My name is Sakis and I am 54 years old. I have struggled with OCD since I was 22 years old. The first appearance was about homophobia. With the help of medication and a psychiatrist, the situation improved and I was able to continue my life. I married my current wife without ever being madly in love with her but finding her to be my soulmate. We have two wonderful children, two wonderful dogs and a not-so-wonderful cat.
My current problem started about 1 year ago and was depression due to a physical problem related to sex (peyronie's disease). My self-confidence dropped a lot and I started medication which, with the psychiatrist's consent, I changed 3 times without getting any significant results. Instead, in the last 5-6 months, a new type of OCD started for me, which I learned is called ROCD, i.e. relationship OCD. I'm suddenly stuck with my wife's facial wrinkles and wondering if I like her face or not. I don't like what's happening because sometimes it gets quite painful and makes me depressed. Basically it's the same face I've been seeing for 30 years and never had a problem like this.
Is there anyone with a similar problem. I am open to any serious suggestions
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sak69GR
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It happened to me once with my girlfriend at the time. The relationship was going fine (at least, it’s what I thought) until one day my attention became attracted to and fixated on a certain physical trait that I didn’t find appealing. I felt a small change of feelings, and some wondering started to creep in my mind: am I in the right relationship? Should I break up? I felt guilty having those thoughts because I believed that, if physical appearance often plays a role in the beginning of a relationship, an uncontrollable change of appearance (like disfigurement caused by a fire) doesn’t justify breaking a relationship. I also believe in the principle of reciprocity. I would consider my partner leaving me for my hair loss, for instance, as a lack of real love. Why should it be different if I were the one to leave for superficial reasons? At the same time, I can’t ignore what I feel. I don’t choose what I feel; it comes upon me. As I can’t help being attracted to some physical traits, I can’t help being turned off by others. It’s a problem when it happens with somebody you’re emotionally involved with. My girlfriend’s physical appearance never changed. So, where did that obsession about a certain feature I didn’t notice before come from? Was it because my romantic feelings started to cool off? How to get out of that predicament?
Two points helped me solve my predicament. The first point was to establish that if I left my partner for physical reasons she can’t control, what would prevent me from doing the same with the next partner, and so on? That wouldn’t solve anything in the long run. The same scenario would eventually repeat itself. The second point was to address my obsession. I determined it couldn’t go away with reasoning or willpower alone. It had to go on its own. So, I looked at the whole relationship and its chances of success. I decided that if its chances of success were good, I would redirect my attention to what’s positive and see what would happen to my obsession with the passing of time. I never had a chance to test my “experiment” because, in that particular instance, I decided I was not yet ready for a lifelong commitment because I wanted to travel the world first, and things unravelled from there.
However, with my present wife, I know there are physical things that could bother me if I let them bother me, as there are some in me that could bother her. How do I go past them? Habituation tends to dull the effect of a particular physical trait on us whether it’s positive or negative. I don’t like some physical features in me deteriorating with age, but if I don’t want my dislike to become a body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), I try neither to fight it nor dwell on it. I just attempt to do what I really want to do with my life, and with the passing of time I spontaneously don’t pay special attention to them anymore. I do the same in regard to my wife’s physical appearance. I invest regular time and efforts in the relationship and with habituation I don’t notice anymore what may be considered physical flaws by a beauty pageant judge. They don’t occupy my thoughts anymore without having to make an effort.
There are, among others, two kinds of scruples. Some scruples deal with content: “If I don’t make it 100% sure I won’t harm anybody, I feel uneasy” or “If I don’t wash the dishes in bleach, I feel responsible for making my family sick”. Other scruples rather deal with form: “if I perceive a relatively irrelevant physical flaw in something or someone I’m connected with, I can’t go past it” or “if I don’t reformulate in the exact same fashion the message I just deleted by mistake, I feel disturbed”.
Albert Ellis who is primarily known for his development of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), the first form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), based his therapy on the teachings of the ancient Stoics. The main Stoic principle is that emotional disturbances are not caused by external events, but mainly by our beliefs and attitudes about such events and our emotional dependence on them. A famous quote from the Stoic philosopher Epictetus is: “It’s not events that upset us but our judgments about events.”
Stoic philosophy may help OCD sufferers because it’s teaching us to rely mainly on our ability to make judicious decisions given the knowledge available at the time as a source of well-being instead of solely counting on circumstances and appearances that are inherently undependable. It’s guiding us to learn when to be firm and when to be flexible. It’s a virtuous cycle. To learn to be reasonably decisive makes it easier to learn to be flexible when appropriate, and vice versa.
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