Hi :-) has anyone ended up convincing themselves they did something they didn't do? I've been wrestling with wondering if past thoughts were actually memories. For the past month I've reviewed and checked and asked people...nothing point to anything happening and yet as I told myself today, it must have happened, I felt calmer like "okay, well now you know." Part of it is also now wondering what else I may have blacked out. But so far I am more at peace than I have been when I was going through the "what if it did happen?" (Things from 10 years ago).

Without trying to seek reassurance, I’m wondering if anyone has insight on identifying an intrusive thought vs reality. Something that’s always really helped ground me in moments of false memory ocd is clearly remembering the exact moment the thought arose and how it started as “what if I cheated and don’t remember.” Then the images come and are extremely distressing, but I’ve always found some comfort in coming back to that moment of “this started as what if.” It feels like my brain is almost getting more creative with the thoughts now, and I’ve been having probably the worst anxiety of my life the past couple months after another intrusive thought entered my mind. I woke up after a night drinking and thought to myself “did you kiss your friend and don’t remember?” (Didn’t happen, undeniably proved). The rest of the day I stayed anxious about other things I could have done and poured over all my memories of the night. Then the next day I finally had found some peace based on all the evidence from my friends who were with me that nothing bad happened. I then thought “what about when you went to the bathroom,” which I hadn’t really been thinking about before, and then my mind immediately started flashing with images of me performing sex acts in the bathroom with some person who has no name, face, details, or anything I remember about interacting with them. I think I’m just concerned that this was a moment of genuine memory recall since I hadn’t been thinking about the bathroom before, and it was more of a sudden flash of images and “did you do that” vs “what if you did that.” I’m wondering how others are able to identify that something is an intrusive thought vs reality.

Does anyone else experience a moment of clarity where you feel strong relief that the intrusive thought isn’t true, only to then immediately start questioning if you’ve only convinced yourself that because you don’t want the thought to be true? I’m pretty confident it would take some crazy mental gymnastics to actually successfully convince myself I didn’t do something that I deep down knew I did, but every time I resist the compulsions and try to sit with the uncertainty or tell myself to think about what is logical, I usually briefly know that this probably didn’t happen but am unable to move on out of fear I’m just in denial and have convinced myself of that.

So. I was in a traumatic relationship. for a long time. it was filled with gaslighting, manipulation, abuse, cheating ect. I would OBSESS over finding out where they were, what they were doing, who they were talking too. but I couldn’t leave. I tried so hard but I never could. they would call me names, physically hurt me, throw things, break things. because I would question them all the time. but I just couldn’t leave. no matter what I knew. they would manipulate me. I fell for their childhood trauma. it’s like I lost all logic. but I also feel like I have a pretty good memory with memories. not all the way, but remembering a lot of the traumatic things. especially now that I’m no longer with them. I keep remembering things that’s happened. even from my childhood. one time way before I even started dating this person, I had an intrusive thought about a friend of mine. that was with me. and I freaked out. I thought I had acted on the intrusive thought the next day. I asked my friend for confirmation but they said nothing happened. but the memories about it feel SO REAL. so VIVID. but they swore that nothing happened and they had no idea what I was talking about. I’ve struggled with intrusive thoughts for my whole life. so fast forward to now, that ‘false memory’ from my friend randomly popped up and I started obsessing about it, and my childhood ‘memories’ that have popped up. and then I was reading an article of someone doing something horrible, and then it sounded ‘familiar’ and so then I’ve created this whole memory of me doing something similar to the article involving my partner doing it also. the memory keeps adding new things and conversations around it. when it involves an actual real memory. but it’s like it’s been twisted from what I remembered before. I also suffer from bad anxiety. I’ve stalked pictures. my search history to figure out what I was doing that say when the real event happened. and I’ve found some things but I can’t look through my texts because I got a new phone. it has been hounding me for months. MONTHS. trying to figure out if this new ‘memory’ is real or not. if it’s been fabricated by an intrusive thought from reading the article and thinking ‘what if’ or if it actually happened and because I’m no longer in this relationship it’s a ‘repressed memory’ but the thing is I have horrible horrible anxiety and I don’t think I could have gone this long knowingly that that happened without remembering it until now. because I remember a lot of the horrible things that they did. this ‘memory’ is fuzzy, but it brings me horrible anxiety when I think of it, like I feel like it happened. but I also feel like it didn’t happen. because I know I would never do anything like that. but WHAT IF I DID, because I was manipulated. idk. is this a false memory. I really need help. because it’s been debilitating. that relationship was really traumatic. and I got manipulated into a lot of things. but I wouldn’t have just went forward knowing that that happened??? there’s no way I could have just forgotten it. because before when I would think about that night it was different, until now. but what if I just made myself forget what truly happened?? I’m a pretty self aware individual, but somehow that relationship really REALLY put me into a trance somehow where I allowed things that I have no idea how I would even allow because before I met that person I would have never allowed someone to cheat on my constantly or talk to me the way they did. or allow abuse. like I don’t understand it.