- Username
- puzzled_nut
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Same here I used to get confused about the same things. Obsessions are your intrusive thoughts, urges, images, fantasies etc. Compulsions are what your ocd tells you to do, when your intrusive thoughts come. We should never do compulsions, because they are the thing your ocd tells you to do when you get the thoughts. You don’t have to stop the thoughts, just ignore the intrusive thoughts. What are your thoughts like?
I will start thinking about a time someone wronged me or hurt me and I will replay the conversation over and over and over in my head. I thought replaying the conversation was the compulsion, but then it started feeling intrusive. I think the ocd is telling me to ruminate about what happened. I’m scared that if I accidentally try to stop the wrong thoughts, I will end up making the ocd worse.
@Nattt “Fantasies” shouldn’t be included. That’s something you enjoy<
We shouldn’t let compulsions or obsessions in our mind, I ignore both of them because both are apart of the ocd cycle, and they make ocd stronger if we do them or focus on the obsessions
The intrusive thoughts are the ones that you don’t like, that hurt you in a way, that you think are not good and etc. Those are the thoughts, when you get any of those thoughts I think they are ocd thoughts because they are intrusive. So dont worry, try to not think about any of those intrusive thoughts. Try to remove your focus from them. If it’s possible, you can write some thoughts on a paper and come up with a positive line for example : Thought :She hurt me Positive thought: I can’t keep on crying about it now, time has passed by. If she hurt me, I shouldn’t care cause she probably didn’t deserve a great person like me
I'm not the one to say someone is wrong and I am not a mental health professional but in my research what your saying is detrimental and will not work. Blocking the intrusive thoughts or distracting yourself from then will only make them come in stronger and leave you less equipt to deal with the anxiety when it comes. As I researched you should do a recovery therapy called ERP, look it up it will help you.
The obsessions are the spontaneous thoughts that cause distress. For example "ohhh you looked at his crotch. You just be gay!" The compulsions are the thoughts you use to try to decrease the distress. These might be reassurance "no, I'm not gay, I love women", reviewing memories for evidence for or against the fear "remember how tingly I felt when I first met my wife" or "there was that time in elementary school when I kissed my best friend tommy on a dare, maybe I really am gay", checking thoughts "I'll look at gay/straight porn and see whether I get aroused", pushing thoughts away "no! I won't think that!", etc. In general, thought stopping (ex the stop sign technique) and thought replacing (replacing negative thoughts with positive ones) is a slippery slope in OCD. Those behaviors quickly turn into compulsions
It all just becomes a big jumbled mess in my head in the moment. It’s gone now though. I took a nap and I’m feeling better. It’s just frustrating when it gets like that.
The only thing you need to stop doing is the compulsion but in term of figuring out which is which I'm not sure in your case
im not diagnosed, but these past two days have been terrible. i constantly have this underlying feeling that i might do something that i think is gross and i feel like i can’t do anything on my own because otherwise i might do something wrong. like i feel like i constantly have to be in front of people so that i can make sure of my every action. this is so exhausting and I’m so confused. and like i keep getting terrible images and stuff replaying in my head. i also try to recall what happened but i feel like i have false event too. i used to have religious ocd and that eventually stopped completely, but now it feels like all my work getting over that was pointless. also like i feel like i might have contamination ocd but not the typical germ type. I just get terrible images and I can’t remember if those images are true or not even though they’re impossible and i feel terrible. I don’t know if i could ever get over this because even the thought of it is terrible.
does anyone else use the fact that they dont like their thoughts as a confirmation/compulsion, and or when you go through something stressful with little to no compulsions take it as a sign they actually like it? is this apart of usual rumination or am I expirencing something different? and how do you deal with it?
I have a lot of thoughts about the universe, and they’re overwhelming—like being caught in a rip current, except it’s all inside my head. Most of the time, they’re about how small we are, how there really isn’t a “we” because our bodies aren’t truly ours—we’re just bacteria, cells, and microbes. The thoughts spiral, deeper and deeper, smaller and smaller, coiling until suddenly, I’m pulled under, drowning in a whirlpool. I’ve never felt like this before, and I’m convinced I’ve been faking it somehow. For the past few weeks, my OCD has been worse than it’s ever been in my 20 years of life. Or maybe I’m just more aware of it now. Has anyone else had their OCD suddenly get really bad? Does it ever end—if it even can? I’ve convinced myself that my intrusive thoughts aren’t actually intrusive, that my OCD is a choice, and that everything I do is intentional. As for compulsions, I don’t have the typical “If I don’t do ____ then ____ will happen” kind of thoughts. Instead, my brain simply commands, “Do ____,” and I always give in. It’s so loud in my head, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m an imposter. Like I don’t belong here—like my presence on this app is an intrusion, invalidating everyone else’s struggles just by downloading it and daring to post. If anyone feels that way, if you think I’m intruding, I’m sorry. I only came here because I have no one to share my diagnosis with. Pouring my thoughts out, hoping someone might understand, feels less suffocating than journaling. Journaling is like letting a wound fester—each word burying the thoughts deeper, leaving them to decay in silence, for nobody to ever read but myself.
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