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Worried ? & False Memory (Merged Thread)


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Please don’t give out to me but I’m so distressed. I literally put my baby down on her bum on the sitting room floor and as I did it I almost felt that all of bum front and back would be moved by this and then when I normally would stop the action I finished it out with moving her across the floor whilst thinking this was happening (all of her nether regions rubbing off the floor). Now I’m so upset that I’ve harmed her.

It was like a forced the action that I was doing anyway and now I’m so upset.

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What you did was set your kid on the floor. The rest of it is OCD mind games, just like the last 100 times.

Don't let OCD catch you off guard. You choose to freak out and do compulsions. Choose differently.

Edited by PolarBear
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Come on Nikki.....you've got to draw on the work you've done in therapy and try to apply it.  I know it's tough but resorting to compulsions isn't going to help any, is it?  You saw your therapist this week, would he recommend this course of action?

OCD and it's intrusions are scary and challenging but we do gave some power.  We can capitulate at every thought and be laid flat by anxiety or we can use the tools we've had recommended.  Even then it's scary but it's heading in the direction of getting our lives back.  Time to draw on your therapy sessions and try to put the feedback into practise

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8 hours ago, Nikki79 said:

but I’m so distressed.

Ok, you are distressed.  And that sucks.  Time for a little tough love, we ALL get distressed, its what OCD does.  If we didn't, we wouldn't have OCD to begin with.  The fact that you are distressed doesn't change anything.  Right now you are stuck (and looks like have been for awhile) on the idea that feeling distressed means something more than simply that you have OCD. 

Feeling distress doesn't mean the threat/fear is real. You need to work on separating the fact that you feel bad with the thing you fear being worth paying attention to.

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Thanks for writing guys. I know I need to pull on what I’ve learned on this forum (invaluable) and what I do in therapy. My Therapist says I need to go towards the anxiety and not run from it. I must write down this week how I challenged it. Would not ruminating be one? If I could manage that no matter what the thought. What do you think? Any suggestions welcome as I do have to be proactive here. For example I had a ‘worry’ come into my mind two days ago that I’ve been trying not to dwell on, I managed to get drawn in last night but today I’m working on not giving it time. Is this challenging?

Edited by Nikki79
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A friend called over there and I had to change my baby’s nappy and I ha weird thoughts and feelings whilst doing this. Whilst normally I would control the thoughts and be totally aware of what I was doing, I couldn’t when she was here so I felt anxious after having to remember what happened and not fully. I will try not to dwell 

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Ugh I dunno what’s going on but I feel like my mind is hyper vigilant to anything which might convict me at the moment. My baby was leaning at the back of my legs, trying to stand up while I made her food and cos she was under my butt and I was thinking oh God could anything come wrong to her hear now. I think felt anxious after but stood there again and let her do it again to try see what happened, I then froze ok the spot for a second and panicked and thought oh God what’s happening ... 

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Sorry guys failing into the trap again please ignore previous posts. It’s so tough tho I mean I’m currently experiencing anxiety about a thought I had most likely about a thought I had but then worry there was something in it?  Does this make sense to anyone? Ugh my head is pounding from it all 

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1 hour ago, PolarBear said:

You're overthinking it, Nikki.

You don't have to tell us about every obsession. It's a compulsion of yours.

But what am I to do when I have an episode like earlier today? Like I got very concerned over remembering something that sparked huge worry. I wanted to try remember where it came now from exactly so I know what happened if anything happened. WHat would you do? 

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20 minutes ago, Nikki79 said:

But what am I to do when I have an episode like earlier today? Like I got very concerned over remembering something that sparked huge worry. I wanted to try remember where it came now from exactly so I know what happened if anything happened. WHat would you do? 

That's where you're going wrong, you need to not engage with the thought no matter how distressing.  Analysing it is feeding the obsession. 

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8 minutes ago, PinkPrincess1981 said:

That's where you're going wrong, you need to not engage with the thought no matter how distressing.  Analysing it is feeding the obsession. 

I know and part of me really doesn’t want to but I’m scared not to also does that make sense? 

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39 minutes ago, Nikki79 said:

But what am I to do when I have an episode like earlier today? Like I got very concerned over remembering something that sparked huge worry. I wanted to try remember where it came now from exactly so I know what happened if anything happened. WHat would you do? 

Nikki, we've told you repeatedly what to do.

You seem to think these instances you raise here are somehow different than what we are talking about. They're not. They are simply obsessions, otherwise known as intrusive thoughts. That's all they are.

As obsessions, you can safely ignore them. That's what we want you to do and that's what you need to do. It doesn't matter what the specific thought is or whether it sparked a supposed memory. Irrelevant. Dismiss it as nonsense and get on with your day.

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22 minutes ago, PolarBear said:

Nikki, we've told you repeatedly what to do.

