Jump to content

Did I Hurt Her Self Esteem?


Recommended Posts

Hello. Anyone who knows me will know this is a classic situation for me: On Tuesday I was driving home from work on the highway, and a woman from the lane to the left of me pulled into my lane and hit the side of my car. Luckily there was traffic and cars were moving slow so there was no serious damage. I stopped the car and got out, and so did she. That's when I noticed she was quite attractive to me. Since we were blocking traffic and it wasn't too serious, I told her to just give me her number, and that I would talk to my friend who does auto body work and see if it's even worth fixing. After talking to my friend, he said it's too minor to fix. That's when I called her back and told her she was in luck. She was really happy. I was tempted to ask her out but I didn't feel right about it. The next day, though, I slipped and gave her a call again! She didn't answer, and I felt a bit nervous, but was interested at the same time. A few minutes later she called me, but I was having second thoughts. Here's when I did the thing that's causing me OCD: Even though I saw on the caller ID that it was her returning my call, I pretended not to know who it was. I said hello and she said hi. I asked who is this even though I knew it was her. She said "it's Alexa... you just called me" (I am making her name up). Then I spoke to her in kind of a nervous way and quickly said we should hang out, etc ,etc and said "wouldn't that be funny"... Before she could even answer I asked her some general questions like how old she was, etc. Anyways she laughed at the situation and said she had a boy friend. We talked for a couple minutes and said goodbye. Now my OCD revolves around the fact that when she called I didn't even acknowledge her and acted like I didn't know who she was. That makes it seem like I was disrespecting her and didn't even care about her. It's like me saying to her "I don't even care who you are, I just want to have sex with you". At the very best, it makes it seem like I was trying to hard to play it cool. Now I keep thinking of a movie where a guy was disrespecting a woman in his class, and she ended up doing drugs. It's very hard for me to put a finger on, I just feel like through my actions I've had a negative influence or affect on her. I could feel a little bit from her voice at the end that she just wanted to go and that there was some kind of dissatisfaction.

Please let me know how I should assess this situation! Thanks

Edited by NoahsArk
Link to comment

Hi Ginger. Thanks for your quick reply. Just before you responded, though, I edited it to add the sentence- "I could feel a little bit from her voice at the end that she just wanted to go and that there was some kind of dissatisfaction." ... So I'm also basing my thoughts on her reaction.

Link to comment

So I'm also basing my thoughts on her reaction.

:no: OCD just wants us to think our thoughts are based in reality - it gets right in there and makes us believe that this is an urgent situation we need to deal with. But it's all just a very clever illusion. Allwe can do when faced with thoughts like these is just ignore whatever OCD is telling us to do - no matter how horribly painful this is or how anxious it makes us feel. So in this case you might say something like "yes, maybe I did affect this woman's self esteem - it's very unlikely but I can never be totally sure of it. OCD is making me feel like I need to eliminate all doubt but I can never do that. In the meantime I just need to get on with me life'. (I that makes sense - sorry v rambly! :) ) x

Link to comment

Thank you very much ecomum and gingerbread girl for your responses. I want to know how to draw the line between regular legitimate guilt and OCD guilt. In this case, for example, all though I didn't do anything like call her stupid or physically hurt her, I think it was either mean or just impolite to pretend I didn't know who she was when she called.

Is there any rule of thumb here: i.e as long as it's not a direct insult it's ok?

Link to comment

My therapist had me do a survey which she gave to her colleagues to help me guage how non ocd peiple would react to things. You could ask non ocd friends what theyd think which may help.if you dont want to talk about it to them then try and think how tbeyd react.no one was hurt she was probably happy you reacted so nicely to the bump.you have nothing to worry about

Link to comment

Thanks ecomum. I feel people without OCD would not be thinking about it. In my life lately I unfortunately am only in 2 states of mind: the first is that I'm having OCD, the second, when I'm not having OCD, is that I am totally bored- cartoon like bored where I get up every day and do the same thing from morning til night. The cycle is vicious because my boredom makes me want to do something exciting- like reach out to this woman who hit me with her car, but then when I do something like that it just starts the OCD.

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...