Am I in denial? - Fraud (Merged Thread)

[taurean]

46 minutes ago, don't know said:

The thing about the core belief is that it confuses me. I know that sounds strange but it does. Why do people get certain OCD 'themes' and others don't? Like I've never had a problem with violent obsessions but yet these sexual 'obsessions' just keep following me around. It's really bad because I see people actually saying that their OCD came true - I really don't want that to be the case.

We don't get to choose the theme of our OCD!  Mine have been harm violence and checking. the first two are nothing whatever to do with my real character - but that's just how this disorder works.

 

[don't know]

I'm crying right now and I just want it to end. I've just accepted it. It doesn't matter anymore. It turned out to be true. It's not OCD telling me that it's literally just looking at my life and putting the pieces together. 

[Guest OCDhavenobrain]

5 minutes ago, don't know said:

I'm crying right now and I just want it to end. I've just accepted it. It doesn't matter anymore. It turned out to be true. It's not OCD telling me that it's literally just looking at my life and putting the pieces together. 

If you want it to end you need to change something. 

Good that it doesn't matter anymore. Just feel like you already have said that like 5 times. 

Edited April 12, 2019 by OCDhavenobrain

[malina]

2 minutes ago, don't know said:

I'm crying right now and I just want it to end. I've just accepted it. It doesn't matter anymore. It turned out to be true. It's not OCD telling me that it's literally just looking at my life and putting the pieces together. 

How did it turn out to be true? You haven’t done anything to make it true. 

Everything you have told us about your life so far indicates OCD. And when you go back to saying how you feel no emotions or you don’t care, think back to this moment. You are very clearly in turmoil. 

You really need to speak to a professional. It doesn’t matter whether it has helped in the past or not, you need to try again. 

[don't know]

It's just looking at all those stories of people who thought they were normal and then one day end up doing these things because there was a hole in their life or there was something missing. I'm scared that's me. 

[taurean]

What may be best is to stop that looking and seeking. It's a compulsion and it gives belief to what your brain is telling you (as is usual in OCD). 

Try and get busy on normal day to day things. Ignore intrusions, arousal feelings or whatever on this theme. Treat it as if it is OCD. Don't believe any of it. 

Try not to react, but rather simply note it as part of your obsession, and steer your mind away without carrying out any compulsions. 

Really work at this, and gradually slowly but surely (but not immediately) the power of those intrusive thoughts feelings and urges will fade. 

You need to be patient and strong. Take some strength from those of us who have been through all of this and come out the other side. 

[don't know]

I don't think I can take it anymore. I just feel awful. It's like the person I was never existed like all my thoughts and feelings were never real. They probably weren't - was probably brainwashed by society. 

[Sputnik]

Just because somethings feels true right now, doesn't necessarily mean it is true. 

[taurean]

Exactly. With our illness it will feel real feel true, and that is what can trap us. 

But if we refuse to listen or connect, the opposite will start to happen, and it will lose power and frequency. 

[Hal]

7 hours ago, don't know said:

I'm crying right now and I just want it to end. I've just accepted it. 

It’s so important that you understand all this suffering and torment you’re going through DK can end if you make the decision to change how you’re dealing with these doubts, thoughts and feelings....unless you do I’m sorry to say you’re going to continue feeling this awful.

You have all the information now, can you start trying to put it into practice in spite of  the doubts? Why not try an experiment over the weekend...whenever you feel the urge to research stories around incest or a lack of feelings, to ruminate or post here hits...pause, refuse on all fronts and then get busy on focusing on something else. I think you’ll find if you do the thoughts will lose some of their power and you won’t feel so consumed by it all. 

We need to try to help you take this step DK, as Polar commented earlier on your thread the time for reassurance should really be coming to an end now after years of using the forum...just by trying to assure someone they have OCD can over time eventually become a form of reassurance in itself and isn’t helpful.

What kind of stuff could you do over the weekend that would help you refocus?

[don't know]

I literally was watching something that reminded me of someone that I'm close to and ended up nearly being sick. That doesn't seem like OCD that seems like real feelings. I thought I had a couple of hours when I felt fine but then it just came back. 

I have a lot of work to get on with - so much that I've pushed aside.

The other thing is sometimes I'll go a day or maybe a week without these things and then I'll feel like it wasn't OCD because it just feel like I'm quickly over it. I'm not sure. 

