- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 4y
Yes this is the story of my life, everyday. Do the things you need to do today. You can obsess about this later. Do not ask your family about it. It’s going to make it worse. You need to decide that your life is not over. You need to decide that this does not matter to you and that you don’t want to be defined by it. It’s a choice.
Okay do you have any ERP recommendations or tips?
@Anyonomous .You need to explore “why does it matter” and “what does it mean about me.” You need to decide for yourself that it doesn’t matter, and that if it does matter you don’t care. And decide that it doesn’t mean anything about you or thay if it does mean something about you, you don’t care. Because you don’t want to live this way. Because you don’t want your life to end every single time a tiny little thing happens. Because you want to live with understanding and forgiveness and flexibility. No matter what, do not act on the thought.
@Anonymous Okay. Makes sense. What do you mean by figure out the "why does it matter?"
@Anyonomous For example, let’s say you said something mean fo someone. You would ask yourself why does it matter? Like we all say mean things. And even if everyone doesn’t say mean things do you want to live your life feeling guilty for one thing you said? Do you want to live a life where you aren’t allowed to move on from things that you don’t like that you said or did? Do you want to have to live by arbitrary rules? Make sense?
Yeah this happens, for sure!! Some days I can just shrug it off and feel like it wasn't THAT bad, and two days later it's 🆘 again! I keep going back and forth. Suddenly new memories pop up and I'll have to take those into consideration as well. Real event ocd is so much work 😞
For sure 😞 other themes feel hard but at least I can usually say they are irrational but real event doesn't always seem that way! Do you have any tips or ERP recommendations?
@Anyonomous Well... you're asking on a bad day.. I just made a post about wanting to call a friend up to discuss an event from 7 years ago... 😩 But in theory I think ERP for this is to write down the worst possible outcomes to your obsession ("I'm going to lose all my friends and everyone will hate me." etc. and read it over and over until the fear starts going away and you start "accepting" the uncertainty of it. :)
@washie That makes sense!! So sorry you're struggling with this too though :( Mine is a real event from a few years ago and one from yesterday 😞 which is very fresh in my mind. I hope you can feel some peace today
@Anyonomous Thanks, you too! <3 Time will heal us, I'm sure. I've had a few ocd types, but this has been the worst one 💩.
I'm in college and about an hour ago i had class. I like to sit alone bc I get a bunch of stupid intrusive harm thoughts. Anyway I couldn't focus AT ALL today. This girl decided to sit next to me and I wanted to ESCAPE. Like i desperately wanted to get up and leave to the bathroom and wait till class was over. I took a deep breath and stayed anyways and tried to focus on lecture but i kept getting so many thoughts and I kept hyperfocusing on my right hand (which was next to her) and my hand felt so weird! Like tingly?? I was like "omg why is my hand feel so weird?? Does that mean i want to do something?!" And it kept imagining me grabbing at her or grabbing my drink and throwing it on her while i was trying to take a sip. I tried eating my breakfast to distract myself but i was holding a fork and got another thought. I realized i was tensing my hands (as a compulsion... i try to keep them as still as possible and as close to me as possible bc the thoughts feel so distressing and the "what if i act out " is playing in my head) And I was internally panicking and now im at the library feeling sad and i feel like I need to solve this. I spent the past hour just mentally reviewing the whole class time rn. The whole class time I was at the edge of the table trying to stay as far as i could and i would get relieved whenever she would stand up to leave the class for something. I managed to make it through the whole class without leaving though but the question in my mind is bothering me so much, "how do I know that these thoughts aren't genuine or are thoughts I want to carry out and why was my hand feeling so weird?" I feel stressed at the library and i want to figure this out 😞
so I put this into Gemini a couple mins ago but it just gave me the 988 to text but I feel like I don’t know if these thoughts are genuine or intrusive and just amplified because of how I was feeling. This is what I put in there I’ll just copy and paste. I got talking with my grandma and I felt like I needed to get it out but I just kept thinking deeper and deeper like thoughts like “I can’t do this anymore” or “when will this stop” and I have a lot of suicidal intrusive thoughts and sometimes when I feel in such fear and deep sorrow and dispare these thoughts feel so real that I can’t tell if they’re intrusive. But I immediately push them away of course even though I keep wanting to figure it out or figure out how I can break free from this doubt and second guessing. But it freaked me out that maybe I was actually contemplating or genuinely thinking about it or was close to snapping and giving up. Now I feel like I have to figure out of it was intrusive or not because that’s really serious if it is a real thought. I know it’s apart of ocd to figure it out but I can’t tell if it was my imagination made it seem way more real or when I imagined myself doing something to myself it felt like the probability became higher because I was in a state of severe distress. It’s like a thought when your heart is beating so fast you don’t wish it would stop beating you just want a break from it beating so loud or fast or you want it to get better. Idk I pictured myself just being stuck in my body and it freaked me out too like the fact I cant control what my body is doing. I’ve lost some weight the last couple months bc of stress and it just grosses me out thinking how bad I might be getting. I even started thinking maybe I need to be in a mental hospital. And just admit it and just get more help. The thing is I also felt like I had a decent day today but it took so much out of me trying to resist compulsions and “keeping” the good moment going without extreme fear especially of dying. I get so freaked out by random things even things touching me, certain sounds and wish it could all stop sometimes and I keep running away from things I think are triggers for my anxiety but it feels like it’s getting narrower.
Soo i need to say this but i struggle with real event ocd but its not things i did but things i thought or things i felt for certain situations or to certain things i like im having trouble telling apart my feelings like i try to sort them like oh this is that feeling but i got the same feeling for two different situations one is good one is bad and i got the same feeling so im just scared why did i have that reaction i guess i just im sitting here analyzing what that feeling is and i genuinely dont know its not anything physical its more in my head and now im checking every moment in the past to see the thought process and what i felt in that moment and im just scared of what i feel
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond