Jump to content

What is this?


Recommended Posts

As a lot of you may know, I really doubt I have OCD anymore. I havn't felt anxiety or guilt for about 5-6 years now. I pretty much just obsess and analyze now? I know that what I felt in the beginning was definitely OCD but I feel completely different now. I feel like a sociopath, here's why. My emotions are pretty dull in general, though I understand that part isn't exactly proof i'm a sociopath. What does convince me however, is the fact that I over analyze these messed up thoughts as a means to understand why they're so bad. I have thoughts about justifying murder which arn't really intrusive. Yes, i'd like to get rid of this mindset of mine but I think of these thoughts on purpose to try and fix myself and since I've been through harm OCD before, I know what an intrusive thoughts feels like and these current ones are more of some psychotic exsitential crisis or something. It's like I don't know what's wrong with my old fear anymore and I don't think that's an OCD thing. OCDers know that their thoughts are irrational but me? I'm confused about them! I feel like the only one going through this sort of thing. I think the only reason why I know it's wrong is because I haven't always been like this. I grew up fairly normal and empathetic in a society that deems these thoughts are horrible. I need help...

Link to comment

I am no expert by any means but I would say this is OCD in a different guise. OCD morphs as we know. You are obviously bothered about these feelings or lack of or you would not be here asking. You obviously do care and are anxious, even if you feel you aren't, as you would not care enough otherwise to come to this forum and you would not be analysing yourself. Maybe you become desensitised to the typical and original ocd themes so your brain moved on to another subject that bothers you and bother you it does!! I have learned a lot through the last few years on OCD and it seems to really affect the sensitive, the over thinkers, the good guys this is why it causes so much misery and pain as it affects the very people that deserve a peaceful life. You should treat this as OCD and not engage would be my advice otherwise the longer you dwell on it the more confused you will be.

Link to comment

You say that sufferers know their thoughts are irrational. Not true. Some sufferers have good insight and many have poor insight.

As for your lack of distress, I don't buy it. You may ferl numb but clearly this all bothers you else you wouldn't be here looking for help.

Link to comment

Let me expand on this cause I feel like you guys don't really understand. Of course I didn't think like this in the beginning of my OCD **** but these days I often ruminate and analyze on certain thoughts to try and change my views but as you all know, it doesn't work. I swear i'm just in denial at this point. I think about how life doesn't matter. It doesn't matter when someone dies because when they do, they just don't exist anymore. They feel the way they did before they were born. It really doesn't matter how the person dies either because they will just forget about it anyways. We literally just come into existence and then one day all of our thoughts and memories will be gone, so why does it matter if I or someone else dies? You might care about being alive now but when you're dead, nothing will matter to you cause you wouldn't even be conscious to care. My "harm OCD" if you even wanna call it that, applies these thoughts to murder. These are thoughts that I believe to be true but I honestly just want my old self back. Sometimes I get confused on why we have empathy and relationships so I ruminate on that. This isn't normal at all. That's why I think I don't have OCD, I swear I have a personality disorder or something.

Link to comment

These thoughts bother you though or you would not ruminate and analyse. You feel like they don't but they do or you would not give them your time. What you explain is how people often feel when they look too deeply into things, like what's the point in anything when one day we will die and life will go on without us and everything we felt or loved or thought then means nothing. Everyone feels that. Charles Darwin lost his daughter and was heartbroken and that changed him massively and his way of thinking about the origin of species and how insignificant we are in the scheme of things...Einstein too pondered on these questions. We all would if we over thought. We do no understand the bigger picture if there is a heaven or an afterlife. You are only equating the relevance or irrelevance of murder because you are becoming numb to all this confusion. Of course you know murder is wrong or these thoughts would not bother you and cause you to go over and over them. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, just try not to overthink as that is what gets us all in this mess.

Edited by MarieJo
Link to comment

Savy, you have to take a leap of faith that we know what we are talking about. It's all OCD. Explaining it again or in a different way won't change our minds.

Interesting that your above post is trying to show us your problem is not OCD yet several times you describe how you ruminate, which is the most common OCD compulsion. 

