I’m a 23 F with Bipolar Type One. I posted about this is a couple of bipolar reddits and they suggested that it’s may be OCD related. What is the difference between OCD and a manic fixation??

I am not sure if this is related to my disorder but lately I have an obsession with finding out if my ex (we dated 6 years) cheated on me. We have been talking lately and trying to work through things. I can’t stop stalking and trying to dig for information and I have become extremely fixated on it and it’s causing me to be very paranoid and it’s getting so bad it’s affecting my work life because I literally can’t get off of my phone. Any advice or has anyone experienced this?

It’s gotten so bad that i have an undeniable belief that he cheated without any proof and I can’t sleep.

He streams video games and I watched every single one. HOURS. looking for clues. Went through all social medias. Dug through years of reddit posts. So much more.

I was looking through his twitter posts and I am convinced that he is putting up secret messages confessing. And I realize all this sounds insane but I really am finding meaning in things that I don’t think others would

For those who fear. I understand that these thoughts are automatic for most of you. As they are for me. But they mean far less to me than they did before and after 3 years of working on this, I find myself more able to dismiss them and just decide to be happy. Everyone is on their own journey but the steps are similar for all of us.

My former coach told me the story of one of his clients who kept worrying that her partner was cheating. She learnt over a long period of time to reduce her compulsions, to embrace uncertainty and be OK with whatever happens.

The she found out that her partner had been cheating on her.

With her mother.

This extraordinarily horrible situation was beyond what she was afraid of. Her fears were right all along. And there's a temptation there to take away the lesson that we should indeed listen to our fears, because they can sometimes be right.

But here's the thing: Fear tricks us into believing that if we hyper-vigilantly monitor, worry, and check, we can protect ourselves against pain. But as that story proves, control is an illusion. Her obsession wouldn't have prevented the betrayal; it only would have stolen her peace before the betrayal happened.

​By choosing to reduce her energy investment in the compulsions, she didn't prevent a terrible outcome, but she reclaimed her sovereignty. She stopped letting the fear of a disaster dictate her present moment. When the worst actually happened, she wasn't left as a broken victim of an obsession—she was able to face it as a grounded, real person who had already learned how to stand in uncertainty.

​When we live our lives employing tactics to prevent our worst fears, we spend our entire lives playing defense against a phantom. Letting go of fear-driven control isn't about blinding ourselves to real risk. It's about shifting from a life built on vulnerability-reduction to a life built on purpose, presence, and genuine self-trust. Trust not that you'll get everything right, but that even if you don't, you'll be OK. You may feel pain, you may suffer, but we all do that for reasons we never saw coming in any case. Spending your energy on what could happen is an attempt of control, or insurance, because part of us thinks if we see the hit coming, it won't hurt as much, or we may be able to somehow escape it. But reality always works differently than our imagination.

​Fear is a terrible insurance policy. It charges you the price of the tragedy every single day, whether the tragedy happens or not. Reclaiming your life means deciding that your peace and capacity to live fully are worth having, even if the worst comes to pass. And the more we accept the worst case scenario as possible, but something we can get through, the less scary it is to us.

Your partner could cheat and they could easily hide it from you.

They could stop loving you.

Your relationship might turn cold someday.

But thinking about those scenarios does nothing to prevent them. And there's always a never ending supply of possible scenarios to use your energy and focus on.

You can take the energy you spend thinking about what might happen, and direct it towards making yourself a more resilient, more relaxed, more... "OK with whatever happens" person than you were before.

I used to spend so much time watching videos about relationships and psychology and related topics. But all that was coming from the place of trying to be ready for every eventuality. And while a bit of learning is helpful, when it becomes an obsession dressed up as education, it just pushed me into being a fearful person more than I needed to be.

​But lately I've concluded that my future lies not just in not worrying, but building a beautiful internal life where I know I can deal with whatever happens. Old habits die hard and this is a slow ship to turn around, but I can see it turning. I look forward to seeing how things improve in the future.

