OCD and family

Thank you for your response :) I've suffered from OCD since I was 10 or 11 years old and only sought help at 29. With medication and some therapy, I managed to overcome some OCD themes and many compulsions, but these thoughts about my family are the ones that persist. It's just obsession, I think “pure O”, i don't know. Then the immense guilt of thinking I'm a bad daughter, a bad sister... it's terrible. Then I think, what if it's not OCD... I feel immense shame when I look at them...it’s so bad this feeling

@fla.oli I understand. Sometimes a theme keeps coming at us, and there's nothing we can do about it. I keep having these thoughts that I'm a bad person and that my life is going to crumble into dust, and that I'm never going to be useful for anyone. These thoughts keep coming back. I am trying not to fight them off, in one sense. (If I aggressively try to fight them off, they are just going to try worse.) But when these thoughts come up and bother me, I try to remind myself of the Scriptures--of the truth. Do you have some Scriptures you can hold onto?

@Tea and Honey - Nope….

@fla.oli I do a lot with affirmations. You have to be careful with these so that they don't become compulsions. However, they can be really helpful. Every day, I tell myself I am safe. I am loved. I'm believing God's promises. And many, many more true things. ---------------------_ My brain is all messed up and foggy. When I tell myself these things, it helps my brain go into different pathways.

@Tea and Honey - It´s a good idea! Thank you so much! I will don the same. But can I ask you a final question? Do you have these kinds of thoughts, or have you ever met someone with OCD who also has them?

@fla.oli I have not struggled with these particular kind of thoughts because my OCD all centers around my faith. The OCD will center around something that you care about most. If you care about being a moral person, or if you care about your family, OCD will swirl around that. So what you were going through is absolutely normal for OCD. The OCD will OBSESS about certain topics, and it doesn't want to let go. That's just how OCD works. You are not alone !!!!!

@Tea and Honey - You touched on a crucial point. One of my greatest personality weaknesses is the issue of morality, scrupulosity, and justice. The need to always do what is right, to be fair and moral. And then, the people I love most are my parents and my sister, with my sister being the person I admire most. In other words, OCD goes to my emotional and personality Achilles' heel, right? And than you so much for your help!!!!

@fla.oli Yes, so true!!! OCD is going to go for your Achilles heel!! Imagine OCD is like a little man, and his job is to make you miserable. And he's going to come up with his best strategies to try to make you as miserable as possible. Your job is to ignore him and move on with your life!! You can't always make him stop lying to you, but you can try to see through his lies. A lot of OCD recovery is just training yourself to continue doing things in life (like dishes and homework and going to the store), even while the little man is yapping at us in the background. It's uncomfortable to keep moving on with life while this is happening. We always tend to want to fix the little man or shut him up or throw him away. But we can't do that. All we can do is learn how to ignore him while we continue to do all the things in life that we want to do. :):)