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Am i losing my mind?


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Sorry that i am back on here again but i think i am losing my mind this time because of the theme of my latest obsession.

Here goes, many years ago while i struggling with harm ocd i was with my workmate and we somehow started up a conversation about aliens and ufo's etc, something that had never concerned me or ever gave much thought and thought it was all nonsense but he said something jokingly along the lines of perhaps you are an alien and there is aliens among us, something i had probably seen in many movies and not thought anything of it, boom my mind started racing, before then i would just deal with anything like that as nonsense like most people would, but as we know people with ocd, things like that stick and the obsession starts and the ruminating takes over and i couldn't believe how i was reacting to this crazy notion but i couldn't get rid of this thought and i couldn't believe  that i even considered there was aliens on earth, to me it was all in the realms of Sci-fi until then and it got to the stage i was just so anxious that i had lost my mind and couldn't think straight any longer.

As you can imagine i was so pre-occupied with these thoughts that it put the harming obsessions into the background i was having and gave me perspective and it was probably the biggest insight i had to reallizing how ocd can trick you and a better understanding of what ocd was with the harming obsessions.

Within time i realized i didn't believe the alien obsession and it faded away and even added to my understanding of how powerfull ocd could be in grabbing your attention in something you don't believe deep down inside is real and i would actually use it and remind myself how powerfull ocd can be during rough times and as far as i was concerned it was a closed subject.

Last week this obsession raised it head again and i quickly dismissed it and the thought hasn't crossed my mind again until today. I am angry at myself for getting engaged in this again but also worried because i can't just switch it off and get back to how i perceived it previously and i am asking myself more questions and doubting myself.

To me, thinking something like this is scary and makes me fear for my sanity and only someone who thinks and worries about this is losing a sense of reality.

Thankfully, this obsession and some others looking back don't seem to last too long, i really hope this is the case again here.

 

Edited by stanwee lee
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Perhaps i am affraid  or i don't know how to take the leap of faith and accept my thoughts and fully learn to stop ruminating as i guess with me and i guess many people think they can start to work toward doing this as soon as they figure out their latest obsession, but i guess my question is when you do this correctly the thoughts decrease and they are no longer so bothersome can you ever get to the stage where these thoughts you can actually gain insight and see how silly they really are and look at them in a different way.

I know you are not big on people seeking reassurance and that is most likely what i am looking for here but with my latest obsession above, it is about something that i think i am losing my mind. I hope it is just another stupid obsession which will fade and even though at the moment it seems like the most important thing in the world, just the same as every other obsession feels like at the time, now those don't feel so important. Is that what it will feel like when you stop ruminating?

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9 hours ago, stanwee lee said:

but i guess my question is when you do this correctly the thoughts decrease and they are no longer so bothersome can you ever get to the stage where these thoughts you can actually gain insight and see how silly they really are and look at them in a different way.

Yes.  If you do the work through the CBT you can reach the point where you no longer connect the unwanted thought with the constant anxiety. The goal is not that you'll never have unwanted thoughts again (in general or a specific one) its that you'll reach the point where you no longer care if you should happen to have that thought.  Its no longer meaningful to you, its just junk mail in your brain.

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This is not going away.

Is it possible the reason i have added so much importance on to these thoughts is because i have obsessed previously about  many questions that are common in Existential OCD,  ( something i had never heard off until today ) the meaning of life, reality of life and even creation, that was something i had never have spoken to anyone about.

I know, not everyone believes in god, i have had my doubts but for me the possibility in gods exsistance gives me hope and peace and gives my life some meaning, i know many people believe in aliens and ufo's and the likes, previously before any of this latest obsession started back up i didn't care or give it much thought as it wasn't an issue and it didn't have any relevance to any obsessions i've had, i had my beliefs and i was fine with that and i was getting on with my life but now i have so many doubts and what ifs about the whole thing, some of the things i am associating with aliens are really scary and threatening how i perceived things previously, is this ocd? Am i losing my mind?

This is with me almost every waking minute but sometimes it eases briefly and i momentarily realize, just how stupid the thoughts are, why can't i just accept that and hold onto that feeling and treat it like any other obsession like i have been told to in my CBT sessions.

I am trying for it to fit into ocd category, i had a thought, it frightened me, i attached meaning and importance to the thought and i felt it as a threat to my beliefs, now i am trying to figure it out and fighting against it to find that one thing that will switch it off. When i put it like that i think it sounds like ocd. I know obsessions can be about anything and it is probably the  theme of it that scares me and makes me worry about my sanity.

Edited by stanwee lee
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6 hours ago, stanwee lee said:

This is not going away.

Unfortunately, it's not going to go away overnight.  OCD is a chronic condition, so you won't just get over it like a cold.  You can learn to manage it and improve your situation, but it takes time, effort and most of all you making a choice to make the change.

 

6 hours ago, stanwee lee said:

now i have so many doubts and what ifs about the whole thing, some of the things i am associating with aliens are really scary and threatening how i perceived things previously, is this ocd? Am i losing my mind?

Doubts and what ifs, typical of OCD.  So is the fear of losing your mind.  Chalk it all up to OCD and keep working on the CBT.

 

6 hours ago, stanwee lee said:

I know obsessions can be about anything and it is probably the  theme of it that scares me and makes me worry about my sanity.

Yup, they can be about anything, and in my experience, whatever your current theme is feels like the scariest thing, thats kind of how it all works, if it wasn't so scary to you at the time you wouldn't be stuck on it.  Like all other OCD questions, the reality is you'll never have 100% certainty over these doubts no matter how hard you try, but despite what OCD tells you, you don't need to.

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