Hi! I’m new here and so I apologise in advanced for the long post.
I’m currently 35 weeks pregnant and throughout my whole life I have dealt with pure OCD and intrusive thoughts. My thoughts started when I was about 10 years old after a traumatic event (domestic abuse) involving my uncle. I started to become convinced that I was sick with cancer or something of the like (at one point i was afraid I had bugs in my ears... haha) At several points in my life I have obsessed over death (being scared of dying, afraid that I’ll become depressed and kill myself), fear of going crazy and losing touch with reality and I have also struggled with ROCD in every relationship I have been in.
A bit of back story, my partner and I hadn’t been together for very long before I became pregnant but both of us were and still are very happy about the pregnancy. We have incredible support from both of our families. I spent the first weeks of the pregnancy incredible happy and excited for the future, until about the 12th week when my partner and I had an argument and I started becoming convinced the stress had caused me a miscarriage. Of course, the baby was fine and I was happy about the pregnancy once again. Then thoughts started coming that maybe I didn’t want the baby and that i wished it was just me and my partner and those thoughts distressed me deeply because I knew that was not true. I was having a hard time looking at baby things, or even speaking of the baby. I got over that and everything was good again for a few more weeks.
Things with my partner and I were at an all time high at about 26 weeks pregnant, i was so happy and so in love and then I started getting the ROCD thoughts. Typical what if he’s cheating, what if I don’t love him, what if I should have stayed with my ex boyfriend etc. These thoughts have started to make me become depressed and there were a few weeks where I was crying every day because of them. I knew they weren’t true deep down, but my OCD was twisting my mind into thinking that maybe they were. I suppose these thoughts are happening because having a happy family is the most important thing to me, as I never got to see that growing up. Both my mother and grandmother were single parents who dated around ALOT.
Fast forward to today, I am having intrusive thoughts about everything I possibly could. ROCD, thoughts that I don’t and won’t love the baby, fears that i won’t cope with a baby, fears of dying and killing myself, fears I’m going crazy. Pretty much I’m scared I don’t love or care about anything, including myself. It’s really causing me to be depressed and it is causing issues in my relationship which is not helping at all because now I’m stressed that my partner will leave me or that I won’t make him happy. I can tell he doesn’t enjoy being around me at the moment and it’s killing me. I’m slowly forgetting how I used to be. Basically I have let it manifest for so long that it’s starting to affect every single part of my life. I can’t even sit at home and relax without thinking that maybe I don’t like my house?? I know that these thoughts are crazy but I can’t seem to make them stop.
I have started seeing a psychologist, I have been to two sessions so far and they did help but after about a week it seems to get worse every time. I’m starting to become afraid that I’ll never be able to just relax and be happy (I refuse to medicate due to a family dependency on mental health medications)
I suppose I’m looking for ways to cope, similar stories, any advice at all or even just to know I’m not completely insane.
Thanks for reading my life story! ?