My brain is telling me that something is wrong and that my dad is going to die even though there is nothing wrong. My brain is finding everything that could be evidence that something is secretly wrong with him. I have been struggling with this thought loop for months. Please help. I don't know if I can handle this today 😭
I’m sorry to hear you’re having a tough time. Remember OCD is the doubting disease. It loves to cause as much angst as possible and to attach to things that are important to us. Ultimately, the best way to handle these thoughts and obsessions is to try to limit your engagement with them; don’t try to determine whether or not they are valid. Instead let them pass through your mind; limiting your response to something neutral like “maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not” or “thanks “OCD”. I know easier said than done, but with time and practice it does get easier. ERP (exposure and response prevention) therapy has helped me Learn how to do this. Are you currently in therapy for your OCD? If not, please consider reaching out to the NOCD care team for a free 15 minute consultation. recovery is possible. please be patient and kind of yourself.
@Lisa LeeLou I think Lisa summed it up perfectly. Think of how many times you have had these thoughts over these months. Has this thought ever come true? Or was it just OCD messing with you?
As Lisa said, OCD is the doubting disorder; it can make you doubt almost anything and everything. OCD is also a bully; it attacks the things you care about the most and makes you feel/think you HAVE to do something to solve it or make it go away. But trying to solve or make something go away will only make it stay harder. Non-engagement is the best response we have; maybe something is wrong with your dad, maybe it’s not. But continuing to think about it won’t get you any closer to an answer. When these thoughts come up, hit them with a “hmm maybe” and return your attention to whatever you’re doing in the present moment. You don’t have to let OCD bully you, you can tell it to back off. I believe in you!
Thank you so much. Your words are helpful
Today I woke up with the intrusive thought „did I harm my dog sexually during the night?“. My brain is specifically relating to the time of 3:57 when I woke up once. From what I remember I only woke up and thought abt going to the toilet but being too lazy and scared of the night so I went back to sleep. But I keep being worried I might have actually been up before that time and done sth. Like I seriously have no Memoires of doing so. Only things that I know were produced by my imagination bc they’re not really possible. I’ve already asked my mother if she had heard me go downstairs at night (we have like some kind of door that keeps you from falling down the stairs which is quite loud to open) but she said she doesn’t know and she hadn’t heard anything and said she’s 100% sure nothing had happened due to how my dog doesn’t seem to care at all and seems to not be scared of me. I’ve also thought abt asking my father and sister but they can’t actually hear anything. Maybe at like 3 am they were up tho for a snack? I know my father often goes to the kitchen at night to eat sth and my sister too. I guess I’ll ask both of them tomorrow. And the thing is that we actually have a camera in our garden which captures a bit of the door where my dog always sleeps and we have a light there so I could’ve been able to check up for my dog in the cameras. Turned out that my parents had turned the camera off at some point. Seems like they only wanted to capture stupid animals hopping onto our car and watching our own family go into the house. Wonderful. I don’t know what to do. The only thing I could now do is either trust my memories and let it go or check for the logic. Last time I was scared I might’ve hurt my dog, I realised that it wasn’t possible for that to have happened and that all of my memories were false. But to be honest, I’m so tired I don’t want to fill 5 days of my life with checking the logic of my obsession. I’ve had multiple su!cide thoughts by now. I’ve spent almost half my day crying. This is my lowest point. I can’t accept the uncertainty. I’m so far in this rn I actually today decided to lock my room from now on and hide my key, take a picture of it to remember it’s exact position and then close the door of the wardrobe I’m hiding it in and putting tape around the openings of the doors from the wardrobe. I seriously don’t want to keep living if this is the life my brain chose to give me.
i can’t stop having these thoughts it’s been taking over the past few days and i think i’m having an anxiety attack right now i have these thoughts “what if i don’t make this through this is like an everyday thing”, “what if i hurt myself or what if i want to do it” or it’s like “what if i go grab a knife and do something” and it scares me and it gives me anxiety and i’m scared i just want this to go away i have my thoughts telling me all of this my dad was saying to take me to the hospital if they get worse i didn’t go today because i didn’t want to but it’s 8 pm here and i think i might ask if i could go tomorrow i’m just so tired i want a therapist to talk to right now but my parents are low on money until they get paid on friday and my dad was gonna see if we go to the hospital because they can just get billed it’s like if i get reassurance nothing helps and even if i have a distraction nothing helps it’s like my thoughts continue and it makes me forget things
Pls I beg you help me. It’s been two or threee days that I’m feeling proper proper stressed. Not just the average and usual doubt, these days it has felt proper proper real and it makes me feel sick, I can’t eat, I want to throw up, it’s taking over my whole body. I started feeling better about the doubts “is it love or attachment” and then another hit “maybe I’m with him just for the relationship and I don’t care about him I only care about the relationship”. I’ve made so much reassurance seeking with ChatGPT and some of the things were positive and others not and I felt even worse. Just because I don’t often think consciously about his happiness and I’m with him because I feel so cared for, supported, safe, my inner child comes out and spending time with him is my favorite thing even after a year of long distance. Help me I want to die because of how painful it is
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