Obsessing About My Girlfriend’s Past: Treating Obsessive Thoughts and Anxiety Symptoms Directly

Reader’s Question

I am a 22-year-old male and I’ve been going through a weird disorder of some kind that doesn’t seem to match the queries of others that I’ve found in this column.

I’ve been in a good relationship with a girl for about 6 months. She seems a trustworthy person and has given me no reasons to doubt her. She has told me almost everything about her past because she believes in being open about everything before getting into a new relationship too deeply. She has admitted that she used to smoke weed and drink which is a total turn-off for me, but she has quit all that voluntarily since I came in her life. She’s also confided that she’s had many relationships but only ‘one’ serious relationship that involved sexual activity.

Since the day she told me about her past, queer thoughts have been bugging my mind. On an intellectual level, I am quite comfortable knowing and accepting her past. But I find that my mind thinks about some things over and over again to the point that I can’t concentrate on what I am doing, and it’s affecting my social life as well. I have become so concerned that this would become a true obsessive-compulsive disorder that I decided not to be with this girl for awhile and not to make any commitments as well. My rationale was simple: if I’m not involved with her, I don’t have to think about her past.

Am I doing the right thing? Is there any other way to get rid of these obsessive thoughts? Is this a temporary situation or a clinical disorder?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Obsessive thoughts can appear in a person’s life for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, especially under stress, our brain chemistry can become unbalanced and we experience symptoms of anxiety and depression, which can also include obsessive thoughts. Other times, anxiety symptoms can appear when we’re not conscious of certain fears, insecurities, etc.

One generally accepted principle of dealing with symptoms of this type is that simply escaping the anxiety-evoking situation only reinforces the anxiety cycle, and it assigns the “locus of control” over the symptoms to an external source as opposed to giving you a sense of mastery over them. So, whether you avail yourself of the many possible medical therapies available or take the non-chemical approach, dealing with the symptoms directly is the only way to effectively get rid of them. I have posted before on the essentials of the non-medical approach in an article about treatment options for OCD and depression.

Even if your situation is best dealt with through medical intervention, treatment need not necessarily be long-term. Sometimes, unbalanced brain chemistry can return to normal after shorter-term treatments, and a person can be weaned off medication successfully in relatively short order.

So to answer your questions, there are many effective techniques available to you to manage obsessive thoughts. Simply removing yourself from sources of stress only reinforces the anxiety cycle and is likely to be detrimental to your sense of self-efficacy in the long run. It’s best to deal with your anxieties and other symptoms directly. Once you’re thinking more clearly, you’ll be better able to sort through the issues that might be facing you with respect to your relationship with your girlfriend.