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feeling positive is this a good start ?


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I suffer from cheating ocd , in the past i would go out drinking and not remember some parts of the night and would create false memories and would convince my self i have cheated on my partner .

i calmed down the drinking and would still happen if i had one or two drinks  it would still happen , so i stopped drinking altogether . then  it got really serious and i would go out and not drink and still convince i cheated . 

so OCD ruined my social life , i stopped going out and became miserable .

I recently started CBT and ERP therapy . been doing it for a month now and feel alot better , stop most of my OCD checking for handbreaks , doors , light switches , windows , hobs   ect . which was such a bad habit which took alot of my time up.

ERP taught me to live with the uncertainty , and i don't check any  the list above anymore .

like i said at the start cheating ocd is my biggest obsession . So i done a big thing last night i went out and drunk some alcohol and some moments of the night are fuzzy and cant remember  , 

so my mind went straight away to what if you cheated and you cant remember ? 

i just shaked it off and said to my self in my head , well all of the previous times i thought this happened , i never cheated so go away .

i feel more confident in my self to shake things of off and live  with the uncertainty  . What i hate about ocd is it tries to attack what you care about because i love my girlfriend so much .

To anyone who has gone through the same situation , does this sound like i'm coping with OCD alot abetter now , much appreciated , william .

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So? What do you think the rest of rhe world does when they drink? They can't remember everything either.

The difference is that you have intrusive thoughts that you did something wrong. That's all they are, thoughts. They aren't real. They're made up.

You can learn to dismiss these thoughts as the junk they are.

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this time im not allowing my self to create scenarios in my head . like false memories and stuff . , this time it feels more like paranoia because i was blackout drunk at some points , and i have nothing to check . because normally , on a night out i only have  a few drinks and get a ocd thought after ive hugged someone and id have a voice in my head either 10 minutes or a day after saying did you kiss her or what if you kiss her ect . but because i was blackout drunk at some points this time  it has put my mind into a deep hole and made me think i have gone out of my way to cheat on my partner . this time it is getting me down , i feel like ive hit rock bottom . Im seeing my therapist tommrow going to explain everything but feels like nothing is going to work .

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feels like ive ruined everything and been unloyal to my girlfriend . she understands me , and reassured me last night but it has made me feel worse today . 

makes me feel like i need to break up with her because , i have no recollection of what happened on the night , because if anything did happen i wouldnt know thats whats killing me 

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8 hours ago, WilliamBnixon said:

theres parts of the night what i don;t remember and its gone straight to , what if you kissed someone you wont know this time because you were blackout drunk .

Aside from the OCD, I'd say if you're worried about your possible behavior during times when you are blackout drunk it might be time to reconsider your drinking strategy.  Normally avoidance of triggers isn't the best approach for OCD of course, but when it comes to behaviors which overall are probably not beneficial in the long run to begin with, thats an exception.  Aside from not feeding in to your anxieties, your poor liver will thank you too :)  Ultimately though, its of course up to you.

Aside from that, well whatever happened happened, you can't change it.  If you blacked out you won't remember it, so dwelling on it won't help either.  Its possible you kissed a girl while drunk, its also possible you didn't.  OCD pushes you to focus on the negative, to worry and doubt, but that doesn't mean it happened.  Better to just follow PB's advice and dismiss this pointless "what if" as just another OCD fueled worry, work on avoid ruminating and refocus on the here and now.

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thats why i went out and had some drinks because i know avoidance is another compulsion , but obviously i had a bit too much and now on medication it didnt mix well i dont think and made me have blurry moments . my girlfriend can have blank moments and she can just brush them off . but i have them and its like OCD attacks me on that moment because , when im sober and hugged someone it makes me think ive kissed them but because i was blackout drunk at some points , it mkaes me think well who knows this time you cant remember you deffiently done  it .

i confessed everything to my partner last night and was crying so much it hurts me so bad to think like this 

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13 minutes ago, WilliamBnixon said:

this time im not allowing my self to create scenarios in my head

Are you sure about that, because later on you say:
 

13 minutes ago, WilliamBnixon said:

but because i was blackout drunk at some points this time  it has put my mind into a deep hole and made me think i have gone out of my way to cheat on my partner .

and

7 minutes ago, WilliamBnixon said:

feels like ive ruined everything and been unloyal to my girlfriend .

Those sound like scenarios to me.  I understand (all too well) how when we are struggling with OCD that *THIS* time feels oh so different than that *OTHER* time where I know it was OCD, but the thing is, every single time i've gone through that dance, when i finally come out the other side, I recognize both for the OCD driven anxieties they were.  This scenario, last scenario, they aren't different, even though you fear they are.  Its all the same OCD bulls***.

Moving on you are falling in to the catastrophization pattern of OCD:

9 minutes ago, WilliamBnixon said:

makes me feel like i need to break up with her because , i have no recollection of what happened on the night , because if anything did happen i wouldnt know thats whats killing me 

Right now you have zero evidence that anything happened.  Does it make sense to break up with the girlfriend you love, and who loves you, based on something you have no reason to believe even happened?  Of course not!  You're so busy worrying about "what if" something happened, but take a minute to stop and thinking about the "what if" NOTHING happened scenario.  Lets play it out.

Last night, you go out, you have a few too many, you black out.  Turns out while you were blacked out you didn't do anything with another girl.  Nothing happened.  You probably acted a bit like a fool (as just about all drunk people do, its kind of alcohols thing after all), but thats it.  So you wake up the next day, start to worry.  You were blacked out, so you'll never remember what happened, but you assume the worst.  Afraid you've cheated on your girlfriend you break up with her.  This makes you miserable, it makes her miserable, all for something that never happened.   Do you see now how illogical that is?

You need to allow yourself the freedom to let this go.  To accept when you feel anxiety about it, that you don't have to respond.  To decide that unless someone can give you a really really REALLY good reason to think otherwise, that the most likely explanation is the one you'll go with, nothing happened.  And in the rare possible case where you did do something stupid, well, then its up to your girlfriend to judge you and decide what happens next.  Yes cheating would be a bad thing, no you should not do it, but its not all black and white.  Carrying on an affair for years vs. getting slightly flirty while a little drunk are very different.  Don't allow OCD to push you in to a further trap of black and white thinking.  You WILL make mistakes in life, you WILL do things that hurt people you love, its unfortunately part of being human.  Try your best to not do those kind of things, accept APPROPRIATE levels of punishment when you do mess up, and then move on.

And to be perfectly clear, breaking up with your girlfriend over something you have no evidence to suggest even happened?  Not an appropriate level of punishment, you'll actually hurt her by doing that, which is precisely what you are trying to avoid.

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