Dear Anita,

Thank you for taking the time and the effort to writing back to me in such detail.

I am very glad to hear that you have managed to heal from your ROCD and have had such a good experience with your therapist. It is very encouraging for me to hear that. From what you told, it seems it might have been this specific person, rather than a specific method, which helped you so much. I believe it is quite rare for a therapist to put in extra time or allow communication in between sessions in this way, he must have been very committed to your process and maybe a bit more flexible about the “rules”. All in all, he sounds like a rare find.

My goal is obviously to heal completely from this, not just vent, because it is making my life miserable. And the venting itself does not bring much relief at all. But thinking back, I guess I have always had some level of anxiety at times in my life, maybe not as a very young child but I believe it started around age 9-10. So this makes me wonder – maybe I’m just “like that”. Maybe this is my character, my physiology even, and there’s nothing to be done. Although I would have much preferred having anxiety about any other issue, or just general anxiety, instead of having it evolve around the one person I am closest to. I saw you wrote on another thread that you are still dealing with anxiety. From what you told here, you have managed to break the link between your anxiety and your partner, and this is a goal I would give anything to achieve. So to answer what you were saying – my goal IS to heal from this completely, I’m just not sure that this is possible anymore.

I do wonder as well about leaving my therapist – will that not be similar to finding him inadequate and “breaking up”, like I oftendid with my relationships? I had intended to remain with him and try to trust him, also as a way to break this pattern of leaving relationships.

I have two questions for you about your therapist if you don’t mind – did he diagnose you with ROCD? Or did he prefer not to label you or your feelings? And also – I suppose you live in the US? Because reading about him made me wonder if I could not see him myself:) I hope these questions were not too impertinent…

I really don’t know how to thank you for being here, it’s such a big help, you have no idea.