Before i had OCD.

[stanwee lee]

Hi, i am having trouble understanding that non ocd sufferers can have the same thoughts as people with ocd.

I had never suffered with ocd until i was around 17 years old, that is over 30 years now. 

I have had many obsessions in that time and during  times when my ocd was not as severe i would eventually come to accept all those bad thoughts where not my true character and it was ocd and my life would be a lot happier.

I thought all the obsessions i had all started when my ocd started and was reassuring to realize it was ocd and i was not the monster i thought i was.

Although all obsessions are frightening but at the moment the most frightening one for me is of the sexual nature ,even though i know i don't want to and never will act on any of these thoughts they are are still scary and make me doubt myself.

I know we are told that non ocd sufferers react differently from sufferers when we have a scary thought and they can just brush it off more easily and move on with little or no anxiety but here is the problem i am having, i recently remembered something from over 30 years ago before i had ocd , about having an inappropriate sexual thought that has come back to haunt me because  i had completely forgot all about it and i had always thought i never had these kinds of thoughts before my ocd started, it  always make sense that this was my ocd but this happened before i had ocd.  If i remember correctly  i do remember feeling uneasy with this thought at the time, i believe with ocd sufferers that is a good indication that it is ocd at work but again this was before i had ocd , is it possible in the same way an ocd sufferer finds something inappropriate or frightening  is it possible that people without ocd can feel like this too and it is not their real feelings like people with ocd are told ?

Should i be worried that this happened before i had ocd ? Is this an indication perhaps there is something really wrong with me and it is not my ocd?

 

[PolarBear]

What you are doing right here is indicative of OCD. Your mind resurrected a thought from decades ago and here you are, analyzing it, trying to figure it out. You're ruminating over something meaningless, getting worked up over nothing. OCD at play.

Leave it alone. Refuse to get into mind games over a decades-old thought. You don't need to figure anything out.

[paradoxer]

OP's post is a tangle of rumination OCD nonsense. On an incidental note, at the risk of stating the obvious, OCD sufferers also have lots of thoughts they don't obsess about, if it's not the focus of their disorder. OCD sufferers aren't special. 

[stanwee lee]

Thanks for the replIes but what I think I am trying to get at is because I had this thought before I had ocd. Having a thought like this I would be able to dismiss it as ocd but how can I do that when this was before I had ocd ? 

I know my ocd has taken over here and I am ruminating ,obviously people who don't suffer with ocd can also have these thought but people with ocd are told these thoughts are nothing more than thoughts but we attach importance to them and see them as a threat and having some meaning, can that also apply to people who don't have  ocd  or does is make the possibility more likely to be true? Or is it possible that even people who don't have ocd still to some extent have  a scary thought and feel anxiety and their mind can also make them doubt themselves and make their feeling feel real in the same way ocd does.

Thanks.

 

[paradoxer]

It looks like the reason 'why' has become a bit of an obsession in itself, a bit of a rumination there.

I'll bite, but will keep it succinct. Try to understand, the thoughts aren't the problem. It's no suprise at all that you could have the same thought before OCD and feel nothing, or virtually nothing. It's the OCD that's the problem, not the thoughts. Not too complicated really.  

[stanwee lee]

Ok after beating about the. bush so much I am reluctantly going to give specifics about the problem I have.

I didn't suffer from ocd until I was 17 and I have learned as much as I can about this disorder, although hard at times I have come to realise and accept all the horrible things I have experienced  is ocd and very common and I read about people with the exact same thing and I am not alone

. Here is where the problem i am having just now, I remembered recently something that has put the fear in me, I am not 100% sure that this is even real or my ocd is making me remember it this way, here goes,  when I was 16 that as I remember it now that I had a brief little crush on my friends younger sister ,she was about 14 at the time if I remember correctly it wasn't having sexual images or thinking about anything sexual just that she was pretty or something like that if I am correct I do remember feeling a bit anxious because she was only about 14 if the anxiety makes any difference, as I didn't have ocd at that time ,once the initial anxiety faded I just got on with my normal everyday things and completely forgot all about it until now, if I had ocd at that time I would just have brushed it off as my ocd but I didn't at that time. 

Because I had forgot all about this I initially believed I never had thoughts or feelings like that before having ocd and totally pinned it solely on ocd ,in my mind at the moment I am worried that normal people wouldn't have had this feeling and there has always been something wrong with me all along.

i know I am ruminating and my ocd has completely taken over and that is totally what ocd does and I am probably looking for reassurance which I shouldn't do but I really am hoping that someone can tell me this is nothing to worry about.

Should I be worried or am I over exadurating this whole thing and normal people in fact can have thoughts and feelings like this and it doesn't mean anything or that I am some sort of deviant.

