- Date posted
- 3y
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 3y
What you are describing sounds like something we call the "backdoor spike". This is when you start to experience less anxiety in response to our unwanted thoughts so then you have anxiety about why you don't have anxiety! You wonder whether you have OCD at all. In reality, there are many reasons you might experience this decrease in anxiety. Try not to figure out whether or not this decrease in anxiety means you do or don't have OCD. When you feel the need to figure it out, see if you can practice the phrase "Maybe I do have OCD, maybe I don't." and then continuing with what you were doing.
- Date posted
- 3y
Definitely going through this. It’s so strange. Feeling calm but still feel undertones of fear sadness anger doubt. Confused emotions because I still have the intrusive thoughts yet I’m not reacting to them as much which also worries me..trying my best not to engage with the intrusive thoughts and ruminate which is so difficult especially with false memory. The intrusive thoughts still bother me and make me really sad....but then I get moments where I’m calmer and I’m crying most of the day and just so depressed and feeling hopeless.
- Date posted
- 3y
I have been feeling the same. Some days its like do i even have it and if I don’t whatever i have been denying is true and if that doesn’t cause me anxiety too my brain just litres tries to shut off cause i am exhausted
- Date posted
- 3y
It’s so strange. I don’t understand ...and sometimes when I have the calm moments it causes more doubt and I start to think am I accepting my intrusive thoughts? I haven’t started ERP yet. Also when I feel calm I start to try to think about my intrusive thoughts or more accurately I want to hold onto them which sounds weird but it’s almost like if I’m not stressed about this thought what does that mean?...is that normal?
- Date posted
- 3y
This is all normal as far as I can tell. I was diagnosed years ago but didn’t truly accept it until fairly recently. You will have good days and bad days. Once I accepted this, I needed to motivate myself to get further help. I began ERP a few weeks ago and it has dramatically helped me. This mental illness is so challenging and all consuming as it permeates your life. But it doesn’t need to be that way. What your experiences are, many people have had the same things. But it is also so personal because its our fight that we confront by ourselves. This place is a great spot to share and know that you are not alone and that what you are going through, most of is have or are right now.
- Date posted
- 3y
OCD comes with ups and downs in its intensity. this is part of the disorder. when you have a period of being okay and then your symptoms suddenly worsen, this is known as a relapse. it is very common for people going through treatment to relapse as well.
- Date posted
- 3y
also, of course OCD comes with brief periods of feeling relief. that is part of the cycle - have intrusive thought, obsess, do the compulsion and/or seek reassurance, feel temporary relief. then the pattern repeats.
- Date posted
- 3y
I feel the same way, it's also the reason that I don't want to help myself before getting professional help. If I suddenly got better it would feel like I was faking it. It would invalidate my suffering.
- Date posted
- 3y
I feel this
- Date posted
- 3y
Good point about the inconsistency of OCD. Most times right bow when I catch myself wanting to confess, I tell myself to live in the area of uncomfortableness and allow my body and mind to do what it needs to do to work through it.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 23w
Has anyone ever felt like they got to a point with ocd where they are numb to everything don’t get anxiety much and feel like they don’t know if they hate the thoughts and don’t know if you would or wouldn’t do those bad things? Or feel like they don’t know if it’s ego dystonic or against your morals because you are so convinced that you are bad? Is this possible? Everyone always says on this app that however bad the thought feels they know deep down they don’t want it but is it possible to be so confused or so into believing ocd that you actually feel like you don’t know? I complain about the thoughts/feelings I get from ocd to my family and they say you don’t want it but it’s convinced me so well I feel like I don’t even know? I don’t even know what I feel if I’m anxious or sad or what i don’t even know. I had this thing where it kept feeling sometimes like I would want to smile or as if I was ‘secretly happy’ about ocd thoughts and that bothered me and this time I was having these ‘stabbing’ intrusive thoughts and I got that same feeling I wanted to smile or was ‘happy’ and then I got this horrible urge feeling when my mum came in the room which felt like I ‘wanted to’ act on the thought and from deliberately imagining the stabbing thought to test my emotional reaction - it felt like ‘I knew how it physically felt to stab someone and liked the feeling/it felt good’ and that tied in with the ‘urge’ feeling felt really real like I actually wanted it and then I was sat there with my mum and I was telling her about it and I even told her I would try testing things by holding a pencil to see if it feels like I ‘want to do it’ as kind of an exposure tactic since I was thinking I was bad or would do it and I held it and obviously nothing happened and I even imaginined the thought while holding the pencil while she was next to me and it never felt like I wanted to do anything or ‘act’ on the thought, after I gave it to her and she put it away and then I we was talking and then I had another bad moment where it felt real (I can’t remember if it was the same day or not) but I was deliberately imagining that thought and then i don’t know but I think I got that weird thing where it feels like I wanted to smile or was secretly happy and I don’t know how if i gave into the compulsion and I think I did smile or maybe I didn’t I can’t remember but that ‘secret happy feeling’ suddenly became amplified and felt like the thought of stabbing someone lots of times suddenly felt like I was happy about it would really enjoy it or like it I can’t explain it but it suddenly felt like a real feeling that I enjoy it and I felt like in those films where the evil person is happy about doing something bad and it felt so extremely real it feels 99 percent like it was my own feeling from inside and I don’t feel the same I feel like there is something wrong with me and I will want to do evil things because now I’ve discovered that there is something ‘good feeling’ about doing that bad thing and I’ve ’realised’ why evil people get a thrill over it like I can’t explain that feeling but I wish I didn’t have it but it feels extremely real like my own feeling and now I’m thinking I definitely can’t be helped and everything is over because I will want to do it almost like the same way someone is ‘lustful’ I will want to do that evil thing because of that feeling of feeling happy over doing evil it’s really bad I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m suddenly evil and my ocd has never felt this bad before. But still I’m not crying I’m not anxious I’m just complaining about it to my mum and family members what do I do. It feels almost like because of that feeling where it felt like I was happy now I would choose to be evil or want to be because it felt happy feeling 🙁🙁 I don’t know what to do I don’t even know what that feeling was and then before I was about to sleep my head is like to me ‘you want to experience that feeling again’ and it feels almost like an urge that I want to experience that feeling or be evil and I don’t know because I feel calm I’ve been having ocd for almost 2-3 years so I feel numb nothing phases me, I had a few sessions of therapy online with NOCD but I stopped it and have never had therapy since now I wish I had been having it because maybe it wouldn’t have got this bad 🙁🙁
- Date posted
- 18w
Anyone else just have days where they feel more calm and don’t have as many intrusive thoughts? But then later at night time it just comes back so you only had relief even for a little bit 😞😞 I feel like even when I’m not having my OCD send me intrusive thoughts, I always have a feeling in my stomach that something is wrong/off or a sense of doom. I always just feel on edge and anxious as if my mind is always preparing itself for the next horrifying intrusive thought to torment me with ugh 🫠
- Date posted
- 15w
So I’ve noticed that my OCD has calmed down, I’m getting less intrusive thoughts but I feel more uncertain than ever. Is this normal for recovery?
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond