Hi there,

I don't seem to have all the symptoms of full-blown OCD - I don't have any concern about germs or spend time doing rituals, thinking about numbers or any of that.
But I recently woke up to my food obsession and a compulsive eating. I've always eaten when I'm not neccessarily hungry - for pleasure, comfort, etc. and moderation was not my strength, but recently I realized it had really gotten out of control to an obviously "not right" level.

Consciously seeing that pattern has made me look back and realize that I've been having a lot of those kind of thought patterns throughout various areas of my life. They seem to be more severe within the last 6 months or so.
I tend to obsess on topics that are worrying me - especially things I'm waiting to hear back on, if I'm unsure of the answer or outcome. I'll wonder about it and worry about it and have imagined conversations, visualize various outcomes - good and bad. I remember I used to do that one a lot awhile back - I called them my "anti-fantasies", because I would spend so much mental energy (usually at night when I just wanted to go to sleep) vividly imaging these horrible things that I didn't want to happen.
I just hope that Law of Attraction thing doesn't bite me on the ass for those thoughts! :) It's so stupid to put myself through that, but I couldn't seem to turn it off.

In any case ...I don't want to be finding things that aren't there, but I am seeing these tendencies...and strangely, it's seeming to calm me down and make me feel better about it. I guess because I have a name for it now and a direction to study and move toward understanding and controlling it. Because it's the out-of-control aspect that is so difficult. BTW, I also kind of obsessively research stuff on the web if I hear about something interesting...I guess that can be a good thing!)
I was addicted to cigarettes for a long time and I see those same behaviors echoed in many things I do.
Stress seems to aggravate it and that just snowballs the whole thing.

One bad thing about this basically good (sort of!) discovery is that my bf (of several years - I'm 33, he's 45) is kind of reeling from it. I've just recently started really discovering it and I've only just started sharing about this stuff with him. He has no basis for comparison to this kind if "irrational" thinking. He's been depressed before, but it's always had a reason.

Up until recently my tendendies haven't effected my "outside" life much. Mostly they happen when I'm alone ( we live apart) or just in my head and they are not obvious to others, so this is all kind of a shock to him. He knows I get anxious sometimes, but he's had no idea of just how intense my thoughts can get, or some of the addictive/compulsive type behaviors I have when we're not together. Some of this stuff I sort of half-consciously kept hidden, most of it I don't really consciously realize was happening.

It was really hard to tell him about this stuff because we're already on shaky ground (because of an incident earlier this year where I really hurt him, that I now actually think was very much linked to my obsessive tendendcies - almost a kind of breakdown), and now his gf is telling him she's kinda nutty and that what happened may have been caused by these wierd thought patterns and behaviors. I almost feel like I'm making excuses to him when about what happened, but I'm not. I think I'm really finding some understanding about it, which is really good because it was not making sense to me before and it was making me feel really bad and shameful and confused.

I'm feeling better now about what happened and why and how to go about preventing it from happening again and controlling these thoughts, now that I have a better idea about what's going on.

I am afraid he'll decide that dealing with all my crap is not what he wants.
I know he is trying to understand.

Jeez, this is a long ramble! :P

I guess I'd just like to share this stuff with someone who might relate and also ask how your personal relationships have been effected by this stuff.

Thanks for listening. :)