Jump to content

Don't know what to do


Recommended Posts

Hi, 

I'm really, really sorry to spam the forums with new threads but I just feel horrible at the moment. 

I don't know if this is OCD but it is kind of sudden so maybe it is OCD related, but I'm not sure. 

Okay, here goes. My boyfriend is older than me and for the past week I've been having thoughts that he is a very bad person for being in a relationship with someone younger than him. And earlier I agreed with the thought. And I keep agreeing with it. I feel miserable. I love my boyfriend and I'm so lucky to have him in my life, but for some reason something feels wrong. 

I'm physical sick right now because of how bad my anxiety is. I don't know what to do. I want to tell him what's going on but he's got so much to worry about already. 

I feel very confused and I so need a hug. I don't know what I feel anymore. 

Please, help me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.

Link to comment

I'm also kind of actively looking for evidence for why I think he's a bad person, even though he is the opposite of that. I just don't get it. Why would I want to do that when I know what an amazing person he is?!

Link to comment
Just now, PolarBear said:

Cora, you've got to reach a point where you are handling these thoughts on your own. 

You know what to do. 

I know you are right, @PolarBear,but I don't know if these thoughts are intrusive. Plus, I'm experiencing some really bad anxiety too and I don't know how to control it. 

Link to comment

You are looking for reassurance. Again. You got tripped up by a thought and you're back here to ask, for the two hundreth time, is this still OCD?

You know it.

This has gone on for years. Hundreds of obsessions. Have we EVER told you it's not OCD? Has our advice EVER wavered?

 

Link to comment
25 minutes ago, Cora said:

I know you are right, @PolarBear,but I don't know if these thoughts are intrusive. Plus, I'm experiencing some really bad anxiety too and I don't know how to control it. 

You do know how to control it Cora. You’ve done it many times and will be able to do it again.

Link to comment

I think what may help is if you try to stop distinguishing between real thoughts and intrusive thoughts. I mean intrusive thoughts are your own thoughts. They all come from your own mind, you experience them in the same way. Sometimes we get thoughts about something really frightening or bad and, where most people could ignore them, we unfortunately fixate on them until they become obsessions. On the other hand, some thoughts are about our real lives, our relationships, health, finances etc. These are less terrible, but in some ways harder to deal with because they are more realistic. However, the pattern isn't all that different, if you fixate on something, it'll grow and turn into an obsession and cause you a lot of anxiety. So the way forward is to understand that there isn't a black and white in life, you have to make decisions about everything to your best judgement and then you find out what the outcomes are. You can't live life by getting worries about something and then fixating on them to the point where you can't really function. Now I know your question is going to be how do you know, how do you decide what to do and what is truly bad and what isn't. Nobody knows this, it all comes with experience, both good and bad ones. You have to make a decision about everything you want, what makes you happy and what you believe is right. If it has bad consequences, well that is a part of life. The key is to be flexible and understand that nobody is perfect, you don't have to be perfect, we deserve forgiveness when we do something bad, bad choices are hardly ever have final outcomes and most things can be fixed in some way.

When is your appointment with primary care?

Link to comment

Thank you for replying, @malina.

I'm in tears. I'm so scared I'll have to end this relationship even if I don't want to. It breaks my heart just thinking about it...

I had my appointment yesterday. Ah, the irony. Yesterday I was all proud for having an improvement in my mood but today I feel three times worse. 

Link to comment
1 minute ago, Cora said:

Thank you for replying, @malina.

I'm in tears. I'm so scared I'll have to end this relationship even if I don't want to. It breaks my heart just thinking about it...

I had my appointment yesterday. Ah, the irony. Yesterday I was all proud for having an improvement in my mood but today I feel three times worse. 

You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Now enough reassurance and get back to implementing what you have learned so far to deal with this problem. You know the steps, you just have to make sure you do them even when it's hard.

How did the appointment go?

Link to comment

@malina, I'm so sorry. I don't feel well. I feel like I'm a sh!t person. This morning was awful. I had urges to abuse my brother and they seemed enjoyable. Then yesterday I had the same urges for my boyfriend's dog. And today this. Plus, I keep feeling like I'm faking everything, even writing this doesn't feel honest. What the hell is going on?!

5 minutes ago, malina said:

How did the appointment go?

It went pretty well. And I'm going to see my therapist again soon. The primary care team will monitor my mood (I've got two other appointments in June) and the therapist will help me with my OCD.

Link to comment
Just now, Cora said:

@malina, I'm so sorry. I don't feel well. I feel like I'm a sh!t person. This morning was awful. I had urges to abuse my brother and they seemed enjoyable. Then yesterday I had the same urges for my boyfriend's dog. And today this. Plus, I keep feeling like I'm faking everything, even writing this doesn't feel honest. What the hell is going on?!

