Stuck. A few days ago,I saw three years ago I was invited in a chat that had revolting content. It was full of racial slurs, and nsfw ,gore,etc. I never sent any messages nor interacted with it,I suppose i never checked it and never was aware of its nature. However,it haunted me for days on end and I felt immense guilt by association alone,I felt disturbed to the extent its all i thought about,and the only thing I thought about. I constantly showered,struggled to eat,and either struggled to sleep or slept excessively. When finally overcoming the guilt,that it had no reason to be there because it was not my actions nor was I aware of it until three years or so after ,another thought came by. That if the content was so openly shocking and vile,whos to say they hadn't sent something illegal,and whilst scrolling through the hellhole I just so happened to miss it. I remember one user in particular had a picture of a young girls face sent in,i remember it just being a face and nothing else from what I observed. The only nsfw things i saw were also cartoons like Wendy(from the fast food chain). it haunts me still if I just didn't look close enough,it was really something more sinister. This sort of triggered my past POCD,and now I cant stop obsessing over it,going back to the memory over and over in spite of not being able to recall anything else. Its sort of inhibited my ability to look to the future and relax in the present,I cant do things without thinking about it. I'm considering talking to a hotline regarding its effect on me, but I dont know if its safe to discuss. The whole situation has drained everything about my life tbh

That it used things against things against my morals,and that it had illegal things and I just happened not to notice it even though I scrolled thru it twice and even though it was bad on its own. I also keep checking my past,and looking at my past self,to see if I was ever That Type of person to act like that,and I wasn't, but it doesn't stop me from doing these compulsions over and over. I live in fear ill face repercussions for things I never wanted to be associated with, and that I acted in ways I never would accept today and simply forgot about it by some manner.

@OpposumTreehouse Its become a problem, where i feel its traumatized me and i just recently indulged in a compulsion by trying to get it back somehow and seeing if there was anything that was really what I feared and that would put me in trouble.

@OpposumTreehouse You seem torn between identifying the chat as the problem vs your responses to the chat (and the thoughts and feelings it caused) as the problem

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I think the chat is the problem, of course,and the horrible people on it.. but I think my reaction to it is one of the most painful things I've felt, and I dont know how to relax or if I should even relax and put it behind me, or how to go about doing that. I never did anything, but that doesn't mean somehow it won't come to haunt me.

@OpposumTreehouse And that is sort of the thing that keeps me thinking and thinking Nd thinking. I have to think about it. I have to solve whether or not I'm inherently bad or doomed.

@OpposumTreehouse The chat is problematic. But not THE problem or YOUR problem. You cant change the past. The chat happened, you were invited to it. You hated it. This kind of thing happens to many many people. For the majority of people who are invited into a conversation they dislike, they say "wow, I hated that. I'll just leave the chat. Problem solved". They might be assertive and tell their friends that they disliked what was said and that they found it offensive and disrespectful. Depending on how offensive it was, they might decide to reduce contact with those people. Those are reasonable, effective responses to the situation. So the prolonged distress and dysfunction this is causing in your life IS NOT the chats fault.the prolonged distress and dysfunction are caused by how you interpret thoughts and memories of the event and how you act when the uncomfortable thoughts, memories, and emotions arise. OCD is the problem, not whatever event initially triggered the OCD cycle

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I dont even know the people in the chat. They were mostly deleted or I didn't take time to focus on it. Whats been making me sick and stuck on things,is if amoung those edgy things they sent something illegal and I missed it,and this is what keeps the cycle going atm

@OpposumTreehouse I'm going to send you a link to a bunch of thinking traps that contribute to OCD. These are all reasoning errors in how we interpret our thoughts. See if you can spot one or two that are making the chat seem like a super huge dealhttp://www.jabramowitz.com/uploads/1/0/4/8/10489300/cognitive_distortions_in_ocd.doc

@NOCD Advocate - Katie Thank you. Unfortunately, I cannot access it. When I do,I am told my connection isn't private,and im sent back by google.

@OpposumTreehouse I searched it and think I found a copy! Sorry abt that and thanks again

@OpposumTreehouse 👏👏kudos to you for searching it out yourself. What distortions do you notice in yourself? From your post, one in particular is springing to my mind

@OpposumTreehouse I'm adding a lot on. I think the ones that fit in with 1,2 especially, and a little of 3 and 4 are definitely present in this

@OpposumTreehouse Mostly 2 tbh

@OpposumTreehouse I'm sorry, I do t have them memorized by number. I know them by name. The big one I notice is overestimation of responsibility

@NOCD Advocate - Katie Thats fair! I was lazy so I quoted them by number. and that makes a lot of sense and I definitely relate to it. Tbh,I've also felt a lot of overestimulation of threat too. I think its a mix of the two

@OpposumTreehouse That's a double whammy... The threat seems much bigger than it is and you feel excessively responsible for reducing it

@NOCD Advocate - Katie Yea. Its like that. Do you have any advice how to combat it?

@OpposumTreehouse The same way we handle other types of OCD. With acceptance and calling it's bluff (ERP)

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I will try to find a way to practice ERP with it. Thank you

@OpposumTreehouse If you'd like links to resources to guide you, let us know 🙂

@NOCD Advocate - Katie I think I'd appreciate that. I've yet to come forth about my struggles with ocd with my parents (I'm 18 but still live with my parents) so its a little hard

@OpposumTreehouse If you're in the US, you can schedule a free call to see if teletherapy through nocd is a good fit for you. Having a trained therapist to get you started is more effective than a book. If that's not a possibility, here's a list of recommended OCD workbooks https://simpleandpractical.com/best-books-ocd-patients/. I also highly recommend The ACT Workbook for OCD by Marisa Mazza, as well as John Hershfields books

@NOCD Advocate - Katie Thank u again. For someone who hasn't come out with these things and doesn't want their parents to know about these thoughts and is broke,what do you recommend?

@NOCD Advocate - Katie What happens if I book a free call? Do I just talk out my problems and my journey or do they just try to set me up and ask questions later?

@NOCD Advocate - Katie Its gone bad again. Im having memories of seeing more images but not looking closely enough and im panicked again. I cant tell if the memory is real or not and I cant tell if an edgy gc would do something illegal,and i feel hopeless confused and scared

@OpposumTreehouse The free call isn't an assessment or therapy. It's an opportunity to discuss whether starting therapy through nocd makes sense for you

@NOCD Advocate - Katie Ohh. Okay