Forum Replies Created
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anitaParticipantDear Going Through Life:
You are welcome. The good thing about the latest interaction with her (you sending her the message and her responding) is that you got the information you needed and “clarity about a relationship” (in the title of your thread), or better say, clarity about the possibility of a relationship with EN.
If you didn’t send her a message at all, you’d be wondering if there’s a chance with her. If you sent her a message accusing her of lying about meeting someone else (in your original draft of the message), and she didn’t respond positively, you might have wondered if the reason was your accusation.
Since you sent an appropriate, non-accusatory, fair message, you can trust that you received clear and definite response.
“I’m accepting the situation. I had strong and have really positive feelings about her but looks like it’s time for something better.“- I very much like your attitude and optimism! I am looking forward to be reading about you being in a good relationship, soon enough.
anita
anitaParticipantDear gresshoppe:
You are welcome!
“My own sense is that he is genuinely nice“- some people are genuinely nice at times, or in certain contexts.
“but is trying very hard to attach to me because.. of something else that is missing? He is going to have to figure that part out.“- it could be that the something missing in his life is.. sex:
“he kept texting me all the time, saying how much he missed me. Then he started sexting me. I told him to stop and he apologized, but then he did it again“- driven perhaps by the 200 hundred million years old mammalian motivation: to mate.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Ben:
Does the following (quote from an online source) fits your mother?
“individuals who have a pervasive, persistent, and enduring mistrust of others, and a profoundly cynical view of others and the world… hypervigilant to physical, verbal or social attacks, and do not trust others, and therefore tend to have few if any close or intimate associates. They tend to be aloof, cold, distant, argumentative, and frequently complain. They may appear guarded and secretive, very rational, logical, and unemotional, but at times will be sarcastic, hostile, and rigid. Generally they have a difficult time getting along with others.. tend to do poorly with group activities and collaborative projects. They will be highly critical of others, but will respond to criticism of themselves with hostility or defensiveness…
“will believe others are using, lying to, or harming them, without apparent evidence thereof… have doubts about the loyalty and trustworthiness of others… will not confide in others due to the belief that their confidence will be betrayed… will interpret ambiguous or benign remarks as hurtful or threatening, and Hold grudges.. In the absence of objective evidence, believe their reputation or character are being assailed by others, and will retaliate in some manner and.. Will be jealous and suspicious without cause that intimate partners are being unfaithful.”
Coming to think of it, how much of the above fits you (and what doesn’t fit)?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Ben:
“Yesterday I could tell in the call with him he was starting to bear some resentment towards me because of my constant gloominess as of late… He said sometimes its like trying to fill in a hole that is impossible to fill. Or leading a thirsty man to water yet he refuses go drink“- yes, reads true, he has an accurate understanding of the situation.
“Like, as you said, a part of me refuses to accept love“- I think that you’ve been projecting your father into him, angry that he didn’t love you (when you were growing up), and refusing his love, as in protesting: Now you love me? TOO LATE!
Projection is tricky. The unloved child within us lives in the past.
“Yet with this guy who I love and has shown he wants to commit etc… I’m constantly trying to pick it apart. Like when a cat gets stuck in something“- I typed the above before reading this part, and this part here fits with what I typed above. You are indeed stuck in something: the past. The child within you, that is.
“allergic to just going with the flow“- I think that the child within you (a dominant part of you) refuses to go with the flow until such time that he is loved back there-and-then. It’s an impossibility, of course.. but he is stuck there. He doesn’t know that time has moved on.
“But whenever was love about protecting yourself from it?“- never. We protect ourselves from hurt, not from love. You anticipate hurt (in the future), so you protect yourself from it. Only again, it’s tricky: you are already hurt, and have been hurt for many years.
“Me living with my parents probably doesn’t help… my mother constantly acting as if my father is trying to undermine her/outwit her or take advantage… My mother has a lot of baggage – she holds on to receipts from supermarket shops from years ago“- I didn’t know this about your mother, she’s suspicious, untrusting. I am going to add a post in regard to this part after I submit this one.
