My boyfriend and I are together for a year. He was recently diagnosed with OCD intrusive thoughts. Things were seeming to stabilize with therapy. We used to talk a lot about it when the diagnosis was out and gradually stopped checking in with each other because he was doing much much better and he didn't want to talk about his intrusive thoughts anymore cause they were getting meaning and he would spend hours analyzing them. They are mostly sexual or violent thoughts like slapping a person or randomly poking somebody with a pencil on the eye or cutting his own genitals. Through therapy and sessions with psychiatrists he managed to stop paying attention to them and be able to put them aside. He has them very often and they can be intruding his daily routine. Last night we went out he started talking about his OCD after months of not commenting on it and was trying to explain to me how it occurs or feels for him and I made some comments that he found automatic compassion crap that he doesn't need. He snapped and told me that he needs understanding and for me to ask questions and push him to open up cause this compassion makes him feel different while he just wants me to understand his struggle with OCD and pay attention rather than making generic encouragement commentary that doesn't work for him or makes him feel like there's something wrong with him. I am crying my eyes out since it happened. In the past, I started spent some time reading about it and other people's experiences with it to be able to be there for him in a meaningful way. Many times I'd cry myself to bed cause nothing seemed to work. He was agitated and started asking me to leave him alone or not touch him or cuddle him that often. He doesn't realise this cause I never told him I tried to educate myself around his OCD until yesterday that it was brought into discussion. I feel like I'm failing him and can do much much better to actually be there for him.
Supporting boyfriend with OCD?
