r/ROCD

As the heading says. It makes me feel disgusting 😭 My husband is amazing, and he’s never given me a reason to feel insecure about what they had or anything. His ex made our lives hell at the beginning, but I do remember just not caring.

Once she left us alone, I started checking her social media.. big mistake. Here I am, YEARS LATER, having this insane obsession and compulsion to check, sometimes 10-15 times a day. I’ve recently realized this could be an OCD cycle.

I’m 20 weeks pregnant, my husband is amazing, we’ve built a beautiful life together, and his ex is far moved on, married with her own kids who probably forgot we even exist. Help me with this. Please. Will practicing ERP truly help? Will there ever come a time when I just.. don’t care?

From anyone, on either side of the table.

I've posted here before, but right now I'm really really struggling to stay above my husband's partner-focused OCD. I seem to have PTSD from it that rears its ugly head on the regular. I feel so, so badly about this because I know the OCD is not his fault and he has gotten much better at not confessing and being a better husband than he has been the last two years of OCD. But sometimes, not always but sometimes, him even alluding to his OCD sends me panicking. I don't know exactly what I am asking, but it's been a very hard week for me even though he has been doing well, and now he is quite upset with me. Any advice or support is welcome. I have gotten a bunch of therapy and have even started on a low dose of medication myself to see if it helps me detach. I'll call my therapist and tell her I need to see her this week.

I just feel so badly about it. There is so much shame, from feeling so exposed/betrayed by his OCD, feeling like I will never be enough for him, and double that shame from not being stronger for him. And I worry that my being so devastated by the content of his obsessions actually makes them worse, by giving them a weight they in no way deserve (trust me, they are absurd. But they still hurt so much.) I don't want to be this way! I don't want to feel this way! This is his OCD, not mine! But it's really gotten to me.

So I've been in therapy for about a year now, and while I've made progress in a lot of ways, my cheating theme has been unable to beat. Literally every time I (straight/ace woman) interact with a man, I overthink it for days, wondering if I liked the attention or wanted to cheat. Too boot, I'm socially inept and have had times where men were flirting with me without me realizing, so I feel like I can never trust my gut.

This has been particularly hard when it comes to my friendships/coworker relationships with men. I'm an engineer and I'm in a run club with mostly male members, so most of the people I talk to consistently are men, though I do have plenty of girlfriends too. It's the same for my partner of 1.5 years—he's a nurse so most of his friends have historically been women. Neither of us have had a problem with this arrangement, but I freak the fuck out any time I have to be around men. For example, I have an old college friend (we'll call him K) who lives in another state, and he came to town to watch his best friend (who's in my run club) run a race. Boyfriend, K, and I all got dinner together, then K and I went to watch the race. I invited my boyfriend, but he hates sports so he declined the invite lol. I honestly had a fun time catching up with K as we rarely see each other anymore, and we've been good friends even when both of us were single. He's never given me a reason not to trust him, but the type of dating advice I see online is constantly reiterating that opposite sex friendships are impossible. The whole time we hung out, all I could think was "what if he secretly likes me and wants my relationship to fail? Is he standing too close? Is he making too much eye contact? Do other people here think we're a couple? Am I flirting?". When K and I were walking back to our cars, he even made a comment about how he was glad we managed to stay friends even after I got a boyfriend. Initially, I just took that as a nice sentiment, but then I got this crippling fear that he was actually trying to flirt by saying that. It's genuinely exhausting. I don't want to cut off old friendships just because of my anxiety, but I'm starting to wonder if it's even worth it. Has anyone been through something like this? Am I just being naive in thinking men and women can truly just be friends?

Why am I doing this?
One year ago I joined this reddit in hopes that I would find people with the same problem as me. I did find them, but unfortunately none of them got anything helpful to say, it was more of an echo chamber. As a more pragmatic person, I am writing this to help people who have the same situation I had one year ago. I currently have almost no intrussive thoughts and I can live my life normally, just as before. Here is how I got there, I hope this helps someone.

What is ROCD?