“I’m constantly creating resentments too – reminding myself of ways I could be being taken advantage of or how I could be pulling cotton wool over my eyes… my mother constantly acting as if my father is trying to undermine her/outwit her or take advantage“- suspicion passed on by your mother.
“My boyfriend made mistakes, as anyone does, but I can’t seem to forgive him even as time marches on. I have to sort of deconstruct everything he does to make sure there isn’t a sign of this or that in his behaviour, so that there is no risk of betrayal or upset.“- I think that it can be a great help for you if you express the betrayal and upset that you experienced growing up (which you still experience because your child-within is living in the past). If you express thoughts and emotions involved in context of the then-and-there (the people and situations of the past), you’d be less likely to project the past into the present.
You can express it here, in your thread, if you want to. You can look at my thread, Fear, Anxiety and Healing. I submitted a post there yesterday about what I am suggesting that you do (the red wine is optional, of course, it’s not a recommendation, lol).
anita
anitaParticipantDear John:
“moving way too fast and saying way too much too early in a relationship… I just need to practice the patience I am so desperately trying to learn… I just need some support with patience“-
– Here’s a quote from Goodreads that’s relevant: “Patience is where we realize that to rush something is to compromise it to its own destruction. Maturity is to realize that the most effective way to stop the destruction is by beginning to develop patience. And the first place that we need to do that is with ourselves.” (Craig D. Lounsbrough, a counselor/ life coach)
Here’s a quote from the bible (1 Corinthians 13:14), also relevant: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
Quotes like these inspire me to develop more patience.
A major factor in learning patience is tolerating discomfort, to say to yourself, when uncomfortable (anxious, hurt, angry, bored.. impatient): This is merely uncomfortable, not intolerable. In other words, increase your tolerance for discomfort. It is an emotion regulation skill, aka distress tolerance. In developing distress tolerance, mindfulness practices are very helpful. Regularly listening to/ watching guided meditations, available free online, is one such practice.
For the impatient, it’s difficult to slow down as the guided meditation requires, but if you tolerate the initial discomfort involved, it will help you tremendously in learning/ developing patience.
anita
anitaParticipantContinued:
I realized lately that expressing my pain in regard to my mother was never enough because when I shared about it/ her, the intensity of it was suppressed or repressed. I shared from a dissociated state. So, it’s been like having a puss-filled wound, and you let only a bit of it out.. the wound is still full of pus.
Talking about my mother and pus… a mother.. and pus? That’s not pretty. Warning, trigger alert: not pretty!
I want to get the pus out of me, and with it the anxiety, more of it gone, peace instead. So, here it is (facilitated by red wine):
The truth is my mother loved ___ me. The missing part is: my mother loved to hate me. I was her place to project her rage at the people who hurt her. I was that place. She needed me for that purpose and she used me for that purpose.
Scared, scared little girl, scared big girl, scared.. there I am, there she is in front of me RAGING. Oh, how unexpected, poor little girl.. oh, the fuming mother-monster-creature, a wild animal about to kill.
You know about wars, wars raging these days.. that was my war, my mother raging. I was so scared, I had nowhere to run to, nowhere but there. Oh.. no!.. me, prey, about to be killed, she’s predator. Danger. Murder.
Strange how I forget the fear of death, the real-and-present danger of that time, it was nothing less than the fear of imminent death.
“I WILL KILL YOU!”, she announced and I believed her, no reason not to, and she hit me, didn’t kill me (I am alive to be telling about it), but there she was about to kill me, I didn’t know the result.
In those times, it wasn’t a daughter-mother situation, it was a prey-predator situation.
I think that I’ve been holding my breath ever since.
Looking back, I see the predator was my mother.. oh, what does it mean? How can it be that one’s mother would be one’s predator? Here come the explanations, but they don’t change the predator-prey trauma, that is, the prey kept alive to re-experience the not-yet finalized death.
I am alive, but I didn’t yet fully exhale, still holding my breath, the predator still there somewhere. Danger ongoing, anxiety.
May I exhale, knowing she is no longer my danger. It’s still hard to overcome the Betrayal, the fact that my predator was my mother, that my mother was my predator. A mother should never threaten to kill her child, yet this threat was something I lived with, and died with, so to speak, day in and day out.
