- Date posted
- 4y ago
- Date posted
- 4y ago
It was a real event, and you have OCD about it. The event happened, and you're experiencing OCD symptoms about it. Therefore, you have real event OCD. You could be literally Hitler and still have real event OCD and your real event OCD would be legitimately OCD. Even if you feel the guilt and rumination are appropriate to the mistake (which I'd argue is prob down to a lack of self compassion and black and white thinking), symptoms like not being able to stop, wanting to confess, the fact that it's only started bothering you now, it interfering with your ability to live your life, comparing your event to others' and seeking reassurance that it's not as bad as it feels, and any other behaviours you've noticed, are OCD symptoms.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I think everyone with real event ocd thinks their real event is so much worse than everyone else’s. That’s a part of the ocd as well. It’s really sucky but you have to do erp with that thought as well until you habituate to the discomfort- for example “you’re maybe right ocd, maybe my real event was a lot worse than everyone else’s.” It’s so much easier said than done, but erp really helps! It doesn’t make it go away in my experience, but it helps lower the intensity.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, that makes sense. It’s something I’m going to have to face eventually.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I have OCD about a real event as well and I am here for you! You are not alone! It’s possible your actions as well as my own make you an immoral person or maybe they don’t! We all must accept uncertainty and refocus. We are all in this together and we will get joy back in our lives!
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I hear you. For what it's worth, I've heard many, many people say the same thing. I don't know whether the guilt is reasonable or not-and confessing what you did won't change that. You say that you see behaviors that fit the OCD cycle. How willing are you to respond as if it's ocd, despite not being sure?
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thanks for replying! I guess it’s just thought accepting that I did it and I really can’t wrap my head around why I did it. I know that it doesn’t align with my values now, but why did I do it then? Those are the types of questions that I ask myself. I just feel a lot of shame about it.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@Rob12 Have you found satisfactory answers to the questions so far?
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@NOCD Advocate - Katie No, I’ve never been able to come up with a solid reason as to why I did it.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@Rob12 So what's the likelihood continued searching will get you an answer, based on your previous experience? Is the potential benefit worth the current cost to your well-being and functioning?
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@NOCD Advocate - Katie No, I suppose not. That does sort of put it into perspective. Thanks for that :)
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@Rob12 Anything to help :)
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Comment deleted by user
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I’m glad you can relate, makes me feel less alone :)
Related posts
- Date posted
- 12w ago
Hi, I’m new here!! I’m praying I don’t get judged for this. But, back in late May of 2022 ( literally right before I graduated high school), I added this one random girl from my school on Snapchat. She posted something about a graduation party , so I swiped up on her story basically saying how I can’t believe we’re almost graduated. She replied and we had a really short and simple conversation. The next day ( i believe) , we started talking a lot , and I just so happened to see her at the highschool when we were grabbing our graduation outfits and doing the rehearsal. When I saw her irl, I kinda got turned off ( I heard she was kinda crazy) , and on top of that , she was a little ugly irl. I remember seeing her Snapchat bio , and she was close friends with my female cousin ( a year younger than me) , who I happened to experiment sexually with when I was 10-11 years old. I remember going to work later that day and having sort of a lightbulb flick thought ( it wasn’t a good thought though) , what if my cousin told her about what happened when we were younger? So I started to kind of panic and immediately distanced myself from that girl. I also experimented sexually with one of my female friends when I was 10-11 , and from that day onwards, I’ve been pretty much living in paranoia and a little bit of guilt about someone finding out and my life being ruined . On top of that, It’s gotten worse to now sometimes I wonder if a girl I added off of quick add ( Snapchat) is underage even if they told me they were 18+ or had 18 and above in their bio, and I get so much guilt and anxiety about that. I even had a quick thought last February on what if I did something inappropriate with my younger cousin when I was 15-16 but I just can’t exactly remember when it happened , and it still eats me alive when I think about it, because I don’t know if it happened or not. I’m sorry for the long vent, I just wish I felt normal again. No matter how much I try to do things that old me used to do, life always feels “ off”. I always kept the top part about when I was younger a secret up until early (ish ) 2024, then I vented to one of my best friends and he told me that that’s a normal thing to do at a young age. Since then, I have told multiple friends and they all say they did similar stuff, but my brain just can’t accept that. Please help me, I quite literally overthink everything nowadays. 2021 was the last full year that I felt normal ( coincidentally, the best year of my life so far) . It’s not just about sexual related things either, sometimes I’ll wonder if I messed up something at work or hit a car while driving/hit someone and drove off. I just wanna live my life how I was supposed to live it after highschool ( carefree and happy) before whatever it is ( I think it’s ocd) hit me unexpectedly. Thanks to anyone who read this , I just needed to pour it out regardless of how negative I felt typing this, I hope someone can relate , because I feel so alone in my head at times.
- Date posted
- 11w ago
So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.
- Date posted
- 10w ago
Being exposed to taboo p*rn as young as first grade ruined my life and now ocd is making me pay for it. I have so much guilt for being a child/teen and looking at taboo stuff, and it was all fictional or anime or whatever but it was still so so gross. and I didn't realize It because I had been used to it at so young 🫠 I think what haunts me most is when I was a kid/young teen (like 12-14ish) and didn't have access to p*rn I'd imagine stuff similar to what I'd seen in the art. I can't even believe I'd imagine scenarios involving kid characters or whatever because it had been so normalized to me and I assumed it was normal since it was fiction. I'm 23 now so it's been a decade since I've done anything like that and I've never had the urge to since but still. I've NEVER been attracted to kids or had any urges or anything ever, even when I was addicted. The thought makes me want to vomit, I'd rather die than associate anything sexual with kids/minors and I think people who groom or assault kids are vile. But I still feel like the fact that I imagined stuff similar to the things I read sometimes when I was young is proof I'm a p*do. I don't think people would believe me if I said I'm not. I just feel like I don't deserve to live or that if I do, I'm living a lie. I know 'I was a kid too' but even when I was 13/14 I read/imagined stuff with characters younger than me because I thought it was normal. I'm so disgusted. I've had this theme for so long I'm starting to wonder if ocd is right. I feel too ashamed to tell my therapist.
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