- Date posted
- 4y ago
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Well first, definitely stop researching. And second, the past is just that. Past. No amount of parsing or ruminating can change it and no amount of evidence-seeking will leave you sure enough. So give yourself permission to stop trying to move on; move forward instead. The difference is in the power you allow mistakes to have on your life. It’s ok to not be ok. And I can say confidently that all themes look easier from the outside, but honestly, they all freaking suck =)
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I never wanted these mistakes to have power. Most of them were when I was in my teen years. I'm just so disgusted with the mistakes mainly. I don't want to give them power, I don't want to think about them, and I just want to accept that like all human beings everyone makes mistakes and no one is freaking perfect. I guess it's so hard to accept self forgiveness because of how different I am today compared to before. I also feel like uncertainty will mean only the worst things will happen to me and I'm the worst person ever. Fuck, I just don't know
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@BigGip09 Of course you don’t want to think about them. But it’s a core principle that the harder you fight to not think about it, the more you will. Having power over your past doesn’t mean just accepting your imperfections. OCD is fundamentally opposed to acceptance. Believe me, if it was that easy, we’d all have been cured by now. But instead, you have power over the thoughts by deciding not to do anything with them. Don’t try to block them out, don’t try to rationalize, and don’t mull them over. Just let them sit there. They will go away eventually. I know it sounds like the hardest thing in the world, and it’s definitely close, but you can do it.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@sfgal88 What am I going to do? How long will this take? Are the thoughts really that serious? Am I supposed to just sit there and let the thoughts get to me even if I don't want them to? Is this what ERP is? Why me? I hate that we all have to go through this. I really do. It's so unfair
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I didn't think of it until now, but I think I also have a really bad case of unhealthy perfectionism. I'm so scared of doing anything that will cause a mistake because of the mistakes I'm recently ruminating over. I'm always uncertain about these mistakes but I want to be certain. Even when I feel like I am I'm not
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Comment deleted by user
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@Anonymous You're really nice. Thank you. Maybe loneliness is part of this feeling too
- Date posted
- 4y ago
It’s hellish. And unfair. Don’t focus on how long it will take. Just hold onto hope that it won’t always be this way. ERP is sitting with the discomfort and being ok. You can ignore the thoughts without trying to smother them. Say to yourself, “Ok, my brain is thinking about it. It’ll pass. And I’ll be ok still.” Find other things to think about, things that ground you. I promise you, the harder you try not to think them the stronger they get. And if you dive into the thoughts, you’ll ruminate endlessly to try and get them sorted. You’ll never feel sure enough, but that’s just the bad wiring we all live with. It’s hard, but you CAN do this.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
This is so difficult, it really is. There's different triggers that are around and some are stronger than others, but at the end of the day they feel so damn real. It feels like the second I think about it it's going to happen and I'm going to be punished for something. That's why the thoughts never fully go away. But maybe you're right I'm always thinking the thoughts and even if they really make me uncomfortable I do end up being okay. Maybe I have to keep this in mind or something
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I am on the same
Related posts
- Date posted
- 15w ago
My last and almost life long theme/sub-theme largely subsided recently and my ocd felt like it wasn’t even an issue. Then I went on winter break from uni and being alone made my mind come up with a whole new topic to obsess over. TLDR on my fears, my advisor wouldn’t email me back for a while about signing up for classes so my mind started to worry “what if he doesn’t in time and you can’t enroll this semester and you lose this whole life you just built and all these new friends” So when that issue was resolved my mind found other scarier ways I could be uprooted from my current life and friends that I’ve grown so attached to. Then my mind remembered back when I was struggling with false memories and scrupulosity and I essentially made a post on a forum 2 and a half years ago saying I did something or was convinced I did something that I never actually did. Now I’ve been spiraling about someone finding it reporting me and I either get seen as a horrible person or arrested or something over something I never actually did but “admitted” to out of fear of going to hell. My mind won’t let it go and keeps finding new reasons for it to be “valid” “logical” or even inevitable. I feel like it’s just hanging over my head and I can never rest easy. Especially when I try to focus on my daily tasks or plan for the future I get this horrible flair up of “why plan for the future when this could come back in that future and you get uprooted from all of it” my mind won’t rest without certainty being uprooted won’t happen but certainty doesn’t exist, at least not with ocd. This sucks and I miss being care free.
- Date posted
- 13w ago
So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.
- Date posted
- 10w ago
im going to be vague here, but basically i did something in the past that i regret and it became a huge point of my OCD but i have talked to my therapist and i have mostly moved past it. i watched a video by an OCD youtuber that really put it into perspective. anyway, i have been with minimal worry for a few days, but now im having worries related to i think false memory? basically it’s like “oh but what if i said/ did this and just forgot that means i harmed this person im a bad person”. to me it sounds like textbook OCD but im just wondering if anyone else has experienced false memory / real event at the same time. i have a really horrible memory which is making it even more stressful. any responses are appreciated!
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