#ocd shit

I have a diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder with OCD tendencies. I don't know if that means I have a place in OCD spaces, and I'm kind of scared to try, because I'm scared people will call me invalid.

As of right now, I have no one to talk about this with besides my therapist, and it really sucks. I wanna talk to someone who can relate, but I don't want to be called a "faker", or "not OCD enough". Can someone help me?

I know you’re not like a professional or anything but you’ve talked to your therapist about it I’m guessing? I havent talked to mine about it otherwise I probably wouldnt be asking you. My other question for this topic is how do you deal with that when you latch on to stuff you dont want to? 2/2

For me, latching onto a Thing is I guess step two for OCD.

From my experience it comes from an intrusion first. Using a slur for example, it’s that I just suddenly think it, rather than read it. Sometimes the intrusions are continuous and keep coming back and sometimes they’re just a one off. But then I start obsessing, or latching onto, this thought because I’m convinced that it means something about me. Why else would I have had that thought if it’s not something I believe or want deep down?

So I start obsessing over the meaning of this thought and whenever I read or hear that word it triggers the obsession. And then because I’m obsessing about the meaning of the thought, I’m triggering myself and so I have the thought more. Then that results in compulsions like avoiding particular people in case I say or do something bigoted, or avoiding certain colours, or compulsive research. Contamination thoughts work a bit differently but still follow a similar pattern.

OCD puts a meaning onto the thought, be it “this is true” or “this means something is wrong with me physically/morally/emotionally”

So yea in my experience it’s less the trigger but the thoughts I have about that trigger. Um… let me know if it doesn’t make any sense lmao.

As for dealing with them, that’s the compulsions. The compulsions are how I “deal” with the thoughts and the meta-thoughts. And, well, medication and erp therapy are how I’m learning to dealing with those beasties, how I’m learning to stop responding to those thoughts, trying to become desensitised essentially.

my ocd brain: ewwww ewww weirdo I bet you like kids you wanna rape a kid don’t you?

me: what- what the fuck I’d never do that :(

My brain: I’m now gonna force you to abandon the media that comforts you just so you don’t become a molester even though you would never do that

my thoughts are like knives stabbing into my head. some days they’re like one hundred small daggers, other days it’s like a butcher knife has cleaved my head. i try to wear a helmet of thoughts or actions but they don’t always work, they don’t always keep the knives from getting to me. i bandage my wounds with whatever i can find but they become infected, leaving myself more vulnerable to the next knife that hits me there. 

or would you prefer a less violent analogy? my thoughts are like weeds in the garden. i put down weed killer and poison but they adapt to survive. i pull the weeds out but their roots are still embedded deep down, and so they come back stronger.

this morning i had an intrusion about gouging out my cat’s eyes and squashing them in my fist. i don’t know how to turn that into poetry. i cannot transform that into something beautiful and i cannot look at my cat.