"Is it possible for OCD to ______________?" Is a really common question here. Usually it's a question the person writing the post can answer for themselves. Imagine the person in the photo noticed that they were wearing a silver spiked hologram romper and thought "wow, this is strange, I've never worn this before". If they turned around and asked you "is it possible for me to wear a silver spiked hologram romper?" , You'd probably be confused. Because the answer is "yes, obviously it is because you are wearing it. You don't need me to tell you what you already know". It's the exact same thing with the "can OCD _______?" questions. OCD creates so much doubt that we don't trust our own experiences. But asking someone else to confirm our experiences teaches our brains to trust ourselves even less. If we want to teach our brains to trust ourselves more, we need to tolerate, even welcome, the doubt while still answering our own question.

This is something I’d like to know too.

I think just the fact that you are questioning it and constantly trying to run from the thought answers this. "What if" questions can cross anyones mind, What this means is that YES OCD can cause you to have these THOUGHTS because that is all they are. But remembering that Thoughts are not equivalent to Truths or actions.

One lie OCD often tells us, no matter our "theme" is "this doubt is different" or "this fear is worse". Buying into those thoughts and believing them makes recovery much harder. So the question "how do I deal with doubt from POCD?" Needs to be changed to "how do I deal with intense doubt?", because intense doubt is present in most OCD symptoms. The next thing to realize is that acceptance is an ongoing process that takes practice to get good at. And, it's a behavior, not a feeling. Trying to "feel" accepting is a losing battle. "acting" accepting is one you can win.

@NOCD Advocate - Katie How do we "act" accepting to these themes?

@Ferchi Good question. It's a lot of "ok. It's possible. I'm going to play tag with my nephew anyways". Essentially it's carrying on with normal life. Saying "maybe" to the fear and then continuing to behave as if it isn't true. For example, if you had the extra income, would you save money for retirement?

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I would, so essentially, it is exposing ourselves through "acting" accepting of the thoughts? So if I am afraid of driving at night fearing I might take my life, I should "act" as though it is possible but drive anyway?

@Ferchi Yes. Exactly. And you can tie in your values too- act accepting by driving because you value your friend and want to go to their birthday celebration

@NOCD Advocate - Katie Thank you for the help!!!

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I feel like something helpful with POCD and getting more comfortable with tolerating the maybe can be working on the inappropriate levels of responsibility and moral sides of OCD and the way our brains make the fear so vivid by adding consequences. The discomfort looks like it tends to boil down to not feeling safe to not obsess/do compulsions because if it's true then they need to keep other people safe (responsibility) and/or wouldn't deserve to live (moral). Seems to me like it's important to remember that it's nobody's job to live a life of intense suffering just on the mere chance that it might prevent bad things from happening to others. It also seems clear to me that no person can "be" something which would mean they don't deserve to live- whatever is in your mind or whatever you think you "are", you have and always will have control of your actions and they are what matters. If you wouldn't convict someone else of thought crime, why would it be appropriate for yourself? It's all the imagining scenarios of public shaming and hatred "if they knew what happens in my head/if they really knew me" which fuel this, and it's very black and white to see the absolute worst case scenario as the inevitable one, and to believe that they wouldn't be able to handle any of it.

@Louw You make a good point. Many people with OCD have to learn to see the grey area in between black and white. That often applies to morality

I have POCD and work with kids year round. I remember about 15 years ago (has it really been that long ☺?) I thought I might have to quit before I has hardly gotten started. I told a mentor, whose young daughter I was close to, about my thoughts. Thankfully he was understanding. While that understanding was a gift, the doubts have still lingered and take practice to deal with. I suppose the daily work is an extreme exposure. Either I deal with it, or find a new line of work.

I thought on it for a while before I got it how I wanted

You're a very smart cookie, this is actually something like what Seneca the younger describes doing in his letters to Lucilius. They're stoics so they basically spent their lives doing exposures in order to be able to handle anything.

I highly recommend the very compact and insightful book "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius if you'd like to explore the idea more.

@Louw Haha thanks :)

@Jamarceline There's also a daily meditation book called The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday.