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Apology-Want To Tear My Brain Out (Merged Thread)


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14 hours ago, don't know said:

Yeah but shouldn't I be able to tell the difference between the two? What's real and what's not? 

It depends on what you mean be "the two".  Are you referring here to your thoughts?  In that case there is no such thing as a "not real" thought.  A thought is a thought, either you have a thought or you don't.  But having a thought doesn't mean you desire something, want something, are likely to do something etc.

For example, I am allergic to peanuts, and I have been since birth.  To many (probably most) people they taste delicious and are a popular food.  To me they taste vile and disgusting.  What does that have to do with OCD?  Well, I can have a thought about a peanut.  I can have the image of a peanut pop in to my head. I could even image eating a peanut, or peanut product.  Maybe its a memory, either of a time I accidentally ate something with peanuts, or a time I saw someone else eat something with peanuts in it.  Maybe its a description in a book, or a scene from a movie.  Regardless its pretty clear I can think ABOUT peanuts.  But it doesn't mean I want to EAT a peanut, even if I have a thought where I see someone eating a peanut or wonder "what if I ate a peanut".

You can replace peanuts with anything.  People can (and do) think of just about every topic there is.  Good topics, bad topics, everything in between.  You can have thoughts about a topic, ponder a topic, even imagine a topic in great detail without ever wanting to engage in or try to engage in that topic.   Take murder for example.  Obviously murdering someone is bad.  You don't want to be a murderer, I don't want to be a murderer.  Yet thinking ABOUT murder isn't necessarily bad.  Many stories for books, tv, video games, etc. involve murder.  Obviously someone had to think about that topic, sometimes in great detail.  And people who investigate murders to try and stop it have to think about it too.

You can have thoughts about all kinds of topics, including incest, it doesn't mean you want to or will engage in that behavior.  Think about it, if you only ever thought about things you liked or things you wanted to do, you wouldn't be able to function in the world, you'd be unable to act when something less than ideal happens, because when it does you have to think about it!  Maybe you get injured or sick, you definitely don't like that but you still have to think about the topic in order to deal with it.

So all thoughts are real, but that doesn't mean all thoughts matter or all thoughts mean something.

The nature of OCD is that sometimes some thoughts get stuck.  Its a little different for each person, but the general problem is the same.  Because that thought gets stuck our brain falsely believes its important (because otherwise it would go away right?) and we react to it improperly, focusing on it and dwelling on it and treating it as way more important than it actually is.  But its just a thought.  It FEELS scary sure, but you are always in control of your behavior.

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I feel as though they aren't stuck. It feels like I'm actively thinking them and then denying it. It probably is important. My other obsession ended up being real so this must mean this one is. 

I've been reading a lot on OCD again and they always talk about it being ego-dystonic or attacking what is important to you. I don't necessarily think that's true though. Nothing can tell me that this isn't going to come true. I'm also having trouble because I don't think my thoughts are intrusive they don't pop into my head. I end up seeing something or reading something and then it goes from there. 

But isn't having thoughts about it but not acting on it just like repressing or denying yourself? 

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So much so that I have updated my notification preferences so as to ignore content by don't know. 

Not something I at all like doing, but really I felt I had no alternative :( 

As I have said many times before, CBT therapy, to be successful, requires the sufferer to believe what the therapist says and put in the effort required to change their thinking and behaviours so as to, over time, render intrusions benign and ease away anxiety. 

When a sufferer fails to do this, sadly they will stay stuck :(

 

 

 

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16 hours ago, don't know said:

My other obsession ended up being real so this must mean this one is. 

It COULD mean this one is "real" too, but it doesn't mean it MUST.  Thats flawed logic.  Not everything we fear always comes true.  Not everything we worry about matters.  Each situation is different.
 

16 hours ago, don't know said:

I feel as though they aren't stuck.

If they weren't stuck you wouldn't still be here talking about them, worrying about them, obsessing over them, months, if not years later.  Thats the very definition of stuck.
 

16 hours ago, don't know said:

I've been reading a lot on OCD again and they always talk about it being ego-dystonic or attacking what is important to you. I don't necessarily think that's true though.

You don't think its important to you NOT to be a sexual deviant? Not to be in to incest?  You react pretty strongly to that idea and tell us how much you don't want it to be true, that seems like its ego-dystonic to me.
 

16 hours ago, don't know said:

Nothing can tell me that this isn't going to come true.

Its true, it might come true, but it probably won't.  Nothing can tell you that you won't be struck by a meteor on your way to work tomorrow morning.  Nothing can guarantee you won't trip and break your arm walking up the stairs to your apartment a week from now.  Nothing can 100% say anything about the future.  We live our lives not in a state of certainty, but probability.  You don't need to be certain about this in order to move on.
 

16 hours ago, don't know said:

I'm also having trouble because I don't think my thoughts are intrusive they don't pop into my head. I end up seeing something or reading something and then it goes from there. 

Yeah, thats often how intrusive thoughts work, something triggers them.  The thought can just "pop" in to your head, though sometimes that "pop" is because of a trigger you just don't realize, but often its because of an identifiable trigger too.  I know I've said this before, but I think part of your problem is that you keep trying to apply certain rules or limitations to what is or isn't OCD, and basically every time the rule you apply is wrong.  I'm not sure if its just because you don't understand OCD well, or if you are still trying to convince yourself its not OCD and therefore grasping at straws to try and find a contradiction.  Regardless this is totally typical OCD behavior, experience a trigger, it causes a thought/memory to surface and unfortunately a lot of the time with OCD that thought/image/idea/memory is going to be an intrusive one.
 

