Home→Forums→Relationships→ROCD Or do I not love him?
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May 3, 2020 at 10:02 am #352760
AlishaParticipantMy boyfriend and I have been together for 7 months now. Around the first month of us being together, I was thinking about him in class. While thinking about him, the thought “Do I really love him” Came to mind. Once this came to mind, I started to obsess with the thought. I started comparing our relationship to past relationships and I started searching stuff up online for temporary relief. Fast forward to now, it still happens. I’m constantly observing my feelings and my moods, I’m still going online for temporary relief, and I’m still comparing. We’ve known each other for two years and he’s been my best friend for 10 months, so I’ve been quite comfortable with him. I’ve never had heart racing feelings, but I was once absolutely crazy for him. I was craving him every second. Now, when I think about how I don’t feel like that, or when I get upset with him or want some time alone, I get a lot of stress and anxiety and think that because of that, I don’t love him. I also tend to compare how he feels about me to how I feel about him.
There’s no reason why I wouldn’t love him. There’s been no red flags or anything. If we have any type of argument, we get over it fine. It never gets bad.
I came across a type of OCD called ROCD, and I have seen that I do have a lot of symptoms for it. I’ve never had anything like ROCD with anyone else before, but I might have had some type of OCD symptoms before. I’ve never been diagnosed with anything though(possibly bc I don’t go to therapy or anything).
I was wondering if anyone had advice or any idea of what it is?
(I’m sorry if my grammar was bad).
May 3, 2020 at 11:51 am #352886
AnonymousGuestDear Alisha:
“I was craving him every second. Now, .. I don’t feel like that”- craving someone every second is not sustainable, it is too exhausting to the brain/ body, therefore this craving is time limited.
“when I get upset with him or want some time alone”- that happens to everyone, in the best relationships. We feel upset once in a while, and upset or not, at times we need to be alone.
All OCD is based on ongoing fear aka anxiety. Your focus on loving him or not is fueled by your anxiety. You wrote that you didn’t experience this obsessing before, with other men. Maybe it is happening to you at this point because of elevated anxiety overall, maybe pandemic related?
anita
August 11, 2020 at 10:11 am #364452AlishaParticipantHi! I had left this awhile ago because I started to feel better and have felt better.. Until now.
My boyfriend and I have been together for 10 months now, going onto 11 soon. These obsessive thoughts don’t really ever go away completely, but they do numb down and I forget about them, but as of right now, they are not. I almost broke down crying last night due to this.
I’ve had these ongoing thoughts since the first month of us being together. He never did anything wrong, no turn offs or anything. We are in an online relationship so therefore never actually seen each other in person(but we have video-called and such). When these thoughts started, it was when I was in class and my mind was just wondering around and latched onto that thought. I use to surf the internet trying to find reassurance and later found out that it’ll just make it worse, so I avoided it.
I’m not really the type of person to show or feel much emotion. When I’m upset, I tend to not feel much and sometimes won’t cry or feel upset(will come up later). Same with being excited and other feelings.
With an ex of mine, every time we’d talk, my heart would race and I’d get butterflies. I was always happy to talk to him and always had these strong infatuation feelings towards him. With my current boyfriend, though, I haven’t felt these feelings basically at all. I felt a spark and a liking to him, and as said, I was always craving him and being obsessed with him, but never the heart racing or butterflies. Because I never felt those, they connected to the question in my mind, “Do you really love him?”, “What if you don’t love him?”
Another thing that I tied onto was comparing how I feel to how he does. When I cry, he said he gets a stomach ache and wants to cry too bc, but doesn’t with others. As for me, when he cries, I get worried and concerned and I go into a calm state, but I never physically feel anything like a stomach ache, my heart may feel like it’s racing sometimes when it’s not but that’s about it.
I do think that maybe it’s because we had just came down to my Dad’s friend’s house to stay for a few days before we go camping for a week and so I’ve been upset because I can’t actually talk to my boyfriend, who we’ll call Arch(it’s a nickname I have for him because it’s in his gamer tag on xbox) for two weeks, and this Thursday to next Thursday I won’t be able to text him or anything either. When I’m at home though I do still have these thoughts, just not as strongly.
I’m really sorry if this is all jumbled and hard to understand, I’m not good with sequencing or grammar. These thoughts cause me a lot of stress and they really scare me. I want to spend my life with this guy and only this guy. Not only is he my boyfriend, but my best friend. In the past two years of us knowing each other, we have gone through a lot and have so many memories and things I don’t want to go to waste. And just in general, this guy is amazing to me. He has his flaws, but I love them. There’s nothing I see wrong about him, he’s great. I don’t ever want to give him up, but these thoughts scare me a lot. I’ve never had them before, and it worries me that I don’t love him, when I know I want to and believe that I do, regardless of the thoughts.
