How do you go about reframing thoughts around how much life and time has been wasted because of ocd. I hate that ocd has stolen so much of my joy
What a great question. I understand this 100% sometimes i feel resentment about this too and it's hard to reframe it. i think it's okay to feel mad about it sometimes. I noticed It's much easier to reframe after I've gotten some treatment and am starting to feel better. On reframing: I think having OCD has led me to have a deeper relationship with others than i might have otherwise had. Due to suffering, I have learned to become more open with others, more empathetic, more authentic, more connected with people. People seeing me be vulnerable then often open up about their vulnerabilities. Also I got to see very clearly who were the helpers and friends in my life -- the people who really cared about me and really loved me. I also learned through OCD about tolerating discomfort and pain-- something all of us (with or without ocd) will benefit from knowing. I learned there can be joy or peace in the midst of pain. I have periodically experienced this myself too. Also, I think some of my worst suffering has resulted in a gratitude that I might never have had. For example, when I was discharged from the psychiatric hospital, the experience of finally having a warm shower in my own place, having the freedom to just go where i wanted when i wanted, seeing friends again, dancing, sitting out in the fall breeze, was an entirely different and deeper experience. The simple was not mundane. It was powerful and beautiful. I remember crying a lot of happy tears over getting to do really basic stuff. Also i think when i got treatment, i started to see the world for what it really is, in all it's probability and complexity. I am letting go more and more each day with the 100% absolute certainty and black-and-white mindset that ensnares all people to some degree. Thanks for asking this question. It helped me to reflect on my own reframing!
I feel for you in this moment. In the depths of OCD, it can make you feel so guilty, so sad, so isolated, and so hopeless at times. I want you to know that there is *so* much hope for to recover and to live a life where you don't feel this way. I know it's hard to see it now or believe that it's true, but OCD is very responsive to treatment. Have you checked out some of the free tools we have on the app? Maybe some of our educational webinars? I know we have talked a lot there about guilt, shame, etc., and I think some of that might be helpful. It might also be helpful to check out our support groups just to know you're not alone. Wishing you the best of luck and the NOCD team is here for you if you are ever ready to take the step with therapy!
Thank you so much Stacy!
This response was so thoughtful and made me cry. I really appreciate this reflective insight. Thank you. You’re so right. I have one of my best friends because of my OCD, as we might on a Facebook forum about ocd.. and I have also learned a lot along the way too that I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Thank you for sharing and taking the time to write that. I think it’ll help a lot of people.
In hindsight:: I’m so glad for the ocd and the tips that it has given me. I’m so much better even than before I had my ocd.
Yes this is often the source of my pain and my continued journey. I find myself reflecting and hurting but then I remember I'm doing it again and that's wasting more time.
Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?
So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.
I want to beat OCD because I have seen and felt the benefits of clearing my brain from unnecessary, pointless, thoughts. OCD is like 0 calorie food. It’s pointless. No nutrition or benefits come from my obsessions or compulsions. I don’t care to have answers to everything anymore. I catch myself just trying to stress myself out so that I have some worry to feed on. But like I said, it’s a 0 calorie food. I get nothing from it but wasted time and energy. My brain feels more spacious when I’m not consumed by OCD. I’m present. My personality has room to be herself without making space for bullshit. I tell myself now that worry is poison. I think Willie Nelson was the person I got that quote from? Anyways, that imagery of worries being poison for the mind has been transformative for me. I’m evolving. 💖 Thanks NOCD community.
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