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I had a false memory real event ocd - situation that happened before that causes me great anxiety and stress. I had already talked with the community on this and now the memory came back and the guilt and doubt and anxiety came right back again

I’m getting ready to officially start ERP next week. Doesn’t this mean I must accept whatever the OCD is telling me? In my case it means I’m an awful person who does not deserve my family/friends or happiness of any kind. Last night I was thinking about this at my son’s sport event. It occurred to me that if all the people there “knew” what the OCD implies, they would hate me and shame me. Maybe it was easier to just be mildly happy by placating the OCD with reassurance and the mantra—it’s not me, it’s OCD. Anyway, guilt ridden and anxious, I excused myself from the bleachers at my son’s game last night, acting like I had to use the restroom. I walked past the restroom, got into my car and went home and right to bed at 7:30 pm. (History: Pure-O/ False Memory OCD)

Over the last month I have been struggling with harm and real event ocd. I just received my diagnosis the other day. I am in constant doubt and can’t stop ruminating over my childhood behaviors and feel that everything I have is validated. I keep fearing I’m gonna be some kind of psychopath and do something bad when I don’t wanna hurt anyone. While I’ve been ruminating I’ve become obsessed with researching different mental illnesses that I feel I match perfectly with. I’m starting to worry I have aspd, bpd, and npd. I especially have been ruminating over I act in my relationship of almost 3 years. I have a lot of bpd tendencies and ruminating over how easily I am set off and get frustrated makes me feel like the worst gf ever. I have a constant fear of being cheated on and dumped so small things that happen tend to upset me and make me jealous. I realize afterwards that my emotions run a little too high when this happens and I feel like I switch from being sweet to a b**ch. now I can’t stop telling myself that my bf deserves so much better than a piece of s**t like me. He’s been the only person I’ve been with that treats me right and I feel like I’m some kind of mentally Ill psychopath. I feel like I have every trait that puts me in all categories for severe personality disorders and I’m honestly terrified and this is becoming a kind of obsession. Reading the comments to all kinds of videos about these disorders makes me feel like I don’t deserve anyone especially not the amazing person I’m with now. Idk if this is the ocd or a point or realization that I really am this bad of a person. Is this some new ocd theme or what? I’m ready to give up on life entirely I feel so horrible.

If i was a child (12 and 13) and Ive made separate horrible mistakes that my pocd says im a p and a chomo for, should I be forgiven?? I had no idea how horrible the mistakes were when I was 12 and 13... I really truly didnt... im 22 and about to turn 23 in July...

Lately my ocd has shown back up big time. I’m coming close to the end of my pregnancy and my hormones typically really affect it. Currently living in the existential/ harm themes and fear of developing psychosis and going to hurt my loved ones! Questioning if things are real too which then makes me even more anxious because I think I’m slipping into psychosis! Anyone else experience this? Just not the headspace I want to be in before birth

Hi all! I am asking for ‚reassurance‘ and in this case I think it’s ok - and also, If anybody else experienced this. I am in therapy for 1,5 years now with this psychoanalysis therapist. She is great at what she does, but not for my OCD. Last year it got so bad and I went to the hospital for 2 months cause my ocd just flared up so badly. She helped me with my trauma a lot (father sa‘d me for years and only with her I remembered with flashbacks). Though she sees each ocd thought with direct correlation to my trauma. Which def could be the case, but it did not help me one bit. In fact, I am where I was now one year later contemplating if I shall go to the mental hospital again. The fact that there is a ‚reason‘ implied for each obsessive thought that pops my mind (e.g. cheating thought when looking at my fiancé is creating distance because I project my fathers relationship into my fiancé and then i get scared) - could be, but how does it help me? Or the fact that she says my ocd flares up when I’m angry cause I get thrown into that child-like anger from when my father abused me, which but I don’t even remember how I felt (which is great, it’s dissociation‘s purpose).how does it help me though?! I know that it actually worsened my condition cause now I realize I was ruminating all fuxking day long about the associative meaning of that stupid thought. Until yesterday I hurt myself again cause I was very close to giving up (dramatic I know, but it’s how it felt yesterday). Why did it take me so long to let her go? I wrote an email this morning to her saying that I want to change therapy style and that I want to talk about it with her… it got so bad I was questioning my reality yesterday … like 100% didn’t know what was real… Did any of you have a similar experience ? And do any of you have a good tip now to get out of this cycle myself? Thank you!!!

