- Date posted
- 3y
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 3y
A lot of people in the OCD community have a fear of making mistakes! You are definitely not alone. I think a lot of superficial fears (eg fear of making a mistake, fear of getting sick, whatever) have a much deeper core fear behind it. Getting to the core fear has been helpful for me in my own OCD recovery and also in helping others as a therapist. You can do this by doing something called the "downward arrow" technique - asking yourself okay, someone judged me for that mistake, then what? Then what am I afraid of? What would be so bad about that? Then what? Getting to the root of that core fear is important because usually it leads you to recognizing that - this is a scary thing for sure but ultimately something we cannot protect against 100% or ever be 100% sure about, which is the whole point of ERP treatment and why it's so great. Our anxiety has good intentions, it's trying to protect us but often it goes into over drive in such a way that it becomes costly and prohibitive. Good luck <3
Related posts
- Date posted
- 20w
Hey guys, for the past three months I’ve been obsessing over a mistake I made about 6 months ago, I constantly have panic attacks and wake up in fight or flight mode I have convinced myself that someone is gonna find me somehow and punish me. I have endlessly looked up reassurance that what I did wouldn’t get me in trouble or something, I have filled up 5 different ChatGPT chats and it tells me it’s 100% certain nothing will happen. But then I convince myself well everyone says not to trust it and then I just spiral again. The point is I’m just scared, I’ve convinced myself this isn’t OCD because it’s something I actually did wrong. I can’t stop looking for reassurance because that’s the only thing that makes me feel safe anymore. Everyone tells me, just say maybe, maybe not, but my brain has convinced me the stakes are too high. I’m too scared and I don’t know what to do.
- Date posted
- 15w
Hey, so idk if I have ocd, I would like to think I’m a very self aware person but I don’t wanna self diagnose at all, lmk what you guys think. So pretty much my whole life since I was young I remember having irrational fears im sure it was all trauma induced but when I was a kid I thought my father was poisoning me until I asked him, he started crying and was so shocked that I could ever even think that, my parents broke up when I was legit fresh out the womb, mom worked two jobs and disciplined me, dad let me do whatever on the weekends and got me snacks so I was obsessed with him so obsessed that it was mandatory for me to kiss his picture 20x everyday before school. Growing up I always felt followed by cameras or like someone out there was recording me waiting for me to do something embarrassing to expose me in front of the whole world and my life was over 🤣🤣 I thought my abusive ex bf was stalking me through my I phone camera after we broke up and it would truly stress me out, it made me believe that it was the reason he never reached out again bc I probably looked ugly in the camera he was stalking me through. If I fall out with a friend Ill over analyze everything to see if I did anything wrong and god forbid while I’m self reflecting I realize I did something wrong I feel like an evil person, verbatim the people I fall out with is bc they’ve done me wrong in some way and it has to b something hurtful or repeated mistakes for me to really stay away for good, so I’ll beat myself up for making mistakes with another person who’s made the same amount of mistakes if not more and in most cases I always fall short, and this when I question if it’s ocd or I’m just to self aware and see the ugly in me bc I’m not perfect and it’s just makes me feel so unsettled but again that’s a normal feeling and the next step is to forgive yourself and do better moving forward, not obsess over it like your trying to convince yourself you’re a good person. I’m also hot tempered and will say hurtful things when I’m mad I’m definitely a crash out in the way, you push my bottoms way too many times and I will shred you, and I’ll say things ik will hurt you and that’s just so low, then the anger goes away and I have to face the guilt, which makes my “ocd” 100x worse, it almost feels like I have to do everything right to not trigger it yet again I don’t have the self control to do it all right, I actually have a lot bpd tendencies again not diagnosing but I’m just trying to understand my brain. I worry about dying, getting a terminal illness. uti turning into kidney infection then into cancer kind of thing, knowing that life in general can b tragic is so scary to me, like what will be my story? What will be my life experience?. I believe that people see right through me and discuss it amongst each other, I always tell myself I am not that important but I can’t seem to shake it off sometimes. When I would break up with my ex I would have pre written paragraphs ready to b send if he ever decided to reach back and I would do this to make sure I didn’t forget a single thought, that every point i felt I need to prove was there, and that bothers me bc do I want win an argument or fix the issue. All of these feelings make me feel so pathetic and embarrassed people move on with their lives and I’m still stuck on something that happened 3 yrs ago. Then I’ll get manic get a tattoo, change my hair, go out clubbing do what I can to b the sexy young girl that I am and it helps in the moment but it worsens my mental after the euphoria is gone. I’m currently staying home, not going out, have only 1 friend so I feel like ocd progressively got worse now, I don’t remember it getting this bad in a while. lmk what you guys think don’t judge or think I’m embarrassing I’m actually so cool and if have to convince you I’m cool I will LMFAOO no but fr help
- Date posted
- 15w
I always have fears about getting fired from work and constantly rechecking my old work. I think about 24/7 and how im going to make an enormous mistake that ruins the company and gets me fired. Then, if any type of mistake does happen I let it ruin my day. Ill look back at the past mistake and beat myself up over it. Any suggestions for mindfulness approaches?
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