has anyone else ever been so weighed down and exhausted by your own thoughts that you just break down and feel like everything is falling apart? i worry a lot about being poisoned or having an illness and today has been especially hard, not sure what to do anymore because i feel as if i have tried everything to stop the thoughts or distract them and nothing works anymore, really wanting some help 🫶🏼
I totally understand how you are feeling!! what i’ve learned from ERP therapy: don’t try to “stop” the thoughts and also you will want to avoid replacing a negative thought with positive thought. your OCD is almost like sounding an alarm in your brain and when you do those actions, you are fueling the fire. telling your brain to stop or thinking of something else is almost like you are acknowledging with the OCD there is a threat. best thing to do is not engage with your thoughts!! you can notice the thought is there but don’t interact with the thought and learn to sit with the uncomfortable thought. over time the OCD bully will back off if you don’t engage with it! I know how incredibly hard this is and I still struggle with it everyday myself. I know it is easier said than done, but you got this!! you are not alone 🫶🏻
my therapist also taught me to talk sarcastically back to my thoughts, and that seemed to help so you could try that
I'm so sorry. I can tell you're suffering so much. What I've learned is that trying to stop the thoughts can make your brain think they're a real threat. Have you tried welcoming them? "Hi, welcome! Yeah, I might get poisoned today. I might get a serious illness tomorrow. Oh well! I'll find a doctor and enter treatment. Maybe I meet a new best friend in treatment! Who knows.
so i feel like i need to vent because all of this is just building up, 3 months ago when i had my first intrusive thought that caused an obsession that went on for weeks and then every other week a new intrusive thought would pop up and i’d obsess over that one. and it continues with multiple themes. some even similar to the one i’m dealing with right now but for some reason this one feels so much more real then again all the themes did. i really don’t know how to explain it, frightened if it’s just me. some days i feel completely numb to it like i’m a bad person but if that was so why would i keep fighting it and being in distress over it. it’s breaking my heart. i should know that it’s no coincidence since i’ve been dealing with this thing. whatever it might be ): i really don’t want to give up but i’m just scared. it all feels wrong and i feel numb or sometimes the ugliest stuff pops into my head. also the old themes have tried popping up again. i wonder if this whole thing is just my fault if it’s all just me but the truth is i guess i’ll never know... there’s so much more i could say... but i hope someone can relate to this... is it possible to feel just completely not like yourself like you’re trying so hard to just be the way you are but it’s hard because you have to sit with the fear inside your head... cause tbh there’s no other choice
Really thought about whether or not to post this but I’m really struggling and wondering if anyone has gone through the same thing/what helped them out of it. I have fears of psychosis/schiz/delusions and I started having intrusive thoughts that sound and feel delusional even though I know they’re not true, and I don’t actually believe them. I obsess over whether I think they’re true and if I’m actually delusional, then I start to feel really disconnected and dreamy (like derealization?) but then I get worried that I’m actually dissociating and/or losing my mind. I rly struggle w these thoughts as they make me so uncomfortable and make me feel like I am delusional. I will reread things I wrote, rethink things I have already said to make sure they’re coherent, argue w my thoughts, constantly check to make sure I know who I am, where I am, know who my family is, etc. to ensure I’m not losing my mind. My themes switch from this, to harm ocd and I’m just really having a hard time w the thoughts mixed w the disconnected feeling. It makes me want to stay in bed forever and cry because I don’t wanna feel this way anymore. Any advice would be so helpful.
does anybody ever get a stream of intrusive thoughts and then you try to just ignore them and then you just start spiraling. then you feel like you’re going crazy, and all the sudden you’re convinced that your going to loose control and go crazy. i don’t know if that made any sense but it’s a super scary feeling and i don’t know how to work myself out of those moments, all i want to do is just disappear or check myself into a mental hospital😭
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