Dating as ERP tracks for me right up until the exposure has opinions. Real ERP comes with a hierarchy and a clinician watching the dial, and Bumble gives you neither, so Matt got a vote in your treatment without knowing he was in it 😅
Matt is the E, whatever I did was RP hahaha it isn’t formal ERP but I’ve only been an RP girl myself so far because my obsessions/compulsions are a lot more “normal” in nature so they come by very often and some times don’t really get a time limit (literally living through the worst fear already) 🤷🏻♀️
Ehh, I wouldn’t say he had any opinions apart from the fact that he thought I was very cool (I mean I think I’m pretty cool myself so it doesn’t really matter)—I also wouldn't say he got a vote, he just *existed* haha
If I could highlight on here: "sometimes I wish I had another theme." The cruelty of it is you know deep down the intrusive thought is static. But relationship OCD impersonates a signal, hiding inside the one longing you need for trust. I can only imagine how brutal it must be for every feeling to get pulled in for questioning and every doubt to be potential wisdom. Clearing the level while the game disguises itself as the prize is a hard recovery. It's the one you're describing. Love how you write. 💚
Alexandra, you’ve worded that so beautifully. That articulates the experience perfectly. Thank you so much for reading this and for your kind words, they mean so much to me! 💜
Love this post and relate to so much of what you said (not the men wanting to listen to me pee part thank god 🤣). It never occurred to me that when I have went into manic fantasy relationships with someone I've met once that it isn't normal and its my OCD! I've had the exact thought 'ahh it's harmless' but then I get hooked on a person (or the person my mind has generated them to be) and think I'm in love, then I get too attached.. they think I'm crazy... they avoid me... I have a breakdown... repeated about a dozen times over my life.
Aww, thank you so much!! And thanks for reading, of course. I know it isn’t the typical idea of ROCD but I see the mechanism behind mine: high value, high novelty target > mind latches on > any gap of uncertainty is something my brain loves to fill out > stuck in the thought loop until there’s a new thought to latch onto. It’s harmless until you try to stop and you can’t, suddenly you’ve lost sleep imagining scenarios about men you’ve met once or it turns into something real and your mind somehow decides that they have to think about you as much as you think about them when it’s pretty much a brain addiction atp 😂
Oh, I feel you so bad… the times that I thought that way I felt like it was a me issue, it was so comforting to realize it’s just a thing my brain does sometimes. Wishing us peace lol
Yes!!! It's a lot easier to identify it as rOCD when the thoughts and spirals are causing you lots of pain, but you've made me realise that the almost exact spirals are happening when I get sucked into my dreamy fantasises imagining a future with someone - even if at the moment when I'm doing it - it's making me excited, making me listen to love songs while skipping down the street! It's still the same brain process. Wow this has changed my life 🤣. a brain addiction is the perfect way to describe it because it can literally feel like you're high and what follows when the tiniest thing breaks the illusion?.. a massive comedown.
Talking you about this just made my day! So nice to relate with someone about this lol I wish our brains would let us enjoy those cute feelings moderately but nooo hahaha one day maybe!
I loved this essay, thanks so much for writing it!!
Really resonate with learning that we don't need someone to understand our every thought in recovery, because we are learning to trust ourselves with that.
Also:
"Occasionally, I’ll get jealous of people who avoid the word “butter” like the plague just to make sure their entire family stays alive. But I know it’s all the same mechanism. We’re all on the same boat even if our compulsions look nothing alike."
So real. I've had the same thought so many times. And sometimes I even hope for this new thing to become my obsession, and sometimes it does. And it becomes just as bad as the other one was, no matter the theme.
Thanks Annie! 🥹 Your support means the world to me.
Wow, that’s such a great way to put it–literally had this realization based off of that: we are so used to trusting someone else with our thoughts (the way that people without OCD are able to do, and we may have done too much in the past) that the opposite is actually exactly what recovery entails 🤯
Lol yes I feel you hahaha ocd’s just the gift that keeps on giving 😂😂
Cricket the Admirable - braving the wilderness of dating and being empathetic with herself in the process 🫶🏻
Proud of you and sitting right next to you in the extra layer of difficulty that OCD can bring to something naturally riddled with uncertainty.
