- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
As you well know, I’m not really the intrusive-thoughts sort either… so encountering them more than (cough) “normal” people is a red flag for me personally that there’s something acute going on… mainly failed rounds of occasionally testing new meds (looking at you, Ritalin and Prozac). But one of the main things I’ve learned about myself is that as a person who spent years boxing with C-PTSD (a flavor that didn’t exist with my first dx), I still have biochemical knock-on effects even though I’ve therapied the psych/behavioral aspects into the ground. Basically, my body was conditioned to constantly be pumping out like 5x most people’s cortisol levels, until I burned my adrenals out entirely in my early 30s. Even after I recovered enough to do shit like… I dunno, get out of bed on my own and not pass out everywhere, losing hypervigilance (bc not producing enough cortisol to “deploy passive radar”) felt like going blind. That was partly what propelled me back into therapy, because I was genuinely adapting to losing one of my senses. All this to say that even though I’ve spent the time since then working on rewiring my brain to be unusually chill, when my adrenals began to really recover over the past few years I’m also discovering that my latent cortisol-brain likes to… manufacture(?) stress to trick myself into amping up my cortisol levels. (Agreed, sneaky mofo 😒) Also, thank you for posting this because I think I had some other epiphanies while I was writing all this down 🤔
- Date posted
- 3y
Ugh, punishment for a compulsive re-read... I made myself feel old 😁 "You kids... back in *my* day we didn't even have all these fancy different kinds of PTSD. You'd get the same one as everyone else, and just deal with it!" 😅😂🤣
Related posts
- Date posted
- 20w
I am FINALLY starting to (somewhat) recover from this last existential spiral, which admittedly, was probably the cruelest my OCD has ever been to me. Only thanks to you all. You were all able to provide me with kindness, understanding and support… without the kind of reassurance that feeds OCD, of course. When I downloaded this app, I was genuinely terrified. I was so scared that I was permanently doomed to the endless whirlpool that is the thoughts produced by my own brain and that life as I knew it was over, that I would never be happy again. For anyone who might be feeling that way right now, your OCD is LYING to you! Whatever you may be going through, it CAN get better. As hard as it may be right now, HAVE FAITH! Get up and do that thing you want to do in spite of the fear and discomfort. Take the fear with you like a whiny, unwilling toddler and do it anyway. Watch the movie, read the book, order that takeout you’ve been craving, bake the cake, wash the dishes… Please do it anyway! It will be hard at first, I won’t lie. But the OCD part of your brain, like a toxic partner, WANTS to win. It wants you to give up on those things that you love, all those things that make you happy so that there’s no space for anything but itself. Don’t let it win. The more you push yourself, the more you rewire your brain to realize that as much as it may feel like, the obsession doesn’t matter! Thanks to you all, even without therapy (YET - I’m starting that journey on Tuesday because there’s still a lot to unpack, and I know that OCD won’t just magically go away), I was able to get a basic understanding of ERP and learning to sit with discomfort and how to live life in spite of it, rather than letting it take over my very being. So for that, I thank this community. I think I would be in a very different place right now if it weren’t for the people I’ve met here who truly understood my experiences. I hope you have a wonderful day. Please don’t give up. You deserve to be happy, no matter what your brain is telling you ❤️
- OCD newbies
- Religion & Spirituality OCD
- Young adults with OCD
- "Pure" OCD
- Magical Thinking OCD
- Existential OCD
- Date posted
- 13w
So... I few years ago, I did self-harm a few times, and then I got super into spirituality, and about a year ago, I remembered I did self-harm and ever since haven't been able to shake the guilt off... Constantly, every day, my mind would make me feel guilty about it and think about it all day. It's like my brain knew the thought that I could/ have cut myself scared me, so it kept bringing it up. My family had no idea I had ever done this, so my OCD told me I was a liar for not telling them about every day. I was afraid that they wouldn't love me anymore and send me to a mental hospital if I told them. About 2-3 months ago, I had gotten so fed up with having these thoughts every day and confessed to my mom what I had done, and her reaction was great. And I thought I'd never have thoughts about when I did self-harm again because I finally confessed. I was wrong. Even with people telling me that it's okay, I did that, I can't shake the guilt I had around this event, and even more so the fear/guilt around my own thoughts... My therapist and I talk about how the problem isn't the thoughts but what the OCD does to them. I try to create positive neural pathways, but that just makes me more stressed about it. There are things I'm supposed to tell myself when I feel negative, but I think I get that confused and tell myself those things every time I have thoughts about what I did. Which is feeding into a mental compulsion (replacing every "bad" thought with a "good" one. What works for me is (if I can) do nothing and have the thoughts... It's been hard to get better because I have had no idea what's been happening to me and felt like for the last year I was going crazy... I always thought OCD was cleaning stuff and physical compulsions . Everything that happened to me happened in my head. On the worst days when my OCD is really bad, every single time I was conscious and aware, I was thinking about the fact that I did self-harm. I would lie in bed all day trying to figure out my thoughts because I thought if I watched TV, I would be avoiding important things. I thought I had to figure out all my thoughts. I would ruminate, replay, and second-guess all. day. long. It was hard to do any of the things I loved; OCD took the joy out of it. It was hard to recognize it was OCD because I thought I had done something seriously bad and wrong, and that I must deserve these thoughts. I think the trick is that you feel like you must have positive thoughts, and the most distressing thing wasn't necessarily the fact that I did self-harm, but the fact that I couldn't stop thinking about it. I find the best thing you can do is just have all your thoughts in your head and try not to separate them from good and bad, if you can. It's nice to have people who understand!!!! More to come, about the journey. My favorite thing to say when I'm stuck is "that sly devil... OCD. Silly OCD is getting to me right now, but it won't last forever. That sneaky guy tricked me again." Love you!!!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 13w
To my dear OCD friends, I just want to take a moment to say how grateful I am to know each of you. Your courage, honesty, and support have meant more to me than you know. In the trenches of this struggle, it’s easy to feel alone, but then you all show up (raw, real, and brave) and remind me what strength truly looks like. Some days the emotions hit like a wave, or like a distressed baby crying out for comfort. And instead of pushing that pain away, we’ve learned to sit with it. To cradle it. To breathe with it. To say, “You’re allowed to be here, and I won’t run.” That is powerful. That is healing. Exposures are not just tools, they’re acts of defiance. Each time we step toward our core fears instead of away from them, we’re not just surviving… we’re becoming ocdemonslayers. We’re refusing to let a false alarm dictate our worth or our reality. That’s no small thing. Please remember: nothing in this life is worth ending it early. The storm feels so loud sometimes, but storms do pass. Life has seasons, and the darkest ones are often followed by the most beautiful dawns. Hold on. You are not your thoughts. You are not alone. God is good through it all; in the fear, in the doubt, in the healing, in the stillness. Even when we can’t feel it, His grace holds us steady. He sees the battle and walks it with us. I’m truly happy to know all of you. Thank you for being part of this fight with me. With love, Salad #ocdemonslayers
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