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Mom in hospital and my OCD is going absolutely crazy


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My mom is doing horribly in the hospital, I won't go into detail but it's really bad. 

I've been having OCD around my relationship with my boyfriend for about 6 months. Lately it gets worse on my period and pretty much goes away when I'm not. Well I'm about a day or two away from my period on top of my mom doing really badly in the hospital. 

So my mind is swirling around with fears for my mom and constant worrying if my boyfriend is "the one" or not, worrying that since sometimes I question it that that means he isn't. Constantly worried that since I'm not missing him terribly that that means I don't love him. Worried that I don't love him. 

I'm probably asking for reassurance right now... I just feel like my brain is going to explode. Please help me 

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1 minute ago, Jessie_Loz said:

Hey hunni 

I'm sorry your mum is in hospital no wonder your OCD and anxiety has hit the roof u have alot going on. You are asking for reassurance though with your boyfriend it's all about living with uncertainty. No one can answer the question for u because we don't know and the more you ruminate the more doubt sets in and the worry increases.

But for just 1 time --- If you didn't love your boyfriend you wouldn't be constantly checking that you do. 

Now try not to give the thoughts anymore attention just see it as brain must. My therapist told me to just say 'i love....' and that's it keep my mind busy. Don't ask yourself 'But do I?' Or 'i can't love them because I'm questioning it' it's all OCD.

Sending hugs and I hope your moms okay - I hope I've helped

Jess 

Xxx

Thank you, Jess. Honestly I feel bad that I'm even worried about this because I should only be worried about my mom but I just can't help it ?. It's really making this even worse. 

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1 hour ago, constantworrier1989 said:

So my mind is swirling around with fears for my mom and constant worrying if my boyfriend is "the one" or not, worrying that since sometimes I question it that that means he isn't. Constantly worried that since I'm not missing him terribly that that means I don't love him. Worried that I don't love him.  

This much worry doesn't do you any good! It doesn't help with anything,

Now you need to stay strong, try to relax and calm yourself. You don't have any reason to feel bad because you're thinking about your boyfriend.When I'm stressed, the first thing my OCD picks at is my boyfriend, whatever the stressful event might be.

I know how it feels to enter what seems like a never ending loop, but it will pass. It always does :) .

You could try to accept the feelings you have about your mother. I know it must be hard. But I noticed that many times when I am stressed and I'm ruminating on my boyfriend, it's just a way of trying to escape some other stressful feelings I felt I can't cope with. Again, I'm sure it's hard,but I am sure you can cope.

Just accepting that you have these fears, these worries, about your mother, without doing any compulsions, then gently distracting yourself with a pleasant activity,I'm pretty sure it would do wonders in your situation. And even if you still have a nagging feeling somewhere in the background,it's not worrying, it's not rumination, it's not growing anxiety, so it's better.

I hope this helps. Take care!

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7 hours ago, chaosed said:

This much worry doesn't do you any good! It doesn't help with anything,

Now you need to stay strong, try to relax and calm yourself. You don't have any reason to feel bad because you're thinking about your boyfriend.When I'm stressed, the first thing my OCD picks at is my boyfriend, whatever the stressful event might be.

I know how it feels to enter what seems like a never ending loop, but it will pass. It always does :) .

You could try to accept the feelings you have about your mother. I know it must be hard. But I noticed that many times when I am stressed and I'm ruminating on my boyfriend, it's just a way of trying to escape some other stressful feelings I felt I can't cope with. Again, I'm sure it's hard,but I am sure you can cope.

Just accepting that you have these fears, these worries, about your mother, without doing any compulsions, then gently distracting yourself with a pleasant activity,I'm pretty sure it would do wonders in your situation. And even if you still have a nagging feeling somewhere in the background,it's not worrying, it's not rumination, it's not growing anxiety, so it's better.

I hope this helps. Take care!

Thank you Chaosed. I'm feeling a bit better now, just a little worried that I'm not like super excited about face timing with my boyfriend. I'm not not looking forward to it, I'm just not over the moon. Just typing that made me roll my eyes. I'm going to try to get some good sleep tonight, it's back to the hospital in the morning. 

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I am afraid you made up that scale of measurment of how much you're missing you're boyfriend and what that would mean in terms of you loving him. Nobody is telling anyone how much they should or shouldn't miss anyone in order for them to like or love them. So it's definetly OCD, in my opinion.

Don't overthink it. I used to ruminate a lot about how meeting my boyfriend would work out, or anyone of importance, really, like how I would explain my situation to my psychatrist so she won't give me the wrong drugs, lol. But my interactions are a lot better when I don't do that, so when I catch myself doing it, I'll try to leave that mental chatter in the background and focus on something else - usually the surroundings, as I'm on my way to meet someone.

Good luck!

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My boyfriend just asked if I really do love him and I feel so awful. I said I do love him and it doesn't feel like a lie but I know I'm going to question this later. 

Im so emotional right now because of my mom and my boyfriend (I'm 3 hours away from him) and I'm going to start my period at any moment. 

I don't know what to do besides cry. I just want to go to sleep 

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3 hours ago, PolarBear said:

Stop trying to figure out if you love him. That's the trap you're in and OCD won't let you come up with a final answer. So stop searching for it.

I'm trying. It just feels like it will be the end of the world if I don't... which I guess also points to ocd. I'm trying to just sit with the anxiety. If the question comes up in my brain I distract myself. It's unbearable at first but it does feel better after a while. 

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  • 1 month later...

