- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
Today I just let the panic come on and wash over me without doing a compulsion and guess what? I felt relief after. If you can resist the compulsion and you can ride the anxiety wave you can recover!
- Date posted
- 6y
Thanx for saying that Scottyboy. I’m having some thoughts right now and I’m trying to control them. My shirt touched the washer and I’m tempted to put on a clean one...?
- Date posted
- 6y
Yes this is pretty much the definition of OCD. Intrusive thoughts that bother us with their frequency or realness, and we engage in compulsive behaviour to try to reign them in. I fully believe it's a process gone wrong in a sufferer's brain.
- Date posted
- 6y
@ rlesage Yes I’ve been doing them. Thank you!
- Date posted
- 6y
I still have the shirt on ??
- Date posted
- 6y
Thank you for the encouragement it’s helping me you don’t even know
- Date posted
- 6y
Yes! I think that’s exactly what it is because the intrusive thoughts are normal and everyone gets them. But we get so much anxiety, disgust, and other feelings from them that we try to get rid of the thoughts thinking it will get rid of the discomfort. As we learn that it’s okay to be uncomfortable and have thoughts we don’t like, it becomes easier to just let it pass on its own without feeling the need to push it away. My dad also turned to alcohol! That’s why I never drink because I don’t want to become an alcoholic.
- Date posted
- 6y
Yes this is pretty much the definition of OCD. Intrusive thoughts that bother us with their frequency or realness, and we engage in compulsive behaviour to try to reign them in. I fully believe it's a process gone wrong in a sufferer's brain.
- Date posted
- 6y
I totally agree. I feel like I’ve lost so much control of many of the important things I once had control over. It’s frustrating to feel powerless in situations that you know for a fact you have the best remedy for and no one will apply the counsel. So I’ve turned to hand washing. It’s the one thing I can control. I’ve also almost died from c.diff. I actually got it twice and had some pretty ugly things happen to me that made me feel a little anxious about getting so sick again.
- Date posted
- 6y
Hey red323, stay strong? Maybe an sos session would help?
- Date posted
- 6y
I did the sos...i feel ok but not 100%
- Date posted
- 6y
Keep going red! You have this! Do another sos if you must! Working through the triggers is awful, but so worth it!
Related posts
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 22w
Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?
- Date posted
- 18w
When I was a child, before I knew this was OCD, I struggled with constant "magical thinking" compulsions (don't step on the crack or mom's back will actually break, etc). When I later learned this was OCD, it almost immediately solved it. Any time I got a magical thought, I would say to myself "that's just an OCD thought. ignore it." and it just stopped coming! Like seriously it fixed the magical thinking stuff forever. But of course the OCD has resurfaced in other ways. So naturally, I've tried to use the same strategy since I had so much success with it previously. But I wonder sometimes if telling myself "that's just OCD" is almost functioning as a reassurance compulsion? I hate how meta this gets. For example, I have ROCD that comes and goes. So sometimes I'll get a thought like "what if i'm still in love with my ex?" and then I'll tell myself "that's obviously just an ROCD thought" and will feel relief, almost like reassurance. But it comes back. So is telling myself that it's OCD a reassurance compulsion ?? It's just so weird because it worked so perfectly as a kid with the magical thinking thing.
- Date posted
- 18w
I’ve been thinking a lot about how OCD changes the way we see ourselves, but I recently realized that I am not my thoughts. Just because a thought pops up doesn’t mean it’s true or that it defines me. I’ve started learning how to see OCD for what it is—just a disorder trying to trick me—and I’ve become stronger in dealing with it. Has anyone else here had a similar realization? How do you handle these thoughts when they show up?
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