- Date posted
- 2y
OCD is so paradoxical
I want to stop feeling anxious. But I need that anxiety to make sure I know I don’t like the thoughts I have. I’m so tired of it
I want to stop feeling anxious. But I need that anxiety to make sure I know I don’t like the thoughts I have. I’m so tired of it
Sorry to hear you’re struggling. ERP will help you to not be bothered anymore by the thoughts you have. I know that that may sound scary but as an example: I had harm OCD in the past and was terrified. But now, whenever I have an intrusive thought related to harm I’m completely emotionless about them. I think “oh an intrusion” and move on with my day. I know intrusive thoughts are normal and that it’s OCD that makes them multiply. So it’s important that I don’t do compulsions like analyzing if I want the thoughts or why I’m thinking the thoughts in the first place. I hope you can get to that point soon too! ❤️
@hen7 That’s so true…. I’m experiencing the same…. ERP done wonders on my harm OCD
@hen7. Thank you. I've been doing ERP for about 2 weeks for scrupulosity. The thoughts and feelings are rough. But hearing your story encourages me. Have a blessed day.
@R. Byrd I’ve had scupulosity as well. When it was particularly bad I felt God tell me “I know you don’t want these thoughts.” And that gave me the permission to treat these thoughts like the others. Like OCD intrusions and simply let them be there and not react in any way. It might take a while for them to dissipate but they will as long as you don’t engage with them in any way.
@hen7 @hen7. Therein lies the problem. I engage. My thought is that God has abandoned me and the feelings are there with it. So it's hard not to think about it. I go about my day and do the things I need to do but those thoughts are just there all the time. But I still do my ERP. I know it will take time. I just discovered I had Scrupulosity a few years ago. It started when I was 8. I'm 56 now and getting therapy for it.
@hen7 And one thought that came to me the other night just out of the blue was, "The things you are believing are just not what the Bible says. For some reason that brings a little hope inside of me.
@R. Byrd Glad to hear you have therapy. Keep at it and it will get better. God did not abandon me and He will not abandon you. That’s just not who He is. When your OCD has been dealt with I pray you’ll experience His love for you. ❤️ I know after that whole thing I grew a lot in my faith and began to rely on God’s faithfulness. At one point (and it might take a while to get there) I was like “if God wants me then He will save me.” - I realized I never had control over my salvation. It was always going to be based on God’s mercy and love and the work of Jesus. Not based on me. That helped, strangely enough. Because it showed me the flaws in my thinking. One thing that also helped me a lot is to say “your thoughts above my thoughts” - Knowing that my thoughts, especially when they feel OCD-ish, are often incorrect. This will not take the fear away, but it helps to remind myself that I can’t always trust my brain because I have OCD.
@hen7 I listen to Jaimie Eckert at Scrupulosity Solutions and she says what you said, "God is just not like that!" I do appreciate you sharing your experience and answering people's questions and concerns. I hope one day to do the same for others.
@R. Byrd Ran into this and thought of you: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwH8JzThHAW/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
@hen7 Thank you
@hen7 That's beautiful ❤️
If you dont want them you dont like them
I sometimes see posts on here of people saying their OCD fears becoming true and it’s so so triggering for me. It makes me question if I ever had OCD and if I’m just faking it. I’ve tried to accept that my fear was real. Okay? Before I knew this was OCD, I really TRIED to accept it as a part of myself because I figured if I was even having those thoughts, it must be true. But in reality it just made me feel worse in the end. It wasn’t until several hours/few days after accepting the thoughts as true did I realize they were not and how uncomfortable it made me identifying with them that way, so eventually I went back into the rumination cycle. And I’ve done this multiple times. No matter how much I’ve accepted it as real, I never come to a conclusion in the end and I just get 10x more miserable. And I am still so scared of my fear coming true as those peoples did. But I know that’s what we all fear, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. And with a new fear I just developed, (all in the realm of the same theme) I’ve also tried to accept it as real when I felt SUPER convinced and even though it felt excruciatingly real, there was a part of me that couldn’t fully believe it, because I just know viscerally that it’s not. But the feeling of it being real is just too powerful and it overmastered any ounce of insight I had left. It wasn’t until my OCD spike calmed down when I was able to see through the viel. I hate this. I have no desire to do anything that my thoughts tell me. I know what I want to be, want to do, and it’s the opposite of those OCD thoughts. But these triggering posts won’t leave. (Not really the publishers fault, it’s my ritual that I engage in). They make me come all back to square one (if I wasn’t there already) and question if I’m using this as an excuse. I don’t want to do what my OCD tells me to do, but my brain just spits, “you’re just convincing yourself you don’t want this!” as it so often now does. I’m so tired. Please give me my old self back. Please give me 100% certainty that none of this is real and my fears are not at all based in reality. My brain cannot accept uncertainty and will not leave me alone. My brain is raged and powerless without knowing why, and spiels that anger back on me to get a reaction, and when it gets what it wants, the cycle continues. And goes way longer than I had bargained for :(
It is not the thoughts or urges that scare me anymore. It is the way I feel like I’ve absorbed the compulsions into my identity :( I am doing them so automatically that it feels like I am choosing them freely and they’re me. and because of that, it feels like I AM the OCD now, not just someone with OCD. I think I’m just deeply trapped in a loop. I was trying to survive unbearable fear so I started scanning. Then I started pre-scanning. Then checking if I pre-scanned. Then I check how I feel during all that. I run to beat my OCD to the “punchline” (intrusive thought, urge, sensation) because I’m so scared all the time. So scared that I don’t even feel it anymore. I feel numb and all that’s left is this jittery residue and numbness. Now it’s all tangled together in a huge knot. I feel so extremely lost. I think this may just be meta OCD, but I’ve never ever felt so gone before :( I’m really scared.
I am in an endless battle to figure things out. I think I figure something out that makes me feel better about my thoughts and then I find something else to prove it wrong and the cycle continues. I have so much discomfort I want to confess to my partner so bad. How do I handle this. I don’t think I’ve ever sat in this much discomfort. Why does it feel THIS BAD.
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