My experience with Harm OCD

[Savy]

×××Ok first off I just want to let you guys know that I sorta go into detail here about some of my intrusive thoughts and what triggered them.xxx

 

Although I find it hard to believe I'm still suffering from OCD these days, that doesn't change the fact that it played a huge part in my past. I was diagnosed with harm OCD back in 2015. I remember the dreadful feelings it brought me, it's a hell I wouldn't wish anyone to go through. I dont know when it started exactly but I remember the days where it really started to bother me. At first I was afraid that I might have ADHD but then I started having intrusive thoughts about killing so yeah that obsession quickly changed. One memory that probably started it all was when I was just wandering around outside and thinking of all the different ways you could kill someone with everyday items. Then I realized that those thoughts were really ****** up and I shouldn't be thinking like that, why would I think like that? Needless to say, it scared me. I would surpress those thoughts and take these silly obviously fake online quizes about if I was insane or not. I would always get results saying I was half crazy or not there yet but going insane. I know it's stupid but I was a kid on the internet, I didn't know any better. The amount of anxiety I felt only made me feel like I was about to snap because I had no idea that it was anxeity. I knew nothing about it at the time cause to me, OCD was just another word for perfectionist. This ****** me off, of course.. I mean, I think about how if 13 year old me was just a little more educated on the disease then I wouldn't have gone so deep into it.. but I didn't know anything. It caused me so much damage. I wouldn't be the person I hate today if I didn't have to go through the pain of believing I was slowly watching myself lose my sanity. Hell, even typing this out makes me upset in a teary kind of way. I'm sorry if this makes anyone upset too. Maybe you find it relatable.. or you just feel sympathetic but that can be a good thing, I guess. Anyways, back to my experiences, I remember I would check with myself a lot by asking if I would hurt someone or whatever and I would always get a rush of anxiety and say no immediately. I'm pretty sure that was a compulsion that ended up making this worse. One day I saw a video about creepy 911 calls and one of them was a kid who called because he had um.. murdered his family and that he always wanted to do it. The kid had no emotion in his voice but to me it seemed like he called because he knew he had messed up. They said he seemed like a broken soul.. this alarmed me because it implied that your soul can be broken.. what if my soul breaks? What if I just snap?!? It hasn't left my head since. Now back to the compulsion I mentioned earlier about checking my emotions, one day I didn't have the same responses I used to. I guess I was numb? I felt like I was becoming that kid. If it was just numbness then i've been numb for 3-4 years now, oops. The anxiety was like reassuring to me I guess but my brain obviously had enough. One day I was scared of hurting others and then the next day something just switched in my brain and felt so exhausted and careless. I had become depressed. After that I haven't really felt empathy for anyone, I became indifferent. Now the reason why I don't believe it's OCD anymore is because it just doesn't feel the same. I'm probably just depressed because of my past. These days I tend to ruminate a lot to try and get myself to care about the lives of others when I don't see the point in it like some sort of psychotic depression? but I'm not going to get into that unless someone asks me to? Maybe? I've already typed enough and this post is about just some of the things I went through harm OCD so I'm just going to leave it at that. Thanks for reading.

[UpsAndDowns]

Hi Savy,

I'm sorry you're having these intrusive thoughts.

Have you spoken to a therapist or counselor about them?

It's good that you're able to identify the compulsions.  Are you able to reduce doing them?  I know it's tough when the compulsions involve thinking.