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Why do intrusive thoughts feel so real? I sometimes fear it isn't OCD and I actually do feel/think those things and it causes me immense distress.

I have two memories of molesting two different children and nothing has come of it. No one has spoken up about it no one’s complained hell there’s nothing even on the cameras. But I’m convinced these false memories happened and it scares me to death. Did I really molest those children or is my brain conjuring all of this up? What do I do because I feel like I can’t live with myself

I’m getting ready to officially start ERP next week. Doesn’t this mean I must accept whatever the OCD is telling me? In my case it means I’m an awful person who does not deserve my family/friends or happiness of any kind. Last night I was thinking about this at my son’s sport event. It occurred to me that if all the people there “knew” what the OCD implies, they would hate me and shame me. Maybe it was easier to just be mildly happy by placating the OCD with reassurance and the mantra—it’s not me, it’s OCD. Anyway, guilt ridden and anxious, I excused myself from the bleachers at my son’s game last night, acting like I had to use the restroom. I walked past the restroom, got into my car and went home and right to bed at 7:30 pm. (History: Pure-O/ False Memory OCD)

Lately my ocd has shown back up big time. I’m coming close to the end of my pregnancy and my hormones typically really affect it. Currently living in the existential/ harm themes and fear of developing psychosis and going to hurt my loved ones! Questioning if things are real too which then makes me even more anxious because I think I’m slipping into psychosis! Anyone else experience this? Just not the headspace I want to be in before birth

Hi all! I am asking for ‚reassurance‘ and in this case I think it’s ok - and also, If anybody else experienced this. I am in therapy for 1,5 years now with this psychoanalysis therapist. She is great at what she does, but not for my OCD. Last year it got so bad and I went to the hospital for 2 months cause my ocd just flared up so badly. She helped me with my trauma a lot (father sa‘d me for years and only with her I remembered with flashbacks). Though she sees each ocd thought with direct correlation to my trauma. Which def could be the case, but it did not help me one bit. In fact, I am where I was now one year later contemplating if I shall go to the mental hospital again. The fact that there is a ‚reason‘ implied for each obsessive thought that pops my mind (e.g. cheating thought when looking at my fiancé is creating distance because I project my fathers relationship into my fiancé and then i get scared) - could be, but how does it help me? Or the fact that she says my ocd flares up when I’m angry cause I get thrown into that child-like anger from when my father abused me, which but I don’t even remember how I felt (which is great, it’s dissociation‘s purpose).how does it help me though?! I know that it actually worsened my condition cause now I realize I was ruminating all fuxking day long about the associative meaning of that stupid thought. Until yesterday I hurt myself again cause I was very close to giving up (dramatic I know, but it’s how it felt yesterday). Why did it take me so long to let her go? I wrote an email this morning to her saying that I want to change therapy style and that I want to talk about it with her… it got so bad I was questioning my reality yesterday … like 100% didn’t know what was real… Did any of you have a similar experience ? And do any of you have a good tip now to get out of this cycle myself? Thank you!!!

I’m going through what is hopefully just a really bad hypochondria episode where I’ve convinced myself I have schizophrenia. It’s been about 8 months and I’ve been through a range of crazy symptoms but the most prevalent symptom is getting crazy delusional thoughts like “what if my wife is a demon and trying to get to me” “what if nobody is real and these are all monsters/demons out to get me” etc etc. the thoughts are absolutely terrifying and they make me look at people differently, and i have to question myself whether I truly believe the thoughts or not, they feel so real, when they come on I almost catch myself genuinely feeling paranoid that they are 100% real and having a panic attack, but then the tiny bit of me that’s still rational brings me back to reality. And from then on I have to question myself all day “do I really believe this?” “Well you technically can’t disprove those things” “if it’s not real, then why does it FEEL real?” “This really is schizophrenia” “ what if it’s not schizophrenia but ACTUALLY real?” “who do I go to for help?” “What if I can’t trust anyone” and the scariest of them all…”why would a see a doctor if this is all real” etc, it’s literally hell. I can never give a satisfying “No, I don’t believe this” to these thoughts. I can go days and weeks and be able to confidently shrug them off and tell how ridiculous they are only for them to come back with a vengeance the next day. I could really use some reassurance even though I know it’s bad. I have never been like this before until I started obsessing over schizophrenia. I’ve been like this for 8 months now.

Can false memory make you have a theme that you did something bad and when you try to remember if you did you search for it and then something seems familiar and you think you might have done something sexual with someone years ago but you never thought about it till now??? I am so confused 😞 I feel like I would remember this very clearly.