I’m going through what is hopefully just a really bad hypochondria episode where I’ve convinced myself I have schizophrenia. It’s been about 8 months and I’ve been through a range of crazy symptoms but the most prevalent symptom is getting crazy delusional thoughts like “what if my wife is a demon and trying to get to me” “what if nobody is real and these are all monsters/demons out to get me” etc etc. the thoughts are absolutely terrifying and they make me look at people differently, and i have to question myself whether I truly believe the thoughts or not, they feel so real, when they come on I almost catch myself genuinely feeling paranoid that they are 100% real and having a panic attack, but then the tiny bit of me that’s still rational brings me back to reality. And from then on I have to question myself all day “do I really believe this?” “Well you technically can’t disprove those things” “if it’s not real, then why does it FEEL real?” “This really is schizophrenia” “ what if it’s not schizophrenia but ACTUALLY real?” “who do I go to for help?” “What if I can’t trust anyone” and the scariest of them all…”why would a see a doctor if this is all real” etc, it’s literally hell. I can never give a satisfying “No, I don’t believe this” to these thoughts. I can go days and weeks and be able to confidently shrug them off and tell how ridiculous they are only for them to come back with a vengeance the next day. I could really use some reassurance even though I know it’s bad. I have never been like this before until I started obsessing over schizophrenia. I’ve been like this for 8 months now.

Can false memory make you have a theme that you did something bad and when you try to remember if you did you search for it and then something seems familiar and you think you might have done something sexual with someone years ago but you never thought about it till now??? I am so confused 😞 I feel like I would remember this very clearly.

So I’ve been dealing with severe ocd for the past 3 years.. I’ve dealt with it all my life but had up and downs and thought I was finally getting my life back and now over the weekend I got a huge trigger. It revolves around being intoxicated and having holes In my memories of that night. I was fine the next day and hangin out and then started to look back on the night and that’s when my brain picked the blank in my memory. It got really dark with the what ifs and the anxiety went thru the roof but now it has stuck and I can’t stop trying to figure what happened in those blank moments. Everyone I was with said nothing bad happened but I just keep having false memories. Anyone have these moments?😣😣😣

So I’ve been in a pretty rough spiral/ocd spike for about a month now. I used to have this theme of being severely mentally ill or schizophrenic or psychotic and it went away for like 6 months and now it’s back full force. I have never hallucinated but I have this intense fear of what if I do. So with this theme I have these delusional thoughts that are just bizarre and I know how delusional they are but they feel so real and scary like I believe them. My body reacts by my stomach feeling uneasy and I’ll get a chill and just feel like I’m gonna be sick. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a thought per say.. it can just be a weird sensation or feeling and then I’ll become extremely anxious and borderline feel like I could panic. I can usually talk myself down from a full blown panic attack and but it’s just so distressing and I’m wondering if anyone else goes through this? I think it stems from a core fear of losing my family, ending up institutionalized away from my family and my family being devastated and judging me bc I “went crazy” please if anyone else can relate I’d appreciate any advice.

