My OCD is a little odd. I have intrusive thoughts about my loved ones getting hurt, mostly my girlfriend being raped. She’s in the army and you hear such horrible stories and I’ll be at my internship (we have a lot of people who have been sexually abused there) and I’m worried that since the people who need to share their stories make me spiral and spend twenty minutes trying to convince myself she’s not being by one of her fellow soldiers, that I’m not cut out to be a psychologist. They always get graphic and I end up convinced it’s actually happening. We’ve talked about it and she said she takes precautions and she’s mostly around women (only comforted me a little. I’ve been sexually abused by a woman) and that she’ll be fine and that if something does happen she’ll tell me, but still. It scares me so much. Like, how do you deal with graphic intrusive thoughts of someone you love with all your heart- someone you may want to marry down the road- being penetrated against her will? It’s so terrifying and I think it might be interfering with my work.

I’m having a very bad evening with my intrusive thoughts. I was doing really good dealing with them but tonight one hit me hard. I’ve been having a lot of different intrusive thoughts but I’ll have one occasionally about hurting my mom or my dog who I love and they’re the only family I have in my life. They’re my world. I was helping my mom put away the dishes and I had the big kitchen knife in my hand and my intrusive thought was you could stab your mom. And then my brain said I had a twitch in my hand and that meant I wanted to do it. Let me just say that I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I actually caught a fly in a glass and put it outside instead of killing it this evening before this intrusive thought happened. I’m such a gentle and compassionate and caring person and these thoughts instantly cause me to have a panic attack. And I have no one to talk to them about. I know they’re hard for my mom to hear and I don’t want to be any more of a burden than I already am. I do desperately want to tell her and have her reassure me that I’m not crazy or a psycho. Then my thoughts wander to if your hand did flinch could you be a psychopath. Is hurting someone in you. I know it’s not but I feel like my mind is out to get me and hurt me. I’m working so hard and I thought I was doing so good but I need to know why I have these thoughts. They’re not ok. I need someone to help me make sense of why. I know we aren’t supposed to ruminate but I shouldn’t have thoughts like this about people I love and care about the most in the world.

I am starting to come to grips with intrusive thoughts, reading how your brain will think of the worst thing / or make you think of something that really distresses you. BUT, I’ve got something I need to get off my chest, not looking for reassurance but just to know I’m not alone I guess? I remember one time, I saw a girl I follow on Instagram go on a marathon, and then went straight out for dinner after without showering and I had the passing thought of, gosh she must smell, even worse, she must smell down there. That has got to be the worst intrusive thought EVER, and because it affected me so much, I have the urge to think of this horrible horrible thought most times I look at people. Wondering if they smell!!!! It’s disgusting!!!! :( I don’t know if this is because I also have contamination ocd and I do obsess about feeling and being clean.

This might contain triggering content, but I'm also wondering if others have dealt with this similar thought, and if so, how to deal with it? Overall, I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm able to eat again, which I hadn't been able to do because of how much anxiety I'd been experiencing. I'm spending time around loved ones and not just rotting in my room, and I've been able to wake up without immediately being bombarded by intrusive thoughts. When things first got really bad, I'd wake my mom up every night for reassurance, but I haven't done that in a while either. I'm really proud of myself, but there's still this nagging thought in my mind... While looking through others posts on here, hoping to find advice that'd fit my situation, I ended up making things worse. Someone mentioned how they had a fear that they'd purposely search for illegal content (related to POCD). I panicked, and "what ifs" flooded my thoughts. "What if the intrusive thoughts affect who I am as a person, and I do that?" I'm terrified that I'll search for those things, which I know means I wouldn't do it. But then, another person on here said they'd actually looked for those things, and that freaked me out even more. Does that mean it's possible for that to happen to me? I don't want to do that, but I keep having intrusive thoughts surrounding it. I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm just... stuck. I don't know what to do. I've spoken with other people who have the same fears, but how do I manage this? It's not something I've even thought about before seeing those posts. I've been practicing accepting the uncertainty, but I'm really struggling with this one. I hate this. This morning, I woke up, and the intrusive thoughts were back. It's just disheartening.