- Username
- Anonymous
- Date posted
- 3y ago
hello! first off - the fact that you're so worried and distressed about these things means they're not your true intentions / you wouldn't do them. many people (mental illness or not) deal with intrusive thoughts related to harm. it's just people with anxiety or ocd (even if u haven't been diagnosed) think that these thoughts mean something about them, when they don't. the fact that you're distressed is a clear sign that they're not your values💗 you're not alone in this. intrusive urges and images are also very common! the thing with intruisve urges is that they're not the same as a real urge. for example - you may have an impulsive urge to cut your hair & this is an urge that you WANT to do. intrusive urges are urges that you don't want - hence why they're called intruisve. they can be scary, especially when you don't know much about them. but they're common! @windsor.flynn on instagram (i recommend following her or looking at her page) has a post specifically for "how intrusive thoughts can feel like urges" and it's related to harm ocd / harm thoughts, i recommend checking it out! as for you avoiding people - that will just make your anxiety worse. you see - our brains don't know real danger from danger we create in our brains. you may think that avoiding people is helping but it's really fueling your thoughts (fueling them as in they will become more frequent not that you'd act on them). don't give power to your thoughts! they're just thoughts. hangout with your friends or family!<3 i promise you you're not a monster or whatever else you may be thinking you are. many people deal with this.
i also recommend mindfulness. it helped me with my intrusive thoughts and anxiety! there's many books you can buy. what helps is when you get an intrusive thought, don't pay attention to it but also don't push it away. don't try and figure out what it means bc it doesn't mean anything. just let it flow by, eventually if you keep doing this the thoughts will become less and less. and then when you do get an intrusive thought (bc everyone gets them!!), you would've developed a new and better relationship to it, and you'll let it just pass by because you'll know it doesn't mean anything about you!! and do the same for urges, let them pass by and don't try and figure out what they mean.:)
Thank you so much!! Yes, these thoughts feel very real sometimes, it’s scary, it’s like I have something disturbing stuck in my mind following me 24/7!! I will follow the ig account! And also I feel like this is not OCD, like this is something real, but I guess it’s part of OCD. Yes I feel urges sometimes, like if I could go and act on my thoughts, but I really don’t want to, and it feels like an urgency. Thank you so much :)
@Anonymous that's totally apart of ocd & anxiety! i'm not diagnosed but i have bad anxiety and get intrusive thoughts, so i know what u mean! but that's normal<3
@coucou Thank you! It makes me relieved <3 I hope I cope this, because it’s really uncomfortable :(
@Anonymous you will get through!! <3 theres always blue sky after a storm :)
@coucou Thank youuu that’s so sweet🥰
I have Harm OCD and this sounds pretty textbook. OCD can feel VERY real. And I second mindfulness. A good rule when it comes to thoughts is this: If you didn't choose it, let it be.
Did this happen to you too? And thank you for the advice!!
@Anonymous Yes, I believe it happens to most people that have OCD, and it can be especially scary with Harm. I've definitely felt the urges along with thoughts and images. It's all part of OCD which is how it latches on. It is so scary. Everyone with OCD has questioned whether or not they have OCD or if this is who we've always been. I had that thought just this morning. But honestly, you know who you've always been? Right? You know it. Psychopaths would not have distress over these thoughts. I've been there too. Afraid of schizophrenia, psychosis, turning into a psychopath, sociopath...all of these fears are also common in conjunction with Harm OCD because its like a brain hijacking. OCD loves to ask you what if, what if, what if. I recommend Ali Greymond on YouTube, and listen to a few talks from Jeffery Schwartz as well. Also, Dr. Michael Greenberg has a great interview on the OCD Stories podcast, also on YouTube. It sounds like you're ruminating a lot, and his methods might help!
@CB6236 Thank you! Yess it’s the fear of turning into a psychopath, or going schizophrenic, or the fear that you might act on your thoughts and not knowing if that will happen or not. Yes I ruminate a lot, so thank you for your recommendations, I will check those out!
I fear I might have psychopath characteristics, I really feel like I could be one :(
Idk if I have ocd or not I just want to know about 4 months ago I started getting harmful thoughts to loved ones im very scared because I would never hurt anyone. These thoughts scare me so much because they are so vivid and I have like these urges as if I’m going to do it. What is this? Am I ok? Am I going crazy please someone help it feels like I can’t take it anymore living this way with these thoughts haunting me day and night.
I’ve been dealing with this harm theme for almost four months now, and well obviously life hasn’t been the best for me, the thoughts really circulate on hurting others, why couldn’t they just been about me instead? (I apologize to those currently suffering from self harm ocd) it’s gotten to the point where I don’t know if my thoughts are really intrusive now, and it doesn’t help that I get urges to act on these thoughts. Why have I been cursed with such vile thoughts why me why now. The only good news so far is that I’m finally going to see if this is ocd or not and get diagnosed by a psychiatrist once I start college here in a few weeks(Thank gatos for my college has mental health resources) but honestly it just doesn’t really feel like ocd. I don’t know if I feel anxiety because it’s not the typical anxiety I feel. While my compulsions are mental it’s just wierd. Like I’m worried that ERP wouldn’t work for me. Sometimes I get thoughts like, how do people live without these thoughts? And how do they occupy their time? I know I used to be like other people, yk where I wasn’t worried or concerned because of these thoughts, like yeah I’ve had intrusive thoughts before in the past and they absolutely scared me, but I was just able to get over them. So why now does it feel like i can’t shake them off? Why do they have to show up everyday? And why have I become so apathetic? Like my empathy and sympathy feel like they’ve disappeared? And it’s so bad that sometimes I feel like if someone close to me just passed away I would feel nothing. Like when I heard my abuelo had skin cancer I just felt nothing and I was obsessing over the fact that I didn’t. Has anyone ever felt this way? Is it just ocd or something worse?
I haven’t been diagnosed yet but I honestly think I have POCD. I have been getting a lot of images or thoughts of children lately, like sexually too and it’s been very disturbing. The thoughts have been nonstop. I have three nephews at home and I’m scared that if I look at them for too long or make eye contact, then that means I’m attracted to them. I have been avoiding them for the past few days and when I hung out with my friend the other day, we were talking about our future and it made me feel so anxious and sad and guilty because of these thoughts I’ve been having. I have to keep telling myself that I know I don’t feel attracted to them in any way but then the question pops up, like “are you really sure about that?” I almost committed a few days ago because of it and the only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want to leave my mom or my sister. I did some self harm too and I have to keep reminding myself that if I really felt that way towards kids, then I wouldn’t be going through this much. I feel so guilty because I’ve broken down in front of my mom and she keeps asking what’s wrong but I feel like I can’t tell her. Yesterday and today though, I feel really out of place because I feel like I can’t feel anything when the thoughts come up and I don’t know if that’s normal. Does that mean I’m actually that kind of person? It genuinely scares me to even think about.
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