Skip to main content

Anatomy of a 'bad thought'

Getting this out of the way right off the top: I'm not sure I can describe all the feelings that go through my head when I have what OCD is telling me is a 'bad thought.' It's something I've been experiencing since I was a  child -- many, many times a day -- but I don't think I've ever fully described it to anyone.

But I'm going to give it a try.

Here goes:

The thought comes into my brain out of nowhere. It could be a simple obscenity, or it could be an obscenity with someone's name attached to it. It could be an obscenity with my own name attached to it. Or it may have nothing to do with obscenities at all. It might be "I hate (fill in the blank)." Or it could be religion related (the worst of them all -- because OCD perceives it as offense against God for which I may never be forgiven).

All that happens in a fraction of a second. Where I suppose someone without OCD wouldn't even know the thought was there, or if they did, would certainly not obsess over it, I do. And do. And do.

The guilt sets in. OCD tells me I'm a horrible person for having such a thought. I believe it -- after all, who but a horrible person would think that? (Never mind that I didn't really THINK it. It just kind of showed up.)

I sometimes try to acknowledge that thoughts mean nothing. It's actions, it's how I am as a person and how I treat others that really matters. Rarely does this approach work. Sometimes I may even debate OCD about it: "That's b.s.," OCD might say. "You're not really a good person, you're just pretending. Maybe you're fooling some people -- but don't count on it." (Ok, it's more an OCD monologue than a debate.)

Then come the compulsions. It could be a counting ritual. But more often, it's mentally asking God for forgiveness, or one of several variations I've developed over the years. I don't ask just once, of course. Often 20 times -- and not just a simple: "Please forgive me." For me, it's a multilevel apology that I've done so many times I have it memorized. If 20 times doesn't work, I could go to 40, or 45.

And yes, I'm quite likely to have another bad though while in the midst of asking for forgiveness for the original one. So a mix of apologies may continue. This could be where I slap myself in the head to try to stop the process.

It depends if I'm alone or with others how intense this all becomes and how long it goes on. If I need to, for instance, get back to work, or focus on driving, or interact with someone, I can generally refocus, if at least for a short time.

Sometimes I still ask for forgiveness while I'm having a conversation with someone. It kind of scares me to think that I can split my brain in two like that, but I do.

I feel like I'm running out of steam on my anatomy of a 'bad thought' -- it's pretty intense, to be honest. So that'll be all for know.

I just hope it's helpful to others who may have a similar experience.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Could I be clinging to OCD?: Part 2

In a recent post, I suggested that, as much as I fight the idea, I could be holding on to OCD rather than letting it go. That it's a safety net. I made the argument that having OCD around gives me something to blame if things go wrong. But I think I missed the point. The more I consider it, the more I feel that if I am clinging to OCD it's because the compulsive rituals give my brain a sense that I have control over things. Oh sure, in my clear mind I know touching something a certain number of times or counting to a number that feels "good" isn't going to keep every driver I see on the road from getting into an accident, but my OCD brain doesn't acknowledge that. So the OCD repetitions give me a sense that I can have a say in how things turn out in a world that, in reality, is extremely random. As psychologically painful as OCD is, the concept that I can control things just by doing some rituals offsets that -- at least in my OCD mind. Letting g...
Post a Comment
Read more

Could there really be benefits to having OCD?

It's not often, but sometimes to get a slight advantage on the bully that is OCD, I throw it a curve and think about the benefits of having OCD. Yeah, I know, there aren't many. And maybe it's stretching it to say there are any at all. But I came up with a few to throw in the bully's face. First, I believe having OCD has made me a compassionate person. There's no way to truly understand mental illness without experiencing it, in my opinion. I have empathy for others that I might not have if I didn't experience OCD first hand. I try hard to be non-judgmental. OK, I judge myself 90 percent of my waking hours -- but I do try hard to be non-judgmental of others. I give a lot of credit to my mother, who lived her life that way. But I also credit OCD. I have a better sense of what people may be going through because I know what I'm often going through. Speaking of my mother, she was excellent in a crisis. She was a nurse and a caretaker for her ill and a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Good letters, bad letters

I wrote previously about my OCD brain convincing me there are "good" numbers (9, 10, 17, 18, for instance) and "bad" numbers (4, 6, 8, 13, 14 and more). Similarly, OCD tells me there are good and bad letters. In the case of letters, it makes a little more sense. G and Y are good (G is the first letter in God, Y the first letter in Yahweh -- the Hebrew name for God -- so there's some logic to that). T is good (lowercase t is like the Christian cross, so again, it makes some sense). But OCD doesn't stop there: D is bad (devil starts with d, though it's sometimes good because God ends with d). H is bad (it's the first letter in hell, but then, it's also good, because it's the first letter in heaven). How I feel about these letters at any given moment, I suppose depends on how I'm doing in general. I don't really know why my perception changes. When I hand write "good" letters, OCD tells me they need to slant up and to the...
Post a Comment
Read more