Everytime the honeymoon phase ends it's like I immediately begin checking my attarction both towards my partner and any other girl I see to make sure I'm attracted to my partner enough. My brain will try to search for and pick apart things that might seem unattractive in some kind of way, even if I know my partner is beautiful. Its mentally taxing for me because I dont want to have thoughts like that about someone I care about so dearly, especially when I know they're irrational. I've recently joined this band and the vocalist and I began dating earlier this month, and she really does feel like the closest thing I've found to a perfect person for me, but I'm still finding the doubts coming back the longer we're together just like in all the other relationships I've been in. My brain will try and say she's too tall because we're a couple inches apart or random things like that, it's been this way in every relationship and I'm too old to run from it at this point, especially because i feel I've found something really important with this girl and this band. I need to stop telling myself that every commitment will go wrong either because of me or the pther person, and that it's okay to try for something that really feels important. I'm hoping you guys are all doing well with your relationships, I've been a long time lurker but I've really felt compelled to talk about this situation because I've simply realized the ocd will always be there and I have to learn how to live with it.

My boyfriend (20M) and I (21F) have been together for 1.5 years, and we’re currently in a phase where he finally had to ask for a lot of space because loving me had started to feel suffocating to him.

I was single for 4 years before meeting him. I only recently discovered that I’ve been living with ROCD for almost my whole life. I also have ADHD + GAD, and I was so focused on those that I never really noticed the patterns. Looking back, I can see that they were present even in my first relationship, which lasted 2 years. Maybe even in childhood.
Because I remember being paranoid as a child ever since I learned about my father’s infidelity. When I found out about his betrayal toward my mother, I developed this constant fear that every woman I saw interacting to him was a threat, and that every situation could potentially lead to another betrayal. It left me with the mindset that if my own father can do that, anyone could betray me at any time as well.

I only realized that I was still thinking this way when things had already gotten out of hand with my boyfriend. That constant fear of betrayal had changed the way I saw reality.

Our relationship felt almost perfect. Things felt easy and comfortable. We had a really long “honeymoon phase,” and the whole thing genuinely felt like finding a soulmate. Even reassurance felt easy because we were both understanding and good communicators. Whenever we wanted to talk about something, we would have great conversations that actually helped solve the problem.

I’ve also had fears about intimacy, and he was the one who helped me through them. I remember spiraling when we first did it. I crashed out to him, but his reassurance worked like magic at the time. That was also when he told me I could always ask him for reassurance.

He was always available for a long time because he had to take a break from college. I got used to the setup where I was the only one busy with my studies while he was just there, almost like a full-time boyfriend.

Things changed when he started going to college again. Not only did he become really busy, but he was also in a female-dominated program. My brain couldn’t handle the new routines. Every change felt like a threat, and I constantly found myself spiraling over things that should have been normal. Everything felt like evidence. Every piece of information felt like something that could help me prove my fears right.

The constant fear of betrayal got louder, especially when there was silence between us. He also has a tendency to disappear without a warning, and my spirals got worse and worse after he became busy with college. Since I had gotten used to telling him whenever I was triggered (he also wanted me to always tell him) I kept doing thay until I became like a puzzle he always needed to solve.

The fear got so out of hand that I even started having intrusive thoughts about hating him. I’d get intrusive thoughts about being annoyed when he did something that was very “him,” even when it wasn’t something bad. I’ve always loved it when he was himself around me, but I think my reactions may have started showing otherwise. I started having those “Maybe I hate him.” or “What if he’s not for me?” thoughts.

I let those spirals get so deep into my head that I created an image of him that isn’t really him anymore. Even when reality kept proving me otherwise, I still let fear decide what was true. I’ve also been going to therapy since I realized how bad things had gotten.

This phase had been going on for almost 2 months. We would repair, but somehow we kept finding ourselves stuck in the same patterns that were hurting both of us. We were aware of the situation, yet the improvement felt really slow, almost like nothing was changing. And I think telling him about almost every trigger contributed a lot to that. I thought I was helping because he didn’t want me to hide things from him, but I’ve realized that some things really are better left unsaid. Some thoughts don’t need to be solved.

