People usually say to accept uncertainty on whether your thoughts are true or not, but what if my thought is something I know is definitely not true? Like if my brain says im a psychopath or a bad person, I shouldn’t need to accept uncertainty behind that since I already know I’m not either of them
Try to not think of uncertainty as accepting a 50/50 chance, but of recognizing that nothin you do can get rid of the 0.000001% chance something is true
I think the idea behind that is to just not engage with the thought. By disagreeing with it, even if it isn’t true, you’re engaging with it and fueling it even more. Think of it like a bully, if a bully is like “Hey you’re stupid” and you say “no I’m not!” The bully goes back with “Yes you are here’s WHY”. If you respond to the bully with “yeah maybe I am!” Then how are they supposed to respond to that?
Your doubting is classic OCD. And I have a book recommendation that will answer your questions: “Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts,” which you can get at this link: https://a.co/d/56H3lo9
I’m having a very bad evening with my intrusive thoughts. I was doing really good dealing with them but tonight one hit me hard. I’ve been having a lot of different intrusive thoughts but I’ll have one occasionally about hurting my mom or my dog who I love and they’re the only family I have in my life. They’re my world. I was helping my mom put away the dishes and I had the big kitchen knife in my hand and my intrusive thought was you could stab your mom. And then my brain said I had a twitch in my hand and that meant I wanted to do it. Let me just say that I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I actually caught a fly in a glass and put it outside instead of killing it this evening before this intrusive thought happened. I’m such a gentle and compassionate and caring person and these thoughts instantly cause me to have a panic attack. And I have no one to talk to them about. I know they’re hard for my mom to hear and I don’t want to be any more of a burden than I already am. I do desperately want to tell her and have her reassure me that I’m not crazy or a psycho. Then my thoughts wander to if your hand did flinch could you be a psychopath. Is hurting someone in you. I know it’s not but I feel like my mind is out to get me and hurt me. I’m working so hard and I thought I was doing so good but I need to know why I have these thoughts. They’re not ok. I need someone to help me make sense of why. I know we aren’t supposed to ruminate but I shouldn’t have thoughts like this about people I love and care about the most in the world.
When an intrusive thought comes I can’t just say “that’s not true” and just move on. I always feel like I have to disprove the thought and be able to say it with confidence but the problem is that the ocd doesn’t allow me to feel and say it with confidence so I get stuck for hours or even days. How can I stop feeling like I need to do this?
I struggle so bad with intrusive thoughts. They can be so bad that I'll cry because I KNOW that's not how I feel or want to do. (Too embarrassed to say what they're about) I'll constantly try to figure out why I have them, and constantly figure out what they mean, causing me to constantly circle around and around. I had to get on anxeity meds, which helped a little but the thoughts still happen. How do you help yourself with this? How do you know that you're just not some physcopath? 😅
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