Most people with OCD know their thoughts are irrational

[mummyoftwogirls]

I'm interested to see how many if any of you think that you thoughts doubts worries are NOT totally irrational

Time and time again I read people with ocd know that their thoughts are irrational ? If I knew my thoughts were completely irrational I wouldn't bloody be worried ?

I understand that my compulsions are irrational and only serve to decrease my anxiety and worry in the short term.

And I understand that my worries have other rational explanations BUT my worries themselves are to me not irrational completely .

Maybe this means it's not ocd ? Although I have never thought any of my ocd themes seemed that irational at the time looking backin hindsight I can see they were . Can someone explain

[Yrrow]

I have struggled with this one.

While I concede that my thoughts would be irrational to an outside observer, the thoughts and my concerns do not seem completely irrational to me if the small chance exists that they could be true (and there's of course no absolute certainty to anything). I agree that my compulsions are irrational and don't solve anything.

Does this mean it's not OCD? No (at least I hope not....)

[gingerbreadgirl]

I have wondered this too. Most people consider there must be at least some rational element to it it it wouldn't distress them so much. Some of my obsessions I have known are pretty irrational, but others have been cripplingly real.

I guess the difference is that we know deep down on some level it might not be real, even if when the midsts of it we can't see that. otherwise we wouldn't struggle so much with uncertainty - we would just be certain the thought was true.

Someone with OCD for example might be worried that someone is going to kill them. They grapple with it and they feel enormous distress but they do see that it may be irrational which is where the doubt and uncertainty comes in. Compare this to someone with, for example, a psychotic illness, they think someone is trying to kill them and there is no doubt, there is no grappling with uncertainty, they are just convinced someone is trying to kill them. People with OCD can step back and look at the thought logically but they can't resolve the doubt they feel. This is the difference.

[Guest imalright]

I know mine are irrational....but I have been challenged with the thought of 'there is still a chance!' :-D My OCD is about drug contamination. I have come up with all sorts of stories about how I may be contaminated with drugs (i.e - out running....some may have blown into my mouth or an angry employee who worked at the factory my soup was made in may have sneaked their stash into my can hahahaha!). Albeit........there's more chance of the PM being an alien and more chance of winning the lottery three times in a day. And being struck by lightning several times on the same day as winning the lottery.

I think with OCD......our fears.....the risk.....nothing is impossible. But a lot of our fears and beliefs are highly, highly unlikely. Is it about accepting that there is a risk or chance and living with it because it is just so highly unlikely? :-)

[Guest PaulM]

I didn't.

My therapists picked up on this early and focused on teaching me how to recognize OCD thoughts.

To me my fears were perfectly rational. There are MSDS, toxicology reports, articles on the WHO site, IARC, etc., to back them up.

What I did NOT get is that it's not the content of the fears that are OCD thoughts. But it was the WAY I thought about them that was the issue.

I know people are probably sick of me banging the drum of cognitive distortions, but that was the piece I was missing. There are tools to help identify those.

[Guest Ichigo]

But it was the WAY I thought about them that was the issue.

Did she advice you to think about the thoughts in another way? or leaving them be?

[Guest nervous]

Hi mummyoftwogirls

I think your last sentence tells you something. For me it depends how far into it I am, When I first started I was doing checking, I could watch myself locking the door over and over again telling myself it was crazy but I kept doing it. At that time I knew it was irrational, later it was much worse, especially when mine changed to contamination although the theme is irrelevant. The more severe my ocd became the more convinced I was in it's lies, I can honestly say that many of the things I now see as ridiculous I fully believed at the time. OCD will be very conniving and will continue to provide you with evidence until a solid case is made, like Paul my fears were all based on real evidence of stuff that was dangerous but it was my interpretation of the threat that was blown out of proportion.

[OCD_Guy_UK]

I would think most of us would struggle with answering this question conclusively. Yep, I also know that my fears would be irrational to non-OCD people, and even I know they are completely OTT but it matters not, even if they are irrational or rational, they still exist and that's enough to give them energy for me.

[OCD_Guy_UK]

Hi mummyoftwogirls

I think your last sentence tells you something. For me it depends how far into it I am, When I first started I was doing checking, I could watch myself locking the door over and over again telling myself it was crazy but I kept doing it. At that time I knew it was irrational, later it was much worse, especially when mine changed to contamination although the theme is irrelevant. The more severe my ocd became the more convinced I was in it's lies, I can honestly say that many of the things I now see as ridiculous I fully believed at the time. OCD will be very conniving and will continue to provide you with evidence until a solid case is made, like Paul my fears were all based on real evidence of stuff that was dangerous but it was my interpretation of the threat that was blown out of proportion.

True. It's like my fears, thoughts, worries, etc ... they will always exist now and in the future. What needs to change is the experiences I relate to those things. At the moment I associate intense fear and dread with these things. I know they are ridiculous and irrational. I know that now when I'm in grip of OCD and I expect I'll know that when one day I'm not. However, makes no difference if they are irrational, as what I associate with these things is what drives them.

[mummyoftwogirls]

Thank you all very much . I think there is a lot of glossing over ocd in articles etc

[Guest PaulM]

Did she advice you to think about the thoughts in another way? or leaving them be?