August 11, 2020 at 11:55 am #364466AnonymousGuestDear Alisha:
In your original post May 3, you wrote: “We’ve known each other for two years and he’s been my best friend for 10 months… I was once absolutely crazy for him. I was craving him every second”. Today, Aug 11, you wrote regarding your ROCD thoughts: “I’ve had these ongoing thoughts since the first month of us being together.”
I was then surprised to read that you “never actually seen each other in person”, you never met him, never held his hand, never felt his skin.. never walked with him, never shared a meal.
You wrote today: “With an ex of mine, every time we’d talk, my heart would race and I’d get butterflies.. my current boyfriend, though, I haven’t felt these feelings basically at all”.
My question to you: did you meet that ex of yours in person, or was your relationship with your ex also strictly online?
You wrote today regarding your online boyfriend: “I want to spend my life with this guy and only this guy”- question to you: did you and him make any plans to meet for the first time, or is the plan to spend your life with him online?
anita
August 11, 2020 at 1:17 pm #364474AlishaParticipantFor your question about my ex; No, we did not meet in person either. It was also all online. Though we got together after maybe 3 weeks of meeting so that was probably a huge factor (big mistake, but glad we’re no longer together).
For your question about my current boyfriend; We haven’t exactly made plans yet but we do want to try to see each other sometime within the next three years. Whenever we see a chance of doing so, we’ll definitely start planning a day. Once we’re older too, we do want to move in together someday when we’re both ready.
August 11, 2020 at 1:20 pm #364475AnonymousGuestDear Alisha:
Did we communicate before, under a different account?
anita
August 11, 2020 at 8:00 pm #364506AlishaParticipantYes, we did. Alina. I forgot the password and it was on a scrapped gmail. I started to think of a lot of the things you said but also forgot a lot.
August 11, 2020 at 8:46 pm #364508AlishaParticipantI really hope all of these are just bad thoughts… I’m thinking of it now and I couldn’t bare to see him with someone else. I want this guy forever and just the thought of him with someone else kills me inside. I’m scared for my life that it isn’t just bad thoughts and that I really just don’t love him.. I don’t want to lose him in any way. I’m honestly about to cry right now.. I hope we can get these thoughts away.. If they are just thoughts.. Because I just want to be happy with this guy and have full love towards him.. He’s my every 11:11 wish, my every thought, etc. I see my entire future with him clearly and no one else.
August 12, 2020 at 7:17 am #364534AnonymousGuestDear Alisha:
You had an ex boyfriend whom you never met in person: you never met him in real life, “It was all online”, you wrote. You have a current boyfriend whom you never met in person: you never met him in real life. It is all online. And you have no plans to meet him in real life: (“We haven’t exactly made plans”).
It is all online-, all a matter of typing into a screen, just as I am doing now, and sometimes video calling. There has never been a holding of hands, walking together, sitting at a table together, sharing a meal, shopping for food together, etc. etc. This boyfriend has no practical value in your life: you would be living where you live, eating what you eat, living your life the same way whether this virtual boyfriend is in your life or not.
And yet, you call him “My boyfriend“. You refer to the online communication with him as “our relationship“, you say that you and him “have been together for 10 months”, “we have gone through a lot and have many memories”- you’ve been together virtually, and you’ve gone through a lot virtually, just as a person playing a computer game goes through a lot together with the characters in the game.
You wrote: “I want to spend my life with this guy and only this guy.. I want this guy forever and just the thought of him with someone else kills me inside.. I see my entire future with him clearly and no one else”- he has never been with you except virtually, there are no concrete plans to ever see him in real life.
“I don’t want to lose him”- you never had him in real life.
And you obsess about this guy: “Do I really love him”? My answer is that you love him virtually/ online- not in real life. But we communicated before at length, on another thread long ago. I don’t have access to that thread, but clearly, none of my answers to you satisfied your obsession: do I love him?
First thing for you to understand is that whether you love him or not makes no practical difference to your life. Imagine the following scenario: a married woman with children, living in a house she and her husband own, starts doubting that she loves her husband. There are practical consequences to the answer: if she does not love him, maybe she will have to get a divorce, sell the house, share custody of the children, all that cost a lot of money. Practically, her life if divorced will be very different from her life if she stays married.
But in your case, you and your virtual boyfriend are not tied legally, you don’t own property together, you don’t have children= no practical consequences to whether you love him or not.
Were you diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)?
anita
August 12, 2020 at 3:20 pm #364605AlishaParticipantMy life would change with or without him though. He keeps me happy and stable as for where I live is somewhere I’m very upset with. I also deal with a lot of my friend’s problems too which puts stuff on me as well. If I were to ever lose him, I would probably stop eating almost completely, I’d cry non-stop, etc. I probably would stop talking to people as well. He impacts me a lot even if it’s only virtually.
