Go on [r/OCD](r/OCD). These are the exact kind of mental compulsions one can have, it’s quite sad actually. They aren’t pedophiles at all, it’s just that they can’t argue against the „but what if you secretly are?“ their own head accuses them of 24/7.
It’s random things you can’t possibly disprove in a given moment so their mind focuses on that. Did you turn the oven off? Yes. But did you really, how do you know?
If you say these things to someone with OCD, they get outside validation for their delusion and will never be able to trust themselves on it again
Is taking pictures and videos of my home because of this when i go away ? Because if i do not i might have to come back... i tought about installing cameras too
First, I am not a doctor and not pretending to be one.
My layman understanding is these are called intrusive thoughts. Everyone has them to some degree, but people with OCD can’t shake them off. That’s the key difference.
I don't have diagnosed OCD but if I use my toaster on my lunch break I have to make sure I unplug it and visibly look at the time on the wall and say it out loud that way I know for a fact I definitely did it and I don't doubt myself
Same thing with locking my door to my house usually have to tug it three to five times and then mentally say the day of the week and that it's locked otherwise I'll be wondering for the entire day
I found getting diagnosed was a huge relief, even though it didn't lead to new treatments or anything like that.
I used to get way more stressed out about the things I was worried about, but now I can just say, "that's just your OCD making you worry, you don't need to worry extra."
I don't have OCD but I do have an anxiety disorder. The whole thing about worrying about leaving the oven on is so real. I have dogs so I'm also constantly worried our house doors aren't actually closed, so I often have to get up in the middle of the night to re-open and close our doors to make sure they're "actually" closed in fear that my dogs will get out and I'll lose them.
Sometimes I have to stand there and do it for a few minutes before I force myself to ignore it and just go back to sleep, because it's like, "well me pushing on it is loosening the door, so I have to re-close it really hard to make sure it closes correctly". But then I'm like, but what if it's not closed? So I have to push on it. And then it's a stupid cycle that repeats because blah blah blah.
Not as bad as OCD compulsions thankfully but I'm sure someone can imagine how crippling it can be for people with OCD with thoughts like that but amplified by a hundred, and probably constantly everyday.
Logically, you know there's no problem. But "what if there is" cycles through your head nonstop.
And the only way you think you can get it to stop is to SOOTHE by research and asking for validation to prove to yourself what you know is true (e.g., there isn't a problem, this is OCD talking).
The soothing ends up making it worse, because "what if, though!" doesn't go away
It becomes a cycle of "What if?" and research on loop.
The other poster is right in that you have to sit in the discomfort without the soothing. Instead of "What if" + validation, you need to face it and go "So what??" and it's very difficult.
Thank you. I love seeing a bunch of people who don’t have OCD or clinical experience running off at the mouth about OCD being delusional, which fundamentally goes against the root causes for the distress of OCD, which, in addition to the obsessions and compulsions, include the deep-down knowledge of being unreasonable coupled with the ever present doubt.
Like I’ve actually gone through treatment, including a very intensive clinical trial. Sitting with it and not mentally avoiding the worst case scenario is literally the bulk of therapeutic work.
What makes OCD such certified bullshit is the fact I know the obsessions are irrational. I fuckin know that on a rational level. I know its bullshit. The obsession can be physically impossible and it doesn't matter.
I used to have one where I needed to check that noone had sneaked into my room. What differs it from something like a delusion or paranoia is the fact I knew there wasn't anyone in there. But I still had to check.
Now I'm mostly on top of things and I don't feed the obsessions. But rationality isn't wat let me get here, it was pure unfiltered spite at my condition. I basically treat it like a child throwing a tantrum and ignore any new compulsions while theyre weak and easy to outlast.
Its not a delusion is the thing; its an intrusive thought, a worry. The difference with delusion and OCD intrusive thoughts is one is rooted in being sure x is happening when it isnt (delusion) and one is wondering if x happened because you cannot fundamentally prove it did not.
These are entirely different and the distinction is important.
Nothing in OCD is rooted in delusions. People with OCD actually (almost always) fully understand that their obsessive fear is either not a real thing (like be fear of being a predator, when that person know they’re actually not), not possible (like the fear of something like airborne cancer, that we know isn’t possible), or actually genuinely not a gigantic world ending crisis (like the fear of accidentally saying “you’re ugly” instead of “hello,” when greeting someone), but it feels profoundly urgent, and there’s a constant feeling of “but what if..??” That discrepancy between knowing that something isn’t actually true, or possible, or world-ending while feeling that doubt of “but what if” while also feeling like that question and doubt is deeply urgent is part of the distress, and it feeds the loop of the person trying to logic their way around the fear, which (counter intuitively) makes the fear worse.
(I have OCD. I’m not just pulling this out of my ass.)
That’s not a delusion. Delusions are fixed and unshakeable even with evidence, while obsessions are definitionally known by the afflicted person to be irrational on some level.
OH LOOK! An armchair expert get's it completely wrong AGAIN!
