Self diagnosed

So Back like 4 years ago when all this began I used to have horrible thoughts and be overwhelmed by the things I was thinking and I am not gonna explain since you all pretty much know what I’m talking about lol but I used to think I was crazy! I would stay up all night because of fear of harming somebody without my consent or my like self control and I would worry worry worry, it got so bad to a point I stopped eating because I was just so scared (still kind of like this but I got wayyyy better!) and I just started looking up like coping mechanisms and like researching what the fuck was wrong with me. Was I a bad person, was I crazy, what is wrong with me, those were thoughts that would be in my head yk so I found something called harm Ocd and I read it and related to it so much. I remember that day vividly and felt such a huge relief Like finally I’m not crazy and somebody actually gets it! So then I started watching YouTube videos TikTok’s and all of that helped temporarily and then I would get back into my cycle and honestly I guess looking up and reading about ocd helped temporarily because it made me feel not crazy but really I had nobody to talk too and when I did talk nobody would understand, honestly I wanna go to a therapist and actually find out but my insurance can’t cover it and I’m just left being self diagnosed. Everyone around me says “you don’t have ocd you can’t self diagnose yourself!” or people who have common ocd would say “I have ocd so what your going through girlie that’s not ocd your just overthinking it” but at this point even without a diagnosis I know I have it. Everything I go through just adds up to it, like I actually relate so much to every person on this app and finding this app was part of my reassurance of knowing I’m not crazy. Anyway that’s all pleaseeeee somebody respond lol

Anonymous

Date posted: 2y

Hi! I have been struggling with OCD for a bit too in a variety of different subtypes. I am just about to get started with therapy, but from what I’ve learned and has helped me is the reason why those thoughts scare you so much is because they are quite literally the opposite of you and that fears are the opposite of impulses. OCD is all about learning to be okay with uncertainty, so although I cannot say for sure that when we have scary thoughts we won’t act on them, I have learned that if something is impulsive it is acting without thinking, whereas this is thinking without acting, so it is quite the opposite. What has helped me a bit is practicing CBT techniques to challenge the myth of “thought-action fusion”. The false fear in OCD is that by just thinking something, you are scared you will or did do that thing. But you can do little practices to disprove that false theory - for instance, hold your phone in your hand and think about throwing it against the wall. Even by thinking about it, and putting all your attention into that thought, it is not going to make you throw it against the wall. So of course that is not a very scary thought so it will not scare you as much, but we should treat even our scariest thoughts as such - just thoughts. It doesn’t matter about the content of the thoughts, but just knowing that thoughts are thoughts and the less you try to fight them and give meaning to them, they will start to leave on their own. I know, much easier said than done, I have been struggling for a bit. The books Overcoming OCD and Needing to Know for Sure by Martin Seif are both very helpful.

Chickensalad

Date posted: 2y

@Anonymous I have done that before but have not kept up with it so I was still getting affected by my thoughts and also things started happening in my life that caused more stress and made those thoughts worst so I just gave up but your right I should start doing that again because little steps are all you need yk and I appreciate your advice a lot! Thanks so much for responding lol thoughts are just thoughts but girllll are they scary I will try to check those books out! Have a good day and no need to respond!

Anonymous

Date posted: 2y

I feel ya, so scary!! It’s helpful to know that everyone gets them too, not just people with OCD. But the problem is we give too much attention to them (which it’s so dang hard not to because of how scary they are). But someone without OCD would just think “that’s a strange thought that doesn’t align with me” and just go about their day. I try to think about what someone without OCD might think or how they might act - they certainly wouldn’t do the rituals I keep doing lol we will get through this 💕

Chickensalad

Date posted: 2y

@Anonymous YESSSS EXACTLY ugh you get it😭 it’s crazy how ocd works but honestly your right we will get through this!! Us even fighting our thoughts prove we are not them and already stronger than we look😤❤️

Be a part of the largest OCD Community

Share your thoughts so the Community can respond