ROCD is just a theme (Relationship OCD), some people are born with OCD, others get it later in life, specifically after a really stressful event, and have to live with it for the rest of their lives, but there are ways to mitigate its impact and even nullify it. You will most likely encounter more than one theme in your life, but the way to deal with them is the same.

How do I know I have OCD?
Contrary to popular belief, not every thought or overthinking is labeled as OCD. If your thoughts greatly impact the way you function on a day to day basis, you most likely have OCD; not when you like to have your workspace neat (OMG Im so OCD) or when you keep thinking about the presentation you have to deliver tomorrow, those are regular worries that all humans struggle with. OCD comes into play where it greatly impacts your life, where there is nothing left besides your thoughts and your life becomes this struggle with your own thoughts. You can start going to therapy, but most don't know how to deal with OCD, so I would recommend just going for monitoring it, you will have to solve this yourself (I'm sorry, it's the truth, but more on this later).

Your bread and butter
You can't overcome a thought by "solving it", your mind will always think of something else, another thought, another possibility, so trying to solve them is the first rookie mistake all of us make when fighting with OCD. GIVE UP ON TRYING TO SOLVE YOUR THOUGHTS, this will get you nowhere. Instead, do this:

75% of "the cure" for OCD regardless of theme is called ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention). No matter what medication you take, without this you will constantly regress into the same theme or even other themes. ERP is simple on the surface: you have to aknowleadge that YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS; your thoughts are just ideas that come and go, and YOU decide which to listen to. Your brain is trying to protect you from everything that could potentially be harmful, but in our case it overdoes it to the point where you can't enjoy life because "something happen can happen".

At the beginning it helped me categorize thoughts into: OCD thoughts and regular thoughts. The simplest way to distinguish between the 2 is "does this thought feel scary and raises my anxiety?"; then it's OCD. Most OCD thoughts come start with "What if", but I found out this is not a general rule, because sometimes thoughts can be disturbing and not start with this phrase, so this is simplest way of telling if a thought is intrusive (OCD thought or a thought that generates fear and anxiety).

At first it will be really hard, you will find out you have a lot of intrusive thoughts, and that's okay, the trick is to not let them control you. Your goal is to lower your response rate, not to have 0 intrusive thoughts! The most famous trap recovering OCD people find themselves in (and I was no exception) is getting stuck in semantics: "Was this really an intrusive thought or was it actually mine?". This trap must be avoided, none of your thoughts are "yours". You are the being that reads them and decides which ones to listen to, so it doesn't even matter if it was an OCD thought or not. If you don't like the thought, if it generates fear, discomfort or anxiety, you just label it and move on.

Now that we got that out of the way, what do you actually do when you label a thought as instrusive? You ignore it, plain and simple. I understand this is way harder then it sounds, so here is a trick that helped me:

1. Label the thought: Okay I've heard this thought, you don't have to repeat it or dig into it deeper, just acknowledge it's presence.
2. Divert attention: you just go back to whatever you were doing (watching TV, walking, thinking about what you were thinking before, focusing on trying to sleep if you were in bed, etc.)

This is the hardest thing to master, but it becomes easier in time, to a point where it's an automatic process, you don't have to actively think about doing it, you will just do it, and in turn you will get fewer and fewer thoughts.

The other 25% part of your recovery is medication and monitoring.
Going to a shrink does help monitor your progress, since you are having to deal with this every day it's hard to monitor progress, so I'd recommend going to a shrink for him to see the progress you've made weekly. Some things your therapist says will trigger you, or set you back, but they are just trying to help, just keep using ERP. If for 15 days straight OCD keeps interfering with your life, go straight to a psychiatrist. Try to find the best one in your country, regardless of money, since this is important. It will be expensive, but you need this especially at first. OCD is more common than you think, so if you find a good psychiatrist, they will identify it within the first 15 minutes of meeting (you don't need a recommendation letter from your therapist, just notify him and go straight in with the appointment).

