- Username
- ocdsvcks
- Date posted
- 4y ago
This kind of thing is *unbelievably* common. But you're not going to feel any better by canvassing all the other stories. Even with real event OCD, ERP is pretty much the answer. You can survive feeling awful about this and staying with that until it does eventually reduce. It's good for our fears to sometimes know facts, like that this is common or that tasting blood when you puked doesn't mean you have internal bleeding or that guilt and self blame after going through a trauma is near enough universal. Facts are good, we need them to get an idea of where we stand in the world. But you don't need minutiae or to be reminded or to remind yourself that this is common. You got reassurance from the reply here which brought you down from severe anxiety and rumination, and that's bad for you. You already have heard before that this kind of thing happens a lot, it wasn't that you didn't know the facts and needed input, it's that you felt guilty and anxious anyway and wanted to hear somebody else put your memory into that category because you fear that it's an exception and a reflection on you. Habituate to the anxiety, and let yourself process the guilt too. If you don't let the guilt happen and pass back away again before you try to assure yourself of comforting things, then what you understand to be most likely true won't feel true and you'll keep going into spirals analysing your motivations and whether you knew better etc. You've said the reasons why your intrusive worry is wrong, you clearly know the facts but they don't feel true enough to cancel out the OCD guilt, as Katie was saying the other day.
thank u so much. i was honestly too afraid to speak about it because i didn’t know that this was common at all which is why i felt so sick to my stomach thinking about why i would ever do that. but my mind incessantly told me that i molested my brother. but thank u, im gonna try to sit with the anxiety. what do u recommend i should say to the thoughts or the memory/guilt when it pops up? cause i know ur supposed to agree with it but how would that look in this situation?
@ocdsvcks "maybe I am a molester and this is who I am", "maybe I knew exactly what I was doing", "maybe I damaged my brother", "maybe I would be judged about this". Basically a "yes, maybe" to whatever pops up for you, without starting to actually try to work out whether it's true. It's going to feel shitty, but you can do it. I do ERP by noticing when I'm triggered by the sensations in my body and then just keeping my focus in my body and on those sensations. It prevents me from having the opportunity to reassure myself, and it's less overwhelming. If I'm accidentally engaging with the thought, I bring my focus back to the feelings and remind myself that now is ERP/feeling time, not thinking time. I really lean into the physical feelings, and when they're starting to fade or I'm getting bored and my mind wanders onto something non-OCD, I re-trigger myself. Rinse and repeat. Just do it in a safe comfortable place when you've got a good few hours to yourself, with nice food etc. It's horrible to have to do but for me, it allows me to be able to address a topic later without the intense anxiety which causes my emotional reasoning.
@ocdsvcks I find "maybe" works just as well as agreeing with it, it sparks the same panic without so much temptation to instinctively defend yourself or solve it.
@Scoggy okay so basically, whenever i get triggered, instead of doing a compulsion i should focus on my anxiety and let my self feel it while also repeating the may be may be not phrases in my head? and also, when do i know that i should stop doing this?
@ocdsvcks Better to say maybe than "maybe, maybe not" really, because you do need to trigger the actual fear and the fear is that it might be true, not that it might be true and might be false. Also you probably don't need to repeat the phrase at all, I never do, we're not doing a magic spell. Just bring your mind back to that possibility of it being true if you find you've gotten bored, the aim is to keep triggering the anxiety and processing it in the body.
@Scoggy okay got it. i heard when u get bored of ur exposure that means u have to stop though?
@ocdsvcks For me, I use the moment to re trigger myself so that I get more done at once. I guess you don't have to. Getting hung up on the detail can be a way of avoiding actually doing it
@ocdsvcks You certainly don't "have to" stop when you get bored lol
@Scoggy okay gotcha!! thank u so so so much this helped me a lot!
Ocdsucks are you male or female ? Don't want to tell you I'm just curious. This event was completely harmless but you already know that.
i’m a female
it’s like the more i analyze the memory the more questions pop up like, how long did it last? we’re u really that young? did u orgasm? like it makes me sick to my stomach
Further questions coming up is very typical for OCD. OCD never gets enough. It is insatiable. It is very perfidious. It tricks you giving the feeling if you only answer this last question then everything will be fine. But it won't be because like I said all OCD is an insatiable monster. The only way to get to use is to give up the topic without investigating any further. The problem is that OCD won't let you go this easy and will try to get you back to the topic. Sometimes medications can make it easier to get away from it.
i wanna try medication so badly. i heard abilify works rlly well. i just hate having this anxiety at all times cause it makes me feel like shit
use=peace
Yes medication is not that bad. does not change your personality or something like that like some people like to say. It will make it easier to with stand OCD. The first line medication for OCD are serotonin reuptake inhibitor s ( SSRI)
once i get a therapist, i’m gonna see if i can get on an SSRI. i heard that it basically makes ur symptoms manageable so that therapy is more doable
Yes indeed, it is said to be the most effective approach.
good because i rlly don’t think i can live with the guilt and shame. i feel like suicide is my old option sometimes cause it’s just so overwhelming. i don’t wanna die, i just want to stop suffering. are u being treated for ur ocd?
