurance?

I’m not looking for reassurance about whether I love my partner. I’m trying to understand how to respond to the mechanism without feeding the loop.

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Hi. I wanted to ask about something that has been confusing me a lot.

I’ve been dealing with what seems like a ROCD-type spiral. Sometimes it shows up as clear intrusive thoughts like: “What if I don’t love her?”, “What if I’m not attracted to her?”, “What if I don’t like talking to her?” But other times it doesn’t start as a thought. It starts more like a weird feeling.

By “feeling” I mean things like: an empty sensation in my chest, a weird stomach drop, a sense of disconnection, or just this vague “something is wrong” feeling. Then my brain starts trying to interpret it: “If I feel this, does it mean something about my relationship?”

The confusing part is that these feelings come and go. Sometimes they disappear suddenly. And even when they are there, my actual desires/actions don’t match the fear. I still want to be close to my girlfriend, hug her, kiss her, talk to her, care for her, and have her in my life. For example, I felt genuinely sad when she told me she couldn’t stay over tonight.

That contradiction is what makes me think this may be anxiety/ROCD rather than a real relationship issue. If I truly didn’t want to be with her, I imagine I’d feel relief when she couldn’t stay, or I’d want distance. But instead, even with the weird feelings, I still want closeness.

For context, I have GAD and depression, and I’ve been taking sertraline. This week I also had some inconsistency with my dose and drank alcohol, so I know my body may be more sensitive/anxious right now.

Has anyone else experienced ROCD more as a physical/emotional “feeling” rather than just thoughts? Like the feeling comes first, and then the brain starts obsessing over what it “means”? How do you respond to that without turning it into another checking/reassurance loop?