#so I'm not much help sorry ajhshdhd

[ablednt]

Hey Audit, how can you tell if something is an obession/compulsion? Can you experience that without full-blown OCD? (Tw since I'm going to go into vague detail) I get intrusive thoughts about causing harm to others and I spend a lot of time after getting those thoughts trying to "cancel them out" by thinking something in the "opposite direction" is that makes sense. It can impair my day-to-day activities. Do you have any resources that I could go to so I can better understand my dilemma? /gen

(This is coming from someone who hasn't known about their OCD very long and has yet to really interact with the community a lot so take this with a bucket of salt)

Honestly it's pretty hard to tell? Intrusive thoughts aren't unique to OCD but do they feel like...obsessive? From what I can tell non-OCDers are encouraged to ignore their intrusive thoughts rather than trying to cancel them out so if you can do that somehow (distractions, mindfulness/grounding exercises, etc.) then it's probably not an OCD thing(?) (But that's just a guess don't take my word for it)

How I tell if something is an obsession is if I fixate on it. I actually mistook this for my ADHD for years bc I was thinking "Yeah I have these really horrible hyperfixations I haven't told anyone about and they make me actively miserable and I'd give anything to stop them but I can't" but that was an obsession.

Some of these can last for years (We have one that is a direct result of repressed trauma that has worsened and worsened over the past 13 years or so but I'm not comfortable giving details)

And some can be more momentary. Like the brain recognizes that 1. Racism is very bad actually 2. I am capable of and often times oblivious to it. So this means my brain will spew whatever bullshit I know to be bad already literally any time it can. (This is different from times I'm actually perpetuating it and absolutely not an excuse for that, as this is stuff I know to be bad already. The brain just fixates on anything it can to make me feel like a bad person)

With OCD intrusive thoughts range in intensity but very often are completely unavoidable. If I ignore my intrusive thoughts they just repeat over and over in a loop because my brain is obsessing over it. I've had times where my brain obsessed over the repressed trauma thing and I was like no I don't want to compulse over this it's painful so I turned on a video game to distract myself but my brain just threw these thoughts at me over the game repeatedly until I gave up and compulsed.

Compulsions are things that you do to ease the obsessions (and said obsessions spawn from fears. I'm afraid of hurting innocent people so my brain obsesses on ways I could be bigoted or harmful, my compulsion in this case is two fold with repeatedly correcting each intrusive thought to defend myself like "no that's not right because-" and then to over explain everything I ever say around people I don't know well because if I'm not perfectly clear I'm a bigot actually/s)

Some compulsions are physical

Searching a room every time you enter to make sure it's safe

Checking to make sure doors are locked every time you go near front/back doors.

Looking behind a shower curtain when you go to the bathroom multiple times to make sure no one is in there

Etc.

And some compulsions are emotional or mental

Repeating things (not necessarily in the same words just. Really looping back around and thinking all the same things) mentally in response to intrusive thoughts

Apologizing too much to people

Daydreaming or visualization (MADD and OCD can intersect)

One very specific one is oftentimes if I feel afraid I'll tell someone my fears because the universe likes to prove me wrong so ocd is like haha yes it'll be ok now

Basically a compulsion either pacifies a fear through unrelated means ("im scared I'm a bad person but if I keep washing my hands I'll feel clean") or seeks to embrace it ("if I relive this traumatic memory every day I'll realize I deserved it and then it won't be trauma anymore" as you can see these ones are particularly heinous)

So that's OCD as I understand it. Unfortunately I don't have any resources because I happened to self dx after talking to a close friend with OCD and we've just sort of talked about it. If anyone else knows good OCD coping methods and resources though I'd be thrilled to boost them and also see if I can apply them.