Advice

Hey, I completely get that. Something that’s helped me with the guilt I have, is learning self compassion and mindfulness. You didn’t choose to have these thoughts, and they do not define you. The good thing is that these thoughts come and go, and thoughts are just thoughts. So exposure therapy can help a lot with this and mindfulness. This is my experience, and hopefully it’s helpful for you: Like for example, here’s what I try to do with intrusive thoughts: “Oh I notice the thought that I’m going to hurt someone. Ah, this is ocd. Maybe I will hurt someone/I can’t know if I will hurt someone. I notice I am feeling uncomfortable. I am choosing to sit with these feelings of anxiety and uncertainty.” Exposure therapy has been super helpful. For the guilt, I try to do this for example: “I notice I’m feeling guilty. This feeling will pass, it always does. So I’m going to give it space to exist(without acting on it). I’m trying my best, may I give myself patience through this moment.” I also have been trying to write a few things at the end of day that I did well. Because OCD is just a part of my puzzle, it’s not all there is to me and I want to learn to notice the good things that I do. I hope you can give yourself the same grace you give to the ones you love, and can talk to yourself in that way too. You deserve relief and are worthy of good things 🫂

I struggle with this too!

Somethings that help is living in the moment for a second. It’s very hard for me to do but my therapist recommends doing it

I deleted social media for a week and I started taking pictures of things that I enjoy looking at when I feel a thought coming on. Example the beach calms me down

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it would be easy to say 'just let it go, you know its your OCD'...but I'm not going to say that because every single on of us with OCD has, at some point in our lives, had something similar to those words said to us...and I'm sure it infuriated you no less than it did/does me. For me, I hate the Guilt that comes with ruminating, especially since most of the time, my ruminations take me to places of mistrust and suspicion that when I look back on them, I always feel like a major arse for even thinking them. Then I'll spend untold hours ruminating on scenarios where I can 'undo' my guilt... *sigh* it really is a vicious cycle... But its a cycle that can become managable. I don't think this has an easy answer, but I do think your question has a satisfying answer, and here it is: As I progress with my ERP therapy and become more and more accepting of the uncertainty that OCD causes me, I'm able to slowly seperate myself from my OCD enough to be aware of when my OCD is operating behind the wheel, and when it's actually me. It's practice, my friend: Practice in using the tools that come with your therapy toolbox. I used to not be able to do something as simple as place a plastic bag over a food slicer at work because of a movie I once watched and feared everytime I put the bag on the slicer, someone I loved, somewhere, was being suffocated and it was my fault.... Now, I just throw the bag on that darn slicer and rarely ever look back...and when I do, my toolbox is there to help me through the situation. Guilt is the worst tho(imo), and being able to step back and say 'This has no bearing in my life', and move on, is very empowering. Empowering, especially since I felt powerless for 39 years. Another helpful tool in that toolbox is my 'Imaginal Worksheet', which is a literal worksheet you can do mentally that will walk you through imagining your situation from beginning to end. These can be a little stressful, but I find they're very useful for wanting to see the whole picture of whatever is causing you mental distress. I'm so glad you shared this question! I think this is a major issue for alot of us, and no one wants to deal with guilt, not even the normies. I hope you have a truly wonderful day and I hope this helped your guilt in some small way.