Intrusive Thoughts About Past Behavior (Not Sure If This Belongs Here or Not)

[Jojo97Participant]

So this is kind of a long story, and I wanted to see if anyone else has experienced the need for reassurance about things that happened in their lives and whether or not those things were morally repugnant or not. For context, I was diagnosed with OCD/anxiety/depression when I was in high school, and for me it’s almost always revolved around desires, and when I was a religious teenager whether or not I was “allowing” “impure” thoughts in my mind. I would be in the confessional every week or other week, and sometimes twice a week if I felt that I had “entertained” these thoughts.

Anyway, around 2015 I started dating this girl who ended up becoming my (ex)wife. She’s not pertinent to the story except to illustrate the relationship between my intrusive thoughts and my life, In hindsight in was a very wholesome romance, we would kiss but I was afraid to make out or do it for too long out of fear. And once we kissed awhile, and I spent weeks dissecting whether or not I had done it to get turned on, whether or not it was considered “a make out session” (it wasn’t), how conscientious of it I was at the time, yada yada yada.

Cut to 9 years later, and I’m divorced at 26, working a 9-5 that I hate, and I become fast friends with a girl in the office. She’s funny and pretty and we have a great time together outside of work. I’m still in a bad place after my divorce, as my ex was my first girlfriend, my first everything and my best friend. I lost a huge part of my identity and two years later, quite frankly, I’m still trying to get it back as we were together for almost 8 years and had been friends since middle school. So, anyway this girl at work (with whom I’m still friends) and I start hanging out after work, she has just split with her boyfriend, and we go out dancing. She tells me that I can if I want, I do, and our relationship starts to get complicated. I tell her I want to properly date her, but she wants to just be friends who make out sometimes. Fair enough. We go out a lot, and the signals are kind of confusing. She is extremely flirty, and makes remarks to me at work and outside of it, but when I approach her about having a relationship she says either no or “we’ll see what happens”. She liked to say “if it happens it happens”, which is maybe a normal thing to say, I don’t know, but it kind of confused me. So, mixed signals to say the least. So, cut to a night we’re out, we’d been going a little further, we’d phoned and things are seeming to ramp up. At the time I was drinking heavily, out of boredom, depression, and general self-medication. My self-esteem and mental health were not great (and still aren’t if I’m being honest). We went out to the club, got drunk, and I don’t remember exactly what was said, but we had had a conversation before the club about how basically we’re going out together tonight as more than friends. Cut to, me, drunk, seeing her talk to another guy, and I wandered off as I tend to do when I’ve been drinking. Turns out she was trying to get us free drinks, so I overreacted. But I tend to wander off as I said, and when she found me, she was so mad, and very drunk, so much so that she punched me in the face and we pulled me to the ground in the middle of a grassy area. I remember this part kind of sobering me up a little bit, even though I remember having had a lot to drink, as I managed to get us an Uber home. Needless to say, we ended up hooking up that night, and I’m not sure if I did something wrong or not. My brain goes back and forth on how drunk I was in comparison to how drunk she was, because the next morning, she didn’t remember it, and my heart sank. I felt awful. We ended up in the morning, and she said that I had her consent, but my brain goes “how can she have given me consent if she doesn’t remember?!”. I honestly know that I’d been drunk too, very drunk even, but was I more sober than her? I remember and she doesn’t. Had I sobered up on the way there? Did I take advantage of her? I don’t remember who initiated things when we got back to her apartment, but it obviously didn’t involve her in any way. I remember her pulling me down to the floor back at the apartment like she had in the grassy area, and I do remember having the thought “are either of us too drunk?”, but I got caught up in the moment and there had been this tension brewing for months.

 

This happened over a year ago, and I still don’t know how to feel. I was drunk, she was drunk, but I remember not feeling blackout drunk and she clearly was. I don’t remember the level of drunkenness that I was experiencing that night, but I go over and over and over it in my head. The fact that I didn’t heed that brief voice in my head that said “maybe this isn’t smart” as it was about to happen also haunts me. If I am then I think “I shouldn’t be alive”, but I would never have done it if I knew that she wouldn’t have remembered it. I’m not saying I’d kill myself, but that’s just the thought that comes to mind. I feel like going over the situation over and over is driving me crazy, and I think: Maybe this isn’t an OCD thing and I’m just a bad person blaming OCD for being a shitty person. We’ve talked about it since, we’re both still friends even though we live in different cities. She said I had her total consent, but she decided she didn’t want to have a  relationship after that. I don’t know how to feel about any of this.

[Forum Moderators]

Hi:

We’re sorry you’re having many issues with OCD. And we want you to know that OCD Action offers other types of support for you.

You can contact the OCD Action Helpline and Email Service to talk to or email someone who understands OCD.

Our Helpline volunteers provide confidential information and support for people with OCD. Most volunteers have personal experience of OCD; all understand how it can impact your life. Contact our Helpline by:

• phone: 0300 636 5478
• email: support@ocdaction.orguk

Support groups for people with OCD offer a safe place where you can talk openly about OCD and support other people. Read information about UK-based groups here:

• Local independent support groups: https://ocdaction.org.uk/i-need-support/local-support/
• OCD Action Skype/Phone/Zoom support groups: https://ocdaction.org.uk/i-need-support/ocd-action-skype-phone-zoom-support-groups/

If you don’t live in the UK, look for groups near you on the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) website. Under “Find Help”, choose “Listing Types”, then “Support Groups”: https://iocdf.org/

And please remember that you’re never alone – OCD Action is here to support you.

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