Anyone relate??

Thank you, I am sorry you can relate!

I am so shocked how many comments and likes this got! I usually don’t share any of my “vents” because I don’t want to annoy people, but everyone is very kind. Maybe the attention this got will help others realize that they aren’t alone if they are dealing with this pattern. I have found that knowing I am not alone is what helps me the most.

@Have a sunflower🌻 It definitely helps to hear of other’s recognising this same pattern. It’s clearly classic ocd but as you say so hard to fight when you’re in the midst of it. Ocd won’t listen to logic it just wants to keep searching and searching for bad news and the more you search the more real it feels until you end up confused with what’s real and what’s not!

@Angel20 Very well said!

That’s great work, keep it up. I’m not in therapy at present. Mainly CBT in the UK which I had a few years ago but struggling to find a UK based ERP therapist. May consider doing NOCD.

I’m so glad it might have helped you to read! I appreciate your kind words. I think it just shows that ocd has its favored techniques that it uses on us all. There is no need for it to use a wide variety of weapons when a few perfected strategies are so effective.

Thank you! I’m sorry you are struggling with this right now too.

It absolutely is a beast! It’s a terrible cycle to be trapped in and can be so exhausting.

@Have a sunflower🌻 It’s so weird. There was something bothering me for about a month. And I knew it was silly. My therapy sessions weren’t helping much. And then magically after my last therapy and erp session I don’t care about it all anymore. I don’t get it lol

@OcdDude1 That’s so amazing to hear that it doesn’t bother you anymore! I can understand the contradiction of the situation though because it’s weird that it disappeared but at the same time you are just grateful to be free of it. One day I hope that happens for me. So far after a certain amount of time and erp an obsession will fade and a new one pops up to the foreground but the older ones never go away completely. Later the old ones just pop back up especially when I’m actually making some progress. It’s like my ocd is trying to get control back so it uses old obsessions and new ones as weapons. And as I mentioned in the post, whether it’s an old obsessions or a new one it somehow is always worse than what you were currently struggling with and feels impossible to get through. I’m really happy for you though that you broke free from your obsession!

@Have a sunflower🌻 Same thing happens to me. I’ll get over something and then my ocd will find something new to torture myself about, or something old that I used to obsess about will come back. I’m a little worried right now, it could happen any second

@OcdDude1 I’m sorry it’s worrying you. Try to remain in uncertainty. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t. If it happens it would suck, but you will survive it just like you have before. And you won’t be alone! This whole community is here to support you.

That is very kind of you! I’m sorry things are getting worse. It can suck up all your hope and energy so quickly which makes it harder to fight. You aren’t alone!

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m experiencing this right now with figuring something out you didn’t consider before. It’s like a new angle to the fear is suddenly revealed or you thought you got past it but you really just completed level one and level two just started.

Thank you for the kind words! Congratulations on your new marriage! That’s an incredible accomplishment. I’m sorry ocd is rearing it’s ugly head again. It seems like ocd just needs to slightly shift your perspective on an old obsession or add an extra detail and it might as well be a whole new obsession for how terrifying it is. It’s a slap in the face when that happens. Congrats on also making progress with NOCD. It will be a year for me in July with NOCD. I just had two weeks of progress but I think this week ocd has started fighting back. Remember you have already won half the battle because you already recognized it as ocd and I am sure you have tools in your pocket to dust off and use for this trigger.

You described it very well, it is a pattern. It’s frustrating because you know it’s ocd and you even recognize the pattern but it is still so hard to fight. Just because you know better, it doesn’t make it any easier to fight back. Hands down, the worst game of whakamole ever!