About DENIAL

This is a big problem for me which makes me feel shame and alot of guilt, the feeling of denial is really misunderstood, sometimes i feel like they mean for certain ocd themes like harm or something when you feel like you did something bad and by ignoring you feel like youre in denial. Those times its normal that you ignore it. But i experience something different. Many times i tried to ignore ocd thought or emotions or even emotions or thoughts cause many times i couldnt decide if its ocd or normal problems, and this is why i experienced that im in denial, and this became stronger when i realized im still afraid of the content and it still comes back after time and i react the same way, they i use this fake positive reaction to it (i choose thatbits ocd, its not a real problem) which quickly makes me feel good, and then i get hit by the feeling that im avoiding im in denial. I watched a video about shame and denial, and the bad thing was i saw myself that im really in denial, that i avoid the problems, i react to the problem as its not a real problem, its ocd and i dont deal with it, its not real. But this limits me to see other problems. So realizing im actually in denial feels bad. And i dont know how to recover cause one people say do this, ignore every thought, dont listen to it, dont give any attention to it, and the other one says if you say this to every thought youre in denial. You do it as a cooping mechanism.. Just to give you an exemple, im christian so i will give that, i felt shame over doing something bad, and i was so afraid to admit it cause it comes with shame that i felt like i cant accept. I was so afraid cause shame said im a bad person, full of sin, im a shame for christianity, and because of this i didnt wanted to accept that what i did was bad and a sin cause then all of this is true. Then this made me feel like then i dont want to accept that i have flaws and im not perfect which is bad again, everyone has flaws, then i was worrying i dont want to accept that im not perfect cause i want to avoid shame, and this is where denial comes. Then what i heard that helps ocd is to ignore, i choosed to ignore it and be sarcastic with it, which made me feel more like im in denial. And after i watched the video I started spinning, cause it showed me im actually in denial to cope agains shame... so that would mean i have to accept that i did a bad thing and its okay, but that doesnt sound good to me and again i feel like im in denial, cause i should accept that what i did was bad but bc of shame i dont want to so im in denial. Im spinning so much and i dont know how to get over this denial thing. Expecially that the worries always come back and it makes me feel that i didnt worked with them as o should, i just avoided them i was in denial so thats why they come back...

anonymous00001

Date posted: 1y

I really relate to your feelings. I hope this is helpful: there is a certain point with ANY situation, real or imagined, when guilt and shame NO LONGER serves you. Shame and guilt are natural feelings, and yes I would say that sometimes you need to feel those feelings in order to move forward. The trick is not getting stuck inside that shame and guilt. I can tell from the way you wrote this that you deal with those spinning thoughts that seem to get you nowhere. (I deal with this too!) I don’t know if the example you gave is specifically what you’re dealing with, but let’s say you did something “bad” and it’s hard to admit. Perhaps the reason you don’t want to admit that it happened or let yourself feel those feelings of shame and guilt is because OCD tells you you have to carry that guilt and shame around forever. This is a lie. It’s also where the hard work of OCD comes: acknowledging those feelings are there and then letting go. It is okay to have the feelings AND it’s okay to let them go. Denial is a terrifying word, I feel that way too. Maybe you’re resisting some feelings because you’re afraid they’ll “prove” your OCD right, making you afraid to feel the feelings of guilt and shame and then the spiral continues! It wonder if your ‘fake positive’ reaction might be a sneaky way to give yourself reassurance, which can actually make OCD worse? I wonder if you tried tweaking that reaction just a little bit. What if you tried something like “I see those feelings are there, and I don’t need to figure that out right now.” Or “maybe, maybe not”. This could help you learn to sit with the uncertainty instead of trying to make the anxiety go away. I’m not a therapist, so take with a grain of salt! Either way, I do want to assure you that no matter what, you don’t deserve to live inside shame and guilt. I believe you can find a way to let it move through you and let it go. It might take a whoooole lot of practice, but I promise it gets easier. ❤️

PRIV8

Date posted: 1y

It's hard to see the problem cause i spin about it more and sometimes i get there where i feel bad cause i feel like now im actually avoiding to accept that i did something wrong, its like a strong fear of being a bad person. Which i try to navigate through but there is where i give up cause i have dual feelings, one that instead of working through it i dig myself into shame and then again if i avoid that i feel like im in denial. I had moral ocd before and its hard to tell if you did actually something bad, cause the fear of doing something bad makes you avoid accepting it but theres the other side that every person with ocd has that if you are afraid of it than ir means that its important to you, but after time this made me feel like im avoiding, and i put this positive thing around me like a shield, that if im afraid than it means i didnt do anything. When i was in therapy my therapist really pushed this idea that we will make mistakes and we have to let this happen, cause we learn from it,which i understand in some way,yes we will make bad decisions but i want others to understand what is in my mind. Im a christian, that therapist wasnt christian and I noticed she cringed when i told her about my beliefs that sex before marriage is bad, cheating is bad, and over time when we worked with this moral ocd, i got to there where i felt like to know whats good or bad i have to do things to actually know if they are good or bad, that means i have to have sex before marriage, i have to cheat someone, i have to do other bad things to learn from them and this isnt an excuse... i felt bad thinking this. I feel like sometimes i live by legalism cause i choose about ceartain things that those are bad because others said its bad, but i do not have that inside my heart that its actually bad, but again i dont believe that that means i should actually do them. Its really hard cause im afraid that did something bad cause i dont want to be a bad person, but this huge fear makes me feel like im in denial sometimes cause i dont want to accept and this give me more shame cause then i feel like a liar. And i dont know how to work with shame cause if i let myself accept it and go through it then when my harm ocd thoughts come i will treat them as actual thoughts...

