No 'what if's

[Headwreck]

Something has been bothering me for a long time and if this seems irrelevant then by all means ignore or delete the thread.

The main hallmark for OCD is "what if" questions. When I'm dealing with another panic about something else (funnily enough I had one this morning about doing something but I didn't remember doing it because it's so automatic) I'm battered with them and I recognise that. But this current thing I'm stuck on, there has never been 'what if', it's always just been that I did or might have. I don't know if that's a big deal and if anyone else can relate? It's making me consider that this may just be an actual worry with actual guilt etc. and I just didn't experience it previously because I was so fixated on the thought that I had been cheated on too.

Sorry if it's a pointless question.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Headwreck

[Skullpops]

Research false memories in OCD, I believe that may well be what you're dealing with. 

[Headwreck]

Hiya, hope you're doing okay?

It's not really a false memory anymore, I think I did suffer with that for a while but now I'm more concerned with what I can't remember. Don't know what to think anymore really, if to just take this at face value or not.

[Gemma7]

Might have done something is the same as what if i did something. So you are asking yourself what if just not using those words. What ifs are just doubt, you have loads of doubt. Does that answer your question?

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

You need to stop asking all those questions or you will keep being in the hole. Do not try to answer them.

Edited July 13, 2018 by OCDhavenobrain

[Skullpops]

1 hour ago, Headwreck said:

Hiya, hope you're doing okay?

It's not really a false memory anymore, I think I did suffer with that for a while but now I'm more concerned with what I can't remember. Don't know what to think anymore really, if to just take this at face value or not.

Good days and bad days lovely.

When I was at my most unwell my biggest concern was with what I couldn't remember. It's classic OCD mate. 

[Headwreck]

58 minutes ago, Gemma7 said:

Might have done something is the same as what if i did something. So you are asking yourself what if just not using those words. What ifs are just doubt, you have loads of doubt. Does that answer your question?

Yes, it does. Thank you  I guess doubt is doubt no matter how you dress it up.

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

How do you feel? I guess you feel anxious. What do you do? You try to get rid of the anxiety by answering the question. And i also think that you feel relief now and that is bad. 

The anxiety needs to be there and do its thing, anxiety feels so bad and it feels like you need to get rid of it but that will just keep you at this state for a long time if not forever.

[Headwreck]

19 minutes ago, OCDhavenobrain said:

You need to stop asking all those questions or you will keep being in the hole. Do not try to answer them.

I'm trying. I guess the only other thing I can do is remove my account to stop posting. Although in my defense, this question was something that has bugged me for a good while and wasn't posted by means of compulsion

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

2 minutes ago, Headwreck said:

I'm trying. I guess the only other thing I can do is remove my account to stop posting. Although in my defense, this question was something that has bugged me for a good while and wasn't posted by means of compulsion

It is the OCD wanting certainty, it uses itself against you. "But this is not OCD, this is real so solve me!" 

THe problem is that we can't never ever solve everything!! It will throw something against you when you have solved this thing, it will never stop. 

 

Edited July 13, 2018 by OCDhavenobrain

[Headwreck]

11 minutes ago, Skullpops said:

Good days and bad days lovely.

When I was at my most unwell my biggest concern was with what I couldn't remember. It's classic OCD mate. 

Keep on keeping on, hopefully you're having increasingly more good days than bad 

I'm sick of questioning and thinking to be honest, just want to move on!

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

It is good that you can see what you are doing, but you are still getting the thoughts and every new thought feels real. I think that is where i am too. It sucks that every new thought feels real, it really do! But yea... This is not supposed to be easy.

I am going outside now i hope you can do something else than sitting inside because i think that you shouldn't let yourself think about this now. If you can do this today you have improved so try your best! 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2018 by OCDhavenobrain

[Headwreck]

9 minutes ago, OCDhavenobrain said:

It is good that you can see what you are doing, but you are still getting the thoughts and every new thought feels real. I think that is where i am too. It sucks that every new thought feels real, it really do! But yea... This is not supposed to be easy.

I am going outside now i hope you can do something else than sitting inside because i think that you shouldn't let yourself think about this now. If you can do this today you have improved so try your best!

Thanks I am going to go for a walk, good idea. I have been on holiday from work this week so must utilise my time better before I go back on Monday. Hope you have an easier day today. You are right, it's extremely difficult but we owe it to ourselves to give ourselves a break from the thoughts and feelings even if taking that break is hard.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Headwreck

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

I have also been thinking about the fact that we need to change our wiev of thoughts, trying our hardest to not giving them meaning, it seems to be the fact that we are bad at juding and sorting out silly thoughts that got us here. So instead we need to do this actively. Where other people just let them pass. 

[PolarBear]

Your initial question is a direct result of ruminating. And it's all wrong.

Some people with contamination fears get what if questions but for many others their thoughts are definitive: That IS contaminated. There is no what if.

This thread is you trying to figure out if your thoughts are true or not. Your statement that because you don't have what if statements means your thoughts are more likely to be true is ertoneois and disordered thinking.

We've told you well on 100 times to work at stopping trying to figure this out. 