I'm having a really hard time. I feel constantly anxious but the thoughts/ feelings are always in the back of my mind. I try to just enjoy being around him and enjoy the relationship but I can't stop trying to "feel love". I'm so sick of this. I was so happy ?

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This happened to me...my girlfriend got up to pick something up and I looked at her and thought " I don't love you..I actually feel nothing for you"....this like you was when I was going through a bad time and my ocd was new...I told her...she said it's ok.....as usual it passed..I can identify with you on that one constantworrier

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm still having a hard time with this. It doesn't help that lately I've been getting a bit irritated with him over small things, like him talking too much etc. I know logically that it's totally normal to get irritated with each other but I just can't stop worrying about it! Yes, I've asked people and even my boyfriend if it's normal and they all laugh and say it obviously is - but it's like it's just stuck! This worry that something is wrong with my feelings for him because I get annoyed sometimes is so persistent. Is this stuck because I asked for reassurance?

I got annoyed one day because he was tagging me in a lot of fb and instagram posts, which normally I enjoy and I even do the same to him, and my brain has been going crazy over this too! Then when I see that he's tagged me it's like I check myself to see if I'm annoyed, and then I feel annoyed! Or was I already annoyed? I have no idea and it feels like I MUST know in which order these feelings came to determine if my feelings for him are gone. 

I've also noticed that I'm extremely hard on myself about my feelings. It's like I'm a perfectionist toward them. If I don't feel or think a specific way toward something, it's automatically wrong and I should feel bad about it. 

There are all these signs that it's OCD, not my feelings for him having disappeared or gone sour, but it's like I just can't comprehend it or make it "stick". I suppose this is the nature of the beast, though. 

This definitely turned into a rambling rant, sorry!

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I think when pressured and distressed, your OCD latchs onto what you fear the most. You should not acknoledge those as real thoughts, and the fact that you suffer giving it some thoughts reafirms the fact that you love your boyfriend and you care for your relationship.

Please get to a therapy as soon as possible. Therapy can lead you to success. ?

Hope your mummy is doing alright.

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Hi Constantworrier,

A friend of mine found that she had a lot of strange thoughts when she tried Fluoxetine and some of the persistent thoughts were about hating her husband and wanting to leave him but as soon as she stopped the fluoxetine the persistent thoughts disappeared. I think this demonstrates that this sort of thought can definitely be down to a faulty neurotransmitter system (in her case induced by the medicine, in ours by OCD). 

 If you can then try to accept the (OCD based) uncertainty that you feel about whether you care for your boyfriend and try to distract yourself from ruminating on the thoughts by doing something which engages your full attention- I know how hard that is as you cannot just turn the OCD off whilst doing other things. In time if you can stop ruminating then the anxiety will decrease and you will probably feel love for your boyfriend again.

Edited by BelAnna
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I'm trying hard not to ruminate. Obviously rumination is my biggest compulsion, along with seeking reassurance. 

I wanted to send a nice "I love you" gif to my boyfriend, and now I'm freaking out because there was one that said "love you, forever" and I didn't want to send that one. Or maybe it just caused me anxiety? I don't even know ?. Earlier today I saw something about being able to get married at a music festival that we're going to in November and I panicked because I don't want him to surprise me with that... we've talked about getting married and having kids and that's something that Ive wanted with him pretty much since the beginning, so I'm confused. Does this mean anything? 

Im pretty sure I'm just asking for reassurance again. Sometimes I think just typing it out helps, but is that a compulsion? Uuuugh

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I meant to respond to you, PAVLIS97 and BelAnna but obviously went off on a tangent. 

Unfortunately, therapy isn't an option as I'm very tight in money and dont have insurance. A lot of therapists in my area aren't familiar with OCD anyway, so the whole thing seems hopeless. 

My mom is doing a lot better, sorry for any confusion caused by my continuing on this post. She nearly died, and it was terrifying, but she is better now - except for the fact that she broke a bone in her foot a few days ago and is miserable! I wish I lived closer to her so I could visit!

BelAnna, I try to do as you say, to take my mind off of things... and it helps while I'm doing it but then once I'm done I'll usually find something else to freak out about. I like to read, embroider, hang out with my dogs, and listen to podcasts. 

Sometimes I think about how ridiculous it is that I have to constantly be doing something to keep myself from freaking out. Can I ever just rest?! Lol

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56 minutes ago, constantworrier1989 said:

Sometimes I think about how ridiculous it is that I have to constantly be doing something to keep myself from freaking out. Can I ever just rest?! Lol

Its maybe worth trying some relaxation techniques. Reading while listening to music, soaking in the bath with a magazine. And mindfulness will probably help you take time out from all this constant worrying. 

There are plenty of simple ways into mindfulness, plenty of inexpensive downloadable easy mindfulness books. You don't have to go on a course, it's quite an easy concept to learn. 

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I've had the thought before that if we broke up it might be better because then I wouldn't be worried about it. I feel like that's a normal thought with this OCD. However I just had a thought that if he died it might be good because then I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I love him. I am absolutely freaking out now

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What you are no doubt doing is reacting badly to a simple thought that you had. You are sitting there ruminating over it, going over it in your head, trying to figure out if you really feel that way or not. In other words, you are doing exactly what you need to do in order to keep your suffering going. It's the OCD cycle. You get an intrusive thought, it causes distress, you do compulsions, which leads to more intrusive thoughts. Round and round you go.

Leave it alone. Who cares about a stupid thought you had? It doesn't mean anything. Your brain is capable of dreaming up the stupidest thoughts imaginable. That's what happened this time. It's random bit of garbage that you can choose to dismiss and not dwell on. It's your choice.

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