Saffron37

Awesome resources, thank you @Caramoole!

That's great! As soon as it arrives, take a look. I think you'll find it extremely helpful as to understanding why these thoughts and feelings are occurring.

All those things are avoidance compulsions--you're treating the possibility of coming into contact with your baby as if it's something so terrifying and awful that it must be avoided at all cost, and your brain is taking note. That avoidance is strengthening and strengthening the anxiety and the OCD circuit. Ma, I think I may have asked before, have you taken a look at Brain Lock yet? Sending so many hugs!

Ma, I'm so sorry, but what you are thinking of "help" is reassurance-seeking, which will 100% make this worse. The only way--I repeat, the only way--for you to get better from this is to refrain from doing the compulsions that have been occupying your time since this latest trigger. The reason you're feeling worse and worse is that you're continuing to perform compulsions. I'm so sorry, I wish it was different and that one of us could take the pain away from you, but the reality is that your brain is under your conscious control, and only you can make those changes. I think you might benefit from some reading to learn more about how OCD works in your brain. You mentioned that you bought a copy of Brain Lock, have you taken a look?

Every person on Earth has fleeting thoughts that may "go against" their values--it's totally normal, because our brain is chattering away all the time and constantly processing information and ideas. People without OCD don't even notice those thoughts, or dismiss them as being unimportant. For example, I've at times had fleeting thoughts about what my brother is like sexually--not because I have any interest in him or in incest, but simply because when you hang around someone long enough you'll wonder about that part of their life. My OCD does not revolve around worries about sexual deviance, however, so when I had that thought I barely even noticed it. I actually found it kind of funny, the fact that my brain had even gone there! You, however, have OCD surrounding sexual deviance. So, if you had a thought similar to the one I just described, you would assign a huge amount of importance and meaning to it. You would become intensely anxious, wondering if you possibly could like that thought, what does it mean, why would you even think it? That's the OCD, right there. Then, the more you think about it and worry about it and try to avoid another such thought, the more you're teaching your brain that those nonsense thoughts have importance, and so reinforcing the pattern that creates the OCD. That's what Snowbear means when she says that the problem is how we respond to the thoughts and feelings, not the thoughts and feelings themselves. OCD is a disease of doubt. I think what you're calling "intrusive feelings" is really just the intense anxiety and doubt you feel when wondering if you might actually [insert fear here]. It makes no sense, which makes it even more upsetting, right? You probably can't understand why you feel so certain that you are horrible when your logical brain understands that it is all nonsense. The answer, now and always, is that it is a mental disorder called OCD.

Absolutely right!

Ah, I see, thank you for explaining. Are you comfortable talking to your therapist about this? Maybe they can help to strategize how to try to respond when your mood swings downward?

Hey Manny! I'm so sorry you went through something so difficult and painful! Snowbear has it exactly right--just stick to the script and you'll be good. I hope you don't have any residual guilt or shame over the masturbation, but if you do, please try to let it go. You did nothing wrong, and this is really confusing stuff! Sending you best wishes.

I can totally understand why you'd find this so anxiety-provoking! However, you're not trying to make yourself believe that you want to do those things, you're merely coming into contact with the scary words and ideas in order to work on desensitizing yourself to their emotional impact. Your goal here is to be able to react to that OCD voice with indifference, even boredom--the opposite of the terror it inspires now. It feels awful because right now your brain associates the intrusive thoughts with such anxiety that even hearing the words is upsetting, but the point of this exercise is to change that--to take away the intrusive thoughts' power. Does that help, seeing what the point of the exposure really is?

Hi Jan! Welcome, I'm so glad you found this place! I'm pretty new here too and it's a great community. Personally, I find watching cute animal videos--particularly stories of people with particularly strong and loving bonds to their pets--to be amazing for giving me some warm, cozy feelings. Check out "The Dodo" channel on YouTube, they have endless lovely videos!

An orchid, I love that! Yes, I do try to treat myself sometimes--I've also been getting plants, I find they perk up my mood and my space. Trying to keep my apartment clean and a happy space for me is also something I do for self-care (especially now with COVID being up!). And heck yes to edible goodies! Ginger cake sounds pretty lovely right about now, I'll have to hunt some down in NYC.

