Does anyone have the intrusive thought that maybe they should just end their life? I really don’t want to but the urge feels so real. I’m just so confused. I have not been diagnosed with OCD but I’m pretty sure I have it.
Yes. It’s called Suicidal OCD.
@Nica I know but sometimes it feels like I’m really thinking about doing it and it terrifies me. I’ve never been depressed so I guess I just don’t know the difference between suicidal ocd and actually being suicidal.
@Anonymous - I definitely have had this, and I've more often had it in the form of harming others too. But a lot of people have suicidal OCD only. The urges can feel SO real. Remember that OCD tends to hit us in places where we really value the opposite of the message it's sending. For me, I'm a pacifist and have a lot of strong beliefs about ethics and non-violence...so as a person with OCD, it's no surprise that it would make me feel as though I'm a violent person.
@Tommygdawg That totally makes sense. I just am so afraid I’m actually going to do it. I also keep constantly wondering what the point in life is and I have never felt this way before. I lost a child last year though.
@Anonymous - You've been through a lot. Be kind to yourself. I know it's not at all the same thing and I'm not trying to compare my pain to yours, but I found myself having very similar thoughts and questions when I lost my cat who was sincerely one of my best friends. It still sticks with me to this day. It also can't hurt to talk to someone. Losing a child is a horrendous thing for anyone to go through. Those are events and emotions that need to be processed.
@Tommygdawg But you do have ocd ? If you don’t mind me asking?
@Anonymous - Yes. I'm half-way to 32 and have had it my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are (what I now know to be) intrusive thoughts and panic attacks. I've had pretty much every theme or subset of OCD throughout my life. For whatever it's worth, I have been "officially" diagnosed, not that you get a certificate for it lol. I can tell you from personal experience that I've felt both extremes of the spectrum - from feeling completely unreal and out of my body due to depersonalization/derealization, to feeling like there is nothing more real than the urge OCD is sending me at any given moment. It feels like I'm going to go up to a person on the street and attack them. It feels like I'm going to get out of bed and attack my family. It feels like my body is going to get up of it's own accord and grab a knife and hurt everyone and everything. I get subset fears, especially since losing Freya, like if everything dies then why even bother with life? I guess if that's the fear I have them I'm really gonna act on the intrusive thoughts of hurting people. These are the thought loops my brain goes in and it can be absolutely debilitating.
@Tommygdawg That’s kind of how I feel but it’s about me. Like if I’m going to die anyway what’s the point in doing anything or even being here but I don’t want to die. I don’t feel like I’m really here though either and I’m just surviving day to day if that makes sense.
@Anonymous - I totally get that, and when you've been suffering for a long time it can really start to warp your perceptions of what you want and it's easy to lose track of yourself. I definitely recommend talking to a therapist if you can. They can help guide you through a lot of these feelings. There is hope out there and you can do this!
Watch this video on YouTube - “Suicidal OCD - My Brain Can’t Stop Thinking About Suicide”. Helped me a lot! I hope I helps you as well!
Hey man. Me too. It’s such a weird feeling and so scary. I’m experiencing it especially bad right now as well. I’ve never really been depressed either but there’s this nagging feeling that I would act on my thoughts. Sometimes it gets unbelievably real.
@Anonymous Yesss. Does your brain tell you to just do it?
@Anonymous Yeah I definitely get the pull sometimes, which is weird because it causes me a lot of anxiety and distress when I feel that. I think that’s a key distinction between actually wanting self harm versus the OCD subtype. It seems like it stresses you out to have these thoughts, so it probably is a theme. It doesn’t make it easier, but at least you can recognize what is happening and try to find peace with it.
@Anonymous Same! It feels so good to talk to other people who experience this bc I honestly feel like I’m going crazy & no one will listen.
@Anonymous Yeah it’s an odd thought that I really don’t share with people because it’s so hard to explain. I know for sure that I don’t want to die but there’s this part of my brain telling me “what if you just do it.” Anyways I’ve struggled with this for many years and it’s nice to have people who feel the same. I think this is a pretty common theme. Happy to keep the thread going if you want to chat more!
@Anonymous Yes I just want to be told that is what’s going on rather then questioning what is happening in my mind and bring terrified that it is actual suicidal thoughts. It’s been going on for 10 months now and I’m just so exhausted.
@Anonymous Don’t use this as reassurance because while that’s temporarily relieving it can wind up worse in the long run. One of the hardest things to do is accept the uncertainty. Some days it’s easier to allow yourself to accept uncertainty but some days it’s so effing difficult. For me, it’s been about 5 months of really struggling with some health issues and ocd issues. I’m tired and fed up as well. But I know how good life can be when you get on top of things. Do not give up.
@Anonymous Have you tried anything to work on these thoughts? ERP, medicine, meditation? I have found varying amounts of relief in them all.
@Anonymous Is that reassurance seeking when I just want to know what is wrong with me? Because I feel like I try to figure out what is wrong with me everyday?
@JTF Medications I’ve not had success with. I just finished tms and it helped slightly but I haven’t been diagnosed with OCD so I haven’t tried anything specifically for it. I am currently seeing a therapist
@Anonymous One thing that made my ocd way worse was seeing a regular therapist. I’m not saying you should quit with the therapist if that is helping you, but my therapist wanted me to unravel these self harm thoughts which really just made it worse.
