I want to get rid of this now!! It is consuming me

Since some months ago, I've been dealing with intrusive thoughts, rumination and stress to the extreme, not letting me enjoy my life. It is not the first time that something like this happens. I had HOCD 5 years ago, and somehow after a year it stopped, but some months ago it came back, not only that HOCD, but new ones have appeared. It was always like this, there was an intrusive thought about losing control and doing or thinking things that I don't like triggered by random and inofensive events and then I would start ruminating and checking 24/7 for weeks. The worst part is that because of college I don't have time to talk loudly about my thoughts alone as I would like, so they keep persisting while other appears While my HOCD is less invasive now. Other OCDs have taken the spotlight, like fearing about becaming a conspiracionist who denies science. This one derived to another about losing my interest in dinosaurs which are my passion, I know maybe it sound stupid, but it was so real, it was seeing a Dino and don't be able to enjoy it, becaming stressed or not feeling joy like before...And well I should have things clear before it is too late if I wanna pursue my dream of becoming a paleontologist. Also, I had recently one OCD about "society influence in the world", like, I felt that since culture molds our values I wasn't being myself and that I had a "bad inner nature" althought I like helping people and I have always tried to be kind with all people. This derived in being scared about being bad for the sake of "being my trueself" and losing my empathy just because thinking about this Could anyone give me advice???

WalterWhacks...

Date posted: 1y

Hi there! I can relate to the impact OCD has on ones interests. I‘m more the guy for archeology, but I had a very intense passion for dinosaurs and fossils as a child/teen too. I discovered that, by consuming most of my energy, OCD took away from my ability to really sink into my passions and interests. For long periods of time I did not have enough energy to read books, plan trips to the beach to search for fossils and enjoy nature or simply to watch a documentary about topic xyz. Additionally, when I actually managed to make room for those things, OCD came around with some good old perfectionism and made me feel like I wasted my time, because I can’t ever remember all of it anyway. Books, documentaries and podcasts thereby become a challenge or an exercise one has to perform, rather than a source of personal enjoyment. But thats just another dimension OCD has and that I had to become aware of. For a rather long time now I am living in recovery, which results in more time/energy for myself and my passions. Ironically OCD, by taking away my ability to enjoy my interests, made me the gift of being able to appreciate them more. I now value the time that I can spend on my passions far more than I ever did before. I think I can also relate to very diverse/non-tackable fears. For me in the end it just always comes down to your values. What you value and what you cannot think of loosing, OCD attacks. In a weird way OCD can actually help you by pointing out those things. I think many people go through their lives without the opportunity to get to know their values truly. OCD takes much. It swallowed a lot of me, my time and a lot of other things. But I think with the professional help of my therapist I managed to also take a lot from OCD and have grown as a person. OCD is not a gift, but it offers opportunities for growth and self acceptance that one might not get otherwise. Long story short: Thank you for sharing! Dont get discouraged by OCD. As you might already know, feelings and thoughts change over time. It sounds like you are under some stress. Maybe there are ways to reduce that stress a bit? Anyway it sounds like you got it once and you will get it twice, no doubt in that. Hope some of my perspectives could serve as the advice you asked for. Greetings from Germany

Anonymous

Date posted: 1y

Thank you for the answer, I'm glad to see that some of the conclusions I had about my OCD are true, while I didn't mentioned it, sometimes I managed to end up in thinking "isn't it strange that it always happen with things I like a lot?". Despite that, my OCD ended up playing with uncertainty, what ifs and more, so seeing your answer has been very positive for me, and I think that I'll value more my hobbies and passions when I recover in the future. Could you give me advice with intrusive feelings? Is easier with thoughts, but with feelings is strange, there are sometimes that my HOCD made me feel gay even if just a day (or even an hour) before I was impressed by a girl's beauty and there are times that I feel like I stopped liking dinos and my feelings in those moments don't help. I try to be logical and I even theorised that maybe it was like, for example in a terror game, when you get scared by a fictional virtual being even knowing that is fictional or like in VR games where you almost feel like you were there, but uncertainty is diabolical and made me don't feel like my conclusions are 100% true. Sometimes I feel happy with things that later made me feel sad or stressed or even disgusted or viceversa...Maybe if I ignore that contradictory feelings, things will be clearer in the future?

WalterWhacks...

