Smell and Attributing Feelings

[fightoffyourdemons]

Recently I have found myself feeling guilty about enjoying the smell of the person I sit next to at work - their perfume. Guilty to the point where I feel like I am cheating and must tell my partner.

I am in a long term relationship and I love my partner a lot, but I have always struggled with guilt and have never been able to fully compartmentalise any relationships I have with people, and the moment I feel any connection to someone (be it family member, friend, colleague) I have always felt that suddenly I am in love with them.

The person I sit next to at work is cool and someone who I used to work with ages ago and recently rejoined. She’s genuinely just a very nice person. She’s pretty but I don’t long for her or crave her attention or do anything inappropriate. She just happens to smell nice and we get on. We never talk outside of work and our relationship isn’t anything other than professional. I never think about her or the smell until I smell it, if that makes sense. I don’t seek it out.

I feel a comfort when I get a waft of it - but I also know that I attribute things and meaning to senses which other people don’t. I also used to get a comfort when I smelt my mum as a child and thought I was in love with her. 

Am I in denial? Just reading too much into it? Is it just OCD?

Life is hard and will just kick you when you think you are getting better.

Edited April 10, 2019 by fightoffyourdemons

[dksea]

Hi @fightoffyourdemons, Sorry you are having a rough time.  First lets start with the most important part:

2 hours ago, fightoffyourdemons said:

Am I in denial? Just reading too much into it? Is it just OCD?

General rule of thumb:  If you think it might be OCD, it probably is.
In other words, its a good idea to treat things like this as OCD.  

Next, lets talk a little bit about the rest of your post.  Whether you realize it or not your post is basically reassurance seeking and confessing.  Its good that you are, so far, avoiding confessing to your partner (we will get back to that in a minute) but you are still confessing so thats something you should try to be aware of. I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, so please don't, overcoming compulsions is hard and it can take partial steps to get there.  Going from confessing a lot to no confessing at all might be too tough, so perhaps you are confessing less, and certainly confessing on the forum as opposed to your partner is a step in the right direction too, but you should be mindful of what you are doing and how often so you can make sure you are making progress and not just replacing one compulsion with another.  It doesn't seem like you post that often so I think you are probably doing pretty well, I just want you to be aware of what this kind of post is, since its often hard for us to notice our behaviors when we are in the midst of them.

Circling back to confessing to your partner, its important to keep in mind not only how confessing affects you but also how it affects your partner.  Maybe you get some small sense of relief from the confessing compulsion, after all thats why we do them, for that sense of relief.  But for your partner it might not be a good thing, they might find it frustrating, annoying, worrying, etc.  We often don't realize it but we can be putting a burden on our loved ones with our OCD and how we seek to relieve ourselves of the anxiety.  So a confessing compulsion is not only bad for you, since it helps strengthen the intrusive thought, as all compulsions do, but its bad for your loved one, since it adds stress and anxiety to their life too.  So the next time you feel the urge to confess ask yourself "will confessing help my loved one, will it make their life better", it might help you lessen the urge to confess.  Because while true honesty is important for a strong relationship, what OCD offers us is not truth but lies.  

[dksea]

Also, to offer a slight bit of reassurance, but also to help you understand the perspective of someone who doesn't have your particular worry:
If something smells good, it smells good.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying the smell of something (so long as you aren't doing harm to someone/something to be able to smell it, such as breaking in to a flower shop to smell their flowers ;) ).

[paradoxer]

3 hours ago, dksea said:

Because while true honesty is important for a strong relationship, what OCD offers us is not truth but lies.  

Spot on, the 'honesty' of OCD is a fraud. It's along the lines of 'the reason you feel anxiety is because you're a good person' - you hear it from sufferers all the time - people who should know better. There's nothing 'good' about OCD. 

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

32 minutes ago, paradoxer said:

Spot on, the 'honesty' of OCD is a fraud. It's along the lines of 'the reason you feel anxiety is because you're a good person' - you hear it from sufferers all the time - people who should know better. There's nothing 'good' about OCD. 

A very good point. People say all the time that a sufferer are such a nice person to the point where she he obsesses. Well... That person could  be intrested in the matter ONLY beceuse of the OCD. 

If this sparks anxiety in the reader I would advice you to look at why

OCD and its stories are all false and shouln't been taken serious

Edited April 11, 2019 by OCDhavenobrain

[fightoffyourdemons]

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful and helpful replies. This forum is much appreciated and I will take the above on board.

[paradoxer]

On 10/04/2019 at 23:20, OCDhavenobrain said:

A very good point. People say all the time that a sufferer are such a nice person to the point where she he obsesses. Well... That person could  be intrested in the matter ONLY beceuse of the OCD. 

If this sparks anxiety in the reader I would advice you to look at why

OCD and its stories are all false and shouln't been taken serious

[paradoxer]

On 11/04/2019 at 07:29, fightoffyourdemons said:

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful and helpful replies. This forum is much appreciated and I will take the above on board.

[dksea]

On 11/04/2019 at 23:29, fightoffyourdemons said:

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful and helpful replies. This forum is much appreciated and I will take the above on board.

You are more than welcome!

On a side not, I note that your Location is listed as "Earth".  What a coincidence! I too live on Earth!  Maybe we'll bump into each other sometime!  As they say, it IS a small world after all ;-)