Why do I think in circles.

I am in constant turmoil -reviewing, over analyzing and repeating my childhood up to teenage years. It’s like my brain is constantly replaying scenes to find every mistake I’ve ever made and I don’t even know what’s true anymore. I have reoccurring thoughts that I’ve harmed s younger sibling and even had convinced myself that I had murdered in uncle who had passed two towns away before I could even drive. I confessed to these things to my mother who assured me these things have never happened and I convince myself for short periods of time that she’s right, but then they come back. The thoughts make me physically Ill thinking about them. My memories feel jumbled and I’m no longer sure of my self and who I am.

Amber R

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y

OCD is the master of doubt and confusion; it can make us doubt so many different things we value and feel are true about ourselves. And it tends so function a lot like a wack-a-mole game, meaning just when you finish being worried/upset about one thing, another thing always pops up. I know how awful and uncomfortable it feels. It’s hard not to pay attention to the things/thoughts OCD throws at us, but that’s the best way to handle it. We can’t control our thoughts or suppress them, all we can do is handle them when they pop up. I know that’s a lot easier said than done, but there is help + hope! Are you in therapy for OCD?

Jeffrey

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y

I am sorry you are having a difficult time. I can appreciate reviewing and checking the past and trying to figure out what I did that might have been wrong. The problem is those of us with ocd will compulse so much that real event ocd morphs into false memory ocd and then we do not know what is actually something that happened and what ocd has created. That is why ERP is so important. I have gone from compulsing to reminding myself that the more I compulse the worse ocd will get. I still get caught in compulsions at times but erp has taught me to move forward. An important piece for me is to remember that I am living by my values as a mature adult and they may or may not be the same values I had as a child - likely not the same values. And as children we all makes mistakes - big and small - that is part of the learning g process of growing up. So now I spend little time in the past - especially childhood - because it serves no purpose and ocd doesn’t want me to have an answer - so I live my values now. Because now is all we have. We can’t fix the past and we can’t know the future so living in the here and now in the present moment is where we need to keep our focus. It is hard work and challenging but making ocd stronger is worse. I hope this helps.

Lisa LeeLou

User type: NOCD Alumni

Date posted: 2y

Thank you for sharing what you are going through. I’m sorry to hear you are struggling. OCD loves to cause as much angst as possible and to attach to things that are important to us. Therefore, it is not surprising that it is coming up in regards to family. It helps me to remind myself that thoughts are just thoughts not facts. Just thinking something does not make it true. Often the harder someone fights the thoughts, the more they intensify. try to let yourself sit with the thoughts without engaging with them. However, of course, easier said than done, but with time and practice it does get easier. ERP can help with this. ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) therapy is a treatment method for OCD. It has been a very helpful tool for me with addressing my OCD. Are you in therapy with trained OCD therapist or NOCD? If not in therapy, please consider reaching out to the NOCD care team for a free consultation.

Anonymous

Date posted: 25w

I can’t figure it out

I have a bunch of real event/false memory and there is one that I remember I got in the middle of a horrible episode and I believed it was false but now I can’t remember why I thought it was false and now believe it could be real and it’s just bothering me so much because I want to remember the details to why I believed it was false in the first place and I’m just in a horrible spot and feel disgusting and am getting intrusive thoughts on my themes when I try to check if they are intrusive or not and I can’t function like i don’t wanna be around anyone because all I want to do is confess but I can’t because then I’ll obsess on confessing and they won’t understand.

moon0270

Date posted: 25w

Mental compulsions/ rumination

So hard to not engage the thoughts because even though it's from the "past" (i don't even know if im remembering things correctly and it kills me) and i can't change it, I just NEED to prove it to myself that it didn't happen this way. If you'd asked me questions maybe a few months ago, I would have been able to lucidly explain things. Now I just feel like I'm in a constant swarm of thoughts, not knowing if anything is real. If my brain is to be trusted. Wish I could just get hypnosis to forget

Roseptlss

Date posted: 20w

Persistent Intrusive thoughts about past actions

Hi Everyone! I hope whoever is reading this is having a good day so far :) So for years now I’ve had very bad intrusive thoughts about things that I have done or embarrassing things that I’ve said or have happened and it’s mortifying and debilitating on a daily basis. Specifically these thoughts are mainly things that have occurred from 2018-2020 and some are more simple just as a stupid joke I made or being way too loud on calls while my family was trying to sleep and others being way more complex such as past relationships and how I’ve hurt some of the people I care the most about and when I have acted on intrusive thoughts and these thoughts will appear with no triggers at all I’ll just wake up and already have something I did just nagging me. I don’t want to live like this anymore and I’ve tried working through it with self compassion but sometimes the things I said or did back then it’s very hard to forgive myself for and I’ll reminisce on it for hours on hours, gaslight myself into believing that’s not how it happened and try to change the memory itself, or just suppress it entirely. I know those habits aren’t healthy and truly I want to get better but I don’t know how to overcome some of these thoughts. I have talked to my fiancé about this a few times and even today we talked about it and he fully supports me and is helping me work through it. I might also contact my sister too, I don’t talk to her overly too much but ever since I was little she’s thought I’ve had ocd and was one of the people who made me consider that I might have it (I’m still undiagnosed but I’ll try to when I have the money and time) and I know she could maybe provide some insight. Another thing that is troublesome about the situation is my other family members specifically my mom aren’t the most helpful and can trigger thoughts. To put it in perspective on how her thought process is and some background info she is an ER nurse and has been for 30 years due to this she believes she knows mainly everything there is about mental health and she gets extremely upset when I don’t take her advice or set boundaries. She’ll force me to talk to her about my problems and when I don’t want to she’ll pin me in a corner where I’m forced to and last summer I had a really bad episode and was really overstimulated and I just finished taking a shower and due to the water on me, my hair being wet (my hair is naturally curly and it takes forever to dry and it’s very draining taking care of even with a keratin treatment) and all the intrusive thoughts I was having and she forced me to talk to her and I did open up for the first time about my thoughts and brought up how sometimes I have thoughts of hurting my animals and it makes me physically sick. Her response to this was threatening to call the cops on me saying it was a behavioral thing and I was doing it for attention. I have never hurt any of my animals but later that day my cat came into my room and a few minutes later she comes up just gives me the death stare and after a few seconds just asks me “are you going to go kill snickers?” In the most condescending tone and she’s always like this daily where she’ll force advice onto me or get upset and yell and then reinforce thoughts I’m having. I just want to know first how to stop the thoughts from so frequently and how to heal in an environmental where it keeps reopening wounds despite trying to place boundaries? I’m sorry this is really long I usually do go really in detail about things and it’s just how I’ve always been. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask and I’ll answer them to the best of my ability. I really appreciate the time you took to read this and thank you for your help! 🥰

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Why do I think in circles.

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