Is this who I am?

Am I really these thoughts? It feels like I am. It feels like I’m this monster and there’s nothing I can do about it

kw670

Date posted: 1y

Long story. I will try to make it short, but I doubt it. I suffer from harm OCD. When I was very young, my mom and Dad divorced. My mom moved my brother and I away to another state. After that we only saw our dad during summer. When I was around 10 or 11, were told that my Dad and stepmom died in a car accident. When I was 16 I was told the truth and that was at my dad killed my stepmother and killed himself. I didn't know how to process that and it had been a long time since I'd seen him last. In my mind I just assumed that it was rage that drove him to do it, not knowing the back story, never knowing the back story to this day. I've always been scared of getting angry because I didn't know if that was the cause of his apparent violent behavior. Fast forward to me in my early 50s. Suddenly I found myself with ruminating intrusive thoughts that I could kill my wife. These thoughts crippled me, terrifiied me and would not let me go! In the worst of moments I would be in what I learned was full-blown panic attacks, anxiety and unable to breathe, crippled, world spinning moments. It was when I began doing research, I came upon something called harm OCD. It was amazing and terrifying to read my symptoms word for word. It was like somebody had written an article about my situation. Now what I was going through had a name but was this who I was? Am I a killer? Would I do what he did? OCD trys to tell me this is who I am, that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But I am many many years older then my dad ever was and I have never had a rage moment in my whole life. I've been happily married for almost 20 years and have a wonderful 16yr old son. OCD does not know you! OCD can't tell you who you are! OCD just want to latch on to random thoughts and attempt to breath life into them. Lean into the thought. When you get comfortable with the uncomfortable, the anxiety will ease and you will be able to pass through the feeling just as you do with the other 59 thousand other thoughts you have a day. One Day At A Time! We are here and you are a beautiful being!

ElevenB

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 1y

You are not your OCD thoughts. But the feelings make it seem as if you are. But again you are not your OCD thoughts.

tuchi

Date posted: 1y

@ElevenB Honestly I feel dead in the head i wouldn’t lie I don’t know what I am anymore

ElevenB

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 1y

@tuchi I hear ya! I'm right there with you. I'm in a fog this morning with thoughts and anxiety. But what you are is someone with OCD. It's a brain disorder. It latches on to the things we value most and it distorts them to the point where we just don't know. So we have to say maybe I'm these thoughts maybe I'm not and then sit with the uncertainty of not knowing. It's so hard to do. We just want to feel better but it's something we have to go through not around. Do you have a therapist?

tuchi

Date posted: 1y

@ElevenB No I don’t, honestly I don’t know anymore I don’t know who I am

ElevenB

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 1y

I know that's how we feel. We think OCD is who we are. You may have already looked but YouTube is full of OCD helps and NOCD has Q and A I believe every Wednesday night where you ask your questions to the therapist. I know it's hard but try not to give in to thoughts and try not to reassure yourself that the thoughts aren't real, that just makes them worse. I know that's not much help. I'm sorry you are going through this. 🫂❤️🙏

soph ^_^ 🔳🔲/🌈🌴

Date posted: 1y

You’re more than your thoughts. I love you ❤️

Imnew@this

Date posted: 25w

I’m a monster. I know it.

(21+ ONLY: TRIGGER WARNING) I’ve been increasingly worried that I’m a zoophile (among other things) and that I’m attracted to my family dog. I love him and I take care of him—I take him out to poop and pee, I play with him, and I feed and water him. But I get nervous when I have to be around him for a long time—I get these thoughts and they just won’t stop. I’ll find myself looking at my dog’s privates and having these strange urges. I feel horrible—like I could’ve done something to him or touched him inappropriately and conveniently don’t remember. I don’t know what to do…

Jabre7

Date posted: 25w

Anyone else have a problem with this?

I can be way too hard on myself and beat myself up over the smallest slip up in regards to OCD. Sometimes it can feel like I'm gaslighting myself on what was "so blatantly and obviously a moral atrocity in thought and intent", when 95% of the time I'm not even sure what my own intent with dealing with these thoughts is or why I do what I do. It makes me feel like some shameless beast for "daring to even entertain the thought of something so VILE!!!" When I just get so confused and scared on moral issues, like my mind is pulled down a rabbit hole I can't escape until the tricks are done on me and it's too late, i've accepted such ideas I hate until that hate and trying to not give in convince me "it might not be that bad". It feels like anything, even the most mundane things can trigger this. This cycle happens mainly because I feel like there's "no way to escape committing more 'attrocities' in thought or compulsion anyway"...and these cycles become the basis for more of these incidents. there a way to stop this? There have been multiple times where I called myself the R word, and even knowing it's a slur I still called myself that because "I'm nothing if not deserving of such scorn". Any attempt to stop the madness makes it worse and it's like all this I talked about is so convincing I dare not question it until after the fact. Please help.

issphra 🫶🏻

Date posted: 24w

I feel like I am OCD

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.

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Is this who I am?

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