You’re stuck in an OCD loop, mostly centered around morality and emotional self-checking. The problem isn’t just the thoughts, it’s how you’re responding to them. The compulsions you’re doing to reduce anxiety are what keep the cycle going.
These compulsions include Googling your behavior, replaying conversations, analyzing your intentions, checking if you’re a bad person, venting for relief, isolating to “protect” others, and returning to people for reassurance. They may feel necessary, but they teach your brain to treat the thoughts as threats, which is why they keep coming back stronger.
The tiredness, brain fog, detachment, and irritability you’re experiencing are signs that your system is overloaded. Constant mental stress and anxiety will do that. When your brain is running 24/7 trying to solve unsolvable questions, exhaustion is the result. That’s not a separate condition and is part of the OCD cycle. You’re also likely experiencing depression, which often looks like low energy, flatness, lack of motivation, and emotional shutdown.
You mentioned guilt about venting. The issue isn’t that you’re reaching out, it’s how you’re doing it. If you’re sharing with the goal of getting reassurance, emotional relief, or certainty, it’s another compulsion. That doesn’t mean you should stop talking to people. It means you should shift the purpose: talk for connection, not to reduce anxiety or solve the thought.
Here’s how ERP looks for your specific issues:
• You have a thought like “What if I’m a bad person?”
ERP = Let the thought sit. Don’t respond. Don’t argue with it. Don’t try to prove you’re good. If the feeling is lets say “a 9 out of 10 in stress level” then do something else to lower it like read, go for a walk but then comeback to it when it’s lower like “a 5 on the stress level” and then stay in the discomfort without resolving it. Because if you run away from it completely then it would be considered a distraction and therefore a compulsion.
• You feel guilt after saying something and want to mentally review what you said.
ERP = Resist the urge to replay it. Say: “I might have said something wrong. I’m not checking.” Accept that you may never know for sure.
(Trust me this one’s gonna take a lot of practice)
• You want to Google something like “Do good people have these thoughts?”
ERP = Don’t search. Sit with the anxiety. Redirect your attention and let the uncertainty exist.
• You feel the urge to text or talk to someone to confess or explain your behavior.
ERP = Don’t send the message. Let the discomfort pass. Allow them to “possibly” misunderstand or think badly of you.
(An exercise that has helped me a lot with this is Imaginal Exposure so search that up!)
• You avoid people because you’re afraid of hurting them or being seen as “wrong.”
ERP = Stay present. Join the call. Go to the event. Show up despite the doubt. Don’t check how you’re coming across.
If the people around you don’t understand OCD, join a space where they do. There are OCD-focused Discord servers that help you connect without reinforcing compulsions (they have moderators that don’t allow reassurance lol). Depression feeds on isolation, and maintaining connections with family, friends and even in the online servers helps A TON.
Don’t argue with the thought. Don’t fix the feeling. Don’t run from the uncertainty. Let it sit, label it for what it is, and stop feeding it with reactions. ERP isn’t about feeling better in the moment, it’s about retraining your brain to stop treating these thoughts like emergencies (teaching your brain to properly response to these false alarms)
You won’t get free by finding the right answer. You’ll get free by learning to live without needing one!!!!!
