- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
This is what is defined as Real Event OCD. It’s just another theme of OCD and is to be treated like any other theme. It can be trickier when it’s targeting real events, but it’s important to remember that you aren’t viewing the events through a rational lens, but through a warped version that OCD has convinced you of.
- Date posted
- 4y
YES. Literally everything about my past. I make a lot of mistakes I regret now (my boyfriend hates my past and I have ROCD so that’s a fun combination). My OCD has become so fixated on my past that I have began developing false memories.
- Date posted
- 4y
He hates your past?
- Date posted
- 4y
I have the same challenges
- Date posted
- 4y
@PRYM Yeah. Things he doesn’t like to hear his girlfriend once did
- Date posted
- 4y
@Caree I feel like that would be hurtful. I mean its nice that he wants to be with you regardless of that past but idk that would still hurt my feelings.
- Date posted
- 4y
@PRYM It’s hard but I understand why it bothers him
- Date posted
- 4y
could i talk to you about mine?
- Date posted
- 4y
@Caree Yeah I get that. At least you two work it out even though its not perfect. That's all you can really ask for :)
- Date posted
- 4y
@PRYM Thank you yeah. We are able to communicate me and he does not hold it against me. He loves me very much.
- Date posted
- 4y
@Caree Thats awesome!
- Date posted
- 4y
@PRYM Thank you :)
- Date posted
- 4y
@PRYM But don’t get me wrong, we communicate but we both struggle with my OCD and it causes problems
- Date posted
- 4y
@Caree Well no relationship is perfect. What matters is you two can get through problems that arise.
- Date posted
- 4y
@PRYM Yes! Thank you
- Date posted
- 4y
@elise This is exactly what I deal with. I feel like I have to confess everything to make things better but it actually makes things worse. So I’m really trying to less but it’s really hard, I’m currently struggling with these thoughts but I’m trying so hard. It’s interesting to think there’s other people out there that experience things so similar to me. Makes me feel like I’m not crazy or alone!
- Date posted
- 4y
@elise Exactly! I struggle with this almost everyday and it sucks because It makes me feel like a bad person and I can never be happy. For the smallest things too I feel like I have to confess such specific details that he wouldn’t even care to know but I fight myself on what details need to be told and what is just pointless.
- Date posted
- 4y
100%. Constant story of shame and doubt
- Date posted
- 4y
Story for story? of what you think about it? Telling people mine makes me feel alotttt better Lol
- Date posted
- 4y
@Dan Be careful! Confessing is a huge compulsion for Real Event OCD. It’s a form of reassurance seeking that I’ve dealt with extensively.
- Date posted
- 4y
@plathocd But I confess to my therapist so he can help me
- Date posted
- 4y
@Dan There is a difference between explaining what your Real Event is to your therapist and confessing it as a compulsion. When you’re explaining it to your therapist, they will work with you in the context of having OCD- not to provide you with reassurance about how bad or good the event was. When we confess our Real Event to people, we often do so because we hope that people will provide us with something or a similar experience that will alleviate us of the anxiety that the Real Event causes. This is a trick of OCD though. Any compulsion you give in to will not satisfy the relief you’re looking for, it just fuels the cycle. Trust me, I’ve been dealing with it for a long, long time.
- Date posted
- 4y
All the time! Here’s a story. One time I told someone a story I was ashamed of, but I shouldn’t have told him, because I didn’t know him well. Now I think about the story I was ashamed of, and I also think of the fact that this random guy knows the story of the thing I was ashamed of. This is more than 20 years later, too. Save yourself some heartache, and save the stories for your therapist, or if you are unable to see a therapist, only tell one person you are sure you can trust.
- Date posted
- 4y
well.. can I trust you?
- Date posted
- 4y
Haha! Very clever of you! But I’m not sharing a story, and I don’t want you to share a story with me. I’m not a therapist, and I don’t want to enable any reassurance-seeking behaviors. The point of my response was that sharing a story with someone who is not a therapist just made me feel worse. If I had known then what I know now about reassurance-seeking, I never would have done it.
- Date posted
- 4y
you just made me sad
- Date posted
- 4y
Yes yes and yes!
- Date posted
- 4y
Yep! Its more miserable for me than the ones that are purely not reality based.
