i hope someone can relate to this. i feel like i just did something bad and i feared i would do it in the moment. now some minutes later, i can remember me doing it or i don’t know that i’m creating a false memory from thinking so much.

any advice for when you get false memories that feel really real? especially something that had JUST happened, it’s like ur brain distorts it. i feel like i do something wrong 24/7 then i get over it and ocd latched onto something new

So. I was in a traumatic relationship. for a long time. it was filled with gaslighting, manipulation, abuse, cheating ect. I would OBSESS over finding out where they were, what they were doing, who they were talking too. but I couldn’t leave. I tried so hard but I never could. they would call me names, physically hurt me, throw things, break things. because I would question them all the time. but I just couldn’t leave. no matter what I knew. they would manipulate me. I fell for their childhood trauma. it’s like I lost all logic. but I also feel like I have a pretty good memory with memories. not all the way, but remembering a lot of the traumatic things. especially now that I’m no longer with them. I keep remembering things that’s happened. even from my childhood. one time way before I even started dating this person, I had an intrusive thought about a friend of mine. that was with me. and I freaked out. I thought I had acted on the intrusive thought the next day. I asked my friend for confirmation but they said nothing happened. but the memories about it feel SO REAL. so VIVID. but they swore that nothing happened and they had no idea what I was talking about. I’ve struggled with intrusive thoughts for my whole life. so fast forward to now, that ‘false memory’ from my friend randomly popped up and I started obsessing about it, and my childhood ‘memories’ that have popped up. and then I was reading an article of someone doing something horrible, and then it sounded ‘familiar’ and so then I’ve created this whole memory of me doing something similar to the article involving my partner doing it also. the memory keeps adding new things and conversations around it. when it involves an actual real memory. but it’s like it’s been twisted from what I remembered before. I also suffer from bad anxiety. I’ve stalked pictures. my search history to figure out what I was doing that say when the real event happened. and I’ve found some things but I can’t look through my texts because I got a new phone. it has been hounding me for months. MONTHS. trying to figure out if this new ‘memory’ is real or not. if it’s been fabricated by an intrusive thought from reading the article and thinking ‘what if’ or if it actually happened and because I’m no longer in this relationship it’s a ‘repressed memory’ but the thing is I have horrible horrible anxiety and I don’t think I could have gone this long knowingly that that happened without remembering it until now. because I remember a lot of the horrible things that they did. this ‘memory’ is fuzzy, but it brings me horrible anxiety when I think of it, like I feel like it happened. but I also feel like it didn’t happen. because I know I would never do anything like that. but WHAT IF I DID, because I was manipulated. idk. is this a false memory. I really need help. because it’s been debilitating. that relationship was really traumatic. and I got manipulated into a lot of things. but I wouldn’t have just went forward knowing that that happened??? there’s no way I could have just forgotten it. because before when I would think about that night it was different, until now. but what if I just made myself forget what truly happened?? I’m a pretty self aware individual, but somehow that relationship really REALLY put me into a trance somehow where I allowed things that I have no idea how I would even allow because before I met that person I would have never allowed someone to cheat on my constantly or talk to me the way they did. or allow abuse. like I don’t understand it.

Can it feel like you literally remember a false memory happening? And it feels like the memory has always been there and you vividly remember it happening that way? Because I don’t even know if I’m experiencing a false memory or not but god it feels so fucking real. Like I literally remember it happening. But what’s weird is the original memory was kind of different. 2 years later, the memory is not the same, but it feels like I literally remember it happening. And in this memory, I’m fucking snapping. I’m acting on my thoughts. I feel like a fucking psycho. I hope this is just OCD