What even is this?

*more fear/anxiety

Ok but OCD asides, it is a real issue tho, people don’t go around hurting their pets for no reasons, I mean some do but their horrible human beings, I hurt my pets, somewhat conciously, I guess it’s more of a reflex. But this has to be some kind of mental disorder right?

@realeventwitsend You put hurt in quotes initially; I think it is OCD because, and this is a common point about harm OCD and other OCD subthemes, if you had no feelings about this then it would be different But OCD is making you doubt your feelings and love. "Horrible human beings" typically don't wonder if they somewhat hurt or bothered a pet. I believe, and check with a professional, this is still your OCD

@A23 It is possible to have another condition, but you have to leave that up to a professional to figure out

@A23 The man point is that "horrible humans" don't feel "super guilty" It is highly likely they your OCD wants to feel guilty for being what it consider horrible, when in reality it blew something out of proportion. Ironic isn't it? OCD would love to find something else out to explain it when in reality it's the main factor here

@A23 *main point

@A23 *that your OCD Excuse the typos 🤭

@A23 Yeah I know, I was supposed to see a psychiatrist last week but they delayed my appointment in 3 to 4 months. I’m’also on the fence about talking about my pets because I’m afraid I’d be put in a psych ward.

@realeventwitsend NOCD should be understanding and helpful for this, have you tried them?

@A23 No, not yet, I don’t have the means to pay for therapy here, where I live I can pay much less.

@realeventwitsend Nathan Peterson on YouTube has some good videos to watch, in the meantime or alongside other support

@A23 Yeah I used to watch his videos, that how I heard about NOCD, problem is my case seems to be OCD and something else idk about as I have explained, so it’s not enough unfortunately :(

Ok so basically, I’m not ”hurting” them properly speaking, as in I don’t literaly hit them or whatever, it’s more like pushing them with my foot or squeezing a lottle too hard when picking them up, I guess it’s more annoying than hurtful though it depends on the cats, some might get a bit hurt by those actions, though they don’t necessarily show that much discomfort but yeah. Recently I was in class and debated in going home early by leaving in the middle of it to remove an extinguisher in the closet that might have fallen on my cats, I had to leave before I could do it because I was late and I tried to call my parents once I was on my university campus but couldn’t reach them, I ended up not leaving class and to this day I don’t know if I did it out of malicious intent or not. As for anger issues, I’m not sure, I don’t feel anger when doing those actions, as I said it,s really spontaneous and quick, once it was just after I had turned around and saw my cat near my feet in the corner of my eye, so like split second unconcious decision kinda fast. There is one thing I noticed though, is that before this startedba few months ago, my OCD or brain or whatever had developed what I thought was a defense mechanism for intrusive thoughts, like I would have an intrusive thought and my OCD would tell me something along the lines of "if you do x or y action” then that means your intrusive thought is true and same thing before I could realise I would do said action, most of the time it was looking at some particular part of the screen if I was watching a video or clicking my mouse or whatever, small actions and I thought this was handy cause I was more or less doing ERP with this involuntary actions. But now it seems to me that those actions I do agaisnt my pets are an evolution of that. In fact, at the same time I developed intrusive thoughts and OCD regarding animal abuse, I found myself doing these actions more and more. So yeah it seems to be related to OCD, but at the same time people with OCD don’t act on their thoughts, and I don’t want to but my body does anyways, and there seems to be somewhat of a cathartic enjoyement in doing that even though it’s very quickly replaced by a huge amount of guilt. So it’s all really complicated and I’m lost, and I thought about punsihing myself by destroying, deleting everything I love like game save-files to give a lesson to my brain and idkif that’s the solution or not.