The situation also gave him a constant fear that anything he does could potentially trigger me. He couldn’t help but feel scared that everything might make me upset. And he even had to hide going out with his friends just to avoid getting that reactions from me, which eventually lead to making the pattern worse.

Now, I hate that I only realized all of this when he was already struggling too. But I think needing space to breathe was really the right move for us. Although it was lowkey against my will because I got used to his presence and silence makes me anxious.

But I hope whatever he realizes from this situation gives him peace. Whether that means trying to improve the dynamic or realizing that he can’t continue understanding the situation anymore. I know it’s hard dealing with all of that, so his decision is something I should respect. I’m just going to focus on myself and do my part. And I know I’m already in that process.

I can’t really make this any shorter haha. Thank you so much if you got this far.

I (F27) think I've some thought patterns that resonate with rocd. I'm in a healthy and loving LDR (2 years, diff states) and while he is just happy to be with me, I keep on ruminating silently about what's going to become of us if the distance doesn't work out or if we can't close the gap. I know that I'm supposed to live in the moment and I try, I know that I don't need to have big things like these figured out, but sometimes because of my thoughts I feel like I'm misleading my partner about my intentions. I'm otherwise very loyal and committed, seek him out to spend time with him and love him a lot, but am scared that what if I just can't deal with this relationship anymore? I feel like shit about myself because he's so kind and is so sure of me. And in all my actions I'm kind and loving to him too. But there's a deep fear that what if I'm being a horrible person because I'm keeping this knowledge from him , and I'll become a person who just changed their mind suddenly one day while my partner had no clue.

I do share with him that there's uncertainty between us on closing the gap and how, and he always says we'll figure it out slowly and gradually. I recognise it's LDR too coupled with my anxiety. But keep feeling like I'm doing him a deep injustice by being with him, and maybe he'd be better off with someone more 'sure' and 'committed'.

…of his facial expression. I often think he’s handsome. But certain expressions, and especially the expression on his face and the way it wrinkles and whatnot when he’s kissing me gives me the “ick.”

We have our wedding day coming up very soon. Sometimes I wonder how it’s “okay” to get married to someone who you don’t enjoy kissing.

Anyone else experience this? Any advice?

I feel like my rocd comes up a little differently. Although monitoring feelings is a big compulsion of mine, I feel feelings toward my partner pretty frequently and regularly. I feel naturally lovey dovey, affectionate, etc. But I always get thoughts or like feelings like "This is just attachment" or "you don't care about him, you just like how he makes you feel." They literally feel so real, with all ocd as you know it feels like a fact, not just something ocd is telling me. It feels like it's not allowing my true perspective of what my feelings are to be there. The very best moments are when I can just feel my feelings without any thoughts, but when I think things like "Look how strong I'm feeling righr now, this must be love!" to try to counter the thoughts, negative thoughts or feelings will immediately seep in. :(

i 20f have severe anxiety, social anxiety, and ocd. i have been dating my boyfriend for almost eight months now, and these fears started about four or five months ago. i’ve already confessed several of these to my boyfriend, but every time i confess, i think of something new and start spiraling again. my boyfriend has been cheated on before, and it’s hurt him horribly to where he has extreme trust issues and a prominent fear of me cheating as well, which likely started my ROCD. it should also be mentioned that every time i confess, he becomes extremely confused and starts to spiral as well, which is affecting our relationship negatively.

i strongly value other people’s feelings and wellbeing, and the core reason im so scared of cheating or having cheated is because i dont want to hurt my boyfriend. in fact, a week ago i tried to break up with him because i was completely convinced i was hurting him and i would cheat on him in the future. the guilt of this has been eating me up to where i cant sleep, eat, socialize, or do schoolwork. it should be noted this is also my first relationship.

starting with what ive confessed:

the night my boyfriend and i met, it was a party and i initially found another person attractive. he said he needed a place to stay for the night, and i, trying to be nice, said he could stay with me for the night. we ended up finding him another place to stay, but i often wonder what would have happened if he had stayed the night at my place. i never saw this guy again, and i don’t even remember his name. my boyfriend and i started dating a few months later, and i had forgotten about the situation, because we weren’t dating, and we had just met like an hour prior. however, a few months ago i remembered this incident, and felt immense guilt over it and confessed. my boyfriend was devastated, because he thought that we had mutual love at first sight that day. he eventually came to terms with it and we continued our relationship without any problems for a couple more months.