[taurean]

Just do what I said.Stop engaging in the debate, treat it as if it is OCD and go and throw yourself into that work or play. 

Just don't respond - like you said you just did - to those thoughts. 

They are the result of the obsession - nothing more. 

See them for that but leave them be and don't connect with them. 

[Hal]

15 minutes ago, don't know said:

I have a lot of work to get on with - so much that I've pushed aside.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Maybe break it up with other stuff you enjoy doing though, I really think it will help you.

[dksea]

17 hours ago, don't know said:

I don't believe I'm the only person with these thoughts, but their OCD follows the pattern. I can sense the pain and discomfort that these people must feel in these posts. I'm not sure that I'm the same to be honest. 

I highlighted the most important part of your statment: "I'm not sure".  That is the heart of your problem, doubt.  Its why you worry about having these thoughts, its why you keep coming back to this forum over and over, you have doubt.  Doubt is what OCD thrives on, doubt is the core of the disorder.

You read about others OCD, but you aren't sure if your situation is the same, you think there might be something different, you have doubt.  But whether or not you believe you have OCD doesn't effect whether or not you DO have it.  A person can have a problem and believe that they don't.  In fact that is what makes helping people particularly difficult sometimes.  A person with a drinking problem may not believe they have it, so trying to help them is unlikely to work.  Or a gambling problem.  Or OCD.

We all understand that you have doubt, including doubt that you have OCD.  We are not asking you to stop having doubt, we are asking you to choose to trust us, choose to listen to our advice.  You can make that choice even if you have doubt!  Consider the following:

Imagine you are trying to drive to an event in a city you've never been too before.  You are lost and you aren't sure you know the way, you have doubt.  In the past you might stop and ask someone for directions.  You still don't know the way, you still have doubt, but you choose to trust what they tell you and try it anyway.  If they are a trustworthy person, someone who knows the way you'll end up at your destination, even though you were never sure how to get there.  Now a days people have GPS on their phones which does the same thing, we get in our cars, not sure of which way to go but we decide to trust the GPS.  Why?  Because history has shown us that the vast majority of the time it is correct, its trustworthy.

In this situation you are lost, you have doubts about which way to go.  We are trying to be your GPS, we are trying to get you to trust us and let us tell you the way to get to your destination.  That doesn't mean you stop having any doubts, you can follow our directions even if you still have doubts.  Its ok to make a choice when you aren't 100% sure, which is good since the reality is we can never be 100% sure about anything really.  You can make the choice to treat this as OCD even if you aren't sure it is.  You don't have to be sure, you just have to trust the people who are around you and trying to help you.  When you go to someone for advice about something you want to find someone who is very knowledgeable on that subject, after all it means they will probably give good advice.  Well the people on this forum, the people who are trying to help you right now, we are all very knowledgeable about OCD, we have a LOT of first hand experience with it both living with it ourselves and helping others who have it or probably have or it may have it.  I think that means we are worth trusting, and I hope you will think about it and come to the same decision.

You don't deserve to suffer like you are @don't know, pretty much no one does.  We want to help you feel better.  Please trust us.

[dksea]

18 hours ago, don't know said:

The thing about the core belief is that it confuses me. I know that sounds strange but it does. Why do people get certain OCD 'themes' and others don't? Like I've never had a problem with violent obsessions but yet these sexual 'obsessions' just keep following me around.

Unfortunately no one really knows why one person gets a particular obsession and others don't.  Sometimes the obsessive worry can be connected to an event in their life, perhaps something disturbing or troubling that happened to them.  However, thats not always the case, sometimes people have obsessions that seem to come out of nowhere.  I've seen people who were never religious have religious related intrusive thoughts.  I've seen people who have never had a health scare suddenly start worrying about their health.  We just don't know.  Fortunately treatment for OCD doesn't require us to know WHY a thought gets stuck, just what to do about it when one does.
 

18 hours ago, don't know said:

It's really bad because I see people actually saying that their OCD came true - I really don't want that to be the case.

Well sure, we don't want things that make us feel bad to come true.  But there is a big difference between CAN happen and WILL happen or even IS HAPPENING NOW.

