I have a weird obsession with thinking.

I’m almost the whole day trapped in a meta-thinking process (think about your own thinking). As you can imagine this is exhausting and even though I overcome the part of uncomfortable body reactions (part of it.) I think this is causing me unnecessary stress, dissociation and lack of focus. The pattern is like this: - 3 Thoughts appears at the same time and I feel like I have to create a queue on my head and start to process each of them: sensations that this thought produces, what it means? Is this something for my future?… - If I forget some of these thoughts in the middle I just start to feel uncomfortable and try to recover even if this lacks of value. It feels like “I lost something important”. I work as a Software Engineer and I think I translated the way I think on my work to my personal life and that sucks. Honestly It’s hard to divorce from the way you think and solve problems on your work and make a separation on personal life. Any thoughts on this? Being honest Im tired of this. Btw: I’m don’t do drugs, alcohol or any addiction. I don’t even use social media (actually, I hate it). My daily life is basically: family, enjoy time with my girlfriend, workout 5 days a week, watch tv and work a lot on computers.

Rumination_S...

Date posted: 16h

I relate to the “thinking about thinking” part a lot. My OCD can turn something as simple as having a thought into this whole internal investigation where I feel like I need to understand why I thought it, what it means, whether I need to remember it, whether I’m forgetting something important, etc. It’s exhausting because from the outside you can look like you’re doing absolutely nothing while your brain has been working overtime for hours. One thing I’ve been learning in ERP is that the urge to mentally “finish” a thought can be a compulsion too. Sometimes the practice is literally letting a thought disappear unfinished and accepting that maybe I forgot something important. Which sounds so minor until your brain is screaming at you to go back and retrieve it 😭 Also, your software engineer comparison actually makes a lot of sense. You’re used to finding the problem and solving it, but OCD loves handing you problems that don’t have a clean solution. I think learning that not every thought needs to be debugged is probably part of the work. ❤️

Community AI...

User type: Staff

Date posted: 20h

Hi! I'm the NOCD Community AI assistant (currently in Beta). Would you like me to share some resources that might help? Just reply and let me know.

Sante

Date posted: 19h

@Community AI Helper Sure

Community AI...

User type: Staff

Date posted: 19h

@Sante - Happy to share! One thing worth naming up front: the queue you build, the analyzing of what each thought means, and the effort to recover a thought you lost are all mental compulsions. The "I lost something important" feeling is the urge, not evidence that something important was actually lost — and each time you go back and process the thought, the brief relief is what teaches your brain to keep queuing. As a software engineer, that debugging instinct is genuinely useful at work, but intrusive thoughts aren't bugs with root causes, so the same process runs indefinitely. "OCD Rumination: How to recognize and treat it" https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/the-rumination-trap Breaks down the difference between real problem-solving and rumination, and why analyzing a thought to resolution keeps the cycle going rather than closing it out. "Can mental compulsions be automatic or involuntary? And how to stop the habitual mental compulsions" https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/can-mental-compulsions-be-automatic-or-involuntary Directly addresses the part where this feels like it happens on its own all day, and gives concrete guidance on interrupting a mental ritual once it's already started. Is this something you've been navigating on your own, or have you had a chance to talk it through with anyone? 💬 Was this response helpful? Reply with a rating from 1–5 (1 = not helpful, 5 = very helpful) — your feedback helps us improve!

MeggyEgg

Date posted: 18h

I think it’s definitely something that’s gunna be really hard to work on but hopefully persistence with therapy should help. My psychiatrist has often told me to read “man’s search for meaning” when I talk about things like this. I haven’t read it but I did buy it. I also struggle with being inside my head and having thoughts about thoughts and I often feel so scared because it feels there’s no way out. I also get really scared/ upset/ bothered when I can’t remember something. It almost sends me into a panic. I’m not really sure how you stop the cycle since in my opinion idk if ERP would really work for meta OCD

Sante

Date posted: 18h

@MeggyEgg I don’t know how to change this and I couldn’t find a professional that worked on a similar case. I think I need a therapist that takes their work seriously, which is hard here in my country, even though Argentina is one of the countries with more Psychologists most of the them lacks of quality.

Sage3

Date posted: 15h

I feel the same! It’s like a spiderweb of thoughts. They all connect and have a point but it’s so confusing and never really ends.

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