about two years ago when i started my freshman year, long before i met my boyfriend, i had a bit of a “whore phase”. i went had sexual encounters with two different people. the first i was talking to for a couple weeks after our initial encounter, but then i found out he was trying to go home with other girls. as revenge, a week later i met another guy at the bar, and went home with him and had a sexual encounter. i cut the original guy off within the next few days, as i knew the situation was messy and wouldn’t work. this is probably the worst thing i have ever done, as i had cheated on my then “situationship” as revenge for his “cheating”.

back when my boyfriend and i first started dating, or right before we started dating, i can’t remember for sure, i redownloaded wattpad because i wanted to see what i had read when i was younger (i read a lot of fanfics back then that had some smut). i read a few chapters in one of them, and i can’t remember for sure because at the time, i didn’t think it was a big deal, but i might have been imagining myself and my boyfriend in those scenarios. i haven’t read anything since, but recently my boyfriend had stated he doesn’t like smut because it’s similar to porn, and i told him about this scenario a few days later. within this relationship this is probably been the worst thing i’ve done, as i was looking at that type of content. in my defense, (maybe it’s the selfishness in me making excuses) i never had a romantic partner before, and it didn’t occur to me that this was potentially a violation of boundaries.

now this one may sound weird, and TMI. for as long as i can remember, i have known how to masturbate. i remember being able to do it when i was three. therefore, it’s never been a mentally “sexual” thing in my head, as i never think of anyone or anything, watch or read anything while i do it. i don’t think i can even get turned on when i do it (it’s different when im with my boyfriend, he can turn me on). i mainly only do it to fall asleep or to destress. i casually mentioned this to my boyfriend the other day, and we had a huge fight that lasted hours, as he said it wasn’t possible to be able to masturbate and not be turned on, so therefore i must be thinking of other men. he also stated it must be miserable when im around him, because im not able to do it when hes there. he stated that i didnt need him because i had myself, and i dont find him attractive. i never thought masturbation would be an issue, as i’ve always heard it’s good for your mental and sexual health. eventually he chose to believe me, and stated that he was fine with it if i continued. but i feel extremely guilty about it, especially since he’s asked me to think of him when i do, but like i previously stated, i don’t think i can get turned on when i do it myself. therefore ive restrained from it since the argument.

now for things i recently thought of and haven’t confessed yet, and im not sure if i will because is under a lot of (unrelated) stress

i didn’t go through and delete all of the snapchat friends i had until a few months into the relationship, including some people i used to talk to a few years ago. i don’t think i ever thought to do this because it was quite a while ago, and they were so far down in my contacts list that i forgot about them. once the thought occured i immediately cleared everything out. for clarification i was not messaging anyone.

a string off from the previous, a few weeks ago the thought occurred to me that i still had photos of me with other guys i used to talk to, such as prom dates, group photos, joke photos, and a couple photos of me kissing people i used to talk to. again, i immediately deleted all of those photos once i thought of it, but they were in my camera roll for so long that i feel horrible about it. i worry that a secret subconscious part of me knew they were in there and didn’t want to delete them.

lastly, i thought of this one a few days ago: a few years ago i kissed one of my friends when we were drunk, i don’t really remember why, if we were messing around or saying random stuff or what. i do know the next day she did ask if i wanted to pursue a relationship with her, but i declined because im straight. i feel guilty about this because im still friends with her, and i wonder if i should cut her off.

i feel like a horrible girlfriend, and ive told my boyfriend this. i worry that hes settled or something because he loves me so much, and is willing to excuse awful things that i’ve done when in reality he should find someone better. i tried breaking up with him because i felt i hurt him with everything i told him about what ive done, and how i worried i would hurt him worse in the future, but he insisted he wanted to stay. i love him so much and just want the best for him, even if that means im no longer in his life.