PRIV8

Date posted: 15w

Questioning my faith or ocd

Since I started to accept that maybe some of the problems i deal with might be things that i should accept cause either way I feel shame if i have these thoughts, and i think that being that person is shameful. I'm struggling these days and I noticed I have thoughts about God not being real, not helping me, questioning if its real and these thoughts makes me feel shame. But i keep accepting it cause Im tired that i feel like im lying to myself and everytime i feel like im avoiding the truth, so I try to accept it that its okay that im having these problems(I do the same with suicidal ocd,I start to accept maybe its real) but since im doing this I noticed it makes me depreassed cause of shame. Made things worse, I always spin about shame that it might be true, i try tk accept it but it doesnt work, I feel like maybe i should go back and label every feeling and thought as ocd but i know i wouldnt be free cause i would feel like im trying to make myself feel better... But if its ocd, how can I decide its that if I have the emotions like im losing my faith, I get angry when i hear about faith, sometimes i feel like i really question it, have thoughts like i dont want to have faith...

Religion & Spirituality OCD

PRIV8

Date posted: 11w

Ocd and emotions

I have alot of problems with this and I question alot if I do avoid my emotions cause today everyone says to "feel your emotions, let them be" but it just makes me be stuck with suffering. Currently I have a problem at my job, it's really stressful and i feel like everyone thinks im stupid and a bad person and it's hard, I struggle with negative emotions and I rumminate alot about the things, what couldve happened,what will happen and sometimes it makes me feel helpless cause idk what to do. But when it happens I don't let myself feel helpless, I don't know why you should let yourself feel anything like hopelessness,helplesnees,or let yourself tell any story that will not help you. I acknowledge it that it came up, but I won't let it to continously be there. I never understood that when you have these feelings, sitting with them makes you just follow the story that is unhealthy. I feel things that are unhealthy for me and i tried to sit with it and made me feel worse being stuck with that emotion. I start to think that people who actually has avoidance problems they dont notice how they feel, when I do notice I just choose not to go on that path. I question grief too alot. Everyone grieves differently so that's why is difficult but I don't like when people say that grief will never end and if you feel better about your loss you are just lying to yourself... Ofcourse you will never feel happy about anything you lost in your life. When i dealt with grief I noticed it, back then i thought okay i have to sit with the pain but then it got worse and worse and I felt like im stuck in my pain. Then I decided I have to move and im not 100%over, i dont even know what that means cause as I said you will never feel happy about any loss you experienced,but thats a different thing, you can still live your life with that,but if its been years and you still think life sucks and nothing is good then youre stuck with grief. This is not judging anyone who is not over grief, But it's problematic for me when I say i wont let this emotion to rule my day, and then i feel like im supressing it... or when people say "just let it be there" then my focus is on that being there, so to change your focus to your life you have to ignore the feelings, and people say "no,you dont" but thats what you have to do... To choose that you will live your life and you will focus on something else no matter what means that you will ignore the feelings, you can still notice it but you give no power to them. That's called ignoring it... I have to learn what supressing feelings really means cause everytime I try to live my life I say i supress my emotions cause it feels like that. I hope someone will read this, either will help him or he will help me understand things more, so if you read this, thank you for your time! :)

summerloveru...

Date posted: 7w

So...

I few years ago, I did self-harm a few times, and then I got super into spirituality, and about a year ago, I remembered I did self-harm and ever since haven't been able to shake the guilt off... Constantly, every day, my mind would make me feel guilty about it and think about it all day. It's like my brain knew the thought that I could/ have cut myself scared me, so it kept bringing it up. My family had no idea I had ever done this, so my OCD told me I was a liar for not telling them about every day. I was afraid that they wouldn't love me anymore and send me to a mental hospital if I told them. About 2-3 months ago, I had gotten so fed up with having these thoughts every day and confessed to my mom what I had done, and her reaction was great. And I thought I'd never have thoughts about when I did self-harm again because I finally confessed. I was wrong. Even with people telling me that it's okay, I did that, I can't shake the guilt I had around this event, and even more so the fear/guilt around my own thoughts... My therapist and I talk about how the problem isn't the thoughts but what the OCD does to them. I try to create positive neural pathways, but that just makes me more stressed about it. There are things I'm supposed to tell myself when I feel negative, but I think I get that confused and tell myself those things every time I have thoughts about what I did. Which is feeding into a mental compulsion (replacing every "bad" thought with a "good" one. What works for me is (if I can) do nothing and have the thoughts... It's been hard to get better because I have had no idea what's been happening to me and felt like for the last year I was going crazy... I always thought OCD was cleaning stuff and physical compulsions . Everything that happened to me happened in my head. On the worst days when my OCD is really bad, every single time I was conscious and aware, I was thinking about the fact that I did self-harm. I would lie in bed all day trying to figure out my thoughts because I thought if I watched TV, I would be avoiding important things. I thought I had to figure out all my thoughts. I would ruminate, replay, and second-guess all. day. long. It was hard to recognize it was OCD because I thought I had done something seriously bad and wrong, and that I must deserve these thoughts. I think the trick is that you feel like you must have positive thoughts, and the most distressing thing wasn't necessarily the fact that I did self-harm, but the fact that I couldn't stop thinking about it. I find the best thing you can do is just have all your thoughts in your head and try not to separate them from good and bad, if you can. It's nice to have people who understand!!!! More to come, about the journey. My favorite thing to say when I'm stuck is "that sly devil... OCD. Silly OCD is getting to me right now, but it won't last forever. That sneaky guy tricked me again" Love you!!!

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