Retroactive jealously/OCD is ruining my life.

[ClayD]

Hi everyone. I'm a male in my 20s and my partner and I are madly in love.

She's so perfect for me and that idea makes this so much worse as a result. I feel sick constantly and its ruining my life.

I cannot deal with her sexual past and I think about it so much and it hurt so bad. I've gone into rumination now and can't get out of the habit of this excessive thinking. I've recently started snooping too which makes things so much worse (received a text etc).

I have tried counselling but it hasnt seem to have worked for me. I was wondering if anyone knows of any medication which may relieve the symptoms and allow me to enjoy my life.

I have been on antidepressants before but they gave me bad ED issues which I'd like to avoid in whichever anti depressant I take next.

Any info would he greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[MAS_Nurse]

Hi ClayD and welcome to this caring forum where you will receive help and support from other members. Jealousy can manifest itself in many ways and can cause you to experience a range of feelings. It is good that you recognise that there is a problem and want to take steps to address this so that you can enjoy a happy relationship together. You mention that you are thinking excessively about this. Have you discussed with your family doctor about how you are feeling? He/She will be able to discuss suitable medication with you if this is thought to be helpful to you. You could also explore the possibility of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which has been shown to work well for people diagnosed with OCD.

I have done some research and have found the following websites which may be helpful to you---

relate.org.uk/Relationships...

ocdaction.org-uk/forum/ocd

If you live outside of the UK, the details on these websites will still be useful to you as they have a lot of useful information. Please talk to your partner and tell her you are working towards getting some help and support. As you have said, you feel she is very good for you, so I am sure all of this will be well worth it. I wish you both every happiness. Please stay on the forum and let us know how you are getting on. Are any members able to help ClayD, please? Take care and best wishes.

[ClayD in reply to MAS_Nurse]

Hi. Thank you so much for your help.

The links do not open anything for me. Both say page not found?

I have tried cbt but didn't have a great deal of success. I kind of want to go down the medication route as a quick term fix and then work on the problem whilst it isn't painful.

Thanks.

[lil-rose]

OCD is tough, I'm sorry you are struggling with it. The one thing that helped me right away was EMDR. Check the EMDR institute for a well trained therapist. What it does is take whatever you are ruminating over and puts it into a different part of your brain, like its filed away someplace where you don't have to think about it, but can if you want to. It works really well for physical symptoms associated with the distressing thoughts too. For me it just really calmed down my brain and thinking, and was very relaxing too

I know you said you would prefer meds, ssri's didn't work well for me, but I find Effexor which has an SNRI to be effective right now. It really calmed down a lot of the thoughts and along with EMDR has worked well so far. I went on it for depression and anxiety.

lil-rose

[ClayD in reply to lil-rose]

Hey there. Thanks for the advice. I've read mixed things about Emdr.

Do you know if it's success rate is high? A lot of the comments I've read only, people seem to suggest it's effects may be a placebo? Did you have a much better experience than this?

Thanks.

[lil-rose in reply to ClayD]

Late reply I know, but emdr helped me a lot. I liked that the results were immediate, and it helped a lot for physical symptoms of anxiety. It also felt like it allowed my brain to process things in a way that allows it to heal itself. As if it better connected the different parts of my brain for those moments, and gave me new, better ways to look at my situation. But not just that, those new ways were convincing, and thinking about the trigger didn't elicit the same response anymore.

I first used emdr to treat individual events stemming from trauma, and then I was able to branch out to other things that were still bothersome and anxiety provoking but not trauma. It worked well for all. Now I am doing attachment focused emdr to help process and heal childhood trauma. There is a lot of prep work to do before getting to the childhood stuff, so I cannot comment on how well the attachment focused emdr works, but I found my practitioner through EMDRIA which is a good source for therapists that do this type of EMDR.

Even if it's placebo effect, it certainly feels like emdr allows me to process events guided by my therapist, just by thinking about them.

lil-rose