[Headwreck]

I can't stop working it out because I have a memory of being sat next to this guy and being flirtatious. Unlike most peoples obsessions, I have a scenario whereby it's quite likely that something happened, moreso because I was drunk. I was stupid enough to put myself in that position thinking it would even the odds because I thought I had been betrayed and I thought doing something like that would stop me caring about it. That's what is making it nigh on impossible to just leave it alone. So I don't know where that leaves me. I know it's repetitive and boring and not a big deal to everyone else but it's a massive deal to me because it's my life and more importantly it's my partner's life that would be affected through no fault of his own.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Headwreck

[PolarBear]

Yet, you have no idea how likely it is that you fooled around. In all likelihood you will never know. No matter how much you think about that night, you won't know for sure. 

You have zero evidence that anything happened. Zero. Just like all the other false memory OCD sufferers I've helped. They all felt immense guilt. They all felt they should confess. They all mercilessly punished themselves without a shred of evidence they had done something wrong.

Just like you.

[Headwreck]

But this memory is not fake. I know this happened, sitting in close proximity I mean. I just don't know if anything else did so I fill the gaps with what must have happened. And then I start thinking about what happened after the night out ie. how I don't remember anything being mentioned about sexual contact, about this guy saying he wanted to kiss, but now I doubt that he said it and then I think about when I told my partner and mum about him saying it, then I wonder if I lied when telling them, etc. which I presume is all compulsions but it happens without me even trying so impossible for me to preempt.

I think the sexual thing is stupid now a little bit. The irony is, the idea that it happened was what got me stuck in this loop and had me worried since last year. I just can't get past the fact that I've sat on all this for nearly three years and it's only all rearing it's ugly head now.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Headwreck

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

If you know it is true you deal with it and then get over it. All of this that this thing means that my life is over is just drama, sorry for the frank words, i have done it myself, "now i need to do this and this and do it forever". The drive to survive is really strong, it is just not how it works. It is fake moral, fake consideration and fake feelings.

Edited July 13, 2018 by OCDhavenobrain

[Headwreck]

6 minutes ago, OCDhavenobrain said:

If you know it is true you deal with it and then get over it. All of this that this thing means that my life is over is just drama, sorry for the frank words, i have done it myself, "now i need to do this and this and do it forever". People's drive to survive is really strong, it is just not how it works. It is fake moral, fake consideration and fake feelings.

See now I start to focus on where you mentioned "if you know it is true". I don't know what is true, I don't remember thinking I had done it before. This whole thing felt so new to me when it started, I don't remember knowing I did anything as I would have confessed probably the next day.

Do I know I cheated? In my heart I feel like I want to say I didn't but it could be because I cannot face the truth. When this all started I would have said yes, it definitely did. So I must be making some improvement, I am functioning a lot better than I was, would spend all day crying when it first started. My partner made me swear on someone's life about if I knew or not, I did swear it and then worried that the person would be harmed because I was not sure my answer was true. I know it all sounds pathetic.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Headwreck

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

Just now, Headwreck said:

See now I start to focus on where you mentioned "if you know it is true". I don't know what is true, I don't remember thinking I had done it before. This whole thing feels so new to me I don't remember knowing I did anything as I would have confessed probably the next day.

 Do I know I cheated? In my heart I feel like I want to say I didn't but it could be because I cannot face the truth. My partner made me swear on someone's life about if I knew or not, I did swear it and then worried that the person would be harmed because I was not sure my answer was true. I know it all sounds pathetic.

You said it is true so i assumed you know. If you know you get over it. "This memory is not fake", was what you said.

[Headwreck]

I don't have a memory of a kiss or sexual contact but of sitting close. Maybe I forgot. I don't know. I need to stop on here now as getting upset.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Headwreck

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

So you don't know. If you have gone through this for years and it haven't resolved you won't get it resolved by going through it for 2 more years, not even 30 more years will do it. You are a victim of the uncertainty, you want certainty. 

All of this "consideration" is fake, i don't think for a moment that you actually would want to punish yourself forever even if you were full out unfaithful. 

 

Edited July 14, 2018 by OCDhavenobrain

[St Mike]

20 hours ago, Headwreck said:

I did or might have

Red flag.

20 hours ago, Headwreck said:

this may just

Red flag

20 hours ago, Headwreck said:

The main hallmark for OCD is "what if" questions.

That is right.

Variations of what ifs are buts, ifs, then perhaps, maybe, may just be, might have and the list goes on.

So as long as it is a term that expresses doubt or uncertainty, it is OCD at work.

 

Edited July 14, 2018 by St Mike

[hedvig]

I think it might be that guilt is coming from you thinking of ”evening the odds” and sitting next to this guy and then those feelings are exaggerated like a billion times. Like the idea of you putting yourself in such a situation where something could have happened makes you feel guilty. But you can’t be punished for what ifs. As you know, this is exactly the same situation I had. I knew I had been sitting next to someone in a bar and started questioning how I could have done that, why I was even talking to this guy, what my intentions really were, if something did happen etc etc. The more compulsions I performed trying to figure it out the worse I felt about myself. For me this also happened some time after the evening in question, so I too had lived normally not worrying about that night until that thought struck me a couple of months after. You have to really let yourself off the hook. You cannot keep doing this to yourself or to your partner. You deserve so much more.