Also, no, I have not been diagnosed with OCD, I don’t go to a therapist or doctor. I don’t really tell my family anything. My current boyfriend has been the one that’s always there for me because I feel as though I can trust him the most.
August 12, 2020 at 3:30 pm #364606AnonymousGuestDear Alisha:
I figured your home life (the place where you live) must be sad (as it is for many), and that is why you feel so dependent on a virtual boyfriend. If you feel comfortable sharing here, tell me more about this part: “where I live is somewhere I’m very upset with”.
anita
August 12, 2020 at 3:42 pm #364609AlishaParticipantWell I lived in NC for basically my whole life. That’s where a lot of my family lives (which made my mom happy) and that’s where I met all my friends. I knew everybody at my school and everybody knew me. I was very outgoing and could talk to anyone there. I never felt weird or uncomfortable or anything like that.
Just two years ago we ended up moving to SC because my dad had found a job that would help us out(we are a poor family and lived in my grandma’s home). The job didn’t go well and he left it and so they both had jobs that just got us through the weeks with a little bit of extra money.
Fast forward to a year and a half in, my mom lost her vision and has kidney failure. She woke up with blurry vision one day and went to the hospital(which also dragged us down with bills) and has something wrong with her eyes and kidney failure. She can’t get a transplant due to Medicare declining her as well as disability. So now my mom isn’t working and only my dad is, we’re still struggling with money, and forgot to mention the fact that I have no friends around where I live and I feel really uncomfortable at my school.
Before my boyfriend and I started talking again(before we got together he had broke his phone and wasn’t able to get a new one therefore not able to talk. We had also drifted off around this time for a few months) I would cry every morning and every afternoon and involved myself in self-harm for about a year. I barely ate and once yelled at my mom saying how I wanted to kill myself because of school.
Last year, when my boyfriend and I got together, I never cried over school. I was always coming home talking about stuff that happened that I found funny or annoying and always had a smile. I stopped harming myself and ate more since my boyfriend helped me get into better habits. I haven’t gone back since.
August 12, 2020 at 4:31 pm #364613AnonymousGuestDear Alisha:
Yes, I remember you shared some of this with me earlier, must have been a couple of years, I don’t know. I hope you are able to help your mother with house chores, and maybe you can work part time and bring some income home, make your home a better place this way?
It is better that you focus on practical ways to make your home life better than spending all your time online.
As far as your ROCD thinking- I have no solution to that, no way anyone can quiet down obsessive thinking by giving you advice online. You can post for years here or on any other forum: do I love him/ do I not love him? And you will not be satisfied with any one of a thousand, or ten thousand answers you may get. Obsessions are not satisfied with answers.
It takes long term psychotherapy and sometimes it takes medication to weaken and stop obsessive thinking.
If you are about to go back to school next month, seek counseling in school, look for free community resources for mental health outside of school, that’s where help is.
You are welcome to keep posting here. If I feel that I can answer a question you ask, I will. But I will not try to answer obsessions.
anita
August 12, 2020 at 9:24 pm #364647AlishaParticipantWell, my only question is (which you do not have to answer) do you think that all of this may just be intrusive thoughts?
August 13, 2020 at 8:48 am #364685AnonymousInactiveHello, Alisha, What struck me in reading this thread and your responses to Anita’s questions is the struggle and stress your life is under right now, and your mom’s ill health. When things like this happen in life, when our stress levels go up, we can find ways to minimize our pain and suffering. So we might focus on a new job or focus on a new lover, etc. It is impossible to know if one loves another person when we haven’t met them. Knowing someone strictly online is not enough, we can hide our identities and real personalities for these brief encounters. Same goes with phone conversations. It is the knowing someone daily, knowing how they act at work, at home, at school by listening to them and observing them in real life. I can be nice for 30 minutes on the phone or online in a game but in real life I might be a total jerk. I think it would help you to find local help in coping with your family situation and mom’s ill health. Are you old enough to get a part time job, maybe you even have one? Instead of focusing on just this one person, perhaps stay busy with a job, with schoolwork, with helping in the house and try to limit the online coping. No one can diagnose you online here and as Anita said, there is help in the community, through your school or through the country or city mental health services, mental health america, NAMI. There are support groups for families going through kidney disease with a loved one. I wonder if your obsession is really a way to minimize the stress in your life or if you do have a true need for a mental health diagnosis. It is like we have these ruminations or obsessive thoughts as a way of NOT coping or thinking about our stress in life, our mom’s illness, the lack of money, etc. In other words, I am going to focus on this boy, do I love him or don’t I love him, as a way to avoid thinking about my mom’s health and my family stress. It is a hard time for you and your family right now and I hope things get easier.
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