16 hours ago, don't know said:

But isn't having thoughts about it but not acting on it just like repressing or denying yourself? 

Not at all.  Again, studies have shown pretty much all people have these kind of thoughts, OCD or not.  The difference is that non-OCD people recognize them as meaningless and move on from them, sometimes without even noticing it.  Going back to my previous reply, just because you think about something doesn't mean its something you want to do.  People think about murder, they write about it, they create media about it, but if all the people involved in that were actually murderers or repressed murderers we'd be in HUGE trouble, the world would be FILLED with murderers.

You continue to put so much effort in to trying to come up with excuses why your problem isn't OCD.  Why?  What good does it serve you to do that?  Wouldn't it be better to use that same energy to try and help your self?  To get and do the treatment that can help you recover?

Finally, lets assume for a second that your fear is true, that you ARE attracted to a relative.  That doesn't mean anything would ever happen.  I see attractive women all the time, some of them I see and think "gee I'd love to sleep with her".  But it doesn't mean I'm grabbing women in the halls at work and randomly having sex with them (or worse, forcing them).  Even if you like the idea of something you aren't just going to lose control and do something.  You are still in control of your actions.  Thats not repression, its normal.

So whether or not your thoughts about incest are genuine desire (possible) or OCD fueled obsessions (probable) you still remain in charge of your actions.
 

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Really because it's true I don't care about the people in my life. I have no feelings towards them and whenever something reminds me of them, I shut down completely. That was real. I panicked and worried about it, so its not ego-dystonic. I don't want to be around them. Also, upon further research, they may not match up to how I see myself but it still may be the truth. I'm such that people who are deviants are scared and terrified at first and some never act on it, but I'm sure they have thoughts and desires that they aren't proud of. How am I any different? 

I think it is really important to know. All it does is create confusion and I do need to know. In fact I probably do know. 

Its like my mum touch my arm the other day and I thought to myself did I feel anything? I probably did and didn't want to admit to it. I let it go and carried on but it feels real. I wasn't even scared by it. 

The point is I'm not going to get better. 

Edited by don't know
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22 hours ago, don't know said:

I'm such that people who are deviants are scared and terrified at first and some never act on it, but I'm sure they have thoughts and desires that they aren't proud of. How am I any different? 

You know who else are scared and terrified of an idea? People who genuinely don’t like that idea. 

I find the idea of killing someone to be a terrible and abhorrent idea.  By your reasoning that means I’m repressing my desire to murder people.  Do you see how faulty your thinking is right now?

22 hours ago, don't know said:

The point is I'm not going to get better. 

As long as you continue to ignore our advice and keep repeating the same mistakes over and over, no, you aren’t going to get better.  That’s your choice though.  If you get tired of that and decide to finally listen to us, come on back.  But you’ve said this same “I know it, it’s the truth” **** over and over, and you always come back.  Why? Because it’s OCD. It always has been, always will be, and until you accept that you’ll remain stuck and suffering for no reason.

 

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I was looking into self-help for OCD and came across a YouTuber Ali Greymond who states that all OCD is false and is the opposite of who you are. I kind of felt calm after that and looked more into content from her, OCD stories podcast and Chrissie Hodges, where they basically stated that all obsessions don't matter.  However, whilst I was watching I was thinking this isn't me. I can understand that they have nearly fully recovered and could see that their obsession were false etc. I can't. 

However, today was awful. I was meeting up with friends and felt sort of normal. But my friend was talking about about a story in which someone ended up engaging in incest. She said 'they thought they liked their husband' but ended up not. Their life ended up being a lie. I thought to myself that's probably me. I've been down about it ever since. It can't be that real. I don't know why though. I don't want to leave my house or do anything because all of this is true. I'd rather just stay inside especially because I don't feel any anxiety either.  I was almost going to ask her more about it but I didn't want to look weird. 

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don'tknow, I understand that you're in the trenches, but I don't believe I've seen you taking much time out to give much support to others. Funny, considering the plethora of advice and support your received here. 

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4 hours ago, don't know said:

that all OCD is false and is the opposite of who you are.

I don't think this is an entirely accurate view of OCD, it MAY be true that an OCD anxiety is false and the opposite of who you are, but that doesn't apply to all situations.  For example, if you have a fear of a health issue, say "what if I have a heart attack"?  How can that thought be false?  How can it be the "opposite" of who you are?  

Here's what OCD is:

Obsessions: Unwanted, intrusive thoughts that cause distress
Compulsions: Repetitive behaviors to try and cope with the distress caused by Obsessions

Its a Disorder because it causes significant disruption in your life.

So ask yourself these two questions:

  1. Do you have repeated, intrusive thoughts that make you feel distress?
  2. Do you engage in repeated behavior to try and neutralize the distress you feel about those thoughts?

I think, based on your many posts here that the answer to both questions is yes.  You continue to seek this feeling of "calm" to accept that you have OCD, but then you begin to feel doubt so you stop believing you have OCD.  This is not necessary.  You don't have to feel calm about the idea of having OCD in order to have OCD.  You are looking for certainty, certainty that will continue to elude you.  You have to make a choice, not wait for a feeling.  And you have to stick with that choice even when you feel doubt.  Otherwise you will remain stuck because OCD will cause you to feel doubt.

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Guest OCDhavenobrain

Have to praise dksea for his commitment.

When it comes to your situation idontknow nothing will chamge without you changing something

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Yes Dksea PolarBear and many others display the commitment that helped them tackle this horrible illness. 

Listening to what OCD is telling us, and believing it, is the sure way to stay stuck. 

Listening to the learned carers here, and believing what they say - and Implimenting it - is a pretty sure way to start getting better. 

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