- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
The rumination is the compulsion and the way to break it is to do nothing with the thought. When it pops up, don’t engage with it. Look at something next to you or name 5 things you can see. Always redirecting the brain to see or do something else
- Date posted
- 4y
Yes. When u start to notice your mind drifting in the direction of ruminating the thought..:redirect yourself to do what you need to focus on like ..oh I’m going to ruminate, imma finish reading my book. Or there goes that thought again I’m going to watch a show.
- Date posted
- 4y
Your ocd is a tantruming child and giving It attention by engaging with it makes it stronger and scream louder
- Date posted
- 4y
Mine was based of something real too then OCD likes to twist it around and make it lie on me. In a weird way it’s trying to protect me. It’s exhausting. All I can do is refocus and redirect my thoughts. Like bumpers on a bowling lane. The ball is the throught and it wants to go all over to the next lane (aka rumination ) so all I can do is but those bumpers up and redirect myself back to whatever game I need to focus on.
- Date posted
- 4y
Oh my god mine sounds so similar. Honestly, even though this sucks so much, I’ve grown so much as a person. I developed a mediation habit, mindfulness, great exercise routine and all and I’m hella motivated. And i genuinely feel peaceful and happy at moments. I honestly feel in a few years I might look back and think this was like the best thing that happened to me, albeit incredibly draining and scary at the moment, because it’s shaped me into a more calibrated, peaceful and focused person.
- Date posted
- 4y
Yes they’re called intrusive images! I have them too
- Date posted
- 4y
They seem so damn real, it’s scary. And like the effect of ignoring a summons is also bad - like not that bad cuz it can be reversed. But then I’m like what if I get the other one instructing me I should vacate a default and forget about it? I’m basically just driving myself crazy thinking I’ve been summoned to court and forgetting about it, when I don’t recall anything.
- Date posted
- 4y
@abx850 I have intrusive images and obsessions regarding legal stuff as well. The best thing to do is to not ruminate. If you read dr Michael Greenberg’s website he talks about it. It’s really helpful.
- Date posted
- 4y
As in don’t give the thought credence, focus on the present moment, recognize that I’m ruminating and all and refocus on something important to me?
- Date posted
- 4y
This is great thank you so much! Are you someone that has recovered from these legal fears and all that - mine is based on a real legal event (I won handedly thankfully) from like 2 years ago I just keep getting stuck on and being unable to move on. Even though like everyone is like “chill bro, live life, move the hell on”, but I’m like what if the Karen tries to find something stupid to get back at me again.
- Date posted
- 4y
I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s something that changes you as a person since it was kinda traumatic. Maybe talking with a therapist who can do trauma work with that event and rumination could be helpful.
- Date posted
- 4y
@flore122 Honestly I did that and it’s worked out great actually. I’ve even gotten into so much mindfulness, mediation and yoga stuff and I’ve been wanting to get back on social media and do all my exposures. But every time I feel like I get a handle on this stuff, I can control compulsions, and I genuinely feel at peace, a new fear pops up. Before it was about getting sued, now I’m not scared of that. It’s not knowing when someone comes to my door that I’ve been sued, which is so scary bc then I’m afraid of forgetting and all. It definitely was traumatic but I feel I’m not scared as much anymore. I’m just scared of it coming back that’s all... and I’ve even accepted uncertainty in that anyone can be sued, etc etc. but now this thing ugh.
- Date posted
- 4y
@abx850 I get it. Totally trauma based. Have you ever looked into EMDR therapy?
- Date posted
- 4y
@flore122 Oh my god, I have not but it looks amazing and also hella expensive haha. Thanks for sharing! Have you tried it?
- Date posted
- 4y
@abx850 Yeah I did . Specifically for the legal event that happened. It helps reprocess the memory and put it to rest.
- Date posted
- 4y
Initially I read your post to tell you that you are not alone, which you aren’t. Many OCD sufferers can have intrusive images as a part of intrusive thoughts. But now I only think it’s fair to let you know you have triggered me. I am named Karen. It has been hard to have my name turned into a derisive term for hateful, bigoted, racist, willfully ignorant women. It is also very distracting from the serious issues for which the women in questionable events of such negativity and hatred are called “Karen”. As in, hearing my own name despite the perpetrator of hate not being named Karen, naturally distracts me from the important issues at large. I don’t want to report this post because all the actual Karens I know are caring and understanding. However, I do think it’s right to stand up for ourselves. If letting you know how triggering it can be can help another Karen from losing sleep, then it’s worth it, even if I do sound like “I want to speak to the manager.” (And that last part is my coping mechanism to try to make light of the situation to counteract the sadness and distress.)