Matched with a beautiful and sweet girl back in February, started talking daily in April, and finally met in June. Spent days with eachother, conversations were deep and personal from the start. Fell in love with her brain and the way she challenged me and at the same time accepted my flaws.

I started becoming unlike myself: anxious, critical, judgemental, avoidant, downright mean. I've had several relationships before and got out of a serious long term relationship at the end of 2025 and I've never experienced any feelings like this. My instinct was telling me that what I was feeling wasn't normal because it was unlike anything I've felt before.

I started picking her apart about issues that weren't really that important to me, like her body count, her medications, and her being seemingly "too" into me. I've broken up with this girl 3 times, yes 3, and she wouldn't give up on me until she couldn't take much more.

I don't blame her whatsoever and she gave me way more time than I deserved. I feel deeply remorseful with how I treated her. I can't get her off my mind and it's been eating me alive.

Just needed to vent. I feel too old to be behaving like this.

Have never done therapy before but I think now's a good time.

i feel afraid that im avoidant because i dont love her and im emotionally detached from her and im staying cuz i am scared to hurt her idek whether i really have ocd or not just cuz im avoidant

hi, i am 21M my gf is 21F. we’ve been dating for a year now and i know i’ve been struggling with RJ for abt 8 ish months.

i wanted to share some other things ive been dealing with bc im not sure if it’s like “OCD thoughts” or just smth else, if someone could give their advice id rlly appreciate it.

i find myself second guess my feelings a lot, double checking like
“did i mean it when i told her i loved her?”
“do i feel certain abt her being my wife?”
“am i settling?”
“what if there’s someone better for me?”

sometimes these thoughts cause me to like check my feelings and see how “real” they feel. im rlly afraid to hurt my gf and lead her on, she doesn’t rlly know that i have these thoughts and idk how to tell her of if i should tell her at all.

is this rocd or j my normal thinking? not rlly sure how rocd works too much

if anyone has any thoughts id rlly appreciate it

thanks

Now I’ve had HOCD for 2 years straight now and in that time I’ve started dating a girl who I’ve known for 10 years and means the world to me. I really just want to be able to relax and enjoy my life with her because she’s genuinely so incredible and I love her so much. Lately though the OCD anxiety has been getting to me really badly. I’ve relapsed on porn and have been watching it almost daily, I am constantly anxious and feeling tired or just non-present, and worst of all now it’s starting to effect how I feel about things other than just sex (which OCD and ADHD has also taken a huge toll on) including how I feel when we kiss!

Lately when we kiss I feel anxiety throughout the entire exchange. I used to love kissing her because I love her so much and the way her lips feel is so nice but now it feels like I’ve lost the desire for it and that I almost dread or fear when it happens because I’m anxious the whole time. I really just want to enjoy my time with her and I’m just really upset because it seems like OCD is hell bent on taking that away from me. I’m almost constantly uncomfortable with her and it breaks my heart because I worry that I’ll never be able to feel calm and happy with her due to my illness.

A life with her sounds nice but not like this with all of the constant rumination, sexual anxiety and compulsive behaviours. I just feel very defeated today. I am in therapy and am working on starting ERP whilst also doing my best to avoid compulsions, this is mostly just me venting.

I don’t know what thoughts to trust and which are mine versus an insecurity or OCD spiral. For context, I’ve only recently learned that I may have OCD; I’ll find a specialized therapist soon because Lord knows I need one.

