Feelings

Anxiety and Not wanting to feel feelings Since I started ERP and resisting rumination and rituals and controlling things I’ve noticed I have extra mental real estate. I’m not as consumed by my thoughts but my baseline anxiety is like 6/10 always. It’s pretty high. My brain keeps checking in and saying “you shouldn’t feel this way! This isn’t right! Google depersonalization! Google spacing out and brain fog!” But I know that’s OCDs game. So I just sit with the anxiety and try to move on with my day. Interestingly, once I strip away all of the rumination, compulsions and rituals all I’m left with is my own uncomfortable feelings that I don’t like. This leads me to conclude that ocd is just a way for me to try and control how I feel. I always wanna feel good and relaxed. Everyone does but that’s an unrealistic goal. Has anyone else come across this before?

When my soocd and rocd first hit hard, it really shattered my world and the kind of stability I had in life before the constant fear of losing the one I love. When I got my first job, I buried myself in the idea that I was too busy to deal with it anymore, it helped that I started school and got a pet hedgehog as well. But some nights it hits me that this hasn’t gone away at all, I don’t spend night after night or day after day stuck in the same thoughts anymore but I feel so cold inside like I’m not worth anything and like I don’t deserve the love and attraction I think I once felt for my sweet boyfriend. I feel like the fact that I can’t “feel” those feelings for him anymore that I’ve spent so long chasing means I don’t deserve him, I feel like even though the great anxiety has stopped I’m still trying to chase down that love feeling and how it “should” feel instead of just feeling it for what it is. I’m still terrified that if I let go of my walls that I’ll realize I don’t love him and lose him. It’s hurting me bad and making me resort to bad coping mechanisms. I’m starting to seek out validation again and craving that rush of infatuation when in reality the only one I want is my boyfriend. For almost a year and a half I obsessed about sexual attraction, it’s really affected my intimate life. I have self-esteem issues about my body, my “skills”, fear of not liking it enough and false expectations just all cause me to not feel much in my body and it makes me horribly sad. My boyfriend says I need to accept the possibility that the things I fear could be true and that I could be with someone else but it’s so hard because I really don’t want that but the longer I fight it the further away I feel from him. I didn’t think ocd could be this complex and cause such havoc on my life. I kind of miss when I felt extreme anxiety every day and had the same thoughts over and over because at least then it was easier to know it was my mind games at work. Now it just feels like I’m sabotaging myself daily by chasing the feelings of love I want. I don’t want to ruin this otherwise healthy relationship, my boyfriend is my best friend and I still want that. Can anyone relate to this? I feel like a lot of people just have the obsessiveness and I’m here trying to deal with the side effects of the after math and it makes me feel so alone

I am not sure how to even describe what I am going through. And even typing this, I feel like a liar and feel like this is not even OCD. I have Harm OCD. I have had the thoughts, urges, and images. It has felt so real and so scary. I have been able to use ERP for all of that and was mainly successful. But now something new is happening and it does not feel like it is OCD. I cannot even put into words what it feels like, but I will try. It feels like the thoughts have overtaken me and now I’m this evil person who will act on the thoughts. My anxiety is not super high, which scares me because it feels like I have gone too far into the dark side. It feels like I have had these thoughts too long and they are all I can think about. It feels like I’m no longer myself and my identity has changed. I feel very weird. Like not even myself. It feels like there is this dark cloud following me and I try to use ERP but it does not feel like it is working. Not sure if I am ruminating or not because I have no idea what is even going on. I am living my life still, but it feels like it is just a matter of time until I snap. I am very scared right now because I’m not sure what this means and I cannot figure it out. I wish I could explain it perfectly but I do not even know how to put it into words.