- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
When you faced the 'what if I did?' idea, that was an exposure to the fear, and that's why your anxiety dropped afterward. Doesn't mean it is true, just means you faced it.
- Date posted
- 5y
Interesting :)When you did lots of checking, the worry got worse, but when you accepted the possibility, your brain was able to drop the subject. .. what can you learn from that
- Date posted
- 5y
Hang in there! I hear it does get easier
- Date posted
- 5y
Hey OCDhope! This is a pretty common worry when someone struggles with OCD. You should try to sit with your thoughts and tell yourself “yep, maybe I did do it”. Watch how your anxiety gets high and low. This is a form of ERP. Also, try your best not to seek reassurance or check these memories.
- Date posted
- 5y
Hey Gaby, that does work most of the time. However, for a while I thought I hit someone with my car every day on the way to and from work, and thinking I actually did hit them caused significant trauma. I'm only just now starting to cope, it's been months of screaming at myself that it's not possible if I have no car damage. My point is, while it does help for most anxieties with OCD to give in and accept that it might have happened, I find in my experience that it may also be very troubling. I wish everyone the best in their struggles in however they choose to cope. ♡
- Date posted
- 5y
@krissyny Yees. ERP doesnt work for me since I cant accept that I would do something bad.
- Date posted
- 5y
That is what OCD is, convincing you of things that aren't actually true because you think that if you have the thought, it must be true, but thoughts aren't facts, they are simply an electrical signal in the brain
- Date posted
- 5y
I think I doubt those thoughts even more because I did do some things I'm not proud of and I'm afraid to repeat those mistakes. I had thoughts then too and I did act on those thoughts. I convinced myself it was okay (it was nothing criminal). But OCD doesn't make people act. It usually attaches itself to things you value the most and makes you scared you could do it. And I'm scared shitless to repeat those mistakes. One of my therapists once told me to be careful because a thought didn't scare me right away meaning I was okay with the possible action again. I wasn't. I had just thought "it's just a thought". That created a delayed fear that maybe I hadn't been scared because I did do them and was trying to hide it from everyone including myself. And for the past month I've been thinking that those thoughts I had that seemed so real I double checked to make sure it couldn't have happened had to be real.
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- 5y
That I probably did it.
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- 5y
Are there any other interpretations?
- Date posted
- 5y
@NOCD Advocate - Katie I can't really think of anything. I think I just accepted the fact that I've done those things and blocked them out. The current reduction of stress means that I just had to accept I did it. (Except my mind is currently whispering that I really didn't).
- Date posted
- 5y
@ocdhope May I suggest an alternative?
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- 5y
@NOCD Advocate - Katie Of course!
- Date posted
- 5y
@ocdhope Accepting the fear, whether or not it is true in reality, let your brain move on to thinking about the present. Instead of trying to untangle the knot, you cut through it
- Date posted
- 5y
Omg I struggle with the same thing :(
- Date posted
- 5y
That's where I am right now. I probably did it which is why I thought about it. That makes me think I need to no longer be around people.
- Date posted
- 5y
That's why I must have felt so guilty a few days after the thought happened and then I convinced myself it was just a thought but really it wasn't and years later it came back as soon as I heard the word "blackout" in a podcast my brain searched for moments where I could have blacked out awful things I must have done. I found 3. I spent hours crying over the possibility of them being real. Checking and re-checking. Mental reviewing. Coming up with 50 reasons why they are not real. And yet...this evening I was just like "accept their reality. It happened. You did it. Move on. " and I felt calmer but the problem is I'm accepting things that are problematic to me.
- Date posted
- 5y
Im pretty sure i didnt do something. But I have an image in my brain and my ocd tells me. If i have an image, it can be true. I know rationally that i can be my imagination. But since i dont remember for sure I obsess over it. What if it happened?
- Date posted
- 5y
I cant accept my fears coming true.
- Date posted
- 5y
I get it. Mine was a thought/image. I double checked right after it happened to make sure it wasn't true and it didn't bother me for days, then it didn't bother me for years until now. I spent so many hours checking and re-checking and reviewing and contacting people. But my mind now seems to give up on proving it isn't true and is like "okay it must be true" which then makes me a horrible person ... but it's like it's tired of trying to prove something it can't prove. It also cannot prove it is true for sure but it seems less bothered by that...which makes no sense.
- Date posted
- 5y
I have the exact same problem. It's really difficult. :(
- Date posted
- 5y
Thank you for sharing. I feel less alone!
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
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.
- Date posted
- 24w
Hey all, I’ve been having some ebbs and flows in recovery, but for the most part I’ve really had a lot of improvements in quality of life since starting treatment in 2023. Something that really trips me up is ruminating on my past and looking for “evidence” or “proof” that the things that I’m obsessed with are real and not OCD. I spend quite a lot of time doing this. I wasn’t fully aware I was doing it until recently. Example: that I’m secretly gay and lying to everyone (I’m bi), that I’m a horrible person deep down, that I’ve never actually loved any person including my family, that I have the “wrong” political or religious beliefs. I look for proof in every corner of my past. It makes some sense that I think this way because with my previous therapist, who I saw for 8 years and did not diagnose me with OCD, we would look for evidence and proof that my obsessions are irrational and I learned to deal with them that way. At the time it was a lot of health concern and contamination themes, but I literally learned to ruminate and search for relief. But I just kept getting sicker and sicker until I got diagnosed with OCD. It’s a frustrating compulsion that keeps showing up for me. What if these scary things are true? What if it’s not OCD at all and I’m in denial? Have I lied my way into thinking I have OCD? It’s so hard. Anyway, I’m curious if anyone else has come across this in recovery? Let me know your thoughts and I hope you’re well. ❤️
- Date posted
- 21w
How do you know the difference :( I genuinely cannot keep living in this torment. it all started with an ‘intrusive thought’ where I had like a hazy flash of something reading an article. and I remember thinking ‘what if’ and ‘what is this’ and then that intrusive thought turned into me ‘remembering’ something else. which caused me panic. then I started trying to find evidence because it contradicted what I remembered this entire time. this was last year in like september. fast forward to march this year, it came back up- but this time stronger and with more ‘details’ and what nots. and I’ve been ruminating on it since then trying to remember and connect and It’s like I’ve added all of these details. but are they real? or is this just my OCD? I just feel like if it were real I would have never been able to keep it to myself. but also what if it was so traumatic that I blocked it out? because it all makes NO sense for me to do something like that. but it also fits what I was thinking at the time. idk
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