- Date posted
- 1y
Suffering
All my days are pretty much consumed by real events I obsess with. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t want to lose my life, but I’m also tired of living like this.
All my days are pretty much consumed by real events I obsess with. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t want to lose my life, but I’m also tired of living like this.
my heart hurts for you. the best thing is to find ways to keep yourself present, breathing exercises really helped me. set a timer and box breathe, think in and out as you inhale and exhale. when thoughts pop up, label them "thinking" and try to focus on your breathing again. guided meditations have taught me a lot of simple ways to break rumination
@Grenoble hand on hobbies help too. gardening, arts and crafts, even just giving a little extra attention to pets. it's never easy, but the thoughts get a lot more manageable with time
@Grenoble I ruminate so much I can’t tell the difference between what’s an accurate memory and what’s not.
@Anonymous what helped me most is finding ways to focus on the present instead of trying to figure out real and false memories. memories are so unreliable, it's an impossible task. find ways to sit with the uncertainty and eventually it won't be so painful
This is a hard position to be in. I was in a similar boat and I can say that the only way forward is through. What I mean by this is you are going to have to put in hard, consistent work to get to the point where OCD strengthens you instead of weakens you. Stick with your therapy, keep looking for solutions, and TALK MORE. If you want a place where you can collaborate with others and continue these conversations you should consider joining my community. https://www.skool.com/the-ocd-advantage-7537/about
@Anonymous My memories are just so distorted I can’t tell what’s true.
@Anonymous - I understand that feeling. I really think the way to unscramble an internal mess is to make it external, from there you can handle it more tangibly. Aka, communicate every ounce of your thoughts and feelings. I am here for you.
My last and almost life long theme/sub-theme largely subsided recently and my ocd felt like it wasn’t even an issue. Then I went on winter break from uni and being alone made my mind come up with a whole new topic to obsess over. TLDR on my fears, my advisor wouldn’t email me back for a while about signing up for classes so my mind started to worry “what if he doesn’t in time and you can’t enroll this semester and you lose this whole life you just built and all these new friends” So when that issue was resolved my mind found other scarier ways I could be uprooted from my current life and friends that I’ve grown so attached to. Then my mind remembered back when I was struggling with false memories and scrupulosity and I essentially made a post on a forum 2 and a half years ago saying I did something or was convinced I did something that I never actually did. Now I’ve been spiraling about someone finding it reporting me and I either get seen as a horrible person or arrested or something over something I never actually did but “admitted” to out of fear of going to hell. My mind won’t let it go and keeps finding new reasons for it to be “valid” “logical” or even inevitable. I feel like it’s just hanging over my head and I can never rest easy. Especially when I try to focus on my daily tasks or plan for the future I get this horrible flair up of “why plan for the future when this could come back in that future and you get uprooted from all of it” my mind won’t rest without certainty being uprooted won’t happen but certainty doesn’t exist, at least not with ocd. This sucks and I miss being care free.
I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.
I can't live with OCD anymore. It's ruining my life. I feel like I'm being constantly bullied in my own mind all day everyday. I don't know if what I think and feel is ever real or normal or okay, what is me and what is the OCD thoughts. I don't know if any of my experiences are normal. I'm exhausted from picking apart every single conversation I ever have with anyone until I'm strung out by a vague and ambiguous feeling of guilt. I'm tired of feeling like I'm a bad person and feeling scared all the time and not knowing why and having my brain spin me out on an endless spiralling train of thoughts that never goes anywhere and just makes me feel disconnected from everything and everyone around me. I don't know what I feel and if what I feel is normal or if anything I am doing is real and actually me or if I'm 'losing my mind.' I don't even know if this makes any sense. I get into these states of mind where every thought in my head and everything I feel and perceive makes me question my own sanity. I don't know if anyone likes me because I have absolutely no concept of what I am actually like. I feel completely lost and confused CONSTANTLY.
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