Danielle Thornton breaks down five patterns in relationship OCD: feeling your partner isn't right, comparing them to exes, doubts about sex and intimacy, religious concerns, and believing in one perfect person. These are fear-driven intrusive thoughts, not truth.
Foreign.
Welcome. My name is Danielle Thornton. I am a life coach and course creator. And today I want to talk about five common themes in regards to relationship ocd. First, I want to remind you though, relationship OCD is categorized as intrusive thoughts and extreme anxiety and fear around relationships. And so these themes are really just different ways and different areas that your brain is throwing intrusive thoughts at you to try to get you to run from the relationship because it thinks that is unsafe. So the first one I want to talk about is enough or rightness. So this one is when you have the thoughts that your partner isn't enough in some way or the relationship isn't right in some way. And this could even be physical characteristics that you tend to focus on in your partner. It could be that you feel like that you don't connect enough, that they're not affectionate enough. Fill in the blank. There could be a hundred different things that you could feel like isn't quite right. And when you're giving these thoughts a lot of attention, it's typically going to throw even more stuff at you. So that is the first one. The second one is the X. So this is when comparisons of your ex partner come in that your partner may be different or do differently. It could be any number of things that your ex partner did that your new partner doesn't and your mind is really hyper focused on those things. The third one is sex and intimacy. And this is a really common concern with people because when we have a lot of anxiety and fear going on, that's definitely going to shut down our physical attractiveness to somebody. It's going to kind of shut down those arousal centers. And so there can be a lot of fear also around getting close to somebody when you have a lot of anxiety going on. So you might find yourself nitpicking or not even wanting to have sex or be intimate with your partner because there is that fear that's kind of standing in between you. The fourth one is religion, and this is super common. If you grew up in a religious household or with parents who had a lot of beliefs around what's right and what's not right in a relationship. And so you might wonder if this was the one, would God use somebody that's giving you all these doubts or, you know, all kinds of different thoughts around should I be in this relationship? You might be praying and have all kinds of beliefs around what should happen. And so anything around religion or God. And really there's a lot of expectation and belief that is in between of Your relationship and what you think should happen in regards to religion and the things that you grew up with. And then the last one is the one. And this kind of is similar to religion in the sense that there is a belief there that there is one person out there that is right for you. And if this person's giving you anxiety, then they're probably not the one. This couldn't be further from the truth because there isn't just one person out there for all of us. There's actually a plethora of people out there for all of us. So that's really good news in the sense that if something didn't work out in your relationship, which for a lot of people suffering from relationship ocd, they don't necessarily want to hear it. But part of the healing process is getting comfortable with uncertainty because none of us know what's going to happen in the future. So getting comfortable with knowing if something didn't work out in our current relationship, then it's not like we've missed our only chance at love or at a happy, healthy relationship. So if you experience a theme that's a little bit different than what we've talked about today, very common. These are just some of the most common themes that I have seen with people and then I've experienced myself with my own past with relationship ocd. And hopefully this gives you some context around, you know, what's common and why these things are happening. Again, when you are in a state of anxiety or fear and there's a lot of beliefs underneath that which you may or may not be consciously aware of yet. Depending on where you're at in your healing process, your mind is going to pick out and nitpick and anything that might not be perfect in your relationship to try to get you to run. Because that's what fear does. Fear wants us to avoid the thing that our mind thinks is a scary, unsafe thing, when in reality it's not. Most of the time, 95, 99% of the time, our fears are extremely over exaggerated and they're not as scary as our minds are making them out to be. So if you're needing more support, if you want to learn the tools and the skills that helped me overcome most of my relationship ocd. And you want to move past your intrusive thoughts, your confusion and the anxiety that you're experiencing on a regular basis, then I have a really cost effective solution for you that I created called Heal youl Rocd and you'd relationships an amazing program. It's all the things that helped me heal from my relationship ocd. Things that I continue to use to make sure that I stay healthy and free of anxiety and it's really cost effective. So much information there that I learned over years of working with therapists and reading books and all kinds of stuff that I put all in one program and it is there to help support you. So check out the link below for more information on that. Or if you're interested in one on one coaching with me, something more personalized, I can help you there too. Just know that I'm here with you every step of the way. Healing is possible, happiness is possible, Healthier relationship as possible. You don't have to continue struggling at all. I hope you have a great day.
