I guess I am curious how others have moved past the guilt that intrusive thoughts may have caused them? I am getting to the point where my most distressing thought is not eliciting a visceral and anxious response. This has decreased the prevalence of the thought. However, I find myself beating myself up for ever even having the thought. When I do this, obviously the thought returns more frequently. I also suffer from anhedonia, so I don’t know if this is my minds way of torturing me I.e. I can’t feel anything positive so why not make it so I feel the worst way possible so I at least feel something. I appreciate any insight you can provide.

Please know you’re not the only one going through this. I’m going through pretty much the exact same thing right now. I’m beginning my journey to get to the root of all of this and re-discover who I really am. In my experience, being very quiet spirited (calm on the inside) and not taking your OCD thoughts to help a lot. What I’ve learned is that, good or bad, it doesn’t matter what others believe you are, but what you believe you are. Hope this helped and I’ll be praying for you! We don’t have any other choice but to believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel. You’re not in this alone.

Thank you! You too! I’ll revisit this thread every now and then! Lemme know how y’all are doing 👍🏼

I have yet to be formally diagnosed as well, it was about a year straight of awful intrusive thoughts and then I got a lot better by being as mindful as I could be and that turned everything around! I reccomend a movie called “About time”. That’s what encouraged me to be mindful and find the joy in life, moment by moment.

Thank you, I appreciate it. I had never thought of it until now but it’s almost like my obsession has now turned towards how I am feeling? And with the anhedonia, it’s very rarely anything so the more distressing obsessions come back? Idk just spit balling. I don’t have a formal diagnosis of ocd yet, so I guess I am just trying to figure out what is going on

Same here! It’s just the weirdest thing isn’t it? But we’ve gotta have some hope that things will get better!

I often worry if I don’t have a negative response to the thought that I’m entertaining it. It’s super scary.

I’m the exact same way!

Same!

Today’s been one of the worst days I’ve had in awhile. It’s hard to know what’s a compulsion and what’s not for me. It’s awful but it helps to know I’m not the only one.

I have a had a few “good days” without limited intrusive thoughts. However, I seem to sabotage them by engaging in reassurance seeking out compulsions. I also currently feel like I have irreparably damaged the relationships with the people my hocd is focused on. While I have been transparent with them about what I’m going through and they have been accepting, I feel like I am never going to get back to the place we were before. This all just fuels my intrusive thoughts and it comes back viciously. It’s like even if I take 1 step forward, I find ways to take 800 backwards. It’s exhausting.

Again, had another few good days, and today was the most intense reaction to my thoughts that I think I have ever had. I haven’t cried in years, and today I broke down and couldn’t stop. Idk if this is ocd, depression or what. I start ERP tomorrow; I’m praying that I can get better control of this.