Something I just figured out about my Pure O.

I just figured out tonight something that my Pure O does. This happens when I spend a lot of time alone with someone important to me (it has happened to me with a friend, my boyfriend and my mother) It finds something (either an intrusive thought, a past event, or something else for me to feel guilty about) that I feel I cannot tell this person because I feel it would change the way the person felt about me. (as in "Oh my god, if they only knew what I was thinking/ what I did.." etc.) and I begin to obsess over it and it does NOT stop until I confess, and if I don't confess I end up having a HUGE crying spell.
It gets worse when I'm having fun with the person or when my life is generally going well.

I am really trying to stop confessing though, because I have confessed my whole life thinking "this is the last one, it'll go away after this." and I can't do it anymore.

Is this common? It's the absolute worst feeling in the world.

For the moment, maybe you could begin confessing things here instead. I had a habit of telling people too much about myself too but it was slightly different in that I never obsessed about telling them. Anyway, for the moment, start confessing things here and see how you feel.

Hi,

I think this confessing is a compulsion that you use to dispell the anxiety you feel about your thoughts. I have done this before and I know it does neither myself nor the person I'm confessing to any good. Apparently this is a form of reassurance seeking. You have bad thoughts and you want someone else to tell you that these thoughts mean you are not a bad person. Try to accept that weird thoughts are a normal part of human experience. Those of us with OCD feel responsible for the content of our thoughts and feel intense anxiety when we experience a "bad" thought. This makes it more likely that the bad thought will occur again. Most people have such thoughts but don't react with the same kind of hyper-responsibility. I hope this makes sense and I'm sorry if this is incorrect and does not apply to you.

There are some very good self-help books out there for OCD. Brain Lock by Jeffrey Schwartz and Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by David Veale and Rob Wilson are both excellent.

(I hope posting this is allowed, I don't want to advertise anything here)

What sort of things have you confessed about in the past? What sort of thoughts are your anxieties centered around?

Sharing here might help, as Chucky suggests.

Hi, my first post to this forum. Usually i lurk in the Schizoid forums...

I have this exact type of OCD which i developed at age 9.

I can completely relate to what you descibe as obsessive guilt and "confession" compulsions to people close. I have it to such a severe extent that i avoid all intimacy, therefore my obsessions/compulsions are rarely triggered - however this does make one lead a very lonely life.

Ive had it for 22 years so ive learned to live with it...

My advise is if it gets worse to the point of severely affecting your life i suggest medication (i take 20mg paxil which helps with the anxiety) and perhaps learn thought-stopping techniques. Both these helped me alot...however i learnt them quite late so i developed schizoid personality disorder in the interim which im now trying to undo.