rachel23

How will I ever know if my feelings have been caused by ocd or if they’re the true me and I’ve really felt them? If I’ve really felt them And they’re the true me then I can’t live with myself. I’m so confused. Am I just not admiting the truth to myself. I’m really in a spiral now.

Please, this has just totally thrown me. I was feeling a bit better yesterday but now I’m so so freaked out. That’s my biggest fear that I really am one of those people and I’m just not admitting it to myself. I’m so scared

Because that is my biggest fear so that’s why it matter, It can’t be true, please don’t let it be true. I’ve just read that and burst into tears and felt a rush or dread just go through my body. I can’t be that, I just can’t. But I don’t know anymore. I’m so confused, I really am, I just don’t want to go through this anymore.

When does it get to the point where it’s your fault that your life is being ruined? After having 10 years of therapy on and off with OCD specialists and still unable to accept its OCD or resist compulsions, is it my fault that I feel this way and that I’m ruining my life? My mum has said that I’m stupid for letting this ruin my life yet again. I always recover and feel so content and enjoy life and it just comes back time after time, the same fears, the same thoughts that make me think it must be something more than OCD. Am I a weak person for not doing what I know I should be doing? How can It be OCD when I know so much about it and it’s making me feel so so awful. How can I not know how I feel about a thought , can oCD really make you think you enjoy something that you don’t. I’ve fallen badly back into some very deep thinking and I’m so ashamed that I feel like this again. It also scares me for the rest of my life. How can I have additional responsibilities and live a normal life if this is going to blight my life? So so upset and scared x

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I think the problem is is that over the years, I put so many images and scenarios in my head to test myself that they are rarely intrusive , I mostly put them in my head but to test myself. When I get the thought ‘would I enjoy xyz if I saw it happen’ I guess that’s intrusive but I want to make the answer no. I think because I’ve felt arousal or excitement or something like that in the past, I want to tell myself no no no. But I don’t know if they’re my true feelings or ocd have caused these feelings. I feel I couldn’t live with myself if I had become aroused or excited by one of those thoughts in the past and they were my true feelings. I feel this is all very very hard. The frustrating thing is is that it has disappeared before and I’ve thought what a load of rubbish that all was, what a waste of money that I spent so much in therapy all over such a silly problem! I think things like of course anything I felt was just because it must’ve been a sexual thing or ocd causing those feelings and my life is just lovely! Then it just hits and I’m back to square one and it’s so scary. I just want a normal life again free of all this ****.

Hi, I’ve suffered from ocd for about 18 years now on and off and the current pocd theme for 15 years on and off. It breaks my heart to write that. I know that I don’t want to abuse a child and that I never will but my fear is that I have pedophilia and that if I was to see children sexual abuse happen that I would enjoy it. After all the research I’ve done over the years, I know that there are people that have pedophilia that would never touch a child or watch child sexual abuse and they feel lots of distress. My fear is that I am one of those people. I’ve spent so many years putting scenarios in my head of images of children doing sexual things to see and test myself if I would enjoy it if I saw it. I never feel disgust which worries me loads but then I think it may be because I’ve thought these scenarios for 15 years now. Sometimes I feel nothing Or think yep, that’s just sick but sometimes I will feel something like arousal, sometimes physical which I know is normal but sometimes emotional arousal or a feeling of excitement or something and when that happens my anxiety goes through the roof. I don’t know if it’s ocd making me feel like that or I’m creating those feelings because I don’t want them or it’s true and I’m just not admitting to myself that I like the thoughts and I’m using ocd as a disguise. It’s so stressful and exhausting and I just want to be a good person. I’ve gone through many periods of my life where I’ve been so so devastated, suicidal etc because of this. I’ve been doing so well for exactly a year, I had the odd blip of a day or a week but anytime I thought of a previous thought or had a thought like if I was to see that child naked would I enjoy it etc, I said to myself no it’s was all ocd and anything you did feel Was just because it was a sexual thought and sexual things can make anyone feel aroused in some way and I would move on with my life. Or sometimes I would put a scenario in my head and be able to think nope that’s sick, doesn’t make me feel anything. Then a few weeks ago, I got incredibly anxious about something going on in my life and Within a few days this was back, overtaken my life. It’s all I think of, I’m spending hours trying to work out if I’m just not admitting to myself that I like the thoughts, researching on the internet. I was absolutely loving life and now it’s so hard to get through the day. I don’t want to do anything, nothing is giving me enjoyment, I can barely sleep. All I want to do is know that I don’t have pedophilia. I’m so devastated that I feel this way and I’m scared about my life in front of me. I work with children and I want a baby so much but how can I when I’m this unstable. I feel confident that I would never abuse a child because I don’t have the desire to but what if I’ve felt enjoyment from thoughts in the past. I think about their innocence in the thoughts sometimes and see if that arouses me and sometimes it feels like it does which is horrific but I don’t know if ocd is making me feel like that or it’s the true me. I’ve had therapy for 10 years. I’ve seen 3 leading ocd experts. I get to the point where I’m fine and strong and then within 6 to 12 months it comes back suddenly and I can never imagine feeling normal again. I know I shouldn’t be analysing these thoughts, I know I shouldn’t be researching ocd and pedophili on the internet but I just can’t seem to resist at the moment. I want to know that I don’t have pedophila but how can I know. Am I just not admitting the truth to myself. It’s just all so horrific. Sorry for the long post. Thank you .