[PolarBear]

It doesn't matter if you had a thought before, during or after OCD. It doesnt matter. It's a thought. You have the ability to dismiss it as irrelevant.

What matters is that you are fixated on it now. That's OCD at work.

[Closed for repairs]

A few years ago, a part of a popular kids TV show was to shout "BOGIES!" Very loudly in public places, libraries and such . This reawakened my urge to shout rude words at school assembly. It also made it clear that this was quite a common thing.

I don't do it, it's not OCD , it doesn't feel the same it just pops up and I ignore it or have a little chuckle to myself.

As I understand it OCD has a habit of grabbing on to what's important to you.

It's not that it creates the thoughts , it attaches importance to them.

The ones that's popped up for you is "Was I a bad person years ago", with I expect the supplementary thought "am I still a bad person"

Pre OCD it probably went "that's not very nice, I wonder if I'm a bad person? I'm hungry, what's for dinner, ooh ice cream , I like ice cream, it was funny on the Simpsons when homer eats just the chocolate out of the Neapolitan, Homers  funny , mmm ice cream....."

Except you don't notice this because it's just stuff.

Today it's , "that's not very nice, I'm hungry.....(HEY! go back you can't have nasty thoughts your nice, Better check that you don't mean it. YOU MUST BE SURE!) But dinner.. ice cream.(NO TIME FOR ICE CREAM, YOU MIGHT BE A BAD PERSON).

The too long didn't read is 

Are you a bad person?

I dunno,  probably not if your putting this much effort into not being one.

Can you be sure? 

No , and that's the trick not carrying about the doubt.

You do your best and have to be happy with that, like the rest of us.

 

[paradoxer]

18 hours ago, stanwee lee said:

Ok after beating about the. bush so much I am reluctantly going to give specifics about the problem I have.

I didn't suffer from ocd until I was 17 and I have learned as much as I can about this disorder, although hard at times I have come to realise and accept all the horrible things I have experienced  is ocd and very common and I read about people with the exact same thing and I am not alone

. Here is where the problem i am having just now, I remembered recently something that has put the fear in me, I am not 100% sure that this is even real or my ocd is making me remember it this way, here goes,  when I was 16 that as I remember it now that I had a brief little crush on my friends younger sister ,she was about 14 at the time if I remember correctly it wasn't having sexual images or thinking about anything sexual just that she was pretty or something like that if I am correct I do remember feeling a bit anxious because she was only about 14 if the anxiety makes any difference, as I didn't have ocd at that time ,once the initial anxiety faded I just got on with my normal everyday things and completely forgot all about it until now, if I had ocd at that time I would just have brushed it off as my ocd but I didn't at that time. 

Because I had forgot all about this I initially believed I never had thoughts or feelings like that before having ocd and totally pinned it solely on ocd ,in my mind at the moment I am worried that normal people wouldn't have had this feeling and there has always been something wrong with me all along.

i know I am ruminating and my ocd has completely taken over and that is totally what ocd does and I am probably looking for reassurance which I shouldn't do but I really am hoping that someone can tell me this is nothing to worry about.

Should I be worried or am I over exadurating this whole thing and normal people in fact can have thoughts and feelings like this and it doesn't mean anything or that I am some sort of deviant.

It looks like you're fishing for reassurance here. I'll just say this, put the question down, don't tarry with it, and move on. 

Best. 

[stanwee lee]

I know I am, I'm hoping someone can reassure that what I thought could happen to anyone, to me it just seems that normal people couldn't have a moment like that and it means nothing, if someone could explain to me they could it would be a starting point to let it go.

I do know the nature that people with ocd can have a thought and attach some meaning to it and it threatens their core values, whereas people without ocd would hardly notice the exact same thought and just let it pass because they know it means nothing about themselves.

i know the aftermath of this memory is totally ocd and I know in my heart that I am not some kind of sexual deviant and the thought of it terrifies me, but how can I just ignore it and move on as if memory of the event is accurate I can't blame it on Ocd?

Edited September 5, 2019 by stanwee lee

[paradoxer]

Alright, against my better judgement ... and the last bit of reassaurance you'll get from me, at any rate ... everything you describe in your earlier anecdotal post is clearly, obviously, OCD and nothing more ... it's nothing. The slight dismissive anxiety you felt is normal (some people might not have even felt that), the excruciating anxiety you feel now is not. Now take that to the bank, move on and forget it. (I doubt my reassurance will be enough ... it never is). 

 

[dksea]

On 30/08/2019 at 21:44, stanwee lee said:

i had completely forgot all about it and i had always thought i never had these kinds of thoughts before my ocd started, it  always make sense that this was my ocd but this happened before i had ocd.

