No Midnight. You must get the thought that you are different or abnormal or in some way strange out of your mind. I have heard your story so often that it never surprises me. When I said about confusing love with need perhaps I should have explained better. We all have needs, emotional, physical and spiritual. Now these needs must be met or we become introverted, self centred or even anxious and depressed. The natural expression of a need is necessary for a healthy mind. Now if you have love for someone that does not mean that you can’t look to them to fulfil those needs. Of course you can. That’s what relationships and partnerships are about. When I talked of attachment that is a different matter. Attachment is total reliance on another person or thing. You are unable to give them space of their own. It becomes overwhelming for them. ‘Smother love’ is a good example. A mother loves her child, but is continually looking after it. cosseting it, makings sure it’s safe beyond all normal caring. She has become so attached to the child that it has become almost an obsession. The child enjoys this attention even though it has no ‘space’ of it’s own and can grow into a psychologically disturbed person in later life. We all need space of our own to be us. We need to give our partners space, freedom to be themselves.
Of course I believe you love your partner. Why would I not think so when you come over so loud and clear that you do. You may be projecting on to me, (psychological projection), what you feel yourself, doubt. In fact you say just that. It’s one of your biggest fears. Love the guy. the more love you give the more is returned. It an age old axiom.
It IS NOT unhealthy to think that way.
What I said about labels is that we are so open to suggestion when anxious. If you Google your feelings and symptoms you are making a big mistake. No one is the same and there is no ‘cover all’ for any emotional problem. You have to be treated as an individual. You will be OK if you can take things as they come and not anticipate. Easy? Oh no, not by any means; been there.

Dear Midnight:

I have had OCD for fifty years and am very familiar with ROCD (a later term). I have been healing for over five years following my first experience with a competent, empathetic, hard working therapist.

Your doubts about your relationship has indeed, I believe, nothing to do with who your current boyfriend is. Your best insight in your original post is this: “the only thing that sometimes helps is to tell myself I might have ROCD – that is the only way for me to get some distance with them and see them as something that is going on in my head rather than the reality.”

It helps because it is true and this is where the solution is (easy to state; most difficult to practice): 1. Notice the ROCD voice: this is the practice of Mindfulness, noticing, paying attention.
2. Disengage from the voice: instead of conversing, arguing etc., you remove your attention from the voice to that distance you referred to in your quote. Basically, there is that location in your brain where the ROCD is taking place, and you remove your focus to another location in your brain.
3. From the other location in your brain, a location of calm and objectivity, you observe- not engage with- observe the ROCD place and you state reality to yourself.

I have plenty more to say about this topic. If you reply, I will be glad to continue communication with you for as long as you choose to do so. I will share with you what l earned and what works for me, if you’d like.

anita
3.

Midnight, I feel the same way too, as you commented on my post. We are struggling the same way, I try to stay positive and give a lot of love towards him, it feels good for some time, until those thoughts kick in again and I feel overwhelmed and guilty.

My partner is looking to take the relationship to the next level, If I can’t figure things out with myself, I am considering letting him go, I can’t keep feeling this paranoia while he is confident with his feelings towards me, me on the other hand I am not due to my ongoing loop of doubtful feelings and thoughts. It is going to be heartbreaking but I don’t know what else to do.

Hopefully I will look up a therapist and see what is wrong with me. Maybe even, I think I love him but deep inside I don’t and I seem to avoid confronting my true feelings.

About your parents, I have the same thing, my parents do have a strong relationship but my dad has not been very supportive and loving to my mother. It kind of reminds me of my relationship with my boyfriend, I am not loving enough..

Sorry for bashing my thoughts on this!

Dear Midnight:

You are welcome. If you take on healing from your long term anxiety, it is and will continue to be a difficult process. No easy solutions, no “from now on everything will be fine.” Extreme patience is required. Sometimes you will feel better and think: “I got it” but soon enough distress will return. Then you may think something like: “What is wrong with me? I thought I got it! Why am I struggling again?” And this is where that extreme patience comes in, patience with yourself and with the process and a gentle attitude toward yourself. Prepare for a long road, but if you persist, there will be progress and there will be healing.

If we do keep communicating here on your thread, we will bring up different points at different times. The road, the path of healing is not something that can be summed up in one post. It involves you experimenting with this and that, over time and things come up throughout your actual experimenting and experiences.

One point to clarify: you seem to fit very well into the ROCD diagnosis but you were not born with ROCD. This diagnosis like so many other mental diagnoses are combinations of symptoms. A baby is not born with a combination of symptoms. Those combinations were decided on, or put together by psychiatrists. The root cause is almost always one: anxiety, that is excess, ongoing fear, most often since childhood.

You are wondering if you have OCD since you didn’t experience other symptoms of OCD- but this line of thinking is based on a false assumption: that a person is born with OCD, an OCD gene, or is infected with an OCD virus or such… no. The symptoms for people are many, the combinations of symptoms are endless really (This is why psychiatrists are trying to organize the mess into groups or combinations of symptoms aka diagnoses).

Focus on the root cause, your anxiety which predates the particular ROCD category of symptoms.

You brought up other things. We can talk about it more later. For now: I had CBT with Mindfulness. As to mindfulness working sometimes but not at other times: I am still making progress with mindfulness- it is a skill that you have to practice over months and years- I have- and I still am amazed that there is more to it.

anita