ok I have a question, does anything else have intrusive thoughts that compel them to do the opposite of what someone with ocd normally do? let me explain: suppose someone has harm ocd and they have this intrusive thought "what if I wanna drop my baby sister while I'm holding her?" etc now I think normally the compulsion would be that you avoid holding her at all so the thought would go away right? now what if the compulsion is doing the opposite, you go out of your way and hold your her whenever you get the thought to prove to yourself that you don't believe the it and it doesn't faze you ergo you're not a bad person. does that make any sense at all? I'm only saying this as an example but I do struggle with doing the opposite of what would make the thoughts go away, to prove they don't mean anything to me therefore I'm not my thoughts. I told my psychiatrist about it and she looked like she's never heard anything like that and I feel like maybe I'm faking things :/

yep!! my only theme is schizophrenia ocd, so sometimes I get thoughts that mimic delusions, like "what is this food is poisoned?" and now instead of avoiding the food, I *have* to eat it to prove I'm not developing schizophrenia

@woeisme that makes a lot of sense, i think it’s a way for our brains to prove the thoughts wrong and reassure ourselves, almost like ERP, i always think if i face my fears and prove the intrusive thoughts wrong then it makes them less loud and less scary. you’re definitely not alone!

@havinghope then what tf is the erp supposed to be like? not eat the food if I get a thought about it being poisoned? isn't that also ocd? lmao thanks for the support :)

@woeisme i totally understand the confusion, i honestly am not the most educated about ERP lol but from what i heard i know it’s mostly about facing the fear, i understand what you’re going through though and no problem. :)

oh so do you only have obsessions?

@woeisme I do have compulsions, so I do understand, but it sounds like a lot to have to prove that you won’t get shot, as the example you gave. I apologize for not understanding at first, I think I was thinking in a different way. I do hope that you find a way to ease those compulsions.

@novemberwest nooI want to prove that I don't believe I'm gonna get shot, whatevs haha. well thank you, hope you get better too :)

it's not really a negative reaction, she just said she hasn't stumbled across something like this before and she believes me... anyhow my theme isn't actually harm ocd, it's just an example. I struggle with schizophrenia ocd, get a lot of delusional intrusive thoughts because I fear slipping into one. e.g. I was standing on the balcony once and saw some rando on the street and I had this thought pop up "what if he wants to shoot me?" and to prove to myself in not actually developing schizophrenia I had to sit there for like an hour to prove I'm not actually scared of the thought and am not delusional... yes it does calm me down, until another thought pops up fml

oh no no she believes me, idk I just merely felt she didn't, she didn't react negatively in any way. where I live it's really difficult to find a decent psychiatrist and she *is* decent so I don't wanna risk changing psychiatrists 🤷🏼 do you remember any of those books?

and it’s not even a conscious thing, like if i could choose no to become obsessed with it i would because it causes me sm anxiety when i think abt them so it’s annoying lol