Please can anyone give me any tips on how to stop mental compulsions? I’m going crazy here. I don’t even get intrusive thoughts anymore, I just feel bad and that somethings not right most of the time so I’m just creating all these scenarios in my head of things I don’t want to like to test how I feel about them. Sometimes I feel I enjoy them sometimes I don’t but it goes round and round. And then a new scenario takes over, then another, then back to one of the old ones. How do you actually stop doing this? My therapist has said go cold turkey for a day on, a day off but most I’ve managed is a few hours so I feel like I’ve failed massively and I’m scared I’ll nwver be able to stop. It’s not like I feel panicked most of the time, just that something isn’t right and must be sorted out but I know testing isn’t going to change anything anyway. I know I shouldn’t be doing it but I can’t seem to stop myself. Please can anyone help at all. This is so so difficult and has taken over my life. I feel myself and my life slipping away more and more each day.

Thank you , you described this better than any therapist or book I’ve read! Youre right, I check/test whilst begging that my reaction will be negative. I have problems with not being in control of emotions or feelings but I’m trying to tell myself how can I trust any of these feelings when I’ve felt in such a bad, jumbled up mess for months in end,. X

Thank you for your response. Why does it have to be so hard? It’s like living though a nightmare. I’ve recovered before and been nearly completely free of ocd but this time feels worse and scarier and I just can’t seem to stop doing compulsions that I know I’m not supposed to do. I don’t even know why I’m doing them, I’m not trying to prevent anything bad from happening, i don’t even know what the reason is to why I’m doing them. To feel better in the short term I guess but when I get unwanted feeling from analysing the thoughts, I feel even worse. I just wish I could magic this away, such a cruel and unfair thing to have to go through. Sorry for being negative .

Thank you for all your responses. The paper doesn’t reference this. It states that if people have ocd then if they develop a paraphilia, they can use ocd compulsions as a way to cancel out, Supress their fantasies. This has scared me so much.i often test how I feel about a thought because I have felt aroused in the past about it, as in emotionally aroused. But then I question whether the arousal is true because I don’t feel that way when I’m well and free of ocd, I’m not enjoying thinking about the thoughts (but then I do feel excitment/arousal) at some point, I don’t masturbate about these thoughts. But then I start to think , would I masturbate about them if I didn’t feel bad about them? Then I wonder if it’s all just my brain playing tricks on me, convincing me that I find them arousing because I don’t want to. It’s all just really really exhausting and I wish I was free of this dreadful problem I have. What do you mean Ashley? What are these specialist ocd clinics? I’m seeing an experience therapist in ocd and have had previous treatment with ocd specialist. Just feeling really down and low with treatment and reading ocd books. I’m just getting worse, no better. Im still carrying out so many compulsions but I’m just so scared to give them up but not because I think anything bad is going to happen or anything is going to change. I’m so confused and my mind is just so mixed up. I’m so scared about who I am.

