Dear kiwiboy0897:

Two days ago, you wrote: “I have almost mentally relapsed or reverted back to bad thinking habits”- this was to be expected. Even if today, as you are reading my words here, you are feeling good, not at all worried about your partner and Steve, it is only a matter of time before you will worry again. Anxiety and fixating/ obsessing go together like peas and carrots; they don’t just disappear because you understand something today that you didn’t understand yesterday, or because you feel good today.

Fixating/ obsessing (I used the term OCD before, but I want to avoid the diagnostic term today because you weren’t diagnosed with OCD, as far as I know) is a habit of the mind. At this point, your fixation on Steve and your partner is a mental habit which is very, very hard to break.

It may help when you fixate, if you read our previous communications here on your thread: the analogies of the itch that needs to be scratched, the elevator, these helped you in the past, and may help you again. The fact that you got fixated again doesn’t mean that what helped you before wasn’t helpful, it just means that you need to re-read it/ take it in again.

I want this post to sink in a bit, so I will separate it from my next post. Please read my next post after you absorb this one.

anita