- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Does it just disappear? Does the brain get empty from all the thoughts or do they remain but you just get better at ignoring them?
- Date posted
- 3y
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.
- Date posted
- 3y
can it feel extremely real?? like mine feels so real at times and makes me so miserable
- Date posted
- 3y
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.
- Date posted
- 3y
@Nica Yes it feels extremely real. That why it’s a problem
- Date posted
- 3y
@Anonymous It’s only problem because you’re making it into a problem.
- Date posted
- 3y
Comment deleted by user
- Date posted
- 3y
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).
- Date posted
- 3y
@Nica Thought* that was a bad typo 🤣
- Date posted
- 3y
Have you experienced a lot of regret and shame from your past that turned into Real Event for you? It’s my worst theme, what’s something that helped you overcome it if you did suffer from it?
- Date posted
- 3y
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.
- Date posted
- 3y
@Nica I love this, I’ll definitely try to keep this while I’m working on my exposures
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCDHaver Yes 🙌🏻
- Date posted
- 3y
I have false memory ocd. I get a thought randomly and it says “what if you did _____” and then I start to get images and stuff in my mind how it happened, and then my mind keeps adding new thoughts and then I keep ruminating and going back to see if it’s true and then I start saying I would never do that and it helps but then it slowly comes back. I feel like when I go back to the thought it makes me feel better cause it doesn’t seem realistic and i just say I never did it and I feel better but then ocd makes me doubt and say but what if you did and you didn’t remember and then I start trying to find evidence that I didn’t do this bad thing. I ask my parents and stuff and they say I’m a wonderful person . I know I shouldn’t be asking for reassurance but sometimes it helps me get through this . Btw this false memory is about harm ocd mainly. I struggled with pocd but I got over that one.
- Date posted
- 3y
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.
- Date posted
- 3y
@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
- Date posted
- 3y
@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.
- Date posted
- 3y
And sometimes it happens like when I’m somewhere and then a few days later it comes what if you did that when you were at this place
- Date posted
- 3y
Do you have false memory ocd ? How did you recover from it
- Date posted
- 3y
@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.
- Date posted
- 3y
have you recovered from an identity related theme? if so did you find ur old self again
- Date posted
- 3y
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.
- Date posted
- 3y
@Nica how long did you have it? also was accepting that you may or may not be hard at first
- Date posted
- 3y
@Anonymous20222 About 6 months.
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- 3y
@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 🤣
- Date posted
- 3y
How do you deal with the “grey areas”- where depending on who you would ask, whether or not something is morally acceptable would be questioned. (eg- doing something borderline illegal that many people do, and is usually harmless, but is still discouraged)
- Date posted
- 3y
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.
- Date posted
- 3y
Hey! I’ve recovered too- how’s after recovery like? Don’t mind me, just wondering how our experiences line up. :)
- Date posted
- 3y
Just living my life, riding the life wave 🤣
- Date posted
- 3y
how can you convince yourself youre just not in denial? especially after doing stuff that you can say is why you're this or that
- Date posted
- 3y
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.
- Date posted
- 3y
Hi! How long did you suffer with ROCD? Did your feelings come back? Did you stay in your relationship?
- Date posted
- 3y
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.
- Date posted
- 3y
@Nica Thank you!
