Actually, during the short time we “gave” a try, he never showed any obvious “classical” OCD’s features with me, that’s why when he told me he was diagnosed with that i was pretty surprised until i read more about it. Although it’s been only a few we’ve known each other and we met in particular contexts everytime (dating context) so maybe he paid more attention to his behavior when he was with me?

This is extremely interesting what you wrote. ” An OCD person thinks about X and believes that having thought about X  will make X happen. Believing this intensifies his fear may times over.” and “that thoughts by themselves have no  power and cannot hurt anyone.”, i think he was already kind of “aware” of that. After his first panic-attack, we talked and when he brought up the wedding/commitment topic, i told him “yes ok but.. you know that it’s not because we had one date and half that i am expecting that we move in together or a proposal? And yeah.. you’re definitely burning all the steps as well..?” he replied “yes I know but my brain thinks differently”. Although at this time he didn’t know that this whole mechanism of thinking was part of something scientifically acknowledged. For me (and i think i talked about that in some previous messages) i really thought he had a “simple” anxiety disorder.

Until i wrote down my last message here, i knew he had a tendency to see the negative side in every situation, but what i didn’t realized was that this tendency obviously affected his vision of me and him together on a deep level. I was stuck to what he told me the day he decided to stop, “yeh but rationalizing everything is my way to feel reassured, i gathered my thoughts about us now and what happened last time we met just ended up nailing the coffin (????? did he really relate the relation with death)”. Because what happened that time we met (or what didn’t happen actually) was the fact that he was physically distant. In the moment i didn’t mind simply because the day before we had an exam the whole day, none of us slept well, we both worked during the week and only a few days passed between the pic of his issues and that day. So basically before we met i told him “yeah it’s just gonna be about chilling and definitely nothing more because i’m gonna be honest, i don’t really have the energy for anything else”. And i mean, sometimes it’s normal not to be in a good mood, it happens and it doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate nor don’t want to be with the person anymore right?

He never succeed to get rid of that though of “being in relationship means that we’ll get married but i’m not ready for that but her yes” and kept all his fears for him. I remember he once told me “yeah i’m sorry, i acted during a panic-moment, i should have talked more with you but lately my tendency to live and think in my own world has increased” and for me, this could be related to what you wrote “An OCD person hears his own thoughts, knows these are his own thoughts, but gets scared of them nonetheless.”

What could be done in order to make him feel safe? I feel i tried everything but that was before knowing what he has. I can’t fight his thoughts. After he stopped we talked about how i felt and i told him that i never had high expectations. I really just wanted to take things easy because we were extremely fine together and it was just about following his needs at the moment, what he said felt very unexpected as i thought we had a good connection (and i didn’t invent that, he told me exactly the same about feeling connected together). Now that i’m a bit more aware of what he has, i wonder what could have been the final trigger for him to take the decision to stop everything because i also know he tried to fight those ideas, if it wasn’t the case, he would have stopped things even earlier and the fact that he was physically and emotionally distant wasn’t a first. Again and i told him, regarding his situation, that was normal not to feel in a good mood.

Also, what is the relation between OCD and shame? I read that shame comes when a particular event or thought happens and that “individuals may yet forecast shame (Schoenleber & Berenbaum, 2012) if they anticipate being devalued as a person should their fears eventuate. “, also ” The researchers proposed that this elevation suggests that shame-based images and memories may be more vivid for those with OCD than for healthy individuals”(https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/53d5/8491412edf117d8a9b013c61b4aa6ab5c89c.pdf). What if that feeling of shame could have been a trigger? “you did nor said nothing bad” he said when i asked him what was wrong with me. Remember when i said that maybe he felt devaluated because of my language skills, school achievements etc..? What if when he got attacked on his feminine side he stopped feeling “male enough” to be in a relationship?

“being scared of his own thoughts, believing (without necessarily being aware of this belief) that thinking X (a bad situation) will make X happen in real life, and rushing to expel the thoughts via words, talking or typing away (sometimes a whole lot),  so to not be left alone with those thoughts, so to get rid of the thoughts by .. sort of, spitting them out as words.” and after automatically acting in a fight or flight attitude because a danger has been sensed maybe?