Link to comment
On 27/12/2020 at 06:02, Savy said:

Let me expand on this cause I feel like you guys don't really understand. Of course I didn't think like this in the beginning of my OCD **** but these days I often ruminate and analyze on certain thoughts to try and change my views but as you all know, it doesn't work. I swear i'm just in denial at this point. I think about how life doesn't matter. It doesn't matter when someone dies because when they do, they just don't exist anymore. They feel the way they did before they were born. It really doesn't matter how the person dies either because they will just forget about it anyways. We literally just come into existence and then one day all of our thoughts and memories will be gone, so why does it matter if I or someone else dies? You might care about being alive now but when you're dead, nothing will matter to you cause you wouldn't even be conscious to care. My "harm OCD" if you even wanna call it that, applies these thoughts to murder. These are thoughts that I believe to be true but I honestly just want my old self back. Sometimes I get confused on why we have empathy and relationships so I ruminate on that. This isn't normal at all. That's why I think I don't have OCD, I swear I have a personality disorder or something.

Hi Savy,

I have understood what you've been saying all along. I really don't mean any disrespect but I just don't understand what you're really trying to achieve. I mean you come to an OCD forum to tell people that you don't have OCD, you disagree when people tell you otherwise and you claim to not be distressed about this. Yet you have posted multiple threads describing the same problem. So I would like to understand what you're hoping to get out of this?

Link to comment
8 hours ago, malina said:

Hi Savy,

I have understood what you've been saying all along. I really don't mean any disrespect but I just don't understand what you're really trying to achieve. I mean you come to an OCD forum to tell people that you don't have OCD, you disagree when people tell you otherwise and you claim to not be distressed about this. Yet you have posted multiple threads describing the same problem. So I would like to understand what you're hoping to get out of this?

I guess i'm desperate for some sort of explanation and someone who relates to these issues. I read the replies and some of the topics i've created and there are some that have helped me a bit but I tend to overthink things or still find myself confused on what's exactly going on in my brain. I understand that writing on forums isn't going to magically cure me so I plan on trying to get professional help next year but in the meantime I can rant about the thoughts that bother me so much. I've been keeping these problems a secret for a very long time and i'm sick of bottling them up. Also, seeing how there isn't many threads out there realated to my issues, I make them myself so that maybe some time in the future, someone will read these threads and think "hey that's me!" Instead of being in the situation I am currently in where I feel as though I have nobody to really relate to.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Savy said:

I guess i'm desperate for some sort of explanation and someone who relates to these issues. I read the replies and some of the topics i've created and there are some that have helped me a bit but I tend to overthink things or still find myself confused on what's exactly going on in my brain. I understand that writing on forums isn't going to magically cure me so I plan on trying to get professional help next year but in the meantime I can rant about the thoughts that bother me so much. I've been keeping these problems a secret for a very long time and i'm sick of bottling them up. Also, seeing how there isn't many threads out there realated to my issues, I make them myself so that maybe some time in the future, someone will read these threads and think "hey that's me!" Instead of being in the situation I am currently in where I feel as though I have nobody to really relate to.

Hey Savy,

that sounds more than fair. You may not believe me, but I do relate to what you are describing in your posts. I think that everyone who has responded to you so far does. Since you’re already here, I hope that you will take some of our advice on board and try to believe the possibility that all of this is a part of your OCD. It’s good that you plan to get help next year. Take care! 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, malina said:

Hey Savy,

that sounds more than fair. You may not believe me, but I do relate to what you are describing in your posts. I think that everyone who has responded to you so far does. Since you’re already here, I hope that you will take some of our advice on board and try to believe the possibility that all of this is a part of your OCD. It’s good that you plan to get help next year. Take care! 

Oh I believe it's  possible but I still have my doubts.. Do you really relate? I mean, to me it's like I don't see murder as a bad thing anymore and I keep trying to see why it's so bad by ruminating and yadda yadda. 

Link to comment
2 hours ago, Savy said:

Oh I believe it's  possible but I still have my doubts.. Do you really relate? I mean, to me it's like I don't see murder as a bad thing anymore and I keep trying to see why it's so bad by ruminating and yadda yadda. 

Come on, this is a classic obsession and you are doing pretty classic compulsions. Just because you can’t find someone with the exact same theme doesn’t mean anything. When I was younger, I watched this trial on the news of a nanny that killed a baby bu accident, and every time I found it funny and wanted to laugh. I thought I was a really bad person for that. I could give you a million other examples and also millions of other weird obsessions that I have never seen anyone else have. It doesn’t matter, the mechanism is the same. Please take a leap of faith and believe this.

Link to comment
14 minutes ago, malina said:

Come on, this is a classic obsession and you are doing pretty classic compulsions. Just because you can’t find someone with the exact same theme doesn’t mean anything. When I was younger, I watched this trial on the news of a nanny that killed a baby bu accident, and every time I found it funny and wanted to laugh. I thought I was a really bad person for that. I could give you a million other examples and also millions of other weird obsessions that I have never seen anyone else have. It doesn’t matter, the mechanism is the same. Please take a leap of faith and believe this.

