Harm OCD - Feeling Off?

I hate how I can be feeling fine for a few days, barely any thoughts and if I do they don’t bother me, but then there are times where I intentionally think of them. For example, the past three days I was doing pretty good. Not really having my harm thoughts and feeling well overall. However, today I noticed I was ruminating a bit about my thoughts. Like I purposefully made myself think of them and dwell on them. I don’t have any anxiety anymore. I just feel nothing. Maybe I’m just used to them? I don’t know. But I still feel the urges - like I really want to harm someone and I want to act on it. It feels like pent up energy or something, and I’m holding myself back. It feels inevitable that I will eventually act on them. And for me to purposefully think about them makes me think I’m fantasizing or actually desiring them. Like actual wants. Plus I don’t feel like the homework that I have been given is as effective. Like just responding in with neutral “ok’s” to the thoughts just feel pointless or rather feels like I don’t want to get rid of the thought. I should be glad that maybe I’m improving, but at the same time I don’t feel like I am…I still feel stuck. I still feel like there is actually no cure and I have changed into this, and that it’s only a matter of time until I’m okay with acting on these thoughts. I just feel off and strange. Sometimes it’s difficult to know who I am, what I want, etc.

Username: SolroseSolrose

Date posted: 23d ago

Also feeling like I had some kind of “revelation” about myself, like I never wanted to do harm before, but now I do? I just never realized it before? I could even be doing a hobby that I like and my brain goes “I would rather be hurting someone.” Like wtf? Like to think that way and have those feelings makes me think I’m just in denial about who I really am or what I really want, and I’m just not acting on these things because society says it’s bad. I feel like a nutcase sometimes.

Username: Ocdsucks56Ocdsucks56

Date posted: 23d ago

@Solrose Literally what I’m going through🥲

Username: TexasOCD41TexasOCD41

Date posted: 23d ago

You are improving. The days where you say you feel fine are proof of that. OCD recovery is not linear, it goes up and down, back and forth, but each time it goes forward, it goes a bit more so than the last time. The goal of OCD is not to get rid of the thoughts, its to get rid of the anxiety that comes from the thoughts and you do that by preventing yourself from responding with compulsive behaviors. The way you say that you don't feel the anxiety anymore, THAT is GOOD. i still have my ocd thoughts too, sometimes i think them on purpose too, but i don't feel the anxiety anymore and THAT is the goal. OCD is also VERY good and morphing once you start getting a handle on it so seeing you say you don't think your homework is working, or you think you have had some revelation about yourself ( btw if i had a dollar for every time i read someone saying " i feel like iv just discovered my true nature and its not OCD I'm just in denial" id be filthy rich). Also. go back thru this and take note of every place you say " i feel" and take into consideration that using feelings to come to conclusions is emotional reasoning and it cannot be trusted. feelings are not facts and they lie ( more often than they tell the truth). Keep doing the work, keep "non-responding" to the thoughts and don't try to analyze anything deeper than that. If you're doing a hobby and you think" id rather be out hurting someone" say " be that at is may, but I'm busy working on this (hobby) right now, ill contemplate that later" Just like i think i told you the story of having the thought " i could stab you right now, it would be so easy" when i say my cat chillin' by a sharp kitchen knife and i had that "urge" you talk about. but i just walked over to her and picked up the knive and said " i sure could, but you wouldn't like that very much would you?" and put the knife away and scooped her up and we went to bed. its ALL just static in the brain. there is no picture to it, stop looking for one, just change the channel.

Username: SolroseSolrose

Date posted: 23d ago

@TexasOCD41 Thank you so much. I always appreciate your comments - you give wonderful advice. With your OCD, did you ever feel strong urges? Like it felt like pent up energy that you wanted to let out, which felt like an urge to act on the harm thought? Sometimes it feels like I’m holding my breath (I’m not really, just feels like I’m suffocating) and holding myself back from acting on them. It’s the strangest sensation. Plus how it keeps coming back and the thoughts persist, if sometimes feels inevitable that I will act on them. I will just get so frustrated and fed up, and snap and think it will be okay to do those things. It’s a very trapped feeling. I realize I’m using a lot of “I feel” statements as well.

Username: TexasOCD41TexasOCD41

Date posted: 23d ago

@Solrose - I have. I know how you feel. Its like " but its RIGHT THERE" and to me it feels like a buzzing in my body and ill see full color snapshots in my head of me doing the exact thing i fear and think its out of my control. Yes, the thoughts are going to keep coming, they are not the problem, its our body reacting to the false alarms as if they are real threats. Continuing to treat them AS FALSE is how you will over come it and then you can have the thoughts, and even the "urges" and be able to recognize its just OCD its not real and you don't have to pay ANY attention to it AT ALL. Thats the BIG BREAKTHROUGH i had made. that it really was always my choice, and the anxiety actually couldn't hurt me, it just felt really crappy and it sucked haveing to listen to my brains word vomit but when i was finally able to essentially " put down the thought" set it down like a weight i no longer wanted to carry, and step away from it, i could see it ALL for exactally what it was, just lies OCD told me. VERY CONVINCING lies... but lies none the less and i could CHOOSE to just... not listen. It WILL come with practice.

Username: Catlove9Catlove9

Date posted: 23d ago

Well this is me lol

Username: Naeun

Date posted: 6y ago

Hey guys so I suffer from Harm OCD and thoughts about violently harming other and today I’ve been having super minimal thoughts . I had such horrible intrusive thoughts that it feels weird. I’m in constant fear that the thought will come back randomly and the urges will come back stronger than ever. And I’ll actually commit to my urges and act out on them. Like I still Feel weird because even though I don’t have anxiety ... the killer thoughts are in the back of my head. I gueninly don’t dee normal Anymore.

Username: Catlove9

Date posted: 1y ago

Does not feel like OCD

I am not sure how to even describe what I am going through. And even typing this, I feel like a liar and feel like this is not even OCD. I have Harm OCD. I have had the thoughts, urges, and images. It has felt so real and so scary. I have been able to use ERP for all of that and was mainly successful. But now something new is happening and it does not feel like it is OCD. I cannot even put into words what it feels like, but I will try. It feels like the thoughts have overtaken me and now I’m this evil person who will act on the thoughts. My anxiety is not super high, which scares me because it feels like I have gone too far into the dark side. It feels like I have had these thoughts too long and they are all I can think about. It feels like I’m no longer myself and my identity has changed. I feel very weird. Like not even myself. It feels like there is this dark cloud following me and I try to use ERP but it does not feel like it is working. Not sure if I am ruminating or not because I have no idea what is even going on. I am living my life still, but it feels like it is just a matter of time until I snap. I am very scared right now because I’m not sure what this means and I cannot figure it out. I wish I could explain it perfectly but I do not even know how to put it into words.

Harm OCD

Username: Mrlal

Date posted: 1y ago

Harm OCD question and should I be worried

Has anyone got something similar to me? I get the harmful thoughts I involuntarily plan it and then it gives me anxiety but it feels so similar to having an urge which makes me even more scared. Also another thing that scares me even more too is that I kind of feel desensitised to everything now so when I get those thoughts I don't really think anything of it sometimes and it makes me more scared because it feels like im maybe going crazy and that I might act on it.

Harm OCD

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Harm OCD - Feeling Off?

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