Overly aware of my thoughts and feeling trapped

Was just wondering if anyone can relate to this as I’ve never been able to fully explain it to anyone who gets it 😭 I hit this stage after dealing with intrusive thoughts for a while where I’m just CONSTANTLY aware of every thought in my head. Every minor unrelated thing feels like a trigger and i become permanently restless. My brain convinces me I’ll be stuck like this forever. I’ll be doing things I love and enjoy or laughing in conversations and my head will be all “yeah but you’re not truly present, your not really happy.. look you’re still stuck” I feel like I’m still suffering internally and nothing can ever truly distract me. And it makes me feel so down and just helpless.. I can’t even explain what’s wrong. My head will have all these checkpoints of places I walk past, like a road leading to my house and ESPECIALLY the bathroom mirror and every time I walk past them it’s like my brain goes “look your still stuck.. “ and I know I’m doing better when I walk in and out of the bathroom with none of those thoughts… Another big thing is my camera roll, I look at every picture and feel envious of myself when I was doing okay. I literally can’t look at pictures of when I was fine cuz I get convinced I’ll never have that again. “You’ll never be able to look at these with your eyes in your rational state of mind” The main sign for me that it’s getting bad is that I just lose the ability to day dream or think about anything other then my mental state. Even when I’m not thinking of my intrusive thoughts I’m analysing exactly how I feel or am trying to explain to myself exactly what I’m thinking and feeling.. It’s so tiring, at my worst it went on for months… in the most recent episode it went on for a week but I’m just terrified of getting like that again because I don’t know how to snap out. It’s funny because it all feels like one self fulfilling prophecy. My fear of being stuck in my head results in me analysing whether or not I am still stuck in my head for hours upon end.. and I just end up more stuck.

OCDwarrior3

Date posted: 20h

I also deal with this it’s awful I am too aware

Itriedokay

Date posted: 20h

@OCDwarrior3 I feel u 😩

OCDwarrior3

Date posted: 20h

It’s cause your starting to get better but your ocd wants to bring you back down

RinmynameisRin

Date posted: 20h

I have similar feelings to you. When at my worst I never had a thought that wasn’t distressing or a compulsion. One day when I had enough I started not doing small compulsions. I also started watching shows that I could bring myself to watch. Preferably something soft that wouldn’t have a big chance of triggering me. Then (I know this one is bad) I went on Character AI. It was hard and I would have thoughts but I was entertaining myself while having those thoughts. I’m sure my medication helped a lot but I wouldn’t have gotten better if I only relied on that. Now i feel like I’m returning to that phase where I can’t do anything and just think bad thoughts. We have to look for things to do even if we don’t pay attention. I think if you find it a little entertaining it will eventually give you some free time from your head until you are able to try new stuff and physical stuff. You really do have to do it scared and it’s terrible that’s for sure. I’m trying this now and I hope to never let myself slip back into that horrible phase.

Itriedokay

Date posted: 20h

@RinmynameisRin I hope it gets better ❤️‍🩹

RinmynameisRin

Date posted: 20h

@Itriedokay31 For you as well

Eagles1997!

Date posted: 20h

I have Severe OCD and my biggest obsession is feeling like I’m not here. That’s all I’ve been obsessing about for about a month. It suck’s. I feel your pain. Last time I had my current problem it took months for me to get back to where I was.

Itriedokay

Date posted: 20h

@Eagles1997! It really does suck ☹️

Eagles1997!

Date posted: 20h

How do you cope with feeling insane ? I’m not doing that great

Itriedokay

Date posted: 19h

@Eagles1997! lowk I don’t cope 😭💀 usually end up crying on the phone on some helpline. Can’t lie.. sometimes the absurdity of my thoughts hits me and snaps me out of it for a bit. And just embarrassment that I’ve been a wreck over nothing ‘real’ forces me into just pushing through with life…

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