It’s a lovely Saturday afternoon where I am, so I’m open to questions about recovering from OCD once again! 🙏🏻 Not sure how long it’s been (2 weeks?) since my last Q&A but if you don’t know me or my posts, I’ve had almost all OCD themes and I’ve recovered from all of them.

They don’t disappear; I still have intrusive thoughts. I don’t react to them so they aren’t an issue anymore. You have to let them be and not fight them.

Yes, of course. We are our brains after all. However, what other animal don’t have is consciousness that we are more than just our brains.

@Nica Yes it feels extremely real. That why it’s a problem

@Anonymous It’s only problem because you’re making it into a problem.

Yes indeed. Any time I caught myself about to do a compulsion, I left the room and did something else. Example: I want to Google if I have cancer or not. I shrug off the intrusive tho if hot and go to the living room, away from my computer and phone (I don’t take my phone with me when I’m at my house).

@Nica Thought* that was a bad typo 🤣

I don’t love with regret or shame anymore, no. I did the intensive therapy work not just for my OCD but also childhood trauma and that helped with dealing with the feeling of shame. If I feel guilty or shame, I detach from the emotion and ask myself if I did something wrong. If I did, then I don’t do that thing again. But I don’t feel bad for intrusive thoughts and feelings; it’ll always be there and I’ve accepted it.

@Nica I love this, I’ll definitely try to keep this while I’m working on my exposures

@OCDHaver Yes 🙌🏻

If you can get over POCD, one of the most difficult ones to overcome, you can overcome and recover from them all. I struggled with POCD for years until I finally also let those thoughts and feelings be. Doing what I did for all my other themes, I knew POCD was just another one. A difficult is , but OCD all the same. It’ll always be with me because I was abused as a child by a neighbor. So, POCD is the one that I’ll have for the rest of my life. However, I know what it is, I know what/what not to do when it comes up, and I refuse to let my OCD control my life when that’s all it did for 6 years.

@Nica Thanks for your reply. My main thing is with harm ocd is I got a thought what if I killed someone ? And I get images and stuff and it feels so real and awful. This is probably the darkest time of my life. I’m slowly getting better but it’s made me quit my job, stop eating, and take care of myself. I rather hurt myself then hurt anyone else. I love people and I never want to hurt anyone. I think that is why it’s so hard for me it’s so unlike me. I hope I get through this awful thing

@Emilyycc You’d definitely know if you did and that’s all you need to know. Don’t give into your OCD trying to prove it or not. Fighting the thoughts and images only makes it worse because you’re signaling to your brain that that thought, feeling, or image is dangerous and it’ll keep feeding that to you.

Do you have false memory ocd ? How did you recover from it

@Emilyycc Yes, I do. I don’t let the thoughts bother me. I’ve had years of practice with mindfulness, so I can search from my emotions/mental illnesses and see then for what they are. Then, I let the thoughts be.

I had homosexuality OCD as a teenager. I accepted that I might or might not be a lesbian and there’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian. I stopped caring and I haven’t had it since 15 years old.

@Nica how long did you have it? also was accepting that you may or may not be hard at first

@Anonymous20222 About 6 months.

@Anonymous20222 My brother is gay so it wasn’t very hard because then my mom would have two gay kids and that was funny to me as a teenager for some reason 🤣

I have ground rules for myself that I don’t cross even if it seems easy. I was a juvie as a kid and could’ve been down a very different path than I am right now. But that’s because I decided to do the right thing always and I know what the right thing is for me personally.

Just living my life, riding the life wave 🤣

I’m not trying to convince myself of anything, I just live my life and not fixate on things I can’t change. Trying to fight or change against your own mind will never work out well.

I had it for the first year in my relationship. It sometimes comes up but I know my fiancé and myself well, so I don’t pay the thoughts any attention and let them be whenever they pop up.

@Nica Thank you!