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Hi All just wanted to see if anybody else gets this type of Compulsion. 

One of my compulsions involves me having to go over a certain thing in my head to check that it's OK. 

Once I've done it I normally say a reassuring word in my head which means I'm reassured. 

The problem I've got is once that same thing comes back into my head again (sometimes unintentially) and I don't get the reassurance feeling from it I then feel compelled to go back over it to get the reassurance otherwise I wonder if it is really something to worry about. 

It's almost as if no matter how many times I've previously checked it and been reassured about it, only the last time counts therefore if I don't recheck it to get the reassurance then all of the previous reassurances have been wiped out and mean nothing? 

Anybody else get this? 

I feel I must redo the compulsion again to get the reassurance again to be able to move forward..... ?

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Yup. Welcome to recovery. It's relatively simple but it's not easy. 

You have to bite your tongue and not give yourself that reassurance. When you do give it, you crave it more and more in the future. When you stop it, your anxiety rises but it will eventually come down all by itself.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi All, 

Ive been going through the emotional dark times again over the last few days really getting worked up with worry and anxiety and in tears and it's really affecting family life. 

As mentioned above i go over my worries in my head and try to get the feeling that it's nothing to worry about. 

I recall doing this loads of times with this particular worry, and each time it results in a different reassurance response (although a positive one each time) ranging from me saying something inside my head, or aloud to myself, which means I'm reassured, or simply just saying 'fine' which is another word I use when I realise its nothing to worry about, to making a noise that I call my reassurance noise as its a noise I make when I get reassurance. 

The problem is, as an example, when I said the other day 'fine', I then afterwards had to check the 'fine' to see what I meant by it and I checked to see what fine meant twice and I realised each time that its something I say when I realise its nothing to worry about.....

The last time I reassured myself directly about this particular worry was yesterday morning, although I have done indirect reassurance by reminding myself of the reassurance noise I got when I checked it yesterday.

When I reassured myself yesterday I did the 'reassurance noise' and afterwards, I said to myself 'that was a good one' to make myself realise that the worry isn't anything to worry about and I am reassured, but then almost immediately afterwards, I wondered if it really was a good one or whether I was just trying to persuade myself and lie to myself about it....

I feel like I need to think about the worry again and go through it inside my head again to get reassured again as it is still hovering over me and making me worried and why would it be staying around me and worrying me if it really wasn't something to worry about? 

 

Edited by MentalChecker
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24 minutes ago, MentalChecker said:

 

I feel like I need to think about the worry again and go through it inside my head again to get reassured again as it is still hovering over me and making me worried and why would it be staying around me and worrying me if it really wasn't something to worry about? 

Because it's all nonsense fabricated by OCD. Time-wasting worthless nonsense. And repetitively obsessive, hence it sticks around. 

You need to work on leaving all this be, not ruminating, rather getting beneficial distractions through refocusing away. 

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7 hours ago, taurean said:

Because it's all nonsense fabricated by OCD. Time-wasting worthless nonsense. And repetitively obsessive, hence it sticks around. 

You need to work on leaving all this be, not ruminating, rather getting beneficial distractions through refocusing away. 

But the thing I am worrying about isn't  nonsense or irrational the thing I worry about it is possible. 

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The only irrational thing I can see is that if I've already checked the thing I'm worried about and I've said fine and then checked that fine twice to realise its the thing I say when I realise theres nothing wrong with the thing I'm worried about and I've also made several reassurance noises that I make when I think about sometning and I get reassured, then if I've done all this so many times then why do I need to check it again even though i've thought about it again unintentially and I didn't get the feeling that it's fine or OK or get the reassurance this time....if I've got it all those other times then surely it must be fine even though I haven't got that same feeling this time...... But the urge is so strong to get me to check if again just to make sure that it's defintely nothing to worry about. 

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2 hours ago, MentalChecker said:

But the thing I am worrying about isn't  nonsense or irrational the thing I worry about it is possible. 

Murder isn't nonsense.
Me worrying I've been secretly murdering people in my sleep is nonsense.

Rape isn't nonsense.
Me worrying that simply because I can't remember every detail of a night that means I might have raped someone (even though there is no reason to believe I did) is nonsense.

Getting cancer isn't nonsense.
Me worrying that I walked by a construction site once and maybe saw some white stuff nearby that could have been asbestos and now I'm going to die of lung cancer is nonsense.

The root idea can be very real, very bad, very serious, we aren't saying the root idea, what a thought centers around is, itself nonsense.
Instead we are saying that the line of thinking that connects OCD sufferers to such an idea, the level of worry put in to it, the odds of it being anything worth worrying about to the degree we worry about it, are nonsense.  OCD distorts your perception of risk, it distorts your sense of doubt, it exaggerates and straight up lies to you.  I could come up with a million technically possible scenarios for whatever your particular worry is, all of them directly connecting you to that thought.  It doesn't make any of them true.  It doesn't make any of them likely.  Just because its possible for a connection to exist does not mean it actually does.

You are worried that something terrible happened/you did something terrible, but you just don't remember doing it (or didn't realize you did it, etc.)?

How about this:  What if, instead of something horrible, you did something incredible.  What if, you found a hidden treasure with billions.  And then you forgot.  Doesn't really matter how, could have been you were given an amnesia drug.  Could be magic.  Could be traumatic amnesia.  Could be some kind of advanced technology.  Maybe you had a minor stroke.  maybe a cosmic ray hit your brain in just the right way at just the right time to disrupt you retaining the memory of the treasure find.  All of these are possible to varying degrees of probability, but its doubtful you'd even consider the idea that you secretly found a hidden treasure and forgot about it.  I mean if you had, wouldn't you be spending all your time trying to remember it?  We are talking BILLIONS here.  If you find it you are set for LIFE.  So why aren't you searching for that treasure?  Because the idea is absurd?  Because you tell yourself "surely I'd remember if that happened, those amnesia explanations are nuts!".  Ok no replace the idea with the bad one you currently have.  How is it any different?  Both situations are POSSIBLE after all, they describe situations that COULD actually happen.  Yet you don't give the treasure idea even a PASSING thought.  You easily dismiss it, don't waste a second on it.  Why? Because its not an intrusive thought OCD has latched on to.  Thats the only difference.  A thought OCD has latched on to, and a thought it hasn't.  Otherwise basically the same.Its not about seriousness.  All OCD thoughts are non-sense.

 

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