To the best of my memory: I am ocd. I check locks, I check the stove. I think of “what ifs”. Etc. I have some hoarding tendencies. I wash my hands until they get dried out sometimes. Etc. January 2022 I moved back to my mother’s house after graduating from university with an accounting degree, to save $ & pay student loans. November 21, 2022 I take my 16/17 year old cat to the vet because he lost weight & has Horner’s syndrome (1 constricted pupil and raised eyelid). The cat is diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, and a heart rate of 240 at the time of the exam. November 29, 2022 Around 12:30pm my mom texts me & says cat could use his medication(he started methimazole). I go downstairs to see the cat. The cat, Peebles, seems like he could not stand or walk. He seemed like he was going through something. We administered the methimazole to him in a syringe. Shortly after this, he started to have what appeared to be erratic movements, that I wouldn’t know how else to describe them, other than looking similar to seizures or erratic flailing. After this, he laid on the ground for a while. He appeared to still be breathing at this point, because his abdomen was moving to suggest breath. Every once in a while a rear leg would kick as if he was trying to scratch himself, but he was laying down and didn’t seem to have bodily control or movement or function besides this. I think maybe for some period of time his eyes were closed and he was just laying on the ground breathing with eyes closed. Eventually I think his eyes opened. I think also at some point he tilted his head way back and arched his back, it was very strange. Idk how to describe this other than seizure like movements. Eventually I called the vet around 2:30pm, the vet suggested I not assume it he worst and bring the cat in. I return to the cat after stepping outside from my phone call. I pick him up and cradle him in my arms with his belly facing up. I take him to a sunny area of the porch, and in the sunny area his pupils constricted reacting to the light. At some point after I picked him up and while I was holding him, he began doing mouth gasps, which may have been agonal respirations. I took him to the sunlight on the porch because nature and sunlight make me feel better when I don’t feel well. So I brought him to nature and sunlight because I like nature and sun light and my cats were indoor outdoor cats who likes to be outside. While he was doing these mouth gasps, I handed Peebles to my mother so that I could leave to take a quick shower before going to the vet. If I could do it over, I would have skipped the shower and reacted differently in so many different ways, such as skipping the shower and going to the vet immediately. Part of me suspected that death was imminent for my friend Peebles. Maybe that is part of why I delayed, because when my dog died, she has mouth gasps. So idk. Regardless this is what happened. I return from the shower and my mom is no longer holding Peebles. Peebles is laying on the couch wrapped in a towel. My mom says Peebles died. For whatever reason this was not a well lit living room at the time. My parents are not the most functional people, my mom was sexually abused and been on diazepam for at least a decade, and I don’t perceive her as being the most high functioning person. And I guess I’m not either. Because neither of us thought to replace the light bulb in the living room. So the light in the living room was from light coming through the blinds from outside, maybe light from the lightbulb in the kitchen next to the living room, maybe light from the television, so it wasn’t completely dark or completely well lit. I visually inspected Peebles to see if he was breathing. I did not notice his abdomen moving, so I assumed he was not breathing because I didn’t see him breathing and I didn’t see him moving. So I called the vet and told them we were not coming in because Peebles had passed. I informed people Peebles had passed on my phone. I informed my work (I work from home), and explained what happened and made sure it was okay for me to be excused from work. After my phone call with the vet, I inspected Peebles’ body again at least once or twice, looking visually possibly staring a few second to see if unnoticed abdominal motion to suggest breath. I did not see any motion or movements or any sign of respiration. I wish I had thought to feel for a pulse. I think I did, but thought “well he does not appear to be breathing and he smells bad, so perhaps checking for a pulse is not necessary”. The smell made me gag. He seemed to smell bad fast. I remember thinking that if we waited to bury him, the house might smell bad. I eventually ate for the first time all day around 4:30pm I had cheese, crackers and salami or pepperoni or something like that. I asked my mom to wait to wait to dig the hole and to wait to bury Peebles. My mom never listens to anything I say and often does the opposite. Even if it is serious or if there is a reason, she never listens, and I don’t know if this is malicious or dementia or what it is, I can’t tell if she is a liar or just a confused person with bad memory. Sometimes it is difficult to tell. I find her digging the hole after I asked her not to, after I asked her to wait. But since she is already digging the hole, I begin to dig the hole further to assist her, because I want to do the right thing, I want to feel like I am doing the correct thing and assisting with this difficult moment. I dug the hole deeper. At some point after this, anyways between 30-90 minutes after this, at the cusp of sunset, it seems like there is pressure and expectation to bury Peebles. I think to myself “should I take a video of his condition, so that I don’t question whether or it he is dead?”. I dismiss this and think no, I’ll just thoroughly inspect him before he is buried to confirm his death again, I don’t want to be weird by taking a video. So, it is the cusp of sunset, not sunny at this point, getting dark. I lay Peebles’ body on the porch to inspect him and confirm his death. I think I had just read online that the pupils are usually dilated after death. So I glance at the abdomen, I still don’t notice breathing from the abdomen. So I don’t stare or spend too much time on the abdomen because I felt like that box was already checked. So I am thinking about the eyes and pulse and other things like that. In my mind, I want to take my time and conclude at my own pace that Peebles is dead before burying him. He was completely limp and had not moved for 2.5-3 hours. When I carried him wrapped in a towel, I did not inadvertently notice any breath or pulse through the towel. It wasn’t something I was consciously purposefully feeling for. But after the fact, I wrapped my other cats in a towel to test if a pulse or breath would be obvious and it seems like something that a person is unlikely to miss visually or feeling through the towel. So at this point Peebles seemed dead. I didn’t notice breath. His teeth were showing. His eyes were open. He was limp and hadn’t moved for at least 2.5 hours. I lifted his head and looked in his eyes. His pupils appeared to be pretty constricted. Which gave me a weird feeling, because I thought the pupils should be dilated. However, as I am making this observation and trying to process this observation my mom said “would you hurry up! You’re freaking me out!” in a rushed hostile judgemental tone. This broke my moment of inspection. She followed with “do you want to put him in the hole or do you want me to do it?”. I said “I don’t want to put him in the hole”. This is because I was not ready to bury the cat and had not sufficiently concluded he was dead. But I felt so rushed and pressured in the moment and didn’t have time to process or think or go at my own pace. When I said I don’t want to put him in the whole I meant in general. My mom picked the cat up and put him in the hole. I hated this moment. It is the worst most anxious moment of my life and I relive this nightmare every day. I think I said something like “okay Peebles this is last call, let us know if you’re there”. I think when my mom put him in the hole I wanted to retrieve him, but I could see the neighbors watching tv with their blinds open in my periphery and I guess I felt self conscious about how it would look. I felt pressured an guided in the moment. I felt like the expectation was for me to bury Peebles at this point. So I began to put dirt on Peebles. I put it on loosely. It was the worst feeling in the entire world. I relive it every day. I was horrified wondering if I had buried Peebles prematurely. And I still wonder every day. I’ve probably spent 1,000 hours thinking about it. Hours contacting vets and animal neurologists and ChatGPT for answers or reassurance. My mom patted the dirt down and I was horrified. I felt so trapped and stuck in this horrible moment. I felt like a cat killer. I feel like a murderer. My self esteem and my ego are gone. I feel like my mom and I deserve incarceration. I want to feel normal again but I feel like I don’t deserve to feel normal. I feel like a traitor. I worry about my friend being scared and in need and what if we betrayed him during a medical emergency. What if I caused him to suffer. I feel very bad. Sometimes it is my first thought when I wake up. I feel it in my heart and mind and skin. It is like a never ending Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe experience. When we went in the house immediately after the burial it was dark outside and I had a temper tantrum about what happened and called people for reassurance. I wish I had immediately dug up Peebles’ body to confirm his death immediately after the burial. I guess some reasons I didn’t: 1. Afraid or how it might look to the neighbors. 2. It was dark outside. 3. If he wasn’t dead before, I assumed the burial probably killed him. 4. Maybe I was just being weird and ocd and overreacting. In retrospect I wish I had dug him up, because if I thought there was any possibility he might have been buried prematurely then the right thing to do would have been to have immediately retrieving the body instead of calling everyone to vent about what happened. There are so many aspects of this day I wish I could do differently. The constricted pupils haunt me because usually pupils are dilated after death, not constricted. That said, Peebles had Horner’s syndrome, and I wonder if an underlying condition that caused his Horner’s syndrome could have caused his constricted pupils post Mortem. Some things that make the constricted pupils unusual: 1. Pupils are usually dilated after death for cats. 2. It was the cusp of sunset and our porch was facing East. The sun set in the west. It would have been unusual for pupils to be that constricted as reaction to light at this time and in this setting. I’ve taken my other cats to the same spot around the same time, and their pupils did not get this constricted as Peebles were. 3. Peebles, when he was alive had Horner’s syndrome. Usually one pupil was more round and dilated while the other pupil usually remained constricted. Prior to burial, to the best of my memory his pupils were uniformly constricted, and he didn’t appear have Horner’s syndrome. This seems to suggest his constricted pupils may not have been a reaction to light or a sign of neurological activity, but it seems I’ll never get the opportunity to check for sure. No vet I’ve talked to seems to think Peebles was alive when he was buried. Idk if they are just saying that to make me feel better. ChatGPT seems to suggest it is highly likely Peebles had passed prior to burial, but cannot be definitive without a professional examination by a veterinary professional. So idk what to do. I feel like I need a group of vets and animal neurologists and ocd specialists to convene to try to determine what happened. And even after that it feels like I would still feel guilty and ask what if and feel bad and wonder if I caused my scared friend to suffer and die when he needed my help. Idk what to do. According to google maps there are ocd specialists about 3 hours away from me, in Tampa. I’ve heard of a certain type of mushroom helping to treat ocd in some studies, but this mushroom is illegal in most states including my state. So idk what to do but it has become a lot of weight and not very enjoyable.