You are so sweet! What a beautifully written comment, you should write more, Gabby!! Consider me a fan already 💜
Dating as ERP tracks for me right up until the exposure has opinions. Real ERP comes with a hierarchy and a clinician watching the dial, and Bumble gives you neither, so Matt got a vote in your treatment without knowing he was in it 😅
Matt is the E, whatever I did was RP hahaha it isn’t formal ERP but I’ve only been an RP girl myself so far because my obsessions/compulsions are a lot more “normal” in nature so they come by very often and some times don’t really get a time limit (literally living through the worst fear already) 🤷🏻♀️
Ehh, I wouldn’t say he had any opinions apart from the fact that he thought I was very cool (I mean I think I’m pretty cool myself so it doesn’t really matter)—I also wouldn't say he got a vote, he just *existed* haha
If I could highlight on here: "sometimes I wish I had another theme." The cruelty of it is you know deep down the intrusive thought is static. But relationship OCD impersonates a signal, hiding inside the one longing you need for trust. I can only imagine how brutal it must be for every feeling to get pulled in for questioning and every doubt to be potential wisdom. Clearing the level while the game disguises itself as the prize is a hard recovery. It's the one you're describing. Love how you write. 💚
Alexandra, you’ve worded that so beautifully. That articulates the experience perfectly. Thank you so much for reading this and for your kind words, they mean so much to me! 💜
Love this post and relate to so much of what you said (not the men wanting to listen to me pee part thank god 🤣). It never occurred to me that when I have went into manic fantasy relationships with someone I've met once that it isn't normal and its my OCD! I've had the exact thought 'ahh it's harmless' but then I get hooked on a person (or the person my mind has generated them to be) and think I'm in love, then I get too attached.. they think I'm crazy... they avoid me... I have a breakdown... repeated about a dozen times over my life.
Thank you for writing this!
Aww, thank you so much!! And thanks for reading, of course. I know it isn’t the typical idea of ROCD but I see the mechanism behind mine: high value, high novelty target > mind latches on > any gap of uncertainty is something my brain loves to fill out > stuck in the thought loop until there’s a new thought to latch onto. It’s harmless until you try to stop and you can’t, suddenly you’ve lost sleep imagining scenarios about men you’ve met once or it turns into something real and your mind somehow decides that they have to think about you as much as you think about them when it’s pretty much a brain addiction atp 😂
Oh, I feel you so bad… the times that I thought that way I felt like it was a me issue, it was so comforting to realize it’s just a thing my brain does sometimes. Wishing us peace lol
Yes!!! It's a lot easier to identify it as rOCD when the thoughts and spirals are causing you lots of pain, but you've made me realise that the almost exact spirals are happening when I get sucked into my dreamy fantasises imagining a future with someone - even if at the moment when I'm doing it - it's making me excited, making me listen to love songs while skipping down the street! It's still the same brain process. Wow this has changed my life 🤣. a brain addiction is the perfect way to describe it because it can literally feel like you're high and what follows when the tiniest thing breaks the illusion?.. a massive comedown.
❤️
Talking you about this just made my day! So nice to relate with someone about this lol I wish our brains would let us enjoy those cute feelings moderately but nooo hahaha one day maybe!
I loved this essay, thanks so much for writing it!!
Really resonate with learning that we don't need someone to understand our every thought in recovery, because we are learning to trust ourselves with that.
Also:
"Occasionally, I’ll get jealous of people who avoid the word “butter” like the plague just to make sure their entire family stays alive. But I know it’s all the same mechanism. We’re all on the same boat even if our compulsions look nothing alike."
So real. I've had the same thought so many times. And sometimes I even hope for this new thing to become my obsession, and sometimes it does. And it becomes just as bad as the other one was, no matter the theme.
Thanks Annie! 🥹 Your support means the world to me.
Wow, that’s such a great way to put it–literally had this realization based off of that: we are so used to trusting someone else with our thoughts (the way that people without OCD are able to do, and we may have done too much in the past) that the opposite is actually exactly what recovery entails 🤯
Lol yes I feel you hahaha ocd’s just the gift that keeps on giving 😂😂