Hey everybody! It's been a bit of a rough morning for me--woke up at 2 am with really high anxiety, desire to perform compulsions, etc. I did some compulsions for a while and got pretty angry at myself--and I know that a few years ago I would have berated myself, called myself names and kicked myself further down. I would have sunk into a lot of despair. I'm fortunate that in the past few years I've been able to cultivate a much more positive, loving inner voice. When that anger towards myself kicked in, I was able to rally myself back to remind myself that I am not my OCD, that I am a beautiful and strong and valuable person, and that I would beat this. I then spent the next 45 minutes talking to myself out loud, building myself up, reminding myself of the trauma of the past few years to put my OCD further into context, and generally being my own cheerleader. And you know what? I feel so much better. I guess I'm writing this to emphasize the vital, vital role of how we speak to ourselves. It's as simple and straightforward as that--do we speak internally with kindness, do we attempt to nurture? Or is there contempt, disgust, fear? The words we choose have such power, and please be mindful of what messages you are feeding yourself. I've been down the road of self-loathing and let me tell you, it leads so much further into the darkness. I still am having kind of a tough morning, but it's infinitely better than it could have been. Everyone on this forum, please just know that however you feel about yourselves in the moment, there are so many others here who see your light, your strength, your capabilities. Just sending lots of love and hope for strength and determination in the New Year. Ok, ramble over!

Ma, can you contact your therapist? Maybe get an emergency session? Also, if you're seriously considering self-harm, please please seek help. I'm in the USA, but I know that the UK has self-harm hotlines (I'm assuming you're in the UK, as are most here). In the meantime, please go back and reread Caramoole's replies to you from your thread yesterday. She really addresses everything you're asking about. I'm so sorry you're in so much pain.

This is happening to you because you have OCD, a mental disorder. As hard as it is to believe, it's as simple as that. This tells me that underneath all of the awful emotion, you know that this is not really you. You know that this is the disease talking to you. It's just so painful that it overwhelms everything else. Unfortunately, the more you think about it--the more you ruminate, which is a compulsion--the more you strengthen the OCD. While it's extremely hard at first, you need to refrain from your compulsions. Oh my friend, I'm so sorry you're in this much pain. But please, hear me--I can tell that you love your child more than anything in the world. Your son needs you, so you need to live. You need to kiss your son and show other normal, healthy forms of affection because your son will thrive with your love and affection. The most loving, motherly thing you could possibly do for your son is to fight the OCD, so your child can have the mother you truly are, the mother he deserves. And, of course, so you can be free of this agony and enjoy your beautiful family.

Cora, if you read the example I gave you about "Mary," it completely addresses these questions. May I make a suggestion? Start a word processing document and copy-paste responses from your threads that you find particularly helpful or reassuring. Start a little resource library for yourself. I think if you take a look, you'll find that you have quite a lot to draw upon!

Hey Summer. Verified scientific fact: one of the most common symptoms of sleep deprivation (either no sleep or not enough sleep) is hallucinations. Like, SO common. Right now you're both hypervigilant (overly focused on every sensation and perception) and sleep-deprived, so anything strange you might see or feel is totally explicable and nothing to worry about whatsoever. Maybe try reminding yourself that even if you did have a hallucination it would be totally normal and not unhealthy. Are there things you can do to make your sleep environment more comforting or cozy? I like listening to white noise or rain sounds. Maybe try getting a lamp that gives a nice soft glow, something you can dim to make it not totally dark but not too bright either. Right now you're associating the idea of sleep with fear and anxiety, so there's no surprise you are so stressed out in bed! The trick now is to start rewiring those associations back to what you want, which is calm, peace, relaxation.

There are undoubtedly some great videos and resources on YouTube and social media. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of bad, misleading, or straight-up false info out there too, along with people who could have predatory intentions. People with OCD understandably can get pretty desperate for help, and telling someone to seek help through YouTube feels like throwing them in the ocean with no map. When I recommend a book, on the other hand, it's with the knowledge that this it reliable, accurate and validated as helpful by other members/my own experience. That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with recommending a specific video or something from YouTube. PolarBear's great stop ruminating video is on YouTube, after all! Also, Facebook has chats with OCD specialists? Like, the actual company Facebook sponsors mental health professionals to come on and interact with the public?

Okay, I'm going to give you an imaginary example that I hope may help. Imagine a hypothetical OCD sufferer--let's call her Mary, a woman who has intrusive thoughts and feelings about hurting her husband. Mary's biggest trigger is making dinner with her husband because she is obsessed with the idea that she will stab or cut him with a kitchen knife. So, imagine that the two of them are in the kitchen, and Mary's chopping vegetables. Her husband is by her side. Mary is incredibly anxious. She's thinking obsessively about whether she wants to hurt him, could she actually want to hurt him, what if she does something to him? What if the intrusive feeling is right and she really wants to stab him? She loves her husband and doesn't want to hurt anyone, but she can't shake the sense that she wants to hurt him. In the middle of this, Mary's husband asks her to hand him the knife so he can help her with the vegetables. As she passes the knife to him, she has the intrusive thought that maybe she'll turn the knife sideways into his hand and cut him. In that moment, Mary is hyperaware of her every motion. And wait--did she slightly move her wrist in a way that would turn the knife sideways? The knife is already in her husband's hand, nothing happened, but did she maybe move her fingers in a way that indicated she really wanted him to be cut? She's not sure, but she thinks that the way she moved her hand was unnatural. Now, she feels the needs to replay every tiny motion and thought she had. It all happened so fast, but she can't shake the feeling that something she did was wrong. She didn't just think about hurting him, she tells herself--she actually started to do so! Mary's anxiety is through the roof. Can you imagine Mary on this forum, telling other members that her actions looked totally normal from the outside, but it wasn't normal because of her violent intentions? What do you think, is Mary a murderer-in-waiting or does she have OCD? Can you see how you and Mary are exactly the same?

