Hi everyone, so I was wondering if you could help me understand what is going on since I’m finally seeing a new therapist and I want to open up more about this. But basically I always have thoughts of harming myself even though I don’t actually want to, and it just gives me comfort to keep thinking about it especially when I become overwhelmed. Like it’s several times a day. I know that’s not good and I really try to avoid it, but I can’t control it. Is that what others experience with harm/ suicidal OCD? It’s just really annoying and I don’t want to end up being involuntarily hospitalized if my new therapist takes it the wrong way because the last time I was in patient was just awful 😞 but I really need to get this out because it’s really hard to keep going back to it and I just feel like my mouth is so shut but my brain is constantly on fire. I just want it to stop!!

I’ll give you my story, hoping it provides you with some perspective, but not reassurance: I struggle with several emotional issues, like low self-esteem, inadequacy, worthlessness, people pleasing, not feeling good enough, etc. On Christmas Day, I was scrolling through social media and just saw nonstop pictures of happy families, whether they were related to me or just friends. Due to my issues I described above, it was prime time for an intrusive thought to sneak in, and it did. I had a thought pop in my head that said, “why don’t you just hurt yourself? People will care about you then if you’re in the hospital.” I immediately rejected this thought, knew all of the reasons why it was wrong, but it didn’t matter. Because I was at a vulnerable point emotionally, and I have issues pertaining to relationships, that intrusive thought caused my heart to sink, cause an alarm bell in my head to go off, because I could sense that this was going to cause me a lot of stress. I had been here before so I knew this feeling. After a couple days of compulsions: like Google searching the difference between Suicidal OCD and actual suicidal ideation, stories of people who actually committed suicide, and so on, my mind was trying to convince me to do just that, even though I’m morally opposed to it AND I can acknowledge all of the positives in my life, too! But the thought kept festering, more intrusive thoughts kept coming. Eventually, I had one that said “your mom has a gun in her room” and my mind ran wild with that. Now I know that automatically sounds alarming, and it did feel terrifying, there were a few issues with this notion: 1. I don’t know where my mom stores her gun. It’s also locked in a case, idek what the case looks like or how to unlock it. It’s also unloaded inside the case, and the rounds are kept elsewhere. 2. I’ve never fired a gun or know how to use one really. 3. No other means of harm really bothered me, like I was fine using knives at dinner, taking my own meds, driving my car, etc. but because my mind said, “your mom has a gun” my mind saw it as a threat and gave it meaning. Now I told her about this, told friends, and my therapists, and built a strong network of support. I even constructed a pretty good exposure for ERP with my NOCD therapist. However, my other non-OCD therapist knew about this ERP, despite not being certified to treat OCD or know what ERP was, and she automatically grew concerned with my exposure, said that there’s been people in history, like school shooters, who have shared similar emotional issues like mine, were around guns, then went out and committed atrocities. She also then began asking me about my history with guns (which was next to none really) and ended the session with saying “just close your eyes and ‘delete’ the thoughts when they come in” I was naturally scarred from this, ended any further sessions with her, but it didn’t matter. She managed to cause me to switch from suicidal ocd to harm ocd now by implying that my situation was comparable to school shooters. I found myself comparing my life to those of other known criminals. I would remember, “I’ve watched a lot of documentaries on serial killers, school shooters, and violent criminals. I’ve seen alot of horror movies. One of the shooters once said that he couldn’t stop his thoughts, does this mean I’m going to become a violent criminal now too?” And I’ve been stuck in this cycle for a couple weeks now. It’s been awful. But at the end of the day, no matter what the fear, obsession, or compulsion is, OCD is OCD. It attacks what you value most, causes you to doubt your most concrete viewpoints. In my case, it stems from how I’ve viewed myself the last several years as not being good enough. I’ve also had a lot of life changes since my original onset of OCD started in 2020 (my first ever theme was SOCD) In 2020, I: 1. Was sent home from college my senior year due to COVID. I was away from my job, friends, and social activities, and I absolutely thrived being around others. 2. I was uncertain about my job future since I was graduating college soon. 3. The lonliness factor again creeped in, which then caused the intrusive thoughts pertaining to the SOCD theme to creep in. Through ERP, I was able to manage my SOCD obsession after a few months. However, these new related themes I’ve been dealing with lately, pertaining to harm, I had a lot of big life changes AGAIN these last couple months. I: 1. Transitioned jobs for the entire month of November. And even today, I’m still trying to figure out what my day-to-day duties are. I’m on video calls with dozens of people a day, compared to only a few people at my previous job. 2. During the time I was switching jobs, the deadline to leave my previous home was coming up. By the time I had gotten the job situation sorted out, I had roughly 2 weeks to find a new place to live. Not exactly something that should happen in two weeks, right? 3. Once I was able to find my own place, the first night there, I realized I had never lived alone before, and anxiety immediately settled in. I truly felt alone, didn’t have many friends around in the area I live in, and felt isolated. 4. I had to buy a ton of stuff for my new home, along with Christmas presents since it was approaching at the time. 5. I’m going to circle back to my original trigger I mentioned at the top: I felt even MORE lonely while scrolling through social media and boom, I’m at where I’m at today.

Sorry for the insanely long post, but I want you to know that whatever happened to you, know that you’re not alone. I’ve felt so alone lately so I understand completely where you’re coming from: having thoughts that you know don’t reflect your character. But there is and always is hope. You already made one good choice by coming to this app. You’re already in the right direction.