Day after day, month after month, year after year I live with my intrusive thoughts.
Some days are easier than others, some days are harder than others. Some days are quiet and some are loud. Unbearably loud, and chaotic.
I have had days where I cried so desperately praying and wishing to have memory loss. I wished for my memory to go so I can forget all the thoughts that have entered my mind. The stress, guilt, shame that comes with these thoughts make it harder to deal with. I feel like in those desperate moments the bad trumped all the good, I didn’t care about forgetting my friends and family, I didn’t care about forgetting love and happiness, all I wanted was to forget these thoughts.
I havnt had a patch this rough in so long, I can’t remember how I dealt with this. I’m much older now, I thought I would do better. It’s hard. Its all too much, one minute I’m downstairs with the family talking while the thoughts are pressing down on my brain, the next I can’t fight the crushing feeling, I walk upstairs to my room and lock the door, I go inside my bathroom and lock the door, I go inside the shower cubicle and lie on the cold floor, and just cried. I don’t know how long I was there for, I stopped crying but couldn’t get up. I listened to the sound of drilling from the construction work outside my house and felt my hands and cheeks getting colder and colder. I don’t know how or when but the thoughts lowered their volume and got up. It was hard getting out but I did.
It’s still hard. I havnt felt this out of control in a long time.
I can understand your pain and how difficult it is to just make it through the day, I have my own crippling feelings that eat at me daily, I fear rejection and ridicule of my lifestyle and living with the reality that I am different from most people. I have struggled with keeping my desires and sexuality secret and suppressing my interests sexually because of embarrassment and how people will think about me. Perhaps we can find comfort in each other.
Aww @barefootluv1 yess rejection, judgements, embarrassment and a lack of understanding make it hard to be open and honest with others. We run and we hide. I hope we can all be more understanding towards ourselves and give ourselves extra love, the love we want from others. I know its hard but if we’re confident in ourselves then noone can say anything, the minute we give into their negativity it affects our perspective and we doubt ourselves.
Thankyou, and of course feel free to message me 🙂
Feel free to message me if you need to talk I really relate to you. I have pure ocd (primarily obsessional obsessive compulsive disorder) which is purely related to intrusive thoughts without the compulsions. I used to struggle with it so badly I promised I’d kill myself if I couldn’t get rid of them. I also had periods of remission and found it so traumatising when the intrusive thoughts returned so vividly. I found it difficult to be around my family and couldn’t be fully present as the thoughts would be hammering away at the back of my mind. It felt like a constant struggle battling the thoughts and trying to repress them. I found a lady on Youtube who talks in depth about her experiences and answers a lot of the questions about intrusive thoughts that a lot of us sufferers have. If you would like me to send you her Youtube page just let me know. It really helped me I haven’t had a really severe lapse since I found her site and when they started getting bad again I was able to deal with it SO much better and didn’t lead to a full on attack in my head. Really hope your picking up a little and your so brave dealing with what you have to and talking so honestly about it. I really respect you for that. As I say feel free to message and let me know if you want me to send you that info. Take care 🙂
@niamho Thank you, your words mean so much.
Wow i really relate to you too, i know these are struggles and problems but the fact that someone understands is actually so comforting, ocd is something which is very difficult to explain and i think unless you experience it on some level you won’t really understand how it feels or what its like.
That sounds challenging, i really hope youre proud of yourself for getting through all that and rising up!
I also feel like I’m not always fully present around others, its like i’m here but i’m not here… and no matter what i’m doing whether its big or small or important or trivial, the thoughts are eating away always.
Those thoughts, and the way we perceive them, take out so much from you. Trying to come to terms with ocd and learning more about yourself and your thoughts is a tough journey, but its so important to be honest about everything.
I recently started journaling and tracking my negative thoughts, there are also many apps, i started using moodspace, which i’m finding really helpful.
Yes please can you let me know the Youtuber that would be great.
Thank you so much and feel free to message me if you ever want to talk xx
No problem at all, reading this helped me feel like someone else understood too which was so nice:)
Yeah absolutely I don’t even talk to people about it that haven’t experienced it because there’s just noo way they can understand what it’s like as you say unless you’ve been there you can’t get it! Aww thanks so much I’m still always mindful that it could be just round the corner but it doesn’t make me suicidal anymore.
Absolutely! Wow I get that so much it’s like no matter what you’re doing you’re just not there and it’s so hard to be present literally all the time. I actually have to make an effort to be in the moment it doesn’t just come natural. You’re absolutely right there if we can keep being kind to ourselves, learning and keeping out of the shadows and being honest we’ll keep progressing we just have to go easy on ourselves.
Well done you should be proud of yourself for tackling this and finding new coping skills and pulling yourself out of such a bad place, it’s hard but you’re doing great! I’ve been slacking on my journaling but will make sure I get back to it and I’l check out moodspace too:)
The youtuber is “Chrissie Hodges/Pure OCD Advocate” tried posting the link but says you can’t post hyperlinks on comments so that’s her name:)
She’s good she covers loads of topics on ocd so you can have a look to find the ones that fit you and the questions you are wondering 🙂
Yeah you too really nice chatting to you about this and talking to someone who gets it.. take care xx