Same thing that has been going on for the last 2 or so years @Cora

Deep breaths, there are inevitably going to be bad days, it's all a bump in the road. Don't be sorry about not feeling good, but do try to redirect your thoughts and do something else. You have been through so much in the last year, you've survived and you'll continue to survive. You're a strong young woman (even if you don't belive it!) and a bad day won't bring you down. But you do have to keep yourself on track!

3 minutes ago, Cora said:

It went pretty well. And I'm going to see my therapist again soon. The primary care team will monitor my mood (I've got two other appointments in June) and the therapist will help me with my OCD.

This sounds good! I think it looks like you're on track to getting the support you need. When is your appointment with the therapist?

Link to comment
1 minute ago, malina said:

Same thing that has been going on for the last 2 or so years @Cora

You are right, malina, but it feels like I'm having urges on purpose which doesn't make sense. It's all messed up. 

2 minutes ago, malina said:

This sounds good! I think it looks like you're on track to getting the support you need. When is your appointment with the therapist?

I guess so. I'll probably find out either today or next week. 

4 minutes ago, malina said:

You're a strong young woman (even if you don't belive it!) and a bad day won't bring you down.

Thank you for your kind words and for your support, and for listening to me venting about my problems. I really needed to talk to someone, thank you! 

I hope you are okay, malina.

Link to comment
9 minutes ago, Cora said:

You are right, malina, but it feels like I'm having urges on purpose which doesn't make sense. It's all messed up. 

I guess so. I'll probably find out either today or next week. 

Thank you for your kind words and for your support, and for listening to me venting about my problems. I really needed to talk to someone, thank you! 

I hope you are okay, malina.

I am doing well, thank you! ?

And no worries Cora, I hope you have a good day!

Link to comment

@Cora Do you understand that we’re not robots? We’re humans. Our brains are so so complicated and go wrong. And they are so powerful they can make us believe things that aren’t actually true. My brain and your brain go wrong. Badly. It makes you question obvious things. You have to use your intelligence and higher reasoning to ignore the cr@ppy low level “feelings” that are fake. Research shows this is painful but can effectively retrain the failing bits. You have to take this leap of faith. Are you going to keep doing this until you die in 50 or 100 years? Or are you going to say “No. I want my life back”. You can do this @Cora. Listen to people who know better than you. There IS a way out of this.

Edited by OxCD
Link to comment

Cora, as desperately sorry as I feel for you...and I really do.....you are going to have to take some time to really work out a plan of action as to what things you can do to change your current way of responding to your fears.  The alternative is to manage it in micro-segments, day to day or even hour to hour, minute by minute.  That's what's happening at the moment and has been so for a couple of years.  Without some changes it will continue in this way.  At the moment, when an intrusive thought comes along you head for the forums for reassurance and there's a great deal of it.  Even the explanations can be classed as reassurance.  It has been explained in so many, many ways....giving examples in variations in a bid to explain in different ways.  Explanations are vital so that we can begin to understand the condition, it helps to see things described from a different angle....BUT.....there does come a point when they too become just reassurance.  With each and every one of us, there comes a point where we have to start doing, we have to put the advice to use and make changes.  They might be small at first but they have to be made and built on.

I don't want see you staying stuck like this Cora, I want you to look at this just as you might a Uni assignment.  Look at the evidence, the information, the do's and don'ts and then work out a plan to start challenging this :)

Link to comment

Hi, 

I'm sorry for not replying yesterday but I had an awful day. I've spent a good part of the day crying and not understanding what was going on. I also stayed in bed with body aches and very little energy or interest in anything. Later in the evening I walked my boyfriend to work and felt a bit better. But at the end of the day I was still confused and upset. 

On 07/05/2021 at 12:16, OxCD said:

And they are so powerful they can make us believe things that aren’t actually true.

Thank you so much for your reply, @OxCD. I agree with you and I'm slowly starting to accept it, but sometimes it's me who comes up with disturbing stuff on purpose instead of my brain, and I'm having a very hard time understanding that.

21 hours ago, Caramoole said:

Look at the evidence, the information, the do's and don'ts and then work out a plan to start challenging this

Thank you so much, @Caramoole. I know that maybe it doesn't seem like it but I'm trying. It just things seem way too real sometimes and that's very hard to handle. Plus, there's stuff that I do that don't make sense and that worries me even more. 

I really appreciate all the advice you've offered me and all the time you've spent helping and supporting me. I am really lucky to have found such amazing people and I feel like thanks to you I'm ready to move on, but I still don't know how to do it without you having my back all the time which is really annoying because I want to be able to reach a point where I can do it on my own. 

For example, today I'm feeling a bit better about my relationship but I'm having really bad thoughts about pets. I'm sorry if this is disgusting, and I've tried not to pay as much attention to them, but whenever I see a cat or a dog I look at their private parts and have images/scenarios in my head that feel on purpose. Also, I feel like I'm grossed out by them even more than those about children, and I don't know what to think about it. I keep thinking that if I ever get a pet, I'll have impulses to do something inappropriate and most importantly that I'll want to. 