Can you? It might make me feel better

Link to comment
10 minutes ago, Savy said:

Can you? It might make me feel better

Hey Savy,

I’d rather not for 2 reasons. Firstly, there is quite a lot of random stuff that I’d just rather not rehash, I hope you can understand that. The other reason is that I believe it would be giving you reassurance, which is no good. It might give you temporary relief, but doubt will soon creep in, that is just how OCD works. I hope you can just take my word for it and try your best to start listening to the advice you’re being given here, because the people on this forum really know their stuff!

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Savy,

I hope you don't mind me adding my thoughts here, even though it's a week or so after you first posted this. I've been following your thread with interest because your experiences feel very similar to what I'm currently going through. I think it's very tempting to say "It's not OCD", but it seems to me that for you, just like for me, your entire set of thinking has become hijacked by this loop of thinking that you're trying to get to the bottom of. I think we humans have a very rich mental landscape usually (when we're not stuck in our obsessions) - a range of thoughts, instincts, emotions, opinions, attitudes that make up who we are. What I think is happening at the moment for you and I is that that wide landscape has been shrunk down to a single piece of "logical" thinking which is blocking out everything else. But I don't think the human experience can be solved logically like that, as tempting as it might be to think so, and our insistence on trying to 'do the math' is just making us lonely and miserable, isn't it?

I was struck today by just how short our lives are (and how much we're at risk of them being shorter, given current circumstances) and I'm wondering how much of it I'm going to be wasting by going over and over and over unsolvable problems when I could just accept that there is love and empathy in the world and that if I accept that I can be a source of this and make efforts to be compassionate (and get myself some proper treatment for my constant rumination), then the rest of my life might open up a bit more...

Link to comment

Hi Savy, 

I too have experiences similar to this - for example, I'll be walking down the pavement and see someone and think about murdering them.

However, these thoughts don't come with the usual anxiety spike that comes along with some other intrusive thoughts I have. Instead I'll enter into an immediate thought spiral of 'I thought that because I'm a psychopath' and the lack of obvious anxiety signals confirms this etc. etc. etc. 

Even if I'm not convinced, taking a step back I can see that this strongly resembles OCD behaviour even if it doesn't feel exactly the same. I have therefore been trying to forgive myself a little and realise that the fact that I'm 'stuck' on these thoughts probably does really mean that they're the opposite of what I actually want. I've found it useful to just try and let them flow through without judging the content of the thoughts too much. Sometimes I even try to laugh at them, which helps.

I hope this makes you feel a little less alone!

Link to comment
On 07/01/2021 at 12:51, FranticS said:

Hi Savy,

I hope you don't mind me adding my thoughts here, even though it's a week or so after you first posted this. I've been following your thread with interest because your experiences feel very similar to what I'm currently going through. I think it's very tempting to say "It's not OCD", but it seems to me that for you, just like for me, your entire set of thinking has become hijacked by this loop of thinking that you're trying to get to the bottom of. I think we humans have a very rich mental landscape usually (when we're not stuck in our obsessions) - a range of thoughts, instincts, emotions, opinions, attitudes that make up who we are. What I think is happening at the moment for you and I is that that wide landscape has been shrunk down to a single piece of "logical" thinking which is blocking out everything else. But I don't think the human experience can be solved logically like that, as tempting as it might be to think so, and our insistence on trying to 'do the math' is just making us lonely and miserable, isn't it?

I was struck today by just how short our lives are (and how much we're at risk of them being shorter, given current circumstances) and I'm wondering how much of it I'm going to be wasting by going over and over and over unsolvable problems when I could just accept that there is love and empathy in the world and that if I accept that I can be a source of this and make efforts to be compassionate (and get myself some proper treatment for my constant rumination), then the rest of my life might open up a bit more...

It's feels kind of comforting to find people you relate to, thanks for your reply. To me, OCD (or at least part of it) is about getting irrational thoughts and feelings that ultimately go against how you truely feel. That definition doesn't really apply to me these days since I don't feel the way I used to with it was harm OCD. My irrational thoughts do not seem irrational to me anymore nor do they cause anxiety but I feel like I absolutely have to ruminate on the thoughts. These psychotic questions just confuse the hell out of me when I try to form a proper conclusion in my head with logic. "Why do we love?" "What's the point in empathy?" "Why does it matter if I die..or of others die if this this or that is true?"

Link to comment
7 hours ago, CharlieMoon said:

Hi Savy, 

I too have experiences similar to this - for example, I'll be walking down the pavement and see someone and think about murdering them.

