u/Independent-Draft537

I used to scroll through this thread looking for help a few months back, and I feel my story could benefit people who are doing the same. I started dating my partner in the fall of last year. Within 1-2 months, my natural anxiety which I struggle with on lots of other things, took hold of my relationship. My brain had convinced myself that I didn’t love her, when days before I knew I did. It felt so real, I thought out how to break up with her many many times, because I was fully convinced. I spent many a night angry and crying on why I felt this way. Spent many weeks with a horrible feeling in my stomach and in my head, which I’m sure many people can relate to. I ended up finding out what ROCD was and I felt I related to it a lot. I spent so much time trying to figure out why I felt the way I did, and I never had any success. I began therapy, meditation, and stopped other recreations to allow myself to focus on my issue. It wasn’t until about 3 months straight of depression and intense anxiety until one day it clicked why I felt the way I did. A combined onslaught of negative habits, and negative thinking was my answer. I spent many nights smoking weed, staying up late, and scrolling on my phone, which didn’t help my already existing anxiety. I concluded my main cause of the anxiety was my attachment to comparing myself to others. We all see online people discussing falling in love madly with someone and being absolutely infatuated with someone 24/7. I assumed I was supposed to act like this, and pushed myself into a headspace where if I WASNT constantly filled with immense happiness in my relationship, than I wasn’t “truly” in love. Everywhere I looked, this fake “love” was everywhere. In songs, in movies, in TV shows, and it took me so long to understand that comparison was tearing me apart inside. Once I realized this, I started to prioritize what I felt was truly love. It’s not going to be the same for everyone, and a person who isn’t really emotional at all, it took me a long time to figure this out. It took lots of soul searching to figure out what love meant for me personally in my relationship, and ever since late last year, I haven’t had any nervous tendencies or anxiety. I’ll have a worried thought once in a while, but I’ve learned to accept the thought and let it pass. My story isn’t the same as everyone’s, and I know some people suffer far worse and for far longer than I have, I just hope maybe my story can help someone who might possibly share some similarities with me, because I know what it’s like to be so consumed by your thoughts and what you think is “real” in your head.

For context, I had some time away from family and off work, and I thought it would be fun to have my girlfriend over to hang out. We spent 3 and half days together, and while I still was running errands and cleaning around the house, she was with me from the moment we woke up until we went to sleep. By the second day, I could tell we were getting a little tired of each other, but I didn’t think too much on it. By day 3, we were struggling to agree on where to eat and what to do, and it got bad enough that we didn’t talk to each other for the last 3 hours she was with me. We had a few disagreements, but nothing major, and we were understandably tired of each other, I’m assuming because this was the longest amount of time we have spent with each other, but we did not leave each others side the whole time. Ever since she left, and we’ve communicated over the phone, it really hasn’t been the same. I feel like I have to force conversation with her, and I can tell she is doing the same. It sounds childish and cowardly, but I want some space, to have some time to refresh our relationship. We’ve never had arguments or been mad at each other, but I feel like the little things she does annoys me. I really feel bad because this all hit us really fast and I don’t think we were prepared for these feelings to hit us. My only wish is to just go back a few days and restart, but I feel lost and I feel disconnected from her, and from something so minimal worries me. I really don’t know why I’m feeling this way, or what to even do.