Can anybody look at my most recent post titled what to do when you feel like the aggressor? I’m not asking for reassurance I’m asking if anybody went through something similar to give me tools on how to overcome
It sounds like you are deeply suffering. I'm so sorry. Maybe I can help you. I've dealt with OCD for decades. And I have learned SO MUCH over the years. It can really help to talk about what's going on in your life. And to talk about how the OCD is upsetting you. This can take a LONG time to process through. So you just want to look for little baby steps at a time. But that's OK! The journey will take as long as it takes. First of all, there's something really important to understand about POCD. First, you have to understand that POCD is not different than any other theme. It's the same as religious OCD or contamination OCD or whatever. All types of OCD are exactly the same. Imagine that OCD is an octopus. It has many different arms, but the core of it is all the same. This is how OCD works. It has the POCD arm, and the religious OCD arm, and the contamination of OCD arm, and so on. But the core is all the same. This means that you TREAT the OCD exactly the same, no matter what "arm" you are dealing with. I'll post below a little on what that looks like...
First, let me explain how OCD works. Pretend like OCD is a like little man. His only job is to make you miserable. All day long the OCD sits around ands thinks of ways that he can torture you. And I want to explain one way that the OCD manipulates you. He will tell you that IF you don't do something just right, then something REALLY BAD will happen. Let me explain in my own life. My OCD says if I use the wrong words with people, I am going to be doomed forever. (That's something really bad.) I've read your posts a little. It sounds like the OCD is saying to you that if you use certain words, then something really bad is going to happen. Or that you are a bad person. The OCD is lying!!
Also, it's important to know how to handle the thoughts. The OCD lies to you. It says the thoughts mean something. But I want you to break out of this paradigm. This is your new mindset: 1. The thoughts actually don't mean anything. (They are like wisps of smoke in your mind 💨) 2. Even if you think of horrible POCD thoughts of violence of whatever, it doesn't mean anything. The thoughts are just thoughts. You are not a monster!!! 3. You need to practice ALLOWING the thoughts instead of fighting them off. The more you fight the thoughts, the worse they get. Whenever you are afraid of the thoughts, the more your brain will feed them to you. Imagine a tree planted by a river. The leaves fall off the tree and float down the river. You can notice the leaves. But you don't fight them off. You don't try to pick them and put them back on the tree. Instead, you just ignore them. You let them pass. You just let them come and then flow down the river. This is way you need to handle the OCD thoughts! We can talk more!!! I'm am here to listen!!! I really want to help you. I know what it feels like to suffer from OCD. It takes a lot of talking back and forth with someone who knows hope to help you. It takes time. It takes processing. But things can get better!!! I'm here to listen! What do you think about the things I have sent to you?
@Tea and Honey Thank you so much, it helps a lot whenever I get that thought ill stop everything to come and read these. But I’m scared about the post I made about feeling like the aggressor? I know it was flag for reassurance but I wasn’t asking for reassurance I wanted somebody to relate and give me tools to overcome because I can’t sleep, I can’t eat and I’m scared I ruined somebody else’s life
@Anonymous I'll look for the post. But I can tell you right now that you did not ruin anyone's life. I'll go look for it :):)
@Anonymous OK, I read the post about third grade. Is that the right one? It sounds like the OCD is just up to its usual tricks. False memory OCD and POCD are just more common arms of OCD. It DOES NOT mean you are a monster. It DOES NOT mean that anything happened. It DOES NOT mean that you are an aggressor. It DOES NOT mean that you ruined anyone's life. It's all just OCD. It just means that OCD is doing what OCD does. OCD gives us loops of obsessions and worries that aren't even real. -------- In summary, you need to stop worrying about whether or not you are an aggressor. And you need to start thinking about how to defeat this OCD, which has you entangled in all its little lies. --------------------------- You also need to identify the compulsions. a compulsion is anything you do to try to "fix" or neutralize your fear. Ruminating and trying to figure out the situation is actually a compulsion. Not eating and not sleeping can also be compulsions if you are doing that in order to " fix" the past. The solution is to stop trying to figure this out, and start doing things that you do in every day and normal life. That means you spend time with your friends and family, you do the dishes, you walk the dog--just like you would, if none of this OCD had never happened. I know that this is INCREDIBLY hard to do. It's much easier for us to have it broken down into steps. I know this from all my experience dealing with OCD. Therefore I'm going to give you some practical steps... And I want you to do these things, even if you are not sure that it's OK. In OCD recovery, you have to take steps of faith. That means you have to do what your therapist or mentors tell you to do, even if you are not sure if it's OK. That's what I want you to do here... 1.). When the OCD tells you that you need to ruminate and figure out if you are an aggressor, give yourself permission to not figure it out. Instead, go for a walk or go to the gym or do something you enjoy. You are not doing this to try to fight off the thoughts. You just need to realize that you are SAFE even if you don't figure everything out. You need to practice going on in life without ruminating about the past, trying to figure it all out. 2. Whenever you feel like you can't eat or sleep, then you need to practice eating and sleeping anyway, EVEN IF YOU FEEL YUCKY INSIDE. You have to realize that with OCD, you are often going to feel TERRIBLE inside. That's OK. That's part of the process. Right now, you are learning how to keep operating in life, even though you feel yucky inside. That means you go and do the dishes, even though you feel false guilt weighing on you. And it means you go to the grocery store, even though the OCD tells you that you have to sit at home and spin around trying to solve problems. You just do these things. The more practices, the easier it gets. I'm here to listen! It's OK if you have objections to the things that I'm saying. If you do, let's talk about them and work through them. OCD recovery is not about feeling better at first., It's about deliberately choosing to take steps, even though you don't feel safe about it :):)