I know that we discussed this before but I just don't get how I could have disgusting scenarios about pets and children on purpose. Maybe I do it as automatic response as I know they are my main triggers. But I don't know, it seems to be too easy of an explanation. 

Also, sometimes I think I spend more time on the thoughts than I should because it feels like I enjoy them. Plus, the groinal responses are so, so strong that it almost makes me want to act on them.

And these are the kind of things that stop me from moving on, I think. I know I have all the advice I could ever need and I know how to apply it, but things like this always bring me down and make me doubt who I truly am.

Once again, thank you so much everyone for absolutely everything! You are all the best! xx 

 

Edited by Cora
Link to comment
32 minutes ago, Cora said:

Thank you so much for your reply, @OxCD. I agree with you and I'm slowly starting to accept it, but sometimes it's me who comes up with disturbing stuff on purpose instead of my brain, and I'm having a very hard time understanding that.

You’re still missing it @Cora. There is no “you” and then your brain. You ARE your brain. Part of YOU is broken and makes you think stuff that isn’t true. See the subtlety?

You only THINK you thought it on purpose. We have faulty brains. That’s all there is to understand as the supposed “desire” doesn’t actually make sense and you won’t be able to “explain” it.

Imagine someone seeing weird and wonderful delusions trying to understand why pigs are flying. However much they question it, there is no answer. Though they may well make themselves more ill by TRYING to understand it.

Edited by OxCD
Link to comment
52 minutes ago, OxCD said:

You’re still missing it @Cora. There is no “you” and then your brain. You ARE your brain. Part of YOU is broken and makes you think stuff that isn’t true. See the subtlety?

You only THINK you thought it on purpose. We have faulty brains. That’s all there is to understand as the supposed “desire” doesn’t actually make sense and you won’t be able to “explain” it.

Imagine someone seeing weird and wonderful delusions trying to understand why pigs are flying. However much they question it, there is no answer. Though they may well make themselves more ill by TRYING to understand it.

Thank you for this, @OxCD

See, your explanation makes perfect sense. But there's still a part of me that just doesn't want to accept it.

I don't understand why it's so hard for me to accept that this is the only and only explanation and that I need to stop looking for different answers...

Link to comment
4 hours ago, Cora said:

And these are the kind of things that stop me from moving on, I think. I know I have all the advice I could ever need and I know how to apply it, but things like this always bring me down and make me doubt who I truly am.

These kind of things ARE what OCD is/does.  I'm not saying that you won't feel frightened by them, that you won't get a reaction, a bodily sensation, doubt etc etc BUT you should understand the range of thoughts/feelings/sensations that it can and does produce.....including feeling like you're doing it on purpose.  you have to find acceptance of the facts.  Then you have to work on changing your reaction.  You have to go back to using the advice and doing the tasks & targets your former therapists set for you

Link to comment
29 minutes ago, Caramoole said:

These kind of things ARE what OCD is/does.  I'm not saying that you won't feel frightened by them, that you won't get a reaction, a bodily sensation, doubt etc etc BUT you should understand the range of thoughts/feelings/sensations that it can and does produce.....including feeling like you're doing it on purpose.  you have to find acceptance of the facts.  Then you have to work on changing your reaction.  You have to go back to using the advice and doing the tasks & targets your former therapists set for you

Thank you, @Caramoole.

I'm really sorry for all the details I wrote earlier, it's all really disgusting. I haven't really seen other people with similar thoughts so I guess that makes it even more disgusting. 

Link to comment
14 minutes ago, Cora said:

I'm really sorry for all the details I wrote earlier, it's all really disgusting. I haven't really seen other people with similar thoughts so I guess that makes it even more disgusting.

No Cora.....You've got to stop doing this and start trying to do some homework.  There are hundreds of people on this forum who have exactly the same thoughts and thousands on the internet......and by "Homework" I don't mean looking them up to find examples.  You have to think about the advice (and there's been plenty explanation of this type of OCD and why it happens) and then start to apply it.  You also have the book "Break Free From OCD"....have you read it or started on any of the exercises?  The sad truth is that you're not going to wake up one morning and find this gone.....you can get to a place where this no longer worries you but you have to make it happen, you have to make the changes.

Link to comment
25 minutes ago, Cora said:

Thank you, @Caramoole.

I'm really sorry for all the details I wrote earlier, it's all really disgusting. I haven't really seen other people with similar thoughts so I guess that makes it even more disgusting. 

It doesn’t disgust us. I’ve heard similar before - you’re not special. These thoughts aren’t real. The end.

Go do your homework - what are your alternatives? The only other is to carry on feeling sh!t. Sorry @Cora. You can get through this - you just need to listen.

Edited by OxCD
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...