Is this classed as a checking compulsion?

[Lish]

Hello everyone. Hope you're all doing okay. Happy New year to you all.

I am currently receiving CBT therapy again with a new CBT therapist. I've only met her once but she seems really nice. The reason I am seeing her this time is to deal with the underlying causes of my anxiety.. it's about time I faced them rather than run away from them.

Any way, I have noticed I keep flashing back to memories I don't like.. almost in a way to torture myself. As soon as I'm happy, my brain will remind me of something bad I did.. and remind my almost why I don't deserve to be happy. Is going back and thinking these thoughts/memories to see how you react to them known as a checking compulsion?

My therapist says she thinks it sounds like intrusive thoughts but I don't know if I'm doing it to myself to see how I react or if I've forgotten about certain things I want to forget about. The thoughts about irrational stuff are able to just flow through my mind now. Its mainly things ive done wrong in the past that pop up and make me feel awful. Ive been struggling with this for a while now. If so any tips on cutting this out? Just a little hurdle I need to jump over. Thanks guys. 

[snowbear]

Hi Lish,

5 minutes ago, Lish said:

I have noticed I keep flashing back to memories I don't like.. almost in a way to torture myself. As soon as I'm happy, my brain will remind me of something bad I did.. and remind my almost why I don't deserve to be happy.

From the way you describe it they sound like intrusive thoughts (memories) which could naturally be coming to the fore because you're thinking about underlying issues causing your anxiety. It would make sense that your brain throws things out there to see if you want to review them. This is your chance to decide if you still deserve to be unhappy or if you'd like to change that opinion and decide you do deserve to be happy after all.

What happens next determines if you're doing a compulsion (OCD checking) or revising your view of the past (normal and healthy).

If you ruminate on the memories repeatedly and deliberately bring them up to check they make you unhappy that would be OCD. Nothing is changed and the next time the memory appears you'll feel just as bad as you did before. The correct response is then to change the meaning you attach to the memory and dismiss it/let it be there without reacting. 

When you think calmly about the memory in a detached way and accept that bad things you did in your past have no meaning in the present, you revise your view of yourself as unworthy of happiness and OCD loses the power to torture you. 

Just because it's real issues and not irrelevant thoughts doesn't change the way you deal with it. The same CBT process is applied.