Ocd about my son.

[impossiblestrain]

Quick recap: 

I am a 32 male dad, my son is now 6 months old. I was diagnosed with OCD, 11 years ago. However i have been suffering from it since i was 13 years old.

I have had many obsessions, sexual obsessions, obsessions about my relationships and obsessions about my health to name a few. Ofcourse along with compulsions both physically and mentally.

Have had years of therapy but i was triggered today while changing my son.

What happened:

So i was changing my sons diaper and i must say that, the last days i was already more sensitive towards thoughts i kept getting. Thoughts about my son when i brought him to bed like; '' What if i strangled him with the usb charger?". So i went back in my sons room to check if the usb charger was in the place where it should be. 

Anyway while changing my sons diaper, i had a happy feeling, he was smiling and acting like a baby does. However a sexual image flashed through my head which caused intense fear. It felt like time stopped for a minute and i went immediately in my head to analyse what just happened, but just after, i started to think: "What if i just did something sexually to my son and i cant remember it?".

This whole day ive been trying to find the piece of the puzzle in my head that i would never do something like that, that something like that could never have happened. I have been stressed and living with anxiety and fear this whole day. 

Ive been trying to recreate this morning in my head, how i felt, what i did, trying to reassure myself. Its like my head keeps saying, find the evidence that something like that never ocurred and you would never do. 

Everything ive learned is so hard to apply when dealing with something new. I have come a long way living with ocd. But this kind of stuff just makes me feel like im back at square one.
 

[DRS1]

18 minutes ago, impossiblestrain said:

Quick recap: 

I am a 32 male dad, my son is now 6 months old. I was diagnosed with OCD, 11 years ago. However i have been suffering from it since i was 13 years old.

I have had many obsessions, sexual obsessions, obsessions about my relationships and obsessions about my health to name a few. Ofcourse along with compulsions both physically and mentally.

Have had years of therapy but i was triggered today while changing my son.

What happened:

So i was changing my sons diaper and i must say that, the last days i was already more sensitive towards thoughts i kept getting. Thoughts about my son when i brought him to bed like; '' What if i strangled him with the usb charger?". So i went back in my sons room to check if the usb charger was in the place where it should be. 

Anyway while changing my sons diaper, i had a happy feeling, he was smiling and acting like a baby does. However a sexual image flashed through my head which caused intense fear. It felt like time stopped for a minute and i went immediately in my head to analyse what just happened, but just after, i started to think: "What if i just did something sexually to my son and i cant remember it?".

This whole day ive been trying to find the piece of the puzzle in my head that i would never do something like that, that something like that could never have happened. I have been stressed and living with anxiety and fear this whole day. 

Ive been trying to recreate this morning in my head, how i felt, what i did, trying to reassure myself. Its like my head keeps saying, find the evidence that something like that never ocurred and you would never do. 

Everything ive learned is so hard to apply when dealing with something new. I have come a long way living with ocd. But this kind of stuff just makes me feel like im back at square one.
 

Hi. You aren't back to square one you just need to be aware of what happened there... And no I don't mean any potential thing you may have or may not have done.

 

You've been dealing with OCD before and you know it's tricks so I'll spare you the speel on that. However you are doing compulsions in response. You experienced a sexual image that you didn't ask for and didn't have to mean anything but then you started ruminating over it and checking mentally whether you could remember if you did or did not do that. Then you tried self reassurance which also has done nothing. But we know why it hasn't worked right? It's because compulsions don't work.

 

No matter how bad the sexual image must have been to experience, it didn't mean anything. You are able just to leave it alone. OCD took that moment to get you to do the compulsions and as soon as the first reaction starts with "what if" or there is an urgency to find out somehow if you did or didn't do that, recognise it's OCD and stop engaging with it. Next time it pops up (it likely will cause OCD...) Try to just let it be there and acknowledge that the image is there and don't do anything with it in terms of compulsions. The anxiety goes down, you show OCD you think it's stupid (and it is stupid of course) and then it should get a bit easier from there

 

 

[impossiblestrain]

The ironic thing about it is however, when i have my good days, i can tell you every trick in the book to use to live with Ocd. 

And most of those tricks actually work, however when im actually going through a trigger like today, everything you just said makes sense and thats how i deal with the smaller obsessions nowadays, the ones i have had thousands of times.

However this theme is something new, sexual but about my son and always when i get this new sort of theme, the fear, anxiety, shame, guilt is all so overwhelming. All of those tricks dont seem to work, not being capable of doing the things you just said.

Actually coming to a point where youre not even sure anymore if you had an obsessive thought but if you did the act itself. Ive also been diagnosed with panic disorder which i believe goes hand in hand with ocd, light psychosis which also isnt all that uncommon i believe. 

The thing is, sometimes you think youre straight up losing your mind when youre doubting so much, checking so much/ and just not being sure about anything on a day like this.

Deep inside its like i know who i am and what i stand for. But at the same time the other half of my brain says: Are you sure? 

And after 18 years, a day like today is just hard in a way. I do appreciate all you said tho. Reading similar experiences or helpful comments like yours makes me put some trust in myself again.

Thanks.