Another Ocd Attack This Is The End Can't Take No More Sorry

[Just A]

my head is telling me to run and commit suicide tonight I am crying feel sick to stomach. I was getting changed the other day and out of the blue I had a thought when I was working at 18 now 53 so I was 18 I saw children and I said in my head they could get snatched and I could be blamed for R*pe. I am a person who is scared of my own shadow and stuff like sex. Now 35 years later I had a bad thought I walked up to child in broad day light In a street took her hand walked away with her and r*ped her in a garden and I run away problem is I have no recollection of this no idea what the child was wearing her looks nothing I would of been covered in blood and she would be damaged can't remember her crying or screaming nothing. I told my doctor she said think about it child broad daylight walking away then she was r*ped. Right no police doing door to door looking for the person 2. 35 years after the supposed avent and nothing hightly unlikely I would walk away with child with no one noticing r*pe her and hear nothing for 35 years does not work like that as parents should and would have noticed she was damaged and you have no recollection sounds weird help please this is an attack of ocd I can not remember so scared

[PolarBear]

Take a few deep breaths.

This is just OCD. It can be very cruel  but you must learn that OCD is built on a foundation of lies. It always lies, every time, all the time.

Even though you have experienced these hideous thoughts, the thoughts themselves are not the problem. No, the problem rests with how you react to the thoughts.

When you react, by taking the thoughts seriously, freaking out and doing endless compulsions, OCD wins. It wins and it grows. It lives for another day to continue tormenting you.

When you don't react, OCD will fight to get your attention, desperate for recognition, but if you stick with it, OCD begins to wither.

No doubt you are endlessly doing compulsions right now. You are ruminating like crazy. Wracking your brain, trying to remember. Working it out. Debating with yourself as to whether these thoughts are true or not. These mental actions will not solve anything, but they will feed your OCD and make ìt more powerful.

Leave it alone. You are allowed to think of something else. You are allowed to do something else. 

[Just A]

Thank you Sir

My mum sat me down today and said if something like that had happened it would be words around the village about a girl being Ra*ed plus police would be looking also but nothing for 35 years so do you think I should worry. Looked at your book last night thinking of buying it but please be honest with your reply

[PolarBear]

Just A, asking your mom was you seeking reassurance. That is a compulsion. It is a desperate attempt by you to lower the anxiety you feel.

Clearly that didn't work because you are here now asking for more reassurance (do you think I should worry).

This is not the way forward. Compulsions don't work. They can give you temporary relief, but soon enough the doubt, thoughts and anxiety come back.

In addition, you are no doubt ruminating like crazy throughout, keeping the subject top of mind.

Try to leave this alone for a while. Just set it aside. Breathe. Do something else.

Edited January 17, 2022 by PolarBear

[discuccsant]

Hey,

I've just read your posts, and I'm really sorry for you. I can't imagine the trauma you went through. This must have been horrible. Feel hugged.

I can relate with the false memories' thing. They are not really “false memories” in the sense, that you don't have any kind of memory regarding this. No. But the problem is the false source attribution you give to them. So you may have read something in the newspaper ago about something similar like that, that's why you feel this feeling of familiarity, as if you can remember stuff. Memories don't say anything about the reality, though. Memories are just the brain's attempt to recreate a scenario from information.

You could even have a memory of an older intrusive thought, which also feels real. Or you may have heard about something like that. The issue is mostly that people with this issue alter the source of the memory itself and can't distinguish real personal experiences from other stuff. Like you forgot where you had it from and so your OCD attributes it to you and your past self, while that is just wrong. It's really hard to get over this, if you keep ruminating about your past. You need to stop this.

OCD basically maximizes your anxiety and with that, alter the very reality of your memories to the worst case scenarios. Even personal experiences will be affected by OCD. OCD makes an encounter with some guy from the past, whom you only said “hello” to, to something like sex, just because it's power over us is so convincing for us sufferers. Anxiety basically kills our logic.

If I had been anxious about killing people, I'm pretty sure I could easily convince myself, that vivid murder scenes from movies, I can't really remember, are actually vivid memories of my very own experiences. OCD would easily take this “feeling of familiarity” or  “feeling of possibility” to convince me, that this is a vivid memory of me doing something horrible. People without OCD would also maybe feel this familiarity, but as they don't have this immense anxiety, they wouldn't always assume the worst i.e., telling themselves, that's their very own experience.

You know how it all started for me? I questioned myself whether I was this or that, then tried to find “evidence” from my past. At the beginning, I was like: Phew! I'm 100% clean. OCD, you'll never be able to use my past against me. I'm like the perfect guy. Yet, with time, after ruminating more and more about my past, I, according to my OCD, had done horrible things. It just altered my past! I was never really able to remember the horrible stuff clearly, as they all felt vivid for me. I have an amazing memory and would remember embarrassing stuff or clear mistakes very clearly, so it never made sense. Here and then I found the source of a fear I had. Sometimes I mixed things up from my past. Took memory A and memory B, which had nothing to do with each other, just to create false memory C, which obviously was very familiar for me.

What I'm trying to say to you in detail here, is that you basically need to stop ruminating about your past, as this will just create more and more false memories, and you should also know, that you shouldn't trust memories generally speaking. Memories are and never will be 100% true, as memories in their very nature are very subjective and aren't really memories in the sense, that they are “saved”. We don't save experiences in itself, but we just TRY TO RECREATE THEM with information. And with OCD, information can easily be altered, like in your case. We recreate them, image by image, and then put them together like in a movie. That's how normal memories work. And if a memory feels vivid, like in your case, you shouldn't even give it a single moment of attention. The rule of thumb for people with OCD is basically to ignore vivid memories regarding their obsessions, as they are and never will be anything else but false. If there is even one doubt, you take it as false. Period.

