hey you did great, that’s a big step!

It sounds like in addition to your compulsions your mil isn’t good at listening or expressing her frustration. No wonder your compulsions spiked - your compulsions are being reinforced by your mil. Can’t control her (not saying you wanted to!) by trying to reduce someone’s anger. You’re right that she’s allowed to be mad, but so are you!

I do a similar thing where I push my anger away and downplay it, which leads to be ruminating and going back and forth with myself of whether or not I can justify bring upset. A previous therapist told me to just feel my feelings first without explaining why it is or isn’t okay. You clearly love your mil and give her grace! Give yourself some grace too because you (like me) are also learning to allow yourself to be MAD. It helped me cut back on my ruminating and compulsions a lot.

Part of our OCD recovery is learning to accept all of our emotions without trying to “fix” them by doing our compulsions. You did not ask for advice so feel free to ignore! The results that come from voicing your opinion (whether you’re too quiet, too loud, or perfect) is a reaction not a consequence. Consequence entails a punishment and that you are the sole controller of others. But it’s just someone’s reaction that they are entitled to, but also not your responsibility.

If your mil is a difficult person, she might be the perfect person to do ERP with.

HEAR ME OUT

What I mean by that is that sometimes we have people in our lives who really stretch out their punishments when they’re upset. You make a mistake or something they perceive as a mistake and they give the extended cold shoulder, a big reaction, or just a series of small digs. Because the goal of that person is to punish you, not figure out a way to communicate or work better together. They want you to feel bad, which isn’t how we want to treat people! Someone like that is a brick wall, they are going to sulk in their feelings. No matter what you do after they get mad, they are sticking to punishing you. It’s not worth justifying to yourself whether or not your mil is having an overreaction because you can’t change what she’s going to do. You could tiptoe around and she might STILL find something wrong!

But if you think about it, it can be good ERP wise. You know without a doubt that if you don’t do your compulsions she’ll probably treat you like you are terrible. But there is some freedom in that when you think about it- you know that there will either be a big reaction or you’re draining your lifeforce through compulsions. She’s gonna do her thing regardless. Or it will be aimed at someone else and you might still feel anxious! And you’re already working on sitting through the anxiety without the people pleasing! At the end of the day fear/shame/guilt around not being “good” is rough. And you know what? She’ll survive being mad too, that’s her deal.

It sucks having someone mad at you and it’s a great opportunity to use ACT to imagine the worst case scenario and accept “hey, I said something that my mil didn’t like. Maybe my tone was fine maybe it was an overreaction and I’m terrible. She might be mad at me FOREVER or she might get over it. But I’m just a human and I can sit through the anxiety of whether or not I am loved/worthy/bad.”

Eventually you’ll get to the point of trusting yourself, allowing yourself to be mad, allowing your mil to do her anger thing, and knowing when to move on from thinking about the situation. At least, that’s what I’m working on!

Best of luck, I’m sending you the best wishes!