- Date posted
- 1y ago
Moral scrupulosity
I don’t understand the concept of using Maybe or maybe not. When having very taboo thoughts. Like I feel it makes my ocd worse. Can someone explain?
I don’t understand the concept of using Maybe or maybe not. When having very taboo thoughts. Like I feel it makes my ocd worse. Can someone explain?
You live “maybe, maybe not” and not necessarily say it because that can become a compulsion. The more you interact and react to your OCD, the more it acts up because you are signaling to the brain that what it is showing you is in fact, dangerous, and will continually show more of it as a dangerous response. The same goes for avoidance: the more you avoid something the more you are reinforcing the brain to fear that thing, place, or person. That is why you need to face your fears and your OCD to overcome them.
@Nica Hi Nica - I’m your experience, how would you apply this theory to SOOCD. So if the thought is “I feel like I’m gay” and that’s the obsession. How does this work when it comes to the brain protecting me? Or how does it work to show me it’s dangerous? I’m very stuck.
@gp OCD latches on things you care about or that go against your morals so you have to take that into consideration. I suggest working with a specialist because OCD is complex alongside your background and personality and life experiences, but they’ll get to know you and then help you way more with specifics. But you’re just letting the thoughts and feelings be present without fighting or judging them and that’s how you lessen OCD symptoms.
@Nica Thanks Nica, makes sense. I have a therapy session on Monday. My question to her will be how do I accept the thoughts and feelings as intrusive when they feel real/true? It seems as though once I can acknowledge them as intrusions rather than fact/truth, then I will be able to create that space and get on with my day. I seem to get sucked into believing they are true, and then find it too hard to carry on with my day allowing them to be there. Does that make sense?
@gp That will be discussed in therapy but definitely something to bring up and be honest with. I had to do this with POCD and it wasn’t accepting I was a monster, it was just letting the intrusive thoughts be there without fighting them.
@Nica How on earth did you go about accepting the thoughts despite how real and true they felt to you? Like I get people say “deep down you know” but I find I can’t lean on that. I’m so confused and get smashed by how true the feelings are? How did you overcome that?
@gp Because I know it’s OCD and I was suicidal and hit rock bottom after many miserable years of my life. I was angry at everyone and at myself. I hated life. I hated everything in existence. So, do I keep doing what I was doing—which sucked and did nothing for me—or trust my therapist and the process? I trusted my therapist and the various therapies I went through and still do 100% trust my therapist. I’ve now been recovered from all my mental illnesses or 4 years now.
@Nica Makes sense to me. Congrats. I know you have responded to me many times and others. I want and need to just trust my therapist who tells me this is ocd. And tells me I have to accept the thoughts and do ERP. I get these periods of feeling like I can do it, then it comes crashing down when it feels so real and true. Almost like I feel as if I know the thoughts are true but don’t want them.
@gp The moment you let go of the need to control your thoughts, then it will all be easier.
You dont need to accept the thought or agree with it, you just need to accept that your brain had an intrusive thought
Like I saw a therapist online saying to use that and I he said that starves the ocd because it hates uncertainty. But I get taboos thoughts about racism and sometimes I get the thought “I’m a racist” and I was thinking how can incorporate the maybe and maybe not if we know that intrusive thoughts go against our values it’s like by using that I’m agreeing to the thought and that makes my ocd worse.
@Melody 25 You realize that it’s an intrusive thought and you don’t interact with it. Go about your day.
Hey guys lol So the longer I’ve been in OCD therapy, the more my meds have helped quiet my mind: I realize how many things I have been doing that was compulsive that I didn’t realize was compulsive. And for some reason I felt like those compulsions helped me to feel closer to God. Like felt closer to my values. And now that I’m recognizing what I’m was doing and now that my medicine has helped create space between my thoughts and what to do next, I feel like fear was what helped me be close my values? Can anyone else relate? Or does anyone have tips on how to still feel close to your values with the absence of so much fear and paranoia caused from OCD?
That’s kinda my question. All my thoughts feel so realistic and so now I doubt if they are ocd and if I just can’t make my mind up about something and I’m using ocd as an excuse or something idc I feel like this post is word vomit.
I’m really struggling with something related to me ocd, and I would appreciate kind and supportive advice. If you can’t relate or don’t think anything you have to say would be helpful, I kindly ask pls refrain from commenting this is a really sensitive topic for me. Recently, I’ve noticed a pattern that feels something extremely new and distressing. The first time it happened I remember telling myself before self pleasuring that I am in control no matter what thought comes into my mind because I wanted to prove to myself that these thoughts are just from OCD and I know who I am and an intrusive that came out of no where, and i suddenly felt an intense fear that I was acting on it. In the moment I genuinely felt like I did. And afterword, I panicked and started questioning myself. This SAME FEELING has happened three times in a row each time, the intrusive thought was unwanted and random, and completely against my morals most recently it involved pocd and it feels even worse because it generally felt like I acted on it the thought in the moment while I was self pleasuring the panic doesn’t hit until afterwards when I stop :/ I start thinking that maybe I generally made a mistake and I’m now just realizing that it’s wrong because it generally feels like that :( but when I actually think about it again goes against my morals and values doesn’t make sense it feels incredibly real, and I can’t seem to shake this feeling off that I may have acted on it I’m terrified because I never wanted these thoughts in the first place. And I definitely didn’t choose them. If I had known, I would’ve had these intrusive thoughts I wouldn’t have self pleasured in the first place but it’s extremely hard to convince myself that this may be OCD because I feel like I have no other reason to believe that I didn’t act on it :/
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