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
My last and almost life long theme/sub-theme largely subsided recently and my ocd felt like it wasn’t even an issue. Then I went on winter break from uni and being alone made my mind come up with a whole new topic to obsess over. TLDR on my fears, my advisor wouldn’t email me back for a while about signing up for classes so my mind started to worry “what if he doesn’t in time and you can’t enroll this semester and you lose this whole life you just built and all these new friends” So when that issue was resolved my mind found other scarier ways I could be uprooted from my current life and friends that I’ve grown so attached to. Then my mind remembered back when I was struggling with false memories and scrupulosity and I essentially made a post on a forum 2 and a half years ago saying I did something or was convinced I did something that I never actually did. Now I’ve been spiraling about someone finding it reporting me and I either get seen as a horrible person or arrested or something over something I never actually did but “admitted” to out of fear of going to hell. My mind won’t let it go and keeps finding new reasons for it to be “valid” “logical” or even inevitable. I feel like it’s just hanging over my head and I can never rest easy. Especially when I try to focus on my daily tasks or plan for the future I get this horrible flair up of “why plan for the future when this could come back in that future and you get uprooted from all of it” my mind won’t rest without certainty being uprooted won’t happen but certainty doesn’t exist, at least not with ocd. This sucks and I miss being care free.
- Date posted
- 23w
Hi, I’m new here!! I’m praying I don’t get judged for this. But, back in late May of 2022 ( literally right before I graduated high school), I added this one random girl from my school on Snapchat. She posted something about a graduation party , so I swiped up on her story basically saying how I can’t believe we’re almost graduated. She replied and we had a really short and simple conversation. The next day ( i believe) , we started talking a lot , and I just so happened to see her at the highschool when we were grabbing our graduation outfits and doing the rehearsal. When I saw her irl, I kinda got turned off ( I heard she was kinda crazy) , and on top of that , she was a little ugly irl. I remember seeing her Snapchat bio , and she was close friends with my female cousin ( a year younger than me) , who I happened to experiment sexually with when I was 10-11 years old. I remember going to work later that day and having sort of a lightbulb flick thought ( it wasn’t a good thought though) , what if my cousin told her about what happened when we were younger? So I started to kind of panic and immediately distanced myself from that girl. I also experimented sexually with one of my female friends when I was 10-11 , and from that day onwards, I’ve been pretty much living in paranoia and a little bit of guilt about someone finding out and my life being ruined . On top of that, It’s gotten worse to now sometimes I wonder if a girl I added off of quick add ( Snapchat) is underage even if they told me they were 18+ or had 18 and above in their bio, and I get so much guilt and anxiety about that. I even had a quick thought last February on what if I did something inappropriate with my younger cousin when I was 15-16 but I just can’t exactly remember when it happened , and it still eats me alive when I think about it, because I don’t know if it happened or not. I’m sorry for the long vent, I just wish I felt normal again. No matter how much I try to do things that old me used to do, life always feels “ off”. I always kept the top part about when I was younger a secret up until early (ish ) 2024, then I vented to one of my best friends and he told me that that’s a normal thing to do at a young age. Since then, I have told multiple friends and they all say they did similar stuff, but my brain just can’t accept that. Please help me, I quite literally overthink everything nowadays. 2021 was the last full year that I felt normal ( coincidentally, the best year of my life so far) . It’s not just about sexual related things either, sometimes I’ll wonder if I messed up something at work or hit a car while driving/hit someone and drove off. I just wanna live my life how I was supposed to live it after highschool ( carefree and happy) before whatever it is ( I think it’s ocd) hit me unexpectedly. Thanks to anyone who read this , I just needed to pour it out regardless of how negative I felt typing this, I hope someone can relate , because I feel so alone in my head at times.
- Date posted
- 19w
Very brief mentions of pocd and nsfw jokes,id like this to be adults only . Repost bc i had to edit something Does anyone have experience with real event ocd attached to your online footprint etc? I keep checking old messages,trying to find old people i knew i used to talk to etc. To find out every problematic thing I did and if I've ever been unfollowed or blocked by anyone I used to be friends w online/atleast on good terms w. I am particularly concerned abt doing something bigoted,esp racist bc i have racism ocd,and doing something predatory bc of my pocd. I remember hanging around people who could use 'edgy' or offensive humour in my teens and i remember a lot of sex jokes and that i would join in on sex jokes sometimes . i dont remember details w the offensive humour as much,i feel like i didnt join in on it as much but i was definitely WAY passive abt things and prob let a lot of bad stuff slide i shouldnt have bc i didn't speak up it was wrong,I remember one friend in an online community would say slurs and horrible jokes when i was 16. I dont remember my response to it as much but i feel i didnt speak up abt it aside one time i found in the dms where he made a bad joke on a thing i shared for social justice. I cant stop going thru old messages and stuff or trying to find ppl from the past. I feel like if I don't check it now,that eventually it'll come to haunt me or that I'll stumble across it eventually. I worry what if someone messaged me on one of these apps I un-installed or on one of the accounts I don't have access to,confronting me abt all this stuff I did. I had an obsession w this back in 2020 and did check in depth on all my accounts,but now that it's been 4 years the obsession is back in full swing.
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