- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Hello! I am so sorry you are going through this. False memories is one of my biggest themes so I definitely know how hard it can be. The only way to deal with them is to accept the uncertainty. I can probably imagine that you are trying to put all the pieces together and trying your best to remember everything. The truth is, you will never know. The more you try to go back to the memory, the more real it will feel and you will start to add all these false details to the point where you’re confused. I know it makes it harder when you think you did something horrific, but if I can offer any peace to your healing it would be that 2 months ago I had the worst time in my life relating to false memory. I was so disgusted and so totured by my mind. Today, I don’t even think about it. It doesn’t affect me like it did 2 months ago and that’s because I had to accept that maybe I did do the thing I’m so worried about. There was no way that I would remember it perfectly and that in itself help me understand that I needed to move on. I hope one day you can find peace and serenity. This too shall pass and I’m rooting for you. 🤍🤍
- Date posted
- 3y
Thank you so much for this advice, you have no idea how much it helped. Sometimes I feel terrible because it comes to my mind that I can't go on living if I have done this bad thing, I have been for three days now with a lot of anxiety and it's like there is no way out. I hate so much having to deal with POCD.
- Date posted
- 3y
@mar3 I’m glad I could help! I literally had a false memory last night 🙈 These thoughts are so common!! I know the feeling of thinking, “How can I move on” and “How can I live normally not knowing if I did something just horrific and immoral.” That is what I thought two months ago when I was in a dark place. Now, the thought doesn’t hold as much pain so I hope that can be an example of letting you know there IS a way out. Trust me! Just keep fighting the thoughts and staying strong. Much love 🤍🤍
- Date posted
- 3y
@LUNA ✨ I'll keep trying! Thank you very much!!
- Date posted
- 3y
Omg I can relate to this chat so much. To speak plainly, I get so afraid that what if I’ve molested a child when I was a teenager. The thought occurred to me when I was 20 and made me spiral because why would I have that thought if it wasn’t true. And I’ve done ERP for it and I was in recovery but this winter it’s flaring up again and I’ve been trying to resist compulsions and trying to figure out the memory but it feels real. Today I had the thought “only you know the truth” and it was so freaking scary because I don’t know the truth but it’s like I have to figure it out, and yet I know that I can’t because it’s been five years since I had that awful thought and started obsessing over it. And similarly, I think I may have had an intrusive thought at the time “like oh yeah that’s what P’s do to kids” or something but I don’t remember wanting to harm a child at all.
- Date posted
- 3y
What happened to me is very similar to your situation, the difference is that it is more recent. I was with my cousin and my aunt and just out of the blue a bad and disgusting thought came to my mind and since then I keep asking myself "What if I did something bad to this child?" it is just too suffocating. I understand the feeling of "only you know the truth"
- Date posted
- 3y
@mar3 I understand, my incident would have happened 10ish years ago so my brain says it’s even harder to remember and that I did it and just “forgot about it” It’s very suffocating but I’m working on ERP again, just did a script and yesterday reading it felt awful like it was making it real. Reading it today for the 2nd time is easier. We can live without knowing I promise
- Date posted
- 3y
@halespineapple18 How do you make this script? I want to try to do ERP but I don't know exactly how
- Date posted
- 3y
@mar3 I have a therapist! She helped me write it two years ago and this month I just rewrote it under her direction to get more exposure. I would recommend getting a therapist because doing ERP the first time is very overwhelming
- Date posted
- 3y
@mar3 You basically just write out the scene exactly how ocd says it happened and then you have to sit with the anxiety of accepting it and not trying to figure it out or analyze it
- Date posted
- 3y
@halespineapple18 Got it! Well, I'll try to see a therapist then. Thank you very much for the conversation and the tips, I feel that the anxiety is decreasing little by little
- Date posted
- 3y
@mar3 Of course! My ocd always presents in the “past” with false memories it feels harder but it’s still just ocd
- Date posted
- 3y
I struggle with this too, and it’s really, really hard. I did something really gross when I believe I was 15, and I’ve done a lot of gross things before and after, but the thing that bothers me the most is that if I did what my brain told me to do, then I would absolutely k*ll myself. I think I may have had a thought that day and may have thought, “Ew that’s gross, I would never forgive myself” but I’m scared I may have wanted to do it, idk, but I hate myself so much
- Date posted
- 3y
I feel the same way :/ The need for a way to know if I did something bad is so suffocating, it's like my life depends on it
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
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
- Date posted
- 23w
This situation just happened and I can definitely remember how it went but my brain is telling me otherwise and I know you guys said to sit with the uncertainty but what if the intrusive thought is so bad like disgusting, I can’t sit with that. Maybe it’s false memory but this just happened. I don’t even know how to live with this
- Date posted
- 22w
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.
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