In the last few days I have managed to drastically reduce compulsions. I have made good progress but the brain fog that I may be a bad person and that the world and my interactions aren’t real still persists. Any tips to address this? I’m not reacting to any of it which is uncomfortable.
Well done! Just hang in there. Ths is as it "should be" - with time it disappears. Focus on living your life, don't focus so much inwards. This is hard but you are stronger than you are aware of.
Hello friend! Healing takes time. Unfortunately, symptoms persist for a while even when you are doing the right thing. Think of it like going for a long run. After you stop, you're still going to be breathing hard and your heart rate will still be elevated for some time. Then, the next day or maybe week your muscles will be sore. Don't let that stress you. It doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong. Just continue to live according to your values and remember that it will get better with time.
According to NOCD therapists, people with harm OCD don't carry out their thoughts. In reality, we are so repulsed and upset over them, that we are the last folks to carry them out. As for the existential theme you're dealing with, I've been helped by saying to myself, "Maybe it's true, and maybe it isn't, I will never know for certain, but I can see and feel in three dimensions and I certainly can't walk through a wall on command. That's good enough for me." This has worked for me; perhaps it will help you, too.
Why do you think you may be a bad person, because of your thoughts?
@Steven55! Yes I have been dealing with harm ocd in addition to this for 2 months. I wake up and think about it but I don’t react and just try to move on with my day as I would do it before this whole cycle started. However, I still wonder if I would „snap“ and „not care“ as one might put it.
Im better able to engage with my fam about other topics (which I couldn’t previously) progress just doesn’t feel the way I expect it to
According to the NOCD therapists,
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 started ERP therapy with a really great therapist, and I haven’t gave into my compulsions but I still have anxiety and yesterday my brain was telling me that people were zombies😭 is this normal?
Does anyone else experience a moment of clarity where you feel strong relief that the intrusive thought isn’t true, only to then immediately start questioning if you’ve only convinced yourself that because you don’t want the thought to be true? I’m pretty confident it would take some crazy mental gymnastics to actually successfully convince myself I didn’t do something that I deep down knew I did, but every time I resist the compulsions and try to sit with the uncertainty or tell myself to think about what is logical, I usually briefly know that this probably didn’t happen but am unable to move on out of fear I’m just in denial and have convinced myself of that.
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