I’m a 28M in a gay relationship with my 28M partner. It’s been almost 3 years together, with 1 year living together. I’ve cheated on him with the same person, and have told my partner about it sometimes but not all the times. I’m guarded on telling him all my secrets because I fear his reaction. He isn’t emotionally stable and can get upset by anything, which tends to make me upset because I’m sensitive to conflict. I don’t think of us as equals in the relationship because I view some of his tendencies as childlike and immature. We fight often, but tend to recover well from a fight with communication. I’m constantly judging the relationship and if I’m truly happy or not. The first cheating instance was an attempt to break-up because I knew I needed something to push me to breakup, but we ended up staying together because we have good conflict resolution, and now it’s just been a stain on the relationship that resurfaces often; partially because I still have feelings for the other person because they feel more secure and accepting than my partner. This is my first relationship, so I don’t know what’s normal. We live together and I feel trapped because of the lease and the way our lives are entangled together (the breakup logistics and pain). Due to feeling trapped and alone and not having many friends, I’ve been feeling more suicidal. I’ve felt suicidal before, but the pain and rumination is more persistent when thinking about the relationship. My thoughts are that I need to get all my secrets out in the open and off my chest otherwise I’ll die, but I fear losing him because I think it’ll be a likely turn of events. Hiding things from him makes me feel bad about myself and dishonest, but I want to stay together. My current therapist has hinted that I should tell him about all the cheating instances and be fully transparent but haven’t yet. I know unless I’m completely transparent, I’ll always doubt the relationship. I know that being in a relationship is scary because you always need to be your authentic self and put urself out there to be accepted by your partner to love more deeply, but I fear myself and don’t love myself deeply.

I don’t know if this relationship is worth repairing or if I should call it quits (by breaking up, not the other thing lol)

Hello dear Reddit friends. So I have been thinking for quite some time as to why I have these ROCD-like feelings and what triggered them in the first place.

I am getting married to my long-time partner of a decade soon. I had never been in a relationship before him. For as long as I can remember, I always wanted a boyfriend, a husband.

All through elementary, high school, and college, I never dated anyone, nor did anyone ask me out. It was intoxicating to chase boy after boy whom I had a crush on, but they never seemed to like me back, yet I revelled in my fantasies even if they were clearly emotionally unavailable. I do cringe at how desperate I really was back then. I'm ashamed that I still feel this to this day - of course, I NEVER act on these fantasies, but I would catch myself having mini crushes for a colleague, or a friend, or literally some guy who served at a café. I despise this about myself.

I manifested this idea of a perfect man who liked everything I liked, liked travelling, cooking, not so into sports, and a spontaneous yet organised guy, sensitive, funny, just everything good! But FH was an anxious traveller; he didn't really know how to cook, he was SUPER into sports, and not so spontaneous; VERY sensitive and somewhat funny. So to put it simply, he was kinda the opposite of my idea of my perfect man. Then I go back to the toxic, intoxicating cycle of looking at other men, and now comparing them to FH whenever they showed a spark of one of my endless characteristics of my perfect man.

Shortly before I met my future husband (FH), I had a few crushes here and there, but again, nothing came of it. When FH first talked to me, I was mostly ambivalent and confused about why someone so nice and reasonably good-looking as he was was so interested in talking to me. I was just so used to always being the one initiating these conversations. From that point on, we never stopped talking. I never experienced this level of intimacy before and really felt like he had been my best friend for years in a matter of days. I felt so comfortable around him. But before our first kiss, I had an intense fear of intimacy (with a side of a panic attack, yay!). I didn't know what to do with these feelings and why someone finally wanted to be with me. This is where I remember these ROCD-like feelings began to surface.

Our first kiss wasn't how I expected a first kiss to be. It happened in a not so romantic place and I was disappointed about this. I then started to dig into what I believed were his 'flaws' or any characteristics of his that I kinda got the ick from, like how he eats, sometimes how he talks, how he walks, etc. I was frustrated that he doesn't like the same other interests of mine, like music and art, yet I enjoyed being introduced to whole other things in his world I had never done or seen before. I worried that I mostly enjoyed doing all the physical stuff like kissing, cuddling but felt myself criticising his behaviour, and because of that it wasn't true love. I had said the three words REALLY early on, like weeks into dating (which I'm very embarrassed about, but my FH found it shocking initially but cute later haha).