Related posts
- Date posted
- 19w
(Long read) hello everyone. i was out of the country for about 3-4 months and traveling. my ocd was not that bad at all and I was able to handle it even if it came up. on my way back home, it immediately started. i have learned how to handle it better, but i am more sad and just “awaiting” for something bad to happen. for example, i have sexual themed ocd. pocd and family related stuff, and also my ocd targeted my pets for about a year and it manifested into compulsions that disturbed me and made me not want to be around my cats. now that i am around my cats, i feel like “what if i harm them or do something bad?” or “what if you do those weird compulsions that happened before?” , when i look back on the compulsions that happened, it doesn’t feel like me and it was clearly driven by ocd, but it makes me worry i am just a sick person. i know myself and i know im not, but i had such a weird childhood and then ocd from 15 years old and up. so when these weird compulsions had happened , whether it was for the pet ocd theme or pocd or the family ocd, it feels like some sort of proof. anyways, i feel a bit for content with myself but i know how real ocd can feel and i just remember feeling so hopeless and suici da l, i just don’t want to go through that again. i take a more spiritual route of life and healing, and i wonder if anyone has some deep spiritual warmups or practices i could do to maybe open up my mind more? maybe to realize this is all in the mind? but also to not fight it… Not fight it meaning not let it take over my life. i racked up so much debt in therapy and i truly think i can get through this alone i just need a bit of help. but i dunno. any advice would help! thanks everyone ☀️
- Date posted
- 19w
I haven’t done a Q&A in over a year (my bad) but I used to do these at least once a month. Work is slow today, so please send me any questions you have about OCD and I’ll answer them as best as I can. A little about me: I’ve been subclinical/recovered for going on 5 years and I’ve been on this app volunteering since 2019 in an unofficial capacity—I’m not connected to the NOCD team, so I don’t have any badges. I did ERP treatment with my therapist in-person while I was also being treated for PTSD. I have OCD, PTSD, ADHD, depression, GAD, social anxiety, driving anxiety, and a few speech impediments.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 12w
Good morning to my fellow community members ☕️ I hope everyone reading this is having an enjoyable summer to the best of their abilities 🌞 After responding to a post of mine from three years ago that someone just commented on; I wanted to take the time to put myself out there and share a brief update on where I’m at in both my recovery and remission status. Overall, I’m in a night and day different place with my OCD from three years ago and I’m thankful, grateful and blessed for that 🙏 Many factors have come into play in order for me to be where I’m at today and able to write this very post 💯 However, I have been met with trials and tribulations along the way and it’s been a very challenging process, but I’ve done my best along the way to take each year on with both stride and grace ☮️ And so, I wanted to speak on as of very recently; not going over my entire journey over the past few years. Hence, the title of this post being “Harm OCD Spike” and it’s exactly that. For me, it’s minimal, but it might be major for someone else who is experiencing Harm OCD and so I wanted to share it with you all and let everyone know that no matter where we’re at in our OCD journeys; unfortunately, it’s never going to be 100% perfect because as we all know; nothing in life is ever 100% perfect and that’s just the reality and that’s entirely okay ✅ It’s a tough pill to swallow in general, but especially for someone like me who has been challenged by the subtype of Perfectionism since my teenage years as well. And so, yes; as of late I have noticed a very-slight increase of random Harm OCD thoughts. Very similar and very comparable to others from throughout my past dealing with Harm OCD. That said, I’m aware of them; I don’t at all like the fact that they’ve sporadically presented themselves, but I’m not at all going to beat myself up about them the way I once did and let’s use “Three years ago” for example (referencing the intro to this post) and that in it and of itself is a win 💪 I’ve acknowledged these few random thoughts that have presented themselves based upon now known triggers. And as we all know; anyone, anything, anytime and at any place can trigger us and that also entirely okay because OCD is not specific when it comes to subtypes nor triggers 📢 No one nor anything is off limits when it comes to OCD and as unfortunate as that may be; it’s the factual reality that we all have to acknowledge, accept and embrace 📶 And again, entirely okay 👍 In conclusion, regardless of your random harm thought, the anxiety that comes to follow, the rumination after that, the want to perform compulsions; whether they’re mental and/or physical that we all experience and/or the assurance seeking that we all feel that we both want and need both in that moment and sometimes even after the fact; the fact of the matter is that no matter where we’re at in our journeys, this is ultimately what happens when having to live with this mental disorder/illness and that’s also entirely okay 🫶 I wish, hope and pray each and every single day since formally being diagnosed years ago that one day a 100% cure will be either discovered or made for us, but until if/when that day comes and God willing it does; we all have each other and our entire community with resources like the life changing/saving NOCD, etc. And THAT’S, what needs to be highlighted and focused in on 💛 Not the overall amount of time that OCD either attempts and/or does steal from us 💔 Why? Because we’re stronger than that! We deserve better than that! And we will continue to fight ourselves and our lives because we all owe it to, ourselves 💗 Sending love, compassion and support to all those suffering from the monster and battling the beast that is OCD 💌
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