Your psychiatrist will give you a prescription of SRRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). There are around 4 big ones, each do the same thing, but your brain reacts to each differently, so by trial and error you will have to find the best one for you. I was fortunate enough to get it right the first time, for me it was Zoloft. You will have to take it daily (contrary to popular belief, it does not matter when, just make sure you take it daily). This will reduce the "Stickiness" of thoughts, which will help you develop your ERP skills easier. ERP is still your most important tool, SSRIs just help you develop it faster. There is no stigma in taking SSRIs, it's just like someone taking insulin, for the time being you need it, and that's okay. Try to tell your psychiatrist you see no stigma, and you want to progress through it as fast as possible.

You will start with 25mg to 50mg, just until you find the right SSRI. Then, you will start taking higher and higher doses, up to 300mg (sometimes even more, though it's rare to need more than 300mg). You will progress monthly, and they are supposed to help you get intrusive thoughts under control. If you have to wonder if thoughts are still there, you need a higher dosage. I personally stopped at 300mg, and now I am gradually coming down. You most likely won't have to take this your whole life, but even if you did, it wouldn't matter.

First weeks of dose change/starting out are the hardest. The side effects vary from person to person, but most experience nausea, diarrhea and you will become very irritable. Thought will be harder to ignore at first, but in the long run it is worth it. Do not give up, keep taking it daily and announce this to your partner so they don't hold it against you.

Additional helpful tools

You will also get prescribed anxiar, a drug that calms you down. When you're having a meltdown and things get really rough especially at dosage change of SSRIs, take half of anxiar whenever you need. It will make you sleepy, but the alternative is worse so it's worth it. Just take it, don't try to ride out the episode, since this isn't helping with ERP especially at the beginning. Take it, calm down, and go about your day. At the same time, don't overdo it, since it can create addiction, so it's best to take it when you are in an episode, not every intrusive thought requires an anxiar, but if it gets too rough don't hesitate to take it.

ChatGPT is a great tool to vent. Explain the situation, your treatment, tell it to not solve the thoughts for you, this is just a tool to vent. It helps, but don't rely on it, not everything it says is true. Tell it to keep challenging you so you don't try to solve thoughts, just vent to it and you can also ask it about side effects of your treatment.

The Therapist is strictly a monitoring tool. Since you're in the middle of a storm, it's hard to see the progress you've made. You can vent to your therapist, and ask them about your progress, but just as with ChatGPT it's just a tool, don't listen to it 100% since most therapist are unfamiliar with OCD.

ERP is your main recovery tool! Everything else is just a support for it. Catch yourself whenever you have an intrusive thought, you didn't fail if you debated a thought every once in a while, treat it like an exercise and keep striving to do ERP correctly, you can ask ChatGPT about it and it will help too.

Meta OCD
This is a common theme in OCD recovery, where you don't actually think you have OCD. "It's just my thought it's not OCD", treat this as an intrusive thought, since OCD is sticky and it will keep trying to get you hooked. It doesn't even matter if you do have OCD or not, the only thing that matters is if your thoughts interfere with your life consistently, so don't try to prove to yourself that you have OCD, just keep practicing ERP.

Final thoughts
OCD is more common than you think so there is no stigma around it. At the same time, some people will judge you for it, so it's best to keep it to yourself and only those closest to you need to know about it. People with OCD are more analytical so it's not all bad, but OCD should be treated just like any other disease. Keep practicing ERP, use all the tools at your disposal and you will get through this, it's just a bad chapter in your life, not your life from now. Around 70% of people "get cured" which means thoughts don't dictate their life anymore. Some stop having intrusive thoughts for good, others have so few that they don't even matter anymore. This is what you are trying to achieve, if you keep practicing ERP, the rest won't even matter, you will be able to life life normally just like everyone else.

I am not a medical professional this is just my experience, this is what I would've needed to hear when it first started so take everything with a pinch of salt. You are not broken beyond repair, and I believe in you. Keep using ERP and all those other tools and you'll be fine in no time. There are also countless of TikToks where people are in the exact spot you are, you can learn from their experiences but don't let them consume you. You are not the first, nor the last to have to deal with OCD, so sometimes it's nice to remember that.

