- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
Good for you. Keep it up. Just remember not to do mental compulsion whilst doing ERP. You'll be doing great in no time!! ?
- Date posted
- 6y
bro i have pocd too and this thread really helped me especially you fernando!! thank you all so much keep fighting
- Date posted
- 6y
I think that’s been my biggest challenge so far though. I genuinely can’t tell when I’m doing mental compulsions most of the time cause they just don’t appear as obvious as the physical ones. I know ruminating and arguing against the thoughts is something I notice a lot. I do tend to try to rationalize everything when the anxiety gets bad so I think that might be a compulsion as well
- Date posted
- 6y
Dear Koko - You are not crazy, you are not a pervert, you mean no harm. You have OCD - it means you are obsessed with a theme and hyper-vigilant. Please don't worry for any legalities any more but stop doing compulsions. It sounds like you don't know what your mental and physical compulsions are. It sounds like you are in deep need of an OCD specialist. I think you are still in time to cut all of this cold turkey for good. Yes, you will feel miserable for a while still, yes you will feel guilty(feelings are not facts). But in a couple of weeks the obsession will go if you stop now. Zero mental checking, zero rumination, zero researching. You actually do have control over your behaviour. If you don't stop this right now your OCD will grow exponentially until it is completely unmanageable and destroys your life.
- Date posted
- 6y
Thank you FernandoV. I really hate this checking, I really do. And yet here I am ironically enough doing them. I think it’s because I get that huge sense of relief when nothing bad shows up like “phew I guess I was just imagining things!” But I know this will just make OCD want more and more. That’s why I resisted for a good four days. I’m at least proud of that. Gotta look on the bright side. I am currently waiting to get assessed so I can get right treatment. It’s very difficult to do this all on my own. And that’s what scares me. But talking about this with others who suffer from the same theme does help a little. It gives me just a little bit more strength. Thank you.
- Date posted
- 6y
Just to update on my matter, I’ve gone for six days without doing this checking compulsion. Anxiety has decreased quite a bit, although I still have spikes here and there. My mood is certainly better and I can focus on other things more easily. I still worry about falling back into the compulsion but I’m slowly trying to learn how to accept the uncertainty. Ironically enough I have also recently started an internship job where I have to sit in front of a computer all day. This gave me a massive fear that I was going to google awful things while at work. The anxiety got so bad I ended up having a mental breakdown yesterday while at work. Today went a lot better though. Me having to sit in front of a computer for hours on end has forced me to basically do ERP where I just sit with the anxiety and continue working. Now that it’s the weekend though my obsession is revolving around the google checking. You can’t win against OCD that easily, but I’ve heard that when the anxiety gets really bad that’s actually a good thing and a sign that the mind is trying to heal. It’s so used to me seeking certainty so it’s no wonder my mind is panicking now that I’m really resisting the compulsions. It’s been a tough and very uncomfortable week, but I know I’m not alone in this. I have no choice but to keep fighting.
- Date posted
- 6y
Oh god this comment only further triggered me, I’m so sorry. I’m scared now that I can’t control this.
- Date posted
- 6y
Sorry I’m just scared that I’ll actually run into cp one day and it’ll be over. And when you said “good luck explaining it’s ocd” I had a bunch of worst case scenarios running through my head. I feel like I can’t beat this compulsion and I’m so disgusted with myself.
- Date posted
- 6y
I didn’t run into anything. It was just news articles as people had told it would be.
- Date posted
- 6y
I know... I managed to go a few good days without checking and then I have these triggering words pop into my head that I should google to check that nothing bad shows up. And then the anxiety kicks in and it gets stronger and stronger. I just want the thoughts to leave.
- Date posted
- 6y
Ok... I will keep fighting. But I just got really scared after I gave in to the compulsion again today... like I knew what I was checking didn’t make any sense but I got so fed up with worrying about it. And then I felt stupid and ashamed afterwards again. I’m sorry I just don’t know how to be kind to myself now. It’s just negative thoughts saying I don’t deserve a good life
- Date posted
- 6y
I just feel guilt and shame now... I don’t know how to disperse it. I’m scared I’m gonna do the compulsion again because when it happens it’s like “do it to get it over with so you can move on”. But it’s all just a horrible cycle. That’s why I’m trying so hard to resist.
