- Date posted
- 37w
Fake memory ocd
Kickstart your recovery journey with a caring community of others
working to conquer OCD
Fake memory ocd
Currently I have several different OCD fears that pop up throughout the week depending on the situation. I've noticed a commonality between all of them are the fears relating to memory/false memory. Today is the ROCD struggle I've been dealing with. I know OCD has been trying this on me lately because of how much I love my spouse. They are my absolute best friend and she's my world. I value our marriage and friendship more than anything. OCD has latched onto one specific female coworker. And I don't even know why because even if I were single I wouldn't be into her. Even still, OCD makes me think I've cheated on my wife every time I'm alone with this coworker at work. Always starts as a what if, followed by imagery, followed by feelings that I must've actually done something and can't remember it. Usually fearing I've kissed her. It hurts because I know I'd never do that to my wife and I love her so much...the idea of losing her kills me, especially if it were the result of something I did. Just wanted to vent. Feel free to share your experiences or vents as well
Hi. I found this website through listening to a podcast. I am undiagnosed OCD, but I am absolutely sure I've got it, and I'm really struggling. I feel lonely and my head will literally not give me a moment's peace. It all started a year ago. I have always been the anxious type, but a really intrusive/alarming thought randomly entered my head - it wasn't intrusive/alarming in the sense of distressing explicit content (as I know this is common with OCD), it was intrusive & alarming in regards to the future and a worse case scenario happening. I spiralled from here and over a year later I'm really struggling in this same spiral. I have to check things constantly. If I can't check, I become quickly distressed. But, even if I can check, sometimes it's not enough and I still doubt and become distressed. I am CONSTANTLY scanning for danger - no matter how small, or insignificant. I am CONSTANTLY pre-occupied by worse case scenario and I try and plan repeatedly in my head 'just in case'. I replay the past in my head on a constant loop trying to desperately remember if I did/didn't do something. I then 'test' myself by trying to remember things that I can check in the here and now - if I get it wrong, I become pre-occupied and distressed. I'm very vigilant about 'covering any tracks' where I could have 'slipped up', e.g. did I send that text to the right person? Or fully believing that my phone has malfunctioned and has sent stuff to people who I wouldn't want to see it. I then check and recheck. I have urges to straighten things, touch things etc. when my brain tells me to so that I stay 'safe'. Every OCD incident, pattern etc. I have a real need to share and seek reassurance from friends and family, but not only do I realise that ultimately this reinforces my OCD, friends and family are fed up and have a 'what now?' attitude. It's so lonely and I want to beat OCD once and for all. It's an absolutely miserable way to live.
I feel like the thoughts are telling me, "You want this, you want to be attracted to kids" when I know that's not the case. I've been stuck ruminating for the past couple of days and I'm so worried about this disorder convincing me that I'm something I've never been. I try not to fight it, but when I don't it feels like I'm giving into it like it's true. The meds I'm on keep me from being super depressed, but it's still there. I feel like I'm going to act on my thoughts one day and it worries me. I don't feel like myself anymore and I don't know if this is progress or a relapse. Even when having intercourse with my partner, I had to thought block because the thoughts were images while in the middle of it. Then afterwards, they came flooding in saying that I was doing it as a distraction. I don't know what else to do. I try to pinpoint all of my triggers, but sometimes I don't think I even have any. I feel like a monster. I'm honestly scared.
Basically I got a lots of vivid dreams last night and I woke up but went sleep again and was sort of trying to sleep but felt like I was awake not asleep but a vivid scene of a man say you did something with an underage person and I started remember but how can I do this in my sleep . I think I did it but not sure when .
OCD Journey Stories
Promoted
I was consumed with all sorts of “what-ifs” and how to prevent anything dangerous that would have potentially been my fault.
By Sarah
Read my False-Memory OCD story →Im so fucking terrified by my own thoughts. Idk how much longer I can go on like this. Just every single thing my brain produces feels either distorted by OCD or like I've literally done the most deplorable thing any person could do. Can't reach out to a specialist because I don't have the money and too scared too share. So scared that it's real
I went out 2 years ago with some friends and I can’t remember some of the night - we went to a house party and my friends say nothing happened but I’m so afraid that I cheated on my partner and don’t remember it. It’s consuming my every minute and I can’t let it go. I was reading up on false memory ocd the other day and it triggered me into thinking what if something I imagined happening actually happened and I don’t know what to do and I’m scared that because I imagined something a certain way that if it wasn’t the same thing I imagined that it must be true
Hi so I've been having a recent theme of soocd hocd. At the start I was all panicked and couldn't leave my house. Now all my emotions feel like they have turned off. It feels real now like I'm just in denial. It's bringing up memories from the past of shows I've watched or people I was friends with to try and prove the point or people I thought were pretty. It's saying you've only realised now cause you are comfortable as I had a difficult childhood. I feel no attraction towards men and can't remember if I ever have now even though I know I did. It's saying its all fake. I really am. Starting to believe it's real and I just feel depressed now. Am I going to have to leave my boyfriend who I planned my life with. It feels like life is going by and I'm stuck. I have no energy at all.
