Whenever I am having a bad rumination episode/spiral, I think those around me can tell. I feel like I get distant and irritable. My mom even thinks I am mad at her. It’s awful! I don’t know how to explain what I am experiencing especially with more sensitive topics like POCD.
You can say something like “I’m spiralling” without getting into specifics. This is what I do to avoid getting reassurance from people who don’t really get ERP or OCD!
A scale that we use through OCD therapy is the SUDS scale and it’s a scale that goes from one to 10 about the level of stress and anxiety you get from a particular intrusive thought rumination or exposure. My family is aware of the SUDS scale so if I’m in a particularly stressful rumination, I’ll let them know that I am like a seven or an eight and that helps them manage how they think that I’m reacting around them, and that they know I’m just experiencing ruminations. I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. It can be particularly difficult when you’re also worried about how other people are feeling around you and how you think you may be affecting them. Sending you lots of love.❤️🩹
Hey sorry you're having to deal with this. One thing I would say would be to try to show yourself a bit of grace. Please remember that OCD is one of the top 10 most debilitating conditions - not just of psychological ailments, but overall. But unlike physical ailments (anemia, for example, is also in that top ten), when our OCD flares up it's not necessarily something that people around us can readily understand and make allowances for. The long-term goal of course is to manage and subdue our OCD so that it no longer keeps us from being the person we want to be and living the life that we want to live. And you will get there! In the meantime, you just need to do the best you can, be the best person you can be for yourself and the people around you, accepting that there will be times that you feel like you fall short. I'd also remember also that we (meaning people in general, but folks with OCD in particular) tend to judge ourselves very harshly. Think of your best friend coming to you and explaining how they were going through this same situation - I bet you would tell them to cut themselves some slack! I would try to be that same best friend to yourself, as much as you can!
I usually just say that I'm having a lot of OCD right now. And I've told those around me only to get into it with me if I want to (to avoid reassurance and such).
I hear you. When I am in a spiral or ruminating, people can notice
So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.
i’ve been dealing with this “thing” since i was 15. (i’m 23 now) if i have a bad memory that i have done when i was really young or just an intrusive thought i feel like i need to tell my mom or boyfriend. it’s been on and off ever since but since January hit it’s been an everyday thing about the littlest things. mostly about my relationship. an example is i was talking to someone random at my job and we were talking about taxes and when im in deep thought or just thinking i do a thing where i bite my lip (not in the sexual way) and i had a thought when it happened “was that sexual?” and i felt like i did something wrong and i went for a while thinking that until i told my boyfriend about it. or like my ex’s face has popped up in my head in the most inappropriate times and i feel the need that i have to tell him. (my ex was not a good person) i feel like im a prisoner in my head everyday, trying to justify thoughts or remind myself that its just a thought. i didnt know that this was or could be a form of ocd. it runs in my family but i’ve just never considered it being this. i always called it anxiety or depression but i always felt like it is more than that.
harm ocd is the bane of my existence. people always tell me that if you have anxiety over a thought, that’s ocd. and these intrusive thoughts cause me IMMENSE anxiety. i’m constantly looking for reasons why i’m not what these thoughts tell me i am. but WHY DOES IT FEEL SO REAL?? it’s like i can’t reassure myself that this isn’t me and i don’t want to do it, but i also look for reasons why it’s not me. my brain is constantly telling me “if you don’t act on this, you’ll never feel free”. WHAT EVEN IS THAT?? and why does it feel real?? anytime i think about getting therapy, i constantly think that it’s not going to help me positively but help me realize i am this person. i just wish someone with harm ocd could get into my brain, understand me, and tell me everything will be okay. i wish someone in recovery could tell me that they’ve been where i am, felt the same feelings, thought the same thoughts, and got through it when they thought they wouldn’t. i feel like i’m drowning in it. another thing is i think about how my mom knows a surface level understanding to this form of my ocd, but if she knew it all, i’m scared she’d never look at me the same. i’m scared she’d be scared of me and think i need psychiatric help. IM TERRIFIED.
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