How you interpret your emotions?

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.

Does anyone have any advice for how to know the difference between ocd and real feelings/thoughts? Sometimes an intrusive thought will come in and I immediately know it’s ridiculous and I can just leave it alone and it won’t bother me but other times I really really don’t know. It’s when ocd hijacks and twists my real feelings and thoughts and tries to manipulate me into believing they’re something they’re not or something that doesn’t align with my true morals or intentions. But since it’s twisting and mixing with real feelings I get so confused and scared. Everything gets jumbled and I feel like I can’t trust myself or my own mind. Yet other times and other topics I can laugh off and push away just fine. Make it make sense. And then I start to think well maybe I don’t have ocd at all and I’m just in denial because I don’t want to accept that these scary/concerning things are true about myself. Or maybe that’s just the ocd talking.

I didn't wanted to say it's useless or it's never helpful, but I feel like it's really black and white and people use it to categories others in "personality groups" and it's wrong how they do it. Yesterday I gave a chance to a video cause I was like "let's learn about myself" and I watched it with curiousity, And at the end of the video i was triggered... Im sure someone without ocd just ignores it and all this is just my ocd but im curious what other people thinks. First thing that triggered me is that making jokes is a coping mechanism, which is somewhat true, it can be for some, but in that video it was told like if you like to make jokes and you like to make people laugh, you only do because you need attention and your mother never gave you attention when you were a kid so now you want attention so you make jokes...As an ocder this got me triggered cause I like to make jokes,but if it would be to get attention it would be forced... and i dont feel like mine is forced,I do it cause I can laugh at my own jokes and making others laugh is a really good feeling. Sometimes Im a troll on the internet, and i like when people read my comments on youtube but thats a normal thing, everyone likes when they get any attention, its normal human behaviour, but psychology often tells you that you have a deep psychological problem and thats why you do these things. And it really feels like an attack, expecially if you have ocd. I remember when I was in therapy, alot of things i do was attacked with this "you do this cause you want attention cause you didnt get it from your parents" and it made me spin and stop doing those things. Its really toxic if you think about it. The other thing was about ocd... I dont know if it's psychology or just the beliefs of that person who made the video, but it's 2025 and people still dont know what is ocd... I read before about "obsessive personality disorder" , the whole personality disorder thing is just made up to label people into groups in my opinion,when people can be in more than 1 group... but what triggered me was that he said "the differece between ocd and obsessive personality dissorder is that people with opd are perfectionists, obsession got their whole life and it controls everything." Now this makes me question what that person thinks about ocd... So ocd does not gets into your life? It does not takes your life away? Here was another he said. "People with ocd do the compulsion because of fear, while people with opd do that because of anger/frustration". And I would ask, what type of feeling is anger? Anger is a second feeling and many times behind it theres another feeling and often it is fear... And people with ocd can become angry and frustrated with their compulsions, some of it does not act on compulsions because of fear but because of frustration. Everyone with ocd is a perfectionist, i know this might trigger you, but its true, everyone with ocd is hard with themself, and can drive others crazy with their rules. These people still thinks that ocd is cleaning and wanting things to be organized... Its sad that the only people who knows what ocd is are the ones who has it or got through it... this is why I dont go to therapy, instead i watch videos on youtube from people who had/has ocd and I have to say it was really helpful and I noticed alot of progression in my mental health...