- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
First. I personally take medication (Luvox 250 mg) and it really helps. Sometimes I focus on my mistakes and try and focus on the good instead. I also remind myself that everyone makes mistakes and that I am not alone. I remind myself that people don’t pay attention to me and analyze me the same way that I do. I tell myself “nobody thinks about you the way that I do” , “nobody focuses on your mistakes the way i do”. It took me a long time to stop making negative statements about myself. I’m probably 75% improved of the frequency and intensity of my thoughts. I feel like I’m living a different life without these thoughts and it’s wonderful. You can get there. Don’t give up
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 5y
Try to embrace the fact that one , you care and have any empathy , because a lot of people just move on or convince themselves they weren’t wrong when they were. Tell yourself that you deserve love and happiness regardless because you are a human , and making mistakes is part of human nature. You can never undo what happened in the past , so growing from it and learning from it are the only things you can do and are more than enough for you to say that you’ve changed and thus , you shouldn’t let what you said or did hold you back. You aren’t the same person :)
- Date posted
- 5y
Something that helps me is directing my thought towards a postive thing I've done! Helping a friend through a tough time, acts of kindness, etc. It can be difficult to take care of yourself in that state, so it's usually thoughts of kindness that help me! Or thinking of what I would do if a friend told me they'd made the mistakes or had the thoughts I had. I would treat them with compassion!
- Date posted
- 5y
Hi, as a person with both OCD and PTSD, I've found it helpful to create false memories about happier past events. Good luck.
- Date posted
- 5y
I second this. This has helped me as well. We don’t go so far as calling it a memory, but we are definitely using the narrative of who we were as people in the past as a guide to create more positive behaviors and outcomes during that time. Letting go or undermining the negative narrative. If you have a trusted person to create a memory with, it’s even more effective.
- Date posted
- 5y
@sshyksarry @Dominick @xiiiandreww @John Connor , thank you so much guys!! It’s an uphill battle, and I appreciate your advice so much ? it’s wild to me that other people have the same problem. It’s nice to not feel alone even though I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w
I’ve done things in the past few years that I’m not proud of - only a couple of things I can think of and they didn’t directly hurt anyone at least with is relieving (but maybe indirectly they sort of did or could’ve which makes me hate myself because why did I do that… *how* could I do that…) If I could back and stop those things from happening, I would. I may not have thought about what I was doing at the time, so I didn’t really recognize that they weren’t okay, but that doesn’t excuse them, and I would smack some sense into my past self if I were able. I feel like if anyone knew what I‘ve done, they wouldn’t want anything to do with me. They’d write me off as worthless. And maybe they should to be honest. Now yet another thing has come up - I haven’t done anything, but I had an intrusive thought pop up that made me *think* about doing something and this would be unforgivable in my opinion. Though, to be honest, the things I’ve done before are also somewhat unforgivable in my opinion… 😞 Regardless, I don’t want to do it because I don’t think it’s okay, but I worry deep down that I do. Or that I’m looking for an excuse to make it okay to do. I don’t know, it’s complicated. And I’m upset I even thought about it. I wish I had never seen the thing that triggered that intrusive thought. Yet another thing I would stop if I could. I’ve tried to not think about it or focus on it, but it doesn’t work. Even if it goes away, it just comes back again. I just keep thinking about it and it’s overwhelming. Anyway all of the guilt of this is killing me. I feel like an irredeemably terrible person and it makes me want to give up. I can’t get on with life because it’s paralyzing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and at this point, it feels like I don’t deserve to just move on. I can’t live with myself and I feel like I don’t deserve anything anymore. I know a lot of this is probably OCD, but I’m not sure all of it is and I don’t know what to do… if I spoke to a therapist about it, I don’t think I could bring myself to say what I’ve done or what thoughts I’ve had. But if I was told to move on by someone who didn’t know the truth, I would worry they wouldn’t really say that if they knew. Agh, it’s all just a mess 😞
- Date posted
- 20w
Hi Everyone! I hope whoever is reading this is having a good day so far :) So for years now I’ve had very bad intrusive thoughts about things that I have done or embarrassing things that I’ve said or have happened and it’s mortifying and debilitating on a daily basis. Specifically these thoughts are mainly things that have occurred from 2018-2020 and some are more simple just as a stupid joke I made or being way too loud on calls while my family was trying to sleep and others being way more complex such as past relationships and how I’ve hurt some of the people I care the most about and when I have acted on intrusive thoughts and these thoughts will appear with no triggers at all I’ll just wake up and already have something I did just nagging me. I don’t want to live like this anymore and I’ve tried working through it with self compassion but sometimes the things I said or did back then it’s very hard to forgive myself for and I’ll reminisce on it for hours on hours, gaslight myself into believing that’s not how it happened and try to change the memory itself, or just suppress it entirely. I know those habits aren’t healthy and truly I want to get better but I don’t know how to overcome some of these thoughts. I have talked to my fiancé about this a few times and even today we talked about it and he fully supports me and is helping me work through it. I might also contact my sister too, I don’t talk to her overly too much but ever since I was little she’s thought I’ve had ocd and was one of the people who made me consider that I might have it (I’m still undiagnosed but I’ll try to when I have the money and time) and I know she could maybe provide some insight. Another thing that is troublesome about the situation is my other family members specifically my mom aren’t the most helpful and can trigger thoughts. To put it in perspective on how her thought process is and some background info she is an ER nurse and has been for 30 years due to this she believes she knows mainly everything there is about mental health and she gets extremely upset when I don’t take her advice or set boundaries. She’ll force me to talk to her about my problems and when I don’t want to she’ll pin me in a corner where I’m forced to and last summer I had a really bad episode and was really overstimulated and I just finished taking a shower and due to the water on me, my hair being wet (my hair is naturally curly and it takes forever to dry and it’s very draining taking care of even with a keratin treatment) and all the intrusive thoughts I was having and she forced me to talk to her and I did open up for the first time about my thoughts and brought up how sometimes I have thoughts of hurting my animals and it makes me physically sick. Her response to this was threatening to call the cops on me saying it was a behavioral thing and I was doing it for attention. I have never hurt any of my animals but later that day my cat came into my room and a few minutes later she comes up just gives me the death stare and after a few seconds just asks me “are you going to go kill snickers?” In the most condescending tone and she’s always like this daily where she’ll force advice onto me or get upset and yell and then reinforce thoughts I’m having. I just want to know first how to stop the thoughts from so frequently and how to heal in an environmental where it keeps reopening wounds despite trying to place boundaries? I’m sorry this is really long I usually do go really in detail about things and it’s just how I’ve always been. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask and I’ll answer them to the best of my ability. I really appreciate the time you took to read this and thank you for your help! 🥰
- Date posted
- 16w
I want to move on and accept my past mistakes, but I feel like truly forgiving myself isn’t acceptable. My therapist says not to judge my past self but seek to understand. But if what I’ve done has gone against my moral values, how exactly do I do this? I’ve learned my lesson, and I just want to move on. But that feels like letting myself off the hook. Any tips or advice??
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