- Date posted
- 6y
try putting parental controls on your computer!! that might help
- Date posted
- 6y
or block all the search sites so you have to type in the url of where you want to go
- Date posted
- 6y
FernandoV thank you for all the help, do you have any suggestions for spotting mental compulsions during ERP?
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w
Hello, so I’m currently spiralling so so so bad and I want someone to help me and tell me what to do rn. I have dyslexia so there might be some misspelling 3 months ago I read a manga that triggered my POCD to start The manga was cute, I enjoyed it tbh, but it had pedophilic themes (idk why I continued on to read it?!) and in the end it got quite sexual. I was sick while reading it so sadly I don't have much memories. Anyways afterwards I read some comments about how this was smth only pedos like. And since then, intense POCD. Stopped eating, isolated nyself, tried to commit multiple of times and called 991 on myself too. I kept on going about and thinking if I wanted smth sexual to happen, I know I thought there would be a time jump. And thought that something sexual might have happened then. But I can't stop doubting myself or thinking "what if I liked it when it started to get sexual" and the memories of such feel so real that I can't ignore them. I've never ever enjoyed CP before, or manga with SA (honestly I don't enjoy smut much overall, but they're pretty common in romance mangas) but if it has sexual themes and the characters look like kids/are kids/a weird age gap ect. I drop it, but idk why I didn't drop this one. Then I realised that I had never been attracted to kids, and this scenario doesnt have to mean that I am a pedophile. I also have ALOT of trauma around pedophilia (CSA survivor, started making CP as a coping mechanism. It ruined my childhood and took loads of cptsd therapy to stop relapsing.) And I didn’t have a spiral for weeks, I did epr fully and thought I had finally figured out a way to ignore the intrusive thoughts. Nope lol, today I was insanely bored and decided to watch black mirror. “Shut up and dance” I knew that there was an episode that I had been warned about being triggering bht naive like I tend to be I watched it. And now I’m deeply spiralling again. I’m so tired T_T
- Date posted
- 20w
At the beginning of this year, I experienced false memories for the first time about watching bad stuff online, which I have never done in my life. I then turned to hours upon hours of googling and researching about it and reading articles about it. I'd sometimes google the same articles or topics multiple times a day. I then also remembered that I watched a clip once from Big Mouth (not knowing they were teens at the time). I became so afraid that I was being watched by the authorities or my ISP simply for doing research that I impulsively deleted my Google activity and became extremely paranoid that I was a bad person and a criminal, even though I'd never ever had these types of thoughts before. Then felt bad afterwards because I was like omg what if i am bad because what if it seems like I'm trying to hide a crime. I just really hate myself rn. I know we shouldn't ask for reassurance, but I'm more just pondering this, does this make me a bad person? Is there anyone else who has experienced something similar? Does this mean I still have OCD? or am I truly just only worried about how other people see me? Even while typing this, I'm asking myself, what does this all mean.
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- Date posted
- 16w
I’m worried about times when Child P*rn or suspicious porn videos have come up in the past. I tend to use Twitter for porn and it’s not the most moderated app out there but I was never looking for videos or pictures or anything related to that. Unfortunately stuff still has popped up and I’m just worried about if my reaction was perfect because I have intense POCD I want to say it’s nearly as severe as it can get so I just feel as if I remember times when something suspicious came up and I stayed for a moment to make sure I wasn’t attracted or maybe left and came back to be sure I was safe and didn’t like it and I’m afraid this counts as seeking out or engaging in illegal content that would get me in trouble. I’ve never once looked this stuff up and anyone who creates saves distributed or likes this stuff I believe deserves prison time for life but I’m just so worried that I didn’t react in the way I should’ve I’m 20 years old so I’m relatively young and I’m jus worried about what this means about me any one else deal with anything similar?
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