I’ve always had a feeling of having OCD but I’ve never been sure. I’m a teenager, and I’m hoping people on this app can help me try to figure out if I have OCD or I’m just crazy. Starting off with these terrible thoughts I have all the time. Someone can come home late and I immediately think they got into a car wreck, and check my phone for recent car crashes and other thing etc. etc. number 2, I always have intrusive thoughts, terrible ones ever since I was a kid I can’t control. I immediately feel like thinking these will lead god to hate me, and that he made an imperfection on me. And every time I try to hide these thoughts away, like right now they’re coming out I just can’t stop thinking of them and it’s so hard to do anything. Just thoughts like, “you hate your mom” or, “you hate god” and stuff that scares me like spiders. It’s hard to do anything with these thoughts. I’m also a major perfectionist, if anything is out of order I freak out. Yes, my room is messy. But I feel a sense of incompleteness and anxiety if I don’t empty the dishwasher, or don’t clean dirty dishes around the sink. These are recent and I feel like God will punish me for committing the sin of laziness. I also have a thing with the number 5, when I touch something it needs to be 5 times and if it’s not 5 times I freak out. I’m also terrified of getting sick, every time my friend is sick I freak out and don’t get near them the entire day, constantly washing my hands. Writing this is triggering a lot of my terrible thoughts and I don’t want to continue writing. Please let me know your thoughts, mental illness runs in my family but my mom is constantly telling me there’s nothing wrong with me. Maybe she’s right.

