- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
I usually try to respond to those intrusive thoughts with the grandiose conspiracy theory that would have to be going on for this to take place. For example, I run a DND game for middle schoolers as a part of my job, and sometimes I let them stay on after class for a few minutes and we all hang out and talk. Sometimes OCD says this means I am predator, because I enjoy talking to my students. So I say to OCD: Yes, this has all been a long con for you to groom your students. You are truly evil and despicable human being. No other teachers have fun talking to their students, and the fact that you do crosses a boundary. The fact that you have never experienced attraction to these kids is an illusion and a lie you tell yourself so you can continue to groom them in a guilt free way. And then OCD is just kind of like... Yeah okay fine I sound really ridiculous right now.
- Date posted
- 3y
That's a good way to deal with this, making the OCD look as silly as it really is.
- Date posted
- 3y
I think it’s more along the lines of “Okay this is a thought I’m having. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything about me, thoughts come and go in everyone’s minds. On the off chance that this one is true, how does that make me feel? Am I able to cope with this discomfort? I’m going to sit with this feeling without performing compulsions, and eventually it’ll go away. Next time the thought comes back, I can brush it off with a little less pain/discomfort.” I guess it’s not about accepting the possibility that the thought presents so much as accepting that these thoughts will always come (because they come to everyone, not just people with OCD). And acknowledging that performing compulsions around a thought doesn’t affect the probability of it “coming true” - so your job is to sit with the feeling it causes, with the knowledge that you can cope with it without compulsions. I don’t think it’s “maybe I am” so much as “no matter how minute the possibility, all things are possible”. I guess it’s about embracing Uncertainty The Concept (as the only universal constant) rather than trying to accept any/all possibilities. Just my two cents!!
- Date posted
- 3y
Definitely a much better perspective, but reality is that if one of the thoughts IS true, it wouldn't only be a discomfort but rather a huge disaster, which is why responding to the thoughts with "so what if it's true" and "I shall never know" just seems like it would make things worse you know?
Related posts
- Date posted
- 21w
There’s something that happens that keeps me stuck in a thought, it’s when I can see some part of myself agreeing with or relating to it in some way. That’s when the doubt creeps in. If I can understand *why* the thought is there, doesn’t that mean it’s not just random? Doesn’t that mean it actually reflects something about me? For example **(TMI/TW)**: I had the thought, *“I wonder what other people’s kinks are (including friends, family, even teenagers).”* And then I caught myself thinking, *“Well, I guess that could be interesting information… maybe I wouldn’t even stop someone from sharing it with me. Does that mean I actually want to know? Wait—does that make me perverted or incestuous for even having this curiosity?”* The same thing has happened with other thoughts, like wondering what someone’s privates might look like. I recognize that, on some level, that could be interesting—but does that mean the thought is truly mine? Maybe the answer is super obvious and I just can’t see through my OCD smoke. This was a bit embarrassing for me to write 🥲, but can anyone provide some insight?
- Young adults with OCD
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- "Pure" OCD
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- Date posted
- 20w
I keep getting these groinal responses when I think about kids or see one and it's really distressing, I only just learned that OCD can make you feel that and it's not actually attraction but it's so hard to remember that and I've seen people talking about accepting uncertainty but I'm so scared to think "maybe it's attraction maybe it's not" instead of "no it's not attraction that's disgusting" and idk what to do
- Date posted
- 8w
17f So basically I think you know this whole accept and sit with the uncertainty thing. It applies to pocd as well. Because you can ruminate, test yourself, seek reassurance as much as you want but it will never be enough for you brain to be sure you are not a P. So you need to sit with "Maybe I am a P maybe not" and just don't do anything about it. So sometimes I can do that. But here comes moral ocd. If I accept the chanse of me being a pedophile, isn't it morally wrong for me to be around children? Look at children? Watch movies with children in it? Cause now I can't even look at children even if it was an accident without freaking out and thinking that I'm a monster. Sometimes it feels morally wrong to leave the house because there is a chanse I can meet a child on the street I genuinely don't know what to do. It feels paralyzing at this point. Seems like I can't do anything. Like I even need to cover children on the screen with my hand when I watch a movie. It's exhausting.
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