alexquinn

Hi all. I need some serious guidance My dad is a very affectionate person, which is something I personally don’t mind most of the time, and my mom sometimes isn’t either. But a good chunk of the time he seems to go overboard for her standards, and when she tells him to “stop” she seems to be genuinely bothered by it, not in a joking, teasing way. (I’d like to believe that I can tell when my mom IS joking around). Here’s the thing: I struggle not only with OCD, but with trauma due to being abused by a few family friends at a young age (my parents have known about this for a month and a half). So at the first I assumed that both those things were clouding my judgement. But the more these incidents between my mom and dad popped up, the more it bothered me. I spoke to them about it two weeks ago, and my mom’s response basically boiled down to “That’s just the way we are with each other”. I was still skeptical, but ultimately chose to believe her. Surely their dynamic was more complex than I thought. They spoke with each other often in their native tongue (which I know only a little of). Surely there’s context I was missing. The incidents naturally continued to happen, and I didn’t intervene, but my mom somehow seemed even more bothered by them than before. In fact, from the English bits, she SEEMED to be lecturing him on how “overwhelming” he often was. Maybe I was wrong, but it was difficult to tell. So today, I spoke to my parents again. My mom’s second response was that nothing wrong was happening, and that it was actually HER fault for saying out loud that she was bothered by it when she “wasn’t”. He’s her husband and he has every right to kiss her…I think she either said “as much as he wants” or “any time he wants” (I was too upset to remember that specific detail). This whole situation is very difficult to deal with. I’m having a harder time separating OCD from reality than I ever have. If you see this, please help. Thank you.

(Here's my original thread for context: https://tinyurl.com/9sm2pz2d) Hello everyone, it's me again. You probably don't remember me, but I joined back in mid-August, then kind of abandoned it after a few days. There are a few reasons for this, the most relevant being that I started seeing a therapist earlier this month. Obviously I still have a long way to go, and there have been some new issues that have popped up (which I'll definitely address in the future). But I'm glad I've taken one step in the right direction. I've thought about rejoining the forum since I started therapy but obviously never fully committed until now. Neither are a replacement for the other. But I just think it's good to have both resources, especially hearing from people who may struggle like I do. That's all I have to say, for now. Have a good one.

I agree, and I told my parents this in response, but they wouldn't budge

Hello and thank you for responding. I actually spoke to my parents in the past about getting a therapist. I've been making active efforts to improve by exercising more often as well as taking up some new (and old) recreational activities. But recently they told me that that won't be happening anymore, because me asking them about it a lot is proof that I think "therapy will fix me" and I need to learn to live without it. That was really the straw that broke the camel's back, and led me to this forum.

Thank you so much for responding. I've considered the possibility of people misinterpreting my perception of these situations, which is a big part of why I don't really say anything to begin with unless it really triggers me. I don't even think there's a high probability that the authorities would much in most-if not all-these situations, but of course my brain loves to dig deeper and find more problems that I can't solve.

Disclaimer: I haven't been officially diagnosed, but my symptoms match up perfectly with OCD. I also don't have access to a therapist at the moment, so don't ask. If that's a deal breaker for this forum that I wasn't made aware of, just let me know and I'll leave. With that being said, hello everyone. I'm 19 years old. And I'm here because it's safe to say I have nowhere else to go. It's not that no one cares, but the people that DO seem to have a superficial view of what I'm dealing with, and I'm honestly tired of trying to explain. It's kind of exhausting even typing this out. But since you guys struggle with similar things, I hope you'll have a better idea of where I'm coming from. I struggle with responsibility OCD, as well as false memory OCD, and my compulsions are mostly mental so you could say I also have pure O. Lately, my OCD has been revolving around the fear that children I know are being s*xually abused. I want to believe this has to do with my own trauma from being abused as a kid. But it's really difficult to see it that way when I'm placed in a situation where I could've sworn that an adult was looking at a kid weirdly, or was touching them inappriopately. I start to obsess over what I saw (pure O) and start questioning if I actually saw it (false memory) because I feel that I have to have an answer, or else I'm a bad person for just moving on from the thought (responsibility). One very specific roadblock that's difficult for me to overcome is the issue of PROBABILITY. Anyone who knows anything about OCD is aware that what it fears will happen typically isn't very likely. I guess my brain has decided to twist that into something that's very much NOT in my favor. Because every time I'm faced with a dilemna, I think to myself: What's the probability that this will actually happen? And 9 times out of 10, it truly feels like the probability is high. I have to repeatedly go through all types of mental gymnastics to convince myself that it isn't, in order to remove the fear that I might not actually have OCD and that all my worries are justified. I have a LOT more to say, but I decided to keep it short and sweet (for me at least) since this is my first post. I'd appreciate a thorough response the most, but even saying "Hi" or "I here you" will suffice at this point. Thanks for reading and have a good week.