Date posted: 1y

@Anonymous Hi again😁 My therapist told me, that feelings are just as fleeting and irrelevant to your character as thoughts. I also find intrusive feelings harder to accept. I thought, that feelings had to have some weight in determining my true self. I think you are getting in the right direction with letting them be there, but I personally think that ignoring them is something that will eventually make them come back even stronger. Instead maybe try to acknowledge, that they are there and accept that fact. They will pass. Feelings change all the time. Just like some natural elements they got a half-time period. Feelings, like thoughts, are no indicators of our true desires, goals or ambitions. The only thing that really defines you is how you act. For example I can have the thought of hurting myself, maybe even with a graphic image in my head, and also with that a sensation or feeling that I deem as an accepting or even agreeing one. I personally encountered this many times now and still stand here unharmed by myself, because even when these thoughts/feelings/sensations become so loud and scary that they overshadow everything else, they dont have any impact on my actions. That control lies within me and that is the constant that I have found for myself. And it also helps to be compassionate and forgiving with yourself. When I did things that I was not proud of, before discovering having OCD, I was often struck with paralyzing shame and feelings of guilt, which actually had an influence on my actions in the sense that I retreated into self blame and kind of froze. Now, after discovering having OCD, I look at mistakes and wrongdoings as opportunities to learn about myself. Whenever I feel like something that I did was wrong or I did not like myself in situation xyz, I take a look at that situation and those feelings surrounding it. Then I decide if all this seems legitimate and if I want to take measures to prevent situation xyz from happening again. It is a great way to really ask yourself where your values lie. Uncertainty, as you might already know, essentially is all that OCD is about. Accepting uncertainty is a task that one has to take up daily, at least thats how I think about it. Uncertainty is undoubtedly everywhere, which can be scary at first but also exciting once one has managed to deal with it in a healthy way. It offers constant opportunity for practice and with that a fortified mind against OCD‘s tricks. Accepting the unacceptabel seems impossible. I did an exercise with my therapist where I had to confront my worst fears by writing them down or speaking them out loud and recording the whole thing. While doing that, from time to time during the exercise, I would describe my state of fear on a scale from 1 to 10. The goal was to reach 10 and continue until I felt like my fear reaction was declining. I would recommend performing this exercise only when you feel secure or in the best case, if you have access to professional help, with someone professional. This is something you could do at home by yourself in order to experience the come-and-go of thoughts and feelings firsthand. Hope this helps a bit, please let me know if you have more questions :)

Anonymous

Date posted: 1y

@WalterWhackstick Thank you very much!!! I'm glad that kind people like you exist, the world needs more people like you. I'll take your advice into account. For the moment I don't have more questions, but I'll let you know if a new one pops in my mind in the reply of your messages. I hope good things happen to you😊

ocdinglehopper

Date posted: 25w

@WalterWhackstick when you get this, when ur with someone, and then like leave the person, but get w someone knew. does ur mind convince you that your only talking/ w the new person to get over the “false attraction” “intrusive feelings” person? even tho its not like that at all?

ocdinglehopper

Date posted: 25w

@Anonymous with intrusive feelings

lilmissanony...

Date posted: 24w

Realised I have Pure O OCD.

Hello, I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD at 25 years old. I attributed my overthinking to autism but I realised a few months ago that Pure O OCD is the most meaningful explanation for it. I am also an asexual, so I am, simply put, a shitshow of symptoms. I constantly review the past - particularly painful memories. I have a consistent fear of getting cancelled. When I was 18, some YouTubers I followed got accused of sexual misconduct and cancelled. I was obsessed and concerned for them. Others found my obsession strange. I did not like how their lives were ruined over accusation and no trial. (I was naive then to why public accusations are happening, as it is because the legal system often fails to address predatory men.) Even 6 years later, I googled one of them 240 times between January 2020 and April 2020. It was plain obsessive. When I burned bridges, I continued to search the people involved in my past dramas. Often multiple times in the same day with nothing new to see. They would likely be scared if they knew how obsessed I was with them. I have started doing ERP exercises. I wrote a script where I receive public false allegations and my life is ruined. It is forever googleable and I am a complete pariah. Completely unemployable, unliveable, even my family abandons me. I listen to it for 15 minutes on loop per day. What else would you recommend to tackle the ruminating? I wish I had this information at 18. I should have been solving these issues then and enjoying my life, not figuring it all out so much later in life.