You seem to think these instances you raise here are somehow different than what we are talking about. They're not. They are simply obsessions, otherwise known as intrusive thoughts. That's all they are.

As obsessions, you can safely ignore them. That's what we want you to do and that's what you need to do. It doesn't matter what the specific thought is or whether it sparked a supposed memory. Irrelevant. Dismiss it as nonsense and get on with your day.

I wish I had done that but somehow I got images of what I feared and now that worries me to think are they real or not. How do I pull back? 

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8 minutes ago, PolarBear said:

What did I just tell you to try and do?

You said to dismiss the thought as nonsense but then you see PB I ruminated (regretfully) and had a thought and a familiarity of me doing something that upset me. So hence I’m in more deep now do you see?

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Nikki, it doesn't matter. So you ruminated. So what? You catch yourself ruminating (a compulsion) and you work to focus your attention onto something else. It's that simple. You do it over and over again until you get it right.

There is nothing unusual about what you are describing. It's just intrusive thoughts that you react badly to. 

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6 minutes ago, PolarBear said:

Nikki, it doesn't matter. So you ruminated. So what? You catch yourself ruminating (a compulsion) and you work to focus your attention onto something else. It's that simple. You do it over and over again until you get it right.

There is nothing unusual about what you are describing. It's just intrusive thoughts that you react badly to. 

I guess If I get a worse thought or more worrisome one, I feel more concerned and feel it’s harder to let go. Do you know what I mean? 

 

Edited by Nikki79
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You are just getting tripped up by OCD. You get an intrusive thought. That freaks you out. Then you get another intrusive thought that you think might be a memory. You freak out again. 

It's still intrusive thoughts, obsessions, Nikki. They aren't something that we all haven't experienced thousand of times.

Take a leap of faith that I and others know what we are talking about. We know. Your situation is not different nor unique.

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I want to you know, I really do. I hate being trapped in this loop constantly and feeling worried about different thoughts coming into my head freaking me out cos I must discover where they come from. More and more thoughts keep coming in now even as we speak with the worry of there being something there and actually the original thought wasn’t even that bad?? Or let’s say didn’t feel as bad 

Edited by Nikki79
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Hey Nikki,

That's exactly it, it's a loop, a vicious cycle. You know you can break that right?

Here's the good bit, you do not need to worry yourself over discovering where these thoughts have come from. 

Something that helped me massively was picturing how my life would be if I just discarded these thoughts and didnt engage with them, I got a rush of excitement it was mad.. and then I thought, "well why dont I?"

So I did. And I'm doing better. Have faith in these people on here they speak sense :)

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8 minutes ago, BM94 said:

Hey Nikki,

That's exactly it, it's a loop, a vicious cycle. You know you can break that right?

Here's the good bit, you do not need to worry yourself over discovering where these thoughts have come from. 

Something that helped me massively was picturing how my life would be if I just discarded these thoughts and didnt engage with them, I got a rush of excitement it was mad.. and then I thought, "well why dont I?"

So I did. And I'm doing better. Have faith in these people on here they speak sense :)

What about new thoughts around the original thought? That make it feel more worrisome? How do you deal with that? 

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3 minutes ago, Nikki79 said:

How do you deal with that? 

There's the magic, you don't deal with it at all. Don't need to.

The brain is a powerful thing, so once you give attention to a nothing thought you start unwrapping it like a Christmas present.

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22 minutes ago, Nikki79 said:

What about new thoughts around the original thought? That make it feel more worrisome? How do you deal with that? 

The same way, you don't give it any attention.  You keep trying to come up with exceptions, and we are telling you PB, BM, Caramoole, now me, there aren't exceptions.
No "but what if..."
No "but this time..."
No "ok but..."
No " but I started to ruminate..."
The way to respond and treat the intrusive thought is always the same, avoid compulsions, avoid rumination, focus as much as you can on something else.
If you start ruminating and feel worse?  Same response.
If you feel more anxiety than before? Same response.
If you feel slightly different than another similar time? Same response.
 

39 minutes ago, Nikki79 said:

I want to you know,

Of course, and that's understandable, and we can all relate.  Thats the problem though, with OCD, sometimes you CAN'T get that feeling of "knowing", at least not right away and not the way you usually do.  If you could you wouldn't have OCD.  To recover you have to ACT like you know, you have to ACT the way you normally would if you DID know.  The knowing comes later.  Does it suck? Yes.  Is it unpleasant? Yes.  Is there another option? Not really, no.  If you do the work, if you follow PB's excellent advice above the doubt will ease in time.  If you don't, well you know, the doubt just gets worse.  It would be great if you (or any of us) could make the doubt go away instantly, trust me, we all want that, but until someone comes up with that level of cure, we have to do things the best way we know, and that's the CBT approach, the approach PB et al. are telling you to do.  Its not immediate, but it works, we know it works, and those of us who have done it are better off for it. You can be to.  But its a choice you have to make and stick with.  Day after day after day.

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