I don’t want to be dying anymore. I don’t want to see her as a mother of any kind.
I didn’t have a mother.
anita
anitaParticipantDear antarkala:
I decided to post this evening (here). I hope that the above post about ROCD will be of some help to you. This evening I reread your posts as a preparation for my current reply. I tried to locate the core issues, to understand better. The following may be disturbing to read. I am sorry.
“I did tell my mother about my boyfriend and she told me he is not good enough for you“- I think that when she told you that he is not good enough for you, she delivered the almost certain kiss of death to the relationship.
“my boyfriend not being very social.. He is a monotonous person… he is not spiritual… I did get thoughts like ‘maybe he is not strong enough’, ‘maybe is not qualified enough’, ‘I don’t think he is manly enough’… “Am I settling for less?‘”- your mother’s message he is not good enough for you! was and is very powerful.
“She told me her instinct says he isn’t right and that she (suspected) that we planned to come to the USA because there was something going on – while in reality, there was nothing!… She said she suspected my boyfriend was trying to get me since in India… It took me a while to trust him after all that my mother said“- in addition to sending you the powerful message above, she also expressed inappropriate possessiveness of you, a sort of competition with your boyfriend, competition for your focus in life.
“My father was not a great husband… yes! I am that friend/ confidant of her. She shares everything with me. I started supporting her as I grew up and pushing her to stand up for herself and even stood up against my dad and my grandparents demanding she should be treated better for everything she does for the family. She gradually started doing that my dad keeps joking she gets courage in my presence and never listens to him“-in some significant ways, you took on the role of a man, a man fighting for your mother. In the context of daughter and mother, she was weak, you were strong; she was the woman, you were the man.
So much so, that your manly role extended to other contexts, you felt like a man, walked like a man and took on a lady don persona: “My school teacher once described me as a lady don to my dad and I once remember one of my teachers telling me my walk is too manly.. could never relate to girls having crushes.. The concept of having kids never appealed to me”.
A daughter’ relationship with her mother, when inappropriate (I mean emotionally inappropriate, not sexually inappropriate), can have lasting implications on the daughter’s gender identity and (dys)function within romantic relationships. This has been true in my case.
You wrote yesterday: “I’m still unable to decide and sometimes feel like something is missing, especially attraction. Is this just a very close friendship?… I’m tired of going in circles and feeling anxious from time to time that I feel like breaking up unable to take it anymore, but I know that I want to breakup with this anxiety and uncertainty more than the person.“- your mother is winning the competition with your boyfriend. Her powerful message is winning. Please arrange to see a competent psychotherapist who is willing to explore the idea that a relationship between a mother and her daughter (through no fault of the daughter) can be inappropriate. I think that you need clarity about your relationship with your mother before you can have clarity about your relationship with (any) boyfriend.
Things can get better, antarkala, it’s just that we have to be tough and go through what we need to get through .. so to get clarity, understanding and calm, best we can.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Gresshoppe:
“I started dating this guy in November… In December, he kept sending me messages saying he really missed me and couldn’t wait to see me. I felt overwhelmed by the attention… he kept texting me all the time, saying how much he missed me. Then he started sexting me. I told him to stop and he apologized, but then he did it again“- reads like he was love bombing you.
Psychology today/ love bombing: “a pattern of overly affectionate behavior that typically occurs at the beginning of a relationship, often a romantic one, in which one party ‘bombs’ the other with over-the-top displays of adoration and attention. This behavior can include showering the other person with gifts and/or compliments, declaring love early on, and/or taking steps to remain in constant contact and spend increasing amounts of time together. Love bombing is considered a deliberate and manipulative tactic that is deployed in order to gain the upper hand over a new partner…
“Common signs that someone is love bombing another person may include:.. * Early, frequent, and/or extreme declarations of love and affection (for example, saying ‘I love you,’ ‘You’re my soul mate,’ or ‘You’re everything I’m looking for’ on a first date, * Attempts to be in constant contact—for example, bombarding the other person with nonstop texts or phone calls.. * ignores attempts by the other person to set boundaries”.
