- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
“Intrusive” applies to any thought you’re not bringing up on purpose. It might be something that pops up from time to time, or it might feel more constant. In OCD, certain thoughts provoke distress and anxiety and we do compulsions to try to make them go away. It sounds to me like you are engaging with the thought compulsively to try to figure it out and lessen your anxiety. The response prevention for this would be to accept/agree with the thought. Instead of compulsing, choose a lean-in like “maybe that did happen, maybe it’s my fault” (or if that feels too distressing, simply “ok” or “maybe.”) This won’t make the thought go away, so you might spend quite a few days just saying “ok,” “sure,” “whatever you say” to it in your head, and it might feel very uncomfortable. Over time, though, the thought will lose its power over you and fade into the background. In terms of exposure, you might write out a script of what you feared happened and your feared consequences. “I might never know that I made a mistake,” “not feeling guilty could be the wrong thing to do,” etc. Read it and practice agreeing. If this is too anxiety-provoking, a therapist can help you figure out smaller exposures that work up to it. As for the “what if this isn’t OCD,” treat it like any other obsession. No one can actually look inside of our brains and determine with 100% certainty that we have OCD. Work on accepting that this might not be OCD and that you can’t know for sure. I hope that helps. Best of luck!
- Date posted
- 3y
Thanks. I'll give this a try. I feel like as soon as I start reading the script it's impossible to agree and I just start doing compulsions to be like "it wasn't really that bad come on." But maybe the over exaggerated script is the point? To show me it wasn't that bad? I am starting treatment with a NOCD therapist next week so hopefully she can better help me understand how to do ERP for this. I literally cannot imagine feeling better but am open to trying anything if there's a possibility.
- Date posted
- 3y
@doingmybestlol The point of the script is to expose you to the uncertainty so you can practice feeling anxious but not compulsing. Your therapist will help you understand all of this! I wouldn’t try to do an exposure on your own since you already have a session planned. In the meantime, drink plenty of water, try to rest well, get fresh air, eat well, etc. Set yourself up for anxiety success.
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- Date posted
- 20w
OK, this might sound really dumb, but when you guys get intrusive thoughts, do they just come once and then go away? I’ve heard that repeatedly thinking about an intrusive thought is considered ‘checking,’ but it doesn’t feel like I have any control over how many times it comes up in my head. It’s not like I’m trying to check anything—it just keeps showing up, almost like it’s terrorizing me every time. I can’t seem to stop it from looping, stop remembering it, or prevent it from coming up. Every time it does, I feel horrified, and I already know it’s going to horrify me. I don’t think I’m actively trying to see if my feelings have changed, so is this still considered checking? How do other people get an intrusive thought and just move on? Doesn’t it pop up a million times for them too? I always thought that was normal, but now I’m hearing this could be a compulsion, and I feel really confused, scared, and lost. Is this why my OCD feels so extreme? Because I really don’t feel like I can control how many times the thought pops up.
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- Date posted
- 19w
What ERP or other techniques do you use to combat fear of cancelation? Especially curious about those with taboo thoughts, false memory ocd and event ocd based off of real events where the fear of cancellation may actually hold some validity. I once did my own ERP not under a therapist but just on my own I decided to create an anonymous account on Twitter and defend a friend who was receiving online criticism. I knew that this would be semi-controversial so I was expecting backlash and when I recieved troll replies it actually seemed to be a really helpful low-stakes exposure activity. Is this something that others have done? Low stakes online posts etc. that you know will recieve negative responses? I have had severe OCD as a kid as pretty much every subtype under the sun, and as an adult I pretty much have all the types under control except for this real event and false memory and taboo thought OCD. It seems like a different beast since it's somewhat realistic in the camcellation culture today, and it's confusing to address. Ive shut down almost all social accounts and it's keeping me from progressing in a career where I need to have an online presence :/
- Date posted
- 12w
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.
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