Having a bad morning. This one stupid meaningless thought has snowballed into wrecking whatever peace I had. I had a random intrusive sexual thought involving my mom and that started it. Now I’ll occasionally get more of those intrusive thoughts and I’m hating it. I feel incredibly ashamed, guilty, anxious, and embarrassed. The idea of even looking at her causes me anxiety. I woke up earlier than I’d like because I couldn’t sleep anymore from tension, it feels like the anxiety is eating me up, I’m sweating and shaking. When I finally got out of bed I got hit with a wave of nausea and I don’t have an appetite despite being hungry. I don’t know what to do. I have a therapist that I recently starting working with through NOCD and I messaged her on how I was feeling yesterday but no response yet, plus my next appointment with her is Monday. Part of me feels like I should confess to my mom but I’m afraid that’ll scare her or have her think I’m some sick freak. I’m only in the monitoring part of my ERP and even more so this new thought popped up after my last session with my therapist so it’s completely new and I don’t know how to stop.

How can I let go of it? I tried to tell myself that it’s not me thinking this it’s the OCD and that helps a little but then when my mom is home the shame and fear comes back. It hurts so bad because I feel I should isolate myself away from her but then I feel sad that I’m hurting her by being away from her :(

@Evelyn4416 Based on what you know about OCD, do you think it's going to be more helpful or hurtful long term to avoid your mom? Same question for trying to reassure yourself.

Thank you I’ll avoid doing that then

@Evelyn4416 Sounds like instead of avoiding your mum, maybe you can take the opportunity to be around her and sit with the shame and fear without doing any compulsions based on it. Avoidance is itself a compulsion! And so is confessing or asking her for reassurance or arguing with or believing your shame. Try to do all the things you would normally do and find that you survived the experience! It's all about that! Teaching your brain that you can survive having the feelings and doing nothing about them. You definitely can. Then they get much less over time because the OCD isn't getting a response out of you.

@Evelyn4416 I'm also not saying that you can never talk to your mum about what is going on with you. It just might cause more problems than solving them, and give you more urges to ask her for reassurance or input (compulsions). You're not alone in having those intrusive thoughts, and they don't make you a bad person.

@Louw You’re completely right I think confessing would just create a bigger mess of this. But thank you so much for your insight: I agree that spending time with her regardless of the best way to combat this, plus not doing the compulsions. I find it hard right now since the thoughts are seeming frequent and the distress of it affecting me outwardly. But looking forward to them becoming less and disappearing.

@Louw However, it is really hard to talk to and be around my mom right now. I know she wants to talk to me about what’s wrong because she can tell I’m having a bad day, but how can I do that when I’m scared to be with her :(

Keep doing the best you can ☺. You've survived tough days before, you can do it again til Monday.