Dear Danielle:

You wrote above: ” a couple years ago I stumbled upon some strange story that was very explicit in sexual nature and I remember feeling sort of arroused.”-

I think you were about ten when you watched  a movie, one with a sexual nature as well (about a step father having sex with his step daughter). You reacted so fearfully, that your mother started questioning you about whether you were sexually abused by your step father.

At this point, it is my understanding that your core belief that you are a bad person (in today’s post: “my guilt taunts me and makes me believe now that I am a horrible person”) was formed early on, at about ten or before, as a result of some emotional experience in regard to your step father. It doesn’t mean that he sexually abused you, that there was a sexual activity between you and him. But something happened- maybe you were aroused by the idea of it. At the time. Thing is, something happened that caused you to believe that you are a horrible person.

All this time you focused on your boyfriend being a bad person (March 2016): “He has proven to me that he really has changed… and he has been so so so good…How do I forget his mistakes and realize he is still a good person despite making those stupid college mistakeS?…Do you think what he did is unforgivable?”- what fueled that obsession is your belief that you are a bad person, that you made such a horrible mistake that you are unforgivable. (You projected your greatest fear into him).

You wrote then: ” but it’s like inside in my head it’s nagging me that something is wrong…I keep feeling that I need to express myself to him and that one day he will tell me exactly what I need to hear to move on from the past and I feel that he has just not told me what I want.” –

He can never say that thing to you, what you need to hear. You have to confront your past and see the truth there. It is that truth that will set you free, free from your obsession, free from raining on your parade when something good is about to happen.

Problem is not an inborn OCD, it is what fuels your OCD- that core belief that you did something so horrible that it is unforgivable

I see no option to confronting your past except in quality, safe psychotherapy.

Again, it doesn’t mean that there was sexual abuse in your childhood, I know the idea of it scares you a whole lot. But it seems to me that there is something there, something so intense that it is spoiling your life. Attend to it. It will keep coming up, keep nagging at you, until you attend to it in psychotherapy.

anita