- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Yea I’m struggling with that too and that caused me to spiral to what I think is square one in my treatment. I also feel like a disconnect in who I am and who I am now with ocd and just fearing that those bad days will come again. Ugh why is it so complicated.
- User type
- NOCD Alumni
- Date posted
- 3y
Hi hopefulsunny, I’m very sorry to hear that your OCD bully is taunting you by latching onto your memories of how you used to feel during intense OCD episodes in the past and filling you with anxiety and doubt about relapsing. I am glad to hear that the anxiety it is causing you is not as severe as it once was and that you are recognizing your intrusive thoughts for what they are quickly. Since you hadn’t had many symptoms the past few weeks prior to being triggered it could be that whatever triggered you just elicited such a strong response that it woke the ocd bully back up for lack of a better term and it’s trying to hit back hard with filling you with doubt about relapsing since you had been ignoring it so well recently, almost like a back door spike (which may also explain the doubt over why you felt less anxiety during your ERP). It could also be the “fun” ebbs and flows of OCD where once you get one theme or compulsion semi-under control, surprise!, here comes a new one or old one rising to the surface out of nowhere to take its place. I deal with that a lot, depending on outside stressors or how tired I am, etc… my OCD can be remarkably better or worse or switch themes like on the roll of a dice. Whatever the cause behind the relapse fears, try not to let checking your reaction become a new compulsion for dealing with it and try your best not to dwell on the memories of how much you would hurt during your past episodes. That will only cause you to relive the pain and reinforce your OCD bully. Also, remember that relapses whether they be major or very minor, can happen and when/if they do that doesn’t mean you have failed or never made progress and should not diminish all you have accomplished so far in your recovery. In other words, tell your OCD bully “so what” whenever you have an intrusive thought about relapsing. So what if you do, chances are it will be very minor and even if not, you conquered your OCD pretty well before, so you can definitely do it again. Keep you head up, be proud of all you have accomplished try not to worry about the uncertainty of if you may slip during your recovery or not, try to embrace the fact that an ERP session did not cause you as much anxiety as you expected and try to live your life as best as you can without giving the OCD bully the attention, doubt and anxiety it craves. Oh yeah….and no need to apologize about the length of your post…look at this, I pretty much rambled on in novel form here. Stays strong, best wishes and take care.
- Date posted
- 3y
Thank you so much. I cannot tell you how much this helped. I’m truly so thankful that you took the time to respond. Best wishes to you too!
- Date posted
- 3y
I feel this sometimes on erp I don’t feel anxiety because I usually feel anxiety when I’m too over my head and the moment that those intrusive thoughts come in.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
I posted yesterday that I was feeling better than usual, now I’m not. I knew it could happen that I start to feel bad again. I’ve been feeling like this is the worst it’s been so far but that can’t be true because nothing has changed I’m always afraid of doing something bad, have done something bad, or are capable of doing something bad. I posted a TW on this post just in case. My main thing is I’m afraid of being a certain kind of bad person. I won’t mention it I know people will understand probably who I mean. I know it’s an OCD type, and I’ve been looking up different instances of people with this same subtype and sometimes I find someone in my same situation and I feel relief, for a moment at least. But then I think I might be different. I’m seeing my therapist Friday, and I’m always nervous talking to them because I want to not sound like I’m crazy. Sometimes I’m like you must’ve done something bad to feel this way or, you’re a bad person and should feel bad. There’s so much I wish I could do to help with this. I fall back into a spiral anytime I feel better because I feel like why would I feel good now if I wasn’t before. Sorry for the rant everyone. I just feel bad now and I’m worried I’ll never feel normal again. Hopefully someone else has felt or feels the same. I want to not feel like this, I wish I could go back to when I was young and undiagnosed to get the correct diagnosis early. I feel like my meds aren’t helping anymore which is concerning because like my anxiety should be gone right? Idk, and idk why I have felt really good recently but now after spiraling I’m back at it. Sometimes I’m worried it’s not ocd even though I have plenty of signs AND was officially diagnosed. Again sorry for the long post, just needed to air out how I felt
- Date posted
- 13w