@Anonymous And it made me more scared that I might actually act on my thoughts. I also tried going to a NOCD person and felt better really quickly the last time I was really stuck. Now I feel well enough equipped to deal with my thoughts but the thought still fight back pretty hard.
I’m so sorry to hear that you are dealing with these intrusive thoughts and OCD is beating you up. But you are not alone! Those are common intrusive thoughts for those of us who deal with Suicidal OCD which is a subtype. Using response prevention can help stop the OCD cycle so you may want to try responding to those thoughts with “maybe, maybe not.” You got this!
I think it kind of depends. I’m not a therapist but wanting to understand what’s going on is okay. But I feel like you really do know it’s ocd even though you’re questioning it right now. When you spend every day trying to figure out what’s wrong with you it might become reassurance seeking or rumination. The hardest thing for me to do is to let the uncertainty just sit and not try to figure it out. The more you try to unravel your thoughts the more tangled it will get. Maybe try working to spend less time really thinking about it?
@JTF I deff will try but it’s so unintentional and intrusive. It forces its way into my thoughts and it’s hard to shake.
@Anonymous sorry. didn’t mean to start a new thread. if there’s anything you can do that even slightly takes your mind off it - do it as much as possible. The less you ruminate the easier you’ll find it to stop ruminating. So, getting started is the hardest part. Stick with it man you got this.
@JTF Thank you !
Just had this few minutes ago it’s like you read my mind . I’m overly focused on the thoguht that it’s driving me to feel delusional and paranoid . But in a wah , I’m not anxious but it’s there lingering . I feel like I’ll react to it tomorrow the longer it stays there .
@Brian :) Yes! For sure.
Totally, totally understand you with this! I have suicidal OCD & it is so terrifying because the thoughts can feel so real and almost like you have no choice but to act on them, when in reality you are in control of yourself and your mind. For me, that has been the most helpful thing to remind myself when I get stuck in spirals of these thoughts and intrusive thoughts that i will end up killing myself. i’ll even get intense intrusive images of people finding me dead, and to get myself out of the spiral i’ll remind myself that i have control over my mind and this is OCD talking and not me. hope this helps, and feel free to reach out to me whenever because it is so helpful talking to others about this!
I've gotten diagnosed with OCD and I'm in therapy. But I'm worried that I don't have OCD/that I got misdiagnosed. And recently I'm worried that I've just gotten myself into a habit of thinking of dirty minded or just plain old terrible things after I see/hear certain things because I feel like I need to prove I have OCD or else I'm faking(sometimes this goes away). Or that I'm just mimicking symptoms of ocd to cope with real problems I may have and that im just really deep into denial. I don't know...I'm just so tired. I mean, what if I really am what I think I am and this is my brains only way of coping? I don't even really feel anything towards most of the thoughts anymore either I just know they go against my values and I don't want them. I don't know if that's because I'm so mentally exhausted, I just don't care, or that the thoughts are true and I'm comfortable with them.
I haven't been officially diagnosed with OCD but when I learned more about it, I never related to anything more. A little back story: when I was younger, there were a couple of youth suicides in my area and the schools felt the need to have someone come in and talk about suicide. Well the person they had come in did a horrible job teaching it and basically made it seem like the smallest negative emotion or feeling or change in behavior made you suicidal. This ended up scaring me so much that I got horrid anxiety. Fast forward to now, Everytime I feel anxiety and panic, I fear I'm going to kill myself. Everytime I feel down and depressed, I fear I'll end it all. I'm scared to be around anything sharp because the "What if" I hurt myself comes into my mind. There are always intrusive thoughts at almost every point of the day. And it's not only for me. Everytime I hear someone being negative, I fear they will be suicidal. I know in my heart that none of this is true but it's terrifying me that it's stuck around so much that it makes me scared that maybe it is true. I've had a lot of death in my family in the past year and a half and a lot of other family drama that I'd never had before that is now also bringing up existential intrusive thoughts. And I'd never questioned anything about life before but now I get the "why is life like this?" and "does anything we do matter?" and I hate it. I don't want to think like that. I just want to go through life being able to handle things normally again. It terrifies me even right now going "what if you give up?"
I feel like there’s no way out of this. everyday i’m anxious and depressed from these thoughts. i feel like i have to constantly question if it’s OCD or not. the panic attacks are insane and i freak out. and a compulsion i have is looking eveything up on the internet when im stressing to know that it’s just my OCD and im not in danger. but looking things up add on to my thoughts and i start thinking “what if” actual suidcal people think. do others with this theme whenever they do something like if im taking a picture it’ll be like “yeah you look happy people will wonder what happened when your gone” LIKE i DO NOT want to end my life. or even as simple as cleaning my room, “yup keep it clean so when your family goes through your stuff” then i panic and can’t even do anything. those thoughts distress me so bad. i’ll sit there and think how good my life is or when im having a good day my thoughts will be like “NOPEEE what if your just saying that to convince yourself” it never shuts up and genuinely makes me think i have SI or something. i hope this reaches the right people just to know im not alone. Even when i do get better in the back of my mind it’s always “people who want to are the same a day before too” im genuinely scared and im scared one day im going to just snap and do it because its “too much” do i need to go to a mental hospital! i feel insane.
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