So I’ve been in a pretty rough spiral/ocd spike for about a month now. I used to have this theme of being severely mentally ill or schizophrenic or psychotic and it went away for like 6 months and now it’s back full force. I have never hallucinated but I have this intense fear of what if I do. So with this theme I have these delusional thoughts that are just bizarre and I know how delusional they are but they feel so real and scary like I believe them. My body reacts by my stomach feeling uneasy and I’ll get a chill and just feel like I’m gonna be sick. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a thought per say.. it can just be a weird sensation or feeling and then I’ll become extremely anxious and borderline feel like I could panic. I can usually talk myself down from a full blown panic attack and but it’s just so distressing and I’m wondering if anyone else goes through this? I think it stems from a core fear of losing my family, ending up institutionalized away from my family and my family being devastated and judging me bc I “went crazy” please if anyone else can relate I’d appreciate any advice.

recently found out that there is a huge possibility i was sexually abused (i still don’t really remember much from it) as a child. i feel like it is my fault. which makes absolutely no sense but i feel like it is my fault because when i was a baby-toddler i was always grabbing women(mainly my mother) because i wanted milk. obviously i did not know any better and would not do that again, but i just feel so guilty? what if i deserved what happened to me because i did that? my mother always talks about how much of an embarrassment i was and that i was so disgusting and nasty as a baby/toddler.

I’ve always had a feeling of having OCD but I’ve never been sure. I’m a teenager, and I’m hoping people on this app can help me try to figure out if I have OCD or I’m just crazy. Starting off with these terrible thoughts I have all the time. Someone can come home late and I immediately think they got into a car wreck, and check my phone for recent car crashes and other thing etc. etc. number 2, I always have intrusive thoughts, terrible ones ever since I was a kid I can’t control. I immediately feel like thinking these will lead god to hate me, and that he made an imperfection on me. And every time I try to hide these thoughts away, like right now they’re coming out I just can’t stop thinking of them and it’s so hard to do anything. Just thoughts like, “you hate your mom” or, “you hate god” and stuff that scares me like spiders. It’s hard to do anything with these thoughts. I’m also a major perfectionist, if anything is out of order I freak out. Yes, my room is messy. But I feel a sense of incompleteness and anxiety if I don’t empty the dishwasher, or don’t clean dirty dishes around the sink. These are recent and I feel like God will punish me for committing the sin of laziness. I also have a thing with the number 5, when I touch something it needs to be 5 times and if it’s not 5 times I freak out. I’m also terrified of getting sick, every time my friend is sick I freak out and don’t get near them the entire day, constantly washing my hands. Writing this is triggering a lot of my terrible thoughts and I don’t want to continue writing. Please let me know your thoughts, mental illness runs in my family but my mom is constantly telling me there’s nothing wrong with me. Maybe she’s right.

My OCD seems to take things way too literally and make reason out of everything. I’ll see something that sort of relates to the topic of my OCD and think it’s a sign that applies to me and think “well if it’s not true why did I see that then”. Lately I’ve been struggling with the fact that “everything happens for a reason”. I am a Christian and cherish my relationship with God very much. Because everything happens for a reason, does this mean that every time I see something related to my OCD God wants me to have these thoughts? I suffer with false memory OCD. Are these signs God telling me I actually did do something bad in my past or is this just OCD playing tricks on me. I’m just really confused because I know God does create coincidence. So am I seeing these things because I did something bad? Ugh OCD is so hard. I just feel like my brain is in a big scramble and I just can’t seem to make sense out of reality. My thoughts feel so real

i’m struggling so much with things that have happened in my past, especially in my childhood, things that i’ve done, the guilt and shame is too much and i’ve told my mum and she just thinks it was normal childhood things and part of growing up but i can’t let any of it go, my mind feels so messy, and some of the memories are blurry and it’s making me feel horrible and i’m so distressed i just want this to be over and im worried to talk to a therapist because of what they might say or think, can anyone relate?

I can’t even tell if my intrusive thoughts are real or not. Sometimes I feel like I want the thoughts or am just in denial and some of the actions I’ve done in my past, I can’t forgive myself for. I have Real Event OCD and I can’t forgive myself for my mistakes. I hate myself so much. I hate feeling like such a bad person all the time. My themes have also continuously switched and it feels like I have a new theme every few months. I’m so done with this and I don’t know what to do.

TW !!!!! i’m so scared right now and i just want someone to relate because i feel like an awful awful person, this is an event hat happned when i was 5 or 6 i don’t really know how old i was but i was a young child and with another child who was 2 or 3 years younger than me i can’t really remember the age gap but that’s what terrified me because im scared i did COCSA. ( child on child sexual assault) i feel awful and i have this recurring thought “what if i took advantage of him” and it wont stop. i remember i said to him do you want to see what sex is like and i said but keep your clothes on and he said okay and i want doing it for sexual pleasure because i dont think i really understood or knew what it was but i kept my clothes on and he took all his clothes off when i didn’t want him to (including his underwear)and he got on top of me and was moving and i remember feeling really uncomfortable so i stopped it and i know this might be tmi but i just need to know if i abused him or not because i cant stand the thought, im really struggling and i don’t think there was any evil intent behind what happened but i keep having the recurring thought “what if i took advantage of him” i don’t know what to do i feel like i should turn myself in to the police i feel dreadful