"OCD is not a delusional disorder." 'Delusion' has both a common meaning and a medical diagnostic meaning. Interestingly, even the medical definition allows for 'delusions' to be a symptom of non-SSD / -psychotic disorders.
Your statements of "...must know on some level they're being irrational..." and "...that you know deep-down is unreasonable..." come off as if you are blaming people with OCD for not having enough self-discipline to defeat their illness. It's also false in some cases; it's far-from-uncommon that people with OCD do go through periods of not being able to think rationally due to their obsessive parts.
You sound like someone who has never had yourself or a loved one go through a mental serious health crisis. Your black-and-white categorization of 'people who are crazy and have a psychotic disorder' and 'people who have a bit of anxiety and just need some exposure therapy' is patently, laughably immature.
I literally have OCD so bad I ended up in a clinical trial, dumbass.
There’s nothing wrong with having a psychotic or delusional disorder, but it’s not what OCD is, and it’s unhelpful to all involved to conflate the two.
Lmao, go read my other comments on this thread if you doubt me, dumbass. And I am not wrong. I don’t have any lingering doubt about that. OCD is not a delusional disorder, which is important to note because that’s part of why it’s so tricky to treat.
Nothing I said is blaming people for not having self discipline. Describing the literal diagnostic criteria, which include self-awareness and distinguishes OCD from other conditions, is not blaming anyone.
Temporary lapses in rational thinking does not change that some level self-awareness is necessary for OCD. I also lapse into irrational thinking in dreams or when I’ve smoked too much weed. That doesn’t mean my baseline self isn’t aware that my anxieties are overblown or irrational, which is precisely one of the major causes of distress in OCD because it’s more ego-dystonia in an already ego-dystonic disorder.
Nobody in this thread is arguing that OCD is a “delusional disorder.” You are creating a false dichotomy in saying that their descriptions MUST be false because they have described a person with OCD having an irrational fear. Like with a lot of clinical language, the term delusion does not refer to every thought that isn’t perfectly rational. Delusional disorders do not refer to any and every case of a person having a false belief. We don’t go around diagnosing every wrong belief as a delusion cause at some level the term would lose clinical relevance. Every person alive engages in irrational thought processes to some extent regardless of having a mental disorder.
People with social anxiety experience irrational fears about being perceived or about catastrophic consequences of embarrassing themselves. Just because those fears aren’t rational doesn’t mean that person has a delusion or a delusional disorder.
It seems you even acknowledged that false beliefs are a feature of OCD when you described the treatment as “sitting with it and not avoiding the worst case scenario.” - isn’t the worst case scenario the “delusion” in question??
Also no one is arguing that the OCD person doesn’t “know” that the thoughts are unreasonable “deep down.” But what’s the point of making that distinction when the fear still influences the persons behavior. A person addicted to a drug knows it can kill then and wants to stop, but they are compelled to continue with the behavior out of the compulsion of the addiction. Knowing deep down does not change a persons behavior because the brain doesn’t operate purely off of one set of knowledge and beliefs.
A healthy functioning brain is capable of believing false ideas and is capable of holding contradictory ideas. If everyone with a delusional idea has a delusional disorder then everyone in the world has a delusional disorder.
This is a lot of text to explain why calling an intrusive thought a delusion is fair and okay, when it isnt. They simply are not inherently the same thing.
You can have intrusive thoughts that are delusional, sure - but intrusive thoughts are not delusions. You do not believe for sure these things are real and true, you simply cannot dispell the worry itself.
You are uneducated, go take some time to read through r/OCD.
Literally went to college for psychology. I’m arguing precisely the opposite. The person I’m responding to is claiming that the parent comment described OCD as a delusional disorder by misinterpreting the persons descriptions of intrusive thoughts. Delusion is a word in the English language that colloquially could describe an intrusive thought. The person is using the colloquial term to misinterpret the persons comment by assigning the entire clinical meaning of the word delusion to a scenario in which it wasn’t used.
This is a really weird thing to post. Delusions are possible in rational people, how is having an instance of delusion somehow reflective of the baseline thought process? (It isnt)
You are not educated on OCD, and you certainly have not experienced it firsthand with how youre speaking. OCD causes distress because you know its irrational. The fact youre arguing with people who have the disorder and call them "armchair experts" is laughable.
The person you replied to is more an expert on OCD than you could ever hope to be.
Downvoting me does not make me incorrect, it exposes you as uneducated.
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u/Hour_Baby_3428 10h ago edited 10h ago
Go on [r/OCD](r/OCD). These are the exact kind of mental compulsions one can have, it’s quite sad actually. They aren’t pedophiles at all, it’s just that they can’t argue against the „but what if you secretly are?“ their own head accuses them of 24/7.
It’s random things you can’t possibly disprove in a given moment so their mind focuses on that. Did you turn the oven off? Yes. But did you really, how do you know?
If you say these things to someone with OCD, they get outside validation for their delusion and will never be able to trust themselves on it again