My experience with Harm OCD

Hello, I would like to share my story with fighting OCD. I don't expect many people to read this but I'm sure a lot of you can relate to the first half of this story, maybe even just little bits and pieces of it. Once upon a time, I was terribly scared of going insane. The intrusive thoughts about harming others and the feelings that came along with said thoughts made me excessively worry that I was loosing my mind. I was not losing my mind, however, the amount of anxiety I felt sure made it feel like I was on the break of loosing my sanity. Turns out, I was only suffering from a classic case of of harm OCD. Though, there was a point in the middle of my obsession where it was just like my psyche had changed. I wasn't the same sweet and caring girl anymore. I started to think that I had turned into a sociopath. I remember the day it happened, I felt numb. I think it's safe to say I got hit with depression that day. I had no energy and the anxiety wasn't ever so present anymore. So, was it a backdoor spike? Probably was, but regardless of that, I had never truely stopped obsessing. I remember feeling weird like as if a part of me was gone. Oddly enough, as scary as it was, I missed the anxiety. I still miss it to this day. It was around the time that my "psyche had changed," where my symptoms started to get worse. I began to feel harm urges more frequently. I remember it feeling like I was retaining myself from going crazy. I remember crying and writing in a journal that it felt like I had wanted to act on my thoughts while really and truely not wanting to at the same time. This experience had messed me up for a long time because I had no idea these "urges" were a common occurrence for those with OCD, and they had felt so terrifyingly real. To me, this experience was nothing but proof that I was some sort of psychopath. So, I was real ashamed of it and would get rid of any jackets I wore frequently around that time cause they had bad memories attached to them and I just kind of kept it a secret. Urges? What urges? I didn't want to have anything to do with that part of me. I wish I didn't waste time worrying over what were just false feelings, it was clear that I never wanted to hurt a soul. Eventually the urges just went away. Thankfully, I don't get them anymore. One other thing that had occurred during my urges phase was rumination. This had to be my biggest compulsion. When it first started, I was sitting in my history class and the teacher had mentioned something about how the punishment for stealing livestock in some country back in the day would be death. She asked us how we felt about it and one kid said it was harsh. In my mind, I thought, "how is that harsh?" Holy. F**k. I didn't know how it was harsh. What I had felt along with the thought felt genuine. Had I lost my empathy? I began to analyze it, the person being killed for stealing a pig, trying to find some sort of reason as to feel disgust towards it. I was arguing with myself to find the answers I so desperately wanted to hear from myself. Nothing. I was confused on how this was harsh. This thought pattern would plague my entire school year. I remember times when I was riding the bus home and I started to ruminate in the same fashion again, except my thought was "what's wrong with killing?" I felt the need to clear the confusion in my head cause this thought wouldn't go away until it felt right. I was doomed to repeat this action for years. I mean, becoming a murderer was my worst fear imaginable despite being numb to the idea. I was going to do everything in my power to stop it. Throughout Highschool, I would pick up certain deep irrational thoughts to ruminate on, most of which are tied in with the harm OCD. They just seemed pretty serious to me, partly because they made me feel so confused, I felt like I had to figure them out. They didn't really give me anxiety, I just obsessed over them. I'll list some examples below: ■One of the thoughts was a confusion about why we feel guilt and I would literally argue in my mind that guilt was just chemicals in the brain and therefore doesn't hold any real value. I did the same thing with love. I don't remember the exact thought process but it was just wacky. ■There was also a breif period of time where I had to ruminate on what exactly basic English words ment like I understood them but I felt like I couldn't truely process what they ment until I knew why and where they come from, etc. ■One time I couldn't even make sense of music, it was just sound to me? ■My brother had told me about yin and yang once and how it represents the balance between both good and evil. I'm not sure how accurate that is but he said without good, there can be no evil and without evil, there could be no good. My mind took this and thought that me turning into a serial killer would be good because without evil in the world (me), there would be no good. I literally ruminated on that... seriously, it concerned me that it made sense to me. ■This one didn't even last more than a day but my mind once justified rape.. and pedophilia.. gross. ■One big argument in relation to harm OCD was that I technically couldn't kill anyone if there's an afterlife cause the person killed would still be in existence. ◾️Bull about how death doesn't matter because the person dead won't care about anything, how we only care about life bcause we are alive and wired to, or how meaninglesslife is in general. I probably missed one but I can't think of it at the moment. Either way, it's all stupid mombo jombo that randomly pops in my brain and it makes me very depressed. I mean depressed to the point where I find it hard to eat which worries me even more because I don't want my health to get worse. Having these thoughts feel as if i've actually lost my sanity, I feel like I absolutely have to analyze the thought when it comes and try to fix it to standard to how I believe I should think. I don't want to be the one who thinks this way! No way! I'm a perfectly sane and bright person! These mental gymnastics are the reason I decided to give zoloft a try. The last obsession is fairly recent but I have sense come to terms with these thoughts as not viewing them as a bad thing. Death doesnt matter? Sure, I suppose it's subjective. I personally don't care about any meaning of life anymore, im happy with that! I can now put these thoughts behind me and remember them as another irrational obsession. I can look back on all of these thoughts and laugh at how ridiculous they are and all I did was stop thinking about them daily. That's proof that I can grow and break away from having OCD control me. However, what bothers me is how the thoughts were like.. genuine? They felt very rational to me during the moment of obsession. This whole rumination process feels like it could be something other than OCD. The disorder itself is diverse. It's an umbrella term and ones experience can be unique if not simular to others. My disorder makes me ruminate in a way that's not common in OCD (or at least I don't think it is). From what I've seen online, most people would obsess over how or if they did something, if they're a bad person, or what something in particular means, maybe even something exsitential like trying to find out what's real, or magical thinking. I don't exactly go through any of that and it makes me doubt myself a whole lot. I feel pretty alone on this. Chances are, I'm a bit in denial and I mean that in both ways. I could either be in denial that this is obviously OCD or in denial that I don't have OCD. Now, there's no denying that OCD plays a huge role in all this. I strongly believe that it would be ridiculous to say otherwise. My past with the disease itself is the reason why I'm here today. Though, I can barely see my current symptoms as OCD (as OCD as that may sound haha). To be honest, I am very scared of reaching out for help out of fear of being misunderstood or worse, I don't want to ruin my life. What do I do? And what the hell happened in this brain of mine? I guess I shouldn't expect any real answers here, but it feels good to vent, I guess. Anywho, I know this sounds cheesy, but if you managed to give this post any sort of attention, thank you. Just being heard means more than you think. <3 If you relate or have any advice or so on, feel free to add on your thoughts down below!