Ive been having terrible irrational thoughts that Ive cheated and don’t remember. Like the guilt made me repress the memory and im actually an awful person and someone’s gonna expose me. I know it’s not true and I love my boyfriend more than anything but i feel so guilty for something ive never done. its been making my life so difficult and i dont know how to explain it without sounding like im covering something up :( Its making me think that I need to break up and i don’t want too, but the guilt and anxiety is eating away at me. I feel like I need to get better before I continue on or i’m going to permanently ruin everything with my mental illness
Idk if this happened to anyone but I have a lot of self doubt and memory problems.idk if they are false memories or not. When someone ,a relative , or even going to church in a deliverance service ask questions like "have you don't something in the past that you feel guilty about in the past?" "do feel like you admitting to stuff would make you feel a certain way ? I feel like it triggers me does that means that the thoughts I have are real and I did do something if I feel triggered. I always feel guilty 😔
I’ve had many types of OCD, but I gained control over them over the years, but a new one has started to arise. Do y’all ever have scary thoughts about something you might do? Recently I’ll get extremely uncomfortable no matter where I am because I can’t stop thinking about “what if I screamed really loud in my lecture class tomorrow?” And other stupid stuff like that. Also, this one is kind of funny, but sometimes when I use the bathroom I pause before because I think “what if I’m actually in class right now?” I also cannot control the thoughts about past embarrassing moments. I know everyone does, but I will become visibly uncomfortable and harp on something from years ago. This happens all throughout the day. Also, does anyone else do things that resemble tics when you get these thoughts. Like when they happen I’ll curse under my breath or like jerk my head a little bit. When I’m in public I keep it low key but when I’m alone sometimes I’ll physically get up and pace or something when those thoughts happen. Just curious if anyone has had these experiences
Lemme explain, so quite often if I’m retelling something that happened I will lie about random details because I constantly think that if whatever I’m saying isn’t interesting enough or if it makes me seem like a bad person then the listener will absolutely hate me or think I’m boring and not want to talk to me anymore. I don’t know if that could potentially be based on ocd or if maybe it’s more like pathological lying ? Sometimes I’ll even take it as far as repetitively memorizing the lie details to the point where I actually feel like I remember it happening that way (like I almost gaslight myself into believing my own lies if that makes sense?)
I know I was here earlier on with a question as well lol but has anyone ever found that when a new false memory takes its place at the forefront of your mind, it's almost easier to disregard the old false memories and say "Yeah that stuff didn't actually happen that way". It feels like OCD giving you a little reward for letting it place a new, shinier false memory in your head. Anyone experience the same thing? Maybe I've asked a similar question before.
Tw Ocd has always manifested itself in different forms in my life. The fact that this memory came to me literally destroyed 4 months of my life with constant doubt, fear, guilt, the desire to commit suicide. Living with this fear for 4. Months wondering if I really did it? If it really happened and I really SA’d this person or it really happened and the ocd is trying to make me look like the wrong person? The fact that the old things I did when I was little are coming back makes me even more scared. Sometimes, I tell myself, what if I really didn't have the ocd and I'd just really done it? I talk about this event as if I'd really done it when, I don't even know if it's true or not and that scares me even more because I tell myself that if I talk about it as if I'd really done it, well maybe I really did it? I live with this enormous fear of having done it and of being seen everywhere as someone who has committed a cocsa . My ocd deteriorates at night with suicidal crises. I don't have anyone to talk to because I'm afraid people will think I'm weird or judge me. I'm always afraid of tomorrow, I go to bed with a heavy heart and I wake up with a heavy heart and the fear that I've done it, I'm afraid of waking up one day and finding out that I've really done it, like why can't I trust my brain? Why can't I remember? And even though I know I didn't do it or I'm certain of it (I prayed for it and I received a wave of peace), I'll always have this doubt in my head and it will come back even worse . Every time I hear the words rape, assault, violence, I feel so bad and I feel targeted, if it's triggering me and I feel bad and I wonder if it has anything to do with my memory or if it means that I really did it. I'm French and I don't know if the psychiatrists here know this subtype. I'm afraid that my psychiatrist won't know and will judge me.
