"Is this OCD?" - What to do Instead!

Common posts on here are "i had a thought" "why am i thinking this" "what if" and these are all OCDs way of making you doubt yourself while taking you round and round in never ending circles at the same time. Regardless of the theme you are facing, there is no "figuring out" or "making sense" of a thought, because it isn't a real situation - it's a passing word or image or scenario without any meaning attached. You can't control your thoughts and the more you "don't want to have them" the more they will appear. For instance, tell yourself not to think about "apples", it will be the first thing that comes to your mind, because that's just how our minds work. Once you categorise a thought as "bad", every time it comes into your mind, your anxiety level will go up and this makes the thought seem real. Because if it "Feels" this bad, surely it must mean something or must have happened - But none of this is true. All we have to do is naturally notice thoughts as they come up, and rather than try to assess or ruminate over the content, we can almost shrug them off. It's the only way to accept thoughts as simply thoughts and nothing more. Anxiety drives the intense feeling and the more attention you give to thoughts, the more power they have over you. No random thought can change your real intentions. OCD is never ever satisfied, so the only way forward is to accept the uncertainty of never knowing "for sure" and to class the unwanted thought as irrelevant. OCD says "quick..bad thought..feels horrible.. what does it mean.. fix it". But in reality there is nothing bad here or nothing to be fixed, it's a false alarm. Once you learn to respond to a thought calmly by working on anxiety, it gets easier over time. It's your perception of your thoughts that needs to change, you believe they mean something about you, but random things pop into our heads all the time - both things we like and things we don't. OCD also latches onto what we care about most and it always comes with a feared consequence, so think about what yours is, e.g "what happens if my worst fear comes true" you can then practice imaginal exposure which is imagining your worst case scenario over and over until you become desensitised to it and no longer fear it - therapists use this technique in sessions. Everyone in the world has thoughts, the thoughts are not the issue, you just get more of what you focus on, up until the point that you can change your attitude towards the thought. If I asked you if you went upstairs today you would have an answer straight away, however if I asked you a question related to your OCD theme, your anxiety would increase and you would doubt yourself, because that's OCD doing the thinking for you. Once you give it less power it becomes a less significant part of your day. It's so easy to give into compulsions as they feel like a "quick fix".. but as I mentioned, ocd is never happy, which is why it wants us to continue to check and seek reassurance. Once you start reducing and gradually stopping compulsions, whether this is rumination, checking, or a physical action (whatever you falsely believe is "keeping you safe" from your feared consequence) you will see it's not necessary to do them, and that the time consuming little things you have taught yourself to do have no effect on what actually happens in real life. Thoughts prompt feelings and feelings prompt actions - meaning - thoughts cause anxiety and anxiety drives unnecessary actions. As a side note, I overcame contamination ocd (I was in a very very bad way and now the theme doesn't bother me anymore). I still have OCD and it can affect me slightly at times, but i can manage it in a way that it doesn't interfere with my day and without the need to carry out compulsions. Please practice, because I promise it helps, it's super scary at first and extremely difficult but the end result is worth it. ERP therapy is also very helpful.

I have just recently realized that I had SO OCD. This began whenever I was watching porn and had an intrusive thought about the guy in the porn. It was more minor at first, it was a majority of what I was thinking about throughout the day but it didn’t feel as distressing at first. If I had downtime to think about it, it would affect me but if I was just going about my day I wouldn’t notice it. I began going through the compulsions of checking myself. This lasted for a while until another obsession occurred. Then it seemed as if my SO OCD took a step back. I would have flare ups but they would seem to pass. Recently, I had a very bad night of constant compulsions and looking at pictures and imagining things to check myself. After that night it was very distressing, it affected me to the point where people around me began to notice and ask me if I was okay. One of the big reasons I was so upset was my girlfriend, we have been together for over 3 years and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I was thinking “Oh my god, if I am gay I can never be with her.” I would sit and cry about it thinking I would lose her and that might life would change because I was gay. I finally had enough and talked to her and my parents. We did some research and I was so shocked to find out that I had a form of OCD, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders just knowing that other people have been where I am and that I’m not gay. However, I may have naively expected the compulsions and obsessive thoughts to go away now that I knew I had an actual problem. But I found that the compulsions and thoughts were still there and I was going to put some effort into getting better. I have researched and now know what to do when experiencing intrusive thoughts, yet I still have been performing the compulsions which is just feeding into the OCD. I find myself having intrusive thoughts and then start performing compulsions to see if they are true. What really bothers me is when I have an intrusive thought that tells me that I do like something. But when I think about it I have no desire to pursue those thoughts. However when I feed into the compulsions they just seem to feed into each other. It is like my OCD ignores all the things that I know I like and goes straight to panic mode. I am also trying to do ERP and am going to start doing my best to get better. Does anyone have any tips for not performing the compulsions no matter how anxious you are feeling and no matter how real the intrusive thoughts seem to feel?

Hi this is my first time posting on here. I wasn't sure if I should because I want to make sure I'm not seeking reassurance because I heard that makes ocd worse. I don't want to talk about what my ocd problem was, but basically I was really upset about a religious ocd problem that I know isn't true. I'm feeling a lot better about it now, but when it was bad I decided to try and get better on my own. I read about ERP therapy and how you're supposed to make a list of your ocd problems, from least distressing to most. So I wrote them down on two pieces of paper. At first I started with the simple ones, like looking for spiders before leaving the room. I have a tendency to look for spiders before leaving a room but lately I've been trying not to anymore. Then I decided to try and do one of the hard things. It was a religious ocd problem. I decided to start simple, and just write the problem down on a piece of paper. So I went downstairs and got some paper. But then I thought, oh no, my ocd is probably not going to like this. What do I do with the paper once I write it down? If I think what I wrote down is bad and going to upset God and I will go to hell, (even though I know logically it's not), my ocd is probably going to freak out if I throw away the paper. It probably won't calm down unless I erase it. So I just decided to not write it down on a paper, and just type it on my phone instead. So I did, I typed it on my phone. So, even though I didn't write anything down on the paper, now it feels like that peice of paper is bad. I feel like it's connected to the problem I was having, and I was so upset I called my mom crying asking her what to do. Eventually I decided to just put the paper back with the rest of the paper downstairs, but I'm still upset. I feel like I have to throw away all the paper downstairs, the pencil I was going to use to write down the problem, and the eraser I was going to use in case I needed to erase anything. It feels like if I use any of those items I will make God angry and go to hell. I know I shouldn't do this though, so I'm not going to. I don't know what to do with the papers where I wrote down my ocd problems. They are on my desk and I'm too afraid to move them. And if I put them in my desk I'm afraid they will get mixed up with other papers. I guess I can do whatever I want with them. I think I'll put them in a folder or binder and if I make any more ocd papers I can just put them in there.  I'm just really confused on how to move forward. Right now, I'm too afraid to use the papers, pencil, or eraser for anything. I feel like I can't write on them, draw on them, or anything. It's even making me feel like I can't make digital art. It's making me feel like I can't do a lot of things. I guess what I have to do is just do whatever I want to, because I know the ocd isn't true and doesn't make sense.