Feeling scared.

[Ma29]

This is going to sound ridiculous but here goes. 

As you know I’ve got ocd based around inappropriateness towards others including my baby.

One of my obsessions relates to smell and the baby. I don’t know why - but ocd associates the smell of baby’s hands and feet with something bad (sexual/ inappropriate). I think because sometimes the smell reminds me of an adults smell  and because ocd is based around this theme it makes the association with something bad (sexual).

So… anytime the baby puts his hands on my face I feel very very anxious. Scared in case I smell his hands or if I like the smell of his hands. 

This evening my husband handed him over as he wasn’t sleeping - he’s been awake for 8 hours straight, with teething pain. I’m sitting with my mum on the sofa trying to rock him to sleep and notice the hip movement again and then start thinking about intentions and feelings trying to neutralise my thoughts and remind myself it’s all ocd (unsure if neutralise is the right word). Then baby puts his hands on my nose and I smell them but at the same time I get a feeling that I like the smell and it gives me a weird sensation. It also makes me feel as though I smelt his hands for a bad reason. I don’t know why I smelt his hand, I wish I didn’t, and now because ocd was kicking in it’s made me feel like I smelt his hand for a bad reason. It all happened once, the ocd thought / feeling / action ect ect. I can’t believe this happened and I feel awful. As I type this it sounds stupid but it’s all very real for me and I feel awful.

Can someone help please 

[PolarBear]

What do you think you should do?

[Ma29]

Stop trying to figure it out and recognise it’s ocd? 

Using your famous words. let.it.go

i just feel awful as soon as it happened I had a massive panic attack, felt like I couldn’t breathe. I also had an awful night with horrible dreams around the obsession and I hate it. I feel like I’m going back to sq 1

[Zelda]

Hi Ma, I’ve been reading your posts for a while and I’m sorry things are so difficult at the moment. I hope it’s ok for me to respond here because I just wanted to say it’s not square one - though I know the feeling! It’s helped me to try and consider bad days as just that. Some days when recovering are harder than others and we tend to assume that means the others will be too. But you’re working hard at this and today is a new day.  Try and leave last night there and focus on letting the thoughts go today. 
 

Wishing you strength. 

[Ma29]

@Zelda Thank you for your response. I will try my best to remember that each day is a new day and also that anything that causes me anxiety is still ocd. I think what happens is I might have a few days where I’m coping okay and then an intense few days where I’m not and so I tend to forget everything I’ve learnt about ocd in the last few months. My mind is clearer now and I can truly see that the smelly thing was ocd and I was in a state of high emotion and over reacted. I will try to remind myself a bad day is just that, a bad day..
 

I hope you are doing okay Zelda and I hope you’ve had a good Tuesday. 

[Caramoole]

This is part of the journey Ma and the next step in your progress It's easy & understandable why we get caught out by OCD.....it's scary......but learning to take that first blow of fear, stand back, recognise, resist that nagging doubt and urge to do compulsions.........breathe, remind yourself what it is.....pause, resist those compulsions.  It will still unsettle you but watch the self-talk, remind yourself again....."I know what this is, same wolf, different coloured jumper"  Even as time passes these sudden doubts can catch us out.....it's learning to recognise, take the blow, resist the default mode of compulsions and move forward.  You're doing really well and it's not always easy to see that.  Well Done You......keep going.  Tomorrow's another day

[Ma29]

Hello.

My baby was crying and so I jumped up to do the night feed. I also had an instinct he’d done a dirty nappy as it felt like that sort of cry. 

I got up, made his milk and picked him up and was thinking whether he’d done a dirty nappy. I don’t like to change him unnecessarily as he struggles to go back to sleep. After picking him up I was unsure if it needed changing and so I thought I’d proceed to feed him. I placed him on my lap to feed him and ocd kicks in making me anxious he doesn’t touch my groin whilst I pop him on my lap. Then as I’m feeding him again, nappy feels heavy so I touch his bottom to check if it’s wet but I felt that I slightly I pressed his bottom instead of just touched and it feels absolutely wrong in the moment and makes me feel like a terrible terrible person. It was the pressure of the press that made me anxious. As soon as I noticed the pressure of the press it gave me a bad feeling and also an unwanted feeling of liking that and then the doubts start coming in - why did I do that / what was my intention / why did I press it / what happened / it felt wrong /. The ocd Makes me feel like I pressed his bottom for a wrong reason, I don’t know what happened and why I pressed his bottom when checking.  I then started having a panic attack, sweating and hyperventilating and now I’m in the bathroom scared to go back to bed. I hate this. I feel absolutely awful. I feel like I did something bad by pressing his bottom - it was meant to be a gentle touch, I never do that so why did it happen this time. I’m very very scared. 

I love him so dearly, he is my whole heart.

 

[Caramoole]

7 hours ago, Ma29 said:

The ocd Makes me feel like I pressed his bottom for a wrong reason

Yes OCD makes you feel like this so I'll refer you to my last post.  Try and work on recognising these flashes as more of the same

[Ma29]

Ok thanks @Caramoole

im honestly trying my utmost best to carry on and not ruminate or avoid my baby - it’s so so tough.