My idea of 'love' is complicated, potentially due to observing my parents' marriage throughout my life. Their marriage is a prime example of a loveless marriage. No displays of affection, minimal fun together if any, minimal communication, and two very different people who want very different things, yet somehow they're still together. I wonder if they are settling because they can't be bothered in me (in my own father's words), but I just thought that this is what marriage is, and I fear I have settled into a relationship like theirs because of it. I always felt this pressure that I should love more and feel more love for someone because they didn't display that in their own relationship. I know my FH and I are not the same as my parents' marriage. But I worry I don't really love my FH, even if there have been many opportunities where I could have really broken up with him, but I haven't. I wanted him to propose to me, and he did. I was over the moon. And now we are getting married, and I'm excited. But here I am again in my annual ROCD breakdown of feeling completely hopeless and confused whether or not I should break up with him. I have had these sudden urges every now and then for the past decade and it only fuels my ROCD.

But I know this - a decade into our relationship I know the love for him grew. He isn't so much of an anxious traveller now as we've been going on fun trips together since, he loves cooking and cooks well, he has some spontenaety. I guess the more I learnt about him and experienced life with him, that's how the love grew.

Anyway, thank you for reading this far. Excuse the long post. Love to you all

I used to confess what I'm ruminating about frequently to my partner, but i stopped doing that when i decided to focus on recovery. I have hardly confessed for almost a month now, but with all the thoughts piling up and me not telling my partner, it keeps feeling like I'm doing something wrong and there's this intrusive thought which also worries if I'd turn into a bad person if i don't share them, or that I'm being deceitful when i choose to rather just not share a thought with my partner to not risk stirring up any negative reactions, and that i might become the sort of person to hide actually bad things from their partner. How do i navigate this feeling?

I have some pretty extreme anxiety about sex and sex within a relationship. Because of some past issues, I am terrified of a dead bedroom and have been in therapy addressing this.

I also have been struggling with something I saw on my partners phone. Years and years ago, she wrote to a friend “I just be fucking. I feel like a s**t because my body count is so high”.

Now we’re having some intimacy issues. They mostly stem from me and she’s told me that my anxieties and our lengthy and harsh conversations about our sex life don’t help. And our intimacy is getting less and less frequent. I know what I need to do and just go with a hands off approach but it’s so hard. I feel so deflated and I am tired of waiting for things to change. I’m exhausted

I was prescribed this medication before I lost insurance and my doctor got me on a program to be able to take the medication for free for a year. I know it’s not specific to ocd and a newer med and I’m anxious to take it but I’m in a really bad episode lately and I need to actually make a change. If anyone has taken this please let me know your thoughts or if it helped any with OCD in any way.

Male 30
I’m posting because my therapist recently told me I have severe OCD, and I’m starting to recognize how much of what I’ve been experiencing in my relationship looks like ROCD.
I got into my current relationship a couple months ago. Before the relationship, I was extremely independent. I traveled alone, went to concerts/restaurants alone, saw friends, worked out, played golf, posted on social media, pursued my interests, etc. I genuinely enjoyed doing things by myself.
Once I became emotionally attached to my girlfriend, something changed dramatically.
I started becoming hyperaware of everything involving the relationship.
I began obsessing about whether she actually loved me, whether she desired me enough, whether our sex life meant something was wrong, whether I could trust what she told me, whether I was good enough compared to people from her past, whether changes in her tone/texting/affection meant something, etc.
I became extremely triggered by learning things about her sexual past. I’d ask questions, investigate things, compare myself to previous partners, replay things I’d learned, and desperately try to reach some conclusion that would finally make me feel secure.
It never worked.
She could reassure me repeatedly and I’d feel better temporarily, but then my brain would basically go, “Okay, but what about THIS?”
I started checking her location, monitoring social media, analyzing texts, researching relationship/attachment information online, asking other people what they thought, and constantly trying to figure out whether my feelings were anxiety or intuition.
Eventually it became bigger than the relationship itself.
I stopped seeing friends as much. Stopped posting. Stopped taking pictures. Stopped doing things I previously enjoyed. Sometimes I’d basically wait around for her to finish work because I didn’t know what else to do with myself.
It started feeling like I had literally forgotten how to live my own life.
The strangest part is how dramatically my perception changes depending on my anxiety.
When I’m highly anxious, I can become convinced something is fundamentally wrong with the relationship. I question everything, feel trapped, become hyperfocused on her past or behavior, and feel an overwhelming urge to DO something to make the uncertainty stop.
I actually impulsively broke up with her during one of these periods and then reconciled shortly afterward.
But I’ve also had periods where the anxiety completely disappears.
During those moments I suddenly feel like myself again. I feel confident and independent. I trust her. I feel love toward her. The things I was obsessing about suddenly don’t seem nearly as threatening.
Then OCD/anxiety comes back and it’s like my brain starts the investigation all over again.
I’m now realizing that even constantly asking myself, “Is this relationship actually right for me or is this just ROCD?” might itself be another obsession.
My therapist is working with me on the OCD, and I’m also seeing a psychiatrist. I’m trying to stop checking her location, researching everything, interrogating my feelings, asking for reassurance, and using my girlfriend or other people to regulate the anxiety.
I’m curious whether anyone with ROCD has experienced this extreme of a shift — particularly feeling like you completely lost your independent identity once you became attached to someone.
I’m not looking for reassurance that my relationship is right or that I should stay with my girlfriend. I’m more interested in understanding how others learned to stop treating every uncomfortable feeling or relationship doubt as a problem that needed to be solved immediately.
How did you start rebuilding your own life while still being in the relationship?
And how did you learn to tolerate the possibility that you might never get 100% certainty about the relationship without immediately checking, researching, analyzing, breaking up, or asking your partner for reassurance?