Trust me, you would know a 100% if you did something, and you wouldn't try to figure it out. That's not how humans work. That's now how we remember things, which really happened. We know they happened and we don't need to figure anything out. We just know it.

[Just A]

Can't stop panicking ruminating or crying Just don't understand how after 35 years then out of blue a thought gets so out of control you end up with a mini movie in my head of the event my head said happened no recollection I was a type and still am can't keep secrets and  my face gives away what I am feeling all other false memories I had I always remember cause after cause takes me weeks then they disappear this one 35 years ago nothing just a thought out of the blue last Thursday I can't end my life it would destroy my 83 year old mom and family but was close other night with these thoughts I hope and pray are false

[PolarBear]

Meanwhile, you have been spending your days wracking your brain, trying to figure out if the thoughts are true.

Listen. Not one sufferer has ever found the answer they seek through ruminating. Doesn't matter how much effort you put into it. Ruminating won't work. You'll just go round and round in your head for weeks, months or years. Trust me, we have sufferers on the forum who have been fixated on such thoughts for 10 years.

Other than endlessly ruminating, the only other option is to let the thoughts go. Leave them alone. Stop seeking an answer you can't have. Refuse to get into mind debates over this.

[Benny]

On 17/01/2022 at 02:21, discuccsant said:

Hey,

I've just read your posts, and I'm really sorry for you. I can't imagine the trauma you went through. This must have been horrible. Feel hugged.

I can relate with the false memories' thing. They are not really “false memories” in the sense, that you don't have any kind of memory regarding this. No. But the problem is the false source attribution you give to them. So you may have read something in the newspaper ago about something similar like that, that's why you feel this feeling of familiarity, as if you can remember stuff. Memories don't say anything about the reality, though. Memories are just the brain's attempt to recreate a scenario from information.

You could even have a memory of an older intrusive thought, which also feels real. Or you may have heard about something like that. The issue is mostly that people with this issue alter the source of the memory itself and can't distinguish real personal experiences from other stuff. Like you forgot where you had it from and so your OCD attributes it to you and your past self, while that is just wrong. It's really hard to get over this, if you keep ruminating about your past. You need to stop this.

OCD basically maximizes your anxiety and with that, alter the very reality of your memories to the worst case scenarios. Even personal experiences will be affected by OCD. OCD makes an encounter with some guy from the past, whom you only said “hello” to, to something like sex, just because it's power over us is so convincing for us sufferers. Anxiety basically kills our logic.

If I had been anxious about killing people, I'm pretty sure I could easily convince myself, that vivid murder scenes from movies, I can't really remember, are actually vivid memories of my very own experiences. OCD would easily take this “feeling of familiarity” or  “feeling of possibility” to convince me, that this is a vivid memory of me doing something horrible. People without OCD would also maybe feel this familiarity, but as they don't have this immense anxiety, they wouldn't always assume the worst i.e., telling themselves, that's their very own experience.

You know how it all started for me? I questioned myself whether I was this or that, then tried to find “evidence” from my past. At the beginning, I was like: Phew! I'm 100% clean. OCD, you'll never be able to use my past against me. I'm like the perfect guy. Yet, with time, after ruminating more and more about my past, I, according to my OCD, had done horrible things. It just altered my past! I was never really able to remember the horrible stuff clearly, as they all felt vivid for me. I have an amazing memory and would remember embarrassing stuff or clear mistakes very clearly, so it never made sense. Here and then I found the source of a fear I had. Sometimes I mixed things up from my past. Took memory A and memory B, which had nothing to do with each other, just to create false memory C, which obviously was very familiar for me.

What I'm trying to say to you in detail here, is that you basically need to stop ruminating about your past, as this will just create more and more false memories, and you should also know, that you shouldn't trust memories generally speaking. Memories are and never will be 100% true, as memories in their very nature are very subjective and aren't really memories in the sense, that they are “saved”. We don't save experiences in itself, but we just TRY TO RECREATE THEM with information. And with OCD, information can easily be altered, like in your case. We recreate them, image by image, and then put them together like in a movie. That's how normal memories work. And if a memory feels vivid, like in your case, you shouldn't even give it a single moment of attention. The rule of thumb for people with OCD is basically to ignore vivid memories regarding their obsessions, as they are and never will be anything else but false. If there is even one doubt, you take it as false. Period.

Trust me, you would know a 100% if you did something, and you wouldn't try to figure it out. That's not how humans work. That's now how we remember things, which really happened. We know they happened and we don't need to figure anything out. We just know it.

Hi , That’s an excellent reply but reading that last paragraph triggered me a bit as there have been times in my darkest and most anxious times of rumination that I have felt the “100 per cent “ certainty that I had indeed done something terrible - a horrific feeling - only to realise as I slowly recovered that it was just false distortions from my OCD. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Benny

[Benny]

Sorry for hijacking the thread !

Just A , 

I’m a similar age to you and have had a very similar OCD “memory”episode from 30 years ago involving me doing something horrific . It too came completely out of the blue and caused me huge distress . I was so convinced at times that “it” was true that many times I considered handing myself in to the police. 
As difficult as it sounds … only the “maybe I did , maybe I didn’t “ approach worked. 
This initially raised my anxiety but eventually it began to subside. 
I also had medication and CBT. 

Good luck !

[Just A]

See I talked to my doctor and told her the thoughts keep changing was it day light or night time was it this way was it that way just keeps changing the more I am anxious I get just can't remember it's frustrating and scarey

[PolarBear]

Stop trying to remember. 

What you are doing is a mental compulsion. You work very hard to find an answer but it doesn't work. You just go round and round in your head.

The truth is, you will NEVER find an answer by doing compulsions.