My OCD seems to take things way too literally and make reason out of everything. I’ll see something that sort of relates to the topic of my OCD and think it’s a sign that applies to me and think “well if it’s not true why did I see that then”. Lately I’ve been struggling with the fact that “everything happens for a reason”. I am a Christian and cherish my relationship with God very much. Because everything happens for a reason, does this mean that every time I see something related to my OCD God wants me to have these thoughts? I suffer with false memory OCD. Are these signs God telling me I actually did do something bad in my past or is this just OCD playing tricks on me. I’m just really confused because I know God does create coincidence. So am I seeing these things because I did something bad? Ugh OCD is so hard. I just feel like my brain is in a big scramble and I just can’t seem to make sense out of reality. My thoughts feel so real

i’m struggling so much with things that have happened in my past, especially in my childhood, things that i’ve done, the guilt and shame is too much and i’ve told my mum and she just thinks it was normal childhood things and part of growing up but i can’t let any of it go, my mind feels so messy, and some of the memories are blurry and it’s making me feel horrible and i’m so distressed i just want this to be over and im worried to talk to a therapist because of what they might say or think, can anyone relate?

I’ve been having constant delusional thoughts about my family not being my family or being swapped somehow. It started out as very existential what ifs as well as me just in general being delusional or schizophrenic but has now actually moved into delusional thinking. It really scares me because my brain will start to look for proof that it’s true when I’m constantly trying to logic my way out of it. I get thoughts like “what if your family are skin walkers” and my brain will try to find a reason why unwillingly, and then I will fight that thought. And when I do that it will find the deepest delusional thought to combat that rational thought. Like I’ll see something and get a crazy thought “what if that’s a warning or sign that your family is not your family” “what if that thought was put in your head” “what if none of your thoughts are yours” or something insane along those lines, and it can truly feel like it could be happening but I still know deep down it’s not. Like I know there are a million logical explanations for why it isn’t true but my mind wants to stick to the worst thing imaginable. It’s like my brain is forcing me to find a reason on why it could be true, and making bizzare connections, when I just know in my core it’s not. I fear that I’m developing schizophrenia. I just don’t understand why there is a part of me that is considering this as a possibility when I know it’s not? Even when I say I know I can’t feel that feeling of knowing. It also almost feels like I am forcing myself to write normally, like I question if I’m just in denial and am just coping with this being true or something. I saw a psychiatrist and told me he believes it’s OCD, but I sometimes just don’t understand why these thoughts can get so deep. I truly feel like I’m insane. Like I’m aware of my own paranoia or psychosis.

