can magical thinking be a compulsion??

@Anonymous Just wanted to clarify, when you said “if I engage in this compulsion, so-and-so will die,” do you mean you were using that thought to stop yourself from doing the compulsion? Like using magical thinking to counter the compulsions? Just wondering because that’s something I do too and that in itself is yet another compulsion!

@ClarityMind777 Exactly.

@ClarityMind777 - I just started this too. I would do a smaller finishing compulsion to counter having to do the bigger compulsion again. It worked only temporarily and then backfired. I would end up doing both all the time and then still do the bigger compulsion if a trigger presented. The only way is ERP.

@AnthonyB71 I can totally relate. I too use a smaller compulsion to avoid the bigger one. It feels smart in the moment, but it always pulls me back in :/

@Roxie_09 I’m so glad someone can relate. I haven’t seen much discussion on this online :((

@Roxie_09 I’ve actually been trying to research about it all week but haven’t been able to find much. Do you know any sources I can refer to?

@Roxie_09 Will check this out, thank you so much :)

@AnthonyB71 I experience mental hoarding too! I wish mental compulsions were more commonly discussed, they’re just as exhausting :(

@ClarityMind777 - They are just as bad. They take up so much time and it's a mild anguish every time. Never quite off the hook no matter how perfect the compulsion is. What's given me some success over the last 12 months is a simplification of compulsions. I used to do horrendously long compulsions during Covid when the symptoms first presented. I've been able to cut some routines down to just a few seconds. OCD always finds a way to complicate routines though. I do something I call 'afters'. These are routines after the routines to prevent the first routines. I will say a number, or a name, or a thought and then a word that represents 'this is it, routine done'. When i manage to cut down my routines the afters tend to grow in complexity and I find myself back to square one. But it has gotten easier over the last year. Can you describe your mental hoarding? Do you write too? I think I have hypergraphia.

@AnthonyB71 That “never off the hook” feeling you described is spot on. Even when I do a compulsion “right,” there’s always some doubt left behind. And I too have such “afters.” I’ll try to wrap up a compulsion with a final mental phrase or thought to feel done, but that itself ends up becoming part of the ritual. For me, mental hoarding shows up as this overwhelming need to hold onto information. That includes taking photos of everything, saving videos, and even writing down random things I come across, just in case they might be useful later. It’s like I’m afraid I’ll miss or forget something important if I don’t save it all.

@ClarityMind777 - Holy shit this is me exactly. I thought I was alone here. Your mental hoarding is the textbook mental hoarding. i haven't quite figured out what my motive is. All my life I have kept diaries but as time passed they got longer and longer and take up more of my time and now I keep a diary more as a compulsion than for the pure purpose of recording some events and thoughts. I haven't quite analysed why I do it but maybe it is for the same reason you do it - to record information just in case I need later on or miss something. Even when I write every day I don't miss anything and if I did I will go back and edit the diary entry. I can lose anything from 45 minutes to 4 hours in one day writing. You are the first person I've spoken to that has the same compulsion as me. What are the chances I will meet someone who has mental hoarding, just right and magical thinking? It's unbelievable. I've been floating around OCD forums for a while and was honestly starting to think no one has the same type of OCD as me.

@ClarityMind777 - "And I too have such “afters.” I’ll try to wrap up a compulsion with a final mental phrase or thought to feel done, but that itself ends up becoming part of the ritual." This is spot on what I do. OMG I thought I was the only one. I find it DOESN'T WORK. It works for a while. It's comforting and seems to 'cure' the re-trigger of compulsions but then it acts to just lengthen the compulsion to make it worse. It becomes part of the compulsion rather than an 'after'. Then I have to stop doing the after because it backfired. As an example the compulsion would be some kind of review of a moment or gratitude for a meal followed by 'green' or 'white'. but then I would add something like a number 4 so before long I am doing this after that goes something like 'green white 4 4 4' . I remember in the early days I used to finish with the word 'immune' or 'protected' then it was 'immune and protected' then it was 'immune, protected, all, 4 4'. Then I am doing 'afters' to prevent certain things triggering the routine like touching a cats tail or stepping on a broken bit of linoleum so I am in this constant state of saying '44'. it's batshit crazy.