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How is it possible to have the one same intrusive thought/false memory for a year and a half and their be no meaning to it!?


Guest Saz

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Hi guys resisted 3 times yesterday to seek re-assurance, twice by not posting on here and once by not asking my friend, so I am pleased. Sorry I gave in a little today.

Can anyone answer my above question? It seems like to have the one same worry for this long is not right and their is truth in it??? I have no other major ocd worries-since this and before this. Please help, feeling anxious. X

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Guest Tricia

Longevity has nothing to do with whether there's any truth in it. One of mine (which I now realize was all down to OCD fabrication) lasted over twenty years. Try to do as Legend says, because the more we challenge/question/analyse, the tighter its grip will be.

(Mine also began shortly after an event.)

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Guest beecham

Hi Saz - I have the same as you and Ive also struggled with thinking that it must be real if its lasted this long! If anything I think it just proves more so that it is ocd!

Keep going with the resisting reassurance and not analyzing things - it does help the ocd to back down. It may not back down straight away but dont let it dishearten you - you may only see improvements after a few weeks or a few days or a few months of doing this but it does work - its working so far for me - i just refuse to analyse something that ive been analysing for a year and a half now!

Hope you feel better :)and good luck xx

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Guest beecham

Thanks Legend :)

Also another thing to recommend Saz - I read somewhere (possibly on this forum) a while ago that it is better to put one piece of advice into action and actively follow it and carry it out rather than read about multiple different things that will help you and not ever doing any of them - because you just end up constantly looking for the answer rather than really trying to change your habits.

So for me this is to work on accepting every day that i have ocd, to be okay with that and actively deciding not to analyse my thoughts/feelings, and to refocus on a different activity after acknowledging that im having ocd thoughts.

I took a 'leap of faith' the other week and instead of thinking maybe it is ocd maybe it isnt, i decided to just be stubborn and thought 'im going to assume its ocd' and then focus on something else. Its hard at first and doubt creeps in but if you ignore it it doesnt hold as much power.

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Guest legend

sounds like youve grabbed the bull by the horns which is fantastic

Keep perservering, it certainly works, and deffo did for me

you should be very proud of what youve/are achieving

legend :)

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Thanks guys...legend..tricia..Beecham.

Its good to know im not on my own with this. I sometimes feel like im going mad with this because of the fact I feel like everyone else has lots of ocd worries/theme changes and im just stuck with this blasted one- hence the major anxiety and doubt!

Wow tricia 20 years is such a long time to have an intrusive thought/false memory :( I can see me being the same and it panics me so much because I don't want to feel this horrid way for even a day more. I cannot stop analyzing my every action (what I can remember ) of this event, scanning my brain for clues or evidence to support my intrusive thought. X

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Guest Tricia

Saz, I would never say to anyone that this can definitely be overcome by not analysing etc., as it is different for each of us, but what I think is likely (probably in 99 percent of cases) is that by going over it the obsession will just grow stronger.

I had the misfortune of a midwife trying to be amusing (and unprofessional, in my opinion) confirming an intrusive thought that had festered for several months. She announced, minutes after my daughter was born, that my husband couldn't possibly be her father due to her dark skin. The man OCD had convinced me I'd had sex with was white. However, it has the power to fit in with any new details that emerge and suddenly the man I had the brief 'affair' with had much darker skin and was the friend of the former chap.

This was before DNA testing, and to this day I don't know whether I'd have asked for a test, had such things been available, as I never shared my 'guilty secret' with my husband.

When my daughter was at high school another 'harmless' comment reinforced the obsession yet again, as my husband joked he couldn't be our daughter's father as she is much too intelligent. He went on to say she was the milkman's. OCD hadn't thought of that one, but quickly changed the story to fit in with this new 'information'.

I can almost (I stress almost) laugh about all this now, but it caused me so many years of great distress.