However, these thoughts don't come with the usual anxiety spike that comes along with some other intrusive thoughts I have. Instead I'll enter into an immediate thought spiral of 'I thought that because I'm a psychopath' and the lack of obvious anxiety signals confirms this etc. etc. etc. 

Even if I'm not convinced, taking a step back I can see that this strongly resembles OCD behaviour even if it doesn't feel exactly the same. I have therefore been trying to forgive myself a little and realise that the fact that I'm 'stuck' on these thoughts probably does really mean that they're the opposite of what I actually want. I've found it useful to just try and let them flow through without judging the content of the thoughts too much. Sometimes I even try to laugh at them, which helps.

I hope this makes you feel a little less alone!

I get what you mean, I have experienced this before, but this is not exactly my problem at the moment. This experience is something of my past.

Link to comment
8 hours ago, Savy said:

It's feels kind of comforting to find people you relate to, thanks for your reply. To me, OCD (or at least part of it) is about getting irrational thoughts and feelings that ultimately go against how you truely feel. That definition doesn't really apply to me these days since I don't feel the way I used to with it was harm OCD. My irrational thoughts do not seem irrational to me anymore nor do they cause anxiety but I feel like I absolutely have to ruminate on the thoughts. These psychotic questions just confuse the hell out of me when I try to form a proper conclusion in my head with logic. "Why do we love?" "What's the point in empathy?" "Why does it matter if I die..or of others die if this this or that is true?"

But you'll never find proper conclusions for these questions, Savy, because you're trying to apply hard logic to the human experience, and that just doesn't work - it's like trying to sculpt a statue out of jello with a hammer and chisel. I know, because I've been there on so many occasions (the ruminating I mean, not the sculpting with jello). Thing is, philosophers have been debating these things for centuries and have been similarly unsuccessful in reaching the conclusions that we're grasping for

What is it that makes you feel like you *absolutely have to* ruminate on these thoughts though? What happens when you don't? Are there times when you 'forget' to think about these things (maybe when you're enjoying yourself, or spending time with friends?) and just slip back into the everyday business of living, and how do you feel at those times? I'm not trying to make any points here... I'm just curious...

Link to comment
On 10/01/2021 at 07:58, FranticS said:

But you'll never find proper conclusions for these questions, Savy, because you're trying to apply hard logic to the human experience, and that just doesn't work - it's like trying to sculpt a statue out of jello with a hammer and chisel. I know, because I've been there on so many occasions (the ruminating I mean, not the sculpting with jello). Thing is, philosophers have been debating these things for centuries and have been similarly unsuccessful in reaching the conclusions that we're grasping for

What is it that makes you feel like you *absolutely have to* ruminate on these thoughts though? What happens when you don't? Are there times when you 'forget' to think about these things (maybe when you're enjoying yourself, or spending time with friends?) and just slip back into the everyday business of living, and how do you feel at those times? I'm not trying to make any points here... I'm just curious...

What makes me feel like I absolutely have to? Well, I'm not absolutely sure how to awnser this, I am terrible at explaining things but I'll try regardless. There's the fact that I used to be really scared about going insane and harming others so I guess since I've been through the anxiety and compulsions to prevent all that, it's only natural for me to obsess over these current thoughts that I feel threaten my sanity. I also realize that what I am thinking and feeling isn't the norm and i'm not in a good place mentally to understand why it's wrong so of course I want to be in a place where I don't think like that and try to figure it all out in my head. Are there times where I forget? I've actually noticed that when I don't have my sleeping schedule all messed up and I have distractions like school, it's a lot better to deal with though I still have the mental issues. Covid has really made my situation worse. I've found it hard to interact with friends this year because of these issues with the need to put my attention towards the rumination quesions triggered by something a friend brought up that I can't seem to wrap my head around basic things. I have pretty much isolated myself because of it.

Link to comment
On 13/01/2021 at 08:52, Savy said:

I've found it hard to interact with friends this year because of these issues with the need to put my attention towards the rumination quesions triggered by something a friend brought up that I can't seem to wrap my head around basic things. I have pretty much isolated myself because of it.

Hey Savy,

I know OCD is hard to control but the more you remove yourself from your ordinary life, the worse it'll get. You can't run away from triggers, that would be avoidance, yet another compulsion. You have to work towards reducing and, ultimately putting an end, to this rumination. A big way of doing that is engaging with the outside world. I know this is all very hard and that you don't believe your problem to be OCD, but it sounds like you're unhappy and not doing very well at the moment, you have to put the effort in to change this.

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...