- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
For me personally I’ve noticed the internal dialogue about being a bad person is another form of rumination. I think it’s good to bring these things up when you’re able to your therapist. It could be helpful to try and write a story about the memory and read it over and over for 40 minutes a day. Watch how and when the anxiety peaks and when it drops. Eventually you will habituate to the memory and your response to it will change. I’ve learned that it isn’t the actual memory or action that is the problem, but my response to it that is the problem. My anxiety around the grey areas of life. OCD wants black and white thinking, but in reality everyone makes mistakes and there are no completely good or completely bad people.
- Date posted
- 4y
I'll try that out. I never really thought of it that way. thanks for the insight.
- Date posted
- 4y
@struggling but still here No problem! Also, I’m not a therapist so I wouldn’t try doing the writing exposure until you talk with your therapist about it. I don’t want to make your OCD worse!
- Date posted
- 4y
@ohseedee for sure yeah
- Date posted
- 4y
This is a common issue in my OCD. Sometimes I have random memories come up about things I’ve said or done and they are accompanied by severe anxiety. My ocd tells me terrible things about myself and then I feel the need to confess these “bad actions” to everyone in my life to gauge how terrible I am. If you’re not careful the confession will lead to severe compulsions where you cannot do anything without confession and reassurance. It’s “real event OCD” and “moral Scrupulosity “.
- Date posted
- 4y
thanks for taking the time to comment. it's comforting to know I'm not alone
- Date posted
- 4y
You aren’t alone. My experiences may differ, but I know what it’s like to get STUCK, and I know how consuming and soul-wrenching it is to even have the OCD voice say, “you’re a terrible person.” Maybe this answer will help quiet that a little, maybe it won’t, but terrible people don’t usually beat themselves up worrying that they are terrible. Strength and comfort your way. 💪🏼💜
- Date posted
- 4y
thank you :) means a lot
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
17f I have a lot of events, but my main and my worst one which is absolutely fucking diabolical was done when I was 14 and repeated when I was 16. Everytime I post something about real event ocd here people are like you are probably didn't do anything that bad, and when they hear what I did they are like yeah that's bad. Someone even asked me if I'm autistic cause "it's crazy how you didn't realize that the thing ypu were doing was wrong at this age." And I kinda agree, like it's fucked up It's just that my event is bad. Doesn't mean I don't have real event ocd. You can have a reocd over the event that was bad, it doesn't mean the event wasn't that bad or you don't have recod. It's just people always expect it to be something innocent and it's not Even a healthy person would feel guilty over it, it's just that I had ocd my whole life and it's making the guilt absolutely destructive, like to the point when I sometimes have a hard time breathing when I think about it, I lost more than a year of life to it, almost checked myself out couple of times if I wasn't so scared of pain/failure, the event haunts me in my dreams, it's in my head 24/7 and I will never able to forgive myself. That ocd. But the event itself was bad. So maybe i deserve it.
- Date posted
- 22w
Hey guys, for the past three months I’ve been obsessing over a mistake I made about 6 months ago, I constantly have panic attacks and wake up in fight or flight mode I have convinced myself that someone is gonna find me somehow and punish me. I have endlessly looked up reassurance that what I did wouldn’t get me in trouble or something, I have filled up 5 different ChatGPT chats and it tells me it’s 100% certain nothing will happen. But then I convince myself well everyone says not to trust it and then I just spiral again. The point is I’m just scared, I’ve convinced myself this isn’t OCD because it’s something I actually did wrong. I can’t stop looking for reassurance because that’s the only thing that makes me feel safe anymore. Everyone tells me, just say maybe, maybe not, but my brain has convinced me the stakes are too high. I’m too scared and I don’t know what to do.
- Date posted
- 17w
I would really appreciate it so much if someone took the time to read this and help me. I don’t know what to do anymore. I haven’t posted here in awhile. I had my OCD managed pretty decently for a year or so on medication, but I had to stop taking it, and after around 3-4 months, the OCD has become unbearable again. It used to be much more surrounding existential themes, eating, and others, not really real event/false memory stuff. But now it’s gotten really out of hand and I don’t know how to do it anymore. It’s surrounding a time of my life a long time ago. It was a dark time. I wasn’t myself and I was going through a lot of things, and I did a lot of things I regret. I self-destructed, embarrassed myself, and wasn’t good to the people around me. I was able to get my mind off of it for a long time, even though I would still think about it a good amount. I was able to be in the present, at least moreso than now. But now that I’m off medication, the guilt has become my obsession again. I can’t move on. I can’t do anything without thinking about all of these memories. I’m obsessed. I’ve started hating myself again, so much so that it’s hard to do anything anymore or believe I deserve anything good. The people around me tell me it wasn’t even that bad, but to me it was. To me, I failed myself, lost myself, and failed everyone around me. I can’t stop thinking about every person I said something wrong to or every time I screwed up. I’ve now started to convince myself I did terrible things I can’t remember, and that my mind just can’t deal with it. And that’s why I feel so guilty. There’s nothing to really support this though. But I’m starting to really convince myself that’s true. I’m trying not to listen to it, because I’ve convinced myself I have hit people with my car before and haven’t remembered when I absolutely didn’t and I know I never have. I drive back over and over to check there’s no one, even though I never heard any bang or felt myself anything. I can convince myself of some crazy false memories. So I know that I shouldn’t listen. But it’s hard not to when I have this guilt gnawing at me constantly. I come to conclusions that this guilt must be because I did something terrible that I don’t remember, even though I already think the things I remember were bad enough. But I would know by now right? If I did something bad I don’t remember? I don’t feel like this all the time. But it’s a lot of the time. But maybe that should be reassuring, that I only start obsessing like this when I think to. The past haunts me though. And I can never be in the present. I’ve started to resort to some unhealthy behaviors to distract myself or help me work towards something. I am starting to hate myself so much and feel like there’s no way I’ll ever be able to get out of this loop. I feel like I just can’t do this anymore. Maybe I need to go back on medication. But I don’t know. I don’t really want to. But will I ever fix this without it? Why do I feel SO guilty, all of the time? I do all these things for people because I feel indebted to them, because I feel undeserving of everything. I feel awful about myself. I don’t know what to do. Does anyone else deal with this?
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