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'Innocent people don't confess...'


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This sentence in the title played on my mind as soon as I heard it. What does it mean? I heard it tonight on something I watched and of course I am now worried because I felt like I was confessing about my 'false memory' when I was telling you guys about it or my friends. I've always felt this way about it - like I'm confessing to a rwall memory and not a false one. It's just adding more weight to it all being real. X

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It shouldn't be adding any weight to anything. The fact is that is just a saying and it doesn't apply to people with OCD. Innocent OCD sufferers confess all the time. We see a lot on the forum and, quite frankly, so should you. You've been around long enough to see that confessing is a compulsion.

As for you, I don't think you have done any confessing. You've simply told us you have a problem (though you aren't very specific about what it is).

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Guest ShadyMacbeth

Saz, this is something I think a lot of people with OCD struggle with, I know I certainly do. Seeing little things that relate to your current obsession and perceiving it as a confirmation or somehow related to your concern is something that I definitely experience. All I can say is that you're definitely not alone in feeling this way, and you have to know that the title of the show or whatever it is you saw with this phrase in it has absolutely no correlation or validity to your current concern. I know it's hard to believe that right now, but it's true. Feel better!!

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Hi Saz. I think a useful exercise for you would be a suggestion made by Caramoole recently.

Imagine your post was made by someone else. What would you say?

No 'yes but' or 'but this is different' or 'I just think' or anything else.

Seriously imagine - that I or Roy or Orwell or someone else had written the exact post you've written above.

What would you say?

NO qualifying statements afterwards!

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Thank you all but I'm really worrying.

I keep thinking that this is true and it's going to all come out years down the line. I know you all don't believe it's real but I do. You do here about this happening this way. Someone does something unspeakable/horrific and at the time the person doesn't realise but when they are older they know. I can't do this anymore. I really can't. I really can't.

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Saz I can relate to your posts so much, Ive had hundreds of false memories that turned out not to be true and the one I'm currently going through started off like all the others, at first I was confident it was just like all the others until the next day when I suddenly had this feeling of certainty about the whole thing, that it actually did happen. It's so hard to live with as I have no way of getting reassurance that it didn't happen, I'm just trying to accept that it's true but hopefully down the line I will realise that it was all OCD all along, even though at the moment it doesn't feel that way. It's horrible trying to go about your day when you feel like you've done the worst thing imaginable, I'm praying I didn't decide to act on a thought. All I'm doing at the moment is muddling along the best I can.

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Caramoole I know what your saying but I just can't seem to shake this at all. And it's so serious I can't just leave it x

Downtherabbithole sorry you have suffered hundreds of these that's awful...but I just have this one and that's it...makes it seem all the more real x

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And it's so serious I can't just leave it

Sadly Saz it's going to stay with .you then. Just bear in mind that despite how serious it "seems" you're choosing this course of action and ignoring recommended advice. You never will shake it tying this method.

There isn't really anything anyone can add that isn't going over old ground or worse, offering reassurance.

It's a shame :(

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Saz I know how real this all feels, my brain says I was sick of all these false memories so I actually decided to do it, which in itself seems ridiculous. All my false memories follow the same theme and usually I am able to find enough evidence that I didn't do what my brain is telling me so I can shake them off, this one feels different. Reassurance seeking I've found doesn't do you any good as eventually you reach the point where it just doesn't work anymore, no amount of asking makes you feel better. Do you have a whole scenario in your head about what supposedly happened and did all the details come after you first had the thought? That's the way mine works.

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And it's so serious I can't just leave it x

Then you will stay stuck. With that comment you're admitting that you're going to continue to do compulsions. It's your choice. We can't tell you anything different from what we've already told you. It's not up to you. We can't make you change your mind. That has to come from you. If you choose the path of doing the same old thing then you'll continue to stay stuck right where you are.

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Hi Saz. I think a useful exercise for you would be a suggestion made by Caramoole recently.

Imagine your post was made by someone else. What would you say?

No 'yes but' or 'but this is different' or 'I just think' or anything else.

Seriously imagine - that I or Roy or Orwell or someone else had written the exact post you've written above.

What would you say?

NO qualifying statements afterwards!

Look. will you please just give this a go? What do you have to lose?

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I can give it a go but it's like I'm forcing myself to block something real out...It all feels too forced. I try all the time by the way x

Imagine the next-door-neighbour was playing a radio at full blast while you were trying to sleep. What would you do?