i have recently had really bad confession ocd. i have an amazing happy healthy relationship, and i’m slowly destroying it. now, it’s come as far as me confessing thoughts that i probably shouldn’t be having to him. i feel so much guilt and anxiety if i don’t tell him, but telling him is just ruining our relationship and hurting him. i don’t mean these thoughts, i love him and want only him. i also confess at least 5+ times a day. I struggle with not even knowing if some things im confessing that i’ve done in the past are real or fake. it’s like i don’t know if what i did was real or not. im trying my best to stop confessing, but it’s hard because how am i supposed to know if it’s something he really needs to know or not? i don’t wanna lose him by telling him stupid stuff i should have kept to myself. he’s my dream person. it’s hard to act normal around him when i’m having the urge to confess. that leads me to not hold it in when he asks if i’m okay, because then if i say yes i’m lying so then i have to confess. we are very open about things, but it just has gone too far on my end. if anyone has any tips on how to overcome this please share.

I did something 5-6 years ago when I was barely an adult, and I know it was stupid, but I know I can never take it back, and I hate myself everyday for it. I feel like I can’t move forward in life because I can’t forgive myself and honestly sometimes don’t even want people to see I exist. I haven’t done that same thing in years but I still see myself as a horrible person. How do I move forward. I’ve been in therapy since I was 19 and also have extreme extreme checking ocd and it hasn’t helped but this rumination has been a big problem lately.

I'm trying so hard to make progress with my ocd, and I have an awesome therapist who is helping me make more progress than I have in a long time, but life keeps giving me big helpings of stress, worry, frustration, and emotional turmoil. Today's helping is, my father took a fall today and is in the hospital with a fractured hip. My parents are older and their health is facing challenges, as it does for older people. I am not prepared to deal with this. My parents live 2 hours away from my, and my ocd has made it impossible for me to get to see them this past year. I know my time with my parents is limited, and my ocd mind f's are keeping me for making the most of the time I have with them. I can't begin to explain how much I want to curse the stars or whatever it is that has this pile of misery it keeps dumping on me. I'm really sick of life tormenting me.

So after ruminating on a memory for hours everyday for the last two months i stopped since I was getting quite confused. I was driving when I suddenly had this familiar feeling and then I had like a flashback and I recalled what ACTUALLY happened and this feels true but I’m unsure if I should trust it.

I’m going to rant while trying to be as concise as possible. I stopped taking my lexapro a few months ago because I truly felt like I had the coping mechanisms I needed, and I was tired of the vertigo I’d get if I forgot to take my meds for even a day. I got thru withdrawal symptoms and was doing SO well for over a month. Then I was triggered by an event relating to my past- I had a 10 year friendship end terribly in 2022. My OCD was telling me it all all my fault and that I was projecting all of my insecurities on the friendship- I know objectively that both of us were hurt, and both played a role in the friendship. I let the OCD win and compulsively apologized to my ex best friend, taking ALL of the blame for the friendship. I also said i wanted to reconcile, which is not true. She hurt me so bad, and I’ve never had as much peace as I have without her in my life. I only said that in a moment of not seeing the situation for what is truly was. She, however, was fine with me taking all the blame and said I clearly had “more clarity.” This has sent me into a spiral for the past MONTH where all I can think about is this. I feel like I’ve been sucked right back into the past. I’m also graduating in a month and I’m super busy with work right now. Everything has completely piled up and I’m so fucking exhausted. If anyone has compulsively taken all the blame in a situation where both parties are at fault, I’d love to hear your stories to know I’m not alone in this :( I scheduled a psychiatry appointment to get back on meds (not lexapro- I want to try something else because lexapro made me feel so numb). It just feels like no matter what coping mechanisms I do, nothing helps. I’ve tried just letting the thoughts sit without engaging; they persist. I exercise every single day, but all I can think about is this situation. I have regret for A. Reaching out in the first place, B. Taking all of the blame and C. Disrupting her peace by letting a compulsion drive me to reach out. I know that I hurt her as well and I’m disappointed that I let this reopen wounds for both of us. While it would be ideal for us to end on good terms, it’s not possible, and it was impulsive of me to reach out thinking that would be achievable. In her reply she stated that reconciliation was not possible. Throughout my friendship with her I felt as though my feelings were never validated. If I was upset, it was my fault for “misunderstanding her.” If I didn’t communicate being upset, it was my fault for not communicating. Now, I’m upset with myself that I gave power to her after having finally been free from that friendship and all of the pain that it caused me.

tw for mention of SA I've been really thinking back on something that happened to me as a child, and if it was the direct cause of my OCD. I'm not sure if OCD has any direct causes, but I think I know what triggered mine. As a child, at around 5, I was SA and I feel like it's what started it. I started getting my first intrusive thoughts soon after this happened and they mainly related to fears of it happening again or me doing it to other people. It kept progressing until where I am now. I feel really guilty because I don't know if I'd still have OCD today if it never happened. I know I was a child but I wish I could have fought back more and I wish I stopped it before it could happen I just feel so bad about everything and I feel like all my problems right now could have been prevented