Very brief mentions of pocd and nsfw jokes,id like this to be adults only . Repost bc i had to edit something Does anyone have experience with real event ocd attached to your online footprint etc? I keep checking old messages,trying to find old people i knew i used to talk to etc. To find out every problematic thing I did and if I've ever been unfollowed or blocked by anyone I used to be friends w online/atleast on good terms w. I am particularly concerned abt doing something bigoted,esp racist bc i have racism ocd,and doing something predatory bc of my pocd. I remember hanging around people who could use 'edgy' or offensive humour in my teens and i remember a lot of sex jokes and that i would join in on sex jokes sometimes . i dont remember details w the offensive humour as much,i feel like i didnt join in on it as much but i was definitely WAY passive abt things and prob let a lot of bad stuff slide i shouldnt have bc i didn't speak up it was wrong,I remember one friend in an online community would say slurs and horrible jokes when i was 16. I dont remember my response to it as much but i feel i didnt speak up abt it aside one time i found in the dms where he made a bad joke on a thing i shared for social justice. I cant stop going thru old messages and stuff or trying to find ppl from the past. I feel like if I don't check it now,that eventually it'll come to haunt me or that I'll stumble across it eventually. I worry what if someone messaged me on one of these apps I un-installed or on one of the accounts I don't have access to,confronting me abt all this stuff I did. I had an obsession w this back in 2020 and did check in depth on all my accounts,but now that it's been 4 years the obsession is back in full swing.
TW My brother came home 4 days ago (I think) from a hospital stay of just over 3 months. In the hospital, he attacked one of the staff and almost k*lled her, in his dysphoric mania. Now he's out of mania, but I'm scared that he'll harm or try to k*ll our pets and/or my mom and dad. Since he's been home, my OCD has flared up badly, and I've started to have panic attacks (leading to seizures and fainting), destroying my lips, and having overstimulation over every little physical sensation. My joint pain is becoming unbearable and the medications aren't working, I may have an autoimmune disorder that could destroy my organs (Lupus), I'm frustrated because walking feels like hell, I keep falling, I keep getting dizzy and seeing stars and I'm just so tired. I can't sleep since my brother came home. Yes, I close my door at night, but I'm still terrified that he will hurt my cat. I've started to hate anything that I've touched with my hands cuz I don't wanna get stuff on my face and I hate the feeling. Yesterday I kept obsessing over whether or not I was cheating, if any of my memories are real, obsessing over if everything is perfect or perfectly in place, and over everything my brother does. I've become paranoid over everything and I'm so tired. Thank you for listening.
Cranial osteopathy was one I tried, that worked alongside a specific meditation that I will not share for safety reasons. That brought up memories of events that were the birth of some of my compulsions, fears and behaviours. It mainly targeted the traumas in my life in which my ocd is comorbid. Next on my list to try is reiki, to see if that has any effect in calming me down or grounding me. I'll respond with results next week. 3rd is hypnotherapy which I'm excited to start as it's something I wish to go into. I want to experience it first hand before I consider investing in an education on it. 4th is neurofeedback therapy which looks really promising with all the stuff I've seen. I think there may be a real good combination of things in which we can rewire our brain and body. I feel so excited about this, that I don't know where to start 😅🤯
I’m not too sure where to begin so some stuff may be a bit scattered. I’d like to start with the fact that I’m not sure if I just have anxiety or if it is actually OCD. I’ve been dealing with these intrusive thoughts for as long as I can remember. TRIGGER WARNING NEXT PARAGRAPH Stuff like “what if my teacher just raped me in the middle of class” or “what if I pulled all my veins at.” Those are some of the more graphic and violent things but I do get lesser things like “what if I imagined that whole conversation” when I know for a fact I did experience that exact memory/conversation. I don’t like these thoughts and I don’t ever want to think them. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated. I’m only 16 and I want to be sure about this stuff before I ask my parents to get me diagnosed.
im going to be vague here, but basically i did something in the past that i regret and it became a huge point of my OCD but i have talked to my therapist and i have mostly moved past it. i watched a video by an OCD youtuber that really put it into perspective. anyway, i have been with minimal worry for a few days, but now im having worries related to i think false memory? basically it’s like “oh but what if i said/ did this and just forgot that means i harmed this person im a bad person”. to me it sounds like textbook OCD but im just wondering if anyone else has experienced false memory / real event at the same time. i have a really horrible memory which is making it even more stressful. any responses are appreciated!
im just now finding out more details about how csa permanently affects children and now im petrified of traumatizing a child to the point where i almost want to be castrated. i can’t stand the thought of ruining a child’s life like that. like what if someone lies about their age online or what if i accidentally traumatized a child and didn’t remember? what if i didn’t care enough about the effects of csa before? it’s to the point where i don’t even look forward to having a s*x life. for some reason it feels too risky even though i don’t have bad intentions.
If you are in crisis, please use these emergency resources to find immediate help.
OCD doesn't have to
rule your life