There is one thing I realized after a year of suffering from HOCD and POCD, my two most prominent and reoccuring themes. It's been really hard to put into words and it has been causing me much pain through rumination. The thing is, I know who I am, I'm not going to do anything suddenly out of character and completely against my values. It's stressful when those thoughts occur, sure, but my only instinct is to avoid the triggers, which is the complete opposite of my feared scenarios. I've been exposing myself not through ERP (currently working on getting a therapist, you can't get NOCD therapist where I live) but by almost forcefully resuming my social activities and working/studying more. It's a simple way of dealing with OCD, you ask yourself what would I be doing right now if I didn't have OCD. The other part is asking yourself what wouldn't I be doing if I didn't have OCD. Of course, after asking yourself you do the opposite of your OCD. That way you can identify various compulsions (such as avoidance in the first or rumination/mental compulsions for the second part, atleast for me) and by avoiding the compulsions you'll be able to bring up the thoughts you've been avoiding. That way I was able to bring up almost one year old thoughts which I thought were gone, only to find out I've been doing avoidance compulsions all this time to avoid being triggered. When you bring them up it's up to you to prove the value of habituation and avoid further compulsions (which you would have identified this way), however unpleasant it may seem. It's not a complete solution but one that keeps me in a somewhat functional state. But going back to the original thing that I wanted to say, I do not fear having a different sexual orientation. It's a somewhat okay thing in todays world and I'm sure I would be able to make it work somehow. Likewise, I'm not afraid I would hurt or abuse children/underage people, just writing it feels laughable. Yes, people sometimes do impulsive things and peoples thoughts attach to that micro possibility of you being a threat to other people but deep down I know that I would avoid doing such things with all my strength. Those thoughts of death being a preferred scenario are just mental reassurance. I do not believe I'm at risk any more than anyone else, I would even go as far as saying I'm a lower risk. The thing I realized is that all of my themes can be boiled down to the fear of losing my identity. It's not the acting out the thoughts part, I'm the one in control of my body. It's been a huge part of my rumination because I would worry why am I not afraid of the thoughts? Are you not afraid of acting out your thoughts? You damn should be, you just had a thought involving a 14 year old, how dare you! You should feel like absolute shit, you SHOULD be afraid of acting out the thoughts! That was the difficult part of explaining it to a psychiatrist that I was talking to a few months ago. Of course I can have any thought pop up. I can actively think about chopping your head off with an axe, won't make it any more probable than before having the thought. It is the easy to understand part. The feared scenario is the possibility of having those devious attractions (referring to POCD here, not HOCD) and it's feared because it completely contradicts my character and identity, the acting out part is not so much the feared part which at first glance seems atleast irresponsible. Although the manifestation is different, those two themes feed of the same fear of losing my identity. I could write much more but I just realized how long this already is, thank you for reading my rambling if you got this far 😅. Excuse my english, I'm not a native speaker.

I have struggled with the darkest thoughts for a long time that rip me apart and have shattered my identity or attempts to create an identity. The worst part is they latch on to what feels most important to me at a point in time, or very important parts of who I am/my family is. Now that I write it out it helps put it in a bit of a perspective, of just how far my ridiculous ruinations have gone. Essentially the obsessive thoughts center on the fear of being a murderer, and have ruined my life for 15 years. This is totally ridiculous, but it developed so bad I was analyzing every good or bad instinct or personality trait of myself and even my family. This makes me cry but it has changed how I even view my whole family. The instinct to even just say Hi to someone, turned into 'you're not actually friendly, you're a murderer.' The worst part is it latches on to the positive aspects of ourselves: For instance, the ongoing deep desire I get to invent/create something outside of my work life and start a creative project, (this is a lifelong passion of one of my parents), Is disrupted by thoughts that somehow this passion is driven by a darker thing such as being a murderer. It's so horrible because it clouds my view of my own parent who I know I deeply love, and view of people in general. This leaves me broken inside and it is hard to get through every day, especially when the thought process starts positive (I want to start a creative project) then quickly devolves into extremely disturbing thoughts about oneself and even my family. Writing this out has helped I will say because it helps me see the thoughts for how ridiculous they are, and see how OCD really works by latching on to what you value/care about most. Essentially its like the most ultimate fear of fearing yourself, which makes it so hard to develop a sense of identity, do the things you actually would enjoy, enjoy relationships, and in general live your best life.