It is really heartbreaking to see you suffer and feeling bad about an incident that is nothing, not even worth one second to think about. From here it looks like you are being harassed by a bully trying to talk you into that you are a bad person. The question is: would you really started discussion with this bully in real life or try to persuade him you are not well knowing that this is what I get this energy from ? Wouldn't it be better to tell him: "oh yes whatever maybe I even am a bad girl now f*** Off OCD and let me continue living my life. Can you try that ?
it’s so painful i can’t even describe it. even though multiple people have told me that this was normal and common, my brain keeps trying to convince me that i’m a disgusting child molester and that i need to be locked up and i’m unworthy of love and can’t be trusted. literally even talking to my boyfriend is a trigger cause my mind is like “u don’t deserve to be loved you’re a sick and twisted monster” even though i know none of that was my intention and i was just a child but i can’t help but feel this immense guilt that i cant even describe its literally taking over my life
Exactly
by the way we were both fully clothed
i also keep getting intrusive worries like “u knew it was wrong because u did it while ur parents weren’t home” but it’s like, i only did that because i knew sex was wrong. i didn’t know that i wasn’t supposed to experiment with my brother. i feel so so fucking guilty. this doesn’t align with who i am at all
Scoggy very well written. Full of wisdom. chapeau.
Tell=trigger
No I try myself. But we we please please try SSRI. It can really take the pressure off those thoughts. Suddenly don't even have to make any effort to get rid of them. They move more into the background. You need some pressure taken off you. And they do not change the personality at all. You have to throw everything against OCD.
This guilt and shame you feel if FAKE. I know it feels real but it is fake. It is OCD in disguise.
if=is
I= he
And the reality is that it is not worth to think about it even for one second. You have to work to this point. Every second you think about it will make it worse and everytime you manage not to give in will make it better. Every time when that or any thought relate d to this topic comes in, mark it as OCD and try to cut off any dealing with it as early and hard as possible. Ist also means no more reassurance from others no trying to find out no analyzing nothing cut off and do something else. this will be hard first but it will get easier over time. And try meds.
thank you. i keep trying to remind my self that if i could live with this before, i can live with it now. it’s just ocd trying to convince me of something. thank u
I am 20. Around a month ago, I suddenly remembered something very bad I did when I was ten. At the time (when I was ten), I didn’t think twice about it, but ever since I remembered it, I can’t stop thinking and obsessing over it as I do not understand how I could have ever done something so bad. It really bothers me, and now I am contemplating wether or not I am a bad person. I have read many articles about this, scanned them, looked for people who have done similar things. According to them, I have past event ocd. I can understand that, but I consider what I did too bad for it to be that. Here’s what I remember of it: When I was 10, my sister was 7, and around that age we would often just walk around naked, wrestle, and etc just like kids. This is probably why I didn’t think twice about what I did. At that time, I would hump various things, not knowing what it meant. I can faintly recollect humping my sister. I do not understand why I did it, but it bothers me a lot and makes me wonder if I am a bad person. I realise it’s horrible, but I didn’t know what I was doing at the time.
I feel like such a monster. I wish I could get over this obsession but it seems to always be at the back of my mind. I know sexual experimentation is normal as a child, but what I did, I think goes beyond that. I was 10, and I put my little sister’s hand on my breast while she was sleeping. For my own sexual gain or curiosity, I don’t even know at this point. I don’t think I can ever let myself live this down. I’m so disgusting and terrible and I wish I could erase what I’ve done, I really do.
I was a weird child and i did some weird sexual things when i was younger (the worst part was around 6 or 7 but i also had some weird behaviors up until i was 12) and i truly feel like a monster right now and it all makes me feel like a pedophile because, even though my sister is only a year younger, she was always with me, we got a baby brother when we were 12 and 11, that’s when my ocd started. I think i might have done something to him but I don’t remember clearly
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