Atlantis

Have you done any form of exposure therapy?

Because that's what OCD does, hijacks and distorts your thoughts and movements/lack of movements so that in the moment you believe you want something to happen. Then you'll get some kind of thought that says you're a bad person - trigger, then you'll ruminate more and more until you hit a downward spiral. I have the same thing happen to me a lot, only difference is, I've done ERP for it so I've learned now when this kind of thing happens, to just ignore the compulsion to check my behaviour and after a short amount of time, the fear/guilt/shame subsides because so long as I'm not giving into compulsions, I'm able to recognise it for what it is. OCD. Nothing more.

During the 1990s, what you've described was very common in the social groups I was hanging around with, I knew girls that were 14/15 and had older boyfriends in the late teens, 19 included. No-one batted an eyelid. Older lads were always viewed as desirable, especially if they had a car, even if it was just a Vauxhall Nova with a subwoofer. I remember feeling guilty about a similar experience to you, and I confessed to my Aunty about it, even she said that in her day it was completely normal for it to happen, and that would've been the late 60s early 70s. I'm not saying what happened back then was legal or morally right, but seriously back then it was never an issue, no-one made a big deal out of it, because the word "Paedo" wasn't thrown around like it is these days - which is probably why these days it may not happen as openly or freely as it did back then. If I was 19 in this day and age, especially having the knowlegde I do now, I'd be far more selective about age differences purely because of the way society has changed since those times. Just like it has moved on from Victorian times when it was perfectly acceptable for grown men to marry 12 year olds without their parents consent.

Relationship OCD, without a shadow of a doubt. It's totally normal to be attracted to another person, just because you're married, it doesn't mean that part of the brain switches off, it's called being human. The OCD will pick up on that and turn it into a cardinal sin, then you'll start ruminating and feeling guilty. I have experienced relationship OCD in the past and I felt the same as you just because I found other women attractive, and of course, some I found more attractive than my girlfriend at the time. That would make me feel like I'd cheated - but looking back it was just classic OCD thought patterns, always attached to guilt and shame, vicious circle. I felt so bad I started confessing to my girlfriend, which just made everything worse. My girlfriend was obsessed with Channing Tatum, and I guarantee she found him more attractive than me, but did she feel guilt? Not one drop, why? Because she didn't have OCD bleeting in her ear, and again, it's completely normal.

"what if?" classic OCD thought pattern. The target of exposure therapy is learning to live with the uncertainty. Indeed "what if there's enough proof...?" is a huge question right now, but over time, this question (which is really just a compulsion to check yourself) will lose it's power, it'll lose the urgency to be answered, you'll start to feel like you can't even be bothered addressing it, because you'll be so done with negative core beliefs that in the end, you'll automatically turn the "what ifs" into "so what?" so questions/compulsions will end up as nothing more than farts in the wind.

You sound a bit like me a few years ago before I began exposure therapy. I had similar problems, intrusive thoughts around minors, OCD convincing me in real time that I was acting in a certain way in order to gain attention from women other than my (at the time) girlfriend, which the OCD would later convince me was "cheating".. and the longest running theme, was not being able to hug, sit next to or be close to family members, or basically anyone I cared about through a fear of being sexually inappropriate. After suffering with this paritcular theme for over 20 years, I dealt with it through exposure therapy, it was absolute hell for me, but in the end I was able to overcome it. I even did something one day last week where I said to myself "you couldn't have done that 5 years ago". The thing with exposure therapy (in my experience) is it's the most effective way of proving what a liar OCD is when it comes to your core beliefs. Thing is though, exposure therapy is never over for me, I have to keep doing it every time the OCD finds a new theme, but I can safely say that a lot of my old themes are so dead through exposure, I can't even remember what some of them were. Imagine it like this, you believe you are a disgustng creep - because over time, OCD has imprisoned you behind massive mirrors which reflect back your negative and false beliefs about yourself, you can't see anything other. But, when you counter attack with exposure therapy, you will notice cracks appearing in the glass, slow at first, but if you continue to ride that storm, and give it all you've got, those mirrors will shatter and you'll see what lies beyond, and you'll realise that everything OCD told you was a lie, especially your negative beliefs about yourself. Get your game face on, you can do it.

Thanks for responding PB, however my issue is that I had the thought to pick it up to commit a crime and then did pick it up whilst agreeing that's what I wanted to do - but to be honest I did feel uneasy / guilty straight away so on reflection if I felt like that then it's highly unlikely that I would've done anything evil.

