- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Hey friend! Common symptom in OCD, particularly if your theme revolves around health OCD. I have the same theme currently, and I’ve dealt with your particular issue in the past—although now it’s morphed into something else. The best part is I was having hyponopomic hallucinations upon waking up during that time as well. Like with all other obsessions, the answer is ERP therapy. For me, that meant exposures where I’d stare at images that cause visual hallucinations, or I’d set up screens to flash things in my periphery at random. Eventually, I stopped caring and focusing on it at all.
- Date posted
- 5y
My main concern is how do I know that if is 100% my OCD. I sometimes sense movement in the corner of my eye and that my be because after some recent experience with seeing spiders moving in my peripheral vision I associate that experience with everything now. A stain on the carpet sticks out to me and I’m scared that it will move before I realize that it’s just a stain with my own eyes and that is whats driving me crazy. I don’t know if this is a form of hallucinations but my peripheral vision seems to heighten my whole environment to a degree that wasn’t there before and I don’t know how to manage it.
- Date posted
- 5y
@midnightlight You can’t know it’s 100% just OCD. Not anymore than you can be 100% certain something bad won’t happen. The risk of being in a car accident is exponentially higher than the risk of developing psychosis, yet we still ride in cars every day. The same is true here. It’s just your OCD has latched on to this particular thought/awareness and you’re hyper-focused on it.
- Date posted
- 5y
@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett Is seeing spots crawl in my peripheral vision part of being hyper aware?
- Date posted
- 5y
I am terribly sorry you feel this way, I also have this issue with my OCD. To be honest, I am glad I found someone else with it as that provides assurance nothing is wrong. I talked to my therapist about it, the visual field is quite tricky. Our visual mistakes things for other things all the time, especially out of the periphery. You must first ACCEPT that you’re anxious about this. Rather than being afraid of the things you may see, know that everytime it occurs it’s an OCD thing/typical occurance with your visual field.
- Date posted
- 5y
I totally agree with both replies above. You said "how do I diagnose this". To me, that question appears misguided. Perhaps you can change it to "how can I respond to this effectively?"
Related posts
- Date posted
- 23w
My ocd has been flaring up lately I’ve noticed some things that I don’t know if it’s ocd or something else whenever I seen someone like drugged or sick or just not “normal” I feel like or get scared that’s gonna end up being me? Does that make sense or then after a few minutes I feel like I’m them I don’t know exactly how to explain it I feel like I’m gonna start acting crazy or like I act weird or like them ? Idk exactly how to explain it and I have such a drop in my stomach thinking of it because it makes me feel insane, I haven’t had such an ocd episode so it’s getting hard again and making me feel insane specially because I don’t know how to explain this that I feel, I feel so scared rn can someone please comment on this?
- Date posted
- 20w
i have been diagnosed with OCD & generalized anxiety disorder. for some reason, i’ve been very hyper aware of everything. like the way i talk, the way i see the world, how certain things sound/look/feel, and it’s very distressing. i feel like the hyper awareness makes me afraid of things? like for some reason, my mind attached to cartoons, and i was hyperfocusing on it, and got extremely scared, like scared of the cartoon for no reason? i’ve done this a lot, and i get scared i have psychosis or schizophrenia, or something that makes you afraid of things for no unknown reason. i feel so scared that this is my new normal…. im heartbroken. so many what if’s. did i just ruin my own life?? 💔
- Date posted
- 14w
I don’t even know where to start because there’s so much going on in my head and it feels like there’s so much evidence for every thought. Like my ocd feels like it doesn’t just have one specific theme it’s honestly every theme and it just switches throughout the day depending on the thoughts I have. This started all about a month ago, this whole ocd flare up. I’ve been diagnosed with ocd for about 3 years now and looking back on my childhood, I feel like I’ve had it for probably my entire life. My grandpa just recently died back in February and I feel like this whole ocd spiral is a result of dealing with grief especially because it didn’t even hit me for the whole month of April for some reason and things felt “normal”. But since this ocd flare up has started I’ve been constantly reviewing and revisiting my past, all my childhood memories and so many of them are terrifying which is weird because I never had a traumatic event hppen to me as a child. I feel like it’s always been “self-inflicted” trauma if that makes sense? My mind is telling me so many things related to so many topics like maybe I liked my family member as a kid and have just hid it to fit in with society? That my anxiety as a kid has caught up with me and I’m turning into a psychopath? That I’ve always been a creep and enjoyed looking at peoples privates or chests, etc but just ignored or allowed the thought this whole time. Also before this whole flare up I remember always feeling on autopilot and not really alive like everything I did I just felt numb about it. Which aids my ocd to tell me that these feelings are real and the thoughts are true and that I’m “waking up” or realizing or something. I haven’t felt such intense anxiety and distress since I was a kid and I didn’t even understand my own thoughts. It’s like I’m either hyper aware or totally unaware of what’s going on around me and it gets me thinking about my existence, personality, what my role in life is and like genuinely what I’m even doing in the moment like what’s the reason behind everything. I’m constantly questioning my intentions because I don’t know if they’re true or not and it’s like my ocd doesn’t even allow me to consider the thought it just jumps to conclusion. Like telling me I’m guilty before proven innocent. It honestly feels like so much at once to even simply call it ocd or anxiety because it feels like a crisis and any moment I could spiral and breakdown completely. Going to school everyday feeling like anytbing could trigger a panic attack at any moment makes me feel like I can’t be left alone with my thoughts. And like overall since I got down this rabbit hole, my first obsession was harm to myself, then it was harm to others specifically my family, then it was being a pervert or pedo, or being attracted or someone or something I shouldn’t be, which then makes me question my existence and who I am along with also being hyper aware of my facial movements like my eyebrows, nose, etc. Like why does ocd have to involve itself in every aspect of my life? It feels like there’s always something wrong that I need to fix.
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