- Date posted
- 4y ago
- Date posted
- 4y ago
You've shared this story multiple times ☺. A detail that's different is mentioning you're afraid you'll get in trouble for having it on your device. What do you think is happening right now?
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I know, I'm just upset about it amongst other things. Yes I had that intrusive thought about the device today, it didnt enter my mind before. :(
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@MJocd Understandable. Recognize that OCD spreads and shape shifts.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@Ben84 But what if it's not even an OCD worry and it's a genuine worry? I wish she had never sent me that. ☹ its really triggered me.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@MJocd Maybe it is, maybe it Isn't. Seeking certainty will not make you feel better in the long run.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
As for the "what if it's a real worry" thing: all worries are real worries. Some worries are more rational than others. Your question is really: what if this is a rational concern? I dont recommend self reassurance that the police will have no reason to look at your phone or that they can't arrest everyone who shared a viral video etc, that'll just lead to a spiralling obsession. What I do recommend is noticing one thing: if a scary scenario came true where you faced criticism or judgment, you would HANDLE IT. Better than you think. You HAVE the ability to argue your own case. You HAVE other people in your life who would support you. You don't need to run through an imagined future scenario. You can, genuinely, cross that bridge if and when you come to it. The correct answer to your "what if" is "seems unlikely, but I'd deal with it", and then no more rumination. Even a 'realistic' worry is very rarely worth spending your free time ruminating on, since worrying doesn't actually make you any safer OR any more resilient to bad things. You can become more resilient to bad things (and improve your confidence in your ability to handle them) by reducing perfectionism as much as possible.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
You've already told us about this. As you know, intrusive thoughts get even more persistent when you resist them and when you perform rumination compulsions. Intrusive thoughts pop up and they want you to spend time thinking about it. Your job is to not do so. It doesn't matter whether the compulsion involves repeating to yourself mentally that you believe it's immoral and therefore aren't a bad person, or thinking about how you would justify it being on your phone to the police, or imagining being confronted about it, or anything else related to the situation you've described. Compulsions don't help your OCD, they just feel good temporarily. You don't have to respond to the intrusive thoughts of "what if you get in trouble from having been sent it" or "what if you actually liked it and you're a terrible person" by finding ways to make the ideas feel temporarily less threatening. That usually just makes them come back even stronger once they find holes in the mental defence you created (e.g. "but what if they don't care that someone sent it to me?" or "but what if I'm just trying to act like a good person?". For what it's worth, I do think your moral OCD is kinda corroding your personality and that you really should try ASAP to consistently identify and resist doing mental compulsions. You don't want to turn into someone whose main personality feature is pointing out things they think are inappropriate, like all those aunts on Facebook who wander into groups and try to tell off grown adults for swearing or telling rude jokes. That's not a fun person to be, it's lonely. It seems like you hyper focus on the morality obsession and relate everything back to it, so when something comes up that most people don't think even has a moral element (or might wonder that for a second and then easily dismiss it as unlikely and unimportant), but something in it triggers an intrusive thought for you, you feel that you need to assert against your anxiety in as many ways as possible that you don't approve, otherwise there could be something morally defunct about you. You're right about not being able to control the world to avoid triggers. But I wonder if it could also be useful to try to seperate out your personality from your judging response. I doubt that the judging response is actually who you are, it's just a part of you who wants things to be in clear boxes so you can't be tainted, and you'll put as much in the "immoral box" as it takes to ensure that you feel clean and pure. I mean, the reality is that none of us are perfectly moral, we don't even know what that would be, opinions always differ. It's a bit like you don't want to expose yourself to potential criticism from other people or from the perfectionistic, shaming voice in your head, so instead of building trust with yourself and other people that they won't bully you, or improving your ability to handle shame, criticism or judgment, you're just trying your best to control situations and obey all the rules which minimise the possibility of any criticism. Your brain got you whipped. Something triggering discomfort in you isn't the same thing as you genuinely thinking it's immoral or inappropriate, and there's really no need to double down on the idea that it is. Same thing as reporting the erotica- I don't think your real personality genuinely finds stuff in it inappropriate, you just get an intrusive thought from a slightly triggering sentence or element of it (e.g. the ages weren't described and this was written by a teenager, hence these fictional characters sound like teenagers and they could be intended as being underage") and then you respond to the story as if it's *the same thing* as your intrusive thought, just in case it is. I think the same thing is happening here- you might have felt shocked and suddenly very uncomfortable at being suddenly sent it, but that's about being sent something you found triggering, not necessarily about the video itself. You CAN see perfectly way that it was of a cute baby doing cute things and that there's nothing objectively wrong with nudity. You're having intrusive thoughts which cause anxiety and discomfort and guilt, and trying to neutralise to those ideas and emotions via the compulsion of putting the video in the Immoral box. The video itself as far as the vast majority of the world (and likely also you minus OCD) is concerned is extremely innocent, probably very cute, and belongs in the Wholesome box. Your OCD ideas about the video based on triggered emotions and worries are getting you to put it in the Immoral box, to put as much distance between yourself and the threat as possible. But your worst interpretations are not the same thing as the reality of what the video (or erotica) is, you know? You can't keep yourself perfectly safe from judgment or criticism or threat in life via judging and criticising anything which might potentially not be perfect, in somebody's eyes or in some particular imagined scenario.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thankyou, as always you've captured the very essence of what seems to be going on in my head, in a way that I couldn't have explained it myself. I've been doing so, so, so well in recent months (or so I was), ERP to erotica got much easier, nothing triggered me, intrusive thoughts vanished for the most part or were very limited and then that video just triggered it. That video and a few other things, like coming across pictures of Abu Ghraib prison during the iraq war when I was reading an article on it, it just ruined my sleep and has made me sick to my stomach all day. It was something in my psychology textbook and it just really disturbed me. I think everything has just come together to give me sickening anxiety today, you know the kind of anxiety where lights and noises are irritating and scary and the only safe place is under your duvet :(. Just feel sick tbh ?. I think my moral OCD feeds off everything and its starting to become a part of my character and personality, you're completely right. :(
