getwellsoon
- Date posted
- 5y
FathomableFathomable
- Date posted
- 5y
Seriously though, the "maybe I enjoy the thoughts" or "I do enjoy the thoughts" are thoughts, not feelings. The guilt is the feeling. Feelings aren't your enemy, they just want to be felt, and the best and easiest way to feel your feelings is to seperate them from any beliefs which seem to go with them, and not attempt to draw any new conclusions based off them. A feeling of guilt is the normal reaction to a shameful idea/belief/intrusive thought/worry. There's nothing magical going on. Instead of resisting the feeling as a proxy to resisting the thoughts, just let the feelings come and go instead and then you can deal with thoughts on their own merit. The guilt or fear isn't some kind of special indicator that the belief is more likely to be true, it's just a normal physiological response.
luchalysolluchalysol
- Date posted
- 5y
I feel you. Its scares me so much, even laughing about something funny makes me feel like I like them and then feel guilty. Ocd really fucks with you in ways that are almost unexplainable.
FathomableFathomable
- Date posted
- 5y
The idea that you want or like the thoughts is a cognition, not a feeling. You can "feel guilty" but there is no such thing as "I feel like I like something shameful", instead it's "I have an idea or belief that I might like something shameful". It's beneficial to separate out cognitions and feelings, because to become flexible and adaptable and ultimately recover from OCD, you need to be able to accept and process feelings without attaching immediate judgments to them. For example, in luchalysol's case, laughing at something someone said triggers the thought that they like the person, which triggers guilt, which they then debate and resist, causing a cascade of worries and emotions which alternate between believing that the fear is true and doubting it. The steps to deal with it would be seperatkng the guilt from all the OCD debate and "evidence" which came after it, feeling the guilt physiologically until it goes away without doing any rumination compulsions or other attempts to get rid of the feeling by discrediting it or arguing with it. Then when the guilt is gone, it's much easier to internalise what you know already- that laughing at someone being funny probably doesn't mean you're romantically interested in them, and that it's not important to have a guarantee.
luchalysolluchalysol
- Date posted
- 5y
Im sorry, I didn't clarify, I have harm ocd, not hocd. I feel guilt because I "shouldn't" be laughing, even if at something completely unrelated, after having the intrusive thoughts Ive been having. It almost feels like ocd makes me believe that the only way I can disagree with my thoughts is if Im miserable all the time.
FathomableFathomable
- Date posted
- 5y
@luchalysol Oh, I see! Should work the same way though, thankfully. You have the idea that you shouldn't be laughing and any happiness is an indication that you feel ok about having the thoughts, which triggers immediate guilt. That is a VERY unfair thing for your brain to do to you, but arguing with the feeling obviously doesn't help the situation. If you can let that guilt happen properly as just a sensation, without any self reassurance and without thinking about the problem, it eventually all gets felt. Then by going back to the happy thing and feeling happy, you basically solve the problem. Even if you get the intrusive thought and the guilt again, you just repeat the process of feeling the guilt and then going back into doing the things you want to do and feeling the ways you want to feel despite doubts popping up. I've found feeling feelings makes me super flexible. Not trying to fight the feeling just makes it happen less often and feel a lot less convincing and strong, but it can be a bit inconvenient and draining to constantly take time out to myself to feel overwhelming, 'negative' emotions. But, I did manage to cure an entire theme via doing this only 2 or 3 times (feeling until the feeling is completely gone) using a book (letting go by David Hawkins), and then after that I didn't need to take the time to focus on and feel the feelings because they weren't very strong, instead I would just refocus to what's going on around me instead despite the nagging feeling that something was wrong (starving it of attention basically).
Ocd__letmebefree!Ocd__letmebe...
- Date posted
- 5y
Yea and I pray to not happend anything like I feel guilty and I always say sorry for those thoughts..?
Related posts
user74128588493
- Date posted
- 23w
hocd
i have had intense thoughts and fears about being gay today and i have been sick to my stomach. it just stopped and now im scared im accepting it and im not freaking out. i feel like im okay with it. I AM NOT OKAY WITH BEING GAY.
ocdisnotaslay
- Date posted
- 13w
Scary thoughtsss
Is there something wrong with me if I’m not disgusted by my intrusive thoughts anymore like the disgust feeling has been gone for months now and why are my thoughts feel like they’re literally so close happening inside my brain why can I lowkey physically feel the images of that makes sense,Why do I get adrenaline why do I get a weird tingle my lips sometimes make an awkward like position when I get the thoughts it’s like I’m having a glitch idek which thought is intentional which one is intrusive but there bad thoughts and I don’t want them to be the truth about me but I literally cannot get myself to just feel relaxed even if they’re present like I actually get genuine headaches and feel uneasy for hours after having intrusive thoughts and I hate how it’s always the same kinda thoughts and sensations feelings etc around those thoughts out of nowhere when I’m just chilling they come in before when I had it is be like okay ew weird thought now I’m like what if I actually like this and I’m in denial uGHHH HATE MY BRAIN
Anonymous
- Date posted
- 16d
Disgusting thought that I'm not sure was intrusive
I think sometimes my OCD will interupt a normal thought that will maybe slightly include something to do with a trigger and twist it into something disgusting that wasn't intended, I don't know I can't tell if I was like unintentionally doing a compulsion and testing my reaction to a thought, a random thought that was twisted into an intrusive thought, it was just a straight up intrusive thought (It did kind of come out of nowhere (other than being related to the trigger I mean) and caused me a lot of distress but most of the time my intrusive thoughts are vague and I don't really know if this is what they feel like when they aren't. If it wasn't an intrusive thought I don't know why I would've thought something like that though. For context, I saw someone quoting an alt-right YouTuber who is a confirmed predator who also physically abused his underage victim (Despite his fans denying this vehemently) and had a thought that I think was GOING to be "He wasn't even good at hiding it" (Even then I think I meant trying to hid it) but was twisted into "He wasn't even one of the good ones" and I immediately spiralled afterwards and went "What? What? Why? Why did I think that what's wrong with me?" Is it possible for an intrusive thought to feel real? I know I really didn't like the thought and it wasn't wanted but that doesn't feel enough for me to call it intrusive and it's scaring me. I can't tell if this is a thought warped by OCD, just a "normal" intrusive thought or a genuine thought I had (which is obviously the thing I dreading the most)
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