“Now he says he is really sick and can’t handle an emotional conversation. I feel compassionate – I have some health problems and breakups are burdensome – but I’m starting to feel manipulated. I don’t want to prolong this, it will only hurt him and me more. Any thoughts?… I discussed it with my counselor, and she suggested that I close the door and keep it shut… everything inside of me is telling me to move forward and I don’t want to keep talking about it.“-
– my thoughts: absolutely, close the door and keep it shut, move forward, and don’t talk with him about anything, other than saying that you are moving on.
Is this the super nice guy you shared about in your previous thread (“I met someone super nice, but.. something is missing. There isn’t anything wrong with the new man. Just some level of connectedness that is missing”, Feb 22, 2024)? If it is, you must be disappointed that his super niceness was not genuine, but manipulative, are you?
anita
anitaParticipantDear antarkala:
It seems like I will not add a post on the above before tomorrow. I hope that you continue the work, shining light into the confusion (“Confused about relationship..“, title of your thread). It takes courage and perseverance to do this kind of work, and you have what it takes!
anita
April 2, 2024 at 10:04 am in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #430483anitaParticipantDear Robi:
Good to read again from you, as always!
“I guess things are hardly ever the way we expect them to be“- for as long as we keep expecting what is unrealistic to expect, lol.
“I’m now writing from a cafe in the centre of Warsaw”– sounds exotic, I’ve never been there, wanted to.
“I came here on Friday to spend the Easter holidays with my girlfriend. What a fast month this has been.. such contrast being again back here… This is great though! I stepped out of my comfort zone and again realised there isn’t much to be worried about. Actually, there’s nothing to be worried about. The only truly worrying situation was the one I was in – not taking action and not fully trusting myself. Almost sounds like a cliché – a bumper sticker I might one day stick to the bottom of my car“- not a cliche to me. I do wish you copied some of this into a plaque to put on the wall, or if small enough, to carry with you wherever you go.
“I understand why I wouldn’t trust myself… Now in my 30’s I see this version collapsing. Finally!“- C o N g R a T u L a T i O n S, Robi!
“Now, there are a few issues“- of course, there always are, sooner or later (nice to have breaks from issue though).
“Growing is great! I feel empowered and I seem to deal with my work life a lot better than I did before!… The thing is.. I don’t really like being an English teacher. I think I like teaching… I just don’t like teaching English… I feel like I’m working for peanuts… I jumped from being so anxious to feeling undervalued… I’m not going to quit my job.. but I’m now thinking of better options. There’s something burning inside of me! There’s a part of me that keeps telling me I can do a lot better and I want to listen to my inner voice… here I am now introspecting and writing it down. I needed this so much. I needed to zoom out but also zoom in. Now I feel like I want to learn more about honouring my authentic self… I feel like I need to expand more… I haven’t yet found my own way of expression – my voice, my fingerprint / the way I show up in the world“- Empowered, you want more of it, more power. The feeling of power-within is intoxicating, isn’t it? And then, from that feeling of personal power, envisioning how much greater life can be. . you underestimate how great it already is. The here-and-now seems inferior when you imagine greater things.
Please do listen and honor your authentic self and keep that something-inside of you burning, but turn the fire down so that you don’t get consumed in it. Don’t get carried away with the feeling of power. Keep yourself grounded in reality. And do look for better paying, less exhausting, more meaningful (for you) options.
“Luckily, I know a few things… I want to have my own way of doing things… I’ve recently heard someone say: ‘In modern society the opposite of courage isn’t cowardness, but conformity’ – this really resonated with me. I guess I’m that kind of guy.. who doesn’t want to join the masses – I don’t feel like having some meaningless job… I want to be again in tune with my inner child and with the desire and vision I know I once had…“- your inner child is excited, empowered and hopeful, and he needs Robi-the-adult’s guidance. Robi-the-adult needs to pace the child-within, to teach him to have his own way of doing things.. in realistic, reasonable ways.
No adult can get to a place of non-conformity without conforming in some ways. It is not one or the other. Dare to conform where and when needed, dare to not conform when it’s possible! And it is possible for you to not conform in someways, every day. Take advantage of these every day opportunities. No such opportunity is too small to bother with!
