Loved One Compassion Fatigue
I have posted here before about my OCD affecting my relationship, and I am still struggling with it. When I was first diagnosed with OCD, my partner wanted to attend an ERP session with me and started googling what to do for me and immediately withdrew reassurance. I told them I wasn’t ready for that and I just needed time to figure things out a bit on my own. We never got into a good place where I felt supported, and now I have expressed what I need and they argue and disagree and finally we landed on them needing to disengage from talking about my OCD and offering support.
I get it, I really do. I get the compassion fatigue, but I feel they have compassion fatigue from trying to do a bunch of things I never asked for. I never felt like I got the space to think about what they could do to actually support me, but I never wanted so much involvement from them, and all I want now is for them to respond to my OCD with response prevention phrases I provided for them instead of telling me that my feelings are just OCD. I get they need a break and want to give it to them, but because I never felt like I had the space to contemplate, articulate, and practice the support I think I want, my gut instinct is to emotionally pull away and avoid them.
What do I do? Is this a chance for me to sit with the discomfort of having negatively affected someone and not being able to fix it immediately? Is it intrusive thoughts that are preventing me from seeing that a boundary about how involved they are will be restorative for the relationship? Avoidance is a compulsion for me, so pulling away and shutting down feels like the wrong answer but I also don’t know what to make of the fact that I never felt like anyone asked what would help me feel supported while accommodating my OCD less…