- Date posted
- 17w
Harm OCD the literal bane of my existence (18X)
Helloooo everyone on this app on my phone, I wanted to write down things i was thinking to get started with dealing with my harm ocd, and fear of talking about it. I have always had ocd as long as i can remember since i was a small lad, I would obsess over various unimportant things, scratches on toys and such, and if they were “like new” constantly. my compulsion would be getting my mother to check my toys to check id they were good or not I wouldn’t trust how I felt about it. In middle school was the period it was worst for me, I remember the onset moment of harm OCD like it was yesterday. i was in robotics with one of my friends when i heard about a major school shooting in 2017. i was broken, i always assumed schools were safe and never eveb considered they werent. this was the first year i had access to a phone so i spent time online reading stuff. This event set in motion severe anxiety and ocd over the event, anxiety that something like this would happen at my school, and harm ocd that what if i perpetrated such an event. the thoughts disgusted me so much i was in the lowest point of my life for sure. I would never do something like this but to even picture the idea of me in those shoes was so disgusting. i was battling two things here. constantly doing compulsions to get it out of my head. pushing the ideas with clean pure thoughts and honestly i cant remember the whole situation perfectly i just remember it was rough. I remember the shootings ocd moved on to worrying i was going to commit harm in general, especially with loved ones involved. i got so worked up i hid all of my pocket knives, knife block was put away and i would just sit in bed and cry, watching travel blogs to distract myself. I had no idea what was wrong with me, I didnt know what ocd was, i just thought i was actually just a bad person and was disgusted with myself. my mom however, (love her so much) spent hours researching and found something on youtube she felt seemed like me. Natasha Daniels on youtube talking about something called moral ocd. It fit perfectly. moral ocd i eventually just moved to calling harm ocd. same thing i assume. we started watching the videos together and it felt more and more like what i was going through. i started feeling better when i could recognize thoughts and ignore them by calling them out in my head. this helped and eventually moving into covid i found distractions what i was worrying about slowly subsided. My harm ocd was suppressed for a long time and after switching healthcare providers and moving into high school i never went back to therapy and kinda was alright. i still experienced ocd, especially relating to my health, and then in senior year my first ever relationship i experienced relationship ocd really bad. health ocd however being the worse of the two. my harm OCD would occasionally pop up but nothing like it had before. just the occasional disturbing image in my head usually when hanging out with loved ones and i learned to while being disgusted move on and forget about it. up until these last few months it wasn’t that bad. until i went to monterey two weeks ago, and while i was outside on my own exploring the down town, i experienced very disturbing intrustive thoughts, (most of my intrusive thoughts center around rhat i carry a box cutter for work, i work stocking in retail). however i wasnt super disgusted like i had been before because i’ve experienced these thoughts before, i just assumed id move on. however ocd had a different target this time. my morals. it attacked the idea “hey you arent acting disgusted to these thoughts, that must mean you want to do them and are a bad person” and i was so hurt, but still not disgusted because ive just been so tired and stressed out from work and college and life overall. once i got back into the group with my family in the hotel it wasnt as bad and i moved on for the most of the night and the next weeks forgetting about it due to distractions. however. yesterday at my families easter brunch it showed up again, however this time i kept obsessing and trying to push the thoughts out and looking up stuff online to try and make me feel better, even talking to a coworker i trust about it. im just so sick and tired of my brain giving me harm ocd thoughts. i thought health ocd and relationship ocd was bad. this is the worst. the mere idea or thought of doing these things is so out of character and disturbing to me, maybe im more desensitized to violence due to videogames and media, and what happens in the world, and simply being an american. i dont know whats wrong with me. i hope to work through this though and what i do have is the confidence of that due to my ability to work past this before. i want to thank my friends and family for being so supportive even when it was hard for them and im so grateful to still be here today to work through this. anyway i just wanted to share my story to see if anyone relates or just hear from yall. hope everyone is doing well 🫶🏻🫶🏻