Summ3r_

Date posted: 13w

ocd about everything

I don’t even know where to start because there’s so much going on in my head and it feels like there’s so much evidence for every thought. Like my ocd feels like it doesn’t just have one specific theme it’s honestly every theme and it just switches throughout the day depending on the thoughts I have. This started all about a month ago, this whole ocd flare up. I’ve been diagnosed with ocd for about 3 years now and looking back on my childhood, I feel like I’ve had it for probably my entire life. My grandpa just recently died back in February and I feel like this whole ocd spiral is a result of dealing with grief especially because it didn’t even hit me for the whole month of April for some reason and things felt “normal”. But since this ocd flare up has started I’ve been constantly reviewing and revisiting my past, all my childhood memories and so many of them are terrifying which is weird because I never had a traumatic event hppen to me as a child. I feel like it’s always been “self-inflicted” trauma if that makes sense? My mind is telling me so many things related to so many topics like maybe I liked my family member as a kid and have just hid it to fit in with society? That my anxiety as a kid has caught up with me and I’m turning into a psychopath? That I’ve always been a creep and enjoyed looking at peoples privates or chests, etc but just ignored or allowed the thought this whole time. Also before this whole flare up I remember always feeling on autopilot and not really alive like everything I did I just felt numb about it. Which aids my ocd to tell me that these feelings are real and the thoughts are true and that I’m “waking up” or realizing or something. I haven’t felt such intense anxiety and distress since I was a kid and I didn’t even understand my own thoughts. It’s like I’m either hyper aware or totally unaware of what’s going on around me and it gets me thinking about my existence, personality, what my role in life is and like genuinely what I’m even doing in the moment like what’s the reason behind everything. I’m constantly questioning my intentions because I don’t know if they’re true or not and it’s like my ocd doesn’t even allow me to consider the thought it just jumps to conclusion. Like telling me I’m guilty before proven innocent. It honestly feels like so much at once to even simply call it ocd or anxiety because it feels like a crisis and any moment I could spiral and breakdown completely. Going to school everyday feeling like anytbing could trigger a panic attack at any moment makes me feel like I can’t be left alone with my thoughts. And like overall since I got down this rabbit hole, my first obsession was harm to myself, then it was harm to others specifically my family, then it was being a pervert or pedo, or being attracted or someone or something I shouldn’t be, which then makes me question my existence and who I am along with also being hyper aware of my facial movements like my eyebrows, nose, etc. Like why does ocd have to involve itself in every aspect of my life? It feels like there’s always something wrong that I need to fix.

jupiter

Date posted: 8w

I don’t know how to live anymore

(Long post warning) Hi, I’ve been struggling with severe OCD for six years now. it started in 2019 with my theme being getting sick/emetophobia. it devastated my life. I almost didn’t graduate high school from it. I remember washing my hands for three hours one day until they were nearly bloody while crying and asking why I could not stop doing it. I remember id have to write and rewrite sentences when I did my English homework and that’s why I nearly failed that class. I remember how I would spend up to thirty minutes to an hour pacing the halls of my apartment while my mom was asleep until I neutralized the thoughts about throwing up and I could finally go to bed. I don’t know when it happened, but my theme switched. Sometimes in late 2020 or early 2021, it switched to POCD. It started with a single thought, and I focused on it and it’s been my theme since then for four years. It has been absolutely destroying me. I feel so disgusted and lost and just tired. My compulsions are severe now. I thought they were bad before, but now they’re ten times worse. I can’t eat, drink, change my clothes, walk, or even do things on my phone normally. I’ve developed so many mental compulsions that it’s so intricate and complicated yet at the same time I’ve done them so much that they’ve become normal. An example I have is if im putting on a shirt and I have a “bad” thought, I have to take it off and put it back on two more times (that’ll make it 3 times I put the shirt back on - odd numbers are my safe number). I have to have a good thought on the third time otherwise I have to take it off and put it on two more times to make it five times I put on that shirt. If not that then I just put on a different shirt because the original is now tainted with my bad thought. I can’t open apps on my phone. It’s with the numbers again. If I open TikTok once while having a bad thought - I have to close it and open it two more times and so on. Sometimes I do it up to 30 times. So I just don’t do things usually. I don’t turn on the TV because I know I’ll redo it. I don’t open a book or grab it off my shelf because I’ll have to repeat the action. I can’t even lay in bed without getting up and redoing it even if im exhausted. I just feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do. I feel disgusting and even now my minds screaming at me that I am dirty and what I think is true. I just wish I was free of this, I wish I could just live my life. I’ve wasted hours and days because of my compulsions. I mask it so well around my friends. I don’t do them in front of anyone or I’ve learned to hide it well. But when im back home alone, it goes haywire. I just want to live again.

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I want to get rid of this now!! It is consuming me

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