I believe in you, you got this!
-Serban

hi everyone i’ve been a silent reader on here for a while but my anxiety is too bad at the moment and things are feeling too real so i just wanted to reach out and hope fully someone can give me some advice.

FOR CONTEXT:

i suffered with intrusive thoughts as a child and had to seek therapy over these.

i was in a long term relationship for 4 years with my ex partner, who i broke up with as i suffered with what was ROCD for over a year (i have not been formally diagnosed). i seeked therapy who didn’t think i had ROCD but i do have anxiety. towards the end i fell out of love with my ex (even though now my intrusive thoughts are now saying i didn’t fall out of love with him). we were very different and i wasn’t happy.

I’ve had the ex theme already and gotten over it, but i just need to get everything out because i feel like this is the end…

I met someone when i went on a trip to Asia 2 months ago. I didn’t feel physically attracted at first, I got talking to him and naturally we really got on, remembering that makes me feel warm. Throughout the trip we naturally gravitated towards each other , I didn’t really think about the physical attraction but I didn’t fancy him that much, but his personality is what made me gravitate more. We first kissed drunk and I enjoyed it, the second time sober and intrusive thoughts come in like “try and enjoy it”, however that went away and when kissing again I loved it, being intimate I loved it and he’s a beautiful human. We came home, I had flowers sent to my door- not used to it and it felt I had doubts.

I have doubts when I like someone and it feels like I don’t like them. I said to my friend is physical attraction something you can work on? And she said yes if you are willing to work on, and I did. This man treats me very well, makes me feel so safe, has amazing eyes- beautiful even, he is good looking and intimacy is great when I’m present and never felt like I’m forcing it. I’ve had exciting moments where I can imagine being his gf, met his parents and had the best time.

However it’s like I have this blocked feeling, now it was moving forward it feels I can’t, part of it is fear (I think?) I’ve had ROCD before but not been formally diagnosed but I have this concrete FEELING, hardly any thoughts- knowing I don’t like him, don’t like anything about him and knowing this relationship isn’t right for me and feeling I don’t want it

I agonised for days as it felt I was convinced I didn’t fancy him but when I seen him in person I did feel attracted, so that obsession has gone now. I’ve been crying, but it feels everything is gone. It’s this knowing feeling that’s annoying and now I just feel apathetic towards him- when he texts I don’t want to answer, don’t want to see him, feels I’m lying when he texts me saying nice things

Why am I like this? Is it ROCD- it doesn’t feel like it because it just feels a knowing I don’t want this- concrete and real and it’s like I’ve accepted it. I’m avoiding looking at pictures of him, it just feels I know I need to end it

Fundamentally he is EVERYTHING I have ever asked for so why don’t I want it? I feel I do struggle with relationships anyway, but he makes me feel so safe it’s like I get this overwhelming feeling in person with anxiety that knows it’s not gonna go anywhere and struggle to be present

The anxiety also hits worse in the morning as soon as I open my eyes , I feel I’m just blocking everything out and not thinking about him, I don’t want to do anything, just wanna stay in bed, don’t wanna see anyone

So sorry this is long :/

So my gf’s ex was being a bitch to me, and she went to talk to her in dm without me knowing, i told her the way she talked is disrespectfull and thah her ex will get a weird impression from her, and eventuallly the ex pointed out that shes being weirdly talktative to her etc, the ex even said she feels bad for me, im pissed that my gf continuesly gives her ex interested vibes, cuz shes not even self aware about it and ill forever hate that trait about her cuz its harming me, but its impossible to even help her realize, and she blames me for this aswell

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Hi. I'm suffering from rocd for the past 2 years. In the initial stages, it was too difficult to handle. But later everything became cool. I know that i love him. Now we r in a lomg distance relationship and he's preparing for his exams. So we get barely 30 mins to talk day.

Now it feels different to me. Like i feel like i don't miss him, i dont think abt him anymore, I'm just staying in this, not missing him anymore. And it doesn't bring any kinda physical anxiety to me🥲no more crying,no more heavy chests.

Once he is back home we talk a lot, amd it goes away🥹. Idk what to do. I just wanna know that I'm not alone

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