They talked about how we as OCD types tend to see possibilities. Whereas others not affected by OCD would more often think in probabilities.

Not only do we look at every possibility, but we have a host of cognitive distortions that tend to lead us away from probabilities towards worst case scenarios. Any element of risk.

The thoughts would be there regardless. The feelings we have a real. But the thoughts are faulty. Errors caused by the way we think, not by the event itself.

They'd sum it up nicely with the phrase "Just because I FEEL contaminated, does not mean I AM contaminated."

Edited December 17, 2014 by PaulM

[mummyoftwogirls]

You've become such a great help on the forums Paul :-)

[PolarBear]

I don't think it is accurate to say that all people with OCD recognize that their thoughts are irrational. I do think it is probable that all people with OCD know there is something wrong.

At the core of OCD is the process where an intrusive thought causes a firing of an alarm bell in our heads. In most people that doesn't happen. But in our heads the alarm bell goes off, telling us there is imminent danger present. It's hard to calmly figure out if the thought is rational or irrational when the alarm bell is going off.

At the time an intrusive thought pops up, we aren't thinking about rational or irrational. We're trying to figure out how to make the alarm bell to shut the heck up.

[Guest anatta]

My themes of the last ~10 years have been in 2 related and seemingly rare categories, one of which I call "hyper-compassion". This category means I feel compelled to find out how bad some kind of tragedy is or was for those involved. How badly they suffered. These are real events and the uncertainty is just about the finer details of how bad it was, which I try to find out by imagination, medical research, historical research and first person accounts. I must know because the thoughts about how bad it might have been, strike me with so much despair, it feels like I could never be happy knowing that it's true, so I have to know. Mostly I'm trying to convince myself that the details I wonder about are not true.

As these details are all very reasonable possibilities, what is irrational about this, is there anything? I struggle very much with deciding that I'm justified morally to fight it at all. The tragedies I obsess over are always things that not many people se em to know about (the second category of themes is all about whether people are indifferent to these same tragedies, which feeds and is fed by hyper-compassion ruminations) and the victims have been neglected, and I don't want to neglect them too. Is that OCD or just being compassionate and feeling guilt I should feel for trying to avoid the subject and so not being able to raise awareness etc?

Edited December 17, 2014 by anatta

[Guest PaulM]

You've become such a great help on the forums Paul :-)

I'm not sure what to say, other than thank you if I've been of some help. That's very kind of you.

I have some payback that I owe around here.

[CJay]

I've wondered about this as well and have actually told my psychiatrist that I know I'm being irrational and then worried about it because, in hindsight, I feel it wasn't very accurate.

There are times when I've felt bewildered because other people don't seem to worry about things that would have worried me.

[mummyoftwogirls]

Interesting really, perhaps the description of ocd should be revised . I remember when I used to get "urges" with my harm ocd and there was nothing 10 years ago explaining you get get unwanted urges and well as thoughts

[Guest ADD]

Thoughts can't be rational or irrational, they're only thoughts. Beliefs could be irrational, fears could be irrational. Or simply overblown and over reacted to!

Most of my OCD fears I always thought of as rational cause I feared OCD itself. Feared thoughts and memories getting stuck, intrusions never leaving me alone, feared feeling bad, etc. All fears that are all highly likely! If what I fear is highly likely then how could it be irrational to fear those things? They are self fulfilling to a large degree which makes them even more likely and more reasonable to believe they'd happen! Especially cause they have happened so many times in the past and I have so much evidence of what I fear coming true! It is not that my fears are unlikely or irrational at all, it is only that I didn't have the confidence to overcome the self fulfilling fuel of making them come more true. The faith that if I don't care they won't bother me as much or I'd desensitize to them enough. Knowing how self fulfilling my fears were didn't make me less afraid of them, it made me more afraid cause I knew as soon as I felt any anxiety about it happening or too much attention to something that it was a foregone conclusions from there! That gave me anxiety about anxiety, and made me give into the compulsions and avoidances even more cause it seemed the only way to escape it!

[OCDCanuck]

I think that most people with OCD know that their thoughts do not fit with who they are. However, since it is the doubting disease, there is always that little tiny seed of doubt. Sadly, we tend to focus far too much energy on that little doubt that prevents us from attaining the unattainable...certainty.

[Guest fiatver]

I think that in some way, all OCD fears "make sense", therefore, arguing with the thoughts or trying to "solve them" is never a solution.

And in some way, society in general promotes sometimes ways of thinking which are completely irrational, like that death is something that only happens to other people, people we don't know about, or that buying things or feeling nice will make us happy. Engaging in this way of thinking, even if promoted by the culture, can be a cause of unhappiness and mental health issues.

Edited December 17, 2014 by fiatver

[Guest Saz]

I agree with mummy-your a great help paul x

[mummyoftwogirls]

How's the little one saz?

[Guest Saz]

Hi mummy

She's great, really coming on. She sleeps right through the night which is a godsend lol.

How are you? X

[mummyoftwogirls]

That's great , at least your getting sleep . I'm not great really had a pretty bad relapse in the past 3 months , still working on it small steps :-)

[Guest HeadAboveWater]

I think I used to know that these thoughts were irrational - now I doubt so much that I'm not even sure anymore.