i hate when i test myself thinking that i’ll be able to control my response or just to see how i would react to something but then end up with the complete opposite of the response i wanted and then begin to stress about why i reacted that certain way even though i did because it’s literally a trigger. but then i feel like i did it to myself or that i wanted it because i purposefully thought of it. it’s a terrible cycle.

I could decide to conjure up horrific scenes of all sorts of heinous shit if I wanted to. I could ACTIVELY bring up awful images of all sorts of stuff and the fact that I did so STILL wouldn't say anything about me. Anybody in the world could decide to deliberately imagine something unpleasant for any reason and it wouldn't make them a bad person. Deciding to think of women kissing wouldn't be evidence that the thinker is gay. I'm literally thinking about those guys who have sex with car exhaust pipes, right now. Does deliberately thinking of that make me a secret/future car-fucker? Also, regardless of whatever the feelings are which are triggered by the stuff you imagine, if you didn't want those feelings then you didn't want them. You said the words "complete opposite of the response I wanted", followed by "I feel like I wanted it". Although, for the sake of sanity here, yes you 'did do it to yourself' technically by choosing to do a checking compulsion despite knowing they don't usually turn out well. I'm guessing this is some kind of arousal thing. Maybe replacing it with a different emotion can help for examples: like, say I decide to think of cute little babies doing cute things from various vines/tiktoks because I want to feel warm and fuzzy, as I'm anxious and trying to get to sleep. But instead, imagining that stuff reminds me of that baby who wouldn't stop crying on the plane I took home recently, and now I'm seriously aggravated instead. Does that mean I wanted to be aggravated? Was my intention to be aggravated by babies? Or was my intention to be soothed by them? If my intention was to be soothed, does the fact that I thought of it and got aggravated instead mean that I somehow secretly wanted to be aggravated? Was I secretly trying to make sure I stayed awake and irritated all night? Well- no. I wanted to go to sleep and be soothed by cute babies. If I find that thinking of cute babies always ends up reminding me of annoying babies and making me feel worse, or I realise that I'm using thinking of cute babies as a way of trying to test a fear that I'll find all babies annoying, then I should probably stop thinking of cute babies and think of something else instead. Yes it is a terrible cycle, but while you're not in control of the feelings caused by stuff you imagine, you're in control of pretty much everything else in this scenario. You can choose to not imagine. You can choose to not check. If you get an outcome you didn't want, you can choose not to ruminate about why you had an outcome you don't want, and you can choose not to dwell on the idea that you somehow wanted the reaction you got.

Do you have control over whether your nose itches? Or whether your stomach grumbles? Or armpits feel sweaty/sticky? Or ears ring?