ROCD Is Impossibly Hard. And It's Impossible to Tell You Why.

It's hard to explain what's happening inside my head when things get bad because people don't really get ROCD. They don't understand how it could be so very different from what they go through, so they're liberal with advice - bad advice that is usually terribly unhelpful and terribly upsetting. That's why I don't talk about the doubts when I'm having them anymore except to my partners.

ROCD is just a theme of obsessions and compulsions based around relationships. Experiences vary, but I have some core doubts: Is the relationship right? Is the person right? Do I feel right when I'm with them?The doubts eat at you and guilt you for sticking around. They're threatening and, most of all, inconsolable. I've struggled with them for twelve years, since my first adult relationship - while dating my husband, years into marriage, and now also in my new(er) relationship with my boyfriend.

My husband knows it better than anyone. He isn't threatened by it anymore, but there's nothing he can do and he says that's what kills him. That I'm followed by this thing that won't seem to let me be happy because being happy itself triggers a cascade of doubts. And how happy can you really be with your happiness under such close scrutiny? When you feel the pinprick of heat from being under a microscope, you begin to sweat and suddenly you're distracted and not feeling the nice things a person in love is supposed to feel. And now, how to know if you were ever really ever happy at all?

People understand the basic doubts. Everyone has those. Am I sure I should I stay with this guy? Like, forever? And they explore them a little and give themselves some counter-arguments and move on. Or if they can't, there are reasons: the relationship is no good for them and they move on. Either way, they move on. And they expect me to do the same.

But I can't. And even when I seem to have, the doubts will come back - in a few weeks or a few months or a year. And of course I'll recognize them but it won't matter as much as it should. Some days they'll be as terrifying and inconsolable and threatening as the last time. And no one but the people very closest to me will understand how I can be haunted so thoroughly in relationships that I believe deep down to be good and satisfying.

But that's it, that's ROCD. And I know by now that it's not so much about the relationships, not really. It's about uncertainty and doubt and navigating how to live in the grey space that is always so very hard. Relationships are imperfect and so are people - but we choose to nurture and love them anyway. And though there are days I lose perspective, I will move forward and choose to keep on loving. It's really the only way out.

Note: When I tried Googling what I was going through ten years ago, I found nothing. Since then, researchers have identified relationship-themed OCD for the first time and more people have started talking about it online under "ROCD." That's good news because it means if you're going through it, you can search for videos, memes and more and feel significantly less alone.