1) give up all hope of sleep and lie in bed feeling sorry for yourself, thinking over and over how tired you're going to feel tomorrow and how you won't cope because you're tired. Allowing everything to escalate in your mind.

2) Pull the pillow over your head to block out the noise. That doesn't work so you add ear plugs. You block it out. You relax and let sleep come instead of focusing on the noise.

Your choice.

This is exactly the same. You choose how to react to the thoughts in your head. You determine the outcome by how you react, not the thoughts, not the neighbour's radio.

Edited by snowbear
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I don't think I'm explaining things properly. I'm now going to bed feeling like this is completely true and this explains why none of the advice is working. x

Perhaps none of the advice is working because you've already made up your mind the risk of it being true is too dreadful to allow you to ignore the thought.

You've closed your mind to the possibility you might be wrong. You've chosen to believe it is true no matter what we say.

Of course, you're free to believe whatever you want to believe. Your choice.

Seems to me the more we try to show you how to stop obsessing over this intrusive thought, the tighter you grip onto it, letting yourself be ever more convinced that since the thought exists it must be true.

Hey - I just thought 'pigs can fly'. :) Must be true since I thought it, right? :unsure:

The stakes are higher for you than pigs dropping unexpectedly out of the sky, so little wonder you're scared. But whatever the theme is stopping the OCD from taking over requires the same process of accepting that not every thought we have is based on reality.

And accept that whether you worry about something continually or simply dismiss the thought has zero influence on whether the consequences you fear will ever happen.

Worrying/ thinking about it changes nothing.

Worrying/thinking about it achieves nothing.

Worrying /thinking about it won't protect you from the thing you fear.

Worrying/ thinking doesn't make something any more or less likely to happen than if you didn't think about it at all.

Ruminating endlessly over something doesn't make it true or false.

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this explains why none of the advice is working

It's not working because you're not applying the advice Saz :(

So let's accept that we're wrong and you are actually right, you are guilty of this "dreadful" thing. What are you going to do about it? What course of action can you now take? You can't go back and undo the "thing", you can only deal with the here and now. So what would you tell someone else they should do? If it's a real problem that needs dealing with, how do you think you shold deal with it?

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Well I would go to the police. So that's what I'll do.

I know worrying doesn't make it true or false and that's the issue. It's all well and good saying it wont change anything..I've said all along I feel like I'm obsessing about a real event. I honestly am going to crack

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Guest yinyang

Going to the police won't solve any problems.

It might look as though were ganging up on you but were not. Were trying to help you and it's frustrating because you don't 'seem' willing to participate, there's only so much we can do sat behind a screen but were all sufferer's/ex-sufferer's, real people and I believe we can make a difference if you let it.

We want to help you, we care and we know what it feels like to be gripped by OCD.

So help us help you by taking some of the advice on board, you have nothing to lose, humour us :original:

Changing the way we think is key and it takes effort. Metaphors, exercises and sometimes just general advice we give on here is a way to slowly change your perception but it requires will, accept the possibility that we could be right, take a chance.

I hope you feel better soon, keep :sport_boxing:

Edited by yinyang
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Well I would go to the police. So that's what I'll do.

It's been done before, Legend can stand testament to the repercussions of that and all it entails. .....and having done that is there tangible evidence, solid proof for them to follow up or are the Police going to have to work with the same shaky evidence, consisting only of your thoughts and what you "fear you might have done"? Are you ready to involve those others (who have been idamaged by your crime) in a Police investigation? Are you ready to out yourself to your friends family etc, to lay yourself bare?

If everyone on this forum (never mind sufferers nationwide) turned themselves in to the Police because of their fears and doubts the force would collapse and an incredible amount of Police time wasted. You are not unique in having this type of severe doubt. Fortunately, eventually, most sufferers seek help and start the necessary, painful work to start and deal with it. I'll be honest Saz, you don't take the advice on board, you don't work with the suggestions....you just carry on with the same compulsions and it stands to reason that nothing changes for you.

So you go to the Police, they find you guilty and you go to jail. The alternative (and likely outcome) is you go to the Police, they investigate and find there's no crime to answer......What then Saz? Do you seriously think that you'll simply go "Phew....that's a relief" and everything will be okay, that you'll suddenly feel fine? You're in complete denial and not taking on responsibility for your own role in improving your situation.

I'm sorry if that seems tough but this is the reality and it needs saying.

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