- Date posted
- Yesterday
meta OCD that makes POCD and moral OCD much worse
this is my first post so i’m a little nervous, but i wanted to talk about how awful meta OCD can be. to preface, i’m 19 and undiagnosed with OCD, but have had pretty severe harm OCD, moral scrupulosity OCD and POCD (along with real event and false memory OCD that feeds into these other themes) since i was 14. i only realised that i had OCD this year a few months ago, since before that i had a very poor misconception of OCD as only involving physical compulsions and mainly being about cleaning, obsessively checking locks and the like. but since discovering i have OCD, all my symptoms have gotten much worse since i’ve been hyperaware of every compulsion and intrusive thought. i went into a spiral that lasted days and it was agony. i became fully convinced that i had subconsciously tricked myself into believing i have OCD. somehow, all my obsessions come back to moral and POCD themes- so i started believing that i, at 14, was completely normal, and then suddenly had a subconscious urge to be a pedophile…so i forced myself into being a pedophile…and then the guilt got too much to bear…so i subconsciously repressed the memories of doing all this…and then years later discovered POCD and moral-type OCD subtypes and assigned them to myself. it’s all very convoluted but it made me feel even more evil. because the original fear with POCD is ‘what i’m a pedophile’, but due to the meta-OCD it has now evolved into ‘what if i wasn’t a pedophile, but i forced myself to become one out of some strange subconscious desire’. so now i’m scared i’m some kind of new predator- one that actively chose to become one but suppressed memories of choosing this. it’s just so exhausting, and the worst of the spiral has passed, but my mind keeps coming back to the ‘what if i’ve tricked myself’ obsession. does anyone else have any experiences with meta-OCD or have any tips on how to not spiral into these meta-OCD obsessions?