- Date posted
- 1y
- Date posted
- 1y
tell yourself this is ocd, not you. saying things such as “i notice i’m having a thought”, or “ocd is telling me…”, can help you. you are absolutely not a bad person and you did nothing wrong. you can also do some cognitive diffusion strategies such as writing your thoughts in funny letters, and holding ice cubes when ur feeling really bad, because it’ll take the attention off the images and thoughts
- Date posted
- 1y
Try to take deep breaths and remember that those thoughts don’t have any intentions to hurt anybody or yourself. That you are too empathetic to act on those thoughts. I try to think logically like ( I’m not a bad person, it’s part of my OCD)
- Date posted
- 1y
Just know they’re not who you actually are. What worked for me was not really even acknowledging them and slowly they started to lose value and not hammer me with crazy anxiety and make me feel as if that’s who I am as a person. It’s easier said then done but overtime becomes achievable. Also doing activities you love has helped me get past it. Sometimes OCD comes back at me hard and I struggle but remember recovery isn’t always smooth sailing there’s probably gonna be valleys and peaks but the destination is a beautiful life.
- Date posted
- 1y
I struggled with this really bad at the beginning it’s gotten a bit better because I’ve became familiar with it but the images were so terrible sometimes they’d even show up in dreams there’d be days I was afraid or felt uncomfortable sleeping in my own bed because of those thoughts
- Date posted
- 49w
Hey I dealt with this a while back and it’s horrible but I managed to rid the guilt feeling (although I have the odd day where I get them and dwell on it, but mostly I’m able to just shrug them off now and recognise it for what it is). The best advice I was ever given is this: the clue is in the name INTRUSIVE. This means you don’t want it to be there. It has intruded into your mind thus you get the uncomfortable feelings of shame, guilt and anxiety - remember these feelings show you don’t like these thoughts and that proves you aren’t a bad person otherwise you wouldn’t be so worried about them as you are now.
- Date posted
- 49w
@BoocaBecca But I remember before hearing this I dealt with this anxiety where I would have some good days but then some really bad days and it lasted just over 6 months but it will get better, but when I heard the advice above it helped massively- whenever I had a bad intrusive thought I greet that thought with the “oh well I hate the idea of that so that must make it intrusive and a sign of ocd not what I want to do”
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w
I need advice for intrusive thoughts. I used to feel like I could handle them. They weren’t nearly as bad as the things that related to my actual life. But now, I’m suffering. I haven’t had a sexual experience in over a year that didn’t involve constant intrusive thoughts. Most are somehow related to kids and I keep chasing off the thoughts but it’s so bad. I know you’re supposed to ignore them but I don’t know how I can just ignore that and continue what I’m doing. But they’re coming on stronger. I had one earlier I could not get rid of just as things finished so the thought came on strongly just before my orgasm hit and now I feel absolutely disgusting. I hated the thought and I know it’s not me and it was not enjoyable but it still feels like I was getting off to it. I feel sick. I’m so fucking tired of these thoughts. They’re in my every day life too and it’s all the time. I just want it to stop but ignoring it feels so wrong. What should I do?
- Date posted
- 24w
Hi Everyone! I hope whoever is reading this is having a good day so far :) So for years now I’ve had very bad intrusive thoughts about things that I have done or embarrassing things that I’ve said or have happened and it’s mortifying and debilitating on a daily basis. Specifically these thoughts are mainly things that have occurred from 2018-2020 and some are more simple just as a stupid joke I made or being way too loud on calls while my family was trying to sleep and others being way more complex such as past relationships and how I’ve hurt some of the people I care the most about and when I have acted on intrusive thoughts and these thoughts will appear with no triggers at all I’ll just wake up and already have something I did just nagging me. I don’t want to live like this anymore and I’ve tried working through it with self compassion but sometimes the things I said or did back then it’s very hard to forgive myself for and I’ll reminisce on it for hours on hours, gaslight myself into believing that’s not how it happened and try to change the memory itself, or just suppress it entirely. I know those habits aren’t healthy and truly I want to get better but I don’t know how to overcome some of these thoughts. I have talked to my fiancé about this a few times and even today we talked about it and he fully supports me and is helping me work through it. I might also contact my sister too, I don’t talk to her overly too much but ever since I was little she’s thought I’ve had ocd and was one of the people who made me consider that I might have it (I’m still undiagnosed but I’ll try to when I have the money and time) and I know she could maybe provide some insight. Another thing that is troublesome about the situation is my other family members specifically my mom aren’t the most helpful and can trigger thoughts. To put it in perspective on how her thought process is and some background info she is an ER nurse and has been for 30 years due to this she believes she knows mainly everything there is about mental health and she gets extremely upset when I don’t take her advice or set boundaries. She’ll force me to talk to her about my problems and when I don’t want to she’ll pin me in a corner where I’m forced to and last summer I had a really bad episode and was really overstimulated and I just finished taking a shower and due to the water on me, my hair being wet (my hair is naturally curly and it takes forever to dry and it’s very draining taking care of even with a keratin treatment) and all the intrusive thoughts I was having and she forced me to talk to her and I did open up for the first time about my thoughts and brought up how sometimes I have thoughts of hurting my animals and it makes me physically sick. Her response to this was threatening to call the cops on me saying it was a behavioral thing and I was doing it for attention. I have never hurt any of my animals but later that day my cat came into my room and a few minutes later she comes up just gives me the death stare and after a few seconds just asks me “are you going to go kill snickers?” In the most condescending tone and she’s always like this daily where she’ll force advice onto me or get upset and yell and then reinforce thoughts I’m having. I just want to know first how to stop the thoughts from so frequently and how to heal in an environmental where it keeps reopening wounds despite trying to place boundaries? I’m sorry this is really long I usually do go really in detail about things and it’s just how I’ve always been. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask and I’ll answer them to the best of my ability. I really appreciate the time you took to read this and thank you for your help! 🥰
- Date posted
- 20w
I have intrusive thoughts about pornography with family, friends or even strangers. I really tried to block them out but it seems they always get triggered.l feel extreme guilt and this massive pit in my stomatach that is just there 24/7 and it WONT GO AWAY! I know this may sound weird but my mum knows about this as she noticed something was wrong, but every time I get a thought I always feel the need to tell her i keep thinking that I have done something wrong and that my guilt will go away if i tell BUT IT DOESN’T It just gets worse and another thing pop in and another. ITS A NEVER ENDING CYCLE and it seems like I just can’t break free. What do I do? Anyone who has also gone through this how did you recover and get your life back?
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