OCD doesn't make you have thoughts.  OCD makes you obsess about thoughts you are having anyway.  Everyone has these kinds of thoughts, its how the brain works, processing vast amounts of information, far more than you could possible comprehend if you had to do it without the brains natural filters.  Your brain processes and ignores more thoughts in a day than you will consciously recognize in a lifetime.  Just think about it.  Imagine yourself in a public place, say a shopping center.  Hundreds of people around you.  Lets just take a snapshot of a brief moment.  Hundreds of conversations, hundreds of faces, hundreds of scents, even the feel of the air on your skin.  Your body is taking it ALL in at any given moment and processing ALL of it, automatically deciding what to pay attention to and what to ignore.  All those conversations?  You are hearing and ignoring them, not important.  Your brain is having a thought about each and every one of them.  Every smell is causing your brain to have a thought.  Every face you see is triggering thoughts, and your brain is basically throwing almost all of them in a bin.  Then, in the sea of hundreds of faces your brain recognizes the face of a person you know.  Its not that your brain saw ONLY that face and had a thought "ah I recognize that person".  Its that your brain noticed EVERY SINGLE FACE and had the thought "nope, don't recognize that one" "nope, don't recognize that one".  Your brain is CONSTANTLY THINKING, its entire purpose is to do that!  Every second of every day thats what it does, and you only are aware of a tiny fraction of it because you only NEED to be aware of a tiny fraction of it.

Bottom line, the thoughts aren't the problem, they never were. Treat the thoughts using CBT, OCD is lying by telling you they are important, that they are worth worrying about, that they are worth wasting your life and time on.  It doesn't matter when you had the thought.

 

[Handy]

All day long you use your neocortex or new brain. OCD comes from the primitive amygdala.  If you react it gets sent to your amygdala or anxiety center. Same for nonOCD people. There is no deciding point just because someone has a more sensitive amygdala. 

14? So what. In most of USA you can marry a child. Puberty is supposed to be attractive that’s it’s evolutionary purpose.  I’m not saying to act on it but that it triggers evolutionary thoughts. 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Handy

[stanwee lee]

On 06/09/2019 at 21:42, Handy said:

All day long you use your neocortex or new brain. OCD comes from the primitive amygdala.  If you react it gets sent to your amygdala or anxiety center. Same for nonOCD people. There is no deciding point just because someone has a more sensitive amygdala. 

14? So what. In most of USA you can marry a child. Puberty is supposed to be attractive that’s it’s evolutionary purpose.  I’m not saying to act on it but that it triggers evolutionary thoughts. 

Thanks handy.

I haven't been on here for a while, i thought i had moved on from this but it has just hit me again. I guess i just cant forgive myself if i actually did feel any crush or attraction to my friends sister because she was only 14, the thought actually fills me with dread that it is a sign i was a sick person even before i had ocd and never realized it until now and i cant  pass it off as ocd. I can live or even tolerate dealing with my ocd and all the themes it has dragged up over the past 30+ years because i eventually  realize and accept it as ocd.

i know people with ocd can have a trigger and ocd takes over, an example in my case, one day i saw a knife in a cupboard and the thought i could stab someone totally took over my life and i was totally consumed for years with the fear of harming people, all the years of worrying i eventually realized it was ocd and not my real feelings or desire in fact it was the opposite, that was why i was so affraid. I had come to realize this is what ocd does but with this latest obsession feels different because it was a feeling i had and not a thought, i am finding it hard to dismiss this because surely a feeling is more serious than a thought?

As i have said in my OP it was over 30 years ago and i am not even 100% sure f i did have this feeling but as i remember it now i think i did. She was a really pretty girl maybe i am confusing myself and  and maybe i just found her pretty , if not ,if i could understood a normal healthy person could have a thought or feeling like this and it meant nothing just like we are told with ocd. I am hoping someone could tell me people have thoughts like this all the time, if that were true it would be a good starting point and i would come to realize that ocd has found a sneaky way to pull me in again.

Edited November 6, 2019 by stanwee lee

[stanwee lee]

The last paragraph does anyone have any thoughts ? Please.

[PolarBear]

Classic OCD that you are fixated on a thought you had 30 years ago. 

Let it go. There is nothing to figure out.

[paradoxer]

Standard OCD rubbish, as the classic cop say, 'Nothing to see here, keep on moving ...'

[stanwee lee]

18 hours ago, PolarBear said:

Classic OCD that you are fixated on a thought you had 30 years ago. 

Let it go. There is nothing to figure out.