Let's imagine we have an OCD sufferer named Bob.  Bob's intrusive fear is that he will be killed in a car accident.  So Bob centers his life around trying to avoid that from happening.  He avoids travel by cars, he avoids being around cars whenever possible, but sadly for Bob that makes life pretty difficult.  Before long Bob is simply afraid to leave his house.  He can't work anymore, he barely sees friends or family, he has basically given up on life, all because of his fear of car accidents.  Now it was and is certainly possible Bob could be killed in that way, it definitely happens.  But it doesn't happen to most people.  The vast majority of people will never be in a serious car accident, let alone die from one.  There are many things in life that Bob is also at risk from, and it would be impossible to eliminate them all.    The problem is not whether or not its even possible for Bobs fear to come true, its how extreme Bob's response to that possibility is, how out of touch with the realities of the situation he has become.

Its reasonable to dislike the intrusive thoughts you are having. Its ok to not want them to come true.  We all feel that way about bad things.  But we don't all react the way you are to your intrusive worry, if we did, we'd be worried constantly, because there is an almost endless array of unwanted things that can happen to us of varying degrees and probabilities.  But giving in to that worry robs us of the very life we are hoping to live!  It doesn't have to be that way, you can learn how to get control of your life back. We can help you, if you will let us.

[don't know]

Okay, so today I thought I'm going to try and implement some of the advice given to me on the forum. 

I've come onto the forum a couple of times but haven't posted until now and I did go onto these other articles and websites. It was really difficult to stop myself. However, I was able to sometimes distract myself. 

But the issue is that I'm scared about not liking people anymore. I was watching tv and Iiterally seeing people act around their friends made me question whether I like my friends or not. When I think I don't and I'm interacting with someone else I feel happy. I then think why would I be feeling happy about that? Also thinking about being around them makes me not want to and I'm thinking do I not like them anymore? Also anything that reminds me of friendships makes me really ill, like I'm about to throw up.

[PolarBear]

The reason you are so stuck on your feelings and friendships is because you are fixated on them. You concentrate on some nonsense measure of how you think you should feel versus how you do feel. That's a compulsion and it needs to stop. 

You don't need to analyze your feelings. Most orher people don't do that. They accept the way they feel at the time and that is that.

When you find your mind wandering onto that track, for now say to yourself, it doesn't matter, and refocus your mind onto something else. This will tske some time to get right.

[don't know]

It's like I didn't really think about it and then I was reminded of it and now it's just happening and I'm scared. I do, I feel really panicked by it. It's like I think if these people disappeared from my life would I care and I think no probably not. I'm now really panicked again. 

 

 

[Sputnik]

I'm really glad you're giving our advice a try, DK  

It's inevitable you're going to experience all sorts of different emotions towards people, including your friends. That's fine, you can allow yourself that. When you get those feelings, accept them. Let them in Trying to push them away is counter-productive.

[PolarBear]

5 minutes ago, don't know said:

It's like I didn't really think about it and then I was reminded of it and now it's just happening and I'm scared. I do, I feel really panicked by it. It's like I think if these people disappeared from my life would I care and I think no probably not. I'm now really panicked again. 

 

 

This is you ruminating. We're not going to get sucked into this compulsion by discussing it. Let it go.

Edited April 13, 2019 by PolarBear

[Sputnik]

4 minutes ago, don't know said:

It's like I didn't really think about it and then I was reminded of it and now it's just happening and I'm scared. I do, I feel really panicked by it. It's like I think if these people disappeared from my life would I care and I think no probably not. I'm now really panicked again. 

 

 

You were reminded of the theme of not caring about people by a trigger, and started to analyse and obsess about it ;) The reason you are so distressed is because you really do care about people, and the prospect of being indifferent to their existence repulses you. Relax, and let go of those thoughts. Don't push them away or analyse them, just let them drift on by, like thoughts usually do. You don't have to delve into them (although it can be really hard to resist, I know).

[don't know]

You're both right. I'm going to let this go. I feel really panicky, but I'm going to really go for it. 

 

[Sputnik]

1 minute ago, don't know said:

You're both right. I'm going to let this go. I feel really panicky, but I'm going to really go for it. 

 

Nice one DK! We're here for you.

[don't know]

Nope nope. I ended up going onto one of these websites and I feel really scared again. I'm just like why me? I don't even know it just feels true. 

[Sputnik]

6 minutes ago, don't know said:

Nope nope. I ended up going onto one of these websites and I feel really scared again. I'm just like why me? I don't even know it just feels true. 

Forget the websites. Switch off your device and do something else. Read a book, do a jigsaw puzzle. Something you enjoy that can keep your mind occupied Let the thoughts come and go.