- Date posted
- 1y
Help
How do I stop the thoughts of false attraction towards a family member like my dad it won’t stop and I feel like such a bad and manipulative person
How do I stop the thoughts of false attraction towards a family member like my dad it won’t stop and I feel like such a bad and manipulative person
You can't stop them, you can stop reacting to them. Trying to stop them makes it worse.
I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. 🥺 Firstly I just want to say, they are intrusive thoughts. They are things that you do not want to think. You are not defined by your thoughts, okay?? Secondly, with OCD, the intrusive thoughts will only worsen the more you try to stop them. Let the thoughts pass, let the anxiety be there, don’t react to the thought, don’t judge it as good or bad, just let it pass. This will teach your OCD that it has absolutely no power over you. It’s not condoning what the thought is saying, but it’s letting the thought be there but have zero control over you. I know it’s easier said than done, I’ve finished OCD therapy and yet I still struggle on and off with this. We’ve got this. You are not a bad person. <3
@TigerCrusty I am a bad person if I wasn’t I wouldn’t be having these thoughts and I just want to be normal and I feel like when I cry about it I’m just being manipulative towards my family and that I’m just trying to make them feel bad but I don’t want them to feel bad I just want help and I want it to stop so I don’t have these constant thoughts and false feelings taking over my own love life with people I actually want to be attracted to like guys my age and whoever I’m attracted to who’s not a ficken family member
@Caitlin2820281 You are not a bad person. No one can control their intrusive thoughts. If I have intrusive thoughts about wanting to kill someone, and it gives me anxiety, makes me upset, etc. and all I want is to stop those thoughts, that is so incredibly different from someone who genuinely wants to kill someone, who encourages those thoughts and has no remorse by it. I’m not trying to reassure you, but you are NOT a bad person. You do not want these thoughts, and you cannot control them, no matter how much your mind might try to convince you that you can. I am sorry you’re dealing with this, and I hope you’re okay. Feel free to vent to me if you need to.
@Caitlin2820281 And to add, I used to struggle with the same thing. I’d have crude intrusive thoughts about family members and it made me want to hide in my room all day and it made me never want to face my family members. I’m still recovering from my OCD but I will say that things will not be like this forever. It seems hopeless in the moment but OCD is a monster that wants to convince you that you have control over things that you do not. Letting go of control is taking away the power from OCD
Holy cow, when I first developed really bad OCD, I felt like I was going to kiss my dad and brother on the lips. I flipped my s#!t. Then, while giving him a bath, I thought I was going to grab my nephew's pecker. I almost threw up with shame and disgust. LSS, don't sweat it, most of us have dealt with something comparable. Hang in there!!
First you need to understand that thoughts and actions are not the same. Thinking something and acting on in are completely different. We all have thousands of thoughts come and go every day. Some of them good, some of them funny, some of them sad and sone of them completely irrational. We can not choose which thoughts will come to our minds but we can choose how to treat these thoughts. Just because you think of somethink bad doesn't make you a bad person. Especially if this thought is giving you this much anxiety. Because deep down you know how against this thought to all your ethical and sociological values. This is the biggest trick of OCD. Attacking your values. Trying to make these thoughts go away only makes them stronger. Best thing you can do is to acknowledge the intrusive thought and then do nothing. Yes you are having and intrusive thought and yes you are experiencing great anxiety but you are choosing to ignore it. In this way your are taking back the power from these intrusive thoughts. I know it is easier said then done. And right now you may feel like it won't work and you may still feel like what if it is not OCD, what if it is real? However you feel just keep going. In fact make don't just ignore the thoughts, challenge them. Shiw them you are in charge here. You are the boss. You think about kissing your father, OK cool. So what. Welcome little thought it is good to hear you. Yes maybe i should do it. Maybe i should go kiss my father. How weird would that be, right? It would be a ridiculously funny thing to do, hahaha.
I have been struggling today, most likely due to lack of sleep. I had a thought that I would consider intrusive, but what really unsettled me was that I felt like I liked it, **not just in the sense that I lacked anxiety over it, but that I genuinely felt like I wanted it.** It left me feeling really confused. It happened during intimacy, which makes it even more unsettling. The thought was incestuous, I found myself imagining and comparing the moment with my boyfriend to my father :/, and what really alarms me is that I felt like I wanted it there, both mentally and physically. I was having a really nice time, so maybe the physical sensations got mixed in somehow, but it still worries me. I did my best not to ruminate in the moment and avoided checking. I tried to move on, but the feeling of genuinely liking the thought was so clear that it is hard to shake off. Has anyone else experienced something similar? This is one of the first times it has ever happened to this extent.
False attraction has been killing me ive had it for months with the same person. I have a boyfriend so having false attraction makes me feel so guilty. And lately theyve felt so real and ive been so anxious. What if I do like him bla bla. Ive only ever saw him as a brother and we have a good connection and he is one of my good friends but even sometimes when im having a conversation I feel like im cheating. Sometimes I get excited like oh yay he is gonna be here and then I get scared that it’s romantical because I get excited when he is around because he is a funny. Im so scared thats its real attraction because I love my boyfriend I would never do such a thing. And lately my minds done stuff like oh grab his attention stuff like that and it feels like I have done those actions but I dont want to. Sometimes when he is like idk sitting near Im like oh is he looking and my minds like oh do something to empress him bla bla. Recently he was going thought stuff and my boyfriend was there and I was I can give him a hug because I think he needs it but after I thought of it as bad because he is a guy and I had this false attraction what if I did it because I like him bla bla. I am freaking out idk why my mind makes me do compulsions that I have acted on like oh go talk to him and I do its weird urges that I do not want to do. I am scared that it will come true
I deal pretty heavily with this. The last couple days, I’ve had what I think are urges. Something pops into my head intrusively and then what stems from that is me WANTING to just indulge in it even though it’s gross. I get worried bc I used to struggle w thoughts about my dad for a long time until eventually I just purposely thought of him while self pleasuring and got off to it. While that’s something I did, it is NOT me. It all stemmed from my mental health declining a couple years back, I was never this way before. So I get worried that it almost happened or might happen with my pocd cuz I could never live with myself if it did.
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