Ok so basically, I'm not "hurting" them properly speaking, as in I don't literaly hit them or whatever, it's more like pushing them with my foot or squeezing a lottle too hard when picking them up, I guess it's more annoying than hurtful though it depends on the cats, some might get a bit hurt by those actions, though they don't necessarily show that much discomfort but yeah. Recently I was in class and debated in going home early by leaving in the middle of it to remove an extinguisher in the closet that might have fallen on my cats, I had to leave before I could do it because I was late and I tried to call my parents once I was on my university campus but couldn't reach them, I ended up not leaving class and to this day I don't know if I did it out of malicious intent or not. As for anger issues, I'm not sure, I don't feel anger when doing those actions, as I said it,s really spontaneous and quick, once it was just after I had turned around and saw my cat near my feet in the corner of my eye, so like split second unconcious decision kinda fast. There is one thing I noticed though, is that before this startedba few months ago, my OCD or brain or whatever had developed what I thought was a defense mechanism for intrusive thoughts, like I would have an intrusive thought and my OCD would tell me something along the lines of "if you do x or y action" then that means your intrusive thought is true and same thing before I could realise I would do said action, most of the time it was looking at some particular part of the screen if I was watching a video or clicking my mouse or whatever, small actions and I thought this was handy cause I was more or less doing ERP with this involuntary actions. But now it seems to me that those actions I do agaisnt my pets are an evolution of that. In fact, at the same time I developed intrusive thoughts and OCD regarding animal abuse, I found myself doing these actions more and more. So yeah it seems to be related to OCD, but at the same time people with OCD don't act on their thoughts, and I don't want to but my body does anyways, and there seems to be somewhat of a cathartic enjoyement in doing that even though it's very quickly replaced by a huge amount of guilt. So it's all really complicated and I'm lost, and I thought about punsihing myself by destroying, deleting everything I love like game save-files to give a lesson to my brain and idkif that's the solution or not. I’m rese’di’g this message because somehow the last one doesn’t appear for me.

@FinneganFox90 I know it does scream of Harm OCD but idk, I’ve had, as you probably think, MANY compulsions over the past decade or so, and those actions really don’t feel like compulsions to check if I would enjoy harming my pets, it almost feels like ”a second personality” that would be controlled by OCD or whatever mental illness makes this happen and will act out those actions subconsiously even thouh I would not do it, it’s the best way I can put it. Now for the whole self punishement part, it feels like it’s my duty to teach my brain a lesson so it will behave, I’ve done this throughout this summer when I believed I had hurt my cats but was too exhausted by doing compulsions all day, like petting my cats, to continue. And this need to delete savefiles, in addition to punishing myself, also comes from way early in my OCD struggle when I used to play videogames, especially RPGs, and needed everything to be perfect in my game lest I would delete my save file and start over, I guess doing everything perfectly apllies to the real world too now. But it does feel hypocritical because in the end I’m doing all this protecting of my cats more for me to keep my savefiles rather than them. And now deleting my savefiles feels like the only way to make my brain understand and stop those actions, because during this summer, I was sooooooooo tired and sad doing compulsions all day, I was crying all day long wishing I was normal and able to have a life, that I adopted a ”whatever happens happens” kinda philosophy and since I couldn’t control myself near my cats, then there was non point in fighting this and allowed myself to go back to enjoy life. But this doesn’t cut it antmore with the extinguisher accident, because before, I would think that I there was no point in fighting the inevitable, but since I willfully didn’t leave class to go home early and fix the threat my cats might have been exposed to, then it’s deeper than just me not being able to fight the inevitable, it’s me being guilty of doing harm. Besides, I realised it wasn’t inevitable, and came to the conclusion I must punish myself to give my brain a lesson so that it wouldn’t do that again.

