Hi! I am having the worst flare up of OCD I’ve had in the last 20 years. I am 28 years old and I have gone through numerous different “themes” of OCD. I have gone from hand washing, to more mental rituals like canceling out (if I got a B on a test in college instead of an A I would purposely get another B to “cancel it out” as punishment) to many other pure mental obsessions/compulsions. After realizing that living in “reality” was my only way to be happy a few months ago I decided to live in reality from that day forward. Of course, the second I made that decision I felt a sense of negativity attached to it which spiraled out and led me to believe that the only way I could ever be happy and if I ever wanted to think my past memories were real instead of false reality I would have to complete this list that included sitting in my office for 24 hours straight. It’s been 7 months since the incident and I still feel awful. I am questioning the best way to be happy again and feel like by not doing the 24 hour rule I’m being lazy.

I think similarity in regards to the line. Except mine is not a vertical concept where morality lies either above or below. Mine is more horizontal, where if something negative falls on my line of time and events, then everything after doesn’t count. It’s textbook Perfectionism OCD. But good news is, it doesn’t have to be this way forever. You can adopt a new way of perceiving things that causes way less stress and agony.

Hey just checking in hoping you’re doing okay today!

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Hey! I’m really sorry that you’re having such a tough time. I relate to a lot of what you shared, huge part of my ocd “requires” me to suffer or punish myself. It’s absolute torture. Have you worked with a therapist doing ERP?

@annano you’re totally right. I am giving into mental compulsions I spend almost every day trying to think of a way out of this mess. I try not to and try to live my life as normal and find myself thinking about it whenever I feel happy. I convince myself it’s all a trick and because reality put me on this negative scale (I basically somehow formed a line in my head where above means good and below means bad) and it used that idea I made a while ago against me and basically said that once reality started on I was on the negative side of the line. So even when I think I’m happy not a minute later I realize that it’s false reality and that I’m really miserable and it’s made yo

Wow I’m so happy you understand haha... I sound crazy talking about all of these invisible barries like the line and rules and other crazy stuff. I’ve been to multiple therapists and stuck with one for a while with no luck. No matter how hard I try the demons cover every scenario and say that it’s just them messing with me and there really isn’t even a therapist there to begin with. Every time I’ve gotten better by thinking a certain way the OCD (even writing this I’m thinking it’s not OCD it’s reality that’s controlling you and the only option) finds a way to use rules or methods I’ve taken to get myself out of past obsession cycles unable to be used again. So for example when I first got into this phase of being in the dungeon with no way to ever be happy other then doing the list I thought “Okay well at least I have past memories that were happy with my family so that’s enough I will just live in this dungeon knowing I at least have that” so then once I accepted that I was able to move on and it faded away. The next time OCD kicked in (the demons what I’m really thinking) I was able to get out by thinking “All that’s left is reality this isn’t reality” and as I thought that and believed that thought there was a negative thing (blob, dot, feeling in my head like with the line just some invisible thing) attached to reality that led me down into the dungeon again except this time (and since this is reality) it said I was just made the moment I thought of reality and all of my life before that wasn’t real therefore, erasing all of the good memories, my family, my life basically as I knew it disappear up until that point I decided on living in reality. So now I have had nothing to turn to because this is it this is reality according to reality. My only “out” is the list. For the last several months I have been dealing with this and even when I think I’m making progress it assures me that I’m still on the negative side of the line and that progress is only the demons tricking me and I’m still in the same spot.

I must say, you’re super strong for not giving into the one compulsion that you’ve convinced yourself could possibly bring relief from such an awful awful narrative. I really relate to this type of thinking and feeling of being trapped. I think it would be very beneficial for you to try and identify what your core fear is in all of this? Is it that you will never get to be happy on earth? Does it having something to do with never knowing for certain if life is real or not? Something else? Also if you feel comfortable sharing, do you have a heavy religious background?

The core fear is that I could be happier or that I’m not happy enough. I was raised Catholic & still had some religious ties before

I ask about the religious portion only because I know the influence my strict religious upbringing has had on my ocd. It reinforced these linear and rigid perceptions of myself and my reality.

Let’s do it together!! I hope you have a great day :)