Everytime I get a new ocd event it feels so much worse than the others and I look at the others rationally and think idk why I was worrying about those, THIS is the bad one. And I feel like that right now like it just feels like I actually did something horrible and it’s not ocd idk what to do. I want to get reassurance but it might make it worse cuz sometimes I get anxious after confessing to someone.
As someone who has lived in your shoes. ( bounced between all the themes and each one felt like child's play compared to the next one) and finally landed on a false memory/real event. It definitely felt like the worst one of all. I had a memory of a real event ( hanging out with another guy and making out and stuff) and false memory ( i couldn't remember if i hung out with him before or right after i started dating my now husband) so i was torn up from the floor up unable to figure out if i had cheated on him which is SOOOO against my values. No matter what i did to try to figure it out, it just got worse. I went thru old phones looking for texts, pictures, i even reached out to the other guy to ask if he remembered when we hung out FOUR YEARS AGO... it was bad... and i debated telling my husband but always stopped myself because i knew if i planted that seed in his head... i could NEVER unplant it. and if i eventually came to get over it, i would be free, but HE would be stuck with his own " well what IF she really DID cheat on me". i am now over this theme. btw, i never figured it out, i just let it go. it was hard. but i came to realize " if it didn't matter then, it doesn't matter now" i know who i am, i know despite my OCD trying to trick me, that that isn't something id do today, so it likely isn't something i did back then. ill never be 100% sure, but I'm 99.99999999999 sure and that's close enough for me. DO NOT CONFESS. it will make things SO MUCH worse an dyou might hurt someone in the process. Just let it go. use my phrase " didn't matter then, doesn't matter now" and keep saying that until you stop caring about it.
@TexasOCD41 Thanks so much for sharing and sorry u had to deal with that :( it really is the only way to deal with ocd, accepting uncertainty, but the theme of mine is soo taboo it feels so hard to accept the uncertainty, it’s from 6 years ago and I didnt think about it till now, so that’s the only thing giving me reassurance is that like u said “didnt matter then, doesn’t matter now”, but I’m so glad u learnt to accept the uncertainty I hope things are looking up for u now :)
@nonchalantdreadhead - They are. Ill admit i needed medication to finally reach a place of solid mental health but I also suffered the loss of my kitty right in the middle of my struggles and i believe that pushed me over the edge. The fact that your situation has not bothered you until just now is a sure fire indication its OCD and needs to be left alone. Just keep repeating " didn't matter then, doesn't matter now" as a response prevention mantra and keep pushing it to irrelevance until it eventually sticks and stays there.
17f I have a lot of events, but my main and my worst one which is absolutely fucking diabolical was done when I was 14 and repeated when I was 16. Everytime I post something about real event ocd here people are like you are probably didn't do anything that bad, and when they hear what I did they are like yeah that's bad. Someone even asked me if I'm autistic cause "it's crazy how you didn't realize that the thing ypu were doing was wrong at this age." And I kinda agree, like it's fucked up It's just that my event is bad. Doesn't mean I don't have real event ocd. You can have a reocd over the event that was bad, it doesn't mean the event wasn't that bad or you don't have recod. It's just people always expect it to be something innocent and it's not Even a healthy person would feel guilty over it, it's just that I had ocd my whole life and it's making the guilt absolutely destructive, like to the point when I sometimes have a hard time breathing when I think about it, I lost more than a year of life to it, almost checked myself out couple of times if I wasn't so scared of pain/failure, the event haunts me in my dreams, it's in my head 24/7 and I will never able to forgive myself. That ocd. But the event itself was bad. So maybe i deserve it.
Hey guys, for the past three months I’ve been obsessing over a mistake I made about 6 months ago, I constantly have panic attacks and wake up in fight or flight mode I have convinced myself that someone is gonna find me somehow and punish me. I have endlessly looked up reassurance that what I did wouldn’t get me in trouble or something, I have filled up 5 different ChatGPT chats and it tells me it’s 100% certain nothing will happen. But then I convince myself well everyone says not to trust it and then I just spiral again. The point is I’m just scared, I’ve convinced myself this isn’t OCD because it’s something I actually did wrong. I can’t stop looking for reassurance because that’s the only thing that makes me feel safe anymore. Everyone tells me, just say maybe, maybe not, but my brain has convinced me the stakes are too high. I’m too scared and I don’t know what to do.
just wanted to see if others struggle with real event ocd really kicking their a**. i feel like my mind is a constant battleground of every mistake ive made and they feel so huge and life altering to me that it’s hard to continue going on in their wake. just wondering if anyone else feels this way too.
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond
