Has anyone overcome their false memories? Mine feel so real I am losing hope. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to accept them, the methods they have for ocd don’t really help. Please don’t respond if you will just say I am asking for reassurance.
i have overcome my false memories. it’s difficult because it feels like if the memories were true, then it would change my whole world upside down. but, the only thing that has helped me is giving ERP time. not digging back into my memory. in the moment, it’s the worst feeling. but with time, my mind got clearer and i got clarity. sometimes it tries to sneak back up, but it’s been months and months now where i rarely ever think about it. i encourage you to just take the risk for even just one day or one week! risking that it could be so worth it to stick with the uncertainty and just see what happens! you got this
@Dani.c Did your false memories pop out of nowhere and you thought how could I have forgotten such a major thing???
@Anonymous. do you mean in the beginning or when it pops up now?
@ANONYMOUS-001 What do you mean?
@Dani.c In the beginning 4 months ago it started, I was very stressed and I started reviewing my past if I did something wrong. I had this bad feeling I couldn’t explain and I kept thinking until I got a memory
@Anonymous. okay gotchya, i had the same exact thing with one of them. my mind came up with a horrible image of something after i was trying to figure out what i possibly could have done wrong. i had to stop reviewing the false memory and looking for answers and now i have the clarity! it’s possible it just takes soo much time and you have to be willing to risk it for a while that you won’t have certainty!
@ANONYMOUS-001 So you understand the feeling? I hate it, it’s literally torture
@ANONYMOUS-001 Does it feel real to you like a real memory that’s awful and you have no idea how you went so long without thinking about it
@Anonymous. Like maybe back then you didn’t think it was such a big deal and you got over it but in reality it was and then you just forgot about it
@ANONYMOUS-001 Are you scared that it was a repressed memory?
@Anonymous. I have these all the time and I’m on guard all day every day. They feel like actual memories from the start. It’s horrible like I remember them.
@ANONYMOUS-001 Like I feel like this is a serious mental illness and it should be called something different than just OCD…. Like it feels like borderline schizophrenia or delusional thoughts disorder
@Anonymous. the thing is though, almost everyone has these kinds of thoughts! we just obsess over them and try to figure it all out. so you starting with thinking you did something wrong, then tried to review the past until you could find something. then once our brains give us a thought or image of what it could be (could be absolutely anything whether it happened or didn’t) then now we are obsessing over if it happened or not. someone without obsessions would have probably stopped wondering at the initial thinking i did something wrong stage (because they probably wouldn’t obsess and search for reasons and certainty)
@Dani.c But to imagine something that never happened is more than just obsession, I think that phycologist need to re label this disorder especially false memory ocd, it’s more than just an obsession if you are imagining things that never happened
@Anonymous. well we could imagine things that never happened all the time. like i could imagine myself petting a dog, and if i tried there’s no way to prove that it did or didn’t happen. i just don’t care to look into it because it doesn’t mean anything about me. it’s when we attached meaning to the thought and are unable to have uncertainty is when we obsess!!
@Dani.c But I am saying the attaching meaning and having it feel like it actually happened is delusional, I think it’s more serious then just having an obsession
any advice for when you get false memories that feel really real? especially something that had JUST happened, it’s like ur brain distorts it. i feel like i do something wrong 24/7 then i get over it and ocd latched onto something new
Hi, I’ve had ocd since I was 12 but the hardest theme I’ve ever encountered was false memory ocd and POCD. I’m convinced I’ve molested children and people and it disgusts me to my very core. Is there anyone else going through this? I really need to talk to people who are going through the same thing as me and can share their story because I feel so along in this false memory cycle because it feels like a real memory and I feel like I’m tricking everyone around me into thinking it’s false. Please help
Hey all, I've been okay for a while, but today I'm having a hard time with my sexually-themed false memory thoughts and the compulsion to try and "figure it out". While I've learned enough over time that "figuring it out" doesn't work, I'm just feeling extra overwhelmed today. Stuff that happened over 7 years ago is really getting to me, I'm in this limbo state just sitting here with it all but... ...anyone have any general tips for false-memory OCD?
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