TLDR: The title. I often feel rush or excitement and curiosity about my OCD thoughts, and I am not shy of it. Do you have experience like this? I think I often feel a lot of excitement when I start to engage with some obsesive thoughts and when obsesive episode starts for me. Like I often find the idea or image very interesting and I am curious about it. But often there is a neat line between excitement and anxiety. Also often it may at first start with excitement but after a while I may feel anxious or traped of being in the loop and then also being anxious about the idea itself and possibilities or ruining things I care about or loosing them. And those aspects can come in various successions or sometimes multiple at once. I encountered some materials about people enjoying their obsesive thoughts but it was usually something else. They had this obsesive fear of possibly enjoying those obsesive thoughts. But I have it different. I know I do have this excitement, rush and curiosity. I know I may somewhat like them. And I do not shy away from that. Also sometimes enjoy compulsions, even lone compulsions without link to obssesions. Like I very rarely need to organize stuff or order them or place them perfectly, but sometimes I just get into it and it is more like I find it fascinating and funny that I can try for the impossible precision and I can feel urge to do it for nonsensical amount of effort. (But I am usually very messy, disorganized and careless about organizing physical stuff) The ocd is still very debilitating and taking a lot of time. And the OCD is still very anxious and sometimes desprate-like experience. The excitement about the ideas might be a good thing because maybe I might accept them better or perform some kind of exposure through it but it may also reinforce a loop. But it is fact that I sometimes enjoy my OCD thoughts, invite them, await them at smallest glimpse. It is just mostly matter of fact. And I am curious what this might mean for me and my OCD and for how I can work I'm with it and interact with it's what changes and options it gives. I am 30 year old and I struggle with OCD from at least 15 years old. I got myself officially diagnosed quite recently and I am on waiting list for a therapy. I have mostly pure or predominantly obsesive OCD but I still go through many mental compulsions and compulsive behaviors. I experienced many subtypes of OCD although not so much of the more traditional ones. My first subtype of OCD was a kind of meta-ocd. I remember how I like the character of detective Adrienne Monk. I liked the character. I did not have it formulated for myself at that age but he was so sensitive, fragile, perceptive, clever and a sort of inventive. The ocd seemed fascinating. Although his neuroticism regarding his environment would be total pain for me, since I was and I am a very messy and disorganized person. But I still vibed with him and sympathized with him. I felt interest and curiosity in being possibly sort of like him. But I felt fear of it as well. I feared I was like him or that I would have ocd. I feared performing rituals and I would sometimes perform them,.sometimes as the relief of confirmation sometimes as examination, sometimes as a sort of exposure therapy before knowing what exposure therapy was. I just had this conflicting fears, obsessions and compulsions about the prospect of having ocd. That was when I was around 15 years old. But through my whole childhood before that, I was already focused a lot on managing and controlling my own emotions to keep away from disappointments. And I was very socially and romantically anxious and had sort of low confidence or fear of low confidence. So those were childhood experiences that were not yet obsessive-compulsive like but which were on the way there. Also know that it is very probable I have some form of ADHD. My mother and siblings have it diagnosed. And I exhibit almost all classical symptoms despite being conflict-averse and diplomatic and therefore considered well behaved child. But doing some less serious and shalower testing with one psychology consultant, I scored way higher and clearer on ADHD test than on OCD test. I also just love novelty, and experimentation and exploration. And I may sometimes engage with obsessions and compulsions out of procrastination. Also my obsessions and compulsions are often chaotic, I often encounter dilema where I don't know what course of action would be compulsive and what would not. Or I am not sure If I am exposing myself and getting familiar with unwanted thought or if I am actually just fulfilling some other compulsions. Like if I am not turning exposure into another obsession. Like anything can become anything. And honestly? I probably do. And why not. Yes I am sometimes perfectionist in the most nonsensical ways. Thanks for reading through this whole thing and paying attention to what I had to say.

I've never shared anything on here before but I read a lot and I will say I am thankful for this community. I have had OCD my whole life. When I was a child I remember having thoughts in my head that made me uncomfortable, although I couldn't remember what they all were. I would neutralize them with a word. I would have nightly confessions to my mom. I do remember a very specific intrusive thought about God that made me panic and I remember exactly where I was. I would wash my hands until they bled to "prevent" something bad from happening. I developed sexual Instrusive thoughts of my brother being romantically interested in me and it scared me so much, I always fought with him for the imagined fear that played in my mind. I have a bit of harm OCD and my biggest nemesis is POCD. I am in ERP therapy but my mind WILL not let me do what I need to work on because I'm living in constant fear or what if this isn't just OCD. I cut out my compulsive prayer after a thought, but my big one is mental checking. I have to gauge the perfect reaction to a thought to figure out I don't feel any way about it. My mind puts myself or children in situations to check how I feel and it's constant. I can't even call that intrusive anymore, it's an automatic compulsion. One "compulsion" I find interesting and wanted some insights on is when I see an adult on tv talking, I imagine them as a child. Not even sexually. Just how they might have acted as a child that led them to their characters personality. I also have trained my mind to think sexual relationships with adults are "dangerous" because they used to be kids. My mind will not stop ruminating, will not stop trying to show me proof of my obsession. I have dreamed of finding life since I was 9, I identify as a straight female, always interested in adult men. I've struggled with this theme since my early 20s and it started out so little, with just random words and images that I dismissed away with my compulsions but now it has spread and over taken my mind with excessive doubt.