Does anyone make little bets with themselves to ease their anxiety ? For example I’ll be driving and I’ll say “if I make this green light without it turning yellow I’m not my intrusive thoughts”
I usually do it when running up the stairs while something is in the background. Like if somebody is watching TV, and the into comes on, I tell myself “if I don’t make it up the stairs by the time the intro is over, something bad will happen”
I do that I usually do it for luck or something but trying not to
In the beginning yes. OCD at its finest the big jerk.
I've made deals with myself like ok u r only allowed to do this thing 3 more times or something bad will happen. It's like I'm trying to stop myself doing compulsions but then it back fires cuz then if I want to do it again I freak out cuz I can't cuz then I'm afraid something bad will happen so then I make new rules
Compulsions are never really satisfied. I had a really stupid nagging harm thought that I knew I should just let go of. I was tired and said ok just check one time to shut it up. Guess what, I checked more than once because it didn’t shut up. I felt bad because I caved in but also I felt reassured that checking in the first place was not going to work and I kinda knew that. Lesson learned. Always try to resist compulsions, they are unnecessary and don’t work for ocd.
Why is this a thing?
I find if I am legitimately in a rush and preoccupied and check if I locked a door since I truly don’t remember checking once is sufficient. With ocd normally those intrusive thoughts don’t represent real threats and they usually make us anxious. When you do a compulsion we tell our brain this will make the anxiety go away, but this is only a temporary relief. My guess is that compulsions are really a faulty fix and that realizing that intrusive thoughts are just thoughts that can come with anxiety teaches your brain there is no threat.
@ivrec It just feels like such a real threat and due to all the compulsions I do the fear has grown.
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? 😅
Hello, I was driving last night and i hit a bump in the road like felt like a massive pothole but the road i was driving on (i drive on it almost everyday) and i’ve convinced myself that I hit someone or something. I had my mom drive by there again about 20-30 mins later and there was nothing but she said it looked like a hole was filled by rain water. I drove by later that night and didn’t see it so I’ve convinced myself that if something happened, it was cleared out in that time. Is there anything I can do to help myself feel better.
Does anyone have hit and run ocd ? Or possibly causing an accident by crossing the middle line and a vechile going into a ditch ?
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