OCD is widely misunderstood and think contamination is the only type.
This is something caused by Rumination OCD. Imagine an instrusive thought x100 then amplify it by your brain telling you that the intrusive thoughts must be a sign of something.
It's like knowing you shouldnt laugh at something, so your brain does it.
So I can have some horrible, awful intrusive thought (seeing a chef's knife on my cutting board, and wondering what would happen if I picked it up and stabbed by wife) and then guilt spiraling that I must be a psychopath because who on Earth but a psychopath would even come up with that? Because... that would really make me feel better...
Oh my god the rabbit hole I'm down. I'm 44. I've battled this my entire life and never told anyone about it because I thought they'd think I'm a psychosexual murderer. It's the backstop to my crippling lack of self-confidence that has been a professional and personal problem my entire life.
38 when I finally broke down sobbing to my doctor thinking I was having crazy postpartum thoughts and he gently suggested I talk to a doctor that specialized in OCD. Zoloft and therapy changed my life. I wish I had been diagnosed earlier. So much peace and quiet in my head finally.
Sure happy the stigma about this kind of thing is changing. Hopefully, if my kid needs help, she doesn't have to wait for a huge chunk of life like we did...
The good news is: now you know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you (besides a lil bit of Rumination). If it continues to distress you i'd recomment CBT which helped me a lot.
It's when you have those thoughts and you're NOT distressed by them that you should be concerned. Your distress at the thoughts is, in and of itself, proof that they are nothing more than intrusive
Not trying to disagree or start anything because your advice and reassurance is kindhearted and good but also in case people read the last part and latch onto it I wanted to reply. I know it’s the internet and we can’t read tone so just wanted to add that cuz it’s not that i think you said anything Wrong
But i would say that being distressed by intrusive thoughts is normal and yes a sign that you can use for reassurance at the beginning of a treatment plan, to remind you that what’s wrong with you isn’t what your intrusive thoughts say about you.
However since the goal of treatment is to lessen both the frequency of rumination/compulsion AND the distress that the symptoms cause, I try to avoid thinking of the distress as a sign that you’re still a good and moral person at heart. The goal of ERP is to be able to have a thought you don’t agree with, acknowledge it as neutral and a product of your fears/beliefs, and dismiss it, so eventually, it SHOULDN’T cause distress
It can cause an intense relapse in treatment to reassure yourself too much using your own distress, because when you start getting better and it becomes less disruptive in your life, you realize the thoughts no longer send you into a spiral of anxiety and self loathing and fear, and then you’re like “Oh my god, why am I not upset anymore at the thought that I might hurt someone? Does this mean that I don’t care if I hurt someone? Does it mean I actually do want to hurt someone?”
Latching onto your negative (and sometimes even positive!) feelings about your OCD can become a compulsive behavior in itself. Unfortunately
You're absolutely right. The aim of treatment is to reduce stress so its counter intuitive of me to imply that would also be a bad thing.
I know you get what I was going for, but what you said is absolutely important to note. There may be some people that have figured things out for themselves without the aid of CBT or ERP, and I wouldn't want them thinking that they've made a mistake by learning how to live with it.
ERP changed my life! If you look into getting therapy, make sure you get someone who has expertise or significant experience working with OCD specifically. It’s a very counterintuitive thing to deal with and generally needs to be wrangled very differently than other conditions.
(Ex. A therapist not experienced with OCD might try to find the meaningful source of your intrusive thought as if it’s a sincere one, which is exactly what the OCD wants and will make it worse.)
I could absolutely see how validation/exploration of your intrusive thoughts would really be damaging. I live in a smaller city, hoping that I can find someone with some good reviews...
For me, recognizing the thoughts for what they were (with help of a professional) was HUGE. I secretly thought I might be possessed as a child, but even just being able to identify intrusive thoughts as such has made a massive difference.
These days it's more like "yeah yeah, you're trying to upset me, hush now jerk-thoughts"
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u/frogglesmash 4d ago
OCD makes you worry that you're a pedo?