reassurance needed

[au Lait]

is there any way this incident could be interpreted in a bad way (for example if the thought came before the action) or does it not matter what I wasn't thinking seeing as the action wouldn't have appeared wrong to somebody else anyway? (does that even make sense???)
I know nothing I did actually harmed him, I've managed to accept that now, but even if he was unaware of it, I'm still bothered by what the action would have said about me, had it been motivated by the thought (which is sometimes how I remember it)

I get what you're saying, and no, there is no possible way that the incident could be interpreted as bad. Having the thought doesn't make a difference because thoughts are harmless.

[bethw112]

So I'm now at uni and this is still completely taking over my mind- very frustrating because this is supposed to be a fresh start and I'm unable to enjoy it :( sorry for moaning, feeling very alone with all this right now

[bethw112]

I don't suppose anyone has any more advice? sorry I know I keep asking, everything is so overwhelming right now

[MyNameIsTerry]

Whilst there is the issue of a problem with alcohol, in which case I would agree on cutting back/abstinence, etc I disagree otherwise because this will possibly create another dimension to the OCD through avoidance, an association between alcohol and intrusive thoughts. The more these fear associations exist in us, the less chance we are going to have of beating them as we have left some foundations behind for further anxiety.

So, if stopping drinking is on the cards, tackle the full OCD too AND include the links to alcohol to ensure you cover all the bases.

I realise there is strong feeling towards alcohol in many mental health sufferers but we don't need to drive either for the most part but wouldn't discourage that in a case of someone with "hit & run OCD".

So, just a possible caveat to consider there.

I always raise this too because anxiety it sneaky. I developed fears of taking paracetamol and I could avoid that for life but what happened next is that my anxiety kept going and started picking vitamin C and any other supplement or med and not long after I wouldn't take my asthma medication. The result was a mild asthma attack and weeks trying to get myself to drop the fear of taking it again.

---------- Post added at 04:54 ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 ----------



This is common with intrusive thoughts, asking these types of questions. Even if you had a 100% recollection of the event, your anxiety would still get you doubting it all and wriggle in new meaning by analysing it with hindsight bias. You can start to craft the event in a different way to how it really happened and all the implications of it change.

The trigger can be subtle too. It's possible that the trigger was prior to you touching your brother hence the thought coming after anyway but still before you touched him. That still doesn't mean you followed through on your intrusive thought because a) you didn't actually do anything according to external people involved (and you've accepted your brother would somehow show this) and b) the thought itself doesn't matter in the slightest because your intention matters more. You intended to do the right thing, a thought will never derail that unless YOU choose to act on it. There is no evidence you did regardless of your memory gaps.

OCD can create false memories too. It's again like with hindsight bias where we can't fully know so start filling in blanks and making new incorrect associations due to our Cognitive Distortions.

To add the above I've said before, what evidence is there? Couldn't it equally be true that guilt occurred for another reason that you can't remember because of the alcohol?

How do you know you didn't experience guilt because you felt had because your brother got upset about not being able to hang out with big sis? With alcohol involved even something like that might lead into guilt & self harm as you wouldn't be thinking straight.

How do you know you didn't have a row with your friend, feel bad and self harm? If you both can't remember much it's a possibility.

Trying to link feeling guilt for unknown reasons and discovering the a self harm you did is biasing this towards your fears when there is really no evidence. For a start if big sis to harm him, there would be a very good chance of parents being told and he would be acting differently around you.

You can't get a black & white answer in this case, like in many things, so it becomes about where the evidence is pointing and who you are - why would you do it? You wouldn't. And you need to work on accepting this was an intrusive thought and skewed negative thinking that has connected the wrong dots.

You will never know why you self harmed but alcohol can make us very emotionally so maybe you had a spell of mood change due to it? Accept it as something like that and allow yourself to move on.

---------- Post added at 19:13 ---------- Previous post was at 18:55 ----------

is there any way this incident could be interpreted in a bad way (for example if the thought came before the action) or does it not matter what I wasn't thinking seeing as the action wouldn't have appeared wrong to somebody else anyway? (does that even make sense???)
I know nothing I did actually harmed him, I've managed to accept that now, but even if he was unaware of it, I'm still bothered by what the action would have said about me, had it been motivated by the thought (which is sometimes how I remember it)

At the time the thoughts you are likely having were to get your little brother back to bed. Conscious thoughts that accompanied your actions to take him back.

Your issue with thoughts was that the next day you wondered what you had done. These thoughts cannot affect what happened the previous night so in asking if having a preceding thought to an action is bad you are trying to find another link between those actions you are misperceiving and what could trigger them.

But the reality is there was no action to harm him so there couldn't be a conscious thought process to do so either. Even if there were, you didn't act (and I don't for a minute believe there was a conscious thought to harm him). Who knows if there was an intrusive thought but again, nothing happened and OCDers rarely act on their intrusive thoughts anyway. Whether an intrusive thought popped up at that moment is as probable as it popping up at any other moment. Do they pop up?

[bethw112]

so even if the thought proceeded the action, me putting my hand on his chest still couldn't be interpreted as an 'action to harm him'?

[MyNameIsTerry]

No, because you could have been putting your hand on his chest to help rather than to harm.

It's rare for OCDers to act on their intrusive thoughts. But what does this mean? It means you don't act out what your obsessio is about. What it doesn't mean is that you don't have compulsions on the back of the obsession. The compulsion however us not to act out the obsession, it's to relief anxiety or stop possible action of the obsession (as the sufferer worries they may do something).

Think of someone having thoughts about harming others with knives. Intrusive thought>panic>hide knives. Interacting with that knife is a compulsion but the sufferer does it in an opposing way to their intruisve thought. They don't attack someone with the knife.

And we have many thoughts so it's easy enough for more than one to be interacting in your brain at the same time that may not be related to each other.

So, putting your hand on his chest may have no connection to the thought at all. It might have been fom knowing you needed to get him safely back to bed and this intrusive thought came along at the same time.

[bethw112]

No, because you could have been putting your hand on his chest to help rather than to harm.
.

but I can't remember which it was, that's the problem. The uncertainty is driving me completely insane I can't handle it anymore

[bethw112]

I can't stand this it's driving me crazy I'm so behind on all my work cause I can't focus and I feel like I don't deserve to do well

[MyNameIsTerry]

but I can't remember which it was, that's the problem. The uncertainty is driving me completely insane I can't handle it anymore

That's a question you will never know the answer to and anxiety thrives on these as they are uncertainty. All-or-nothing thinking is a problem for us and we want definite yes or no answer but we have to learn to live with the shades of grey that many questions are answered by.

In this case, you examine the facts. Your sibling showed no signs up upset, nothing has been mentioned, you love them so why would you in the first place, etc. All these answer the question far more than the nagging doubt over possible harm, which you have no evidence of.

From here we have to drawn a line under it, try to accept what we have determined and work on moving forward.

[OCDme]

I don't suppose anyone has any more advice? sorry I know I keep asking, everything is so overwhelming right now

I hope you're doing great. I know I'm replying super late since you wrote the original thread years ago. I'm also suffering from pureO(OCD with no compulsive behavior but only intrusive thoughts). I was reading through your threads because I have the EXACT same thing going on with me. But seeing that you haven't posted anything lately, guess things are going well with you. I'm happy for that.