Macckles

Thanks for the recommendation and there are some great points in there, including yourself. I guess the crux of the shame is not necessarily the contents but who the thought was about (someone dear to me). I do need to work on reframing the shame, accepting the thoughts and not ascribing anymore meaning to them. I've had plenty of thoughts about negative things about people just as close to me, but this one really stuck.

To add to this: what steps can I take to at least reduce the chances that my shame and guilt about a thought will cause me to relapse. Hope that all makes sense.

As the title says, do people have tips in overcoming shame and / or guilt after having intrusive thoughts? I understand intellectually after an intrusive thought happens, that it's just a thought and the multitude of other logicall reasons thoughts happen when you have OCD But what is hard is the emotional shame and guilt when interacting normally afterwards. It's like trying to "put on a brave face" or lying to myself, especially when I am around those that triggered the thought or whom the thought is about. It's like my nervous system emotions won't accept what I accept logically and intellectually.

So most of the time my intrusive thoughts take the form of "you statements". e.g. "you will do this", "you are bad", "you don't love this person" etc etc. Do intrusive thoughts take the form of "I statements" too? An example: Me speaking to a friend verbally: "hey come here for a second will you" Intrusive thought in my head: "So I can hit you over the head with this thing in my hand". It obviously makes it way more intense and real when the "I" is used, which I guess feeds itself and makes it happen again. Does anyone have this? Is it normal? I know that I have had them before and I expect that it's rather normal (intrusive thoughts will say whatever they want to trigger you after all), I just want to see if others have the same. Thanks in advance!

It certainly does, thank you Ashley. Im feeling a lot of shame and guilt about the whole thing as you can imagine. Despite there being a crazy mix of not wanting to avoid handling things anymore, wanting to shut up this nagging voice and just general frustration at my intrusive thoughts, I still feel like I have done something wrong. I guess time and some therapy will help heal that.

So I have been dealing with intrusive thoughts and I'm scared I'm going to harm my brother. I honestly love him more than anything and would never do anything. We've been closer than ever before and before all this I was the happiest I've ever been. Basically I'm scared I'm gonna do something to him. I've had only thoughts about "what if I harm him / Kill him" etc. Anyway, we've been building some furniture recently and once I felt a compulsion to hold the hammer to see if I would get an urge to do something but I never caved in and did anything. So yesterday I'm having quite a bad day and just wanted to be done with this OCD BS in general ad I feel it's ruining my life. So we're outside and we're are building something. He passes me the hammer and whilst I didn't freeze, I just put it down rather quickly. Then I thought "you know what I'm done being scared of this" and held it again to basically see if I would get the urge. It was partly to see if I would get the urge partly because i felt it was also avoidant of me to just put the hammer down quickly when I wouldn't normally do that and partly because I was so annoyed at this point with my thoughts that I wanted the nagging in my mind to just be over. It was quite an impulsive thing. I got quite anxious when I held it and I saw my brother with his head down towards me and I thought "what if I do it???". I didn't get any urges, just a general anxiety. I put it down and carried on. Now I'm freaking out that I've taken some "next step" by acting on this compulsion to check. Previously it was all just in my mind and now I feel like I've done some horrible thing because I acted on something and made a movement to DO something, even if it was just to check a compulsion. Im also reading imp of the mind and in chapter 3 he mentions a guy who he kinda suspected would act on his thoughts, one of the reasons being he pointed an rifle at his parents to show that he wouldn't do it. When I read that I freaked out. He mentions that the main reason he felt this person may do something was because he was angry and didn't show remorse (whereas I'm freaking out and feeling really guilty). Have I done something wrong? I know logically it was just a compulsion to check if I would get the urge but I feel like I've just taken some next step to actually doing something. I feel really disgusted with myself. Can anyone offer any advice? Is this normal?