Worrying about Childhood

[Nora]

What are you supposed to do when you worry that something you did in your childhood that you can’t remember now is responsible for your intrusive thoughts?

thank you x

[northpaul]

39 minutes ago, Nora said:

something you did in your childhood that you can’t remember now 

In my therapy last year my therapist suggested to have one session looking back to childhood to see if that will help me to understand my current thinking.  I firmly replied 'no' and explained that I didn't see any value in doing that.  What I needed to do was to change my current thinking and move from that towards recovery.

What is in the past wether I can remember it or not is in the past.  What I am doing now is working on those therapy ideas and changing my thinking.  That is slowly moving me along recovery road and I am trying to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel.

[determination987]

47 minutes ago, Nora said:

What are you supposed to do when you worry that something you did in your childhood that you can’t remember now is responsible for your intrusive thoughts?

thank you x

I get this a lot because OCD loves uncertainty and no one can be certain about childhood. There’s so much to be uncertain about and as we can’t travel back to the past, OCD loves to try and make us do that and mentally review whatever memories which then become distorted and even more confused.

What you do is leave it alone like any other thoughts. You are here in the present right now and you’re not in the past. Focus your attention if you can to the present and accept that you’ll never truly know what happened or didn’t happen and that’s okay.

I often find that I crave a brand new slate and I want to know that I’ve never done anything wrong ever and want to be absolutely certain that’s the case. This is impossible and also not human. We are human and we are not good or bad and we are not our actions.

Give yourself permission to leave the memories or perceived memories alone and continue with your day. Analysing it will only make it more uncertain and often more distressing. I can start with a seed of doubt if doing something potentially wrong or making a mistake and the more I analyse it, the more I’m convinced I deserve to be in prison and that it’s unforgivable without even knowing whether or not it actually happened. It always ends in me in despair and panicking, asking for reassurance and checking the internet which only serves to make me more unsure and convinced of what a bad person I am.

Try to stop the analysing now before it becomes deeper because it will only add more doubts. Don’t fight them or wish the thoughts away but accept that they’re there. You don’t need certainty on it and you can cope and will handle things if they happen - you don’t need to prepare for hypotheticals.

[sunflowersea]

Real event/false memory OCD is a theme that is very common in OCD sufferers.   OCD thrives on the lack of certainty, and trying to remember anything from your childhood, which naturally fades from one’s mind over time is near impossible. So you can never be certain, which is OCD’s favourite thing. Intrusive thoughts are normal, everyone has them - they are just part of the brains chemistry. It’s our reaction to those thoughts that makes OCD sufferers so anxious and attaching meaning to the thoughts that triggers the anxiety response, leading to needing to carry out compulsions.  
 

I used to struggle a lot with this, and would constantly ruminate and seek reassurance like ‘did this happen’ etc. But that never helped it just continued to fuel the ocd cycle fire. Accepting you can never have certainty is key, and also that childhood experiences are just that, childhood. I know it’s super hard and anxiety inducing but knowing that this is your OCD, and not you, helped me alot. 
 

I hope you’re doing okay, from a fellow OCD sufferer, you’re not alone