If You’re Dating Someone With OCD, You Should Know…
We hope you understand us.
When you try to take me on a spontaneous date that throws off my routine, I may accidentally come off as irritable or annoyed with you.
I hope you understand that it’s not you I’m frustrated with — it’s a voice in my head screaming that it feels incredibly uncomfortable not doing what I normally do at 6:30 pm on a Saturday night.
It’s really very thoughtful of you to take me out to my favorite restaurant (or fast food place!) and take a walk through the park at sunset. I know it’s not life or death that I missed doing “x” from 6:30–9:00 pm on a Saturday night, but I have intrusive thoughts — a voice in my head I can’t get away from, that is distressed when I don’t follow my routine.
I hope you understand that I am not trying to be distant or distracted — I’d really like to be present and focused.
I just become so anxious when my brain hyperfocuses on the fact that I am not doing what I usually do at this time. I can’t escape myself to be present with you. As much as I’m trying to listen and talk with you right now, my brain didn’t have enough time to process the fact that my regular routine on Saturday night was going to be disrupted and it’s still trying to do that while we are together.
When you question why I am doing something a certain way, out of genuine curiosity, and I snap at you, I hope you understand you haven’t “done something wrong”.
If I have a particular pattern or method for doing something because of my OCD, when you ask a question surrounding it I feel self-conscious about it and become defensive. I’m sorry if I made you feel bad for trying to understand.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to answer why I do something the way I do it, or at the specific time I do it, or the number of times I do it. It’s a ritual for me. A compulsive behavior. That can be embarrassing for me to admit so I might try to avoid answering you or, again, get defensive because of my own insecurity.
When you want to step into my world and understand me, I may be apprehensive about it
Because I don’t want you to see the part of me that is struggling with OCD. It’s my own world. My thing. I know it’s not normal and it holds me back from living in freedom, but I don’t know how to live normal and free anymore. This — the dysfunction, it’s my own version of normal. I’ve learned how to live with it and be okay with the dysfunction. I don’t want you to come into that dysfunction, though.
Until I am truly ready to get help and recover, you can’t force me into it.
As much as that hurts, it’s the hard truth. I must come to my own breaking point that causes me to choose to change. If anyone else but me chooses, I will most likely fall right back into old patterns of behavior very quickly. My choice to live in freedom is one of the main factors that will help me get through the hard days of recovery. Once I start having a hard time in a recovery that I didn’t even choose for myself, I certainly won’t give it my best effort.
We hope that you understand we love you and want to be the best for you. We want to shield and protect you from the dysfunction we have come to live in. We are trying.
