- Username
- Anonymous
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Hi! Any idea what you would tell someone else in your situation? Like, can you imagine for a minute your bestie came to you with the same thoughts, do you know what you would say/ask her?
Hey there, another sufferer of harm/responsibility OCD here. I can share with you what’s helped me, and hope that it’s able to help you, too. (First: meds.) Even more than “an intolerance for uncertainty,” it’s useful for me to concieve of OCD as “an exaggerated sense of responsibility” (whether that’s responsibility as in “duty” or as in “fault/guilt”). It’s okay to wish that you’d had a different influence. But imo, that’s separate from a moral responsibility. In the situation you describe, you wouldn’t have been the decision-maker, or the facilitator, or even a coercive force. You were just someone who had an opinion and shared it. The presence of a mountain does not determine whether someone will climb it, and the precense of an opinion does not determine if someone will take it to heart. I think you know this, but you’re so full of the desire to be a good influence, to protect unborn life, and also so full of the anxiety and pressure to “DO SOMETHING!” that OCD gives you, that your wish to do good has morphed into a feeling that you *ought* to lash out at yourself for your past opinions. This is where both ERP and compassion meditation might help you. ERP to help you disempower the guilty sensation—which are coming at you right now regardless of if they’re justified or not*—and compassion meditation to soften your heart towards yourself, and to turn your mind away from the idea of justice-as-retributive and towards justice-as-constructive. *Feelings are always real, but they are not always very reliable. Bad feelings can signal to us that something is wrong, but that’s not always true, or at least it’s not what we thought. And there are people who commit heinous acts but never lose a wink’s sleep over them. It’s important to listen your feelings, but the key is to learn how to use them to support your values, and also to learn how to not be overcome by them.
This is one of the best descriptions of ERP and OCD related feelings!
I feel you. I have always been pro-choice, despite the fact that I always thought abortion was "wrong." My philosophy was, "its in their conscience what they want to do, if it is illegal, people will do it anyways if they want to." After my first born, I decided I wasn't going to have more children due to my own PTSD and depression. After my separation with his dad, I dated someone else. Because Im adamant I won't have more children, I changed my tune a bit. I have stated that if I were to get pregnant from this new guy or anyone else, that I would consider abortion. Ironically, the guilt didn't set in until after that guy and I broke up, and I haven't dated anyone since. Now my ocd has begun to target my son and it has been horrible. I feel you girl
Ahh, I’m gonna try to answer this without reassuring your OCD and also without turning this into any sort of debate. (Your paranthetical note reminded me this is not a debate forum but a place for OCD sufferers to support each other.) It’s not “pro life” and “anti life” or “pro fetal death”. I tried to find the quote by Jon Stewart, but no one wants to get an abortion. I’m having a hard time with trying not to step over the line to reassurance, (maybe I already have 🤷🏼♀️), so I’m gonna stop this comment there and send you peace.
is someone threw the same thing as me ? i feel so bad about things i’ve done while i was a pre/early teen, as sexual experimentation. It was Gross things that i’ll never do it again, i’m disgusted by it now. But i have so much guilt on me, i feel like i don’t deserve happiness after that. I know i was young and discovering sexuality but it don’t gives me enough relief. Thank guys, tell me how you feel about this.
Ok so this is going to be lengthy and probably have many mistakes so I apologize in advance. I used to live somewhere completely different to where I live now. I lived back in my hometown until I was 10. That was a living nightmare for me. I was bullied lots and had lots of very traumatizing things happen to me that are a VERY big part to my ocd today. When I was very young like 7 or 8 I was at a sleepover with another girl and she was pressuring me into doing things that I was very uncomfortable doing. She was pressuring me to take some of my clothes off. At the time I was very young and didn’t know right from wrong and didn’t know what to do so because she was being very peer pressure to me I did so because I was scared. I have never been able to come to peace with myself after this even though I have been told that I did NOTHING wrong and that I was very young and stuff. But then I moved somewhere completely different, and lost contact with everyone because I knew that it was too much for me to handle. Today someone from there reached out me ( a good person) and wanted to talk and catch up. I did talk to her for a little bit (it’s not the same person that pressured me) and I texted her after telling her how I needed to lose contact with here because so many of my intrusive thoughts came from living there, so being in contact with people was mentally not ok with me. She was completely understanding and all’s good. But I’m wondering. What happened with that girl. Should I fee guilt about? Or is this my ocd. I just need some other opinions. Please help me out!
I regret some of the illegal things that I saw online when I first got my phone when I was 13. I have a vague memory of seeing something horrific in a Kik group chat, it was cp. even just typing it out absolutely disgusts me. Although I was just a child myself I feel so awful about seeing it, at the time I didn’t even understand what I was watching. Many years later my mind is now twisting what happened telling me things like I’m a pedo and that I liked it..that I’m sick and should have known what I was watching and closed the app. I don’t remember how old the girl even looked but I think she was probably my age or abouts, that’s what confused me. I regret seeing it I want to rip my eyes out of my head. This is really difficult to open up about so please be considerate I don’t know how to begin to forgive myself and move on, or even if I should forgive my younger self makes me feel like I deserve to die
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