Why does it not feel like OCD in the moment a lot of the time?

[NJ321]

How do I know if I really want the thought to happen in the moment or not? I’m stuck on a thought that happened on Saturday where I was at a couple’s wedding shower but as I was on line for food a kid walked nearby. But I feel I didn’t walk past him quick enough while having bad intrusive thoughts. Than he walked in front of me on line & I feel I had more thoughts where they didn’t feel like OCD like I wanted something to happen. It’s just the feeling in my brain at the time felt like it wasn’t OCD & that I wanted something to actually happen. That’s what destroys me since sometimes it doesn’t feel like OCD at all in the moment until after the incident happens. I feel like I fool myself into thinking it’s OCD when it maybe isn’t at certain times.  

[dksea]

Thoughts are just thoughts, there is no difference between a "normal" thought and an "OCD" thought.  OCD causes us to react to certain thoughts in a disordered way.  Maybe it helps to think of it like this:

Your brain is constantly having thoughts.  Some of them you have on purpose, you choose to think about them.  You can do it right now for example.  If I ask you to think of your favorite color or animal or food you can do it.  But you also have thoughts that happen automatically.  Maybe its because you see or smell or hear something familiar.  Maybe its because your brain makes a connection in your subconscious that causes other thoughts etc. etc.  While you can control some thoughts you don't control them all, they just happen.

Imagine your brain like an e-mail program.  Sometimes you choose to have thoughts, these are the e-mail lists you subscribe to by choice.  Maybe you like fishing so you subscribe to a fishing list for example.  But you get way more e-mails than just those.  You can get e-mail from just about anywhere and you can't control people from sending it to you.  I could send you spam e-mail about monkeys for example.  You didn't ask for it, but you'll still get it.  Now a days e-mail programs are pretty good at filtering out unwanted e-mail, just like a non-OCD brain is pretty good at filtering out unwanted thoughts.  You don't even have to think about it, its bascically automatic.  So much so that most of the time you don't even have time to notice the unwanted thoughts as they popup in your subconscious and are then ignored by your conscious mind.  But a person with OCD has a broken filter.  Unfortunately some of that junk mail ends up in our inbox from time to time.  Now the healthy thing to do is to look at it and say "huh, I don't like that e-mail" and ignore it.  But those of us with OCD tend to overreact and assume that this junk mail MEANS something and so we respond to it as if it mattered.

The reality is virtually EVERYONE gets unwanted thoughts.  They have done studies on it.  I've described some of my unwanted thoughts to my parents and they have responded with "oh yeah, i've had that thought before".  Personal example, a while back I struggled with fear of suicide.  One day I was driving to work and the thought briefly popped in to my head that if I wanted i could easily turn my steering wheel and swerve in to oncoming traffic.  Suddenly I was overcome with anxiety.  Did that mean I wanted to kill myself?  Was I suddenly going to lose control and swerve in to traffic the next time I drove a car?!  Safe to say that me typing here proves that never happened.  What i'd done is overreact to a thought.  A thought isn't an action, its just a thought.  Who knows why I had the thought.  Maybe that moment reminded my brain of some scene from a movie.  Perhaps my brain was just busy processing all possible outcomes while driving to work one morning and that image just happened to pop up at the wrong time and my OCD latched on to it.  Who knows why I had the thought.  The reality is it probably wasn't the first time i'd had that thought and probably not the last.  I've since asked other people and they've had the same thought too.  Just because you can imagine a thing doesn't mean you want/will do the thing.  If that were the case then every person who wrote a story/move/book/etc about a killer would themselves be a killer.  Stephen King would be a horrific serial murderer for example.  But just because you can imagine something or think something doesn't mean that thing is reality.  I can think about jumping off a building, flapping my arms, and flying away.  That doesn't mean I'm going to do any of those things because I know that I can't flap my arms and fly away so jumping off the building would be quite fatally painful.  So a thought is just a thought is just a thought.  Having a thought pop in to your head doesn't mean you are a monster.  YOU are in charge of what you DO, the actions you take.  

Meanwhile, of course you are more likely to keep having the thought about the things you find disturbing.  Part of the problem with OCD is that we respond by trying to "beat" the thought and in order to do so we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about, analayzing, ruminating on those thoughts.  And you know what that does?  Makes us more likely to think about that thought.  Its a self fulfilling prophecy.

Assume you are just dealing with OCD and are not a horrible monster.  The later is far more likely than the former.  You will never be able to be 100% sure about anything in life.  The reality is you don't have to.  Non-OCD people aren't 100%, their brain just has an easier time being sure enough. You can be that way too.  It takes a little more work than non-OCD people but its doable.  You just have to practice, and accept that 100% certainty is an unattainable goal for anyone.

[humbleno1]

it doesnt feel like "OCD" because your amygdala is misfiring, which means a genuine warning signal of immediate danger is going off in your head, if it wasnt these thoughts would be the exact same as wondering what you're going to have for dinner.

[NJ321]

15 hours ago, humbleno1 said:

it doesnt feel like "OCD" because your amygdala is misfiring, which means a genuine warning signal of immediate danger is going off in your head, if it wasnt these thoughts would be the exact same as wondering what you're going to have for dinner.

I just can’t get over this thought. It just felt like in the moment I wanted something to happen. If it doesn’t feel like OCD how can it be? 

[humbleno1]

2 hours ago, NJ321 said:

I just can’t get over this thought. It just felt like in the moment I wanted something to happen. If it doesn’t feel like OCD how can it be? 

trying to figure out if something is ocd - is just the same as going back and checking the door, when you get a spike.

The problem is trying to be sure it is ocd, or it feels like ocd. Wether you did or didnt do it is relevant, you need to "take the risk". That its ocd. Living with uncertainty and taking the risk, is essentially the antidote to ocd. I would say as a rule of thumb if there is any doubt, put it in the realm of ocd. and let me tell you, you do doubt it, because if you wouldnt be questioning this doesnt feel like ocd, you would just know. But me saying that isnt going to convince you. OCD cant be reasoned with, you need to understand that it can convince you of things, it really can, if you wanted something to happen genuinely you would not be conflicted.

[PolarBear]

You have asked these same questions repeatedly. Your last 4 or 5 threads were about this and you said each time that you didn't think it was OCD.

You can't keep doing this. You do it over and over again. How's that working out for you? 

For years you have come here complaining about your latest intrusive thought, how real it felt, how you think it's not OCD. You have never, as far as I remember, ever indicated that you are trying to take on the advice we've given you. Years of this. Years. Do you get that? You are stuck. You have been stuck for a long time. But you keep doing the same thing over and over. It's not working.

Edited October 18, 2018 by PolarBear

[paradoxer]

On 16/10/2018 at 19:55, dksea said:

Non-OCD people aren't 100%, their brain just has an easier time being sure enough. You can be that way too.  It takes a little more work than non-OCD people but its doable.  You just have to practice, and accept that 100% certainty is an unattainable goal for anyone.

People with OCD also accept uncertainty all the time, provided it doesn't involve one of their given obsessions.