I totally agree with you, why should a thought I had 30 years ago cause me such anguish, it doesn't make sense. I have had this thought pop up a few times through the past 30 years and I would just brush it off but for some reason I can't this time. I could understand if an initial thought like this popped into my head when I had ocd I would (eventually, usually after a lot of despair ) just brush it off as a false flag and my ocd at work but the stumbling block for me is because it was before I had ocd.  I know it is a very common obsession that ocd sufferers have but i can't just brush it off and see it as nothing, I find it hard to comprehend non ocd sufferers would have a feeling like that and it is normal to have that feeling, to me it just seems so wrong and unnatural.

I am so confused atm,  The thought of being attracted or anything sexual  towards young girls is not something that turns me on and from the bottom of my being I would never ever do anything inappropriate as the whole idea of it is totally sick and I would like to string up anyone who did.

Apart from remembering this incident from 30 years ago I had always believed I was a normal heterosexual male who enjoyed any normal sexual experiences. 

The bit in bold is why I can't let it go, anyone been through anything similar or have any advice on how I can?

[Closed for repairs]

28 minutes ago, stanwee lee said:

The bit in bold is why I can't let it go, anyone been through anything similar or have any advice on how I can?

Yes you have.

 

On 06/11/2019 at 14:40, stanwee lee said:

one day i saw a knife in a cupboard and the thought i could stab someone totally took over my life and i was totally consumed for years with the fear of harming people,

It's the same thing in a different, outfit .

[PolarBear]

You let it go by letting it go. Tell yourself it's okay not to ponder over it. 

You can ruminate over this for as long as you want but you won't get anywhere, except further into a black hole of anxiety and thinking.

 

[stanwee lee]

On 08/11/2019 at 13:58, Closed for repairs said:

Yes you have.

 

It's the same thing in a different, outfit .

But is it the same ?

The example you quoted happened when i had ocd, i eventually learned to realize it was ocd, now i know i never would or could harm anyone but the latest obsession i have is about something i thought /felt before i had ocd so i can't lay it at the door as being ocd, believe me i would love to.

I know i have just recently remembered this from over 30 years ago and my ocd has completely taken over and i know people are telling me it is ocd, i know my reaction and dealing with it is ocd but that doesn't take away from the fact that it was when i was ocd free and i can't just brush it off as nothing, the way i see it is it must mean something surely no one normal could have this thought or feeling, or do they ?

 

 

[PolarBear]

The point is, it doesn't matter. That you thought something when you didn't have OCD is immaterial. You had lots of thoughts free of OCD. Good, bad, neutral. They're just thoughts and they mean NOTHING ten minutes later, let alone 30 years.

We are not going to engage with your OCD and debate with you the merits of that thought. Because it doesn't matter. Treat it that way.

[dksea]

On 08/11/2019 at 22:29, stanwee lee said:

I find it hard to comprehend non ocd sufferers would have a feeling like that and it is normal to have that feeling, to me it just seems so wrong and unnatural.

Whether you comprehend it or not, its true.  Studies have been done that demonstrate its true.  People have "bad" thoughts.  ALL people.  
The difference between an OCD sufferer and non-sufferer is that non-sufferers have little to no trouble dismissing these thoughts as the meaningless noise they are.  OCD sufferers have trouble doing the same thing.  Thats it, that's all there is to comprehend about these thoughts.
 

[stanwee lee]

On 11/11/2019 at 01:12, dksea said:

Whether you comprehend it or not, its true.  Studies have been done that demonstrate its true.  People have "bad" thoughts.  ALL people.  
The difference between an OCD sufferer and non-sufferer is that non-sufferers have little to no trouble dismissing these thoughts as the meaningless noise they are.  OCD sufferers have trouble doing the same thing.  Thats it, that's all there is to comprehend about these thoughts.
 

Sorry to be bringing this up again and i know many of you think i should let it go but this obsession has resurfaced, i am still having trouble understanding and accepting it means nothing.

If this did happen the way i think i remember it did and this was before i had ocd, that i had a little crush/ fancied/thought she was pretty or whatever, it was not anything sexual, say that was actually my true feelings and it was true and was more than just a random  intrusive thought that anyone could have, what does that say about me?  Surely i cant be normal having that thought  i have tried telling myself, so what you thought she was pretty or whatever, big deal, it doesn't make you  a sick or bad person i bet many people have had similar thoughts, i just wish i could believe that that was true and it would stick.

As i have said previously, i do remember feeling uneasy and anxious at the time and moments later it was forgot about which i hope means something positive,  If i had ocd at the time i would be past this by now.

I cant stop thinking about this and every time i get a little rest bite from this, which doesn't last very long my mind quickly tells me it is abnormal and i am sick and i am stuck all over again.

[PolarBear]

And that is just OCD doing what it does. Those thoughts like 'you're abnormal' are obsessions. They too can be dismissed.