“Thank you so much for giving me this space! Sending you a big hug Robi“- you are very welcome, thank you for coming back here, and a big virtual hug back to you! Take care of yourself, be good to your girlfriend and to yourself!
anita
anitaParticipantClearing the messy 3 paragraphs right above (due to copying and pasting from Wikipedia):
Also, OCD is an official diagnosis, ROCD is not an official diagnosis. ROCD refers to one of the themes of OCD (other common themes: “fear of contamination, fears about being responsible for harming the self or others” (Wikipedia). I was diagnosed myself with OCD, and my dominant theme was fears of harming others.
From Wikipedia/ ROCD: “People may continuously doubt whether they love their partner, whether their relationship is the ‘right’ relationship or whether their partner really loves them. When they know they love someone or that someone loves them, they constantly check and reassure themselves that it is the right feeling. When they attempt to end the relationship, they are overwhelmed with anxiety. By staying in the relationship, however, they are haunted by continuous doubts regarding the relationship.
“Another form of ROCD includes preoccupation, checking, and reassurance-seeking behaviors relating to the partner’s perceived flaws or deficits. These perceived deficits tend to be related to appearance, sociability, intelligence and morality and have been described using the term partner-focused OC symptoms. These symptoms tend to manifest as intrusive thoughts, images, and/or urges related to the relationship. There is often a great deal of distress associated with these symptoms, as they contradict one’s personal values and/or the subjective experience of the relationship. The individual views these symptoms as unacceptable and unwanted, invoking feelings of guilt and shame”.
* I should have started the long post above with the request that (if you choose to read it), please don’t rush through it, read a bit, take a break, read another bit at another time, re-read when needed, take your time with it.
anita
anitaParticipantDear antarkala:
I’ve known about R-OCD for many years, and I occasionally come across it in these forums. I just googled “rocd, tiny buddha forums” and what appeared is a Dec 2017 thread, in which I participated, titled “ROCD“. Original post: “Does anyone else suffer from this. Do you have any tips to try and overcome it?”
My answer (Dec 29, 2017): “My tips: evaluate the relationship rationally. If your boyfriend behaves toward you with empathy and respect, if he is assertive with you, not passive or aggressive, and encourages you to be assertive as well, if it is a good relationship (although not perfect, as it can’t be perfect) and you often enough feel love for him, but you are doubting it repeatedly, for a long time, then quality psychotherapy may be the answer.
In psychotherapy, anxiety, the core issue in ROCD (and in so many, many conditions and symptoms), will need to be attended to, early experiences and relationships (with your parents, mostly) will need to be explored.
A break or separation may be necessary if your distress is too great and/or if your doubting causes him distress and is harming him.“
Another, a Jan 2018 thread, in which I participated as well, titled “ROCD help me“, original post: “I’ve been struggling with rocd for almost 4 months now and I’ve just become completely exhausted and depressed by the constant overthinking and checking if I still love my bf… I still have that awful weight on my chest that I’m just not in love with him and that breaking up is the right thing to do”.
My response (Jan 8, 2018): “The relief you feel when you think of ending the relationship is about ending the obsession. The obsession is painful. It is a painful way to live, as you well know.
If you are not currently attending psychotherapy and working on this, then you do need to end this obsession somehow. It is better to not be in a relationship with him than it is to be obsessed, I am thinking.“
Here is another, a May 2020 thread titled “ROCD Or do I not love him?” Original post: “..Around the first month of us being together, I was thinking about him in class. While thinking about him, the thought ‘Do I really love him’ Came to mind. Once this came to mind, I started to obsess with the thought. I started comparing our relationship to past relationships and I started searching stuff up online for temporary relief. Fast forward to now, it still happens. I’m constantly observing my feelings and my moods… There’s no reason why I wouldn’t love him. There’s been no red flags or anything…. I was wondering if anyone had advice or any idea of what it is?..”
My response, May 3, 2020, (quotes from the OP are italicized): “‘I was craving him every second. Now, .. I don’t feel like that’– craving someone every second is not sustainable, it is too exhausting to the brain/ body, therefore this craving is time limited.
