MJzaf

I understand but believe me, the way to calm down the beast is to show your brain that there is no truth in the thoughts. So the end goal is to let them come and just float away. Be careful when you say 'trying to put them in the spam folder' as this could mean that you are pushing them away by doing compulsions (eg. thinking of something else), you should try to just let the thoughts come and accept them for what they are: just stupid thoughts. Nothing more.

Hi OCDisnotmylife (good name btw) I'm not a psychiatrist (!) but it seems to me you have Harm OCD, a form of OCD that turns around hurting others or yourself. When you describe the thoughts and how you react to them it ticks all the boxes for me. Hower it might be important to go see a doctor to get a diagnose if that helps you. Having thoughts about harming yourself is common in harm OCD, I have them too from time to time. Ranging from "you could stab yourself in the eye with the pencil you're holding now" to "why don't I use my alcohol gel and drink it". They can be scary but in the end they don't mean anything. The issue with OCD is that it starts making you doubt yourself, you start questioning everything, every thought, every thing about your character and that's not good because it feeds the OCD and makes it bigger. Googling, reading about OCD, ... is a very big compulsion (reassurance seeking) so you should really really try to avoid that as some sort of exposure and response prevention. Having a intrusive thought, ok fine. Try not to go into mental or other compulsions. And yes, in 'good' moments you probably think: man how ridiculous and there's nothing to worry, but when the OCD kicks in it can be very overwhelming again. It's a struggle and you will have to fight the OCD until it gets smaller and smaller. And not fighting through compulsions but by exposing yourself to your fears. Good luck!

Don't worry, doctors know OCD exists and Harm OCD is a big subset of OCD so they will not think you are going crazy. But they will be able to help you with medications and/or therapy. I also have harm OCD. How hard it is, you will have to expose yourself. The fact you are so scared and freaked out proves you are not your thoughts and thus not violent or dangerous. The best way to get the OCD to shut up is to expose yourself. Step by step, go out for a walk and let the thoughts come. You will notice it may be very scary because you have thoughts or even sensations that feel like urges (don't worry: it's just your body making it feel real due to the fight or flight response, NOT that you are about to really engage) but in the end you will arrive home again without having done any harm. Keep doing that and the OCD will get smaller and smaller as you will retrain your brain that the thoughts have no power and thus the brain will reduce the number of thoughts fired at you. Staying home, sleeping, avoiding situations... are compulsions (!) meaning you give the signal to the brain that the threat is or could be real and thus the brain will keep warning you. You are feeding the OCD troll thoughts so they become bigger and scarier. You have to do the complete opposite: prove to yourself/brain that you are a normal person and that the thoughts mean nothing. Good luck, always available for a (private) chat if you need it.

This is so true... sometimes you get to a point where you are able to manage certain thoughts and then the OCD kicks in and sends you even more distressing thoughts. It's like it's challenging you to see how far it can go. Very stressing but indeed you have to stay calm and let it throw anything it wants, it doesn't mean anything.

Yes, OCD can do this, I have it all the time during my bad epsiodes. I could be wathing television and a character would say "do you know what I did yesterday?" and my OCD would launch an intrusive thought: "I killed someone!!". It's like your mind will autocomplete anything that can be related to the fear you have and in my case it can really be anything: an object, something I see or hear, a conversation, ... The most horrible for me is when the OCD goes like 'and are you sure you don't want to do these things? I think you do want them!', this really freaks me out and makes me question and doubt myself again. So don't stress, what you are experiencing is 'normal' part of the OCD tricks your mind is playing.

Hi Bmat, I'm a hard OCD sufferer too, I recognize what you say: name a violent thought and I've probably had it. I benefit a lot from taking an SSRI (escitalopram), combined with therapy and exposing myself to the thoughts. How scary as it can be, the exposure works and the meds help me too. Also be careful with mental compulsions and 'hidden' compulsions like Googling OCD, reading and watching videos about OCD. It's a compulsion, you're searching for reassurance that it's all ok. And it feeds your thoughts. Talk to your doctor, they can help!

I have good results with escitalopram (Lexapro/Sipralex).

Hello everyone, I hope to be an inspiration for some people here. I have Harm OCD since 2018 (I'm currently 33 years old) coming and going in episodes. I'm currently recovering from my third major episode and happy to tell that I already feel a lot better than 2 weeks ago when I had the breakdown. My obsessive intrusive thoughts can be very aggressive, ranging from badboy behaviour (pushing someone, yelling that I would hurt or kill them) to outright murdering them. I also suffer from OCD challenging my mind ("are you sure you do not want to do what I tell you", etc.) and when watching tv or listening to others everything I see or hear gets linked or completed by my brain to the idea harming others. I'm a very peaceful guy so as you can imagine I have great anxiety when the thoughts occur and would go into several panic attacks because the 'what if' questions would pop up. My compulsions are avoidance behaviour (being afraid to be around people or things that could be used as a weapon) and reassurance seeking (especially Googling, reading and watching videos) to make sure I'm not going crazy and my OCD is 'not dangerous and ok'. How I got better in just two weeks? For me it's a combination of exposure and medications: I try to live a normal life, meaning I expose myself to normal situations that could trigger me: being around other people, going to work, meeting with the people I have thoughts about, watching or touching knives, ... I expose myself by deliberately trying to think about the thoughts to retrain my brain that they don't mean anything. I write down my obsessions and repeat them until my brain eventually shuts up. I started taking my meds again (20mg escitalopram daily) which greatly helped me to recover after +- 8 days. This is normally temporary as I agreed with my doctor that I always want to try to scale down to 0mg again within +- 1 year to have a way out should a new episode kick in later. I also used a benzo during the first few days to mange the peak anxiety. Stay strong people! They are only thoughts and don't say anything about who you are.