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@MJocd I think really the best thing to help you out is to do a lot of reading/watching videos about self compassion and trying it out, looking at some aspects of yourself which you usually shame yourself about and just trying to tolerate them. You don't have to start with self love, literally just self tolerance, you don't have to speak kindly to yourself (a lot of us don't even know how to), just less harshly, like trying to be your own friend and seeing how it goes. For me, it helps to imagine that it's my sister going through it, and what nice and neutral things I would like to say to her about whatever scenario she's dealing with. If you felt like you could handle being judged or making mistakes or having flaws, I don't think that your need to keep perceived threats zoned away from you would be as strong. It helps out both with quieting down the shaming, overprotective voice in your head, and with improving how you feel about the prospect of being judged or criticised or seen as immoral, because it helps you to have your own back and be more assertive where people misunderstand or judge unfairly. It also gets you more comfortable with the reality that, as well as there being judgey, ignorant and superior-feeling people out there, even normal kind regular people are going to judge sometimes, and it's more of a reflection of how they see the world than a reflection on you. It really feels good to have someone on your side saying kind, true things to you, even if that's just yourself.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I'm honestly still having intrusive thoughts about this even though I'm trying so hard to not think about it. I know it's not my fault what I was sent but I literally feel like what if no one believes me!! ☹ that's obv supposing something bad even happens in the first place which is unlikely but its honestly stopping me from being able to be happy
- Date posted
- 4y ago
"I'm trying so hard to not think about it" This may be your problem. In the ancient book The Art of War, Sun Tzu says "To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." This seems to align with ERP therapy. Instead of fighting, let them be ☺.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 18w ago
Where do I begin with this…….. so my OCD has been around since childhood and has had many themes over the years. I only realised I have it just over 2 years ago. I’ve tried many things to help it not be such a monster and thought I had a good grip on it for a length of time until now! Some of my strategies have been acceptance, change of perception of thoughts and sometimes on hard days just telling myself that no matter what, I have to be brave and go out and live life. In the last few months I’ve developed none OCD related anxiety as well and so have been looking at ways to help with that. Sunday morning I was just casually scrolling TikTok and a video only about 30 seconds long or so comes up, seemingly a therapist of some kind, straight away the video began something like “you cannot replace a thought with another thought” along the lines of “you can’t THINK your way out anxiety” I don’t know the full context of the video it wasn’t long enough, I don’t know who the therapist was I didn’t look but now purely because of that one sentence my OCD has gripped onto it so badly and is trying to tear down some of my strategies because I have used changing my thought patterns a lot to help me, self compassion etc but now because of that video I’m struggling! I’m not looking for answers but I am just really upset and it feels like I’m in an impossible grip of OCD again
- Date posted
- 17w ago
This might contain triggering content, but I'm also wondering if others have dealt with this similar thought, and if so, how to deal with it? Overall, I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm able to eat again, which I hadn't been able to do because of how much anxiety I'd been experiencing. I'm spending time around loved ones and not just rotting in my room, and I've been able to wake up without immediately being bombarded by intrusive thoughts. When things first got really bad, I'd wake my mom up every night for reassurance, but I haven't done that in a while either. I'm really proud of myself, but there's still this nagging thought in my mind... While looking through others posts on here, hoping to find advice that'd fit my situation, I ended up making things worse. Someone mentioned how they had a fear that they'd purposely search for illegal content (related to POCD). I panicked, and "what ifs" flooded my thoughts. "What if the intrusive thoughts affect who I am as a person, and I do that?" I'm terrified that I'll search for those things, which I know means I wouldn't do it. But then, another person on here said they'd actually looked for those things, and that freaked me out even more. Does that mean it's possible for that to happen to me? I don't want to do that, but I keep having intrusive thoughts surrounding it. I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm just... stuck. I don't know what to do. I've spoken with other people who have the same fears, but how do I manage this? It's not something I've even thought about before seeing those posts. I've been practicing accepting the uncertainty, but I'm really struggling with this one. I hate this. This morning, I woke up, and the intrusive thoughts were back. It's just disheartening.
- Date posted
- 15w ago
I’m sharing this bc I need advice or even support from anyone who can relate. If you can’t relate and don’t think you’ll say anything helpful or kind pls don’t comment anything… I’ve been struggling with somethings that’s making me question myself. There has been moments while self pleasuring when I get intrusive thoughts, in those moments it feels like I’m enjoying or even self pleasuring myself bc of the thought. Right after I immediately have an anxiety attack and my HEART drops bc it feels terrible I feel like a disgusting monster :( ppl have told me I haven’t done a bad bc of how intense my guilt and panic are but I keep thinking that MAYBE I made a horrible decision in the moment and the guilt is just realising that it’s just wrong this doesn’t make sense to me because I’ve always told myself that I would never act on this in 1 million years and I’ve been known that these things are wrong so I’m just like constantly questioning myself these feelings and exact same situation has happened two times already I even promised myself that I wouldn’t act on anything beforehand and yeah, I still felt like I did act on my thought during my alone time I’m genuinely convinced that I’m a horrible and it’s even got into the point where I don’t wanna be here anymore and I don’t even think this is my OCD :( tbh
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