Have any of you ever felt the urge to confess your thoughts to someone, even though you would get in huge trouble? This has been bothering me for a few days, and I’m wondering if anyone has any exercises that their therapist has given them to help with this kind of urge. It’s been so hard to deal with. And yes, I have brought this up to my therapist and have been doing a couple of exercises.

Less than a year ago, I had a very big anxiety flare up to the point that I felt as though I needed to report to the police / harm myself. I ended up leaving an anonymous tip at the police hotline about something that I know I didn’t even do but everything told me I had to or else I will go to jail. And similarly after that I called the help line and explained I had unwanted intrusive thoughts and I didn’t think I deserved to live for having those thoughts. After these many months and working with my therapist, I’ve been able to feel a lot less anxious around this topic and now I’m getting lots of anxiety about what I did that time when I was so anxious. I gave in to my compulsions and confessed for stuff that I know sounds bad saying out loud but only certain people will understand I would never do. So now I’m just looking for someone to relate and perhaps let me know that I don’t have anything to worry about? I know it’s bad to seek reassurance but I’m not sure where to go. And I’m worried I’m going to keep incriminating myself.

I made a post earlier today about my past and things that happened and maybe I didn’t phrase it really in the best way haha :’)) so I’ll try and make it shorter. February has been complicated for me and recently. First my mental health was bad because of studies but I had this thought regarding my past that was a little tempting and led me to spiral on about my past, I gave into it and that really took me for a whole spin. I’ve started to open up about things that I never thought I would talk about and even slowly opening up to my therapist. These things happened in childhood and I mimicked actions I saw at a young age ( despite these things happening, it was only just one side of my childhood ) and even though it’s still not easy for me to deal with it, I often have the urge to confess and fear that it’s my intuition telling me to confess and if I don’t, something bad is going to happen or I’m a bad person. I’ve talked about my story to someone in a detailed way and to my therapist briefly and she understood and treated me with kindness but these thoughts still linger. Sometimes it gets to a point where I have the thought briefly telling me negative things but it doesn’t focus on the good things that happened and how I’ve learned and not repeated the action. It just focuses on the bad and when I just pause , it goes silent and keeps quiet, I realise that it’s all just thoughts.

I’ve been feeling the compulsion of confession again. I hate confessing things to my boyfriend I don’t want him to carry the burden. I’d rather hurt than him hurt. But I feel I did something wrong and he needs to know. Like I need to be punished or something. I may be over reacting to it but I just feel guilty and I had a panic attack when I woke up yesterday. I would never cheat on him. Just making guys laugh I feel like I am doing him wrong or flirting. And then when I notice it I just feel awful. I just want to be liked and noticed not romantically but just as a human. I don’t know why I act like this and feel the need to tell him as if I slept with someone. I think it’s attacking my biggest fear which is losing him. Does anyone have experience with this?