Was Doing Really Well, Now Back to Square One

[DownTheRabbitHole]

I was doing really well this past week with my false menories but still had 3 new ones during the week. I tried so hard to dismiss them as OCD but one in particular is really bothering me as it's stepped up a notch from my usual false memories, same theme but even more horrific. I had one on Wednesday that was truly horrible, was doing really well with it, Thursday came and I had a new false memory so wasn't really thinking about the one that occurred on Wednesday. Got ready to go to work on Friday and suddenly found evidence that the one from Wednesday actually happened and since then my head has been a mess. I'm struggling to let this one go and fell into the trap of ruminating even though I tried really hard not to, the evidence is the most scary part. I don't know now if it's OCD or not and I'm so worried and scared. I don't know why initially I was able to let it go and it didn't bother me so much until 2 days later. Feel like crying, I'm so sick of all of this.

[DownTheRabbitHole]

Please help, I'm in floods of tears.

[butterfly lady]

When you say you've found evidence, is it really evidence or is it what ocd says is evidence? When I was tackling my false memory, I found at the beginning that I would take one step forward and two back. Its incredibly frustrating but stay with it. At the beginning, I was so scared and confused, I couldn't work out what was true and what wasn't, ocd would suggest things and my brain would go along with them and accept them. Ruminating might relieve the pressure for a bit but its a short term relief because ocd will always try to disprove and second guess you. Well done for what you're doing so far, its the ocd fighting back and trying to take back control. Try not to allow it to and treat it as a blip xxx

Edited February 7, 2016 by butterfly lady

[DownTheRabbitHole]

It's not evidence that my brain has made up, its a mark that I've found on my leggings and I can't work out what it is and I don't know if those were the leggings I wore that day but my brain has made the connection between the mark and the false memory

[butterfly lady]

I remember finding a sweet wrapper in my car which came from a sweet I'd eaten in someone elses car and I had no clue how it got there. Ocd told me if I could forget that, then I could forget other things. It was just at the point where I'd started taking the leap of faith, going backwards and forwards between being okish and doubting myself. I still don't know how the sweet wrapper got there but do you know, now its not important to me now. I can totally see how finding something that you don't feel you can explain then ties to the false memory but this is one of the ocd tricks. You have a mark on your leggings. You can't remember whether you wore them that particular day and now you might be ruminating, trying to remember. Ocd tells you this is evidence. Very few days go by when I don't drop something of some description on myself, whether its because I've been cooking or lounging on the sofa eating. Ask yourself this, would someone without ocd worry about a mark on their clothing and try to remember when they wore them last and what they did for it to get there or would they just put them in the washing basket? Whenever I get anxious about something, its the question I ask myself - "would this bother someone without ocd?".

Edited February 7, 2016 by butterfly lady

[DownTheRabbitHole]

Butterfly lady, is it ok if I send you a pm?

[butterfly lady]

Course you can x

Edited February 7, 2016 by butterfly lady

[PolarBear]

It's not evidence that my brain has made up, its a mark that I've found on my leggings and I can't work out what it is and I don't know if those were the leggings I wore that day but my brain has made the connection between the mark and the false memory

So it's not really evidence. You're trying to make a connection between a mark and what your brain dredged up as a memory. There is no evidence.

Trying to figure out where that mark came from is going to be ruminating, which as you know is a compulsion. Leave the mark alone. It means nothing. Stop trying to figure out how it got there.