Do I have ROCD? (Relationship OCD)

Today I'm going to be answering the question,  How does ROCD develop and what causes ROCD?

So as always, I don't want you to be compulsive so if you feel as though you're feeling compulsive right now if you're feeling a sense of urgency as you're watching this please save this video for later and watch it when you are not feeling compulsive and you're wanting this for educational content and a way to help your journey with ROCD. 

So here's the truth we can get really stuck on finding the cause and the reason for why we have our ROCD and in reality that can actually be a sneaky compulsion that we don't realize because it's pretty innocent to ask ourselves what causes ROCD.  Why am I feeling anxious right but a lot of times what we don't recognize is the energy behind that question which is what we really try to teach you at Awaken into Love which is this question based on a compulsion, is there an urgency here, is there a need to find an answer in order for you to feel a sense of relief, in order for you to feel a sense of groundedness? 

So please ask yourself that question as you are watching this video because we can really get stuck also on finding and analyzing this exact question. There is sometimes a trap that people can get into especially when they're doing trauma work or working with a therapist or coach who doesn't really understand ROCD which is this almost endless search going deeper and deeper into the trauma into doing deeper work to find an answer that you're going to somehow find that will somehow cure your ROCD. So please keep that in mind as you are asking yourself this question. 

So in reality there are many different perspectives at Awaken into to Love we tend to combine a bunch of different perspectives together we believe that the Western model gives a lot of extremely important benefits especially with exposure work with CBT, understanding how OCD works and we also believe in different types of spiritual holistic practices. 

So the first one I'm going to target is the Western perspective as to why ROCD happens and why it develops so in the Western perspective there's a really big emphasis on the chemical imbalance so there's an emphasis on neurodivergent brains being different and there's actually been brain scans that show the difference between someone who has ROCD or OCD.

In this perspective because there's not much research on o ROCD and someone who doesn't and there's actually on the brain you can actually see different parts of the brain lighting up for someone who has ROCD and someone who doesn't. 

So a Western perspective can definitely be more sought out in terms of a chemical imbalance or that it is somehow genetic now if we're looking at a psychotherapeutic or psychoanalytical perspective.  It's usually based on trauma or a genetic disposition where protectors have been created to overprotect something that feels very vulnerable. 

So if a person is experiencing fear or if a person is triggered then they have these protectors coming up to try to protect an individual from making a mistake or doing something that can risk them in a sense of a safe analysis.

 A lot of our AIL ROCD/RA Academy course, talks about how ROCD is a protective mechanism and how the protectors come up to kind of overprotect us in a way to make sure that we are safe. 

Another thing,  that I want to add to this is that ROCD from what we've seen is different from other forms of OCD. Why? Because we actually have a complex avenue of working with also relationships. So a lot of times people are bringing in their relational trauma people are working on people are bringing in their Attachment Styles as they're working with ROCD. Which is very different from other forms of OCD.

So that's why in other forms of OCD, you see a lot of people mainly working on Exposure Work, CBT, and working with the triggers. 

But when we work with ROCD, we also bring in the lens of how our relational trauma impacts our attachment style. How are we working with the conflict and also the boundary work that we might need to work in terms of relational work.

I also want to add that especially if we're working on our trauma and we're working with kind of the relationship aspect, it's so important in my perspective to bring an OCD lens to this because we can really almost use the diving in of relational trauma and even the wise of different conflicts within a relationship almost again as a compulsion. 

So there's a fine line and the more you do this work, the more you get into the integration of healing,  understanding ROCD and how it works. The more you're able to understand the sneaky ways ROCD can kind of bring us into one way or another. 

So really be mindful of kind of going into this place if you notice within yourself of wanting to deepen and go deeper into analyzing and analyzing because that can also lead into compulsive behavior and worse in the ROCD. 

So at Awaken into Love, you notice that we will sometimes work with the inner child.  We're also working with kind of a spiritual holistic perspective which is working with the energy that is there allowing ourselves to bring compassion which is such a big piece to the work that we do unconditional love. Working with trust and doing a lot more holistic and integrative practices which actually help the ROCD in a more empowering way. 

Again, I do want to add that it is always this kind of back and forth this balance almost this art that happens the more we get to understand ROCD thatt we are always still going back to the OCD perspective as we are bringing in the holistic perspective as well.