Long post ahead: I feel like I need to just get this off my chest, so here it goes: I had some really good days last week and thought I was finally coming out of this OCD slump. Then Saturday and Sunday were not so good days. I was starting to feel extremely stressed, which triggered my anxiety, which triggered my OCD, which triggered all my "what if" intrusive thoughts. For those of you that don't know, my main OCD theme is harm. It is aimed at my daughter, and I'm in constant fear. Anyway, last night, she was using the restroom and saw me walk by with one of her toys. She immediately started screaming at me that she wanted the toy. I turned around and screamed back at her. Ya'll...the terrified look on her face was absolutely earth shattering. I hurt her emotionally and probably mentally in that moment. I then grabbed her and laid in my bed with her, snuggling her while she cried. When her dad came and got her, I sobbed and cried so hard. I felt like a monster. I feel like I acted on my obsession. I hate that. I have also been wondering lately if I am starting to develop rocd towards her lately. I feel like there's a wedge being shoved in between us. Almost like I'm starting to resent her or something. The thing is, I love her more than anything. I would lay down my life for her without a second thought. I'm feeling like she deserves a better mother. Thanks for listening.

Sometimes OCD can change our mood and make us act in ways that we don’t normally do. I also suffer from harm ocd and once I yelled at my friend who was just playing around with me. I regretted it afterwards and felt sad of what I said but we gotta realize that having intrusive thoughts while trying to “live a normal life” is very tough. We’re suffering mentally something uncontrollable, so don’t be too hard on yourself. We make mistakes, let’s learn from them.

Honestly this reminded me of Jung. He reckoned we all have a shadow, which is partly made out of our potential to do bad things. He said that the only way to overcome the shadow is by integrating it- accepting it as part of ourselves and always being aware of it so we can choose not to do bad things. With OCD it's like the stuff in our shadow terrifies us, we're horrified by the idea that we have the potential to do bad things so we spend all our energy running away from it, resisting it and arguing with it. And because of that, we're actually less able to be in control of our choices than we would be if we accepted it as part of us. In this case the bit of the shadow would be your potential to make mistakes as a parent, to not be loving/kind/gentle/X "enough" or always towards your child, and to harm others either deliberately or as lashing out. We all have the potential to do the stuff we fear. OCD can make a self fulfilling prophecy- making you so stressed that your temper is short and your impulse control is worn out, social OCD keeps people so afraid of being judged by others that they damage their relationships which can cause judgement as well as isolation, people with POCD spend their time imagining graphic things they're desperate to have nothing to do with, just to be sure they don't like them. Etc. I know that OCD is often about things well and truly outside of us and can be about not being able to control the outside world, but Jungian analysis makes a lot of sense to me for the OCD which is about the inner world. After all, treatment is about saying that yes, maybe you'll harm your kid, you have the potential to harm your kid, because you're a human being, whether it's parental mistakes or deliberate actions. Being aware of that potential empowers you to choose not to do what you don't want to do. You will always have your choices.