earlier i got a thought but it didn’t cause me anxiety and i brushed it off now i’m worried it was my true actual intention and i can’t remember if it was i don’t know why it’s not making me anxious, maybe cos i know how bizarre it is and that i wasnt actually doing that? but my memory is so blurred and i dont know anymore
@vaIentine I get that, but OCD is tricky that way. You get intrusions, that cause anxiety, but if they don't, you get anxious, because you think, you not getting anxious means something sinister. So it's a win-win for OCD and a lose-lose for you. Try to not ruminate about why you didn't feel anxious this time. It's the only way to show your brain, that your intrusions are not relevant.
@Zoë_84 thank you, i’ll keep trying, i’ve been watching a show to keep my mind busy it keeps giving me rude reminders such as “what if you did? what would your boyfriend say? i cant believe you did that” etc, very difficult but i’ll keep trying not to question it
@vaIentine It is extremely hard, I know. I had phases, where OCD was all comsuming. I spend up to 8 hours in a row to try and figure out, if I did someone wrong. But even after I had spend so many hours on ruminating, OCD wasn't satisfied. Now after I have practice ERP for a while, even though I didn't practice it that much for POCD, or ZOCD, but my other themes, my OCD calmed down in general, having a positive effect on POCD and ZOCD as well.
Since I started ERP a lot of my intrusions done make me anxious anymore, I often only feel annoyed by them now.
@Zoë_84 i havent been doing ERP (i definitely need to, just havent gotten a hold yet) earlier i was doing personal things and i got a thought that said “what if youre doing this to your (intrusive thought)?” i kind of brushed it off like “what? no im not doing that” and it didnt make me anxious but now ive blurred my memory but still, i dont feel as anxious as i usually do, its weirding me out
Congratulations, you did it! This is how you overcome OCD—by brushing off those intrusive thoughts. Your true self remains intact. Those thoughts don’t define you. Feeling a bit strange is normal. Your brain was used to pain and distress, so feeling normal might seem different. Keep up the good work, and your brain will adjust over time.
Yes this has happened to me before!! Including todayyy. Congratulations!!
I have been struggling today, most likely due to lack of sleep. I had a thought that I would consider intrusive, but what really unsettled me was that I felt like I liked it, **not just in the sense that I lacked anxiety over it, but that I genuinely felt like I wanted it.** It left me feeling really confused. It happened during intimacy, which makes it even more unsettling. The thought was incestuous, I found myself imagining and comparing the moment with my boyfriend to my father :/, and what really alarms me is that I felt like I wanted it there, both mentally and physically. I was having a really nice time, so maybe the physical sensations got mixed in somehow, but it still worries me. I did my best not to ruminate in the moment and avoided checking. I tried to move on, but the feeling of genuinely liking the thought was so clear that it is hard to shake off. Has anyone else experienced something similar? This is one of the first times it has ever happened to this extent.
18+ i was having intimacy with my lover. i was frustrated and i had a thought like "hurt her physically", i think i Remember not agreeing with it. i didn't hurt my lover they were fine they never felt hurt physically, but im afraid i might have done some action with the intention to hurt them but maybe i wasn't violent enough? idk. i don't remember any action with that intention so that's that. it happened like a couple of hours ago and im afraid i forgot about it. also, i get anxious because sometimes when i have intrusive thoughts i kind of act on it? not as in like doing what the intrusive thoughts tells me, but something similar that is better in a way? like today i had a thought like "grope your lover in public" but instead of doing that i just squeezed their waist. so idk im afraid i might have done something similar here
Without trying to seek reassurance, I’m wondering if anyone has insight on identifying an intrusive thought vs reality. Something that’s always really helped ground me in moments of false memory ocd is clearly remembering the exact moment the thought arose and how it started as “what if I cheated and don’t remember.” Then the images come and are extremely distressing, but I’ve always found some comfort in coming back to that moment of “this started as what if.” It feels like my brain is almost getting more creative with the thoughts now, and I’ve been having probably the worst anxiety of my life the past couple months after another intrusive thought entered my mind. I woke up after a night drinking and thought to myself “did you kiss your friend and don’t remember?” (Didn’t happen, undeniably proved). The rest of the day I stayed anxious about other things I could have done and poured over all my memories of the night. Then the next day I finally had found some peace based on all the evidence from my friends who were with me that nothing bad happened. I then thought “what about when you went to the bathroom,” which I hadn’t really been thinking about before, and then my mind immediately started flashing with images of me performing sex acts in the bathroom with some person who has no name, face, details, or anything I remember about interacting with them. I think I’m just concerned that this was a moment of genuine memory recall since I hadn’t been thinking about the bathroom before, and it was more of a sudden flash of images and “did you do that” vs “what if you did that.” I’m wondering how others are able to identify that something is an intrusive thought vs reality.
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