gingerbreadgirl

Don't want to butt in but just wanted to say I think this is such a lovely post

Sorry @ocdjonesy I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. I totally understand why you were upset x

I agree with @malina - I think we're all human and we're all either struggling or have struggled, and we all get it wrong sometimes (I've certainly got it wrong loads of times and talked in ways I probably shouldn't on the forum). I think it's natural that people will disagree on things anywhere where there's a group talking on the same topic - but essentially we all want the same thing, which is for everyone here to feel better, we just sometimes clash about how best to achieve that. @bluegas I don't necessarily agree with your posts, but I do like that you say what you believe and also that you clearly really care about people here (even though you are really struggling yourself). I think sometimes you perhaps come over more aggressive than you maybe intend? - and I think that is maybe just the exclamation marks at the end of each sentence. I understand they show you're passionate about the subject, but if you put yourself in someone else's shoes, it can come over as someone being in your face and shouting a bit? Maybe I'm wrong but I think cooling it on the exclamation marks could cool that aspect of things down - I hope that makes sense and I've not offended by saying that.

it's a different type of reassurance. it's the reassurance of knowing you have been "totally honest" (in quotes because as has been covered many times this is really nothing to do with honesty). But it is like any other type of OCD - "if I just clean a bit more this will be totally clean". even if it involves skin damage and pain and the whole situation much worse - it's that "if I just do this my anxiety will be fixed". Also I suspect that part of you hopes it'll be different this time, if your wife would just understand how much distress you're in or that fantasies are normal etc etc etc. Then you could be free. But as you know deep down it doesn't work like that, no matter whether her reaction is good or bad. If you confessed to your wife and she had a completely positive response - like "oh it's fine I fantasise all the time it's completely normal" - I have no doubt you would feel euphorically happy and relieved for a while. But in the meantime you've added another brick to the OCD wall. Eventually another thing - whether a new thing, or a new detail from your fantasies, or whatever - will come knocking and yet again you will be desperate to confess and in this hell again. This cycle will never ever end through confessions, ever, ever.

This will get worse and worse every time you confess something new. Confessing to the phone call got you the reassurance you craved, so now you're not worried about that one - but you've reinforced that compulsion. So now you want to do it more and more. Then you confessed the wee thing, again got reassurance, reinforcing it even more. I've been there and bought the t-shirt honestly and the confessing cycle never ever ever ends because there is always another thing to confess. always. and it does huge damage to relationships. you really, really need to nip this in the bud and I don't mean that harshly I know it's super difficult, honestly I do.

I think a big problem here (which I also used to have) is a desperate need for your wife's approval/agreement before you can be happy. But you don't need her approval. It doesn't matter what she thinks. You're not going to agree on everything and that's normal. You do not need her approval to be happy - this is a big big thing I have worked on a LOT in therapy, this idea that my partner's opinion is everything, when it's not. It's really not. You can carry on with your life perfectly happily knowing that your wife has her opinions but they don't have to be your opinions too and that's normal and ok.

Sorry this is a bit of a tangent and also I think a bit of self reassurance going on there so my bad

I had similar thoughts about this. Like who decides where the "cutoff" is (and one of my themes is that I don't know where the moral cutoff is so I may be doing immoral things without being aware). So my thinking is moral quandaries like this are a judgement call for each person. Obv having an affair is wrong if you've both agreed to be monogamous (not a given) - but if you've already had an affair then confessing doesn't change that and may actually just harm your partner and erode the trust in order to clean your conscience. Like I'm not saying an affair should be kept a secret but I don't think there's any universal moral rules around anything really except perhaps not murdering (lol) but even that is complex (eg - assisted suicide or whatever). I think us folks with OCD can get in a real pickle wondering what these "rules" are and whether we're following them, but really there are no hard and fast rules, we're all just a bunch of flawed humans trying our best!

But can you afford not to have one? Can you support your son, or your wife, if you've taken an overdose behind the church?

