Hello everyone, you may have not noticed now but I had two OCD triggers since two days ago. One that involves having to hear a complete similar phrase in a more clear perfect way and the other OCD trigger is to see a particular part of the image in a clear, vivid memory without it making me feel blanked out after moving my eyes away from the picture. If you know what I mean? But then I came up with a way to make sure that I have seen that particular image and heard that similar phrase in a confirm matter by picturing a checkmark in my head, so if I keep having these triggers in my head do I keep on picturing a checkmark of that particular OCD trigger, meaning it has been performed in the past and I wanna move on? Hope this post makes sense to you all and thanks so much!

I’ve been feeling the urge to avoid intimacy or purposefully engage (for reassurance that I won’t give into a compulsion) because of intrusive thoughts and fear that I’ll “check/test” my reactions. My OCD is making me so scared that I’ll purposefully think of a child and try to see if I like it. It’s so complicated but I guess I’m mentally checking if I would mentally check during intimacy. I’ve even envisioned myself checking and it’s making me so nauseous. I know it’s a compulsion like any other but the sound of “touching yourself to the thought of a child” sounds atrocious and vile. I’m terrified I’ll automatically start checking next time I am being intimate. I truly feel so worried. If anyone has gone through something similar, I’d appreciate hearing your experience. Or if anyone has any advice?

OK, this might sound really dumb, but when you guys get intrusive thoughts, do they just come once and then go away? I’ve heard that repeatedly thinking about an intrusive thought is considered ‘checking,’ but it doesn’t feel like I have any control over how many times it comes up in my head. It’s not like I’m trying to check anything—it just keeps showing up, almost like it’s terrorizing me every time. I can’t seem to stop it from looping, stop remembering it, or prevent it from coming up. Every time it does, I feel horrified, and I already know it’s going to horrify me. I don’t think I’m actively trying to see if my feelings have changed, so is this still considered checking? How do other people get an intrusive thought and just move on? Doesn’t it pop up a million times for them too? I always thought that was normal, but now I’m hearing this could be a compulsion, and I feel really confused, scared, and lost. Is this why my OCD feels so extreme? Because I really don’t feel like I can control how many times the thought pops up.

I’m curious how many other people experience this! I’ve been diagnosed with severe OCD for 20 years now, about 10 years ago my little OCD brain came up with a series of words. It is saying everyone in my families name and then something negative, and then something positive. Since my brain attached to this series of words, it hasn’t stopped repeating in my mind. Like I said, it’s been 10 years, and this “phrase” is constantly repeating over and over in my head. When it’s finished, it just restarts again. My brain is constantly exhausted since it’s always talking. It’s kinda hard to word this so idk if it’ll make sense to you but let me know if this is something that you might experience as well!