Is anyone else really triggered by “motivational” messages that say things like “trust your gut” or “follow your instincts”? ‘Cause it’s like well, my instincts tell me to do lots of irrational things I really shouldn’t do, so

Oh absolutely. I used to "follow my instincts" until I realised it was actually overally controlling huge aspects of my life. But yeah, I hate when people tell me those things because, like you said, it's mostly irrational actions

Definitely. “Never ignore a gut instinct”, while good advice for those without ocd, always makes me feel like my compulsions are validated since they make me feel safer.

Yes I've grown to not like them very much. Whenever people give me that as advice I cringe.

When I said that, I was referring to false vs real memories. The person wasn’t sure whether the memory was false or real and I just said go with what you feel about the memory and try your best to deal with the anxiety. Of course I am not saying to follow any irrational thoughts or things. It’s just that when it came to false memories, and the endless anxiety related to them, this sort of thinking is what helped me cope with the uncertainty of the memory. It’s essentially just go with your best guess. I admit that I may have used poor phrasing. Unless you’re Sheldon Cooper and have an eidetic memory and remember every moment of your life, there will be times when you question your memory and the OCD part of your brain obsesses over it or your imagination runs wild and the OCD tries to convince you it’s real. I dealt with that nonsense for 10+ years. In the end, you can either obsess endlessly about it or try and follow what you feel about the memory as to whether it’s fake or real. The person was asking for advice on how to deal with that uncertainty, and that type of feeling (ie following your gut) is what helped me in dealing with the uncertainty of a memory.

I understand. I was trying to help someone. I spent 3 years obsessing about something because my brain tried to convince me I did something that I knew never happened and wasn’t in my nature to do. In the end it’s about trying to deal with this disorder the best you can. Being unsure about what you remember is one of the worst parts of OCD.

So things like "trust your gut" may get mixed up with whatever messages or signals my OCD sends to my brain. I have to take a time-out and think, "what's really going on here." Are my emotion into play or is this really logical thinking?

I'd say it annoys me, but not triggers me

Holy hell yes

I run into this a lot of times, not just personally, but at work too. Without giving away too much detail, if I'm at work and something doesn't feel right, I have this uneasy feeling like 'I must investigate this' in order to get on with work. I find that I don't go for the easy answers and that I tend to overanalyze for fear that I may miss an important detail.

YES THIS MAKES ME SO MAD