Forest13
- Date posted
- 3y
FocussedOnRecoveryFocussedOnRe...
- Date posted
- 3y
You tagged this with religion themed OCD. I’m curious what role religion plays here. Years ago, my religion made my OCD much, much worse. Be careful that you haven’t “criminalized” normal sexual desire in your own mind (which some religions tend to encourage). Whether you believe that you evolved to desire sex, or that a Creator designed you that way, one thing that all religions acknowledge is that human beings are (among other things) sexual creatures. As a sexual creature, you are expected to notice other people, to notice their bodies and admire some of them. I don’t think it’s reasonable or realistic for any religion to tell you that is wrong. My thought is, you may be fearful of fulfilling your normal sexual desires because in your religious framework doing so would make you “bad”, or worse yet, destined for hell. As a result, you have a ton of anxiety around the question, “am I a good person”, and that leads you to a) attempt to convince yourself that you have no immoral desires, and b) constantly check to see if you do have these desires (by noting how you react to stimuli, such as, a pretty girl at church). Now that you are checking your sexual reactions so often, to monitor for evidence of immorality, you are sure to see minors, check your reaction, and at some point be confused or disturbed. This confusion could be caused by something like an erection right after seeing a minor. Sounds bad, right? But why might that happen to a perfectly good natured guy like you, who has no desire to harm children, nor any pedophilic tendencies? Well, when we put so much focus on our own sexual reaction, we put a lot our attention on our genitals, and that’s all it takes to get an erection. And that’s just one common example—there are other possible explanations, including totally physical ones that have nothing to do with any stimuli (sometimes I get an erection and I’m not turned on at all—literally just typing emails at work—it’s blood flow—it’s not always sex) But of course, if we don’t understand this is OCD, we take this as evidence that we are pedophiles. But again, we don’t want to accept it. So then we look for more evidence. And the cycle repeats, each time getting meaner and more painful. My advice: look at these people you are afriad to look at, and just breathe. When the thoughts come, don’t engage them, don’t comment on them, just breathe. Don’t ignore them, but don’t look them in the eye. Just let them float by. I hope that helps you. It helped me a great deal.
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Anonymous
- Date posted
- 22w
My brain hates me (18+)
It’s like my brain is doing everything in its power to convince myself and also justify an attraction to teenagers. I hate myself. I don’t want to be this person, but what if I don’t have a choice. How do I get these thoughts out of my head permanently. I feel like my life will never be the same if they don’t leave forever. I can’t tell what is a real desire and what OCD is trying to convince me is a real desire. I can’t do this every day for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone, or I don’t think I do but how do I even tell anymore. This might not even be OCD at this point, I can’t separate my thoughts from OCD thoughts I think because I’ve had OCD for so long so it all just feels like me. Maybe it is me. TMI but I haven’t pleasured myself in like a week because my libido is so low now, I don’t want to do it with these thoughts.
Medicine2021_
- Date posted
- 22w
Suicidal OCD and harm OCD
I’ve recently been struggling a lot with OCD. I have had OCD for a long time I just didn’t realize it until more recently. About seven months ago I developed panic attacks one day randomly at work. I thought I was having a heart attack and went to the hospital where they told me it was just a panic attack and I assumed I would snap out and be better within a few days. However it didn’t. Here’s where it gets scary, I was staying at my then boyfriends house while dealing with blurry vision, anxiety attacks everyday, and more (unsure of what was going on). But at some point I saw my bfs (pew pew 🔫) on his table and it sent me into an anxiety attack after sudden thoughts that I was going to hurt myself with it. I begged him to put it away when I’m not looking so I didn’t know where he put it. He did. These thoughts lasted for about four days but began to go away. (I thought that was it and I would be back to normal). Unfortunately though I ended up moving back in with my family when we couldn’t get my panic attacks under control in time for me to get back to work and pay bills. However, coming home brought up a lot of trauma from when I was kid. My anxiety got worse but I didn’t have those thoughts again. About two and half months ago though, I got sick and went to the hospital where they gave me steroid pills and a steroid shot but sent me into some kind of psychiatric event. Ever since then though, I have been suffering from harm OCD, I have had moments of intense anger that I usually have to completely walk away and go on my own because of how intense they are, and it feels like it’s getting worse. Today I felt fine until about and hour and half ago where I started to dwell on the fact that my suicidal thought was influenced by my OCD and at the moment my OCD is at the worst it’s been. This caused me to get suddenly really depressed and I started crying thinking about how I can’t handle this. I then saw a post talking about how suicide rates are high for people with this form of OCD and it made me question if I am mentally strong enough to pull through this. I fear that at times I’m getting worse. I have good days but I have a lot of bad days. Unfortunately this sent me into such a bad panic attack I went over to my nanas crying about how I can’t deal with this. I took a 0.25 mg Xanax which helped calm down the panic attack portion of it but my brain is still uncomfortably active. I guess I just need hope. I’m so saddened by this. It’s like my life took a total 360 in 10 months and got even worse since the steroid shot. Idk what to do about it. I can’t stop the spiral. I talk to two different therapist weekly and start more next week, making it 5 times a week. I feel no improvements…
Imnew@this
- Date posted
- 18w
I can’t take it anymore.
(21+ ONLY PLEASE: TRIGGER WARNING) I’m just so sick of it. I’m letting it win. I’m letting it beat me. I’m losing. I’ve been seeing a therapist but we only meet every two weeks for an hour because of my insurance. I can’t afford any more visits. We’ve been working on ERP but I still feel stuck. Just recently, we went through a drive thru and the kid at the window looked really young. I’m afraid that I found him attractive and I felt a groinal at the thought. I f*cking hate my mind. I don’t think I can do this anymore. I’m trying but I still feel like it’s not enough. I’ve let my parents down, my friends and my family. Everyone who knows me doesn’t know the thoughts I have and how sick and disgusted I feel with myself.
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