I know it’s a compulsion and a bad idea but I’ve read it now and can’t stop thinking about it. For years I’ve felt that really I could have a paraphilia and am just using my ocd compulsions (I know I definitely have ocd from past obsessions) as a way to cover up, suppress fantasies and they’re not really thoughts - if I analyse the thoughts and go over and over them from every angle until it feels right and just say to myself they’re ocd then that’s what I believe for a while but it feels they could really be paraphilias. All the cbt I’ve had, all the books and internet pages I’ve read, peoples ocd seems so much more simple than mine. Mine feels so complex. I’ve had so many feelings when thinking of these thoughts which are rarely intrusive anymore. I’ve felt excitment and arousal, not physical often but mental. But am I feeling these feelings because it’s what im afraid of and my brain is playing tricks? I’m so confused and scared.

Thank you for your time and advice. I so appreciate it x

I know I have ocd for sure because I used to have other themes when I was younger but the last 15 years have focused on sexual themes, mainly to do with children. I’m so scared I have a paraphilia because sometimes I feel arousal. I’ve been worried the past few years that I’ve just been using ocd compulsions as a way to deny true feelings/fantasies - that I ritualise and go over the thoughts and analyse them and even if I feel arousal, tell myself it’s ocd or just because it’s something sexual I’m thinking of. Stupidly I’ve found a research paper now today that says people that have ocd that then develop a paraphilia may result to compulsive behaviours in an attempt to nullify their fantasties - an attempt to suppress unacceptable fantasies and desires. I’m so scared that this is what I’ve been doing and that my ocd thoughts are not really ocd but pedophilia paraphilia instead. I’m so so scared. It’s felt to me for a while that this is what I could be doing but now to see it on a research paper that this does actually happen to people has petrified me. I don’t know how much more of this I can take x

All of my worries , thoughts are focused on sexual things with vulnerable people, mainly children but also intellectually disabled people. I’m not worried that I will carry them out but I’m fearful that if I was to ever see abuse of these people that I would enjoy it. As a way to check and test myself I imagine scenarios of sexual things happening to vulnerable people to see if I enjoy them or not. For the last 24 hours of so it’s been focused on intellectually disabled people being abused and I sometimes get this feeling of excitement/arousal. I’ve prob gone over the scenario I created in my head to test myself about 100 times in the past 24 hours and sometimes I don’t get the feeling of excitment or arousal. How do I really feel about it? When I’m going over and Over the scenario it feels like a chore, I don’t enjoy the whole thing. This is exhausting and I don’t know what to do. I know I’m meant to just leave it be but how can I when I know I’ve felt a feeling of excitement or arousal about it a few times? Are these true feelings? I’m so scared. If they are true feeling of arousal that doesn’t fit with what I believe is right so I feel I want to die if they’re true. How can I know the truth? It’s been 4 months of this now, day in day out, don’t know how much more I can take. I’m having cbt with ocd specials at but I can’t seem to do what she’s saying to stop analysing the thoughts and going over and over them. I know nothing will happen if I don’t but I just feel too guilty and awful to leave the thoughts alone. I don’t really know what to do next or what advice I’m looking for from you all here. Just needed to put it down in words x

Thank you for replying. I am on meds and have increased them a month or so ago. It’s just so so hard, I’m really getting bored of it now. I’ve lost all my joy for life. How do you convince yourself it’s an ocd lie? I know the saying if it feels like ocd, it probably is, but I just don’t believe it because I’ve thought/ felt things in the past that I’ve felt unconfortable about other things and I’ve ruminated on them, analysed then, told myself they’re not true etc , all the things I do with pocd thoughts but deep down I know they are true, for example i did this about my brother’s new business and wanting it to fail. I told myself no no no and I felt anxious and like I do with pocd thoughts but deep down part of me wants him to fail because I don’t want him to be more successful than me and I don’t have a good career etc. So if that’s true, what about all the pocd thoughts? Am I just using ocd thinking as a way of covering up the truth?