I can’t even tell if my intrusive thoughts are real or not. Sometimes I feel like I want the thoughts or am just in denial and some of the actions I’ve done in my past, I can’t forgive myself for. I have Real Event OCD and I can’t forgive myself for my mistakes. I hate myself so much. I hate feeling like such a bad person all the time. My themes have also continuously switched and it feels like I have a new theme every few months. I’m so done with this and I don’t know what to do.

TW !!!!! i’m so scared right now and i just want someone to relate because i feel like an awful awful person, this is an event hat happned when i was 5 or 6 i don’t really know how old i was but i was a young child and with another child who was 2 or 3 years younger than me i can’t really remember the age gap but that’s what terrified me because im scared i did COCSA. ( child on child sexual assault) i feel awful and i have this recurring thought “what if i took advantage of him” and it wont stop. i remember i said to him do you want to see what sex is like and i said but keep your clothes on and he said okay and i want doing it for sexual pleasure because i dont think i really understood or knew what it was but i kept my clothes on and he took all his clothes off when i didn’t want him to (including his underwear)and he got on top of me and was moving and i remember feeling really uncomfortable so i stopped it and i know this might be tmi but i just need to know if i abused him or not because i cant stand the thought, im really struggling and i don’t think there was any evil intent behind what happened but i keep having the recurring thought “what if i took advantage of him” i don’t know what to do i feel like i should turn myself in to the police i feel dreadful

i have recently had really bad confession ocd. i have an amazing happy healthy relationship, and i’m slowly destroying it. now, it’s come as far as me confessing thoughts that i probably shouldn’t be having to him. i feel so much guilt and anxiety if i don’t tell him, but telling him is just ruining our relationship and hurting him. i don’t mean these thoughts, i love him and want only him. i also confess at least 5+ times a day. I struggle with not even knowing if some things im confessing that i’ve done in the past are real or fake. it’s like i don’t know if what i did was real or not. im trying my best to stop confessing, but it’s hard because how am i supposed to know if it’s something he really needs to know or not? i don’t wanna lose him by telling him stupid stuff i should have kept to myself. he’s my dream person. it’s hard to act normal around him when i’m having the urge to confess. that leads me to not hold it in when he asks if i’m okay, because then if i say yes i’m lying so then i have to confess. we are very open about things, but it just has gone too far on my end. if anyone has any tips on how to overcome this please share.

I did something 5-6 years ago when I was barely an adult, and I know it was stupid, but I know I can never take it back, and I hate myself everyday for it. I feel like I can’t move forward in life because I can’t forgive myself and honestly sometimes don’t even want people to see I exist. I haven’t done that same thing in years but I still see myself as a horrible person. How do I move forward. I’ve been in therapy since I was 19 and also have extreme extreme checking ocd and it hasn’t helped but this rumination has been a big problem lately.

You ever feel like real event OCD makes you feel like a fugitive from the law? I get real event OCD that latches onto everything. I go all the way back to childhood, teenage years, etc. Some days I imagine myself as the most hated person in the world on the tabloids. What did I do that could cancel me? What terrible crime would I be accused of? What was my intent when I did that? It’s all the same. I will see stories about people having their lives ruined and dark secrets come up years later. I pray I’m not like those people but sometimes my OCD will take an event and balloon it into something huge in my head. I’m here to offer anyone going through this some hope. I thought ERP would make these worries go away but I fully embrace them. ERP works, but you need to make it work. It’s a lifestyle change and you need to change the way you approach it. I wanted it to just disappear and go away. Bring. It. On. I am so tired of OCD worming its way into my life and making me feel like I can’t enjoy it and be loved. Taking my life back and offering hope to all my fellow comrades. Yes, we have OCD, but no we don’t have to suffer from it. I say this sincerely that I love you all and will be rooting for you every step of the way!