- Date posted
- 4y
hopefully that girl doesnt find me :) Story for story?
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w
Hi everyone, I'm struggling with what I think are intrusive thoughts, possibly related to OCD, and I'm hoping someone here might relate. When I was younger, in my early teens, I went through a period where I had a strong interest in pornography. During that time, I encountered hentai involving male characters, related to an anime I enjoyed. One of the characters was someone I even looked up to. I feel incredibly uncomfortable admitting this, but I believe I engaged in sexual activity related to it. Years later, I'm plagued by intrusive thoughts about this. I feel intense self-disgust and shame. It's like this memory has "tainted" my ability to enjoy that anime, and sometimes other things. I'm constantly replaying the situation in my mind, questioning my past actions, and worrying about what it means about me. The anxiety is significantly impacting my life. Does anyone else experience intrusive thoughts focused on past events, particularly those that cause feelings of shame or disgust? How do you cope with the constant replaying and questioning? I'm looking for support and understanding. Thank you for listening.
- Young adults with OCD
- Students with OCD
- "Pure" OCD
- POCD
- OCD newbies
- NOCD Therapy Alumni
- False Memory OCD
- Real Events OCD
- Date posted
- 18w
With real event OCD, I don’t know if any of you feel this way, but do you ever feel that the past event(s) that you ruminate about or constantly obsess about are gonna come up in your future and just absolutely ruin you, that’s how I’ve been feeling for months, it just feels like impending doom, and I hate having to even think that my future would be ruined by what I did as a teenager, and I did some dumb things, that I regret so deeply, I just can’t stop thinking about that.
- Date posted
- 17w
I would really appreciate it so much if someone took the time to read this and help me. I don’t know what to do anymore. I haven’t posted here in awhile. I had my OCD managed pretty decently for a year or so on medication, but I had to stop taking it, and after around 3-4 months, the OCD has become unbearable again. It used to be much more surrounding existential themes, eating, and others, not really real event/false memory stuff. But now it’s gotten really out of hand and I don’t know how to do it anymore. It’s surrounding a time of my life a long time ago. It was a dark time. I wasn’t myself and I was going through a lot of things, and I did a lot of things I regret. I self-destructed, embarrassed myself, and wasn’t good to the people around me. I was able to get my mind off of it for a long time, even though I would still think about it a good amount. I was able to be in the present, at least moreso than now. But now that I’m off medication, the guilt has become my obsession again. I can’t move on. I can’t do anything without thinking about all of these memories. I’m obsessed. I’ve started hating myself again, so much so that it’s hard to do anything anymore or believe I deserve anything good. The people around me tell me it wasn’t even that bad, but to me it was. To me, I failed myself, lost myself, and failed everyone around me. I can’t stop thinking about every person I said something wrong to or every time I screwed up. I’ve now started to convince myself I did terrible things I can’t remember, and that my mind just can’t deal with it. And that’s why I feel so guilty. There’s nothing to really support this though. But I’m starting to really convince myself that’s true. I’m trying not to listen to it, because I’ve convinced myself I have hit people with my car before and haven’t remembered when I absolutely didn’t and I know I never have. I drive back over and over to check there’s no one, even though I never heard any bang or felt myself anything. I can convince myself of some crazy false memories. So I know that I shouldn’t listen. But it’s hard not to when I have this guilt gnawing at me constantly. I come to conclusions that this guilt must be because I did something terrible that I don’t remember, even though I already think the things I remember were bad enough. But I would know by now right? If I did something bad I don’t remember? I don’t feel like this all the time. But it’s a lot of the time. But maybe that should be reassuring, that I only start obsessing like this when I think to. The past haunts me though. And I can never be in the present. I’ve started to resort to some unhealthy behaviors to distract myself or help me work towards something. I am starting to hate myself so much and feel like there’s no way I’ll ever be able to get out of this loop. I feel like I just can’t do this anymore. Maybe I need to go back on medication. But I don’t know. I don’t really want to. But will I ever fix this without it? Why do I feel SO guilty, all of the time? I do all these things for people because I feel indebted to them, because I feel undeserving of everything. I feel awful about myself. I don’t know what to do. Does anyone else deal with this?
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond