- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
I’m going through this now. Go on YouTube and look up Ali Greymonds video on False Memories and how to deal with them. :) It’s helped me so much
- Date posted
- 6y
Let me know if it helps!
- Date posted
- 6y
dealing with this now
- Date posted
- 6y
Thankyou
- Date posted
- 6y
Will do
- Date posted
- 6y
Are you your not alone
- Date posted
- 6y
I wish I knew what it was back when it first happened. I had no idea
- Date posted
- 6y
@Lewis, do you mean that you wish you knew that the ‘memory’ you had was a false memory when it first entered your mind? I’m just asking as this is what happened to me. Except that I didn’t know that I had OCD, or about false memories as a result of OCD until over 10 years after the ‘memory’ first popped in to my mind. I spent over 10 years ruminating, feeling extreme anxiety and guilt, and i’m only just now in the past couple of years trying to wrap my head around the fact that it may have just been OCD nonsense. I could have saved myself so much heartache. I now look back and know that I’ve had OCD symptoms for as long as I can remember. I just never knew it because due to the nature of the thoughts I was having I was terrified to share with anyone/get help.
- Date posted
- 6y
I didn’t know I had OCD properly until like 2 months ago. Before that I just thought I was a worrier. The previous year or 2 I had worried about speed cameras and had these ‘what if’ false memories that I had gone over the speed limit. On New Year’s Day a load of ‘memories’ hit me and destroyed my life. I’ve managed to deal with all but one. For the whole month I’ve been seeking reassurance, asking people’s opinions, researching and it makes it 10x worse! This memory is about a Facebook conversation that I don’t remember and it’s honestly destroying me. I can’t even be happy and live my life
- Date posted
- 6y
Thanks for sharing @Lewis. It’s baffling, isn’t it? How you can live your life without a care in the world (i mean, aside from intense irrational OCD worry lol) and then one day have it all come crashing down because of a ‘memory’ that clearly couldn’t have been that important otherwise you’d have been worried about it before... Mine was triggered by watching a disturbing movie. And it seemed to dislodge a vague memory from 10 years prior. Thing is, while this felt like a memory, I have absolutely ZERO recollection of remembering it or even thinking about it any time before. That’s the thing that has always confused me. I have other memories, and i remember remembering them at times - as a part of my history in a way. This ‘memory’ was like brand new information - but somehow *felt* like a memory. I hold on to the hope that there’s just no way I wouldn’t recall this before, especially given how much i worry about everything in general. Makes your head spin. ? Hang in there. ?
- Date posted
- 6y
I know. That feels like reassurance that I would have remembered it. I had a few drinks and feel guilty for what I was doing anyway. (But not illegal) However, my mind has spiralled into what if you did or said something and it was illegal?! What if you said this? What if they were this etc etc. I don’t know how it’s messing me up so much! Hmmmm that’s strange! Could have been a dream? How much does it impact your life now?
- Date posted
- 6y
yeah the ‘what ifs’ are the killers. the thing i ‘remembered’ is legitimately inconsequential, if even real at all. it’s all the ‘what ifs?’ that i’ve attached to it that worry me so much. (none of which i have a memory of - just a concern that they *could* have happened) i read once that a false memory ocd thought is just a standard ocd nonsense thought, just one that’s about the past, not the future. i find that helps me understand my faulty logic about the whole thing. mine impacts my life pretty significantly. i think about it constantly. it’s the one OCD theme that I haven’t been able to move past because it’s in the past, and as a result it’s impossible to obtain certainty. I know i have to move forward and give up the search for certainty, but for some reason this one is harder to let go of. I hope you’re able to move on from this torture. Wishing you well!
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
Does anyone else’s false memory intrusive thoughts of what could have happened feel very, very real?
- Date posted
- 24w
So. I was in a traumatic relationship. for a long time. it was filled with gaslighting, manipulation, abuse, cheating ect. I would OBSESS over finding out where they were, what they were doing, who they were talking too. but I couldn’t leave. I tried so hard but I never could. they would call me names, physically hurt me, throw things, break things. because I would question them all the time. but I just couldn’t leave. no matter what I knew. they would manipulate me. I fell for their childhood trauma. it’s like I lost all logic. but I also feel like I have a pretty good memory with memories. not all the way, but remembering a lot of the traumatic things. especially now that I’m no longer with them. I keep remembering things that’s happened. even from my childhood. one time way before I even started dating this person, I had an intrusive thought about a friend of mine. that was with me. and I freaked out. I thought I had acted on the intrusive thought the next day. I asked my friend for confirmation but they said nothing happened. but the memories about it feel SO REAL. so VIVID. but they swore that nothing happened and they had no idea what I was talking about. I’ve struggled with intrusive thoughts for my whole life. so fast forward to now, that ‘false memory’ from my friend randomly popped up and I started obsessing about it, and my childhood ‘memories’ that have popped up. and then I was reading an article of someone doing something horrible, and then it sounded ‘familiar’ and so then I’ve created this whole memory of me doing something similar to the article involving my partner doing it also. the memory keeps adding new things and conversations around it. when it involves an actual real memory. but it’s like it’s been twisted from what I remembered before. I also suffer from bad anxiety. I’ve stalked pictures. my search history to figure out what I was doing that say when the real event happened. and I’ve found some things but I can’t look through my texts because I got a new phone. it has been hounding me for months. MONTHS. trying to figure out if this new ‘memory’ is real or not. if it’s been fabricated by an intrusive thought from reading the article and thinking ‘what if’ or if it actually happened and because I’m no longer in this relationship it’s a ‘repressed memory’ but the thing is I have horrible horrible anxiety and I don’t think I could have gone this long knowingly that that happened without remembering it until now. because I remember a lot of the horrible things that they did. this ‘memory’ is fuzzy, but it brings me horrible anxiety when I think of it, like I feel like it happened. but I also feel like it didn’t happen. because I know I would never do anything like that. but WHAT IF I DID, because I was manipulated. idk. is this a false memory. I really need help. because it’s been debilitating. that relationship was really traumatic. and I got manipulated into a lot of things. but I wouldn’t have just went forward knowing that that happened??? there’s no way I could have just forgotten it. because before when I would think about that night it was different, until now. but what if I just made myself forget what truly happened?? I’m a pretty self aware individual, but somehow that relationship really REALLY put me into a trance somehow where I allowed things that I have no idea how I would even allow because before I met that person I would have never allowed someone to cheat on my constantly or talk to me the way they did. or allow abuse. like I don’t understand it.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 22w
Can it feel like you literally remember a false memory happening? And it feels like the memory has always been there and you vividly remember it happening that way? Because I don’t even know if I’m experiencing a false memory or not but god it feels so fucking real. Like I literally remember it happening. But what’s weird is the original memory was kind of different. 2 years later, the memory is not the same, but it feels like I literally remember it happening. And in this memory, I’m fucking snapping. I’m acting on my thoughts. I feel like a fucking psycho. I hope this is just OCD
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