@Tea and Honey Yes you are completely right please don’t delete anything I will come back and reread this when I get into a spiral. My bf told me the exact thing yesterday but I needed somebody with ocd to tell me. Yes it’s about that incident in 3rd and what do I do about the recent images though, why does it tie back to those moment? Like before I had my ocd spiral I was thought about that moment because it made me feel disgusting inside but ever since I had my flare up 3 years ago it makes me look back into actions I don’t remember or anything related to being a “bad person” I get the feeling of Déjà vu. The new images popped up after my spiral, I’ve always remembered that moment with one image but that spiral I had 3 years ago it’s just putting images into my mind that feels like memories and I can’t even tell what’s real memories or fake ones. It scares me
@Anonymous This is all very typical OCD. This is what OCD does. It's important to understand that OCD gives thoughts, images, and urges. The images are just the same thing as intrusive thoughts. The images don't mean anything at all. You need this mindset: Whenever the images pop up in your head, tell yourself, "There's the disturbing images again. Yep. They can stay all day if they want to. " I remember doing this at a track meet for my son. The OCD was giving me these awful feelings that I was going to go to hell over some small thing. I don't even remember what it was. But what I needed to do was to just allow the feelings to be there (just like you need to allow the bad images to come into your brain). Then I kept watching the track meet. I said to myself, "Hello yucky feelings about going to hell. I know you're here today, and you are welcome to stay all day if you want to." With OCD, it's all about ALLOWING the intrusive thoughts and images and feelings, and then doing NOTHING about it. Pretend you are having a party at your house. One of your "friends" shows up that you don't like. This friend sits down and starts eating your popcorn and drinking your soda. You don't like the fact that they are there. But you're not going to do anything about it either. Instead, you are going to continue to have fun at your own party, (despite the fact that someone is there that you don't like). The OCD is like that. You need to keep doing the dishes and watching your favorite TV shows, and reading your books, despite the fact that the thoughts or feelings are there. Here's another analogy. Imagine there is a record playing at your house with bad music that just plays over and over and over again. You really don't have the power to stop it. However, you can keep cleaning the house, and doing dishes, and having fun with your family. If you don't give the music any power over you (and if you are not afraid of it), you can just keep going about your day as normal. It's when you are afraid of the music or think you have to stop it, that's when your day is disrupted. Right now, you are afraid of the images from third grade. You think that the images might mean something about you. You think you have to figure out the memories. This fear only serves the OCD cycle. In order to get of this, you need to stop trying to figure it out (even though that feels very uncomfortable). And you need to train your brain that these thoughts and images are nothing to be afraid of. You do this by doing NOTHING about the thoughts and images. Whenever they come up, you allow them to be there, and you do nothing to fix them. Eventually, your brain gets the memo, and stop bringing the images on so strongly. It's like you tell your brain, "Fine, I don't care if you bring me images or not." And then when your brain realizes you don't care, it will stop taking effort into feeding those things so strongly to you. But the point is that you truly have to accept and be OK with either having the images or not. It is truly OK if those images cross your mind all day. If that happens, just tell yourself, "OK I had a day where the images were in my mind all day. Whatever . It doesnt matter."
@Tea and Honey I think my problem is the incident in 3rd grade is true. I lived with that my entire life feeling like I caused severe harm especially because the person now is extremely violent even though I thinks it’s because he’s autistic but I feel like some damage is down. I lived with that moment for a minute and then in 2023 I started my first job and the beginning of 2024 a man at work assaulted me and that’s when I had my ocd flare. Still to this day I look like at old things and see if I’m as bad as that man was, I know it feds me images but I can’t tell whenever it’s ocd or not. Especially if I was capable of doing something like that maybe this image of intercourse did happen and not only the part of licking which scares me so much.
@Anonymous Don't worry, even if what happened in third grade is true (to some degree), we will deal with that. To start with, you'll need to separate the OCD from what is real. I can help you with that if you want. This is something that can't be done alone. The false memories get very confusing. So you need someone to help you sort through it. It can be a therapist, a friend, or mentor. It just needs to be someone who understands OCD. When people don't understand OCD, sometimes they can even accidentally make matters worse. But you can make a lot of progress if you can talk to someone who understands OCD. Once you separate what is real and what is OCD, then you will need healing in both areas (the real part and the OCD part). You will need grace and forgiveness over whatever happened in third grade. You were a child at the time, and someone needs to help you process that. You need someone to help you process and face the guilt, and also the sense of responsibility for someone else's future. These things will have to be faced. But just remember, there is a depth of forgiveness available for you. And great hope. You can go through this process, and come out on the other side. I'm here to listen if you want to explain it!! We can walk through things. --------- Now the OCD is going to exaggerate and amplify guilt and give false memories and get you into a tailspin. The OCD is completely false. And you need to remember that it is based on lies. Everything that is OCD needs to be treated accordingly. Treat it for what it is: OCD !! What I'm saying is, that you will need support in both areas. And you will treat them in two different ways. If there is a real part, you can get treatment for that. And the OCD part needs to be treated like OCD. I'm here to listen!! Things will get better!!! Give yourself a hug today!!
@Tea and Honey I am imagining that whatever happened in third grade is not even close to the level of what your OCD is telling you happened.
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