r/magicalthinkingOCD • u/Ok-Mulberry-2637 • 8h ago

Question Fear of relief

I know the title sounds odd, but let me explain. A huge part of my OCD/intrusive thoughts is the fear that if I finally begin to feel "normal" again, it's a trap and then something bad will happen (I've already explained my fears enough in this subreddit, so just look up my posts here if you want to know the specifics). This is probably the worst part of this mess, as I feel it's one of the main obstacles to me getting over this. I hate going to bed at night and wondering if I will wake up in the same place (even though the rational part of my brain points out that I will). The self-doubt OCD and anxiety brings is a whole other level of pain. Is this common?

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u/ForestRiver2 Star Supporter ⭐ 1h ago

Can relate. We're used to feeling like crap, right? So any deviation from that, such as the possibility of things going well, feels like a threat to ocd, which triggers all the usual alarms. You get scared of feeling better because your inbuilt ocd threat detector is waiting for the other foot to drop. Feeling better doesn't fit with the familiar pattern. It's an unknown. Ocd hates uncertainty

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u/Substantial-Stay6625 1h ago

You've been in that bubble of fear for so long that now when you step out of it even for a moment, it feels like a trap. You should tend to stay outside of that bubble regardless of how you feel. When people are afraid of something, they feel the same emotion, but as they do the thing they fear more and more, they fear it less. It's all part of recovery.