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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BigGyro09
- Date posted
- 20w
Life kinda just sucks right now 18+ only
Never feels like I can fully put my mind to rest. The problem with OCD for me is once I'm over one worry there's another buried deep into my mind that I'm not fully over. The two events I'm not completely over is when I tried to help a 17 year old with POCD when I was 19 and the topics unfortunately were detailed and even then I explained to them I wasn't comfortable with talking to them. I guess I just had a hard time saying no to someone needing help but it eventually made me so uncomfortable that I stopped talking with them altogether at some point. Then the other thing is being so worried that I committed a crime because my elbow touched someone's behind when I didn't want that to happen at all. I didn't want to listen to my OCD by saying move my arm or something horrible is going to happen so I didn't and then something bad actually did happen. I thought it would just be a light touch while zipping a bag up but then it was worse than I ever wanted it to be and it was so awkward and I hated it. I feel like I just won't be able to get back to the way I was before OCD started all of this. Aside from that I've just had extreme health anxiety but am too afraid to reach out to a PCP even though I need to. Something deep down is telling me I should do this but I'm just so anxious and embarrassed about sharing things to them. I can't even enjoy the things I used to do because this is constantly just messing up my life. I'm hoping I get a start of positivity next time I see my therapist. This just sucks. Feels like others around me are doing so much better than I am and I'm just kind of stuck on these same problems and feeling absolute shame and guilt from the past over and over again. I'm just so sick of dealing with this every single day so I just use escape whenever I can. Even that doesn't really work. I just wish I could go back in time.
TurbulentSaq112
- Date posted
- 17w
POCD without guilt or shame
I am 15 years old and my POCD feels like its not POCD, i feel like i like my intrusive thoughts, but i have more intrusive thoughts about having intrusive thoughts, and i feel like i cant enjoy the things i normally enjoy anymore, like calling with my girlfriend and joking with her because this is still in the back of my mind, its making me question morals and if i ever even viewed P as completely wrong and i hate this so much, i love my nieces and nephews and when they're over i know id never do anything with my intrusive thoughts but when they arent present i feel like i like my thoughts. Before this i was dealing with HOCD and ROCD and i wish i could go back to that
Imnew@this
- Date posted
- 9w
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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