- Date posted
- 2y
Past Memory
Hi everyone, I’m having a slight spiral of a memory from last year when my OCD first majorly spiraled or as some say “my brain broke”. My mom was so worried when I went through this she nearly put me in a psychiatric hospital. I’ve had intrusive thoughts about pretty much anything you can think of; pocd, rocd, zocd and unfortunately it goes on and on. I’ve been able to manage (for the most part) with exposure therapy and medication but I do still trip up from time to time. Like today. I was petting my cat and giving him belly scratches this morning when I remembered an incident from a year ago. I used to have intrusive thoughts and images of harming him and these would always be followed by breakdowns and asking for reassurance from my mom and best friend. I told my therapist and with her help we wrote a script about me acting on these thoughts and used it for exposure therapy. One day, I was in such distress about thoughts of me strangling him. I needed to know I would never do it. So I found him laying down, and gently put my thumb and index finger under his chin and around his neck, not squeezing but just holding it there. I felt immediate relief , there was no way I could hurt him, he was so cute. My cat was just sitting and looking at me, not doing much, unbothered even (if I remember correctly, even that is tripping me up). I told my OCD therapist about this and she actually seemed surprised in a good way that I did it, she said me doing this was almost like an exposure. I don’t know if I believe her as it definitely felt compulsive. Another time I squeezed a part of his primordial pouch because it looked squishy and I was curious about what he would do. Did it hurt him? Would it tickle? Does it have feeling? I held a piece of it and gently squeezed it and he didn’t even flinch, he just stretched out wanting more belly rubs. But the fact that it could have hurt him and I did it anyway is a big deal for me. I’ve cried about this many times. I’m feeling like a bad person today. I wanted to go out and enjoy my weekend, the weather is beautiful. But instead I’m inside , ruminating and going doing a rabbit hole. I could really use someone to talk to, has anyone gone through something like this? Thank you for any help you can give me