Hi my friend! I don't have recommendations for books entirely about religious/scrupulosity OCD, but the OCD workbook by Bruce Hyman has a really good section specifically about it (including examples of patients who had that type of OCD and how they recovered)! One thing to keep in mind is that OCD is OCD is OCD...the way to address it is always the same. It's worth keeping in mind that the content of an obsession is way less important than it feels to the person--just think about how easily the focus of an obsession can shift. That being said, I'd def check out the Hyman workbook! I would definitely not recommend YouTube for OCD treatment.

Cora, my friend. What are you doing? I know that the OCD creates such scary, big, awful feelings, but this is not the way to get better. Instead of doing this, find reassurance by listening to Brain Lock, or find reassurance in the many, many assurances provided by forum members (myself included!) in your past threads. You know that this this exactly the same as every other time you've come to this forum. Every time we provide you with reassurance, we're preventing you from hitting rock bottom, but it's only momentary. You need to face this without the constant band aids (that last a few hours at the most) we provide in order to actually make any real change. I'm not mad or disappointed in you, I promise. I just want you to get better. <hug> Please think of that inner Cora, the one who deserves better. The one whose parents let her down when she was young. She doesn't deserve this. You don't deserve this.

The more we do something, the easier it becomes to continue. That's part of why OCD tends to get worse over time if left untreated. I wonder, is there a part of yourself you can imagine feeling compassion for? A part of you that activates caring and nurturing?

That is the best plan. Here's what I want you to try: be very aware of how you talk to yourself. Do you notice that you often say things like this: You put yourself down in your posts all the time. You constantly talk about yourself as disgusting, a monster, stupid, etc--I suspect that you wouldn't dream of talking like this to anyone else in the world. I know it's really tough right now not to be mean to yourself because you feel so awful, but just as your thoughts are shaped by your feelings, your feelings are shaped by your thoughts. The more you speak to yourself so cruelly, the harder it is to change your emotional state to become more positive. The good news is that you can change it. I did, and it's 100% the best thing I ever, ever did for myself. I think that this would be a great time to read Brain Lock. The book talks about developing a Wise Observer inside you, a part of you that is wise and kind and patient, and using that part of you to guide you through the work of recovering from OCD. That would be a wonderful way to start working on being kind to yourself!

Absolutely! Not only can I recommend them, it'd be a pleasure to send a few to you. Check out my thread on "little gifts for the community" and tell me if you're interested. Have you tried any in the past? It's like changing the soundtrack to a movie. You know in a romantic comedy, where the two leads meet by accident at a park or a coffeeshop or something, and the music is light and sweet and cute and charming? Imagine that very same scene in the movie, only substitute a creepy and sinister-sounding song. It would feel totally different, right? In your case, the "soundtrack" is your emotional state. When you were first looking at the house, it sounds like you were excited and positive and not nearly so anxious, and so the house looked lovely and cute. Now you're struggling with your OCD, so everything is distorted and feels scary and upsetting. However, the truth is that the emotions in and of themselves are the problem and causing your distress. It just can be very difficult to see that in the moment, when the OCD emotions are so overwhelming.

Your emotions are lying to you, my friend. That's the long and the short of it, honestly. More than anything else, here's what you need to know: feeling something doesn't make it true. This is a million times truer in OCD. As long as you take your OCD-related emotions at face value--as long as you see them as genuine reflections of you, instead of the painful nonsense of a mental disorder--you'll struggle. I hope in the New Year you find the willingness to challenge your OCD. You deserve it.

Hi there. I'm so sorry that you're going through such a difficult time with your house. I know it feels like the house is horrible, ugly, etc--but that's your OCD talking. The house is no different than when you were looking at it and considering buying it, but the emotions that OCD creates are so overwhelming and feel so real that your logic is taking a back seat. It's wonderful that you're getting back into therapy--would you consider trying some self-help in the meantime?