I don’t even know where to start because there’s so much going on in my head and it feels like there’s so much evidence for every thought. Like my ocd feels like it doesn’t just have one specific theme it’s honestly every theme and it just switches throughout the day depending on the thoughts I have. This started all about a month ago, this whole ocd flare up. I’ve been diagnosed with ocd for about 3 years now and looking back on my childhood, I feel like I’ve had it for probably my entire life. My grandpa just recently died back in February and I feel like this whole ocd spiral is a result of dealing with grief especially because it didn’t even hit me for the whole month of April for some reason and things felt “normal”. But since this ocd flare up has started I’ve been constantly reviewing and revisiting my past, all my childhood memories and so many of them are terrifying which is weird because I never had a traumatic event hppen to me as a child. I feel like it’s always been “self-inflicted” trauma if that makes sense? My mind is telling me so many things related to so many topics like maybe I liked my family member as a kid and have just hid it to fit in with society? That my anxiety as a kid has caught up with me and I’m turning into a psychopath? That I’ve always been a creep and enjoyed looking at peoples privates or chests, etc but just ignored or allowed the thought this whole time. Also before this whole flare up I remember always feeling on autopilot and not really alive like everything I did I just felt numb about it. Which aids my ocd to tell me that these feelings are real and the thoughts are true and that I’m “waking up” or realizing or something. I haven’t felt such intense anxiety and distress since I was a kid and I didn’t even understand my own thoughts. It’s like I’m either hyper aware or totally unaware of what’s going on around me and it gets me thinking about my existence, personality, what my role in life is and like genuinely what I’m even doing in the moment like what’s the reason behind everything. I’m constantly questioning my intentions because I don’t know if they’re true or not and it’s like my ocd doesn’t even allow me to consider the thought it just jumps to conclusion. Like telling me I’m guilty before proven innocent. It honestly feels like so much at once to even simply call it ocd or anxiety because it feels like a crisis and any moment I could spiral and breakdown completely. Going to school everyday feeling like anytbing could trigger a panic attack at any moment makes me feel like I can’t be left alone with my thoughts. And like overall since I got down this rabbit hole, my first obsession was harm to myself, then it was harm to others specifically my family, then it was being a pervert or pedo, or being attracted or someone or something I shouldn’t be, which then makes me question my existence and who I am along with also being hyper aware of my facial movements like my eyebrows, nose, etc. Like why does ocd have to involve itself in every aspect of my life? It feels like there’s always something wrong that I need to fix.
- Date posted
- 11w
i’ve just been feeling so off lately. i’m okay right now, but a couple hours ago i was in this mood where i felt anxiety creeping up. like i will feel like there’s danger when there isn’t. i just get this really uncomfortable feeling that something feels wrong even when it isn’t. and i’ve been feeling derealization/depersonalization. just really disconnected from myself and the world. i’ve also been unmotivated to where there are times when the thought of doing things upsets me. and i’ve been having existential thoughts that do not mesh well with harm ocd. i get the thought “if people aren’t real then it’s okay to hurt them”. it sucks because there are times where i just don’t even care to ruminate and find reassurance that that’s not the case. furthermore, i’ve just been really aware of my existence. i will get moments where i’m so aware of my existence and it freaks me out. like the fact that i’m a living human being is crazy to me. then there are times when i’m not even anxious about anything which then has me questioning and ruminating on that because i ALWAYS have something i’m worrying about. i’ve also been feeling really nostalgic and bittersweet of the good memories from the past. i keep thinking about good times i’ve had and really wishing i could relive it. for example, last summer was a pretty good summer even with my ocd. and i just wish i could relive some of those moments, but i obviously can’t. and it’s been upsetting me because this month has been shitty with my anxiety. as for an update with my room change to those of you curious, i still have anxiety over it and my mom is taking it as me being ungrateful with what i have when it’s my ocd making a huge deal of it. that upsets me especially since i’ve told her what’s been going on and she was really understanding of it. anyways, life has just been a bit much and i’ve been dealing with more to my anxiety that i don’t appreciate. while worrying about constantly throwing up with my contamination ocd is incredibly exhausting, it’s so normal to me that i’m used to it. but when my harm ocd kicks in along with other themes that aren’t usually common for me, i freak out and feel like i’m going insane. i genuinely wonder how people have dealt with taboo topics of ocd without treatment for years on end. i’ve had harm intrusive thoughts since i was little, but it didn’t get to any extreme until 2023. i feel like i’m drowning in it when it decides to hit me and the thought of having to deal with it for the rest of my life?? i’m scared something in me will flip and i’ll become what my thoughts are telling me i am. i apologize for the mixed thoughts that are all over the place but i feel safe posting on here about it and want to hear how y’all are doing
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