@FinneganFox90 To add on what I said, yeah many of my OCD struggles and themes have been triggered by one thought or action and this time is no different, my obsession with animak abuse came from me having my cat laying on my bed next to me and as I was reaching for my phone, I had the thought of ”what if you squeezed his tail with your arm while picking your phone” since he was between me and my phone, and unconsiously I did? Like wtf! It wasn’t even a hard squeeze or anything snce he didn’t even move or care, but just the fact I did the action was enough to drive me down this spiral. So yeah I’m not even sure it’s really OCD now, or at least not just OCD

@FinneganFox90 I get what you’re saying with not abandonning your responsabilities to check on something, but what bugs me is that the class I was in wasn’t really an important one, I already have good grades in this class and I usually do something else during it anyways since I don’t struggle. Besides there was only 20 minutes left in that class and that was the last class of the day, in fact I took a bus home right after it ended and if I had left the class and took the first bus available I would have gotten home only 20 minutes earlier than I did. But a lot can happen in 20 mintues and that’s exactly why I feel so guilty about that, because if it was in the middle of my school day and if I would have had other classes or an exam I would have stayed. So there really was no reason for me not to leave class. Also yeah I know deleting savefiles originally comes from just right OCD, but I really don’t have another way of preventing my brain from doing that again than deleting my save files, it doesn’t feel like OCD because it feels like a legitimate solution to what happened. When I went to my family doctor to get some medication a few months ago I did tell him about those actions I do against my will, though it was before the extinguisher accident, and he told me it might be depersonalization or some symptoms of schizophrenia. So it’s not out ofnthe realm of possibilities it’s truly not just OCD and I owe it to my cats to punish myself to prevent further harm while I wait to get an appointment.

@FinneganFox90 - Yeah, I was supposed to see a psychiatrist last week but they delayed the appointment and I have to wait 3 to 4 months. Now I'm kinda lost on what to do, I'm pretty sure I can't just go 3 or 4 months without being able to play any game or see my friends, and even then at some point I'm gonna delete my save file before being able to see my psychiatrist since it's not so much the fact of playing but till having the lifeline of still having my save file with all my memories on it that prevents me from teaching a lesson to my brain. Either way, I'm gonna have to take a decision soon. I have to convince myself deleting it will not help but the thing is that it feels hypocritical and that I'm siding with the part of myself that "likes to hurt my pets", but there's no way to know for sure until I do delete it at which point if it doesn't do anything I'd have lost everything I care about...

@FinneganFox90 I was more talking about convincing myself I shouldn’t delete anything and that it’s ultimately OCD regardless but yeah. I read the articles, but I still can’t convince myself it’s just OCD persuading me into deleting my save files irrationaly, for me it’s still a good way to make my brain get the message. I get that it might make things worse but at the same time there are equaly as many arguments that could be made as to why not deleting anything would make things worse for my pets. And to be honest, I wanna get better mainly so that I can enjoy life, I’m not sure if I said it in this thread but during this summer I had a mental breakdown about where the hell my life was going, I have barely any friend, I can’t go out when I want, can’t make other friends online or not, I’m lonely, I can’t even enjoy my hobbies, video games or not because of OCD, and the clock is ticking, I’m getting older and only have one life and I can’t even enjoy my best years, and it was still like that before my OCD got so severe, but now it’s worse. So I wanna be able for once to have something good, but I’m a garbage ”human being”, I hurt my pets, and I feel even more guilty that they aren’t even the first reason I wanna get better. And recently, I tried to make a compromise with myself, that ok I wouldn’t delete my savefile, but in the meantime I get help, I would do mediation for mindfullness and spend more time with my pets, but I can’t even do that, I gave up meditation after only one ten minute session and haven’t particularily spent that luch time with my pets, because I’m too lazy and just doing any of those things feels like the biggest of chores, I’m tired, physically and mentally, I feel like a hypocrite and feel guilty and am not doing anything for it...

@FinneganFox90 Right now I’m mostly just wasting the day away either napping or watching youtube videos too, I can’t get myself to partake in any hobbies because I feel like playing games or whatever will just justify me enjoying my time even though I hurt my pets, which is unacceptable for me, youtube is the only thing I allow myself to do else I’ll go crazy out of boredom, this summer I actually tried to put myself in time out doing nothing for an hour or two after I believed I hurt my cat and thay was one of the worst experience I ever went through, I tried then to only watch youtube videos of stuff I don’t particularily enjoy and without sound but that got as bad as doing nothing real quick.