‘when I get upset with him or want some time alone’– that happens to everyone, in the best relationships. We feel upset once in a while, and upset or not, at times we need to be alone.
All OCD is based on ongoing fear aka anxiety. Your focus on loving him or not is fueled by your anxiety. You wrote that you didn’t experience this obsessing before, with other men. Maybe it is happening to you at this point because of elevated anxiety overall, maybe pandemic related?“
Here’s an Oct 2022 thread titled: “Crippling Relationship Anxiety – Please Help“. Original post: “I have been with my boyfriend for 5 years. We have grown together so much in this time. We are not perfect, but we are strong, and we have a very healthy relationship… We are kind, loving, supportive, and we cherish our relationship. We have lived together for about a year and a half and have built the most beautiful life together in a really beautiful place that feels like home. It has been one of the happiest times in my life. I haven’t ever felt so loved, so close to another human, and just so grateful to be in this life and to be this lucky. I have always suffered from mild anxiety and self esteem issues. … About a month ago, out of the blue, I started having extremely intrusive thoughts about ending our relationship. It causes me to feel the lowest I have ever felt in my life. I have breakdowns, panic attacks, and cannot function properly. It is truly consuming my life and making me feel depressed and hopeless. In my head I picture telling him that I don’t love him anymore (which hurts the most). I picture getting on a plane and leaving my whole life here with him…”.
From one of my replies to the OP (Oct 7, 2022): “... My understanding of what happened, based on your three posts: your childhood experience growing up, particularly your relationships with your parents/ immediate family, occasionally involved severe anxiety for you. Like children do, over time, you repressed as much as possible of that anxiety, pushing it down and away from your awareness. But because emotional repression cannot be done perfectly and there are cracks, some of the anxiety kept seeping through the cracks and to the surface, and therefore, you ‘have always suffered from mild anxiety’.
A month ago, the severe anxiety did not just seep through to the surface (in the form of mild anxiety), it erupted to the surface in its original form: severe anxiety…reads to me like you are still, presently, trying to make your immediate family happy and it is too much pressure for you… It is time for you to really leave your immediate family home behind (something you’ve wanted to do for a long, long time, isn’t it?), to give up on your old goal in life (to make your immediate family happy), and to form a new, fresh goal… seeing a medical doctor for possible psychiatric evaluation and medication is an option that may bring you that immediate relief… quality psychotherapy will be best. You may need an immediate relief option (medication and/ or regular, daily mindfulness practices) while attending therapy so that you can benefit from therapy…“.
In an Oct 18, 2020 reply to the same member, I wrote: “I re-read your posts and it seems to me, based on my personal experience with anxiety, that the following may be the main source of your anxiety (with or without intrusive thoughts): ‘My mom… has so much unresolved trauma… My brother and I were always affected by this‘ – like I wrote to you before, young children absorb their mothers’ expressed childhood/ early life trauma like sponges, so her trauma becomes her children’s trauma by absorption. This is what happened in my case: my mother expressed her unresolved trauma in my presence many, many times and it affected me terribly, it was as if what happened to her.. happened to me…“
Same OP started a 2nd thread Dec 2023 thread titled “Does this sound like ROCD or just anxiety? Need some insight/ advice please”. Original post: “…I get these horrible intrusive thoughts about my significant other. We have been together for 7 happy years and these thoughts make me feel depressed, angry, and confused. They always get triggered by some kind of small action that he makes. Things that should just pass by, feel like an explosion of emotions in my head and body. For example, we were leaving the store a couple days ago with just one item. As we finished checking out, he started to walk towards the exit without grabbing the one item, assuming I would grab it (which I did no problem. My hands were not full. It was a small item. I was 100% capable.) However, I immediately felt this overwhelming sensation with negative thoughts like ‘he doesn’t take care of you.’ ‘how can he be so rude to the person he is supposed to love’ ‘he is so inconsiderate’… These thoughts put me in panics. They make me question everything. Every move he makes, I try to analyze…”.