Saz, I do realize just how hard it is to stop seeking proof over whatever it is OCD is lying to you about, but truly we can't beat it with this kind of approach. Try to keep as busy as you can. It won't stop badgering you that easily, but it's far more likely to lose its hold over you that way. Good luck. xx

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Guest Gloria123

Hi Saz,

I know what you mean. As you know I also suffer from false memories, my latest one is about five or six month old. There are times where I don´t think about it that much but also times where I struggle a lot. I just read an article in the news where the police said that they found child porns on the laptop of a teacher etc. And because I work with kids and my false memory was about showering a kid at work I struggle even more if it had happened or not. I actually dealed with it quite good the last time and just thought that I would never do it and that there wouldn´t have been a reason for doing it on purpose...but now I struggle again :(

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Guest Sisyphus

Hi guys resisted 3 times yesterday to seek re-assurance, twice by not posting on here and once by not asking my friend, so I am pleased. Sorry I gave in a little today.

Can anyone answer my above question? It seems like to have the one same worry for this long is not right and their is truth in it??? I have no other major ocd worries-since this and before this. Please help, feeling anxious. X

A couple of mine "evolved" to the point where they're kind of a tangent off a tangent, and whatever the hell generated them to begin with is long gone now, YET they are still surprisingly potent. And this has been going on some years now. I guess it's like getting a scratch, picking at it, then an infection/scab forms, the wound underneath heals up but you keep picking at the scab so it stays there. Probably the worst analogy ever. But this disconnect happens at some point, yet the obsession/compulsion remain. I find this very odd. It makes no logical sense to me.

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Thanks for your continued support and advice.

I am just riddled with worry and anxiety that I cannot shake. I can be ok for brief moments but then keep thinking of this horrid thought/image and it feels so real or that their at least must be some truth to it. It's power over me is so strong. I really am trying, im not responding straight away to posts or replies to try and give my mind a break but it never goes away. Im constantly down and snappy and feel like im a bad person even though I wouldn't dream of this horrible thing my mind is telling me, I'm walking round like I don't deserve anything.

I am on an ocd site because I am obsessing about something - I just don't know if what im obsessing about is real or not and thats the problem. Feeling really confused and down :( x

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Guest Tricia

Saz, this is to be expected - brief moments where you'll be okay, but then it will strike so hard again. The feeling that it is so real has no bearing at all, none. Do try to keep busy, I know it isn't likely to go away easily, but try to fill your days and it is likely to improve. I found exercise also helped.

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Thank you tricia, your very kind. I will try, im going to try and have a lovely day, dinner cooking, kids happy. I just struggle so much to understand this wretched thing-it came from nowhere!

Hope you manage to have a nice day too. X

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Guest struggling!

Hi there,

I agree with what others have said on here. My ocd makes me question what has happened before. I find ways to reassure myself by saying well something can't have happened because of A, B and C. But at some point (and it can be long long after the event and after much rumination, the OCD will say well actually i think A happened too (even though I had dismissed it many times before and closer to the event). This sends me off down another direction and raises more thoughts - well for A to have happened, D, E and F would need to be considered - how would these have been and when, how why. This is then a never ending cycle.

Its hard and I try for it not to be a compulsion but I have been trying to say that I know my diagnosis is OCD and i know that OCD is horrific and will keep twisting things. I know that many of the things that OCD tells me has or will happen has never yet happened so why is this any different now? It hasn't happened. The memory is false. As I say, its not easy but we need to keep persevering in order to beat OCD in the end.

Best wishes

Struggling!

Edited by struggling!
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Thanks struggling. Your quite right it is a never ending cycle, thats exactly how I feel-I feel like I'll never break it either unless I find out the answer I need.

People say that I shouldn't try to find the answer because it feeds the ocd but I don't agree, it would end my torture I know it would. Im not saying their would never be a 'next time' but im not one of these who's theme changes all the time-its mainly just this one biggy!

I've never been officially diagnosed with ocd either-just anxiety I think (which is pretty much the same) so I just feel like a complete fraud :( x

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Guest legend

im a tough cookie saz, huge respect to you , and the suffering its awful , but that change ... has to come from , you x

im a tough cookie saz, huge respect to you , and the suffering its awful , but that change ... has to come from , you x
Edited by legend
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Guest Gloria123

Maybe I´m not a big help but I just can tell what I feel at the moment. And I can agree that distraction really helps.
How long was your longest period where you did have the "bad event" in your brain but didn´t thinkt about it too much? I made the experience that if you are able to distract yourself for a few days it becomes easier to go on distracting yourself. As you see above I also have moments and days where I struggle more but I have to say that (after a period of distraction) it´s easier to put away the worries. And the result of my distraction at the moment is that I think a bit different of the event...I still have graphic and detailed pictures in my head that make me doubt but at the moment my inner voice that I would never do such things and that there wouldn´t have been a reason for doing it is a bit louder. I still struggle and have moment where I feel guilty and am so sad and everything but also made the experience that if you are strong in distraction and also the will to beat ocd it becomes easier...