@FinneganFox90 I kinda gave up on my family to be honest, they don’t really care about me, my siblings have always been favored while I have been ignored, even my siblings themselves don’t really talk to me or eve enjoy my presence, in fact I tried talking to my brother about my problems and he was quick in telling me that it was none of his business and that he was getting nothing out of helping me and wanted me to stop talking to him about that, so I’m not too concerned about being there for them, they’re not there for me... Also I don’t really need to be at the best of my health for university, the classes aren’t really an issue and I have perfect atendance so far, I won’t miss class unless I’m in a dire situation, kinda ironic saying that after the extunguisher incident but yeah... I also kinda gave up trying to be healthier physically speaking, whether talking about my appearance or overall health, since I’ve never really had any irl friend and have no real social skill, let’s not mention romantic relationship, it’s never happened and at this point, I’m pretty sure it won’t ever happen for me. So yeah socially or professionally speaking, I don’t have any incentive in forcing myself to adopt a better lifestyle that goes agaisnt my OCD. As for activities, well it depends, I can play some chess on my computer when bored in class but that’s about as far as I was able to go without completely having a panic attack.

@FinneganFox90 Well nothing matters anymore because I did the exact same thing this morning... I was going to leave for class so I got some socks from the same closet the extinguisher was in and noticed someone had halfhazaedly stacked bags in it, I was running late and about to miss my bus so I took some photos of my closet so that I could compare if everything was still the same when I’ll get home. One or two minutes before the bus arrived I realised I didn’t know what was in those bags (I had assumed it was like clothes) and debated if I should go back home or not, this class wasn’t that important so it wasn’t a big deal if I’d missed it, but against my better judgement I still got on the bus and once I had reached university I called my parents and was able to reach them this time, I told them not to open the closet or open the kitchen where my cats are until I come back explaining the situation, but I knew that like last time they wouldn’t care, then I debated if I should go to class or take the next bus home and I still went to class for some reason, I don’t know why! Each step I took I felt like I was enjoying the possibility of them being hurt and was trying to shake that feeling away and I entered the classroom, once again I could’ve left at any point and take the next bus but waited until the end of the class, then I took the bus home and I had messaged my sister who told me at least one of the bags was just clothes and when I got home thankfully no one had gotten home in the time I was gone, I compared the pictures to what I was seeing in the closet and they matched perfectly so crisis averted. But it’s not enough, from the moment I left home I had multiple occasions to go home and prevent harm and didn’t, for a class I wasn’t even in yet and that didn’t matter, and felt a mix of enjoyment and dread at the same time. I feel like there’s definitely something wrong with me and am even more lost than last time. I’m so sorry to keep bothering you with this, but clearly I don’t deserve anything, I’m a sad excuse for a ”human being”...

@FinneganFox90 Sorry I didn’t mean to ignore the contents of your message I was just super anxious about what had happened. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t want to do volunteering, I don’t want to give my time freely to people, I habe a bad relationship with people in general, as I have said, I’ve been ignored by my own family since foreever and been heavily bullied all throughout my school years, I’m alreadh suffering enough and don’t wish to give even more of my person to people I don’t even know. Even people in friend groups I’ve been part of have always ended up bullying me out of the group eventually. At this point I’d rather sit with my OCD thoughts than do that, counterintutive I know, but people have hurt me that bad. Honestly I’m not sure about any activities that’s not a 1 or 10 on the anxiety list, I didn’t have much hobbies prior to OCD taking over and it takes on a big all-or-nothing approach, as in either do something you don’t really care about or ignore what you did, do what you enjoy but lose that things afterwards. And tbh, with whatbI said in my previous message, doing anything other than watching youtube videos is out the question.