Hi NLL. So I had a similar situation where I confessed something to my ex partner who took it really really badly. It sent me into huge turmoil that lasted for a good couple of years. I did a whole bunch of CBT to try and get past it but honestly I couldn't when I knew my partner thought it was bad. It was everything I feared. I'm saying this because the only thing that enabled me to get past it was the relationship ending, in all honesty. I'm not saying for a minute you should end your relationship. But I am saying - based on my experience - that I think it will be difficult for you to recover while in this environment. I think a proper break from each other could do you both good and can give you a bit of space to get on top of this awful illness. You really deserve some respite NLL x

Hi NLL, do you remember recently in a post you said something like "everyone knows fantasies are ok" when your other obsession had locked on?

Every single woman for hours? How would anyone get anything done?

Do you seriously think gay people walk round like this??

It's tricky because while I do see your point @northpaul - sometimes it is difficult to offer advice without acknowledging key factors that the poster has mentioned eg nll's relationship which plays a central role in his current struggles. I think also - and this is a general statement rather than about NLL - that it is not uncommon that people who are in unhealthy or toxic relationships struggle to raise this with anyone and talking about it anonymously online may be the first time they have done this. I think that it is a tricky line to tread because NLL and sometimes other posters have mentioned what appears to be objectively unhealthy behaviours (spitting, abusive language etc) and I think that it's important that people can receive feedback on these types of behaviours. (Again this is a general comment ) - but people in abusive relationships can at times be isolated and doubt whether the behaviour is acceptable or not, so if they raise it I think others should be able to freely comment on it. I'm not saying this applies here, but it does sometimes. I do see your point though Paul about making assumptions about people's perspectives when they are not here to directly say either way.

This really resonates with me @bluegas - like you I do loads of running/gym etc and I love it and it really helps with my mental health in general - BUT when OCD is really bad I find it gets loads worse after exercise.

This took me a minute

I think anything you do to answer it while you're in this much distress is a compulsion and it isn't helping you at all. Leave it alone - the whole thing - leave it alone and do nothing with it not even to say it's OCD or anything just leave it unanswered and go about your day

Do nothing - don't say anything - leave it unanswered and get on with your day.

thanks bluegas. To be very honest things only got better for me when my ex partner left me (for reasons not related to OCD) - I don't think I would've got better if that hadn't happened even with all the CBT I was doing. So I do see your point about its limits

Ha thanks bluegas - I do see your point and I do understand where you're coming from with a lot of your posts (and like Lynz said they make me laugh too ) I didn't want to trivialise what NLL is going through and I have had the exact same thing happen with numerous themes (and was dogged by a vvvv similar theme to NLL in my previous relationship and ended up wrecking things with my confessions etc). When the new theme takes hold its like - boom, the old one is gone. I think this is why I soooo want to help NLL get out of this cos I've been in this nightmare before and it was the worst time of my life by far. I guess I was just hoping to help NLL see that all his torture has gone just like that, replaced by a new torture, and that's how insanely powerful OCD is

This is true for me too actually with some themes. So I have some hangups around people coming into the flat and all the compulsions I end up doing - the other day I told some good friends not to come over (because I couldn't face doing the checking etc). Even though I really wanted to see them. So I can relate to this. These things are complex I guess!

I agree that compulsions are an attempt to self sooth (for me anyway) and sometimes it works temporarily (when an obsession is really bad they don't seem to work at all) - but of course as we know they can come back and bite us.

Ok so think about this for a minute. For MONTHS you have been AGONISING over this. Tearing yourself completely apart. Taking pills, in a&e, on the phone to crisis, absolutely wrecking your life. And yet all of a sudden you can casually say, oh fantasies are fine everyone can see that? Do you see how warped your thinking has been around this? Can you not entertain the idea even for a second that maybe, just maybe, your thinking is warped around this too and you just can't see it right now? Please please don't answer with "oh but this is different because XYZ" please really think about this and how tortured you were in relation to your fantasies.

Hi nll Can you let us know you're ok when you can? Are you somewhere safe? X

I said what I said because I think it could be very triggering to people reading on this forum to think that OCD fears are related to personal integrity.