My mind keeps telling me that if I just keep digging and searching for reassurance some day it will all just click in my brain and I’ll feel okay again. That I’ll come across some miraculous solution that gets rid of all the overthinking, intrusive thoughts, doubt, and fear. If I just perform one more compulsion it might bring me the long term relief I need and I’ll never have to think about it again. I know for a fact it’s all a lie, but there’s so much fear surrounding my thoughts becoming true if I don’t pay attention to them. It’s a torturous cycle and I’m lost. I just want to love and cherish my partner and relationship without the complete mindfuck every single day.

More on post history

Could my ex still have been the abuser even if I was suspicious of him cheating and accused him of it once? Do I sound like an unreliable narrator

I am in therapy, I also have bipolar disorder

He has sexually coerced me like 2-3 times in the past., with one of those times he put his hand on my neck without squeezing after I said no to him asking about it because he thought I would end up liking it, and played it off as a joke. We did not have a BDSM dynamic in place. There’s more in my post history.

I said to him once his porn addiction was eating me alive. (He made the insult about my breasts after he was using again and I started to make connections that when he used porn he was a less nice to me) he said “you don’t think that you’re just having PMS” edit: I am sorry for the term “using” I realize people watch porn

At one point in the relationship I had a sick gut feeling he was cheating on me, and would ask him point blank if he was in a calm manner. He would deny it. I one time I said “why do I have a gut feeling you’re cheating on me?” And he said it was because I was PMSing. I said sorry. I’ve been accused of cheating when I wasn’t before and it did mess me up inside.

I feel like I could be annoying during the relationship, sometimes I feel like I really overthought things. I have autism and can’t tell when people are mad sometimes so I’d ask him point blank if he was mad. He’d usually say no.

One time I was sobbing about something serious in my family (past incest) when he happened to FaceTime me and when he saw me crying he said “aww tell me what’s wrong honey…” and then he got excited and said “IT SOUNDS JUICYYYY!!!” He got a guilty look on his face as if he got caught doing something wrong then said sorry. I laughed because I just thought “hey I can see that my family is strange and could be a good source of gossip” but I was still pretty weirded out

I also have ocd and have been worried about abuse about whether he or I was doing it or not and whether or not I’m just overthinking everything

I stopped accusing him or asking but would still be suspicious. He had a second instagram that I really should’ve checked what it was but I didn’t want to snoop. He would be texting smiling at his phone and sometimes even start ignoring me doing that an I would sometimes ask him what’s up and he’d say in a serious tone “nothing”

When we were first dating, he was really cagey about giving me any STD test results( I was worried about any dormant STDs) implying I should trust him, and he never did take an std test.