Misunderstanding emotions??

[pleasehelpme4]

Is this common in ocd? I'll be thinking about my boyfriend and will get really happy than a child will pop up and i will convince myself that i felt those romantic feelings for them instead of my boyfriend. this is ruining my life right now and my mind keeps convincing me i want it even though its against everything i ever wanted before and during ocd. My therapist warned me since i know its not sexual it would try to turn romantic. i hate what my mind is doing it keeps convincing me i want this to be real and if someone tells me its fake ill be upset which is obviously not true but im scared it is

[Juustopallo]

This is exactly how OCD works. You look for certainty and feeling "right" by thinking about your boyfriend. But the more you look for feeling certainty, the more your brain will give you uncertainty. "What if..." You react to this uncertainty with compulsive behaviors trying to control the uncertainty and get tangled in a one simple thought. You might compulsively try to replace the thought of a child with a thought of your boyfriend. You look for validiation from online. But all compulsions do is give you more uncertainty. You might feel a short term relief but on the long run engaging in compulsions only makes your anxiety and your uncertainty worse and more complex. So what you got to do is accept the uncertainty and all the stuff in your head and move on with your life. You might feel like you have to solve this "problem" before doing anything important in your life, but you have nothing to solve. Trying to solve this type of uncertainties only leads to increasing amounts of compulsions -> increasing amounts of obsessions. Leave the battlefield. It will make you anxious as first "I have to be sure that I'm not attracted to children" but that's a good sign. Expose yourself to this uncertainty without trying to solve it or fix it. Fight compulsions, not obsessions. When you do, the obsession will fade away.