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Guilt about various things at Christmas time


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Does anyone else have hightened feelings of OCD guilt and intrusive thoughts around Christmas time? It feels like whenever I’m having a good time and am feeling happy, my brain likes to remind me of all the ‘bad’ things I’ve done in life (which it loves to blow out or proportion) and it stops me from actually living in the moment and having a good time as I’m dealing with intrusive thoughts.

I only got diagnosed with OCD in April this year but I’ve definitely experienced this many times before at Christmas - I’m 29 now.

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Yeah this happens to me. I agree with Polar that its our perception of them due to ocd. I think it happens because we put too much pressure on ourselves over Christmas and its this stress that causes our ocd to flare up. Try and not see christmas as pressure to have a good time. I do a very reduced christmas and actually end up a lot less stressed and enjoy it more.

My ocd generally centres around ' bad' things I've done at the moment, even 30 years ago and of no actual consequence. Its definitely a symptom of ocd. I try and treat it like any other trigger and label it as ocd and get busy. It is very tiresome battling all the time though .

Sometimes I can just be say, washing up, and ill get a trigger of something insensitive I said as a teen (I'm 47) and freeze on the spot. I assume this is part of my ocd, doesn't seem to happen to anyone else I know.

Edited by ecomum
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16 hours ago, ecomum said:

Yeah this happens to me. I agree with Polar that its our perception of them due to ocd. I think it happens because we put too much pressure on ourselves over Christmas and its this stress that causes our ocd to flare up. Try and not see christmas as pressure to have a good time. I do a very reduced christmas and actually end up a lot less stressed and enjoy it more.

My ocd generally centres around ' bad' things I've done at the moment, even 30 years ago and of no actual consequence. Its definitely a symptom of ocd. I try and treat it like any other trigger and label it as ocd and get busy. It is very tiresome battling all the time though .

Sometimes I can just be say, washing up, and ill get a trigger of something insensitive I said as a teen (I'm 47) and freeze on the spot. I assume this is part of my ocd, doesn't seem to happen to anyone else I know.

Thanks for the advice about the pressure thing at Christmas. I’m the same - a trigger will come out of nowhere and I’ll feel a bit debilitated by the intrusive thoughts. And I agree it’s exhausting  constantly battling with this mentally - it feels like my brain finds one thing after another to obsess or worry about - mostly to do with things I’ve done or said.

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