Breakups Hurt — But OCD Makes It Worse

Hello and welcome to the OCD and Anxiety podcast with me, Robert James, a coach and someone who's been through it too.

Today's episode is about breakups and OCD and of course breakups already hurt but OCD makes them brutal. If you're stuck replaying the past, questioning everything you said or did and chasing closure that never comes, this episode is for you.

So I really hope that you find this one helpful. If you have any questions at all do please let me know and please do subscribe to the podcast it really does help us and if you could consider leaving us a review it only takes a few moments and again it really helps other people who might be looking for this content to find it many thanks and off we go you're not heartbroken you're stuck in a mental loop that won't let you move on and

OCD is disguising it as guilt doubt or unfinished One of the trickiest things about OCD after a breakup is that it doesn't show up waving a flag that says, I'm OCD. It comes disguised as an honest reflection or emotional maturity or, you know, trying to get closure. But what's really happening is this. Your brain is stuck on replay, picking apart the relationship, your role in the breakup, their reactions, your memories, what you said, what they said, over and over again.

You might find yourself thinking, was I emotionally abusive in some way? Did I lead them on? Did I lie without even realising that I did that? What if they're hurting and actually that's my fault?

This feels like kind of morality like integrity but if you've been at here for for weeks on end months or sometimes even years such as myself it's not integrity at all it's OCD dressed up as responsibility for me this is something that I really struggled with relationship OCD has been a big part of my story and you know a breakup with a girlfriend that I met not long after moving to Barcelona, is something that can sometimes still pop up into my head today.

If you're struggling with relationship OCD, well, you can get a free discovery call with me. To get that, you can head over to my website, robertjamescoaching.com.

There's a link in the show notes. I can find myself kind of going over that relationship again, looking for a certainty that it was definitely the right decision to break up with that person.

You know, that maybe I hurt them in some way feeling frustrated about how it ended going around in circles and you know how things could have been different whether I made the right decision and all of these things as soon as I start looping on them of course what happens is I start feeling enormous anxiety guilt shame all of these really difficult emotions about it and even though I want to stop thinking about it it's almost addictive I find myself

wanting to think about it more and more the thing is break Makeups already hurt, so OCD doesn't have to work very hard. It latches on to real pain and real regrets and turns the volume up. The thoughts, they might feel noble in some regard, even necessary, like I just need to know if I was a bad person or I need to fix this before I can move on. But the moment you try to resolve that thought, of course, the loop begins. You answer it and then the next kind of version shows up.

You answer that and then it doubles back. And that's the trap. The more we try to figure it out, the more we try to have certainty about the breakup, about the relationship, the more stuck that we get. So what do we do instead in these situations?

Well, instead of trying to solve what happened, see if you can notice the urge to analyze and figure it all out and realize that actually this is a compulsion. Even if that thought feels urgent, your job isn't to debate it or figure it out.

Your job is to notice the urge name it as OCD and let the thought exist without you actually having to solve it and this is where my three-step method to dealing with OCD intrusive thoughts can actually be really really helpful step one is to acknowledge and simply what you need to do here is you need to interrupt the rumination cycle basically you're just thinking about the whole thing way too much and it's causing you to kind of get really confused about the whole thing.

In order to get clarity, we need to drop the rumination. And so to do that, the first thing is just to acknowledge to yourself that you're ruminating, you're trying to figure it out, you're trying to have certainty about it. And we do that because we're triggered. You know, our nervous system is activated by, you know, this actual difficult thing, this breakup that you've been experiencing.

So number one, we acknowledge that. And to do that, you might just say, I'm triggered or there's a thought or there's thinking. We don't need to do too much here, just a simple label. And then step two is to tolerate. You don't even need to accept it fully yet. You just need to allow the discomfort to be there in the body and to acknowledge that it's only temporary.

It will move on of its own accord if we stop thinking about it so much and kind of digging up all of this pain by looking for that certainty. And step three, refocus onto the present moment and your values.

It's so important that we learn to let go of trying to figure this thing out we're never going to have a hundred percent certainty about it so instead if you can focus on the present moment what's going on around you what you deeply care about in your life you know that allows the problem to have a bit of space when we stop trying to figure it out you know that's when we actually begin to get some clarity about the whole situation and step

three is to refocus your attention onto the present moment Try to focus on your values, on your goals, things that are going on around you. OCD is really good at getting us to kind of fixate on these things that we can't have certainty about. And the more that we get stuck in our heads with those things. You know, the worse that the OCD gets. So if we can come into our bodies and refocus on what's going on around us, you know, often that kind of gets us out of the rumination cycle.

And that tends to kind of lead to a bit more clarity. Yeah.

You know, rumination is something that I struggled with a lot with relationship OCD. I used to spend almost all day, every day, really struggling with this. And it's not something that really bothers me that much anymore because I realize that I have choice.

If I can apply these three steps on a regular basis, and if I'm really determined about not allowing myself to ruminate so much on these things, Well, typically my anxiety begins to come down and I start getting a bit more clarity about relationship OCD, about the breakup. I think when we're always trying to revisit it and trying to have that certainty. That's when we get less and less of what we're actually looking for.

And when we allow the uncertainty to be there, that's when we get the sense of freedom kind of rushing back to us because we haven't demanded for things to be a certain way anymore.

Well often begin often things begin to kind of turn out in the way that we would like we start to get that clarity we start to see i don't need to worry about that i can move past that now i've already made my decision and actually i'm just revisiting it and going over it and making myself feel awful about that for no reason at all perhaps i can refocus onto something else bring my attention to the present moment and in doing so perhaps i'll start to feel better ocd

after a breakup makes you think you need perfect understanding in order to heal. But real healing comes when you stop chasing certainty and start choosing to live your life again. You can feel the pain without turning it into punishment. You can move on even with questions there in the background. And that's where real freedom begins. So that's it for today. I really hope that that gave you something useful to work with.

And if you'd like some support with this, i do offer a free discovery call it's a chance to explore what's been keeping you stuck and whether coaching might be a good fit you'll find the link in the show notes or you can head over to robertjamescoaching.com many thanks and i'll see you next time. This podcast is for education only it's not therapy or medical advice if you're struggling please speak with a licensed mental health professional for support.