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Saz,

i am struggling at the moment myself- different flavour of OCD but - as I've commented (and so has Legend) on here before - the ways in which OCD operates and carries out its bullying tend to be similar whatever flavour.

And what's continually bugging you is what you just cannot have - the desire for certainty. And the more you give in to compulsive thoughts trying to get it, the more you will have vulnerability to OCD. The fact you have no other OCD issues at the moment is not relevant, give in here and they will follow at some point if you do.

And until you let go of seeking certainty, you cannot break out of the circle of distress that's binding you.

It's the paradaox that OCD serves up - catch 22 - and until that paradox is noted and accepted, we remain stuck.

So stop seeking certainty of what happened, and you can break the chain linking you to distress. It sounds simple, but its not so simple to do it when you've got compulsive OCD thoughts telling you you need that certainty - but those compulsive thoughts ARE OCD.

So, no need for any confusion is there? Its really quite straightforward. OCD is using the uncertainty of what might have happened at that event to distress and torture you. You don't want it to, but by engaging with that uncertainty and ruminating and seeking answers, and re-assurance, you are continuing to carry out all the things that actually allow it to do this.

By the way, concentrating on making up this post is weakening the thought loop running in my head - distraction is of course the right approach!

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Guest beecham

Hi Saz,

Sorry to hear youre still struggling. Theres some great advice above by the others and i just wanted to add to it by saying that like any problem, big or small, ocd or non ocd, the only way to fix it and change your situation is to stop focusing on the problem and start focusing on the solution.

So instead of using your mental energy reassessing every horrible thought process that your ocd throws at you, try and focus on what you yourself can do to actually get better and make an active decision that you are going to start working on changing how you think instead of trying to figure things out.

For me, I reached a point where my ocd had got so ridiculous and it had gone off into so many different tangents and i was getting very odd intrusive feelings that i just decided 'screw it, im going to take that leap of faith and assume its ocd and not ruminate about it'

Its hard, but i promise you will feel a hell of a lot better within a while!!

All the best

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Saz,

Please try and stop stop seeking certainty of what happened, and you can break the chain linking you to distress. It sounds simple, but its not so simple to do it when you've got compulsive OCD thoughts telling you you need that certainty - but those compulsive thoughts ARE OCD.

So, no need for any confusion is there? Its really quite straightforward.

"Break Free From OCD" also states clearly that in OCD the intrusive thoughts focus in on our worst fears.

So in Saz's case, it's that she did something truly awful in that incident she can't remember, that would have a devastasting effect on her reputation in the eyes of others, and her self-worth.It would also be out of character, against the principles she stands for. OCD is using the uncertainty of what might have happened at that event to distress her. She doesn't want it to, but by engaging with that uncertainty and ruminating and seeking answers, and re-assurance,she is continuing to carry out all the things that actually allow it to do this.The OCD paradox is therefore kept alive and well!

So I think we've now wound back to the fear that is underpinning Saz's problem, and upon which her OCD is gleefully feeding

Those others of you with "false memory" OCD should also now be able to identify the core fear behind their problem upon which the OCD is feeding.

Saz, I really hope that you can now see all the OCD in your problem lit up in neon lights - I've used some text colour techniques to highlight it here.

i think if you now really buy into this, you can move forward. If you use the technique of calmly stopping yourself when you realise that you are ruminating on this usual theme, and switching your attention to something demanding - and keep ploughing that furrow - you can weaken the compulsive urge to ruminate

At the same time, you do need to face up to the compulsive urge to seek re-assurance. And remember, certainty and doubt is what OCD emphasises, but certainty cannot be found. Please do as beecham has and give up on that quest.

You are not going to be able to do this completely immediately - there will be failures and you will find yourself giving into the compulsion to ruminate. But when you do, accept that and try harder next time to tease out the time before you give in - so you will still gradually be weaning yourself away from the urge to compulse (this is the technique for addressing compulsions set out in the self-help books and, as I know personally, it does work).

And I'm using this technique it myself right now, by the way, on my own distressing thoughts.

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