- Username
- pluto
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I have false memories too. I think that a lot of people struggle with this but it’s not the majority of ocd most people have intrusive thoughts and compulsions. For me a lot of my compulsions is based on false memories. Please don’t despair there is treatment for this as well. I’m receiving treatment right now and medication has helped me a lot. May I ask what theme you have? Mine is pocd and it feels like the worst but I know others can be very hard as well
I have false memories
Hales I know exactly what you are going though. It’s horrible, but it’s improving!
So sorry ?? well I’m really new into therapy right now I’m just tracking my thoughts/ compulsions but it has been super relieving just to be able to talk to somebody about my false memories (hope they are false) and fears. I definitely recommend therapy xx
I have false memories and recently they made me believe that I sexually molested someone.
Thanks halespineapple I started therapy. Jelpk that sounds horrible I'm sorry
Was it therapy that helped? I'm just confused how false memories are treated and what if my therapist believes them.
Also your therapist isn’t going to believe them. False memories is a key part of ocd and can seem so real. If you knew they were real you wouldn’t be on this app you wouldn’t be checking to see if they were real or ruminating about them. You would trying to figure out how to deal with the consequences. That is what I tell myself anyway and some days I’m not sure if my memories are real or not. Your therapist can’t tell you whether or not they think your memories are real or not because that would be reassurance but they can “normalize” your behaviors and let you know what they consider is behavior characteristic of ocd and false memories are
Yeah I know trauma can play a role but not always. My ocd has tried to tell me I’ve been abused but i know I haven’t. Some non ocd specialists try to do talk therapy and convince sufferers they’ve been abused and it’s causing their ocd but it’s not always the case. In any case, ruminating is always a futile search :) Best wishes to you!
Thanks everyone. Halespineapple I have harm, pocd and sometimes afraid I'm attracted to or done things with family members. It kind of jumps around and gets confusing. Harm was the main one for a long time
Also did therapy help? I'm thinking of trying meds but SSRIs made me worse because turns out I probably have bipolar also
Rollt1805 sorry you have them too
Thanks Pluto, it’s getting better slowly❤️
My fear exactly jelpk
I believe you can like write scripts about your worst feared false memory and you exposure yourself to that fear. It’s called ERP. Also most ocd specialists will teach your acceptance commitment therapy which is accepting your fears. I know that sounds crazy but you have to accept- ok maybe I did that maybe I didn’t and it’s the only way to move forward. The phrase “confidence over certainty” really helps me. Like I don’t know for certain that I didn’t harm a child, but I’m choosing the confidence that I didn’t because I don’t want to do that and I don’t think I’m capable of such an act. I’m not certain of that but I’m confident that I wouldn’t have the guts to do it.
Thanks this helps! I'm doing ACT but not ERP yet so I'll talk to her about that. My therapist thinks I might have trauma which may be true, but now I'm ruminating about that and having fears that aren't true about that. OCD is so tricky like that.
Please, I really need help right now. I know not to ask for reassurance, so all I am asking for is moral support and comfort. I am struggling with what I believe to be a false memory, as it feels virtually indistinguishable from a real memory. It happened almost immediately after the event, which brought great alarm, especially since I couldn’t sort through the gaps in time. The thing is, the images that popped into my head go against all my moral fibers. Deep down I know I would never— or even could ever—bring myself to jeopardize the well-being of anyone. In fact, the first night I had I repeated my actions a few times to prove nothing bad happened. I was able to sleep well at night with only the vague impression of something bad, I think. So, I payed no mind. The next day, it all worsened. I avoided compulsions for a while, but the thought lingered. It startled me, like I thought: “Maybe this is not OCD, what if it really did happened?” Of course, I listed all the reasons why it couldn’t possibly have happened. I physically repeated what I really believe, or hope, happened. Yesterday, or maybe the day prior, I was struck with a vivid image. Again, I avoided compulsions without much anxiety, then I caved in. I asked my family what they thought, watched some videos, and did some research to solidify that what I imagined is a false memory. None of which were much help for long. I even cried later that evening—a couple times. Every time I don’t react to the intrusive thought, a suspicion arises, like it of must be true. But how? I mean, it’s almost entirely improbable. After constantly trying to piece everything together, it just feels like a jumbled mess of fact and fiction. I’m having trouble moving on... I dealt with this in the past and later realized how silly I was, but it always sucks being in the middle of it. I am now questioning, what is real? what is fabricated? I am now unsure of myself and the true nature of who I am. OCD has stripped me of my confidence. I hate this. I truly feel alone and broken as of recent. I wish I could flash forward in time to show myself it’s all OCD trickery. But, unfortunately, I can’t. If this is OCD, I know I should not ask for reassurance, but can anyone give me comfort? Has anyone experienced something similar? If so, what did you do to better yourself? Can you give me some moral support? I am so mortified at the idea of past and prospect of the future. I don’t really have the want to eat as normal and have trouble sleeping at the sheer amount dread and doubt. Thank you and much love!
How can something that’s not true feel so real?! Something I had intrusive thoughts about months ago, has come back and now I’m stuck. I had reassurance from my husband around these thoughts at the time ( I know that’s wrong by the way but I was desperate) Now I keep ruminating on that previous reassurance and my ocd is doubting that and my memory of it is feeling all hazy. I’m walking around with a constant feeling of being on edge and I’ve been resisting my urge to ask for reassurance again for weeks now but it’s just not going away. Can anyone here relate? How can I get it to move on? The whole maybe maybe not approach is just not appropriate here, it’s already making me uncomfortable around my husband with just the thoughts being present, thoughts that logically deep down I know are false.
I am drowning in my mind and I need some outside perspective or even just someone who may relate a little. I’ve already made a post about some of my story involving false memory ocd, but I figured I would come on here and share what has “reawakened” the issue for the past two years. I had laid off of worrying over my false memory for a few years, but it all started up again with me double checking that no crime/murder/etc had taken place in my town around the time I was struggling with harm ocd. Well, it quickly took a turn when I found an article about a “suspicious” death that had occurred around that time. According to the article, this death was eventually labeled as no foul play (aka not murder). But I still obsessed over this because of how real my worry had felt in the past that I somehow had left my house, hurt/killed someone, came back home and forgot. I searched through all of my activity history (Google, YouTube, Facebook) from around that time. I found a large gap in my Facebook activity (like several days of no activity) which was around the same time during the month the man had died. That only skyrocketed my worries even though I knew I had been struggling which may have been the reason why my activity had gaps (the previous month had a similar one as well). But nope, I continued obsessing and panicking because guess what? My YouTube activity from the weekend prior to when the man was found dead has weird activity (the history shows a gap in between 7pm - 4am on that Saturday). I tried finding a similar gap in the months surrounding, but could only find one that was sort of similar (7pm - 2am). So this led me to come up with the idea that I must have done “it” that night. Keep in mind, I would’ve been a scrawny 14 yr old girl at the time, and I don’t even know what I would’ve done or even could’ve done. That’s all to say — it just feels like my life is some huge lie and that all my fears are true. I don’t want to hurt anybody, and I know that younger me probably didn’t want to either, but how can I ignore what feels like actual proof that I’m a monster? It’s not like my false memories didn’t feel real either, so I can’t even shrug it off at all. I never see anyone have “proof” that their false memory is true, and in fact it’s usually people saying they have proof that it’s not. I’m just so lost, and I feel like I’m just lying to myself despite having been told by multiple therapists that this is just OCD.
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