I've suffered with OCD for years and experienced most themes but the most troubling so far is Harm OCD. I know a lot about the condition and have done some ERP with minimal success, so I know that the mantra "It's just a thought" doesn't work well for people that experience powerful urges and micro-movements. I'm really freaking out about something that happened the other day. I was doing some DIY in the garden and using a hammer to hang things up. I am very cautious when my neighbour is around as my harm OCD focuses on her, so as I had the hammer in my hand I was getting obsessive harm OCD thoughts about harming her if she came outside. I also have a big crush on her which again is undoubetdly the trigger for the harm OCD as well as hyper responsibilty OCD (as I always have to make sure the house is safe so a fire won't start whenever I leave the house and harm her etc etc) Obviously because I have a crush on her, I do worry a lot about the day when she ends up with a boyfriend (another recurring obsessive OCD worry) because I know I'll feel sad, angry, jealous etc so this is a recurring worry which ignites the harm thoughts i.e. I will want to harm her if she gets a boyfriend. So I am outside, half worrying about if I would see her leaving the house dressed up to go on a date I would get jealous and try to do something awful like murder her with the hammer. I was nervous, of course hoping that she wouldn't come out whilst I had the hammer in my hand. Sure enough, in a total and typical sods law way, I heard the door open and felt instant fear that she was going out on a date, I had my back to her and at the time this happened the hammer was lying on a bench next to a box of nails which I'd gone over to. I had the thought to grab the hammer in case she was going on a date so I would kill her and I felt that this is what I would want to do under those cirumstances, because in that second of thought I agreed with the rationale.. and in a nano second I physically grabbed the hammer! I remember feeling a little shock that I'd picked it up and was panicked a little bit, I also still had my back to her so couldn't see if she was dressed up, so I turned around nervously to check if she was dressed up, although I was more focused on that than doing anything with the hammer - she was in her work uniform so I felt instant relief that she wasn't going on a date, but then I still felt very panicked and stressed that I'd actually picked up the hammer as a result of the thought process I'd had leading up to grabbing the hammer (kill her if she's going on a date). I feel in whirlwind of guilt and I feel like I cannot trust myself, why did I act on the thought of picking up the hammer? It felt impulsive. I know I only picked up a hammer but it felt like I was ready to do something sinister and I worry what I would've done if she had been dressed up and going out on a date. I know this incident is very specific to my situation what with the crush / fear of her dating someone, but I wonder if anyone can relate to having an evil thought, agreeing with it and then starting a movement or action, or just acting on impulse? thanks

Been a while since I posted and I'm loathe to be in a position where I'm posting again, but I wanted to share an incident to see if anyone could help me with good advice. One of the many OCD themes I have is making sure there's no fire risk in my apartment. This includes things like making sure nothing is left on charge, or switched on like the oven or hobs and making sure my laptop is not left charging whilst on my bed. The other night the girl who lives below me upset me over something and I felt very low and a bit angry. I remember waking up too early and decided to get another couple of hours sleep after messing about on my laptop for a while, the transformer unit was lying next to me on the mattress. I had an angry thought that I was leaving it there on purpose so that the transformer would cause a fire which would kill me and the girl downstairs, but then I had another passing thought that I would obviously wake up in that situation and put any fire out, then I just drifted off to sleep. I woke up 2 hours later and felt that the transformer was quite hot so immediately unplugged the laptop and put it on the floor. Didn't even think about it until later that day when I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt towards the girl who lives below. I've not been able to get it out of my head since, and although I did think "well I'll wake up if it catches fire and put it out", I cannot stop focusing on the initial thought of feeling like I wanted to cause harm and also the inaction of deliberately NOT moving the transformer / unplugging the laptop before I fell alseep. At the time, I was on a high dose of quetapine and feeling pretty groggy too. I don't know why this gets me down so much, especially if had I known 100 percent that an action I did or didn't do would cause a fire, i.e. deliberately setting fire to something and leaving the house, that's obviously something I wouldn't do, but I feel bad because of something that "could've happened".. any advice would be appreciated. thanks

I've had SSRI's in the past and they've never worked out. Prozac and citalopram mainly.

With me they say that I have to accept 1% uncertainty that I want to do something bad.. and I have to live with that because look where arguing with it has got me...

I'm on a load of meds now, none of which have been tried before. I have been given benzo's (Tavor in Germany) as a short term measure to get me through the last week, but the long term stuff is called "tranylcypromine" or Jatrosom, in addition to Risperdal.. Not asking about the benzo, because I know about this stuff, but just wondererd if anyone else has experienced tranylcypromine ? thanks.

My ERP has been straight in at the deep end, however I'm only about a third of the way through it with only 3 weeks left at this so-called prestigious clinic in Germany.. the hard work starts this week, i.e. getting on buses full of kids and holding a baby (the latter I am strongly against). Bearing in mind my therapist speaks excellent English, as do most there, there are some parts of it I feel are lost in translation. One thing I have learned to do on my own and have only put it into practice once last week is when I'm in the situations I normally avoid, I start to take the 'P' out of the OCD thoughts for example - If I am moving through a crowded bus full of school kids and obviously it's inevitable that bodily contact is made when you're pushing through a crowd to get off the bus, I will always get the urges and thoughts that I'm deliberately making contact and I want to sexually assault - so I'll be forced into believing that's what I want. So lately I've been forcing the thoughts of "oh OK here comes the OCD, ok here we go - yes I'm sexually assaulting that kid when I brush past her, ok I am being a bad person, whatever.. come on lets brush past this kid to exit the bus and yes, OK sexual assault blah blah blah" and then before I know it, I'm through the situation without resisting the compulsion to desperately not do anything bad (like usual) and the anxiety didn't even spike as much as it would in the usual panic situations...

Yeh I'd say so, perhaps at the moment it might be wise to steer clear of this forum because you're not taking any advice on board and you're clearly using the forum as an outlet for your confessions which is quite simply, a compulsion. Of course confessing to us is better than confessing to your wife, but nonetheless, you're still pouring fuel on the fire by posting the same stuff. I know because I have been there, in fact I came online here today because I wanted to share an ERP experience / confess to something that happened during my therapy today but have since decided not to engage, and live with the uncertainty that I might be a bad person.. although the insatiable urge is to confess to someone special, I am putting her welfare needs first by not opening up and allowing the OCD to cast any doubt about me or uncomfortable feelings in her already fragile mind.

How do you look on yourself? Do you feel that it's more that you need to punish yourself by telling her? Rather than setting her free of the devious, potential cheat / horrible husband you really are in the eyes of your OCD?