- Date posted
- 1y
False Memory OCD
my mind telling me i had sex or did anything sexual when i KNOW i didn’t…especially when i’m drinking this is a problem. i wish i could just enjoy a drink with friends or family.
my mind telling me i had sex or did anything sexual when i KNOW i didn’t…especially when i’m drinking this is a problem. i wish i could just enjoy a drink with friends or family.
I had the same problem in my last relationship. He touched me while I was sleeping once in the beginning of the relationship and then after that I would get really paranoid sleeping next to him in bed and so one day I started wearing tampons to make sure I knew forbsure if he raped me in my sleep or was it just something I dreamt about. Once he realized what I was doing and he began getting really angry about it because obviously I ruined his plans.
I am going through something similar right now as well, even though I didn’t have too much to drink. OCD will latch onto absolutely any situations that are easy targets for uncertainty. Drinking and sleeping are big ones for me personally, or really any time I don’t think I’m giving perfect attention to my surroundings. Sometimes it helps to remind myself that ocd is predictable and it’s not surprising at all that it would take advantage of these opportunities to cause more fear and doubt. It only gets worse when we ruminate, especially in the case of false memory. The more you try to replay a moment in your head to prove the intrusive thoughts aren’t real, the more familiar they will seem, and ocd will try to trick you into believing that if it feels familiar it must be true! You’re definitely not alone in this, just keep trying to move forward and accept that you will never get certainty about anything that happened in the past, and trust that in any given moment you were doing the best you could :)
@cr2857 Also, something that helps me is to move forward with my life as I would if my ocd wasn’t a factor. If I didn’t have ocd, I would not be concerned about having a few drinks with my friends and family out of fear that I would lose control and do something bad. You deserve to live your life and do what makes you happy, no matter what ocd tells you :)
Without trying to seek reassurance, I’m wondering if anyone has insight on identifying an intrusive thought vs reality. Something that’s always really helped ground me in moments of false memory ocd is clearly remembering the exact moment the thought arose and how it started as “what if I cheated and don’t remember.” Then the images come and are extremely distressing, but I’ve always found some comfort in coming back to that moment of “this started as what if.” It feels like my brain is almost getting more creative with the thoughts now, and I’ve been having probably the worst anxiety of my life the past couple months after another intrusive thought entered my mind. I woke up after a night drinking and thought to myself “did you kiss your friend and don’t remember?” (Didn’t happen, undeniably proved). The rest of the day I stayed anxious about other things I could have done and poured over all my memories of the night. Then the next day I finally had found some peace based on all the evidence from my friends who were with me that nothing bad happened. I then thought “what about when you went to the bathroom,” which I hadn’t really been thinking about before, and then my mind immediately started flashing with images of me performing sex acts in the bathroom with some person who has no name, face, details, or anything I remember about interacting with them. I think I’m just concerned that this was a moment of genuine memory recall since I hadn’t been thinking about the bathroom before, and it was more of a sudden flash of images and “did you do that” vs “what if you did that.” I’m wondering how others are able to identify that something is an intrusive thought vs reality.
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
I am diagnosed with OCD, ADHD, and mild depression. But my OCD symptoms are so prominent in my daily life where it feels debilitating. It comes in waves, there will be months with very minor symptoms and other times where it comes in random hitting me like a truck making me rethink life. I grew up having intrusive thoughts of all types, and a lot of them sent me over the edge because I couldn’t understand why things of such sort would cross my mind, things that I’m sure to this day that I’m incapable of or would never want to actually do. Yet I find myself in a constant cycle of trying to dig deep in the past and trying to figure out if I ever acted on any of the intrusive thoughts I can remember, yet ofc have no recollection of acting on them because they most likely didn’t happen. However, not having concrete proof of these things makes me not want to see another day sometimes. It is so hard to move into daily basis like this. I’m also in a happy healthy relationship and sometimes I get these thoughts of “what if I’ve done something awful during the relationship (for example, cheat, dishonesty, etc.) and can’t remember?” I know I would never do anything intentionally to harm my relationship and I think that maybe the idea of not having my partner sends me down a rabbit hole to think all these things. This mental fight is getting harder and harder. It feels unbearable. Does anyone have some fruit for thought, relate, or have any tips?
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