Harm ocd

@ScuderiaAlpha Thank you so much for this. It’s actually funny you mentioned responsibility ocd because I was actually thinking that before you wrote that. I wonder if it’s harm or responsibility or both. Well I know it’s not important on the type but how I react. I think I’m struggling because I did the exposure and didn’t go back into the bathroom to check. So then my alarm bells go off and I put negative thoughts in my head like what if I hurt someone and didn’t realize it. And then I get scared of consequences and jail and go down the rabbit hole. I don’t know what to do to feel better. I was starting to feel better for a while today and now I feel anxious about the situation again. What type of ocd do you have and any suggestions? Thanks for reaching out ❤️

@Anonymous No worries! Man I’ve been through just about every common subtype of OCD that you could think of, including both responsibility and harm going together as a duo so I understand completely. That exposure sounds like a fantastic one! Remember inducing distress with exposures is the goal, weirdly that’s what we want to happen. The alarm bells are going to go off and OCD is gonna scream about all the HORRIBLE things that are going to happen if you don’t do compulsions. OCD has one job and that’s doing whatever it can and saying whatever it can to get you to do compulsions. To feel better, it’s probably going to feel worse to begin with but with time and practice it will get better. So, with any exposure or with any intrusive thought I like to either: A) do nothing and let OCD scream B) Give it a non- engagement response such as (in your case) “Yeah maybe I did harm someone without realising it! Guess I’ll find out!” “Cool thought man, not gonna figure this one out” (If you’re feeling really brave) “yeah man I totally harmed someone without realising it, gosh that is just an amazing thought” These responses teach the brain that the alarm shouldn’t and needn’t have go off in the first place and eventually with time the thoughts will decrease both in severity and probably in frequency. Hope this helps. :)

@Anonymous Thank you so much for replying. What are your harm thoughts related to if you don’t mind me asking? My issue is what if I hurt someone and didn’t realize it or fear of losing control and not knowing. And then I go down a rabbit hole like then I’ll go to jail forever or a long time. It’s just really scary. I think I’m so anxious because I didn’t give into my compulsion of checking the bathroom and that then escalated my what if fears? And what if I harmed someone and didn’t know. Because I’m so used to looking back and checking. I did look back and check the bathroom and everything was fine but didn’t wait for the person to come out of the stall. It just seems scary putting images/thoughts in your mind. I’m starting to have a difficult time differentiating if it’s a false memory or just the thought of me saying what if I hurt someone and didn’t realize it, spiked it? Because usually with false memories I get images of what I thought I did. I don’t have images but am thinking of worst case scenarios and bad consequences

@Godsgood Oh no, I’m so sorry! It’s so hard, isn’t it? What specifically do you worry about? Like if you hurt them? Do you ever get false memories or question if the thoughts are real? It scares me because sometimes things feel real and like I will get in trouble. 😭

@Anonymous i’m so sorry for the late response. it’s very hard!! for me, it’s like hyperresponsibility even for other people. so like even if i’m not the one driving, i’m still hyper aware of pedestrians to make sure the driver sees them and doesn’t accidentally hit them because that’s also my own fear when i drive. a big one for me is if i hear a thump in my house, i assume someone has fallen and feel the urge to see what it was to make sure no one fell or else ill feel guilty even though it was probably an object not a person. i also worry about the harm thing too. ik that at one point i did not want to drive people around because i was scared of “losing control” due to the scary thoughts that had been flooding my brain. also yep, i do struggle with false memories too and its hard because i still be questioning myself!!