From my reply, Dec 15, 2023: “…– seems to me that when your significant other (I’ll refer to him as S) left the item for you to carry, your suppressed and repressed anger from your childhood erupted. The incident of S leaving the item for you to carry was a small incident, but your childhood pent up anger is HUGE, and your emotional reaction to the incident was proportional to the amount of your pushed-down anger at your parents for guilt tripping you and making their love for you conditional on you submitting to their guilt… it is very difficult for most (if not all) children and adult children to talk negatively about their parents, particularly when heavily guilt tripped as children, but it is necessary to do so when one’s parents’ behaviors were indeed significantly or severely negative, having created an emotional backlog of (understandable, valid) hurt, anger and fear inside you. Quality psychotherapy is the best place to do it, to talk and process these backlogged, pushed down intense feelings, so that their intensity lessens and lessens and you reach a place of peace within yourself.“
These are only a few of the many threads from the tiny buddha forums dealing with ROCD, many (including one currently on the first page of topics) that deal with ROCD, many not having the term in the title (so they don’t come up in the google search). It’s important to remember that not all people suffering from ROCD suffer from it in the exact same ways and intensity.
Also, OCD is an official diagnosis, ROCD is not an official diagnosis. ROCD refers to one of the themes of OCD (other common themes: “fear of contamination, fears about being responsible for harming the self or others” (Wikipedia). I was diagnosed myself with OCD, and my dominant theme was fears of harming others.<sup id=”cite_ref-pmid27148087_4-1″ class=”reference”></sup>
From Wikipedia/ ROCD: “People may continuously doubt whether they love their partner, whether their relationship is the ‘right’ relationship or whether their partner really loves them. <sup id=”cite_ref-DoronA_7-0″ class=”reference”></sup>When they know they love someone or that someone loves them, they constantly check and reassure themselves that it is the right feeling. When they attempt to end the relationship, they are overwhelmed with anxiety. By staying in the relationship, however, they are haunted by continuous doubts regarding the relationship.<sup id=”cite_ref-Doron_2014_169–180_3-2″ class=”reference”></sup>
“Another form of ROCD includes preoccupation, checking, and reassurance-seeking behaviors relating to the partner’s perceived flaws or deficits. These perceived deficits tend to be related to appearance, sociability, intelligence and morality and have been described using the term partner-focused OC symptoms. <sup id=”cite_ref-:1_8-0″ class=”reference”></sup>These symptoms tend to manifest as intrusive thoughts, images, and/or urges related to the relationship. There is often a great deal of distress associated with these symptoms, as they contradict one’s personal values and/or the subjective experience of the relationship. <sup id=”cite_ref-:1_8-1″ class=”reference”></sup>The individual views these symptoms as unacceptable and unwanted, invoking feelings of guilt and shame”.<sup id=”cite_ref-:1_8-2″ class=”reference”></sup>
I know that this is a long, comprehensive post. Please take your time with it.
I will add a shorter post in regard to applying the above to your personal story. Again, take your time with these, stop reading anytime you need a break, and continue at another time. No reason to rush.
anita
anitaParticipantDear John:
“Does anyone have any advice on how to practice patience when it comes to a relationship that is paused?“-
– (1) If you don’t have one, create a daily routine for yourself/a structure to your day (all your waking hours), so you know what you’re supposed to be doing at any one time (resting should be part of the routine),
(2) Part of your daily routine can be, if it suits you, writing/ typing on Word “letters to (her name)” where you tell her about what you are thinking and feeling. Do this while listening to music, if it helps you to express yourself,
(3) Every time you feel like contacting her, thinking about how to do it, what to say to her.. don’t. Instead, do # 2 above.
You wrote “some things were said“- terrible things?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Worldofthewaterwheels:
I just wanted to tell you, it’s okay if you don’t want to, or can’t type a post and submit it. It’s okay. I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone and rejected (“loneliness and rejection”) tonight, simply because someone is thinking about you and sending you this message.’
anita
anitaParticipantDear antarkala:
I tend to agree with your boyfriend, I will study the topic further myself, but I think that what’s behind it all is anxiety in the form of R-OCD, obsessively doubting an otherwise (other than the obsessive, negative, anxiety-filled thinking) good relationship. I hope that you read about R-OCD and let me know what you think about it.
anita
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AuthorPosts
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.